The Last of the Barons — Complete

by Baron Edward Bulwer Lytton Lytton

  CHAPTER VIII. WHAT BEFELL ADAM WARNER AND SIBYLL WHEN MADE SUBJECT TOTHE GREAT FRIAR BUNGEY.

  We must now return to the Tower of London,--not, indeed, to its lordlyhalls and gilded chambers, but to the room of Friar Bungey. We must goback somewhat in time; and on the day following the departure of theking and his lords, conjure up in that strangely furnished apartment theform of the burly friar, standing before the disorganized Eureka, withAdam Warner by his side.

  Graul, as we have seen, had kept her word, and Sibyll and her father,having fallen into the snare, were suddenly gagged, bound, led throughby-paths to a solitary hut, where a covered wagon was in waiting, andfinally, at nightfall, conducted to the Tower. The friar, whom his ownrepute, jolly affability, and favour with the Duchess of Bedford madea considerable person with the authorities of the place, had alreadyobtained from the deputy-governor an order to lodge two persons, whomhis zeal for the king sought to convict of necromantic practicesin favour of the rebellion, in the cells set apart for such unhappycaptives. Thither the prisoners were conducted. The friar did not objectto their allocation in contiguous cells; and the jailer deemed himmighty kind and charitable, when he ordered that they might be wellserved and fed till their examination.

  He did not venture, however, to summon his captives till the departureof the king, when the Tower was in fact at the disposition of hispowerful patroness, and when he thought he might stretch his authorityas far as he pleased, unquestioned and unchid.

  Now, therefore, on the day succeeding Edward's departure, Adam Warnerwas brought from his cell, and led to the chamber where the triumphantfriar received him in majestic state. The moment Warner entered, hecaught sight of the chaos to which his Eureka was resolved, and utteringa cry of mingled grief and joy, sprang forward to greet his profanedtreasure. The friar motioned away the jailer (whispering him to waitwithout), and they were left alone. Bungey listened with curious andpuzzled attention to poor Adam's broken interjections of lamentation andanger, and at last, clapping him roughly on the back, said,--

  "Thou knowest the secret of this magical and ugly device: but in thyhands it leads only to ruin and perdition. Tell me that secret, and inmy hands it shall turn to honour and profit. Porkey verbey! I am a manof few words. Do this, and thou shalt go free with thy daughter, andI will protect thee, and give thee moneys, and my fatherly blessing;refuse to do it, and thou shalt go from thy snug cell into a blackdungeon full of newts and rats, where thou shalt rot till thy nails arelike birds' talons, and thy skin shrivelled up into mummy, and coveredwith hair like Nebuchadnezzar!"

  "Miserable varlet! Give thee my secret, give thee my fame, my life!Never! I scorn and spit at thy malice!"

  The friar's face grew convulsed with rage. "Wretch!" he roared forth,"darest thou unslip thy hound-like malignity upon great Bungey? Knowestthou not that he could bid the walls open and close upon thee; that hecould set yon serpents to coil round thy limbs, and yon lizard to gnawout thine entrails? Despise not my mercy, and descend to plain sense.What good didst thou ever reap from thy engine? Why shouldst thou loseliberty--nay, life--if I will, for a thing that has cursed thee withman's horror and hate?"

  "Art thou Christian and friar to ask me why? Were not Christiansthemselves hunted by wild beasts, and burned at the stake, and boiledin the caldron for their belief? Knave, whatever is holiest men everpersecute. Read thy Bible!"

  "Read the Bible!" exclaimed Bungey, in pious horror at such aproposition. "Ah, blasphemer, now I have thee! Thou art a heretic andLollard. Hollo, there!"

  The friar stamped his foot, the door opened; but to his astonishmentand dismay appeared, not the grim jailer, but the Duchess of Bedfordherself, preceded by Nicholas Alwyn. "I told your Grace truly--see,lady!" cried the goldsmith. "Vile impostor, where hast thou hidden thiswise man's daughter?"

  The friar turned his dull, bead-like eyes in vacant consternation fromNicholas to Adam, from Adam to the duchess. "Sir friar," said Jacquetta,mildly--for she wished to conciliate the rival seers--"what means thisover-zealous violation of law? Is it true, as Master Alwyn affirms,that thou hast stolen away and seducted this venerable sage and hisdaughter,--a maid I deemed worthy of a post in my own household?"

  "Daughter and lady," said the friar, sullenly, "this ill faytor, I havereason to know, has been practising spells for Lord Warwick and theenemy. I did but summon him hither that my art might undo his charms;and as for his daughter, it seemed more merciful to let her attend himthan to leave her alone and unfriended; specially," added the friar witha grin, "since the poor lord she hath witched is gone to the wars."

  "It is true, then, wretch, that thou or thy caitiffs have dared to layhands on a maiden of birth and blood!" exclaimed Alwyn. "Tremble!--see,here, the warrant signed by the king, offering a reward for thydetection, empowering me to give thee up to the laws. By Saint Dunstan,but for thy friar's frock, thou shouldst hang!"

  "Tut, tut, Master Goldsmith," said the duchess, haughtily, "lowerthy tone. This holy man is under my protection, and his fault was butover-zeal. What were this sage's devices and spells?"

  "Marry," said the friar, "that is what your Grace just hindereth myknowing. But he cannot deny that he is a pestilent astrologer, andsends word to the rebels what hours are lucky or fatal for battle andassault."

  "Ha!" said the duchess, "he is an astrologer! true, and came nearer tothe alchemist's truth than any multiplier that ever served me! My ownastrologer is just dead,--why died he at such a time? Peace, peace!be there peace between two so learned men. Forgive thy brother, MasterWarner!" Adam had hitherto disdained all participation in this dialogue.In fact, he had returned to the Eureka, and was silently examiningif any loss of the vital parts had occurred in its melancholydismemberment. But now he turned round and said, "Lady, leave the loreof the stars to their great Maker. I forgive this man, and thank yourGrace for your justice. I claim these poor fragments, and crave yourleave to suffer me to depart with my device and my child."

  "No, no!" said the duchess, seizing his hand. "Hist! whatever LordWarwick paid thee, I will double. No time now for alchemy; but for thehoroscope, it is the veriest season. I name thee my special astrologer."

  "Accept, accept," whispered Alwyn; "for your daughter's sake--for yourown--nay, for the Eureka's!"

  Adam bowed his head, and groaned forth, "But I go not hence--no, not afoot--unless this goes with me. Cruel wretch, how he hath deformed it!"

  "And now," cried Alwyn, eagerly, "this wronged and unhappy maiden?"

  "Go! be it thine to release and bring her to our presence, good Alwyn,"said the duchess; "she shall lodge with her father, and receive allhonour. Follow me, Master Warner."

  No sooner, however, did the friar perceive that Alwyn had gone in searchof the jailer, than he arrested the steps of the duchess, and said, withthe air of a much-injured man,--

  "May it please your Grace to remember that unless the greater magicianhave all power and aid in thwarting the lesser, the lesser can prevail;and therefore, if your Grace finds, when too late, that Lord Warwick'sor Lord Fitzhugh's arms prosper, that woe and disaster befall the king,say not it was the fault of Friar Bungey! Such things may be. NathlessI shall still sweat and watch and toil; and if, despite your unhappyfavour and encouragement to this hostile sorcerer, the king should beathis enemies, why, then, Friar Bungey is not so powerless as yourGrace holds him. I have said--Porkey verbey!--Figilabo et conabo--etperspirabo--et hungerabo--pro vos et vestros, Amen!"

  The duchess was struck by this eloquent appeal; but more and moreconvinced of the dread science of Adam by the evident apprehensionsof the redoubted Bungey, and firmly persuaded that she could bribe orinduce the former to turn a science that would otherwise be hostile intosalutary account, she contented herself with a few words of conciliationand compliment, and summoning the attendants who had followed her,bade them take up the various members of the Eureka (for Adam clearlydemonstrated that he would not depart without them) and conducted thephilosopher to a lofty chamber, fitted up for the defunct astro
loger.

  Hither, in a short time, Alwyn had the happiness of leading Sibyll,and witnessing the delighted reunion of the child and father. And then,after he had learned the brief details of their abduction, he relatedhow, baffled in all attempt to trace their clew, he had convincedhimself that either the duchess or Bungey was the author of the snare,returned to the Tower, shown the king's warrant, learned that an oldman and a young female had indeed been admitted into the fortress, andhurried at once to the duchess, who, surprised at his narration andcomplaint, and anxious to regain the services of Warner, had accompaniedhim at once to the friar.

  "And though," added the goldsmith, "I could indeed procure you lodgingsmore welcome to ye elsewhere, yet it is well to win the friendship ofthe duchess, and royalty is ever an ill foe. How came ye to quit thepalace?"

  Sibyll changed countenance, and her father answered gravely, "Weincurred the king's displeasure, and the excuse was the popular hatredof me and the Eureka."

  "Heaven made the people, and the devil makes three-fourths of what ispopular!" bluntly said the man of the middle class, ever against bothextremes.

  "And how," asked Sibyll, "how, honoured and true friend, didst thouobtain the king's warrant, and learn the snare into which we hadfallen?"

  This time it was Alwyn who changed countenance. He mused a moment,and then frankly answering, "Thou must thank Lord Hastings," gave theexplanation already known to the reader.

  But the grateful tears this relation called forth from Sibyll, herclasped hands, her evident emotion of delight and love, so pained poorAlwyn, that he rose abruptly and took his leave.

  And now the Eureka was a luxury as peremptorily forbid to the astrologeras it had been to the alchemist! Again the true science was despised,and the false cultivated and honoured. Condemned to calculations whichno man (however wise) in that age held altogether delusive, and whichyet Adam Warner studied with very qualified belief, it happened by someof those coincidences, which have from time to time appeared to confirmthe credulous in judicial astrology, that Adam's predictions becamefulfilled. The duchess was prepared for the first tidings that Edward'sfoes fled before him. She was next prepared for the very day in whichWarwick landed; and then her respect for the astrologer became strangelymingled with suspicion and terror, when she found that he proceededto foretell but ominous and evil events; and when at last, still incorroboration of the unhappily too faithful horoscope, came the news ofthe king's flight, and the earl's march upon London, she fled to FriarBungey in dismay. And Friar Bungey said,--

  "Did I not warn you, daughter? Had you suffered me to--"

  "True, true!" interrupted the duchess. "Now take, hang, rack, drown, orburn your horrible rival, if you will, but undo the charm, and save usfrom the earl!"

  The friar's eyes twinkled, but to the first thought of spite andvengeance succeeded another: if he who had made the famous waxeneffigies of the Earl of Warwick were now to be found guilty of someatrocious and positive violence upon Master Adam Warner, might not theearl be glad of so good an excuse to put an end to Himself?

  "Daughter," said the friar, at that reflection, and shaking his headmysteriously and sadly, "daughter, it is too late."

  The duchess in great despair flew to the queen. Hitherto she hadconcealed from her royal daughter the employment she had given to Adam;for Elizabeth, who had herself suffered from the popular belief inJacquetta's sorceries, had of late earnestly besought her to lay asideall practices that could be called into question. Now, however, whenshe confessed to the agitated and distracted queen the retaining of AdamWarner, and his fatal predictions, Elizabeth, who, from discretion andpride, had carefully hidden from her mother (too vehement to keep asecret) that offence in the king, the memory of which had made Warnerpeculiarly obnoxious to him, exclaimed,--

  "Unhappy mother, thou hast employed the very man my fated husband wouldthe most carefully have banished from the palace, the very man who couldblast his name."

  The duchess was aghast and thunderstricken.

  "If ever I forsake Friar Bungey again!" she muttered; "OH, THE GREATMAN!"

  But events which demand a detailed recital now rapidly pressing on, gavethe duchess not even the time to seek further explanation of Elizabeth'swords, much less to determine the doubt that rose in her enlightenedmind whether Adam's spells might not be yet unravelled by the timelyexecution of the sorcerer!