THE FIRST BLOOD
"What is this uproar? What is being done?" asked Bernard in agitation.
"Look, Cadell! Is there no second door to this trap? Should violence be
attempted I can obtain no egress by the way I came in; this church is
stuffed with people. Shut the screen gates if they show the least
indication of attacking us. 'Sdeath! if it should occur to them to fire
this place----"
"They will not do so, on account of their own people that are in it."
"But--but what is the occasion of this noise? How is it I am here
without anyone to protect me? This should have been looked to. I am not
safe among these savages. It is an accursed bit of negligence that shall
be inquired into. What avails me having men-at-arms if they do not
protect me? Body of my life! Am not I the King's emissary? Am not I a
bishop? Am I to be held so cheap even by my own men that I am allowed
to run the risk of being torn to pieces, or smoked out of a hole like
this?"
"Do not fear, my Lord Bishop," said Cadell, his chaplain and
interpreter, who was himself quaking, "there is a door behind, in the
chancel wall. But methinks the danger is without; there is the
disturbance, and the congregation are pressing to get forth."
"Body of my life! I want to know what is happening. Here, quick, you
clumsy ass, you beggarly Welshman; Cadell, undo the clasp, the brooch; I
will have off this cope--and remove my miter. I will leave them here. I
shall be less conspicuous, if weapons are being flourished and stones
are flying."
The bishop speedily divested himself of his ecclesiastical attire, all
the while scolding, cursing his attendant, who was a Welshman by birth,
but who had passed into the service of the conquerors, and knew very
well that this would advance him in wealth, and ensure for himself a fat
benefice.
When the bishop had been freed of his vestments, the chaplain unbolted a
small side door, and both emerged from the church.
Outside all was in commotion. The populace was surging to and fro,
uttering cries and shouts. An attack had been made on the military guard
of the bishop--and these, for their mutual protection, had retreated to
the sumpter horses and mules, surrounded them, and faced their
assailants with swords brandished. About them, dense and menacing, were
the Welshmen of Caio, flourishing cudgels and poles, and the women
urging them on with cries.
Bernard found himself separated from his party by the dense ring of
armed peasants, infuriated by the wrongs they had endured and by the
appeals of the women. He could not see his men, save that now and then
the sun flashed on their swords as they were whirled above the heads of
the crowd. No blood seemed to have been shed as yet--the Normans stood
at bay. The Welsh peasants were reluctant to approach too nearly to the
terrible blades that whirled and gleamed like lightning.
At the same instant that Bernard issued from the church, the bell
suspended between two beams was violently swung, and its clangor rang
out above the noise of the crowd. As if in answer to its summons, from
every side poured natives, who had apparently been holding themselves
in reserve; they were armed with scythes, axes, and ox-goads. Some were
in leather jerkins that would resist a sword-cut or a pike-thrust, but
the majority were in thick wadmel. The congregation were also issuing
from the west door of the church, thick on each other's heels, and were
vainly asking the occasion of the disturbance.
It was some minutes before Pabo emerged into the open, and then it was
through the side door. He found the bishop there, livid, every muscle of
his face jerking with terror, vainly endeavoring to force his chaplain
to stand in front of and screen him.
"I hold you answerable for my safety," said Bernard, putting forth a
trembling hand and plucking at the Archpriest.
"And I for mine," cried the chaplain.
"Have no fear--none shall touch you," answered Pabo, addressing the
prelate. He disdained even to look at the interpreter.
"If any harm come to my men, you shall be held accountable. They are
King Henry's men; he lent them to me. He sent them to guard my sacred
person."
"And mine," said Cadell. "Our father in God cannot make himself
understood without me."
"You are in no danger," said Pabo.
Then the Archpriest stepped forward, went to the belfry, and disengaged
the rope from the hand of him who was jangling the bell. With a loud,
deep, sonorous voice, he called in their native tongue to his tribesmen
to be silent, to cease from aggression, and to explain the cause of the
tumult.
He was obeyed immediately. All noise ceased, save that caused by the
Normans, who continued to thunder menaces.
"Silence them also," said Pabo to the bishop.
"I--I have lost my voice," said the frightened prelate.
At the same moment the crowd parted, and a band of sturdy peasants,
carrying clubs, and one armed with a coulter, came forward, drawing with
them Rogier, the bishop's brother, and a young and beautiful woman with
disheveled hair and torn garments. Her wrists had been bound behind her
back, but one of the men who drew her along with a great knife cut the
thongs, and she shook the fragments from her and extended her freed arms
to the priest.
"Pabo!"
"Morwen!" he exclaimed, recoiling in dismay.
"What is the meaning of this?" demanded the bishop. "Unhand my brother,
ye saucy curs!" But, though his meaning might be guessed by those who
gripped Rogier, they could not understand his words.
"What is the cause of this?" asked Bernard, addressing the Norman.
"Rogier, how comes this about?"
The Norman was spluttering with rage, and writhing in vain endeavor to
extricate himself from the men who held him. It was apparent to Bernard
that the right arm of the man had received some injury, as he was
powerless to employ it against his captors. The rest of the soldiery
were hemmed in and unable to go to his assistance.
"Curse the hounds!" he yelled. "They have struck me over the shoulder
with their bludgeons, or by the soul of Rollo I would have sent some of
them to hell! What are my men about that they do not attempt to release
me?" he shouted. But through the ring of stout weapons--a quadruple
living hedge--his followers were unable to pass; moreover, all
considered their own safety to consist in keeping together.
"What has caused this uproar?" asked the bishop. "Did they attack you
without provocation?"
"By the soul of the conqueror!" roared Rogier. "Can not a man look at
and kiss a pretty woman without these swine resenting it? Have not I a
right to carry her off if it please me to grace her with my favor? Must
these hogs interfere?"
"Brother, you have been indiscreet!"
"Not before your face, Bernard. I know better than that. I know what is
due to your sanctity of a few weeks. I waited like a decent Christian
till your back was turned. You need have known nothing about it. And if,
as we rode away, there was a woman behind my knave on his horse, you
would have shut one eye. But these mongrels--these swine--resent it.
Body of my life! Resent it!--an honor conferred on one of their girls if
a Norman condescend to look with favor on her. Did not our gracious King
Henry set us the example with a Welsh prince's wench? And shall not we
follow suit?"
"You are a fool, Rogier--at such a time, and so as to compromise me."
"Who is to take you to task, brother?"
"I mean not that, but to risk my safety. To leave me unprotected in the
church, and to provoke a brawl without, that might have produced
serious consequences to me. Odd's life! Where is that Cadell? Slinking
away?"
"My lord, I have greater cause to fear than yourself. They bear me
bitterest hate."
"I care not. Speak for me to these curs. Bid them unhand my brother.
They have maimed him--maybe broken his arm. My brother, a Norman, held
as a common felon by these despicable serfs!"
"Bishop," said Pabo, stepping before Bernard.
"What have you to say?" asked the prelate suddenly.
The face of the Archpriest was stern and set, as though chiseled out of
alabaster.
"Are you aware what has been attempted while you were in God's house?
What the outrage is has been offered?"
"I know that my brother has been so light as to cast his eye on one of
your Welsh wenches."
"Lord bishop," said Pabo in hard tones, and the sound of his voice was
metallic as the bell, "he has insulted this noble woman. He bound her
hands behind her back and has endeavored to force her onto a horse in
spite of her resistance, her struggles--look at her bruised and
bleeding arms!--and to carry her away."
"Well, well, soldiers are not clerks and milk-sops."
"Do you know who she is?"
"I know not. Some saucy lass who ogled him, and he took her winks as an
invitation."
"Sieur!" thundered Pabo, and the veins in his brow turned black. "She is
the noblest, purest of women."
"Among broken sherds, a cracked pitcher is precious."
"Bishop, she is my wife!"
"Your wife!" jeered Bernard, leaned back, placed his hands to his side,
and laughed. "Priests have no wives; you mean your harlot."
In a moment the bishop was staggering back, and would have fallen unless
he had had the timber wall of the church to sustain him. In a moment,
maddened beyond endurance by the outrage, by the words, by the demeanor
of the prelate, in forgetfulness of the sacred office of the man who
insulted him, in forgetfulness of his own sacred office, forgetful of
everything save the slur cast on the one dearest to him in the whole
world, the one to whom he looked with a reverence which from her
extended to all womanhood, the incandescent Welsh blood in his veins
burst into sudden flame, and he struck Bernard in the face, on the mouth
that had slandered her and insulted him. And the bishop reeled back and
stood speechless, with blear eyes fixed, his hands extended against the
split logs, and from his lips, cut with his teeth, blood was flowing.
Then, in the dead silence that ensued, an old hermit, clothed in
sackcloth, bareheaded, with long matted white hair, walking bent by the
aid of a staff--a man who for thirty years had occupied a cell on the
mountain-side without leaving it--stood forward before all, an unwonted
apparition; and slowly, painfully raising his distorted form, he lifted
hand and staff to heaven, and cried: "Wo, wo, wo to the Blessed Valley!
The peace of David, our father, is broken. Blood has flowed in strife.
That cometh which he foresaw, and over which he wept. Wo! wo! wo!"