by David Ker
CHAPTER XI
A Midnight Battle
Night had fallen over Calais on New Year's Eve, cold, gloomy,threatening; and around a blazing fire in an upper chamber of the greattower flanking the Boulogne Gate were gathered a group of stalwartyoung Englishmen in full armour, whose silver spurs told that they hadalready attained the rank of esquires, though they were not yet "dubbedknights."
"Marry, these Frenchmen will have such a regale this night as theylittle expect," said a tall youth, rubbing his sinewy hands gleefully."We English are hospitable folk, and care not how many guests come totaste our New Year's cheer; but methinks these gallants will find itsomewhat hard for their French teeth!"
"They are minded, doubtless," laughed another, "to break their fast inCalais town on the New Year morn; and so indeed they shall--asprisoners!"
"Under whose banner fight we to-night, brother Hugo?" asked a slim,handsome lad of his neighbour, whose comely face was a singularly exactcopy of his own.
"Under the pennon of Sir Walter de Manny," replied his double, "a goodand gentle knight, who is ever to be found where hard blows are going.Under such a one we may well hope to win spurs of gold. Methinks wehave been esquires long enough--ha, brother Alured?"
The speakers were no other than the twin-brothers, Alured and Hugo deClaremont, who were greatly altered since they had sat at meat with SirYvon du Guesclin, years before.
Still retaining their wonderful likeness to each other, the daintyboy-pages had grown into tall and stalwart cavaliers, who had provedtheir courage in many a hard fray. On the field of Crecy they had beenmade esquires; and they now hoped, young as they were, to winknighthood in the coming fight.
"Would that the fray could begin at once!" cried Alured, impatiently,"ere our honoured uncle hath time to damp us with one of his wontedhomilies against over-boldness! Methinks it would fit him better tourge us on than to warn us back."
In fact, their good uncle, Sir Simon Harcourt, was never weary ofwarning his hot-blooded nephews against rashly running intodanger--which was very kind of him, considering that their death wouldhave made him one of the richest landed proprietors in England. But, bysome unlucky chance, the good knight's admonitions were always given insuch a way as to irritate the fiery youths into perilling their livesmore recklessly than ever.
"Now, I bethink me, Claremont," broke in one of his comrades--"I saynot 'Alured' or 'Hugo,' for never can I tell to which of the two Ispeak----"
A general laugh greeted the jest (such as it was) in which the twinsgood-humouredly joined.
"I say, then," resumed the speaker, "that it is full time for thefulfilment of the prophecy concerning you twain, which was to come topass in a year and a day."
"A prophecy?" echoed three or four voices at once.
"Marry, even so--and a rare one," laughed Alured de Claremont. "I thankthee, Beauchamp, for reminding me of it, for in sooth I had forgottenit myself. This is the tale, comrades, if ye care to hear it--
"Just a year agone to-day, my uncle rode out hence with a part of histrain (among whom were my brother and I) to see if the Frenchmen werestirring, and if there were any sign of their coming against us fromSt. Omer. All day we rode on without seeing aught--for the wholecountry-side was wasted till it lay utterly desolate--neither house norbarn, neither man nor beast.
"At last, just as the sun was going down, two men came toward us, theone habited like a grey friar, the other in the dress of a lay brotherof the order; and the moment we caught sight of the monk's face, we allknew him at once (for, in truth, he is not one to be lightly forgotten)for that same Brother Michael whom men call the Pilgrim of God, andwhom we had seen long since at Dinan, where he saved from the boilingcauldron one doomed to die.
"Our uncle rode forward to greet him, and ask for news; and while theyspake together, Hugo and I noted that this lay brother who was with himhad the look of a simpleton, and was, belike, some crazy fellow whomthe good monk had taken to him for charity's sake. So we began to makeour sport with him, asking him jestingly of this and that; but helooked on us right gravely and sadly, as if such game liked him not,and then he spake to us in rhyme, like any masquer in the show of St.George and the Dragon. How ran the words, Hugo?"
And his brother repeated the following lines--
"Give ear, ye twain who mock at me, And heed the words I say; For every word shall come to pass Within a year and a day.
"One night ye two together shall go To hunt on a waste wild moor; And out of twain shall one come back, And his hands shall not be pure.
"His hands shall not be pure, I wot, But stained with ruddy smear, With ruddy smear of good red blood That is not the blood of deer!"
A chilling silence followed the gloomy prediction, every word of whichall the listeners (reckless jesters as they were) firmly believed. Atlast Beauchamp said--
"And this befell, say'st thou, just a year agone to-day? Then must thebode be fulfilled ere to-morrow's sunset! Now, God forbid it shouldmean that one of ye twain must die in to-night's battle!"
"Why not?" cried Hugo, recklessly. "How can a man die better, since diehe must? Let who will die or live, England shall win the day! Fill yetanother cup of Gascon wine, comrades (one thing, at least, in whichFrance hath the better of us), and let us drink to the fortune ofEngland!"
The rest answered the pledge, but less heartily than usual; for thissudden burst of wild gaiety from that quiet and sober lad seemed tothem all an even more sinister omen than had he been silent anddejected; and Beauchamp whispered gloomily to his next neighbour thatHugo must surely be "fey" (doomed).
The same confident assurance of victory in the coming fray filled thehearts of the sturdy English archers and men-at-arms in the guard-roombelow.
"Let 'em come if they will, these braggart Frenchmen!" cried HarryWoodstall, of Winchester. "They are great at boasting, but big wordsbreak no bones. If they have a mind to taste our English steel oncemore, e'en let 'em, though methinks they had a bellyful on't on CrecyField--hey, Dickon?"
"By'r lady, thou say'st sooth, Hal. Ha, lads! I pity such of ye as werenot there, for 'twas a right goodly fray! The French had archers, too,forsooth; a scum of Genoa rogues with arbalests (cross-bows) whothought, beshrew their hearts! to match us, and came on with a leap anda fell cry, as if to scare us like children with their clamour. Aha!then we let them see how the grey goose-wing can fly! Ye would havethought it snowed, lads, so thick flew our shafts among 'em. Down wentGenoa bowman and French man-at-arms, down went belted knight andhaughty noble, before the lusty cloth-yard shafts of Old England. Whenthe broil was over, there lay dead on the French side thrice the numberof our whole array, all told; and scarce a foot-archer of us all buthad two or three prisoners, insomuch that we were in some sortconstrained to kill such as were not worth ransoming, not knowing whatelse to do with them. I myself took a gay-plumed popinjay of Provence,be-ringed and be-jewelled like any court-lady, whose ransom kept mygipsire (purse) full for many a day."
"And thy mouth too, I'll be sworn, Dickon Greenleaf," chuckled MatBowyer, of Kendal. "Trust thee for knowing where good cheer is to behad, whether to eat or to drink!"
"I were in luck, truly, were my mouth ever as full of good cheer asthine of foolish chatter, Mat Bowyer," retorted Nottingham Dick; andthis sledge-hammer wit drew a general laugh from the audience, to whosecapacity it was just suited.
"Long live our bold King Ned!" shouted Woodstall, "and may he ever havesome good war in hand!"
A score of deep voices hoarsely echoed this humane toast.
"Amen!" said Mat Bowyer; "he is the king for a bold fellow to thriveunder."
"Ay, marry is he!" cried Dickon Greenleaf, heartily. "There is but onething about him that likes me not; methinks a king of England shouldspeak good plain
English in place of yon mincing French, which isfitter for a magpie's mouth than a man's."
"What? what?" broke in several voices at once. "Rule thy tongue better,Dickon, lest it breed thee pain. Know'st thou not that it is treason tosay aught against the king's grace?"
"I care not," said the bold archer, sturdily; "I bear an Englishtongue, that dares speak the truth before King Edward himself--Godbless him!--and it is no treason, I trow, to wish that his grace hadthe luck to be able to speak his mind in honest English, likeourselves."
"And were I to say, 'Hang me up yon malapert knave for speaking ill ofhis betters,' would that be English enow for thee?" asked a deep voicebehind.
Dickon turned with a start, and saw (or thought he saw) through aloop-hole just over his head, a face, the sight of which seemed to turnhim to stone, and all his comrades likewise.
As it vanished, the spell was broken, and Greenleaf and half a dozenmore flew through the doorway, and up three or four steps of thewinding stone stair beyond. Then they stopped short in utterbewilderment, for no one was there!
"Get ye to your prayers, lads, one and all of ye!" said Dickon,solemnly, as he crossed himself with a trembling hand, "for the foulfiend himself hath been among us in the likeness of our king!"
It was drawing toward midnight, when a long line of shadowy horsemencame gliding silently as spectres (for every hoof was muffled) over thewide waste of bare moor between Calais and St. Omer; and ever and anona faint gleam of steel, breaking the tomb-like blackness of the gloomywinter night, showed that these ghostly riders were all armed to theteeth.
"Little dream these English hogs of the New Year pageant that we havein store for them!" muttered a stalwart figure in the front rank, noother than Alain de St. Yvon, the eldest of Bertrand du Guesclin'sswaggering cousins, who were now knights of renown, and formed part ofthe train with which Sir Geoffroi de Chargny, the French commandant ofSt. Omer, was hastening to seize (as he hoped) the great fortress, forthe betrayal of which he had covenanted with a deeper traitor thanhimself.
"Pity our good cousin, Ugly Bertrand, were not here to-night," said thesecond brother, Raoul, with a coarse sneer; "he would have a betterchance to win the knightly spurs that he still lacks, than by scufflingwith hired spearmen in the Breton forests."
"And if he _did_ get his nose chopped off, or his eye knocked out by achance blow in the _melee_," added Huon, the youngest, "it could scarcemake him uglier than he is!"
"Young sirs," broke in a deep, mellow voice just behind them, "it isill done to speak scorn of the absent, or to vaunt when the work is butbegun. Trust me, ere this night is over, ye may all have more cause topray than to jest."
None of the young knights made any answer to the rebuke, fiercely asthey all chafed under it, for the speaker was Sir Eustace deRibeaumont, the best knight in all France at that day.
They were now nearing the entrance of the narrow stone causeway thatthen formed, on that side, the only approach to Calais. Here it behovedthem to ride slowly and warily; for on either side stretched, forseveral miles, a black and horrible morass, half swamp and halfquicksand, in the fathomless depths of which death lay lurking todevour any ill-fated wretch who might fall, or be thrust, off the firmroad above.
Just ere they reached this perilous isthmus, Sir Eustace halted toadvise the detaching of a strong force to hold the bridge of Neuilletin their rear, and thus secure a line of retreat if anything wentwrong. From any other man, the fiery De Chargny, in his overweeningconfidence of success, would have laughed this cautious counsel toscorn; but the advice of such a captain as De Ribeaumont was not to beslighted, and he unwillingly agreed.
The dismal swamp was safely passed, and, just on the stroke ofmidnight, they halted at last before the Boulogne Gate of Calais, andsaw above them the dim outline of the great tower, dark and silent as atomb. Above or below there was neither sign nor sound of life, and thegate was still fast shut.
"Yon loitering Lombard is in no haste to open to us," growled DeChargny. "Were he half as cold as I am he would make better speed."
"No doubt he is making sure that the crowns are in full tale, and thatno light one hath slipped in by chance," sneered Sir Pepin de Werre."These Lombards are ever careful folk with money."
"Patience, fair sirs," said De Ribeaumont; "it is not yet midnight.Hark! there sounds the first stroke even now."
Slowly and solemnly the twelve strokes of midnight boomed through theghostly stillness, like the knell of those who were about to die.Hardly had the last toll echoed through the silent town, when therecame a clang and a rattle as the gate was flung open, and, with adeafening shout of "Manny to the rescue!" a mass of armed men burstfrom the gloomy archway with the rush of a mighty wave right into themidst of the startled French!
Then began a fight such as the oldest warrior there had never seen. Inthe depth of the cold black gloom, with death hungering for them oneither side of the narrow path on which they fought, the contendinghosts closed and battled. To and fro swayed the fight like a stormysea, "each man," in the grim words of the old chronicler, "doing suchwork as he might in the darkness"--friend often striking friend insteadof foe, and death coming blindly, no one knew whence or how.
Brave Harry Woodstall, whose stout steel cap and harder skull availednothing against the thunderbolt blow that cut him down, never knew thathe had got his death from the noblest sword in France, that of Eustacede Ribeaumont. Poor young Beauchamp, who had hoped to win fame andknightly spurs by measuring himself with De Chargny, gained his wishand his death-wound with it. By the hand of Sir John Chandos, "theflower of England's chivalry," fell gay young Pepin de Werre, laughingas he died. Sturdy Mat Bowyer was smitten through bone and brain byAlain de St. Yvon, but the next moment his slayer fell dead beside him,crushed by the terrible mace of Walter de Manny; and as Raoul sprangforward to avenge his brother, Sir Peter Audley cut him down.
At the same instant Hugo de Claremont, who had come hand-to-hand withthe third brother, Huon (little dreaming that the foe who faced him sostoutly was the blithe guest with whom he had once sat at meat inMotte-Brun Castle), was beaten to his knees, and would in a moment morehave been crushed to death by the trampling feet around him, had nothis brother Alured and two stout men-at-arms dragged him out by mainforce.
In truth, the peril of the sword was the least of all the dangers thatthe combatants braved that night. More than one brave knight on eitherside was trampled to death in the press; and many a gallant youth whohad come into the fray that night with bright eye and bounding heart,eager to win fame and honour, was hurled headlong over the edge of thecauseway into the deadly quagmire below, to sink inch by inch in itsfoul black slime and perish miserably, unaided and unknown.
So, amid clashing steel and streaming blood, shouts, groans, yells,curses, the moans of dying men, and the shrieks of those who wereperishing in the horrible pit below, came in that New Year morn. Astrange celebration, in truth, of the blessed season of "peace on earthand good-will towards men"! but in an age when ceaseless bloodshed washeld the only occupation worthy of Christian men, and when Christiankings sang praise to God for the destruction of thousands of theirfellow-men by sword and fire and famine, that midnight butchery was "avery goodly and gentle passage of arms"!
All at once a sheet of flame leaped up through the blackness from thebeacon-tower; and beneath its blood-red glare every feature of thatwild scene started into terrible distinctness--the dark towers andbattlements of the grim old fortress, the anxious watchers that crowdedthem, the dim expanse of sea behind, the whirl of furious faces andstruggling arms and flashing weapons that filled the causeway, theblack morass on either side, and the wild waste of dreary moor beyondall--a picture which no one who saw it ever forgot.
The light revealed that the battle was going against France; for thoughthe French fought as bravely as men could do, all their valour wasrendered vain by the complete surprise, the suddenness and fury of theattack, the superiority of prepared men to unprepared ones, and thenarrowness of the c
auseway, which made their greater numbers not onlyuseless, but harmful. Already they were beginning to recoil: but theirstern leader, De Chargny, furious at being thus tricked and baffled,fought like a tiger, and, aided by the terrible arm of Eustace deRibeaumont, still bore up the war.
Just as the beacon flamed up, Sir Eustace, while hacking his waythrough that living jungle like a woodman slashing down brushwood,suddenly came face to face with a tall man in plain armour, whoseprowess had already made him remarked alike by friend and foe, thoughhe bore neither badge nor blazon.
"To me, Sir Eustace!" cried the stranger; "I would fain try my strengthwith thine."
"I know thee not," replied Sir Eustace, "but all such guests arewelcome to De Ribeaumont. Come on, and let God send the victory as Hewill."
Without another word the two closed, and for some moments thrust andparry, stroke and guard, followed each other as thunder followslightning. At last the French sword fell like a thunderbolt on thestranger's crest, beating him down on his knee; but ere Sir Eustacecould second his blow, the other sprang lightly up once more.
"St. Denis! thou art a good knight!" cried the French hero, with allthe chivalrous admiration of one brave man for another. "Wilt thouyield thee to my mercy?"
"'Yield' is a word that I know not," said the unknown, simply; and toit they went again like giants.
But a rush of fighting men parted them, and the stranger, reelingbeneath another tremendous blow, would have been thrust off thecauseway to die in the foul morass below, had not a strong arm upheldhim, while a gruff voice said in his ear--
"Hold up, your worship, and to it again; yon Frenchman is a good blade,but you will match him yet."
"Thanks for thy timely aid, my brave lad of England," said the knight."But for thee, I had been fairly sped. By what name shall I rememberthee?"
"Dickon Greenleaf of Nottingham, an' it like your worship."
"I will not forget it," said the unknown, with a low laugh, whichthrilled the stout archer's nerves so unpleasantly that heinstinctively made the sign of the cross.
Just then the too familiar war cry of "St. George for England!" brokeout behind the combatants, and told the dismayed French that they werecompletely hemmed in. The master-mind that guided every turn of thatnight's wild work had not forgotten the Neuillet Bridge, and theEnglish force sent to seize it had, after a fight as fierce as that onthe causeway itself, effected its purpose, thus cutting off the retreatof De Chargny's men, who, already weary and out of heart, now gave wayaltogether.
"Yield, noble Sir Eustace! The toils are around thee and thine," criedthe unknown, who had just come hand-to-hand with De Ribeaumont for thethird time. "Thou hast done thy devoir this night as never man did yet,and it is no shame to a good knight to yield when escape is none."
"Thou say'st sooth," said the gallant Frenchman, with a faint sigh,"and I shame me not to yield to one like thee. I render me trueprisoner, rescue or no rescue, and therewith give I thee my sword."
"Not so," cried the unknown, gently putting back the offered weapon."Sin and shame were it, I trow, to deprive so good a knight of thesword that none else can wield so well. Keep thy good blade, noble sir,and may'st thou draw it on many a more fortunate field than this!"
So chivalrous a compliment, from a foe of such prowess, well-nighconsoled the brave Frenchman for his defeat; but none the less was heeager to learn who this warrior could be, who had not only matched hishitherto invincible sword, but had mastered it too. On that point,however, he was not left long in doubt, for, as his captor led him inthrough the gate, the light from within fell right on the latter's nowunhelmeted face, and Sir Eustace started to see that his namelessconqueror was no other than King Edward himself!