Merlin's Ring

by H. Warner Munn

  Next morning, the assault was cried upon the Tourelles— the towers at the bridgehead—which faltered about noonday. Ripped, tattered, and pierced, the banner floated close by the wall. Jeanne raised it high, laughed, and waved the soldiers on.

  She sprang to a scaling ladder and mounted a few steps. The banner rose with her into the smoke, and the English hand guns swung to meet it; an iron curse was bellowed forth from every mouth of fire.

  The banner swung and waved and fell. Jeanne fell with it, covered by its folds like a shroud. A clothyard arrow, driven by the full strength of an archer’s arm, pierced her shoulder plate, passing completely through armor and body.

  Gwalchmai and D’Aulon were closest. They lifted her tenderly under a hail of arrows and arblast bolts. Out of range of the guns, they found the point stood out her back a full hand’s breadth.

  She was conscious. While D’Aulon was cutting off the arrowhead, to draw out the shaft, Gwalchmai said, “Maid, let me cure your wound. I have a sovran remedy at hand.”

  He showed her Merlin’s ring and would have touched her shoulder. She looked at its odd carvings and shrank away.

  “It looks like sorcery. I will have no sorcery.”

  “Then let me sing over it,” he gently insisted: “I know a song of healing. I will get a drum and cure your ill for you, as the medicine men of my country do.”

  “No charms. No sorcery. No magic.” She accepted an. anointing of olive oil and lay back to rest till evening. By that time the battle had lost its vigor. Jeanne took her place again, weak and worn, supporting herself with a staff.

  Four great assaults had been made. Now the lights of Orleans were coming on. Dunois, Captain-General of the town, came up.

  “Maid, there is no hope of victory this day. In a month this fort could scarce be taken.”

  “Wait just a little more! Doubt not! The place is ours. Let me pray for but a moment. Basque, guard my banner well.”

  She sank upon her knees and buried her face in her hands, as more than once he had seen Corenice do. He wondered to whom she prayed.

  Without waiting, Dunois’ trumpeter sounded the recall. She looked up, but continued with her prayer. Some stood, others came back; the English raised a glad “Hurrah” at the retreat.

  D’Aulon seized Owalchmai by the shoulder. “The courage of our men is still high, but if the English sally out, the standard might be taken. That would be a death blow to us. If I go forward to the foot of the wall and cry our troops on once more, will you follow with the standard?”

  Gwalchmai said, “I will!”

  The two leaped down into the dry fosse. As they clambered, with difficulty, up the other side, Jeanne saw the banner waving wildly. She ran and seized its end, not understanding.

  “Ha! My standard! Basque! Is this what you promised me?”

  Leaping into the ditch, she took the standard herself. A crowd of rallying French and Scots poured in and up, behind her.

  “Watch! Watch till the tail of my standard touches the wall!”

  “Maid! It touches now!”

  “Then enter, in the name of the King of Heaven! The town is yours! The Tourelles will fall!”

  Gwalchmai, left behind in the rush, saw her standing in glory. The banner was aflame with mystic light. Here in all its exactness, was the scene he had beheld in the opal of Merlin’s Ring.

  There was the crumbling fortress wall. There, the blazing cannon, fire, and smoke and death; there, just ahead, the slender, straight back of the standard bearer, but he knew no more about her identity than he had so long ago at the deathbed of his love.

  “Glasdale! Brave Captain! Yield thee to the King of Heaven! You called me harlot, but I grant pity upon your soul!”

  By dark, all was over. Glasdale was dead, the Tourelles , had fallen, Orleans was safe and every bell in the city ringing.

  As, years later, Gwalchmai let his mind’s eye rove, it was not the short campaign that lingered most. Victory hurried on the heels of victory, in a grand sweep of successes. What impressed him chiefly was the mystical thing that he, and he alone, perceived in connection with the banner. City after city fell, by siege or capitulation. The English stood to open combat at Beaugency and again at Patay, and then no more —both times to be crushed in open battle. At each triumph, Gwalchmai saw a single new fleur-de-lys flash into added brilliance, and when proud Rheims opened its gates for Charles, the Dauphin, to enter for his coronation, the flag shone in its entirety as he had seen it first—but, he knew with surety, not for Charles.

  Once thus lit for Gwalchmai, it so remained. He regarded this wonder as some new and unsuspected virtue of insight, granted him by the ring. No one mentioned it to him. He forebore speaking of it, even to Jeanne.

  Joy! Success! The wonderful apogee of the coronation, where Jeanne stood, in white armor, holding the standard in one hand, her bared sword in the other—defiant, proud, ready still to defend to the death the stained honor of her sawdust king.

  Under the shimmering folds, ragged and battleworn, she knelt to embrace the knees of Charles.

  “My gentle Dauphin! At last you are my King!”

  And hi the end, Gwalchmai knew, with tears of pride in his eyes, it was Jeanne to whom the crowd roared, “Hail!”— although she would not have believed it had she so been told.

  On, at last, to Paris! But too late. Still believing the lies of his councilors, the King procrastinated. Finally he granted permission for the army to move. Then it was found that the truce between himself, England’s Regent, Lord Bedford, and Duke Philip, whose lands were greater than both the others and whose hatred of Charles was greater too, had been used to make Paris the most impregnable city in Europe.

  Marching behind that proud banner, which as yet had never known defeat, the army moved out from Rheims. At its head rode the faithful captains—La Hire, D’Alencon, Dunois, De Rais. Behind them were the ever-watchful guardians, D’Aulon and Gwalchmai, who were never far away from the little bright figure holding the standard.

  The Archbishop of Rheims rode along with them for a space. Gwalchmai heard him say, “Jeanne, where do you expect to die?”

  She was in an unusually somber mood. The army felt its spirits lagging. They were poorly armed, their pay in arrears, and they were often hungry. These facts were reflected in the thoughts of the leaders.

  “Wherever God pleases. I know not the hour or the place. Would it were His pleasure that I might now lay down my arms and go back to my father and mother, who would be right glad to see me.”

  Gwalchmai, his ears attuned to every nuance of her sweet, disconcertingly familiar voice, could tell that for once an infrequent melancholy had seized upon her.

  At that moment they were passing along a road lined upon both sides with Lombardy poplars, and as though her words were a signal a fluttering host of butterflies came down about the heads of the marching soldiers like falling leaves. They spun and circled and lifted lightly, following the pennons and guidons, a drifting mass of living beauty, darting in rippling sweeps through the sunlight slanting through the branches of the trees.

  Gwalchmai started. Crystal clear, hauntingly nostalgic, far away in time if not in distance, came to him the winding of a silver hunting horn he had once heard in Elveron. He looked covertly around, a quick glance that swept those near him. Apparently no one else had heard the descending notes.

  So brave, so happy, they rose again challenging the Fates, and he knew this was the Assembly call of the fay—the great gathering, the final flitting from Earth to Astophar—~ and he knew also that this was farewell.

  Had anyone else heard? The butterflies soared and came together and dropped around the standard like a benediction. Thick, so thickly swarming, yet never touching one another or Jeanne, who bore the flag, for she rode in steel and the touch of iron is fearful death. They gathered there briefly like winging fleur-de-lys and in their whirling center, Jeanne watched them and leaned back hi the saddle, laughing with head thrown back as Gwalchmai h
ad so often seen his lost love do, no soldier for this brief time, only a young girl, happy in the summer sun.

  Once more the clear notes rose and with them rose the host Into the trees and higher. An eddying cloud, rising, dwindling—a ball of silver midges, a gleaming point still caught by the straining eye—until it was gone forever on the long sky road to a friendlier star.

  But not all! One pale-green butterfly lingered on the safe cloth of Gwalchmai’s surcoat, opening and closing its maimed and ragged wings, gazing at him with its jeweled eyes.

  There was a jaunty devil-may-care attitude about this straggler, from its scarlet antennae to its slender legs. There was no doubt in Gwalchmai’s mind.

  “Always faithful, gay minstrel, brave friend! Help me guard my dear courageous leader, whoever she may be.”

  The butterfly bent its legs and sprang into the air. It swept before Gwalchmai’s eyes and sped to the standard. It came down upon the gilded wood of the shaft’s point and there it rode.

  There was a new spring hi the gait of the marchers. They had seen what they thought was a sign of victory. On to Paris!

  ‘t

  There is a nadir for every zenith. From the top of a hill, the only way off is—down. The long delayed advance on Paris was the beginning of the lowering slope, the end foredoomed.

  “I fear nothing but treachery!” Gwalchmai felt those words strike home before the walls of Paris. The dreary siege dragged on: no supplies, no reinforcements; the army dwindling in the long nights, grumbling deserters knowing well that the lick-spittles of the court fawned upon the King to their own advantage and the death of hope. Finally, Jeanne dared wait no longer for an assault. Finding that no one had taken the trouble to sound the moat at the St. Denys gate, like a good commander, she herself went forward.

  Accompanied only by Robert, as standard bearer, the two crossed the outer dry fosse. Immediately they came under fire. She cried, “Surrender to Jesus!” and plumbed the moat water with her lance.

  At that moment, as cool and deliberate as she, an English archer drew his bow. The first arrow nailed Robert’s foot to the ground. In agony, he raised his visor to assess his injury and died, struck through the eyes. The standard fell.

  The third arrow, aimed’with precision, went completely through Jeanne’s upper thigh. She threw herself backward, into the dubious shelter of the fosse, and rolled to its bottom.

  Gwalchmai heard an agonized, strangled cry by his side. “My angel!” Rushing past him through the battle, Gilles de Rais thrust him heavily aside, ran through the firing line, and flung himself down beside Jeanne, covering his girl comrade and leader, and protecting her with his own body.

  A heavy fire was instantly -concentrated upon them. Gwalchmai could hear bullets strike De Rais’ fine armor and ricochet whining away. Neither moved. The battle went on with savagery, but now such a downpour of missiles filled the air that no one could reach the pair and live.

  They burrowed into the ditch bank, inch by tortured inch. Into the afternoon and the evening the despairing friends of Jeanne could hear her gallant pain-filled voice still raised to encourage them, calling on the charge: “Forward! Be of good faith! The town will be yours!”

  As the day wore on, the clear voice grew weaker, but the words remained the same. After dark, Gwalchmai, D’Aulon, and de Gaucourt, almost blind with tears, fumbled their way out through the dead and helped De Rais, who had only minor wounds, bring her in.

  De Rais went away, leaning on de Gaucourt’s shoulder, to have his wounds tended. D’Aulon hurried off in search of a leech. Gwalchmai took out the arrow as he had done before at Jargeau, for De Rais had not dared to do so lest she* bleed to death. He glanced around. No one was near. She showed no sign of pain.

  It was evident that she was deeply unconscious, from loss of blood and shock. He touched the wound with Merlin’s Ring. The welling forth dwindled to a few slow drops. He bound up the injury. Even in the1 uncertain light of a single flickering torch he could see her waxen pallor.

  He brushed her thick dark hair away from her cold, moist brow. His heart was very full. That haunting resemblance!

  He lifted a heavy wave of her hair in his hand. It flowed over his trembling fingers, as he brought it to his lips, remembering the delight it had given him to see that hair flying defiantly free in the wind.

  Torchlight gleamed on her little golden rings. They were her only ornaments. Her chiefest treasures. How often he had seen her look at them, kiss them before going into danger! Gwalchmai was once told that they were gift rings from her mother and brother, and engraved with sacred names.

  He thought how Corenice had bid him to know her through the ages, by gold.

  He sighed. “My precious, lovely, lost one! I look upon this strange, brave girl and I see you!”

  At his gentle touch, Jeanne moaned a little. Her eyes remained closed, but she turned her face toward him and her lips moved.

  “Ah, my darling! Was it for this we spoke of love at the Lake of Swans?”

  Gwalchmai could not believe his ears. “Corenice! Can it be you?”

  “Only for a little moment, my dear one. Only while she sleeps. Our grand-daughter’s will is so strong! I have never been able to control her—only to give her a little comfort and advice. There are others who give her more and better guidance than any she could receive from me.

  “Do you still love me? I thought love was dead in you. Had you not forgotten me for a while?”

  “How I watched you through the eyes of your comrade, Hanshiro, the samurai! Did you not think it strange that he would follow you across half a world, guarding your back in all your madness of killing in so many wars?

  “It was that which has kept us apart. You would not have known me while you were trying to die. Did you suspect nothing, my only lord?

  “You must not despair. The end of your journey is so close. Mine will end with yours and we will be together. Did you not know that I led you here?”

  “Oh, Corenice! I was so sure that you were she at first Since then there have been so many little things about her that I remembered in you. How can she look so like you, when you were Nikky, and not be you again? I cannot bear it unless you two are and will remain the same.”

  Jeanne’s eyes were still shut, but her lips smiled. That long-remembered, long-awaited smile.

  “Can you not guess, my own one husband? Count back the years through the many generations. Her mother’s mother’s mother, and other mothers before that one, and there was still another who was the daughter of your son!

  “I never told you what I saw in the spae-wife’s crystal. She knew what had come of our meeting and she showed me what was yet to come. At the end of the vision she gave me, I saw a girl riding, clothed all in clean bright steel, without decoration or emblem. Her face was like mine, but I knew it was not me.

  “I saw her ride on to her destiny and everlasting fame— and in her face I saw a consciousness of that and more. I saw something in it of you and something of myself. I knew then that it was no accident that we two met.

  “Oh, Gwalchmai, you have seen my goddess and you love her. I have never seen your God, but I know now that He lives and I love Him too.

  “It cannot be that the world spins aimlessly on- with no directing plan. It has been worth all our separations, and pains, and our long waiting, to be the ancestors of such a girl!”

  “Yes! Oh, yes, Corenice! With such admiration—such pride! And so much like you. No wonder I thought you had come again!”

  “I have been told that we shall soon be together and then we shall never part. We have been but small pieces in an immensely intricate plan. I know that now and so must you.

  “I saw a little part of it in the crystal. So far-reaching and divine it was that it awed me until I could not speak of it to you, lest the knowledge of it in some way bring about its failure.

  “I learned then why we two had been born to love and I knew joy and pride that we had,been chosen. I have also lived wi
th grief, for I was shown what that destiny of hers, because of us, must be.

  “They are coming, my darling. I must say farewell. Ahuni-i has told me we must return where our Ipng journey began, to that place of ice and fire. We shall go there together, I promise you, when all is finished here. It will not be long. Be patient and hold me—hold me ever in your heart.”

  Jeanne—Corenice—stopped speaking. D’Aulon and de

  Gaucourt came up with anxiety plain upon their faces. The leech panted up with his bag and looked questioningly at Gwalchmai at the sight of the bandaged wound.

  Gwalchmai placed his finger on his lips. He spoke with a smile.

  “Quietly. Bear her easily away. She has been tended and is sleeping.”

  His words were easy and without care, but in his heart he mourned, for now he knew that Corenice was gone.

  Peremptory orders from the King, safe in his court at Senlis, broke off the siege. The hungry army was only too glad to return and be disbanded, caring nothing for the months of uselessness that followed.

  De Rais, promoted to the rank of Marshal of France, quit the stifling atmosphere of the court in high dudgeon. Dismissing Gwalchmai from his entourage, he asked, “Will you now accept a permanent place in the Maid’s Household, until I recall you?”

  “That I will, and gladly!” So D’Aulon and he became close companions in Jeanne’s care, while she followed the King’s company from castle to castle, like a pet dog, in idleness and despair.

  And the banner lay idle, gathering dust.

  From Guy de Laval—these, to his revered grandmother, Relict of Du Guesclin:

  “My Dearest Grandmother:

  “I kiss your hand. Much has happened since we returned to Senlis. The Maid was pleased that you liked the small golden ring she sent. She bids me say that she would be happier were it a better one.

  “Would you appreciate the jewel more if you knew it was given her by her brother? It came from her own hand. She still has another, but these were her only precious things.