Ivanhoe (Barnes & Noble Classics Series)

by Walter Scott

  “We are agreed then,” said Front-de-Bœuf, “thou and they are to be set at freedom, and peace is to be on both sides, for payment of a thousand marks. It is a trifling ransom, Saxon, and thou wilt owe gratitude to the moderation which accepts of it in exchange of your persons. But mark, this extends not to the Jew Isaac.”

  “Nor to the Jew Isaac’s daughter,” said the Templar, who had now joined them.

  “Neither,” said Front-de-Bœuf, “belong to this Saxon’s company.

  “I were unworthy to be called Christian, if they did,” replied Athelstane; “deal with the unbelievers as ye list.”

  “Neither does the ransom include the Lady Rowena,” said De Bracy. “It shall never be said I was scared out of a fair prize without striking a blow for it.”

  “Neither,” said Front-de-Bœuf, “does our treaty refer to this wretched Jester, whom I retain, that I may make him an example to every knave who turns jest into earnest.”

  “The Lady Rowena,” answered Athelstane, with the most steady countenance, “is my affianced bride. I will be drawn by wild horses before I consent to part with her. The slave Wamba has this day saved the life of my father Cedric. I will lose mine ere a hair of his head be injured.”

  “Thy affianced bride! The Lady Rowena the affianced bride of a vassal like thee!” said De Bracy. “Saxon, thou dreamest that the days of thy seven kingdoms are returned again. I tell thee, the princes of the house of Anjou confer not their wards on men of such lineage as thine.”

  “My lineage, proud Norman,” replied Athelstane, “is drawn from a source more pure and ancient than that of a beggarly Frenchman, whose living is won by selling the blood of the thieves whom he assembles under his paltry standard. Kings were my ancestors, strong in war and wise in council, who every day feasted in their hall more hundreds than thou canst number individual followers; whose names have been sung by minstrels, and their laws recorded by Witenagemotes; whose bones were interred amid the prayers of saints, and over whose tombs minsters have been builded.”

  “Thou hast it, De Bracy,” said Front-de-Bœuf, well pleased with the rebuff which his companion had received; “the Saxon hath hit thee fairly.”

  “As fairly as a captive can strike,” said De Bracy, with apparent carelessness; “for he whose hands are tied should have his tongue at freedom. But thy glibness of reply, comrade,” rejoined he, speaking to Athelstane, “will not win the freedom of the Lady Rowena.”

  To this Athelstane, who had already made a longer speech than was his custom to do on any topic, however interesting, returned no answer. The conversation was interrupted by the arrival of a menial, who announced that a monk demanded admittance at the postern gate.

  “In the name of St. Bennet, the prince of these bullbeggars,” said Front-de-Bœuf, “have we a real monk this time, or another impostor? Search him, slaves; for an ye suffer a second impostor to be palmed upon you, I will have your eyes torn out, and hot coals put into the sockets.”

  “Let me endure the extremity of your anger, my lord,” said Giles, “if this be not a real shaveling. Your squire Jocelyn knows him well, and will vouch him to be Brother Ambrose, a monk in attendance upon the Prior of Jorvaulx.”

  “Admit him,” said Front-de-Bœuf; “most likely he brings us news from his jovial master. Surely the devil keeps holiday, and the priests are relieved from duty, that they are strolling thus wildly through the country. Remove these prisoners; and, Saxon, think on what thou hast heard.”

  “I claim,” said Athelstane, “an honourable imprisonment, with due care of my board and of my couch, as becomes my rank, and as is due to one who is in treaty for ransom. Moreover, I told him that deems himself the best of you bound to answer to me with his body for this aggression on my freedom. This defiance hath already been sent to thee by thy sewer; thou under-liest it, and art bound to answer me. There lies my glove.”

  “I answer not the challenge of my prisoner,” said Front-de-Bœuf, “nor shalt thou, Maurice de Bracy. Giles,” he continued, “hang the franklin’s glove upon the tine of yonder branched antlers; there shall it remain until he is a free man. Should he then presume to demand it, or to affirm he was unlawfully made my prisoner, by the belt of St. Christopher, he will speak to one who hath never refused to meet a foe on foot or on horseback, alone or with his vassals at his back!”

  The Saxon prisoners were accordingly removed, just as they introduced the monk Ambrose, who appeared to be in great perturbation.

  “This is the real Deus vobiscum,” said Wamba, as he passed the reverend brother; “the others were but counterfeits.”

  “Holy Mother!” said the monk, as he addressed the assembled knights, “I am at last safe and in Christian keeping!”

  “Safe thou art,” replied De Bracy, “and for Christianity, here is the stout Baron Reginald Front-de-Boeuf, whose utter abomination is a Jew; and the good Knight Templar, Brian de Bois-Guilbert, whose trade is to slay Saracens. If these are not good marks of Christianity, I know no other which they bear about them.”

  “Ye are friends and allies of our reverend father in God, Aymer, Prior of Jorvaulx,” said the monk, without noticing the tone of De Bracy’s reply; “ye owe him aid both by knightly faith and holy charity; for what saith the blessed St. Augustin, in his treatise De Civitate Dei—ds”

  “What saith the devil!” interrupted Front-de-Bœuf; “or rather what dost thou say, Sir Priest? We have little time to hear texts from the holy fathers.”

  “Sancta Maria!” ejaculated Father Ambrose, “how prompt to ire are these unhallowed laymen! But be it known to you, brave knights, that certain murderous caitiffs, casting behind them fear of God and reverence of His church, and not regarding the bull of the holy see, Si quis, suadente Diabolo—”dt

  “Brother priest,” said the Templar, “all this we know or guess at; tell us plainly, is thy master, the Prior, made prisoner, and to whom?”

  “Surely,” said Ambrose, “he is in the hands of the men of Belial, du infesters of these woods, and contemners of the holy text, ‘Touch not mine anointed, and do my prophets nought of evil.’ ”2

  “Here is a new argument for our swords, sir,” said Front-de-Bœuf, turning to his companions; “and so, instead of reaching us any assistance, the Prior of Jorvaulx requests aid at our hands? A man is well helped of these lazy churchmen when he hath most to do! But speak out, priest, and say at once what doth thy master expect from us?”

  “So please you,” said Ambrose, “violent hands having been imposed on my reverend superior, contrary to the holy ordinance which I did already quote, and the men of Belial having rifled his mails and budgets, and stripped him of two hundred marks of pure refined gold, they do yet demand of him a large sum beside, ere they will suffer him to depart from their uncircumcised hands. Wherefore the reverend father in God prays you, as his dear friends, to rescue him, either by paying down the ransom at which they hold him, or by force of arms, at your best discretion.”

  “The foul fiend quell the Prior!” said Front-de-Bœuf; “his morning’s draught has been a deep one. When did thy master hear of a Norman baron unbuckling his purse to relieve a churchman, whose bags are ten times as weighty as ours? And how can we do aught by valour to free him, that are cooped up here by ten times our number, and expect an assault every moment?”

  “And that was what I was about to tell you,” said the monk, “had your hastiness allowed me time. But, God help me, I am old, and these foul onslaughts distract an aged man’s brain. Nevertheless, it is of verity that they assemble a camp, and raise a bank against the walls of this castle.”

  “To the battlements!” cried De Bracy, “and let us mark what these knaves do without”; and so saying, he opened a latticed window which led to a sort of bartizan or projecting balcony, and immediately called from thence to those in the apartment—“St. Denis, but the old monk hath brought true tidings! They bring forward mantelets and pavisses,3 and the archers muster on the skirts of the wood like a dark cloud before a hail-s
torm.”

  Reginald Front-de-Bœuf also looked out upon the field, and immediately snatched his bugle; and after winding a long and loud blast, commanded his men to their posts on the walls.

  “De Bracy, look to the eastern side where the walls are lowest. Noble Bois-Guilbert, thy trade hath well taught thee how to attack and defend, look thou to the western side. I myself will take post at the barbican. Yet, do not confine your exertions to any one spot, noble friends! We must this day be everywhere, and multiply ourselves, were it possible, so as to carry by our presence succour and relief wherever the attack is hottest. Our numbers are few, but activity and courage may supply that defect, since we have only to do with rascal clowns.”

  “But, noble knights,” exclaimed Father Ambrose, amidst the bustle and confusion occasioned by the preparations for defence, “will none of ye hear the message of the reverend father in God, Aymer, Prior of Jorvaulx? I beseech thee to hear me, noble Sir Reginald!”

  “Go patter thy petitions to Heaven,” said the fierce Norman, “for we on earth have no time to listen to them. Ho! there, Anselm! see that seething pitch and oil are ready to pour on the heads of these audacious traitors. Look that the crossbowmen lack not bolts.4 Fling abroad my banner with the old bull’s head; the knaves shall soon find with whom they have to do this day!”

  “But, noble sir,” continued the monk, persevering in his endeavours to draw attention, “consider my vow of obedience, and let me discharge myself of my superior’s errand.”

  “Away with this prating dotard,” said Front-de-Bœuf; “lock him up in the chapel to tell his beads till the broil be over. It will be a new thing to the saints in Torquilstone to hear aves and paters; they have not been so honoured, I trow, since they were cut out of stone.”

  “Blaspheme not the holy saints, Sir Reginald,” said De Bracy, “we shall have need of their aid to-day before yon rascal rout disband.”

  “I expect little aid from their hand,” said Front-de-Boeuf, “unless we were to hurl them from the battlements on the heads of the villains. There is a huge lumbering St. Christopher yonder, sufficient to bear a whole company to the earth.”

  The Templar had in the meantime been looking out on the proceedings of the besiegers, with rather more attention than the brutal Front-de-Bœuf or his giddy companion.

  “By the faith of mine order,” he said, “these men approach with more touch of discipline than could have been judged, however they come by it. See ye how dexterously they avail themselves of every cover which a tree or bush affords, and shun exposing themselves to the shot of our cross-bows? I spy neither banner nor pennon among them, and yet will I gage my golden chain that they are led on by some noble knight or gentleman, skilful in the practice of wars.”

  “I espy him,” said De Bracy; “I see the waving of a knight’s crest, and the gleam of his armour. See yon tall man in the black mail, who is busied marshalling the farther troop of the rascaille yeomen; by St. Denis, I hold him to be the same whom we called Le Noir Faineant, who overthrew thee, Front-de-Bœuf, in the lists at Ashby.”

  “So much the better,” said Front-de-Bœuf, “that he comes here to give me my revenge. Some hildingdv fellow he must be, who dared not stay to assert his claim to the tourney prize which chance had assigned him. I should in vain have sought for him where knights and nobles seek their foes, and right glad am I he hath here shown himself among yon villain yeomanry.”

  The demonstrations of the enemy’s immediate approach cut off all farther discourse. Each knight repaired to his post, and at the head of the few followers whom they were able to muster, and who were in numbers inadequate to defend the whole extent of the walls, they awaited with calm determination the threatened assault.

  CHAPTER XXVIII

  The wandering race, sever’d from other men,

  Boast yet their intercourse with human arts;

  The seas, the woods, the deserts, which they haunt,

  Find them acquainted with their secret treasures;

  And unregarded herbs, and flowers, and blossoms,

  Display undreamt-of powers when gather’d by them.

  Thejew1

  Our history must needs retrograde for the space of a few pages, to inform the reader of certain passages material to his understandingthe rest of this important narrative. His own intelligence may indeed have easily anticipated that, when Ivanhoe sunk down, and seemed abandoned by all the world, it was the importunity of Rebecca which prevailed on her father to have the gallant young warrior transported from the lists to the house which, for the time, the Jews inhabited in the suburbs of Ashby.

  It would not have been difficult to have persuaded Isaac to this step in any other circumstances, for his disposition was kind and grateful. But he had also the prejudices and scrupulous timidity of his persecuted people, and those were to be conquered.

  “Holy Abraham!” he exclaimed, “he is a good youth, and my heart bleeds to see the gore trickle down his rich embroidered hacqueton,dw and his corslet of goodly price; but to carry him to our house! damsel, hast thou well considered? He is a Christian, and by our law we may not deal with the stranger and Gentile, save for the advantage of our commerce.”

  “Speak not so, my dear father,” replied Rebecca; “we may not indeed mix with them in banquet and in jollity; but in wounds and in misery, the Gentile becometh the Jew’s brother.”

  “I would I knew what the Rabbi Jacob ben Tudela would opine on it,” replied Isaac; “nevertheless, the good youth must not bleed to death. Let Seth and Reuben bear him to Ashby.”

  “Nay, let them place him in my litter,” said Rebecca; “I will mount one of the palfreys.”

  “That were to expose thee to the gaze of those dogs of Ishmael and of Edom,”dx whispered Isaac, with a suspicious glance towards the crowd of knights and squires. But Rebecca was already busied in carrying her charitable purpose into effect, and listed not what he said, until Isaac, seizing the sleeve of her mantle, again exclaimed, in a hurried voice—“Beard of Aaron! what if the youth perish! If he die in our custody, shall we not be held guilty of his blood, and be torn to pieces by the multitude?”

  “He will not die, my father,” said Rebecca, gently extricating herself from the grasp of Isaac—“he will not die unless we abandon him; and if so, we are indeed answerable for his blood to God and to man.”

  “Nay,” said Isaac, releasing his hold, “it grieveth me as much to see the drops of his blood as if they were so many golden byzants from mine own purse; and I well know that the lessons of Miriam, daughter of the Rabbi Manasses of Byzantium, whose soul is in Paradise, have made thee skilful in the art of healing, and that thou knowest the craft of herbs and the force of elixirs. Therefore, do as thy mind giveth thee: thou art a good damsel—a blessing, and a crown, and a song of rejoicing unto me and unto my house, and unto the people of my fathers.”

  The apprehensions of Isaac, however, were not ill founded; and the generous and grateful benevolence of his daughter exposed her, on her return to Ashby, to the unhallowed gaze of Brian de Bois-Guilbert. The Templar twice passed and repassed them on the road, fixing his bold and ardent look on the beautiful Jewess; and we have already seen the consequences of the admiration which her charms excited, when accident threw her into the power of that unprincipled voluptuary.

  Rebecca lost no time in causing the patient to be transported to their temporary dwelling, and proceeded with her own hands to examine and to bind up his wounds. The youngest reader of romances and romantic ballads must recollect how often the females, during the dark ages, as they are called, were initiated into the mysteries of surgery, and how frequently the gallant knight submitted the wounds of his person to her cure whose eyes had yet more deeply penetrated his heart.

  But the Jews, both male and female, possessed and practised the medical science in all its branches, and the monarchs and powerful barons of the time frequently committed themselves to the charge of some experienced sage among this despised people when wounded or in sic
kness. The aid of the Jewish physicians was not the less eagerly sought after, though a general belief prevailed among the Christians that the Jewish rabbins were deeply acquainted with the occult sciences, and particularly with the cabalistical art, which had its name and origin in the studies of the sages of Israel. Neither did the rabbins disown such acquaintance with supernatural arts, which added nothing—for what could add aught?—to the hatred with which their nation was regarded, while it diminished the contempt with which that malevolence was mingled. A Jewish magician might be the subject of equal abhorrence with a Jewish usurer, but he could not be equally despised. It is, besides, probable, considering the wonderful cures they are said to have performed, that the Jews possessed some secrets of the healing art peculiar to themselves, and which, with the exclusive spirit arising out of their condition, they took great care to conceal from the Christians amongst whom they dwelt.

  The beautiful Rebecca had been heedfully brought up in all the knowledge proper to her nation, which her apt and powerful mind had retained, arranged, and enlarged, in the course of a progress beyond her years, her sex, and even the age in which she lived. Her knowledge of medicine and of the healing art had been acquired under an aged Jewess, the daughter of one of their most celebrated doctors, who loved Rebecca as her own child, and was believed to have communicated to her secrets which had been left to herself by her sage father at the same time, and under the same circumstances. The fate of Miriam had indeed been to fall a sacrifice to the fanaticism of the times; but her secrets had survived in her apt pupil.

  Rebecca, thus endowed with knowledge as with beauty, was universally revered and admired by her own tribe, who almost regarded her as one of those gifted women mentioned in the sacred history. Her father himself, out of reverence for her talents, which involuntarily mingled itself with his unbounded affection, permitted the maiden a greater liberty than was usually indulged to those of her sex by the habits of her people, and was, as we have just seen, frequently guided by her opinion, even in preference to his own.