HOW THE CONQUEROR DEALS WITH REBELS.
The days passed drearily for the Countess of East Anglia, mewed up
within the protecting walls of Norwich Castle, and the anxiety she felt
on behalf of her husband and brother made the hours seem unutterably
long.
Her office of Castellan was no unusual one for women in those days. The
annals of chivalry teem with stories of noble ladies who held castles
for their male relatives or feudal superiors, but as no enemy was, at
present, near the castle, it did not afford her much occupation.
An occasional hawking or fishing party was organised for her
entertainment, but the disturbed state of the country, the fear of
treachery, and the uncertainty of the whereabouts of the king's forces,
rendered so large an escort necessary, and entailed so much trouble and
preparation, that the sport was robbed of all zest. If orders were
given in the evening, it most frequently happened that the morning
would be wet and uninviting; if left till a suitable morning had
dawned, all freshness had vanished before the advancing sun ere so
large a party could be put in motion.
Moreover, Emma had little heart for such entertainment, which chiefly
served to bring back memories of happier days, when Earl Roger and
Ralph de Guader had been beside her; and all the prowess of her Danish
hawk did but remind her of her husband and his dangers. Soar, and
stoop, and chancelier as he might, he failed to move her enthusiasm,
and did but render her more sad, while the encomiums of Sir Alain De
Gourin, who made a point of attending her on these expeditions, irked
rather than pleased her. His criticisms, admiring as they were, seemed
to her impertinent when passed on a bird which Ralph de Guader had
pronounced as one of the most perfect he had ever seen.
So she strove to cheat the hours by embroidering a magnificent mantle
for her absent lord, using all the most elaborate Saxon stitches, which
she had learned from Eadgyth, who sat ever at her elbow to help her, if
she forgot her lesson. Such gorgeous mantles were much in fashion among
the Norman exquisites.
Eadgyth herself was busy, by Emma's desire, making an altar-cloth for
the chapel of the castle, in which the De Guader and East Anglian arms
were mingled somewhat incongruously with pictorial illustrations of the
life of St. Nicholas. The chaplain of the aforesaid chapel had drawn
the designs, being a very clever limner and illuminator, and he took
great interest in the progress of the pious work, losing no opportunity
to visit the fair embroideress when she was engaged upon it.
He was a young Breton of good family, but had sunk his patronymic for
the priestly 'Father Pierre,' the venerable title being rather
incongruous to his boyish face and shy, shrinking ways. He was an
ascetic enthusiast, believing sternly in the mortification of the
flesh, and his young cheeks were sunken, his large dark eyes hollow and
glittering, and his tall figure painfully emaciated. But his sternness
was all for himself; to his flock he was the kindest of pastors, and in
his humility he did not venture to enter upon political matters,
accepting the judgment of his feudal superior as paramount, and not to
be questioned.
Emma did not feel drawn to him. Her practical nature could not
comprehend or draw comfort from his mystic and dreamy ecstasies, and
she needed a strong, clear-headed guide, to advise her on the tangible
and imminent perplexities that encircled her.
'Oh for an hour of Father Theodred!' she sighed one day, when Father
Pierre had left the apartment, after making a vague reply to a question
she had addressed to him, touching some small urgent duty of the hour.
'Our good chaplain hath more anxiety regarding the ordering of thy
needlework warriors for the adornment of his chapel, than for the
bodies of the living men who are defending it, methinks! In good sooth,
Eadgyth, I feel tired of this stitchery. I would the wind blew not so
keenly on the battlements. I could be ever watching the horizon like
some sea-rover's deserted mate, looking out for the glint of sun on a
steel headpiece, as such an one would watch for a sail. The stone walls
well-nigh stifle me! I feel entombed sitting here, where I cannot see
if any approach to bring tidings of my dear lord! Fetch me mantle and
headrail, sweet damsel. Methinks, if I sit here longer, chewing the cud
of bitter reflection, I shall go stark staring mad. Let us go to the
battlements and fight the wind!'
Eadgyth, whose more phlegmatic temperament did not seek relief from
mental pain in physical exercise, smiled at the restlessness of her
friend, but instantly laid aside her needlework, and sought her lady's
tire-woman, who brought the wished-for garments.
In a few moments Emma and Eadgyth had left the lodge, ascended the
spiral staircase in the great tower, and were pacing upon the
battlements. It was one of those grey chilly days, frequent in the
Eastern counties, when the north-west wind brings haze from the
Fenlands, and the Wash, and the North Sea; covering the sky with a
leaden pall, and bringing winter into summer's heart. Columns of dust
rose along the roadways, but the wind swept away all mist and fog, and
the country showed bleak and naked to the horizon.
The sentinels saluted their countess and her lady-in-waiting with a
deep reverence, but they were accustomed to see their fair Castellan
scanning the distance, as if distrusting that any eyes could be so keen
and faithful as her own.
They paced the circuit of the battlements some five or six times, and
played with the pigeons that crowded upon the merlons, and greeted them
with soft cooing and much fluttering of soft-coloured pinions, for they
knew well that Emma's gipsire was generally stored with peas for them.
Suddenly Emma caught her bower-maiden by the wrist.
'See!' she cried. 'My sail is in sight! Dost thou not catch the glint
of a morion over yonder?'
They were on the southern side of the keep, and she indicated a far
speck upon the course of the Ikenield way.
'Nay,' replied Eadgyth, 'mine eyes reach not so far, the more
especially as this stinging wind brings unbidden tears into them.'
'I am right, Eadgyth--it is a horseman approaching! Ho, sentinel! thy
vigil is no very keen one!'
'In sooth, lady, I can see naught,' answered the sentinel, with a
respectful salutation.
It had been a favourite amusement with Emma, when a girl at Clifford
Castle, to challenge her maidens and squires, and any noble visitor who
might chance to be present, to a trial of sight, from the walls of that
goodly fortress, and seldom had she found any who could rival her for
length of vision. She proved to be right on this occasion. A horseman
was approaching, and at a gallop, and the sentinels soon acknowledged
his coming and gave the fitting signal.
A while later, and the traveller had reached the barbican, and, after a
short parley, the portcullis was raised, the drawbridge lowered, and he
rode forward into the courtyard of the castle.
Emma descended full of tremulous excitement. Sir Alain de Gourin met
her, on his way to the courtyard, to question the new-comer.
'I will send word at once, if he prove to be one of the earl's men, or
brings any message or news,' said Sir Alain.
'Nay,' replied Emma, 'I will myself go down. Each moment of waiting
will prove a year.'
So, with Eadgyth beside her, and her train of ladies following, she
went down to the great portal on the east side of the keep, whence a
short time before she had bidden 'God Speed' to her noble spouse and
his army.
The horseman was surrounded by a curious crowd of soldiers and
domestics. Archers and men-at-arms of all sorts and conditions from the
guard-room, pages, squires, cooks, and scullions, had all come forth to
see. Certain of the garrison who had been trying their strength for
pastime in a wrestling bout, had left their sport, and stood with
brawny arms akimbo, and mouths agape. Even the pale face of the
chaplain was amongst the group, his dark eyes gazing with pity and awe
upon the man who formed its centre.
[Illustration: The Tower Stairs.]
He was in sorry plight! His horse, flecked with foam and bloody with
spurring, head down, nostrils red, and limbs trembling with fatigue,
looked as though another mile had been utterly beyond his spent powers.
The casque of the rider was battered, and his countenance so gashed
with wounds as to be beyond recognition, nor did his surcoat or harness
in any way help to show his identity, so stained and torn were they.
Shield he had none, and his right arm hung straightly at his side.
He took no heed of the crowd buzzing round him, nor of the countess
standing at the portal of the keep, with Sir Alain de Gourin at her
right, and Sir Hoel de St. Brice on her left, and her train of ladies
and squires behind her, but sat on his panting steed, with his chin
sunk on his breast.
Suddenly one from the circle around him cried, '_Mort de ma vie!_ He
has lost a foot as well as a hand!'
A murmur of surprise burst round him.
'Those are no gashes gained in fair fighting! His nose is slit! Saints
and angels! He has been in the hands of the Bastard's men! We all know
how William serves his prisoners!'
'Speak, Sir Fugitive, or Sir Messenger, or whatever your name is,'
thundered De Gourin, 'and speedily! Is it so? Who art thou? For thy
beauty is so spoiled we are at a loss by what title to greet thee! By
the rood! his own mother would not know him!'
The countess hastily bade her leech be called, and shuddered, not only
with pity, but with a dread presentiment of evil, as the ghastly
witness of men's merciless cruelty turned his maimed face towards them,
his bloodshot eyes staring vacantly, half dazed with terror and pain.
'It is all over!' he muttered hoarsely, forcing his swollen lips to
utter the words with difficulty. 'The earl is slain, and my master; and
the army is scattered like a flock of sheep! Flee, flee! They are
coming after me to storm the castle!'
He raised his right arm, from which the hand had been riven, the stump
black with the searing of red-hot irons with which the flow of blood
had been staunched, in a gesture of entreaty.
A fearful witness truly as to what might be expected to follow on
defeat.
A howl of fierce anger ran around the courtyard, and many a strong
breast heaved with an indignant sob of impotent rage; curses loud and
deep were showered on the heads of William of Normandy and his
vicegerents.
'Heed him not, noble Emma!' cried Sir Hoel de St. Brice hastily. 'By
the Holy Virgin! 'tis but a recreant who has let himself be made
prisoner, and now repeats the story they have stuffed him with! Out of
his wits with their rough treatment, and small wonder! May the Foul
Fiend seize them for their barbarity!'
'Christ be my witness, I speak sooth!' cried the unfortunate fugitive.
'I am Stephen le Hareau, squire of the body to Sir Guy de Landerneau,
and I swear by the Holy Cross, I saw the earl fall with mine own eyes!'
'Thou Stephen le Hareau? Thou?' shouted Sir Alain de Gourin, startled
out of his equanimity as he looked at the pitiful object before his
eyes, and remembered the handsome gallant he had seen ride from the
castle gates a few weeks before.
A fresh hiss of execration burst from the bystanders, as the cruelty of
the young man's fate came home to them.
Stephen le Hareau! The handsomest and most popular squire in the earl's
following! They knew him, too, for a brave and dauntless soldier.
Sir Hoel looked towards the countess, wondering how she would bear the
blow, for the difficulty with which she had maintained her self-control
when she had parted with her noble bridegroom had been manifest to all,
and now the worst fears she could then have entertained were declared
to have come to pass.
But Emma, who had shrunk from the approach of evil, stood firm to meet
its actual contact. Her face was white as marble, and her lips
quivered, but she said in a firm voice,--
'The cruelty this poor gentleman has undergone may well nerve our
hearts to resistance. St. Nicholas grant thou art in the right, Sir
Hoel. He may well deem things blacker than they are! I prithee, keep
him no longer answering our vain queries. Let him be lifted from his
horse and carried to the spital. I will tend him with my own hands. His
poor steed also, let it be cared for.'
Eadgyth and several of the ladies were sobbing hysterically behind her.
She turned to them.
'Courage, dames and damsels!' she said, with a simple dignity that
shamed them into self-control. 'I have heard as evil tales as this, and
found them vanish like dreams at the breaking of the morn.'
She gathered her robes around her and swept back into the keep, and,
calling her tirewoman, ordered her to bring sundry essences and
simples, which, like every noble lady of the time, she kept by her, the
science of medicine being chiefly in feminine hands in those days.
Then, bidding Eadgyth to attend her, she proceeded at once to the
spital, to leech the unfortunate squire.
She stopped a few moments in the chapel, to direct the chaplain to
offer masses for the souls of those who had fallen in the battle. A sob
caught her breath as she remembered the earnest repetition with which
Stephen le Hareau had declared that the earl was amongst them.
But she dare not think, and went on hurriedly to direct that others
should be offered for the safety of those who had escaped, and for the
success of their undertaking.
Her ministrations to the wounded man kept at bay the fierce troop of
agonising thoughts that were thronging down upon her like a pack of
hungry wolves. Rolling bandages, and preparing salves and unguents, she
had scarce time to speculate upon the probability of the truth of her
patient's direful news. True, no doubt, it was as far as his knowledge
went, but there was hope, as Sir Hoel had suggested, that his report of
the battle had been supplied by their opponents, and himself sent off
by them, as a messenger of evil tidings, with the express intent of
demoralising the garrison of Blauncheflour.
The physical sufferings of the poor squire were so terrible to witness,
that Emma almost forgot the awful shadow of death and impending peril
that hung over her own head, and the hours flew past without her
noticing their flight. All that she and her leech and her ladies could
do to lessen his pain was done, but it was not much.
Even in these days little could be done for such a case, with all the
skill of advanced science.
Presently a page came to the countess with a message from the two
knights, St. Brice and De Gourin, begging her to give them audience in
the council-chamber.
'Watch over my sufferer, Eadgyth,' said Emma.
When she entered the apartment in which the two knights were awaiting
her, she quivered with apprehension as she saw their grave faces. Sir
Hoel's kindly visage was white as his silver hair, and even Sir Alain's
inflamed countenance was a shade less purple-red than usual, while his
expression was distinctly anxious.
They both hesitated to speak, but the countess broke the pause.
'Tell me the worst, gentle sirs, I pray you. Suspense is ever hardest
to bear, and I see you have ill news.'
Sir Hoel advanced and took her hand in both his own, a little
forgetting the ceremony due to her rank, in his huge pity for her youth
and the forlorn fate that he feared too surely had befallen her.
'Alas, dear lady, the news is ill indeed! Sir Walter Deresfort, and the
Saxon thegn, Alfnoth of Walsham, with some dozen men-at-arms, have
ridden in from Cambridgeshire, and confirm'--a sob broke his voice--'in
every item the dire tidings brought by poor Stephen le Hareau.'
'Do they say, then, that I am a widow?' asked Emma in a strange, hard
voice, with so awful a calm in it, that the thick-skinned Sir Alain,
who was little wont to heed the tears or shrieks of women, or to spare
them in any respect if they stood in his way, shuddered as he heard it.
He thought the countess was going mad.
'I fear,' answered Sir Hoel, 'there is no doubt the earl is slain, St.
Nicholas rest his soul!'
'Then, gentlemen,' asked Emma in the same strange tone, 'what is to be
done?'
'God knows!' exclaimed Sir Hoel, the great tears running down his
furrowed face, and dripping upon his hauberk.
'Noble lady,' said Sir Alain eagerly, speaking for the first time, 'it
is well known that the wrath of the Primate, and of his master, William
the Norman, is principally enkindled against the countrymen of the late
earl. Thy safety, most noble countess, is, of course, what every man in
the garrison would give his life to insure, therefore my humble
counsel, for what it may be worth, is that thou shouldest at once take
ship with the trusty Bretons under my command, and make for Bretagne,
and thy late husband's estates of Guader and Montfort.'
'What is thy counsel, Sir Hoel?' demanded Emma, still with the same
unnatural calm.
'Dear lady, I would advise thee as doth Sir Alain.'
'But would not the garrison, thus bereft of half their numbers, fall an
instant prey to the enemy?' asked Emma.
'It is not William's policy to provoke the Saxons, and to his own
countrymen he is ever complacent,' urged De Gourin, with the same
eagerness. 'Therefore my meaning is, that the castle be surrendered at
once, in which case the garrison would probably be softly dealt with,
we Bretons being out of the way; whereas further resistance will be
useless, and will but further provoke their vengeance, the style of
which we have seen.'
'Art thou of this advice also, Sir Hoel?' demanded Emma.
Sir Hoel bowed his head. 'Dear lady,' he said, 'there is no doubt that
the Primate hath animosity against us Bretons, and may prove kinder to
Normans and Saxons; yet methinks I will stand by them, and advise them
not to try his mercy sooner than is needful. I counsel, therefore, that
thou shouldest so far follow Sir Alain's advice, as to take ship with
himself and his band for Bretagne. For my part, I will fight for it
with the garrison remaining to me. Blauncheflour has been built to
stand a siege, and we may well victual it before supplies can be cut
off. We may yet make good terms.'
'There spoke the spirit of a true knight!' cried Emma, turning on De
Gourin with so fierce a flash in her eyes, that he started, so great a
change was it from the stony indifference of her former manner.
'Go, fair sir, if it suits thee! Take all thy fainthearted mercenaries
with thee to their native Bretagne! I will stay with Sir Hoel and
defend this castle, which the earl gave into my charge. The _late_
earl, thou said'st? Methinks thou art wondrous quick to make so certain
of his death! Methinks all these gallant gentlemen who have galloped
back to the safe walls of Blauncheflour in such hot haste, scarce
waited to see if he was wounded or slain! For _me_ he will never be the
_late_ earl. On earth or in heaven he is my husband still, and I will
hold his castle, hoping, perhaps selfishly, that he will come to claim
it. I will hold it if only to have vengeance on his foes!'
Sir Hoel watched her in delighted surprise. Sir Alain flushed hotly
under her attack, but could not but admire the high-spirited beauty as
she hurled her indignant taunts at his head.
'Now, by all the saints! thou art unjust to me and my poor following,
noble lady!' he exclaimed. 'My object was but to secure thy safety.'
'If the earl be indeed slain,' said Emma, with a tremor in her voice,
'my safety boots me but little; if he be not, it is important that
Blauncheflour hold out to the last gasp. Besides, ye know not how it
fares with my brother of Hereford; his arms have perchance prevailed,
and he may be able to relieve us.'
'A slender hope,' said Sir Alain impatiently. 'But our lives are at thy
disposal, noble Emma.'
He accompanied this speech with a smile of homage, which he meant to be
irresistibly touching and pathetic; for a new idea had come into the
adventurer's bullet-head, which somewhat gilded the pill of hard
fighting without hope of plunder, which the countess's decision forced
him to swallow. He remembered that if, as he fully believed, De Guader
was slain, the beautiful Emma had become a widow with a goodly dower!
for even if, as was probable, her late husband's possessions in England
were forfeit through his treason, and all English and Norman property
of her own, the estates of Guader and Montfort were beyond William's
jurisdiction, and she would doubtless draw rich rents from them. This
rich prize was here under his hand, and, to a great extent, in his
power. If he played his cards well, he might secure her for himself,
albeit she was William of Normandy's kinswoman.
But the good old Sir Hoel looked at her fair, flushed face with very
different thoughts. 'God bless thee, dear young lady,' he said, with a
husky voice. 'He would be a coward indeed who grudged to give his life
for thee! Though, for that matter, we must needs fight for our own
sakes, so we need not try to make out that all our valour is on thy
behalf!'
Emma met his kind eyes, and scarce bore their sympathy.
She turned away hastily. 'There must be more wounded in the spital,'
she said; 'I must tend them. Make what preparation needs for holding
out under a long siege.'
And so saying she quitted the apartment.
'Alas!' Sir Hoel murmured, more to himself than to De Gourin, when she
was gone, 'I doubt she is buoying herself with a false hope, and that
our noble De Guader will glad her eyes no more.'
'By the rood!' answered Sir Alain, 'I doubt so too. But methinks so
fair a widow, and so well-dowered and youthful withal, may find
consolation on this side the grave. Holy Mary! A dame of spirit! If our
motley garrison, Saxons, Danes, Flemings, and other, were of metal that
would ring to the same tune, our case would not look so desperate.'
'Methinks the mercenaries under thy hand are the most doubtful metal
within the walls, good sir,' answered Sir Hoel gravely, eyeing his
companion somewhat keenly. 'If thou canst get the right ring out of
_them_, I think I can answer for the rest!'