THE KNIGHT OF THE BADGER
“I am a gentleman of a company.”
Shakespeare.
Giles Headley’s accident must have amounted to concussion of the brain,
for though he was able to return to the Dragon in a couple of days, and
the cut over his eye was healing fast, he was weak and shaken, and did
not for several weeks recover his usual health. The noise and heat of
the smithy were distressing to him, and there was no choice but to let
him lie on settles, sun himself on the steps, and attempt no work.
It had tamed him a good deal. Smallbones said the letting out of
malapert blood was wholesome, and others thought him still under a
spell; but he seemed to have parted with much of his arrogance, either
because he had not spirits for self-assertion, or because something of
the grand eastern courtesy of Abenali had impressed him. For
intercourse with the Morisco had by no means ceased. Giles went, as
long as the injury required it, to have the hurt dressed, and loitered
in the Inner Yard a long time every day, often securing some small
dainty for Aldonza—an apple, a honey cake, a bit of marchpane, a dried
plum, or a comfit. One day he took her a couple of oranges. To his
surprise, as he entered, Abenali looked up with a strange light in his
eyes, and exclaimed, “My son! thy scent is to my nostrils as the court
of my father’s house!” Then, as he beheld the orange, he clasped his
hands, took it in them, and held it to his breast, pouring out a chant
in an unknown tongue, while the tears flowed down his cheeks.
“Father, father!” Aldonza cried, terrified, while Giles marvelled
whether the orange worked on him like a spell. But he perceived their
amazement, and spoke again in English, “I thank thee, my son! Thou hast
borne me back for a moment to the fountain in my father’s house, where
ye grow, ye trees of the unfading leaf, the spotless blossom, and
golden fruit! Ah Ronda! Ronda! Land of the sunshine, the deep blue sky,
and snow-topped hills! Land where are the graves of my father and
mother! How pines and sickens the heart of the exile for thee! O happy
they who died beneath the sword or flame, for they knew not the lonely
home-longing of the exile. Ah! ye golden fruits! One fragrant breath of
thee is as a waft of the joys of my youth! Are ye foretastes of the
fruits of Paradise, the true home to which I may yet come, though I may
never, never see the towers and hills of Ronda more?”
Giles knew not what to make of this outburst. He kept it to himself as
too strange to be told. The heads of the family were willing that he
should carry these trifles to the young child of the man who would
accept no reward for his hospitality. Indeed, Master Headley spent much
consideration on how to recompense the care bestowed on his kinsman.
Giles suggested that Master Michael had just finished the most
beautiful sword blade he had ever seen, and had not yet got a purchaser
for it; it was far superior to the sword Tibble had just completed for
my Lord of Surrey. Thereat the whole court broke into an outcry; that
any workman should be supposed to turn out any kind of work surpassing
Steelman’s was rank heresy, and Master Headley bluntly told Giles that
he knew not what he was talking of! He might perhaps purchase the blade
by way of courtesy and return of kindness, but—good English workmanship
for him!
However, Giles was allowed to go and ask the price of the blade, and
bring it to be looked at. When he returned to the court he found, in
front of the building where finished suits were kept for display, a
tall, thin, wiry, elderly man, deeply bronzed, and with a scar on his
brow. Master Headley and Tibble were both in attendance, Tib measuring
the stranger, and Stephen, who was standing at a respectful distance,
gave Giles the information that this was the famous Captain of
Free-lances, Sir John Fulford, who had fought in all the wars in Italy,
and was going to fight in them again, but wanted a suit of “our
harness.”
The information was hardly needed, for Sir John, in a voice loud enough
to lead his men to the battle-field, and with all manner of strong
asseverations in all sorts of languages, was explaining the dints and
blows that had befallen the mail he had had from Master Headley
eighteen years ago, when he was but a squire; how his helmet had
endured tough blows, and saved his head at Novara, but had been crushed
like an egg shell by a stone from the walls at Barletta, which had
nearly been his own destruction: and how that which he at present wore
(beautifully chased and in a classical form) was taken from a dead
Italian Count on the field of Ravenna, but always sat amiss on him; and
how he had broken his good sword upon one of the rascally Swiss only a
couple of months ago at Marignano. Having likewise disabled his right
arm, and being well off through the payment of some ransoms, he had
come home partly to look after his family, and partly to provide
himself with a full suit of English harness, his present suit being a
patchwork of relics of numerous battle-fields. Only one thing he
desired, a true Spanish sword, not only Toledo or Bilboa in name, but
nature. He had seen execution done by the weapons of the soldiers of
the Great Captain, and been witness to the endurance of their metal,
and this made him demand whether Master Headley could provide him with
the like.
Giles took the moment for stepping forward and putting Abenali’s work
into the master’s hand. The Condottiere was in raptures. He pronounced
it as perfect a weapon as Gonzalo de Cordova himself could possess;
showed off its temper and his own dexterity by piercing and cutting up
an old cuirass, and invited the bystanders to let him put it to further
proof by letting him slice through an apple placed on the open palm of
the hand.
Giles’s friendship could not carry him so far as to make the venture;
Kit Smallbones observed that he had a wife and children, and could not
afford to risk his good right hand on a wandering soldier’s bravado;
Edmund was heard saying, “Nay, nay, Steve, don’t be such a fool,” but
Stephen was declaring he would not have the fellow say that English
lads hung back from what rogues of France and Italy would dare.
“No danger for him who winceth not,” said the knight.
Master Headley, a very peaceful citizen in his composition in spite of
his trade, was much inclined to forbid Stephen from the experiment, but
he refrained, ashamed and unwilling to daunt a high spirit; and half
the household, eager for the excitement, rushed to the kitchen in quest
of apples, and brought out all the women to behold, and add a clamour
of remonstrance. Sir John, however, insisted that they should all be
ordered back again. “Not that the noise and clamour of women folk makes
any odds to me,” said the grim old warrior, “I’ve seen too many towns
taken for that, but it might make the lad queasy, and cost him a thumb
or so.”
Of course this renewed the dismay and excitement, and both Tibble and
his master entreated Stephen to give up the undertaking if he felt the
least misgiving as to his own steadiness, arguing that they should not
think him any more a craven than they did Kit Smallbones or Edmund
Burgess. But Stephen’s mind was made up, his spirit was high, and he
was resolved to go through with it.
He held out his open hand, a rosy-checked apple was carefully laid on
it. The sword flashed through the air—divided in half the apple which
remained on Stephen’s palm. There was a sharp shriek from a window,
drowned in the acclamations of the whole court, while the Captain
patted Stephen on the shoulder, exclaiming, “Well done, my lad. There’s
the making of a tall fellow in thee! If ever thou art weary of making
weapons and wouldst use them instead, seek out John Fulford, of the
Badger troop, and thou shalt have a welcome. Our name is the Badger,
because there’s no troop like us for digging out mines beneath the
walls.”
A few months ago such an invitation would have been bliss to Stephen.
Now he was bound in all honour and duty to his master, and could only
thank the knight of the Badger, and cast a regretful eye at him, as he
drank a cup of wine, and flung a bag of gold and silver, supplemented
by a heavy chain, to Master Headley, who prudently declined working for
Free Companions, unless he were paid beforehand; and, at the knight’s
request, took charge of a sufficient amount to pay his fare back again
to the Continent. Then mounting a tall, lean, bony horse, the knight
said he should call for his armour on returning from Somerset, and rode
off, while Stephen found himself exalted as a hero in the eyes of his
companions for an act common enough at feats of arms among modern
cavalry, but quite new to the London flat-caps. The only sufferer was
little Dennet, who had burst into an agony of crying at the sight,
needed that Stephen should spread out both hands before her, and show
her the divided apple, before she would believe that his thumb was in
its right place, and at night screamed out in her sleep that the
ill-favoured man was cutting off Stephen’s hands.
The sword was left behind by Sir John in order that it might be fitted
with a scabbard and belt worthy of it; and on examination, Master
Headley and Tibble both confessed that they could produce nothing equal
to it in workmanship, though Kit looked with contempt at the slight
weapon of deep blue steel, with lines meandering on it like a watered
silk, and the upper part inlaid with gold wire in exquisite arabesque
patterns. He called it a mere toy, and muttered something about
sorcery, and men who had been in foreign parts not thinking honest
weight of English steel good enough for them.
Master Headley would not trust one of the boys with the good silver
coins that had been paid as the price of the sword—French crowns and
Milanese ducats, with a few Venetian gold bezants—but he bade them go
as guards to Tibble, for it was always a perilous thing to carry a sum
of money through the London streets. Tibble was not an unwilling
messenger. He knew Master Michael to be somewhat of his own way of
thinking, and he was a naturally large-minded man who could appreciate
skill higher than his own without jealousy. Indeed, he and his master
held a private consultation on the mode of establishing a connection
with Michael and profiting by his ability.
To have lodged him at the Dragon court and made him part of the
establishment might have seemed the most obvious way, but the dogged
English hatred and contempt of foreigners would have rendered this
impossible, even if Abenali himself would have consented to give up his
comparative seclusion and live in a crowd and turmoil.
But he was thankful to receive and execute orders from Master Headley,
since so certain a connection would secure Aldonza from privation such
as the child had sometimes had to endure in the winter; when, though
the abstemious Eastern nature needed little food, there was great
suffering from cold and lack of fuel. And Tibble moreover asked
questions and begged for instructions in some of the secrets of the
art. It was an effort to such a prime artificer as Steelman to ask
instruction from any man, especially a foreigner, but Tibble had a
nature of no common order, and set perfection far above class
prejudice; and moreover, he felt Abenali to be one of those men who had
their inner eyes devotedly fixed on the truth, though little knowing
where the quest would lead them.
On his side Abenali underwent a struggle. “Woe is me!” he said.
“Wottest thou, my son, that the secrets of the sword of light and
swiftness are the heritage that Abdallah Ben Ali brought from Damascus
in the hundred and fifty-third year of the flight of him whom once I
termed the prophet; nor have they departed from our house, but have
been handed on from father to son. And shall they be used in the wars
of the stranger and the Christian?”
“I feared it might be thus,” said Tibble.
“And yet,” went on the old man, as if not hearing him, “wherefore
should I guard the secret any longer? My sons? Where are they? They
brooked not the scorn and hatred of the Castillian which poisoned to
them the new faith. They cast in their lot with their own people, and
that their bones may lie bleaching on the mountains is the best lot
that can have befallen the children of my youth and hope. The house of
Miguel Abenali is desolate and childless, save for the little maiden
who sits by my hearth in the land of my exile! Why should I guard it
longer for him who may wed her, and whom I may never behold? The will
of Heaven be done! Young man, if I bestow this knowledge on thee, wilt
thou swear to be as a father to my daughter, and to care for her as
thine own?”
It was a good while since Tibble had been called a young man, and as he
listened to the flowing Eastern periods in their foreign enunciation,
he was for a moment afraid that the price of the secret was that he
should become the old Moor’s son-in-law! His seared and scarred youth
had precluded marriage, and he entertained the low opinion of women
frequent in men of superior intellect among the uneducated. Besides,
the possibilities of giving umbrage to Church authorities were dawning
on him, and he was not willing to form any domestic ties, so that in
every way such a proposition would have been unwelcome to him. But he
had no objection to pledge himself to fatherly guardianship of the
pretty child in case of a need that might never arise. So he gave the
promise, and became a pupil of Abenali, visiting Warwick Inner Yard
with his master’s consent whenever he could be spared, while the
workmanship at the Dragon began to profit thereby.
The jealousy of the Eagle was proportionately increased. Alderman
Itillyeo, the head of the Eagle, was friendly enough to Mr. Headley,
but it was undeniable that they were the rival armourers of London,
dividing the favours of the Court equally between them, and the
bitterness of the emulation increased the lower it went in the
establishment. The prentices especially could hardly meet without gibes
and sneers, if nothing worse, and Stephen’s exploit had a peculiar
flavour because it was averred that no one at the Eagle would have done
the like.
But it was not till the Sunday that Ambrose chanced to hear of the
feat, at which he turned quite pale, but he was prouder of it than any
one else, and although he rejoiced that he had not seen it performed,
he did not fail to boast of it at home, though Perronel began by
declaring that she did not care for the mad pranks of roistering
prentices; but presently she paused, as she stirred her grandfather’s
evening posset, and said, “What saidst thou was the strange soldier’s
name?”
“Fulford—Sir John Fulford” said Ambrose. “What? I thought not of it, is
not that Gaffer’s name?”
“Fulford, yea! Mayhap—” and Perronel sat down and gave an odd sort of
laugh of agitation—“mayhap ’tis mine own father.”
“Shouldst thou know him, good aunt?” cried Ambrose, much excited.
“Scarce,” she said. “I was not seven years old when he went to the
wars—if so be he lived through the battle—and he reeked little of me,
being but a maid. I feared him greatly and so did my mother. ’Twas
happier with only Gaffer! Where saidst thou he was gone?”
Ambrose could not tell, but he undertook to bring Stephen to answer all
queries on the subject. His replies that the Captain was gone in quest
of his family to Somersetshire settled the matter, since there had been
old Martin Fulford’s abode, and there John Fulford had parted with his
wife and father. They did not, however, tell the old man of the
possibility of his son’s being at home, he had little memory, and was
easily thrown into a state of agitation; besides, it was a doubtful
matter how the Condottiere would feel as to the present fortunes of the
family. Stephen was to look out for his return in quest of his suit of
armour, inform him of his father’s being alive, and show him the way to
the little house by the Temple Gardens; but Perronel gave the strictest
injunctions that her husband’s profession should not be explained. It
would be quite enough to say that he was of the Lord Cardinal’s
household.
Stephen watched, but the armour was finished and Christmas passed by
before anything was seen of the Captain. At last, however, he did
descend on the Dragon court, looking so dilapidated that Mr. Headley
rejoiced in the having received payment beforehand. He was louder
voiced and fuller of strange oaths than ever, and in the utmost haste,
for he had heard tidings that “there was to be a lusty game between the
Emperor and the Italians, and he must have his share.”
Stephen made his way up to speak to him, and was received with “Ha, my
gallant lad! Art weary of hammer and anvil? Wouldst be a brave Badger,
slip thine indentures, and hear helm and lance ring in good earnest?”
“Not so, sir,” said Stephen, “but I have been bidden to ask if thou
hast found thy father?”
“What’s that to thee, stripling? When thou hast cut thy wisdom teeth,
thou’lt know old fathers be not so easy found. ’Twas a wild goose
chase, and I wot not what moved me to run after it. I met jolly
comrades enough, bumpkins that could drink with an honest soldier when
they saw him, but not one that ever heard the name of Fulford.”
“Sir,” said Stephen, “I know an old man named Fulford. His
granddaughter is my uncle’s wife, and they dwell by the Temple.”
The intelligence seemed more startling and less gratifying than Stephen
had expected. Sir John demanded whether they were poor, and declared
that he had better have heard of them when his purse was fuller. He had
supposed that his wife had given him up and found a fresh mate, and
when he heard of her death, he made an exclamation which might be pity,
but had in it something of relief. He showed more interest about his
old father; but as to his daughter, if she had been a lad now, a’ might
have been a stout comrade by this time, ready to do the Badger credit.
Yea, his poor Kate was a good lass, but she was only a Flemish woman
and hadn’t the sense to rear aught but a whining little wench, who was
of no good except to turn fools’ heads, and she was wedded and past all
that by this time.
Stephen explained that she was wedded to one of the Lord Cardinal’s
meiné.
“Ho!” said the Condottiere, pausing, “be that the butcher’s boy that is
pouring out his gold to buy scarlet hats, if not the three crowns. ’Tis
no bad household wherein to have a footing. Saidst thou I should find
my wench and the old Gaffer there?”
Stephen had to explain, somewhat to the disappointment of the Captain,
who had, as it appeared, in the company of three or four more
adventurous spirits like himself, taken a passage in a vessel lying off
Gravesend, and had only turned aside to take up his new armour and his
deposit of passage-money. He demurred a little, he had little time to
spare, and though, of course, he could take boat at the Temple Stairs,
and drop down the river, he observed that it would have been a very
different thing to go home to the old man when he first came back with
a pouch full of ransoms and plunder, whereas now he had barely enough
to carry him to the place of meeting with his Badgers. And there was
the wench too—he had fairly forgotten her name. Women were like she
wolves for greed when they had a brood of whelps.
Stephen satisfied him that there was no danger on that score, and heard
him muttering, that it was no harm to secure a safe harbour in case a
man hadn’t the luck to be knocked on the head ere he grew too old to
trail a pike. And he would fain see the old man.
So permission was asked for Stephen to show the way to Master
Randall’s, and granted somewhat reluctantly, Master Headley saying,
“I’ll have thee back within an hour, Stephen Birkenholt, and look thou
dost not let thy brain be set afire with this fellow’s windy talk of
battles and sieges, and deeds only fit for pagans and wolves.”
“Ay!” said Tibble, perhaps with a memory of the old fable, “better be
the trusty mastiff than the wolf.”
And like the wolf twitting the mastiff with his chain, the soldier was
no sooner outside the door of the Dragon court before he began to
express his wonder how a lad of mettle could put up with a flat cap, a
blue gown, and the being at the beck and call of a greasy burgher, when
a bold, handsome young knave like him might have the world before him
and his stout pike.
Stephen was flattered, but scarcely tempted. The hard selfishness and
want of affection of the Condottiere shocked him, while he looked
about, hoping some of his acquaintance would see him in company with
this tall figure clanking in shining armour, and with a knightly helmet
and gilt spurs. The armour, new and brilliant, concealed the worn and
shabby leathern dress beneath, and gave the tall, spare figure a
greater breadth, diminishing the look of a hungry wolf which Sir John
Fulford’s aspect suggested. However, as he passed some of the wealthier
stalls, where the apprentices, seeing the martial figure, shouted,
“What d’ye lack, sir knight?” and offered silk and velvet robes and
mantles, gay sword knots, or even rich chains, under all the clamour,
Stephen heard him swearing by St. George what a place this would be for
a sack, if his Badgers were behind him.
“If that poor craven of a Warbeck had had a spark of valour in him,”
quoth he, as he passed a stall gay with bright tankards and flagons,
“we would have rattled some of that shining gear about the lazy
citizens’ ears! He, jolly King Edward’s son! I’ll never give faith to
it! To turn his back when there was such a booty to be had for the
plundering.”
“He might not have found it so easy. Our trainbands are sturdy enough,”
said Stephen, whose _esprit de corps_ was this time on the Londoners’
side, but the knight of the Badger snapped his fingers, and said, “So
much for your burgher trainbands! All they be good for with their show
of fight is to give honest landsknechts a good reason to fall on to the
plunder, if so be one is hampered by a squeamish prince. But grammercy
to St. George, there be not many of that sort after they he once
fleshed!”
Perhaps a year ago, when fresh from the Forest, Stephen might have been
more captivated by the notion of adventure and conquest. Now that he
had his place in the community and looked on a civic position with
wholesome ambition, Fulford’s longings for havoc in these peaceful
streets made his blood run cold. He was glad when they reached their
destination, and he saw Perronel with bare arms, taking in some linen
cuffs and bands from a line across to the opposite wall. He could only
call out, “Good naunt, here he be!”
Perronel turned round, the colour rising in her cheeks, with an
obeisance, but trembling a good deal. “How now, wench? Thou art grown a
buxom dame. Thou makst an old man of me,” said the soldier with a
laugh. “Where’s my father? I have not the turning of a cup to stay, for
I’m come home poor as a cat in a plundered town, and am off to the wars
again; but hearing that the old man was nigh at hand, I came this way
to see him, and let thee know thou art a knight’s daughter. Thou art
indifferent comely, girl, what’s thy name? but not the peer of thy
mother when I wooed her as one of the bonny lasses of Bruges.”
He gave a kind of embrace, while she gave a kind of gasp of “Welcome,
sir,” and glanced somewhat reproachfully at Stephen for not having
given her more warning. The cause of her dismay was plain as the
Captain, giving her no time to precede him, strode into the little
chamber, where Hal Randall, without his false beard or hair, and in his
parti-coloured hose, was seated by the cupboard-like bed, assisting old
Martin Fulford to take his midday meal.
“Be this thine husband, girl? Ha! ha! He’s more like a jolly friar come
in to make thee merry when the good man is out!” exclaimed the visitor,
laughing loudly at his own rude jest; but heeding little either Hal’s
appearance or his reply, as he caught the old man’s bewildered eyes,
and heard his efforts to utter his name.
For eighteen years had altered John Fulford less than either his father
or his daughter, and old Martin recognised him instantly, and held out
the only arm he could use, while the knight, softened, touched, and
really feeling more natural affection than Stephen had given him credit
for, dropped on his knee, breaking into indistinct mutterings with
rough but hearty greetings, regretting that he had not found his father
sooner, when his pouch was full, lamenting the change in him, declaring
that he must hurry away now, but promising to come back with sacks of
Italian ducats to provide for the old man.
Those who could interpret the imperfect utterance, now further choked
by tears and agitation, knew that there was a medley of broken
rejoicings, blessings, and weepings, in the midst of which the soldier,
glad perhaps to end a scene where he became increasingly awkward and
embarrassed, started up, hastily kissed the old man on each of his
withered cheeks, gave another kiss to his daughter, threw her two
Venetian ducats, bidding her spend them for the old man, and he would
bring a pouchful more next time, and striding to the door, bade Stephen
call a boat to take him down to Gravesend.
Randall, who had in the meantime donned his sober black gown in the
inner chamber, together with a dark hood, accompanied his newly found
father-in-law down the river, and Stephen would fain have gone too, but
for the injunction to return within the hour.
Perronel had hurried back to her grandfather’s side to endeavour to
compose him after the shock of gladness. But it had been too much for
his enfeebled powers. Another stroke came on before the day was over,
and in two or three days more old Martin Fulford was laid to rest, and
his son’s ducats were expended on masses for his soul’s welfare.