CHAPTER ONE
"I CALL it not an ill world," Lucette said, "though there be perils for those who walk not with a sure foot and a seeing eye. And these are days when a comely face and a quick wit may buy the best that the market holds, though there be little skill with viol of harp, or at the reading of scrolls. Look you, if you care little for Guilbert now, yet it may come. For how know you the sort of man he will be until you put him to proof? You know naught, being a maid; and, beyond that, being one who will look aside from a pleasant sight, or be deaf to a knowing tale. Yet, if you be wed, and you like him not, you may look about with a better eye than you do now. You may have pleasure enough. He may be brother to me, yet I would not blame you for that if it be done in a quiet way. Think you he would be faithful to you? And what men do, women may, as I hold, they being much alike at the end. For the priests may say as they will, but the sins both of women and men, they must be of the same count. For if a man sin, must there not be a woman there? And as to you, you may do your choice, and never a guess, if it be not seen; for you would go to a lover's bed as a Madonna goes to her prayers."
Yvonne said nothing to this. She liked her cousin better than she liked her words when she spoke in this way. And what use was there in words? She knew Lucette well, but Lucette knew not her. How indeed could that be, when she did not know her own mind?
She cared for Guilbert little enough, yet, of itself, she was not loth to be wed. More than most things, she wished to get away from this house where she had lived for so many years - they seemed many to her - and her uncle's eyes, which she feared.
Besides, it is the way of life that we fret least against that which we know we cannot turn. Be there a hope - a chance - it is enough, though it be no more than a wafer's weight. But Yvonne's cage was secure.
She was not alone in that she dreaded her uncle's eyes; there were few in the town - nay, there were few in Provence or in Languedoc - but would have owned to the same fear. Yet he was an old man, frail enough, and with a cough which gave him little peace in the winter days. He wore no sword, and his servants were only two. But he was an alchemist whose name was a word of dread, even to Flanders, and to the Empire beyond. It was he who held the famous charm which was sold to Charles of Orleans at a later date, but which did not save him from death in Paris streets.
So the rhyme ran.
Yvonne knew that her uncle could have made her to love his son, had it been worth his pains, or had he doubted that she would fall to his will. He had charms enough at his hands. There was that one of which all knew, though it was of such price that it could be seldom sold. It was of powdered cherrywood, made into a paste with the blood of a red cock, which had had no white feather at all (being a bird less easy to find than those might think who have not sought), and the blood of an untrodden pullet, of which every feather was speckless white (being another search which may take more time than would be said at a quick guess): and who had this paste could bring any woman to his touch, as close as are two cherries on a twisted stalk. Everyone knew of that charm. It was the whole world's talk. Yet it was a simple thing to some of those that the old man sold. Yes, she would go from that house with a glad step.
Thinking of a freedom so soon to be, and of no will to give heed to her cousin's words, Yvonne broke into song.
But then she thought of Guilbert, and the song died. She did not hate him at all. He was not one whom it would be over-easy to hate. But she had little will to wed him, as they both knew. It would be done (if it were done at all, which it were idle to doubt) at the old man's will.
For she was in his hands, even apart from the bond of fear. It was not a time when a woman could walk in her own way, except it were that of shame. So he had said, on a day which was not long past.
He had counted all she had cost since, he said, he had taken her, being penniless and his sister's child, she being dead of the plague, and from that hour she had been reared at his cost. He summed it all in good Burgundy crowns. Surely, it seemed, she must be his while the debt stood. And how could she pay such a debt, having no gold? There was one way, as he had not scrupled to say. He could have got a large price had he sold her at Arles, that she might be a woman of the public baths. It might be thought that he would not so, she being called of his blood. Yet such things were at that time. Nor had they always, as it was said, a poor end. There was one such at Artois who sat at a Count's right hand, being Countess now.
But Livron did no shame to his niece. She should wed his son. That Guilbert was willing for that need be no wonder, for he was young and had eyes. And for her, a maid need not be too willing before the day. There will be time to learn and to know.
Yvonne's song ceased, and she said no more, looking out on the town - for the window was not low - and on to the high white towers of the castle of Faucon-haut, which was on the steep hillside overhanging the town, it might be three miles away. . . . Why, she thought, were women thus, that they must bend to the strength of a man's hand? And what this traitorous weakness in their own bodies which drew them ever to that which they would not do? . . . She knew it was in herself, though now it brought her no joy. . . . She knew more than that. She knew that love might wake to a different tune. She had felt the beating of Lucette's heart as they lay shiftless in the same bed - as the way was at that time, when there came the sound of Henri's measured taps, that were no louder than ivy-leaves on the pane, when she would take up her cloak and go for a time to the inner room, that Lucette might do as she would with none to witness her play. . . .
CHAPTER TWO
MASTER LIVRON entered the room, and his voice broke the course of Yvonne's thoughts. It was a voice she had learned to dread, as he knew. Yet it was dread which she would not show. She faced the world with serene eyes, hiding her fears. So he knew, and he loved her less, if that might be, for the knowledge he had.
That he gave her no love she was sure. Yet he had done her no ill. Nay, he had done her much good. All men would have owned that, though he was not one they would care to praise. As a child, she had been tended well. She had been brought up with Lucette. She knew nothing of blows. And Lucette had been beaten at times, even to a recent day. She had no cause for fear, except for the look in his eyes, and that he was a magician, and therefore one whom it was nature to dread.
He had done her no ill, and now she was to be wed to his son. There was no evil in that, on which he had shewn that he had a set mind. But now he said with a cold sneer in his speech:
"Mope you thus, Yvonne, with a bridal near? You would to bed with a sour face? You have shewn Guilbert that to his grief, who should have thanked the saints for a fouler fate.
"Well you may turn your eyes from that dread. There is one will have you bedded another way. The Count claims his right as of old."
He watched her closely as he said this, for it was a matter on which he had his own will, and it might be of moment to him to know her thoughts; but he learnt nothing, for, in fact, she did not know the meaning of what he said.
"The Count?" she asked vaguely, in a puzzled doubt. "What has he - - ? I know not - - ."
Lucette broke in with a wonder which was better informed "But that custom is dead! I thought it no more than an old tale. Is it not cursed of the Church? . . . Oh, Yvonne, if you should bear the Count's child, and the Lady Isabeau let it live! . . . I should build not on that overmuch. It is a thing which she is like to stop with a quick word."
Her father answered to that, "Peace, Lucette. You prate ever from a void mind. It is more like that it is the Lady Isabeau's wile to outwit the town. She would have us quarrel without the law. . . . It is a thing, Yvonne, that you will not do, though they drag you forth. You must say that with a firm voice, or with tears if you will. But if you falter now, I will see that you get not that, but a worse fate. . . . For you are pawn in a game that you do not see."
Yvonne looked at him with quiet inscrutable eyes "Yet I might see, being told." She was on her guard now, as he knew, and her thoughts would not be easy to read. His chance had been to learn what she felt at the first moment the news was told, and that was spoiled by her own ignorance, and Lucette's words. Yet he saw that she must be told in a plain way.
"It is a right," he said, "of the overlord of this vale, a right so old that there is none knoweth from whence it came, that he may claim a bride on her first night. He hath her for that once, and after that she goes to her husband's rule, and the Seigneur may not touch her again. There was an old time (so it is said) when it was counted shame to a bride that she was not claimed under this law, so that the Seigneur must have those who were ill-favoured, or for whom he had little lust, lest his vassals were wroth. . . . But that was in a far day, and it is a custom that is long dead."
"Can it be law yet," Yvonne asked, "being against the will of the Church, and so long dead?"
"The Church doth not forbid the law in this land. It is not of that strength. And it hath allowed this in older days, and maketh boast that it doth not change. There will be no help from the Church. Think you the priest sat with a shut mouth when this thing was planned? . . . And for the law, there is our charter in proof. It is set out in the rights reserved, with a score of others which no one heeds at this day."
"Yet it is a thing easy to foil," Yvonne answered, as one who speaks of that in which she has but a small stake. "If there be no bridal, it sounds to me that the Count's claim does not come to its birth. We have but to say that, as for this time I will not wed, and he can make claim to another maid if he will."
M. Livron heard, but put this solution aside: "It is not to be answered thus. We must choose firmer ground. . . . You need do naught at this time but to say that to Count Gismond's bed you will never go. You nay say that with a good oath, or with talk of a poinard in your own heart. You may say aught which will rouse the town."
Yvonne listened, and said nothing at all.
Her uncle, observing her in a cold doubt, was moved to add: "It may be that we shall do well to bring the bridal to a near day, that we may talk of a thing done."
She said nothing to that either, though she did not look more pleased than before.
M. Livron went without further words. He went to confer with the maire and the chief citizens of the town. He had reasons, good to himself, why Yvonne should wed with his son on a near day, as will appear in its place, and it did not suit him at all that she should bear a son whose parentage might be less than sure. It was true that the law of Languedoc, and indeed of all France, was clear on that point. Let such a child have what parent it might, it was born in wedlock, and of its father's name. But there were lands beyond France which might read their laws in another way. It was a thing not to be risked.
He was not one who could count on the goodwill of the town, being much feared but little loved, yet fear may be of avail where love were a weaker urge; and this thing was too great for such feelings to weigh overmuch, either for evil or good.
Yet he went with a fear that he could not speak, for he knew that the Count (or the Lady Isabeau, which might be a better guess) had not set up this claim from any will that such a custom should prevail in the land. The Count was not of that kind. It was to turn aside the wrangle over the market tolls, on which the Count was unsure either of the law or his neighbour's aid.
He had chosen, it seemed, to make quarrel on a ground on which those of his own order might give more support if a strife came, for if the terms of service on which there had been charter granted in the old days, or a fief held, could be broken at will, or with the plea of new age, where might it stop, if at all? The nobles at this time were a caste apart, and it was not yet in Languedoc or Provence that their order shook. They stood strong and secure. In Italy, the cities were of great strength. They must be cajoled to a lord's rule, or be stirred to strife one with another, that the nobles might hold their place in a land they had ceased to rule. But in France there was yet a nobility of unchallenged strength which few would make front to defy, and between noble and common the cleavage was clear and deep, and but seldom crossed. A custom might be fallen from use, but what of that? Such things must be as the Seigneurs willed. Who should give aught but thanks if a lord would deign to a peasant's bride?
The town provost, a man of less courage than law, shook a timid head. "I say it not in the street, but among ourselves it is well to know. It is old law, but it is not dead. The Count is in the right as to that."
The maire asked: "Will you say that a law cannot die of disuse, be its age ever so great? Do not men change with the years? It was the use of a ruder age, and unmeet for a Christian land."
"I say less than that," the provost answered. "Yet it is well to look to a journey's end ere you take horse for the road. This is in the charter by which the rights of our township stand. If we call it too old, may not the Count say that the charter itself is in the same case?"
"We could make answer to that. We could say that there are bonds which have been kept every year, whether on his side or on ours. They are alive, and this dead."
M. Livron listened to this talk and was ill-content. He said: "Sirs, may I speak?" He asked thus, for he was not of the Council, being there of grace, and he knew that he was little loved. Also, he made habit of a posture of lowliness, which was not of the mind.
"You may speak of right," the maire answered, "for you are nearly concerned."
"Then I would say this. The Count seeks not that which he asks. It is the market tolls that he will have in a fuller hand, as we all know. But he will test us thus that he may judge of what courage we be; if we should yield now, he would look that we yield again in another way."
"That may be so," the provost answered, "yet that is not all. He seeks quarrel where he is sure that the law is not on our side."
"You may be right in that," the maire said; "but there is more to be thought. We cannot strive with the Count except we have the common men of the town in a fighting mood. If we think not to yield in all, we must choose cause which will rouse them to a quick heat. . . . And I think this hath the better sound."
The provost was less sure of that, but he was sure that it was an issue to avoid, if any way could be found. He sought delay, as a lawyer will.
So he would have said; but M. Sault spoke for the first time, and he was one to be heard, being of most wealth in the town. He had been a chapman in younger days who had travelled far, buying and bartering in strange lands, and he had come home with a heavy purse. We may judge from that that he had been both cautious and bold, the times being as they were. He had been skilled in the use of both sword and tongue, but he had ever trusted the tongue more, and the pen better than that.
Now he dwelt at home, sending his sons forth, for he was near the twilight of life, and his paunch grew. He asked:
"What sayeth the maid herself? There is much in that."
So they all saw. You could not rouse the town on the part of one who would go to the castle on willing feet.
M. Livron make quick reply: "She hath heard but an hour since. She is between anger and woe. She saith that she would liefer die than be handled thus."
Could he say that as yet she had said nothing at all?
M. Sault nodded. He thought it a likely thing. Had it been Livron's daughter, Lucette. . . . "If she takes it thus," he said, "it may be we could raise the town."
"You would deny the Count in plain words?" the maire asked. He became more fearful as the crisis threatened, as a man might well do at that time, holding the place that he did. The Count might not be of a great power, but there might be those who would join his part. He foresaw many deaths. More than that, he saw the town burn. . . . He saw one who hung with a noosed neck, and it was like to himself.
M. Sault thought ere he replied:
"Nay," he said, "I would give answer in humble words. I would ask of grace, not of might, as seeking mercy from one stronger than we."
It was a counsel that suited all, and was quickly agreed. M. Sault might have said the same words had the town been ready for strife or siege, but in fact he saw gain in delay. He had thought of crossbows that were in warehouse at Arles, waiting payment from the Count of Angoumois. Well, they could come here now. But he gave no sign of his thoughts, having learned that silence has a high price. He would talk of that to his sons. . . . and of other needs.
A week later there was a new talk. Konrad Wolvenstein. whose name had been heard from Prague to Paris in the wars of two decades, was camping, with three hundred of his condottieri, upon the river-bank a mile north of the town.
There was little doubt of the meaning of that. Soldiers of fortune do not come by chance to the place where a quarrel breeds. It was true that this was a small matter, and Konrad had a great name. But in times of dearth men must be alert for the landing of little fish. Besides, a great fire may be lit by a small spark.
It was said of Konrad that he was a man who looked far. The maire heard the news, and was glad. Condottieri were to be bought by the better purse, and there was no doubt where that would be found.
There was much wealth in the town, though it lay quiet, making no show. It hid in little houses, in narrow streets. It looked timidly forth, as a mouse peeps from its hole. But it would be brought out in willing hands if it could be used to free the town from the tax which the castle claimed. And it was known to all that the Count was a poor man, or, rather, one who spent to his purse's depth, which is to come to the same end.
CHAPTER THREE
KONRAD diced at his ease with his two lieutenants, being one of the three who cared nothing whether he lost or won.
In the valley, the summer evening was warm. The tent was open, so that Halt Redwood, seated on Konrad's left, could see the fifty-tented camp which had been pitched to northward on the river-side.
Beyond the willowed bank, beyond his seeing, lay the beauty of the Rhone Valley, and further yet, blue in the advancing dusk, the mountains of Provence. Konrad was a small man, dark, quiet, neat. He carried no weapons. He might be able to use a sword, but it was a thing which no man had seen him do. He had a brain and a pen, and they had brought him repute, and a name fear from the Pyrenees to the Danube's mouths. Soldier of fortune he might be in a time which shines out of the past with a cruel light, yet there were many of whom men spoke in a worse way.
He had three hundred men in that place, and many more in a Florentine camp, over whom he had power even to life and death while the term of their service held; for in the breadth of Europe there was no power that would have the will (even had it the might) to dispute his rule. They were in his hands, and they had the hazards of the profession of arms, but, beyond that, they were safe as few were in the Europe of that day. Even a priest might be less surely immune from the civil arm of the law.
There had been a day when the Duke of Hesse had seized one of their number on a charge of wounding an ensign of his guard in a tavern brawl. Konrad had used no threats, he had shown no force. He had gone alone to the castle, he had seen the Duke, he had walked out with the man at his heels.
After that he had tried the case fairly himself, hearing all sides. He had acquitted the man and the Duke and he had been better friends than before. He was a leader to trust.
Now there had been peace in Europe for nearly two years. except for bickerings of a local kind, such as were not likely to cease while the feudal order stood as it did, and there were ten thousand barons and counts who were kings of as much land as they could see from a height on a day of mist, or perhaps less.
There had been peace last summer, and again this, until the late August trees were losing their fresher green, and it would soon be too late for the stir of war till the next spring should come. It was a long unnatural peace, causing grief and loss to craftsmen of many kinds, and filling the countryside with ragged disbanded wanderers, beggars to silk and steel, or bullies to those of a humbler guise, so that men of peace moved abroad in a greater fear than when the talk was of gathered armies and rumours of battles fought. Yet there was more labour for the harvest, and the smith and wright would mend gear more swiftly, and for smaller charge, than when the call was ever for horseshoes and halberd-heads, and waggon-wheels that the Jews would buy.
Peace everywhere, except in Italy, where there was always strife. Konrad had held his force together last summer, though the cost had been heavy. He did not wish to disband that which he had been building for twenty years. He did not believe that peace could last among the hundred jealous contentious powers who held precarious dominion in the world he knew.
When the last autumn came, he had reluctantly paid off half his men, and gone into winter quarters with the remainder. Then had come an offer from the junta at Florence. He would not go himself; he distrusted the Florentines. But when spring came, with no hope of more attractive enterprise, he had hired them two hundred lances, with his lieutenant, Bernardi; and then four hundred more, and recently another two hundred, always with instructions to Bernardi that he should be ready to strike camp if he should write him that the sum agreed to be paid monthly in advance was seven days late in reaching the hands of his agent at Amsterdam. He could trust Bernardi. But he would not put himself in the power of the Florentines. He could deal more safely from a distance. And Bernardi understood the methods of Italian warfare. It was very well as it was.
So he had been lying on the borders of Burgundy, with a hundred lances that he had kept to his own. control, idle as it seemed, but watching the tangled game; of diplomacy which it was his business to understand, and from which it was his business to stand aloof, when a tale had reached him of a petty quarrel a hundred miles to the south, and he had marched at the next dawn, counting, surely enough, that one or both antagonists would approach him for aid which should be decisive in such a strife. . . .
The dice went badly for Halt. He lost quietly, giving no sign that his last three nobles were drawn forth to be staked on the board. His face, which, despite its tan, was rather that of a student than a soldier of fortune, maintained its pleasant impassivity. He looked boyish beside the lined face and short-cut grizzled hair of his leader, and the massive form of Raoul.
Konrad played as one whose thoughts were not in the game, and who cared nothing for the coins he staked. Raoul played as he fought. He was no strategist, but there were few better men in France or middle Europe to judge of tactics when the battle joined, or to lead the storm of a doubtful breach. Raoul had a quality that would flash in extremity to surprising ends. He might be dull at the council table, but was inspired by tumult, and coolest when crisis came. Men spoke of him as an indifferent swordsman. He had little skill with the foils; but it was different in the battlefield, where few would choose to meet the rush of the giant form, and the sweep of the heavy sword. He played now with the ease of long experience in a routine way, but with an occasional audacity which, being infrequent, was incalculable in its results.
Halt Redwood was the only one to whom the game was of any moment. He knew the limit of the gold he carried, and that he had no reserve or resource beyond it. He knew it to be near its end, and he lost steadily, as men will under such conditions. In any case he was no match for his more practised opponents in a game in which skill had its place, though chance ruled.
Konrad may have guessed this, but he was not one to share his thoughts. He looked a moment at the young Englishman who had walked into his camp three months before, and whom he had enlisted with few questions, and trusted already as he trusted few. His glance told nothing. He had not made his reputation by losing, whether at dice or war. He called carefully and won again. Then Raoul called high, too high - and lost to both of them with doubled stakes. He reached for the dice-box to throw again, with a jest at his folly; but Konrad rose:
"I will walk," he said. "I would have you with me, Raoul."
Halt understood it was indicated that he should not accompany them. "Shall I set guard for the night?" he asked. This had been his duty on the march; having camped, his lack of experience caused him to ask for orders. Konrad paused for a moment, with a hesitation that was unusual to him. They were in a peaceful country. Certainly they had nothing to fear from town or castle. Either might hope for their help, but could gain nothing by molestation. Besides, their own troubles were sufficient. "There is no haste," he said at last, "till the roll be called. After that, you will place sentries as in the way of war, and with reliefs during the night. You will give orders that none leaves the camp till the roll is called again at the dawn."
Saying this, he laid a hand on Raoul's arm and they went out together. Halt sat watching them through the open side of the tent. The river was low in the dry August days, but still of a great breadth. The camp was stretched along a strip of sloping pasture beside it. To the left was a spreading copse, with undergrowth, dense in places. Halt thought it a poor place for a camp. But there was no fear of attack from any quarter. He knew Konrad to be a practised soldier. He had chosen ground where water was near, and grass for horses, and wood for fires. He did not wear a cloak on a warm day. Yet he would have a full watch kept. Why was that?
He saw Konrad and Raoul pacing between the camp and the wood. Konrad was on the right. He looked slight beside the burly form of his lieutenant. He stooped a little as though wearied. He was a man who carried himself well, but it was the end of a day of toil, and he was not young. He appeared to be talking earnestly. Yet Halt had observed that he was a man who measured words with care.
They passed out of sight as the river bent. Halt remained seated in his leader's tent, thinking idly. His pay would be due in a week's time, and meanwhile that last throw had left him sufficient to carry on. He did not wish to show need, or to borrow. Konrad had asked him nothing when he had given him his position; at least, nothing that mattered. He had asked some things; keenly enough. But he judged men for himself. Free companions would enlist with such pasts as were often best forgotten.
Halt knew that he had been fortunate beyond reason. He believed Konrad to be one of the best soldiers in Europe. And he had seen nothing, in these months of peace, of the fouler side of the trade to which he had taken. There was an iron discipline in the camp to which all must bend: there was no license allowed. While they had loitered on the borders of Burgundy they had done wrong to none. A child of ten might have walked through their tents without fear; a merchant could have driven a mule unplundered, though its saddle-bags had bulged with gold. He had not learnt that the condottiere was a beast that endured the chain, knowing the time would come when he would be loosed.
The tent where he sat showed some comfort without ostentation. There was a plain trestle table covered with a velvet cloth. The camp-stools were upholstered in leather There was a camp-bed. There were two chests. One held Konrad's clothes, as Halt knew. The other, iron-bound and very heavy, his treasure, and his private records. It was unguarded.
Its keys hung at its owner's belt. Its weight would have made it difficult to steal. Its publicity was its protection. While Konrad lived, he would be a bold man who would enter that tent unbidden.
Stark ruthless discipline was the basis of the order which the camp maintained, though it was a discipline which dealt only with essential things. Halt knew already how ruthless it could be if the need came. He had seen a man hanged for an offence which would have meant no more than the stocks, or a public whipping, in the England from which he came. But there had been no protest, even from the sullen silence of the man condemned.
A sudden uproar broke his thought. It rose from beyond the river-bend. It was not too far off for him to hear Raoul's great voice roaring an order. It sounded as with a strange excitement or urgency. Men within his sight had leapt up, and were running toward it. He rose quickly, not knowing that there was anything to fear, yet he had a sense of disaster given by that distant voice, and he drew his sword as he ran.
Round the bend, he came on no scene of fighting. The men were scattering through the wood in pursuit of one who had already fled.
Konrad was supported on the ground by Raoul's arms. He had a crossbow shaft in the back.
CHAPTER FOUR
KONRAD lay on the camp-bed which had been carried out from the tent. He knew well that he had not many hours to live. He would have been sooner dead had he allowed them to draw the barbed head from the wound. But the bolt had been cut with sharp shears, close to the flesh, so that he could be propped in comfort, and that the life might hold for a few hours, and here he lay with a grey face, giving no sign of pain, with his lieutenants beside, and three hundred men paraded before him.
He spoke very slowly and very low, as though he feared to breathe deeply; but the words came clearly in the silence:
"Comrades," he said, "you have sworn in all things to do my will; will you do that for the last time?" There was a murmur of assent. "Some of you," he said, "have been with me for many years. I have spared neither myself, nor any. I have been hard, but I have kept faith, and my hands are clean as to you. I have not wasted your lives, nor hired you to a foul cause. Now that I am near death, I have work undone, which I must pass on to other hands. For the times that you have sworn service to me, I will appoint you a new leader, and I will have you while I yet live to swear service to him. That is my right, and I will take denial from none."
He motioned Raoul to come closer. He pointed to the keys at his belt, and Raoul loosed and took them. He did not doubt that he was to be lord of that band. Even Bernardi was to be beneath him now. Men watched, but there was no murmur. Raoul was well liked. He would be good leader enough.
Then Konrad motioned also to Redwood, and as he came more closely to learn the will of the dying man he saw him turn again to Raoul, and speak so low that, though he was near, he did not hear the words.
Raoul started. Then he flushed darkly, and a look of protest, almost of anger, came into his eyes.
Konrad spoke no more, but gazed at him in silence, and his glance fell. Then he stepped across to Halt and placed the keys in his hand.
Halt was slow to take them. He stood bewildered He did not understand, nor, for a moment, did any. Then there was a murmur of voices, and the note of dissatisfaction was not hard to hear.
Konrad took no notice of that. He turned to Raoul again. "Call them three by three, that they may swear in my sight."
Halt Redwood found words at last. Through the confusion of his mind, one thought was clear, that he had no right - that he was not fit - to take that which was so strangely offered.
He was ignorant and unpractised. He had already been advanced beyond any proved deserving. He made a motion to return the keys to Raoul. "My captain," he began, "I cannot - - "
The low level voice of the dying man cut short his protest. "You are not asked."
Three by three, Raoul called the men forward. To each he repeated the oath which they had first made to Konrad. An oath of loyalty, obedience, and service: an oath absolute and unreserved; but it was now sworn to Halt for the remaining term of the service of each man only. That was just, as they saw.
There was no protest, nor any overt unwillingness, till more than half the number had sworn, when Raoul called the names of three, and but two came forward. He called again the name of Gustave Meyer; but the man, from where he stood, shook his head, and moved a step backward.
As the swearing had proceeded, Konrad had lain with closed eyes. None could tell whether he heard. He looked very near his death. Now he raised his head once more. His voice came low, but very clear. It held no sound of anger. "Gustave, come here."
He came forward with a more confident look than he had shown before.
Halt saw a heavy, swarthy man, with very black eyes, having an expression that was at once insolent and furtive. His forehead was divided equally by a wide livid scar, almost straight down from hair to nose. It did not look like a sword-cut. It had, in fact, been given by a woman's hand from a hot spit in a kitchen brawl.
He looked at Halt with an open contempt. His youth, his inexperience, his slighter frame. . . . Halt was conscious of all these as he looked back, though he gave no sign.
Konrad spoke again, even more gently than before. He was speaking now with a very visible effort, as though he found it hard to control either his voice or his consciousness. "Gustave," he said, "I do not order twice. You will swear."
Gustave looked at him in a sullen doubt. Plainly he was dying. His day was over. Raoul was the better man. If he stood out' for Raoul, who knew that he might make him his lieutenant in a natural gratitude?
He looked down uneasily, but he shook his head.
He was beginning to speak his mind, when the slow voice startled him to a sudden fear:
"I do not order twice. You will hang."
The man looked at Raoul; but he got no answering glance. Raoul had already signalled to the two men whose hands were on him. "Nay," he said sullenly, "I will swear if I must."
"You will not swear. I do not order twice. You will hang at dawn. If I live, you will hang. If I am dead, it will be as your captain wills."
They led him away.
When the swearing was over, Konrad was carried back to his tent. The long summer twilight had given way to the light of a crescent moon. He called for lamps, and for writing materials. He wrote slowly, but with a firm hand. He wrote to the junta at Florence. He wrote to Bernardi. He wrote to a goldsmith at Amsterdam: to a Jew in London: to a merchant in Hamburg. They brought hot wax, and he drew the signet from his hand, and sealed them one by one with his wolf's-head crest. They were curt notes, for he wrote as he spoke, sparing words, but with a meaning direct and clear.
As he wrote, his lips were tightly pressed, and his face was greyer. When he had finished, he turned to Halt, and placed the signet-ring on his hand. Then he looked to Raoul again. His lips opened: "You will tell him - - " he began. The words ended in a rush of blood. He did not speak again.
CHAPTER FIVE
HALT REDWOOD sat by the side of the dead man. He did not think of rest. The letters lay on the table. Each was sealed at the foot, but had been left unclosed for his reading. They made mystery deeper.
To Bernardi, Konrad had written:
I am dying at Faucon-haut, being a tower that looks at Provence from the right bank of the Rhône. An Englishman, Halt Redwood, is my successor. You will take his orders in all. Adieu.
Konrad.
To his agent at Amsterdam he wrote with an almost equal brevity:
I am dying. You will account for all to Halt Redwood, an Englishman. He has my signet. Raoul is witness. Send him schedule of that which is now his by a very trusty hand. I recommend you to him as a proved friend, knowing you will not fail. Adieu.
Konrad.
To the London Jew he had written to like purpose, but at greater length. There were instructions for the settlement of debts in various parts of Europe; for the realization of certain properties, if possible before his death should be known; for dealing with certain Florentine bills of exchange; and in respect of financial claims against the Dukedom of Hesse. It was a letter only vaguely understood by him who must now take up the matters with which it dealt, for he had little knowledge of the international financial methods by which the Jews of that day had subjugated the Europe on which the nobles strove to their gain.
The Hamburg letter was merely a curt line over his signet, ordering certain stores, for which payment would be made by his London agent, as usual, against Bernardi's certificate. It showed something of the character of the man who, stricken so suddenly, could yet remember such a detail, and hold his death at bay while he provided for those who were dependent upon him.
The letter to the junta at Florence, though as curt in tone as were the others, contained a matter over which its reader paused for a time, as indicating that there was more than a random favouritism in the choice which had placed him in such an unexpected and unearned authority.
It ran thus:
My Lords, I am dying, and time is short. I have appointed my lieutenant, Halt Redwood, my successor and heir. He will carry out my orders for eleven months from now, for to this he is sworn. For such purpose he may require the troops which are now with you, under my captain, Bernardi. I do not know. Should he thus, they are pledged to you for four months only. I give you such notice as I may. I had written tomorrow to the like purpose had I lived.
It seemed from this that Konrad had been at the threshold of some enterprise for which his full strength might - or might not - be needed, and that he was now passing it on to his heir, whether he would or no.
Even yet there might be a high price to pay for the authority and wealth which had been thrust upon him. And he had no choice! . . . For though he was captain to the living, he was still the servant of the dead.
But how should he learn the purpose for which he had been so strangely chosen?
Something, as he had understood, Raoul could tell. More might be learned from the iron-bound chest which was now his, but which he made no haste to open. There, doubtless, was the record of the dead man's life, the intimate things of one who had been aloof and reticent beyond the habit of most. Six hours ago to have touched it would have been an outrage beyond pardon.
Halt had seen something of the revelations which might come from the chest of a Free Companion. He had been placed in charge of the opening of that of the man he had seen hanged a week ago. He remembered its shabby mean utilities, its sacred useless things, its surprising oddities, its shames. . . . He could not imagine what might be in the chest before him, but he had little will to look while the dead man lay so near. That was absurd. His thoughts wandered to the other hanging, which was to take place at dawn - unless he forbade it. He started to consciousness that issues of life and death were his, not, as they had been, at his sword's point only.
Raoul came in. He saluted in the routine manner of a life's habitude, but with respect, and an under-aspect of geniality. Perhaps the place made it more natural for him to do so. He had never entered that tent without the formality of deference while Konrad lived.
To Halt it came strangely from one who had been his senior officer but a few hours before, and he repressed a start with difficulty. But he was inwardly pleased, and most so at the expression which underlay the action. He thought that he could trust Raoul, and on that much might depend in the enigmatic days which were before him.
"Did you find him?" he asked. Raoul said they had not; they had traced the man's flight from where he left the further side of the wood. There was a treeless meadow beyond, undulating at the further end.
Lest he should be seen as he crossed this open ground, he had continued along a ditch that flanked the wood for some distance. In the dry weather, what would otherwise have been a ditch of water was of mud only. It showed his footmarks - recent marks of a man who ran. Not large feet. The right always made the heavier impress. Possibly an old wound in the left leg. When the ground favoured him he had left the ditch, and his track was lost until he had leapt a little dyke beyond it, that bounded the high road. It was scarcely more than a long stride, but he seemed to have leapt short, and slipped down on the further side. Clearly a somewhat lame man. The road shewed no marks, but he must have gone by it, for on the farther side was swampy ground, and a spreading pool.
It was a way no man would choose who fled from a near pursuit. There was more than this. By the angle at which he crossed the meadow he must have intended to take the road to the left - and that led to the town or round it, and to the castle beyond.
And - Raoul pointed out - the gates of the town would be already shut, for they had learned that they were closed early while the trouble with the castle continued. It seemed likely that he had gone on to the castle, or that the town gates had been opened to let him through. Even had they not been shut at the time, such a man must have been very noticeable as he passed inward, lame, breathless, soiled from the ditch, bearing a crossbow.
Well, it must be left till the dawn came.
Halt turned to the letters on the table. He would not hold Raoul at arm's length. He must lean on him too greatly. "You should read these," he said, "and you shall tell me what you may to explain."
But Raoul shook his head. He was no scholar. Halt closed them carefully, sealing them with Konrad's signet. They must be sent at dawn. But how?
He knew little of how letters were conveyed in safety through the troubled Europe of those days, or whether he should detail men of his own to carry them, or who to trust to that length; but he need not show his doubt.
"You shall send them at the dawn in the speediest manner, but by a sure hand," he said; "they are letters of weight." He handed them to Raoul, who dropped them into his pouch. "I will send Werther," he said, "on a lean mule."
Halt wondered a moment how one man should bear letters to places so far apart; but he was slow to expose his doubt, and Raoul added: "There is a Jew in Lyons who makes boast that he never fails with any missive placed in his hands, though it be for Tartary or the Afric Moors."
So it was done on the next day. Werther rode in a mean habit, and on a mule such as would tempt few to its theft. There was a clump of spears a furlong back on the road, bearing the arms of the grey wolf's head which most men knew. Should Werther be stayed by a thieves' band, there would be swift rescue enough: should there be trouble of higher kind, the escort might have blows to take or give, while the poor man's mule would ride on, for who but a wayside thief would take heed of him?
CHAPTER SIX
HALT slept little that night, having many matters of which to think. When the morning came he must question Raoul; he must explore the records in the iron-bound chest; he must learn the power which was now his, and the burden which had been cast upon him.
He must take order also in many things. There was the dead man's funeral to arrange, his assassin to be sought. For the routine control of the camp he could trust Raoul, as Konrad had done before. Konrad had not been one to interfere in the smaller things, which made for the ease of one who must take his cloak before he had fitted it to his own wear.
Falling into a troubled sleep as the dawn neared, he was roused by Raoul, who asked: "Shall the man hang?"
Halt saw that there can be little peace for one who leads. He should have had that on his mind without Raoul's aid. Raoul might be unable to read, and for that, or other cause, he had not been placed in command. Yet, at this first test, he had shown himself the better fitted to rule.
Halt saw that the man would have hanged while his mind wandered on other things, or in the absence of sleep. Now the power of life and death was in his hands. How should it be used on his first day? He would be merciful if he might. He said: "I will have the man here. He should have learnt sense in the night."
Raoul looked at him while a second passed. It was no longer than that. His shoulders may have lifted an inch, but no more.
Halt knew, in that second's time, that he had been judged, if not for a fool, yet for one who walked in a foolish way. He saw also that Raoul would be one he could trust, as Konrad had found before. Indeed, there was no difference to Raoul. He had obeyed Konrad for many years; he obeyed him now. He brought in the man.
Gustave looked at Halt in a sullen way, though there was hope in his heart. He was of a shrewdness to see that he had not been brought there had it been determined that he should hang. A minute ago he had thought that the ropes which bound his arms would be there to his life's end.
Halt looked at him coldly enough: he was a man he disliked. The world would be no worse when he died. Halt saw that; but having brought him here. . . . That had been his mistake. He said only: "You have had time to learn sense in the night. Will you hang, or swear?"
Naturally, the man swore.
He went back to his tent with his hands free. He found his chest open, his possessions shared among those who were of his own troop. Some things were returned, others not. He saw a gold chain in a man's hands. It was not worth a life, being of light weight, yet it cost two. Daggers shone in the dawn. Gustave rolled on a bench, holding his side. There was a man whom Halt must hang when the tale came to his ears. There could be no doubt about that. There had been refusal to surrender a stolen thing, and a fatal blow. He gave judgment in a cold way, being wroth at himself. The men saw that he was one who would rule, and they gave him the fear which he might have lost had Gustave lived, and had that been the tale's end.
But he was condemned in his own heart. He had lost two men of those he led by a weakness he should not have shown, when it might have been no more than one.
But Halt had done and heard much beside this ere the noon came. He had sent out riders to search for word of a lame archer who fled in haste. He had sent complaint to the castle and to the town. He knew enough of how matters stood to guess that there would be little will to quarrel with him from either side, and he wrote in a bold way. He let it he seen that to find the assassin might be to win a friend, but that to shield him would be to have a most certain foe.
He had request made also that Konrad should be buried in the town, in the great church of Ste. Sarah.
That brought a priest to his tent. He had questions to ask. Konrad had been excommunicated ten years ago; once, if not more. Had the Church lifted the ban? There was a doubt about that. Had Konrad sought the aid of Holy Church when he died? It could not be said that he had. Halt could have thrown some light upon that. He had learned from Raoul at an earlier hour that Konrad had held aloof from the Church for many years.
He had made vow that he would not ask absolution till he had revenged a wrong, which was still undone when he died.
Halt might know this, but he felt that it would be the wrong thing to say. He replied that a man who stops a crossbow bolt with his back has little time to think of such things before his life goes. There had been no priest in the camp.
As to the question of an excommunication of earlier years, Halt knew enough of the politics of Southern Europe to make little of that. Had not the papal power mixed in all the confused quarrels of the last fifty years? Had it not taken active part in the wars? Had it not become a routine to excommunicate those against whom it fought?
The priest said it was beyond his power to decide. He must ask the Cardinal's will. Halt was impressed, though he gave no sign, by the mention of so high a dignitary of the Church. He showed simplicity in that. They were but a day's ride from Avignon, where the Pope dwelt at that time, and around which he was then building the wall which still stands, massive and high. His palace rose in the midst. Cardinals in Languedoc and Provence were as thick as fleas in a bed.
But though he did not know that, he knew that it was a point on which he could not take denial. Konrad must be buried with honour in blessed ground. He was an Englishman, and in that country the priests had less power. They were taught to walk in a meeker way. He said something of this. The priest answered that he would put the case to the Cardinal in the best light, using such arguments as he could.
"There are a hundred here, on which you should dwell ere it be too late." The priest understood that. He knew that a hundred spears was the total of Konrad's force. (Three men counted as one spear in the jargon of that day.) He came to the point then, talking of gold. There was a price agreed, which was high. Konrad should have a noble grave, in the chancel itself.
Halt felt that he had done well. The boldest fiend, seeking the soul of the dead (as he knew that fiends are alert to do) might turn in terror from the chancel of a church of such ancient fame.
The next day there came maire and provost in deputation from the town; but he told Raoul to send them away. There was the same dish for a deputation from the castle, though it was a bishop who came. Halt said he would do business with none till he had buried Konrad, unless they could bring the man by whose hand he had died. The town protested that it knew nothing of this man: the castle's tale was the same. Raoul said he believed the castle's word; of the town he was less sure.
Konrad was to be buried on the third day, and meanwhile Halt held his camp as though he were in a hostile land, suffering none to enter or go forth, except for certain bartering, which he allowed, having no will that his men should starve.
For himself, he had matters of which to think, for the tale which Raoul had told him was this:
For some years he had been in Konrad's confidence to this degree, that he had known that he had one purpose that ruled his life. He sought ever for one who had seduced his wife from his side, and had deserted her in such strait that she died, and who had taken his child. The man had been a soldier at that time, having a reputation in the Italian wars. Konrad had found him with the dead woman and the living child, which he had refused to surrender. Konrad had challenged him to a duel which would have decided the child's fate. It was to have been fought on the following day. But on that day the man had gone, and the child also.
From that time he had disappeared. He was heard of no more in the wars. Konrad supposed that he had changed his name. He sought him ever, reckoning that he must find him at last. He searched among the prisoners that fell into the hands of himself or his allies, looking at every face. He reviewed the inhabitants of every taken town. For eighteen years he had learned nothing at all.
But a month ago - or it might be less - he had had news, at a time when search had become a routine of life, rather than the urgent impulse which it had been at the first. His London agent, whom he could trust and who could learn of all that moved in the world of European finance - which was at root much as it is now - wrote that there was question made of a secret kind as to the wealth he had, and of where it lay. Konrad was vexed and angry at that, pondering who it should be, though he thought he would gain but little, his agents being the men they were, both in London and other parts.
He could see none whom it would serve to make such a quest, for which crowns must be paid from a full purse. Then he thought: "There is one. There is he in whose hands my daughter lies. He would use her again to have my wealth when I die;"
When the idea had once entered his mind he saw that it was no less than a likely thing. He had been active in Europe's wars for a score of years, and he had been fortunate in himself or in the sides he chose. It was easy to guess that he would have wealth in a safe hole; and, for such as he, England was ever the surest hoarding-place, being oversea, and of the settled order which comes to a land which is not ravaged by foreign foes, though there might be strife between baron and baron, or prince and prince, from which no land can be free for more than a short space. The man who had taken his child might well be of a will to take his wealth too, either for himself or for her. He might have grown fond of her, making her as his own. Or he might have fallen to poverty in these days. Or he might be near his end, and think that, if he would ever assert her claim, it must be swiftly done.
He might think also that Konrad could not have much longer to live. It was true that he had no feeling of age, but his years were as many as were gained by most in those days, and especially by such as were spent in the wars. They might not be slain, as few were, but their lives would be weakened by fevers and many ills before they could come to the fifty years which he had passed at that time.
As he thought thus he became sure. And with the surety that the man he had sought in vain had now doubled upon his own tracks, all the old hatred revived, and the lust of chase wakened anew. He wrote that no coin should be spared to find from whence that enquiry came.
In a few weeks he had word. It had come from Paris, from a goldsmith there, of whom Konrad knew well by repute. He had had it from Faucon-bas, which was a town in Languedoc on the border of Provence, which the castle of Faucon-haut overhung. The enquiry had been of a very secret kind, and supported by a large fee. It had been in the name of Livron, or Louvaine, or one like to that, which might mean little. He might be no more than a scrivener who had been given the charge, and paid to keep a still tongue.
More might have been learned, but the goldsmith's clerk who sold this tale was discharged suddenly on the next day and could tell no more than his memory held, which went no further than this. But Konrad thought it enough.
He could not tell whether that which he sought would be found in castle or town, and he thought the castle the more likely place; but he would search them both to their cellars' depths, though it should mean storm and siege in a private war, such as was often waged at that time.
He moved south from Dijon where he then was, and as he marched, not swiftly, nor by a direct route - for he would seem to come there by a wandering chance rather than as one who sought a prey of which he had scent - he heard tale that there was strife of words between castle and town, such as might soon turn to a strife of steel. That would give him all the pretext he would. As a circling vulture swoops to the spot where the carcass falls, he marched straight and hard down the Rhone Valley till he saw the high ramparts of Faucon-haut dark against their background of hills and a sunset sky.
Konrad had told Raoul of this, of which he had known something before, though not much, as he had walked with him outside the camp, on the night when the bolt came from the wood.
He was told as much then as might be needed to make him of better help.
At a later hour, when Konrad knew that his life was done, he had had to think whom he should trust, that his vengeance did not fail in the end. Could he cast his cloak on the back of one who was unable to read? He chose the best he might at that pass. He judged Halt Redwood to be one who would keep his oath. Halt did not doubt that Konrad had done the best he might in his own cause, but that he himself had any cause to be well content he was less sure.
CHAPTER SEVEN
SIR LANVAL DE VENCE rode down the Rhône Valley. He had tired of the Court of Burgundy, and would go further, seeing the world, not caring much where it might be.
He came in no state, having but one squire, who rode with a sumpter-mule on his right hand and a spare charger upon his left, and who carried also his master's spears, and his shield bearing his device of the flying swan.
He who could show that shield had no need to flaunt wealth, nor to ride in state that his rank be known. The harp that was slung over his back, where a two-handed sword had been a more likely sight, would win him an honoured seat at any Court in the lands of chivalry. He gave lustre to where he stayed. Had he not proved at a dozen Courts of Love and countless contests of song that he was the first trouvère of the day?
He wore a sword also, and of his valour there was no spoken doubt, but men differed as to his skill either in the art of war, or in single strife. For he was one who would quarrel with few, and if he fought (which he would be slow to do, even in the mock-strife of the tilt) he would jape at his own skill, so that it seemed but a little thing. Men gave Fortune praise when he won rather than his own arm, at which he chafed naught, being one who cared more for the art of song. And he had moods when he would mock at that too.
Now he looked on a fertile valley of corn and wine, and the broad river, shining blue in the cloudless air, and the great hills beyond. There had been no war in these parts for two summers and more than that. The scene was peaceful and fair. The sun shone warm overhead: there was a cool wind from the distant Alps. It was a gay world at its best.
As he rode, he hummed a half-made song, seeking its tune. It was a love-song, tender of words, but with a mocking lilt.
There was a line beyond that which he could not get to his will.
Well, let it wait. It would come. He had found that it was of little use to fret his mind in such quest. He would turn thought to another song, one that would win him fame at the Court of the French King at a later time, for it would sing of the ancient banner of France, which was then powdered with golden lilies on a field of blue. The white banner was of a later day, nor was it yet impaled with the red arms of Navarre.
The metaphor drew his thought to the high dream of the deliverance of the Holy Land, to which all knighthood turned at that day. Could he not frame the song to that end, so that it would be call to a new Crusade which must surely win? He knew how much may be done with a good song. It is true still, and it was more so at that day. He had vision of a great host that moved under many banners; but first and widest, from a thousand staves, fluttered the golden lilies on their ground of blue. Could not men be roused by song to the high effort that was needed now?
He must give more time to that song. His mind went back to that which had held it before.
He forgot the song again as he became aware of white tents ranged along the riverside, and a banner-staff in their midst from which drooped a lowered flag.
"Now what have we here?" he said, and as he spoke the flag spread to the wind.
"It showed like to the grey wolf-head of Konrad of Wolvenstein. But what doth it at that height? And there is little stir in the camp. Is the man dead? Lambert you shall ask for me of this."
The squire went at his word. He got down from his horse, for he must climb a stile, and there was a field to cross, with a cherry orchard upon his left, and the north end of Konrad's camp at the far right corner. He was soon back with a tale we know. He added that Konrad Wolvenstein was being buried that day at the church of Ste. Sarah within the town.
Sir Lanval gave him a short epitaph: "Worse men live." He considered the tale. He added: "Lambert, we will lodge here a night, or it may be more. There should be things to see or to do."
He rode on to the town gate, at which he paused, and then turned aside. He said: "I see not why I should watch another put to earth, being neither sexton nor priest. A man may wait his own turn, which is too soon for most. He will be present at that."
Lambert said nothing. He heard much of his master's words without making reply. He did not always think they were wise. But his own wisdom told him that there are other things that are best unsaid.
They went on to the castle by a climbing path.
CHAPTER EIGHT
IT was the banquet hour at the castle of Faucon-haut. The Count sat at the head of the higher board, with his sister, the Lady Isabeau, on his right. Sir Lanval sat at her other side, as an honoured guest. It was such a place as he often had, even at tables of kings; for he was not only of a high race, he was first of the trouvères of northern France. He was the only one of that band who could win honour against the troubadours of Provence. Kings, doing grace to him, might do the like to themselves also, for he could set them so in a song that they would be more great than they were before. He was also one whose songs came with himself, for he could both sing and play, which few could or would at that time, whether troubadour or trouvère. For some could make songs, but had no skill to the making of a good tune; and if they had skill in both, yet they might lack that of hand or voice, so they made songs that the jongleurs sang in their names.
But Lanval had the arts which would make both music and song, and could touch viol or harp in the right way, and he had the voice also to sing. Is it wonder that men were glad where he came?
So he sat now in the best robes that the castle held for a guest's use (for a knight did not ride at that day bearing his clothes with him, as though he thought that he might halt where there would be none to spare), and he looked round with eyes that were used to see, and though he spoke in a free way, he heard much more than he said.
He saw the Count to be much as he had thought to find, from the talk he had heard before. He was a man of a formal pride and few words. He had lost a part of his right hand, with three fingers, more or less, in a duel when he was young; so he had excuse that he was not one of a ready sword.
He had lost his wife three years before, she having gone her own way with the Count of Thale. He had made little of that, even on the day she went. He would have men think he was rather glad of that loss.
He could play well at the chess - or so it was said; but that was made less sure by the fact that he was slow to play, except against those he could always beat, lest his pride fall.
He was not savage of mood, nor would he take pleasure in cruel deeds, as many did of the nobles of that time; but he would be obeyed, even to a great price; and he was hard to move when a thing had been once said. Only Isabeau could change him from that. She was his sister - or, at least, there was but a whispered doubt, which was not spoken aloud, lest the castle gallows silence the tongue. She was of a pride that was like his own, and a fiercer will.
It was said that she, rather than he, had forced quarrel upon the town to a point when it came near to a strife of swords; but, indeed, there was little choice on the castle's side, they having been free of gold as they were in the better times.
The town read its charter in its own way, now that much merchandise passed up the Rhone Valley in a time of peace, and its tolls had risen to a large sum. The Count had men on his hands whom he must needs pay. Should he let them go, his power went. Before, they had been engaged in the wars, as had many from the town also. It was the strange length of the peace from which this quarrel was bred.
But whether it were the Lady Isabeau or the Count himself who had brought that quarrel to where it stood, it was common talk that it was her wit which had given it the new turn which it now had.
Isabeau told it in her own way. Sir Lanval heard her, giving little sign of his thoughts.
"Well," he said, "if it be good law, as is like enough, there may be no trouble in that. Doth the jade wince from her joy?"
"She may take that as she will," Isabeau answered, as one who turns from a little thing. "She can be whipped if the need come."
Sir Lanval looked at her with a glance which she could not read. "Doth the Church stand with this law?"
"The Church will tell you of that," she answered. Her eyes went to the Bishop of Nîmes, who had a near place on the Count's left. He was a priest, thin and tall, with a hollowed face, whose age would be hard to tell. He drank little wine, which he chose with care. He cut from the best joints with a sparing knife. His discreet and moderate amours were such that his dignity was not smirched. He had confessed most who sat round that board (except at its lower end), and he knew them for what they were. He was suave of speech, with much Latin upon his tongue, which can be left to itself. Now he said:
"It is good law; there is no question of that. The Church doth not strive with the law, except at a great need."
Sir Lanval smiled with his lips. "Doth the Church bless?"
"She hath not been asked. There would be bull from the Pope if it were put in the right way. It is a small thing in itself, at which some maids would be pleased, and some fret. . . . It had a good use in an older day."
Isabeau would have him speak more plainly than that. She said "Father, being the law of the land, it can be done without sin of the flesh, or the breaking of marriage vows?" She knew his answer to that, for she had had it before.
"Surely," he said, "it can be done by a bride without sin, for she doth it not of her choice, but by force of law, and to the intent that her first child if a good fortune be hers - shall be of a better kind than she would have from one of her own rank, such as she must needs wed. It is a custom from which our race rose to its strength, as we know it at this day. Nor can it be sin to him who doth it of duty, and at a set time, rather than by the mastery of a lewder will. Nor is there wrong in its end, being within the cloak of the law."
"It hath a fair sound," Sir Lanval replied. "Yet for one who is loth - - ."
The Bishop answered as one who solves a point of logic which has caused dispute in the schools. "That were a thing hard to resolve, for who knoweth a woman's heart at its most depth? Yet you may see that to give her choice would be a poor rule, for there would enter the feet of sin to her heart. Nor would it lead to her peace, for should she choose at her will, would she be lightly forgiven by him to whom she had vowed her faith and her love? . . . There was much wisdom in those who contrived this law in the form which it still bears. . . . And you must see beyond that, if a maid be loth, as some would, or if she be roughly used by one who would go beyond her own will at a single chance, yet it is a world in which there is little pleasure without prelude of pain, or its after-coming (which is a worse thing), nor, as the scripture saith, is such the purpose of God." He crossed himself as he said this, as did several of those who heard in an absent way. "Even to Paradise, is there not a Purgatory to be gone through? Shall she wince for a night of pain, if it lead at last to her lover's arms? It were to think little of love that we should hold it too hard a way."
Sir Lanval answered him in his own tone. "There is much reason in that, yet if a trouvère may speak when the Church's wisdom is said, doth not that somewhat impute the high feeling of gentle kind to those of a baser blood?"
It was a question that brought a murmur of assent from those who heard. What did the common kind know of the high mysteries of the Courts of Love? It was enough for them that they mated and bred, and that the fairest of their women might hope for the honour of an hour of a knight's regard.
Sir Lanval did not wait for an answer to the question he had raised, on which the Bishop paused in reply. He turned to his host to enquire courteously, "Would you bring this custom back as a live thing, Sir Count, or is it only to test the town if they be loyal and meek?"
It was a question to which Count Gismond had little will to reply. It had been discussed in his presence from various angles from which his dignity flinched. There had been those who had counted what it might mean. They had reckoned how many scores of marriages there might be in the town in the year's course. They had made jests at which he was wroth in ways which he shrank to show. He wished Isabeau had never noticed this bond in the old charter that the town held. And the Bishop had been less adroit than his habit was. Could it be purgatory for a common woman to come to a lord's bed? It was class-treason to make such a comparison even in jest.
It was an honour for which they should kiss his feet, as he had little doubt that many of them would be ready to do.
Yet he was not fool enough to suppose that their men would take it in quite the same way. With the town in the mood it was, they might well make it a cause of strife, such as would win them more sympathy among those of their estate throughout the land than would a question of market-tolls, on which an old charter was less than clear. It may seem that there was no gain to the Count in that, but he cared little, though they might have the succour of every town in the land, if he should have the like help of his own kind. Let the quarrel be for the privileges of his order, and though it might be about one that had fallen from use, there would be no difference over that; they would not let him go down beneath the feet of the common mob. He saw that Isabeau had been right in that. But he would have the talk cease.
He said, with a formal courtesy, as one who speaks from a height, which was more weakness than pride, rising from the need to assure himself of how great he was: "We do small courtesy to our guest, telling thus of our own jars. We would rather hear of the talk he brings from Burgundy and beyond, or a new song he hath made, if he would do us so large a grace when the meats are cleared. . . . Sir Lanval," he added, addressing his guest directly, "our minstrels have a new viol which we think to be of a good tone. They would value it to a greater height had you once touched it to song."
It was a long speech for Sir Gismond, and the careful formality of its phrasing did not hide the fact that he spoke with a good will. His words worked also to the end he sought, for there was a murmur of assent as he ceased. There were those who had not heard Sir Lanval either sing or play, though they knew his songs as they were rendered by other minstrels. They forgot the talk on a matter of which they had heard enough in the last week in the pleasure that was to come.
It was a request to which there could be but one reply. "If you will honour my poor art so far, it must be pleasure to me," Sir Lanval answered, and as the hall was cleared he took the new viol which was brought, praising its tone, as a guest should, and touched its strings to such notes as were not often heard, even in that hall where music was the nightly use, as it was in the castles of most of the nobles of southern France at that day.
"I will sing a song," he said, "by your grace, which it is most like that you have not heard, for I made it for one in Picardie, whom I sought to honour when I was there in the summer days, and when it was made she would not have it joined to her name - she being as wise as she is fair - lest those who should see her, after it had been heard, should think her too small for the song. . . ."
"Yet," he added, "I meant it well; and it may be one that is too good for a dumb death." And having said this, he lifted the viol, and the hall grew very still to hear the words of the song.
Sendal soft her chimisete,
Gleaming hose of golden net,
Cloak of ermine lordlier yet,
Those were clouds that hide the sun,
These are beauty's tale begun,
Now she bares the loveliest one,
Ermine for her cloak she had,
Now in flowers her limbs are clad,
Naught has tender grace forbad,
Cavaliers who greeted well,
As she left the lonely dell,
Asked, "Art mortal maid, pucelle?"
"Nay," she said, "La France's gage
Drew me from the elfin mage."
High she called her parentage,
Farthest branch in farthest vale,
Where the winds of winter fail,
Bears her sire, the nightingale,
"There would be few ladies," Isabeau said, leaning somewhat toward him, as the song ceased, and he gave the viol to a waiting page, "who would not do love's pleasure for the guerdon of such a song."
"It may well be," Sir Lanval answered, "for of that you should know better than I. Yet there may be those of another mind."
"Nay," she said, "you should know, for men know best how a woman yields."
"Lady," he answered, "I doubt naught there be those who do; but we who would sing of love in a high strain are not of those who should give witness thereon, for if we drink of a common cup, then the song dies."
Isabeau looked at him at times after that, while the jongleurs played in a clear space of the lower hall; but she said no more. Once she licked her lips as she looked, in a way she had, and the Count, who watched and understood (as did some others who knew her ways), thought of her as of a tigress choosing her meal.
When the jongleurs had ceased their tricks, and some would rise for a dance, and there was bustle and talk, she leaned toward him, and said, in a low voice: "Lanval, have you found lady to love?"
"Nay," he said. "I have found none yet." He spoke as one who would have liked better to make other reply; but it was a thing known.
"Will you be knight to me?" Her eyes said more than her words.
"I am knight," he answered, "to all ladies of gentle blood. It is to that I am sworn."
She showed no sign of rebuff, nor did her eyes change. She had wooed men before now who had not come to the first call, though not often, for she was fair in the way of a mating beast, lithe like a lustful cat, and yet as sleek as an autumn doe. She said:
"You will make me a song?"
He could not say no to that.
CHAPTER NINE
WHEN the evening ended, Sir Lanval was given a bower for the night for his separate use, as his rank required. The bowers were small rooms set round the great hall, in which others slept on the straw. Lambert lay across his door, as a squire should.
He waked early, while the castle slept. He would not go forth at first to make disturbance among those who lay in the hall, ere it was time for them to wake. But for that thought he would have climbed stairs, to walk on the high walls in the dawn, or gone out to the hills. Yet he was not too much concerned for their peace to lift his harp in an idle way, and to touch the notes of a song. As he did this, he recalled that he had promised the lady Isabeau that she have one for herself. His fingers mocked on the strings.
It would be simple work to make a song on that note, but he saw that it would not do. He had no will to make any song to her name. Yet it must be done. He made songs of love and of war. He could make her no song of love, and, if he could, he saw her to be one who would read it in the wrong way. He might have made her a poor song, but he would not do that, for he valued his own repute. He would have his songs known as far as men could speak in his tongue.
Well, he must make her a song of war. He found that to be an easier thing. That night he gave her the song. It made her name the battle-cry of a winning fight, as it well might be. "Swords for Isabeau" was its name. It was good for a time when lords threatened and vassals stirred into strife. He was asked to sing it again, which he did. Other voices caught at the tune. It ended in a shout of song.
Isabeau purred. She liked the song well.
Doette, sitting at Lanval's side, lifted fawnlike eyes. "Lord," she asked, "would you make song for me?"
"I would with a good will. But it should be song of love, not of war; and it is of your own knight you should ask that, rather than me."
"Lord," she said, "I have no knight that is mine."
He turned his glance fully upon her as she said that.
He had eyes that had learned to see. She added: "Of a truth, no. I have none."
"Lady," he answered, "you walk in a wise way."
So she would have had him think, though she was less sure She had lived more than twenty years, and her virginity was still hers, which was the jest of her friends. There were few of her time and rank of which that could be said, whether in jest or truth. She had been wooed of all of good birth that the castle held, and by many guests, and had she met one to whom she could do the service of love with a glad heart she might have yielded more lightly to others in later days. But she had drawn back on the brink, being afraid.
Lanval looked at her again, but not at the fawn-brown eyes, over which the lids fell. "Lady," he said, "I will make you a song. But it is a song that should be made in the spring days."
She made no answer to that, being afraid in a new way.
Doette was one of Isabeau's maids, of whom there were three. She sat where she did, being of noble blood, as such ladies most often were. Isabeau was, in fact, of the lower rank, Doette being half-sister to the Count of Poitou.
Now she kept her eyes down, looking serene enough among those who had more heed to themselves than to her, but with a heart that beat in a sudden way that she could not still, so that she feared that it must be heard by the stranger who sat on her other hand.
That was Halt Redwood, the new captain of the condottieri, who sat in that high place with assurance enough, though he did not speak much, unless it were to reply to that which might be said directly to him; and then he would answer, but in a foreign way, so that it might not be easy to understand unless you should listen with care.
It was plain that he was not a boor, for he spoke with courtesy and address, and he had a knowledge of tongues, or he would not have been able to talk at that board, he being the Islander that he plainly was. And when the Bishop of Nîmes had tried him with Latin words (whether of courtesy or not it were hard to say), he had answered readily in the same tongue, which all would not have been able to do. . . . And yet he was a man of no certain rank, for even knighthood he disclaimed in a quiet way.
It was a difficulty which leaders of condottieri would cause often enough in the minds of seneschals who had a lifetime's practice in the ranging of ranks, at a time when, in France at least, such barriers were not easy to break.
There was a tale of Konrad that he had once been placed low at a duke's board, and the Duke, fearing his displeasure, had tried to show courtesy by addressing him over the heads of the intervening guests. Konrad would talk of nothing but the price of the aid which the Duke sought at his hands, and of that only in a voice that the Duke could not hear, so that he must send the seneschal to enquire what had been said.
"Your Grace," was the report, "Captain Wolvenstein saith that he hath an infirmity of the ear. He cannot hear aught unless it be the talk of a very high price, the distance being too great."
It was an error which cost the Duke some thousands of Paris crowns, and the seneschal such a whipping as one of his dignity would not think to feel; but the Duke was not one who forgave a fault.
The condottieri were hard to place in another way. They did not fight with the lance, after the tilt-yard fashion, as the nobles did, having few knights in their ranks. Neither could they be compared with the common levies of footmen, with pikes and bows, that a king would lead to war, being gathered from the vulgar herd, and fit only to fight with their own kind, or for knighthood to slay.
The condottieri bore heavy spears such as it must take two men to wield, they being on foot, but it was on foot only that these weapons were used. They were all mounted men; but if they fought on horseback at all it was with axes and swords; and there were many that would bear bows at their backs. They were mounted infantry, rather than cavalry, and, above all, professional soldiers, whom both knight and common had learned to fear.
It might be thought that the existence of many bands of this kind would add to the ferocity and the bloodshed of war, but it had a different issue from that. If they had no enmities among themselves, why should they kill and be killed by those who might be their comrades tomorrow, though they were paid for striving today? They were paid well enough, but life itself has a higher price. They moved as a chess-player will move who aims less to take than to mate. If there were needless clashing of men, and blood spilt to no final end, the captains who led them thus would find they had few to lead when they would enlist service anew.
There might be marching here and there, gathering or division of troops, seizing of height or bridge, or cutting off of supplies, and at the end of such tactics as these, with no fighting at all, the two captains would meet, and agree that the one had gained and the other had lost, or that the issue had been no more than should mean some yielding of ground, and they would march off by their bargained ways, and manoeuvre for a new bout in the coming month. There was much work of this kind on the Italian plains, where the cities quarrelled ever, and, having more money than fighting men, they would hire these soldiers of fortune to make their wars. And these men would come back, asking their pay and saying: "We did not fight, finding ourselves equally matched, and on even ground. It would have been foolish, seeing that we stood thus. We agreed that this war is a draw." Or they might say: "When we came face to face, we found we were four to one, so we made peace on terms which we thought fair in your name. Why should we have died to no better end?"
Those who hired them took such words well enough, for what else could they do? Besides, the condottiere asked a high wage as it was. How much more would it be if he were expected to get killed every year?
It was from this cause that they were valued little by the English for aid in the Scottish wars, though they hired them at times; nor did the condottiere welcome such service, though his quarters might be good and his pay sure. He said that these battles were more near to those of beasts than of men. For they would go on, the one slaying and the other holding their ground, after the issue of the fight had become clear to those who were skilled in the art of war. And if they would not stay on a lost field, but marched off, who should blame them for that?
Yet when they saw cause to fight they could fight well, which they would do - though not only then - when they were offered town or castle to storm. For they fought then, not for a wage alone, or their captain's will, but for plunder, and for the women that could be bent to their lust in a taken town. For the condottiere, living a wandering life, with no more than a crowded tent for his home in the summer days, had, as it most often happened, no wife, nor any love of a good kind. He took what he could when the chance came. For the rest, he had dice and wine, and the watching of jongleurs' shows, and the tricks they played, and there were talk and tales to be heard in the tents as the daylight fell Also, there would be new places to see. It was not a high manner of life, but it suited some, who had been less willing either to toil or to starve. . . .
Halt Redwood, having three hundred of such men sworn to his will, and more in a further place, and much wealth at his call, though he had little practice in ordering either wealth or men, found that they had brought him already to this high seat, with the Lady Doette on his left hand, and another lady upon his right of a more forward mood, who whispered light words at times which we need not pause to regard, though they were not without wit of a lewd sort, which had been better welcomed by one of a liker mind. Captain Redwood, as he was now called, had more thought for Doette.
But before we listen more to the talk of this board (to which we may come again) we must turn back to see how he came to be there when it was no more than one day from when he had buried him to whom he owed all, whether for thank or dole, in a vault of Ste. Sarah's Church.
CHAPTER TEN
IT was yet in the morning hours of the day following that of the burial of Konrad Wolvenstein, when Halt had the trestle-table within the tent which was now his, spread with parchments which he had drawn from the iron-bound chest, from which he would learn all that he could. As he read, Raoul entered to say that there was a messenger come from the castle of Faucon-haut, asking if he would receive the Bishop of Nîmes, and at what hour it might be.
Raoul added: "There are others upon the road. They would be first here from the town."
"Well," Halt answered to that, "we can hear both. Let the Bishop know he may be seen at the third hour after noon."
It was not long before Raoul came again. "Captain, there are here three rats from the town. They would see you now if they may."
His tone said as much as his words. If they were to hire themselves to this quarrel, he would have it be on the Count's side. Halt knew that he had one reason for that in the fact that he had formed an obstinate conviction that Konrad's assassin had found refuge within the town, which had no more reason than lay in the failure to find any who could speak to having seen a lame bowman who flea over the countryside. But Raoul might have separate reasons for preferring that they should bargain with castle rather than town. Halt knew that he had a hundred times more experience than himself of the conditions of such service as it was their business to sell, and he was one whom Konrad had trusted far. Yet there had been a limit to that trust, or Halt would not then have sat where he did. And the reasons of that limit were easy to see; the mere fact that Raoul could not read rendered him unfit to be the leader of such a band.
Halt understood this better when he had studied the documents which the chest held. For he saw that it was not enough that a captain of condottieri should be one who could lead men well in the field, which it might seldom be needful to do. But he must be expert at accounts, one who knew much of language, custom, and law, and one who could bargain well.
He had found agreements in that chest in half a dozen languages, and of great length and elaboration. He had selected that which was now current with the junta at Florence, because it was the one the provisions of which it was most needful for him to know. He found that Konrad had contracted to supply goo lances for the service of Florence, at a monthly charge of 13,250 gold florins; and he found careful calculation in Konrad's writing, that this would leave 4,640 florins as clear profit to himself. That was while peace held. In time of war it would be a more elaborate estimate of a less certain, though it might be a larger, gain.
But the agreement was not as simple as that might sound. There were conditions as to the quality and conduct of the men supplied; as to their arms and horses; even as to the responsibility for the loss of a horse, which might fall variously upon either of the contracting parties, or upon the man himself, according to the circumstances of the case; as to the time allowed for its replacement; as to prisoners of war of various ranks, the division of their ransoms, the right to settle these amounts, the ownership of their arms; the allocations of booty under a numerous variety of hypothetical conditions. The agreement went on to a great length, giving material for endless deductions from that 13,250 florins, endless questions which could be raised to delay payment, if pretext were sought, endless rights of inspection, the result of which there would be no impartial arbiter to resolve.
When he came to the final clauses, it was easy to see why a sum of three months' payments was to be deposited in advance by the Florentine junta with a goldsmith in Amsterdam, and why Konrad was to deposit security for his own good faith in the same hands. Even so, how could there be effectual security, with no independent authority - unless it were the Amsterdam banker - with the power to settle any dispute which might arise?
Yet, in practice, the system worked well enough to establish itself in Europe during the disorders of nearly two hundred years. There were fierce quarrels, instances of bad faith and duplicity. States made bad bargains, and captains-general made bad debts.
But reputation counted, as it always must, and it was not to be lightly lost. An unscrupulous city might find itself bare of defence in a coming year: a captain-general, having broken his faith too far, might find himself unable to make a further bargain, and obliged to hire himself and his men to serve under another condottiere of a better name.
It worked well enough; and with such as Konrad, whose ways were known, there would be many clauses in such a bond of which no one thought after the wax which sealed it was dry.
But Halt saw that the making of such bargains was less simple than he might have thought it to be. And there would be limits to the help that Raoul could give. He could keep order in the camp; he could marshal men for the field; he could do his part if a fight joined. But there were other things in which he might be little able to render counsel or aid.
Halt put back the parchments which were strewn around him. He closed the chest. He put on a cloak of Konrad's, which was dull enough, being of damson-blue, but of richer cloth than his own, and having silver buttons and loops. He had stools placed. He ordered service of wine. He told Raoul to take a seat at his side. He said that he would see these three who came from the town.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
THE maire introduced himself. He was of a pompous manner, but not entirely at ease. He introduced the provost. The man of law had his mind still full of a dispute they had had on the way from the town, on which he had much to say, which there had been no time to conclude when they reached the camp. The maire introduced M. Sault, who was more the master of himself than were the other two, and might have been the better man to transact the business on which they came. But the maire held the official right. It was a matter for him.
And if he had not been at his ease at the first, he became more adequate to his office when he commenced to speak, for he was a man of affairs. He knew what he would have. When he asked, he was brief and clear.
"We are threatened," he said, "by the seigneur of Faucon-haut, and in such ways as none could endure, being of honest blood. He will have strife for his own ends.
"We are not weak on our side. We might bear him out with our own swords. But we would end this in a short way. With your help, it were soon done. We will pay well for a month's aid, giving a good price for every lance you can bring at a call. We will pay you half in Paris crowns when the bond is signed, and the balance shall be secured."
Halt looked at Raoul, but his face gave no sign. He asked: "What would you have us to do? Shall we hold your walls for a month from your lord's assault?"
Raoul still gave no sign, yet Halt, glancing at him again, felt that he had asked the right thing. He felt it the more as the maire paused on his reply, though it was but for a second's space.
"Nay," he said, "we would make short work. We would storm his walls. With your aid, it were lightly done."
"What force hath he in Faucon-haut?"
"He hath but threescore men, or it may be four, and there be those of them who would slip away."
"But he may have strong friends."
"He hath friends, but they are unsure. . . . We would end this too soon for any to come to the seigneur's aid."
"Count," said Raoul.
"To the Count's aid," said the maire, as though there were no difference between the two words.
But Halt took the hint as it was meant. The nobles of Languedoc might bicker among themselves, but would be likely to join their strength to chastise rebellion of the common herd, whom they despised, if they did not hate, and whom they had yet scarcely begun to fear.
"Faucon-haut hath strong walls?"
"Thirty feet," Raoul said, as one stating a fact.
"They were soon mounted by such men as you lead," the maire answered, without challenging Raoul's figure, "and being held by so few."
He spoke in a confident tone, which was not assumed. The condottieri were trained in the storming of walls. They carried lengths of ladder, strong and light, which could be hooked together with speed, while their crossbows threatened death to any who should show basnet above the wall. But it was deadly work to swarm up those slender ladders, and to be first to leap the parapet.
"How many men have you armed in the town?"
"We have thirteen hundred who bear arms, but they are not trained for that work. . . . There are those who would do their part."
"And the spoils, if the castle fall?" Halt had learnt enough to know that that was a vital point. It was not merely his own profit or loss that would be at issue. His men would expect reward of pillage if they took such a risk. It was so expressed in the terms in which they were hired.
But the maire was cautious in his reply. "We would make good terms. There is much wealth that the castle holds. . . . Monsieur the Provost is here that he may draw a bond to your fair content."
Halt felt little satisfaction in that. He doubted that he would be fairly matched with M. the Provost in the drawing of bonds. He had a fear lest he might pledge his men to a desperate adventure, with no adequate reward. He feared also lest there should be disaster at the threshold of his command. Konrad had made a name for success, for caution as well as courage. He did not wish that he should fail at the first fence. In fact, he was unsure of himself.
He turned the subject to ask:
"What is the cause of this strife? Is it bitter beyond hope of accord?"
"Captain," the maire began.
"Captain-General" interjected Raoul.
"Captain-General," the maire corrected himself, "the seigneur is of a great greed. He would tax us beyond that which the town can bear, or our charter yields."
M. Sault interposed. He had been watching with the observation of one who had travelled in many lands, and was skilled in the judging of men. He said:
"It is more than that. He would have our maids for his lust."
M. Sault had a clear conviction that the maire was not winning his case, though less clear as to the cause. He felt that they were held off by this young, impassive man of the foreign accent, and the slow, reticent words. He was equally sure that the burly soldier who was seated at Halt's right hand was of an unfriendly mind. Yet, with both of them, it might be no more than the spirit of bargaining, which will be slow to close till the price be named.
The maire, who was a good enough business man, though of narrower experience and inferior intellect to his colleague, felt the same. He might have done better with one of his own race, or one who was freer of speech. Now he was quick to take the point of M. Sault's interruption. He explained the demand which had been made upon them, putting it with such indignation as he could voice, for, in truth, he cared little for the nuptial experiences of M. Livron's niece, nor did he think that the Count would give fifty crowns for that of which he had made his demand.
It was the market tolls he would have, and it was those tolls which the maire was concerned to hold. Still, he put the case well enough.
It sounded strange to English ears. For the first time sympathy and interest were aroused. Halt saw that it might be difficult for him to maintain that aloofness to the causes of quarrel on which such as he must live, which the condottiere was expected to show. But for the thought of the crossbow shaft that had found its way into Konrad's back, and the belief that it had come from the hand of one who dwelt in the town. . . . Yet even so. . . . He asked
"By what right can he make such claim?"
The provost spoke in reply. He admitted that there had been a right in an old day. But it was a dead thing. He would have instanced other laws which had fallen to disuse in the same way, beyond the patience of those who heard.
Raoul interrupted this talk: "Is the maid loth?"
The maire was emphatic on that point. She would liefer die.
"Well," Raoul answered, "she may do that if she will. There is none could stay her therefrom. Or she could remain unwed, and the Count foiled of his law."
Halt was aware that his lieutenant's sympathies were unmoved. To himself also this issue had a sound of unreality. He asked shrewdly:
"Yet should you make accord on this matter of tolls, your lord might withhold to vex you in other way?"
"It may be, or no," M. Sault interposed again; "but they are tolls that we will not pay. We will give good price for such aid as should tilt the scale, if it be used in a speedy way."
This talk of causes and rights went beyond the etiquette of the bargain they came to make. So he felt, as would most in his place. The condottieri might be blessing or curse, but they would have introduced a different, perhaps a greater, complication to the troubled politics of the time had they asserted the right to judge the causes of those who had the wealth that could hire their swords. It was as though a shopkeeper were to ask the character of a man before he would sell him a cloak that would warm his back. Questions of quarters, and rates of pay, of risks to be taken, or hardships to be endured, of the qualities of horses and arms, of the soundness and ages of the men that were lined up in the ranks - all these were of the routine of such a bargain as they would make. But this talk turned into other paths. Well, the man was foreign and young - young also to his command, as was known. M. Sault felt it time to bring the talk to its point.
Halt felt the same from another cause. He had resolved that he would decide nothing till he had heard what the castle offered and asked, and till he had talked to Raoul. But he must discuss the terms of the bargain that they would make, or he would have nothing to compare. The provost was ready enough. They went into figures and facts, into which it would be tiresome to follow at the same length.
Halt was able to show that he knew much. He had made good use of the last hours. He used silence well, concealing ignorance where he must. He gained Raoul's respect to a degree that he would have been glad to know. It had not been Konrad's custom to have his lieutenant present when such bargains were made. Even Bernardi had never sat as Raoul sat now, though he was trusted in many ways. It was not for those who were hired to know what bargains or profits their leader made.
Raoul had not understood so well, in the twelve years that he had been selling his sword, how complicated such bargains were.
In a generous mind he admitted that Konrad had chosen well, and that he would have been no good at the lawyer's work. It is against any man's advance in the world that he cannot read, even though he live by the sword.
The provost felt also that he had met one who understood how such hirings were made somewhat better than he did himself, though he would not have said it aloud to a living man. He was of much learning in the law, in which he had a repute which went beyond his own land. But in this matter of the hiring of condottieri he had no experience on which to draw. He had been glad to pick the brains of a scrivener he employed who had worked for some years for a lawyer in Mantua, where such business had been of a frequent kind. When Halt, being secretly unsure of himself, had said, "There will be the usual clause as to that," he had been glad to assent.
When they had agreed the main terms on which his aid might be hired, Halt rose, as though the business were closed. He said:
"I must give some thought to the offer you make. I will send answer by tomorrow's prime, or it may be sooner than that." The maire showed his sense of rebuff. "We had thought - - ," he began.
The provost interposed. The delay seemed more natural to his legal mind. It was better tactics to assume that all would go smoothly to its natural end. He felt that the terms of the treaty had been liberally made. Five crowns extra to each lance, if the castle were stormed and no booty taken; ransom of prisoners to be equally shared. There were friends of the Count in the castle now who would pay well. He said: "When we hear from you, I will draft the deed; it should be sealed in a few hours."
M. Sault was as much concerned as the maire. He had an instinct that their cause would fail should they leave it thus. He made a last effort to weight the scale to the side he would. He said-frankly:
"Captain-General, this is much to us. We would not stint gold, could we be sure of your aid. You may be approached by the Count. We were babes not to see that. If he makes written offer which you can show we will go five hundred crowns beyond that." He saw the consternation on the maire's face, and added: "Yea, though it be from my own purse, though I am poorer than some may think."
They argued over that on the way back. The provost said it was of no matter. The Count would not make written offer. He would make it by word of mouth writing naught till there were a bond to seal. M. Sault explained again that he was a poorer man than many thought. He did not want those five hundred crowns to be remembered against him in other days.
CHAPTER TWELVE
AT the hour appointed the Bishop came. He came with some retinue, riding a white mule. He was an experienced diplomat, who knew that it is better to stoop and win than to remain erect while the stalk snaps. He was of an importance which came from intellectual ability and many powerful connections, rather than personal wealth or following. He had a care for his own dignity, and his eventful life had not previously included any transactions with captains of condottieri. He saw clearly that such men should call upon him. Yet it was not as though he were so demeaning himself with any of a defined social inferiority.
It was not, for instance, as though he had mounted his mule to wait upon the maire of the town. The condottieri were outside the social order into which they intruded with naked swords. In their own unconscious way they were commencing the disintegration of the feudal order for which they fought. . . . The Bishop stooped in a quarrel which was not his, but he was to have his own price.
Isabeau had favours for sale. They had been favours that he would have bought at any time in the last ten years, as he had let her know with few words; but he had not bid to her price. Now she had taken that in hand which she must bring to a good end, be the price what it might.
"Get me these lances," she had said, "that they come not against our own walls. Get me them that we may chasten the town. . . ." She had lifted slow eyes of allure, and they had understood one another as well as though they had talked for an hour. . . .
If we judge the Bishop of Nîmes without thought, we may go down a wrong road. He was a man of intellect and of ordered days, He was one who faced the issues of conduct and of life and death with a clear mind, and he had a conscience at peace. He believed in God. He had helped those who sought his counsel to the firm anchor of faith. He had comforted penitence many times. He believed that a celibate priesthood was necessary to the temporal prosperity of the Church, and he accepted that condition of life. But he believed an absolute chastity to be beyond what man could expect, or God require. There were fanatic priests who were more austere in practice than he; but they were few, and he thought they did harm rather than good. He had argued with such at times. He thought their spiritual pride to be of the devil, who can work in most subtle ways to the loss of the souls upon whom he may lay siege. He would not fall in that trap.
Yet he was of a careful life, bringing no scandal upon the Church.
He was one, also, who withstood the heresies which were rising at that time in the land, and that cried aloud at the gates, even in Avignon, where the popes dwelt. He had preached with power against those who denied God, asserting, as many did, that men were not a creation apart, but had been carnated in other forms before they came to a human womb, as they would be again. He had shown that such would fry in a sure hell.
Now he did that from which he saw no wrong that could come, but a clear gain upon either hand. He knew that the chief officers of the town had been to the condottieri camp in the earlier day, about which he was well content. He had made his appointment before the hour when they had been there, and he judged that no final bargain would be made with them till he also had been heard. Besides, there would be little time for the drawing of such a bond as he knew to be the custom, if not the necessity, of such a hiring. Under such circumstances he thought that he who went second would have the first chance. M. Sault had felt much the same, which was why he had made his offer in the form that he did, so that the castle should not outbid the town, let them bid as high as they might, thinking that they bid last.
The Bishop felt some confidence in the power of his own tongue. He did not expect to fail. And he had no doubt that he was doing a good thing.
It was the will of God that there should be noble and common, rich and poor, for so He had made the world, and it was of the nature of men that the poor should envy the rich, and do them service with dragging feet. Yet it was easy to see that all could not be rich, though to make all poor were a simpler thing. Nor could all be of learning or gentle ways. There must be many boors, that noble living might come to its perfect flower. There had been enough darkness over the world after the power of Rome sank to its knees, and such shadow might fall again, which would be dreadful to think, except that the noble held down with a firm heel the rough boors of the land. And what said the Scripture on that? The poor have ye always with you. It was the settled order of God.
And this order was easy to keep with men who toiled on the land; but when they gathered in towns they might become of a very insolent strength, though being neither of gentle blood nor being learned in gentle ways, holding back the wealth of which their lords had need, and which they could spend with more skill, that the strength of the state might grow, and to foster beauty and grace of life. That was how the men of Faucon-bas would now act, and to chasten the town must be to the will and pleasure of God.
If he used his skill of words to that end, was it not well that he should have his reward in a way which the weakness of the flesh must crave - and that all the more that he was a man of controlled life, having never fallen to evil ways? And now he would bring evil to none, for Isabeau was a woman of wanton moods (had he not confessed her at sundry times?). There must be several in the last ten years that she had had to her bed, or with whom she had lain in the little garth that was private to her own use.
There might be a dozen if those were added whom she had met when she would go to Dijon, to the Duke's court, or further yet to Poitou. And he could absolve her for what she did, serving the Church, as the Cardinal would absolve him. So he would have thought, had he given thought to these things, but in fact he gave them no thought at all. His conscience slept at its ease. Had he been asked, he might have said that he did well, for she, being the kind she was, might have asked a worse price of a worse man, who would have had more than his due.
Before he came to the camp, Halt had had some talk with Raoul, and though he had not said overmuch, for it was his part to take orders, and he would fight for castle or town with an equal will as his new captain might decide, yet his own choice was easy to see. The castle walls might be stormed, though they were of thirty feet? Yes. He did not deny that, the garrison being no more than it was. But he remarked that the town walls were of no more than half the height. There were many men in the town? Yes, but the town walls were of the greater girth. They would need many to man them at every part; and the townsmen were less trained and practised in war. There might be rich ransom to share if the castle fell? Yes, but the spoil of a town may be rich too. A town may give ransom also, to save plunder and rape and fire, and its ransom is quickly paid. It would be found in a few hours. You wait ransom of prince or count, and you may keep them for months ere the gold come, and there will be their charges to pay for that time, for you must keep them in such state as their rank can claim It was clear that if Raoul had his way he would turn his sword on the town
Halt found also that to make terms with the Bishop of Nîmes would be much easier than with provost and maire. The Bishop had no thought of a bond, nor did he talk of the counting of men, or of soundness of horses and arms to be inspected or pledged, nor of division of spoils, or of ransom to be split up. Halt was to bring the force he had to aid in storming the town if it would not submit in a quiet way, and for that he was to have a sum down in silver florins, which might not be as much as the town would pay (it would have been less had not Isabeau gone her own way to a loan from the Bishop's purse); but beyond that it was hard to compare, for the offer was that he could hold the town to such ransom as it could pay, or, if it would not give him content, his men could sack it for two days, taking all the spoil they could find, so that it were not burnt. Halt saw that there was, at the least, as much to be got in that way as any sum that the town would pay for his hire.
"And I would put it to you," the Bishop said, "as one more practised than I in such bargains as we would now make, that if there be no bond - in the drawing of which I should have but a poor skill - we do trust you far more than we ask trust of you, for if you be once in the town you may do much as you will, even to put it to flame, and we ask but your word that you will hold your men back from that which were loss to us, for you must see that it is from the town that our wealth comes. At the last it is the Count's town which we give you to spoil."
Halt saw that there was reason in that. He saw also that the offer was of a simpler kind. If he did all that the town asked there might be long haggling before he closed account to his own content. Yet the Bishop was shrewd enough. The town might pay much, yet it could not pay more than the coins it held. It would remain, and so would the tolls it took from the merchants who must come by that way. Or, if it were spoiled, there is a limit to what can be found in two days, when all of worth will be hidden away. It was they of the town who would go short in the future days, and the Count would be lord of a place that had been chastised to his will.
"You should know," Halt said at last, "that I have here but three hundred men. Think you that they are enough to storm a walled town of this size in which there are many more who can bear arms? I would know what aid you can bring."
"We can give but few," the Bishop said, with a frankness which was wise enough. "We may not leave the castle bare of defence. We will find twoscore men, but they will be well furnished and trained in the arts of war. You do not need me to say that it is not numbers that most avail."
"First or last, is that all you can do? Could you muster more at a later day?"
The Bishop paused somewhat in his reply. He had not yet had the pledge that he sought, and all he said might be used to his own loss, if Halt should decide at last to take part with the town. Yet he judged it best to say how the truth stood, which was less than a secret thing.
"We can have aid at a sharp need from the Count's cousin at Péray; it might be to three hundred knights at the most, and it is aid we must ask, whether we will or no, for reasons it is needless to tell.
"A messenger should have gone even now - though it may be delayed for a day or more - asking such aid. But it is aid that we do not wish to have. We would have this thing ended ere the Count Raymont could come. Which is a reason why we think to bring it thus to a sharp end."
The fact was that Count Gismond walked on a narrow plank. He owed large sums to Count Raymont, which was one reason why he could not give ground on this matter of market tolls. There were sums of money overdue on the debt, which should be paid with speed.
If the Count knew of this broil he would be quick to come. He might make it cause of quarrel that he had not been told, if things should go ill. Yet if he came who could say how soon he would go? Or that he would go at all? He was of another temper than Gismond, as well as of a much greater strength.
Halt felt that he would do better to take the Bishop's terms than to make a bond with the town; yet he was slow to close, being yet unsure of himself. Ever he had the fear that he would bring to a swift disaster those whom he had come so strangely to lead, and who had been led in a better way.
It was but a year since he had trod the cloisters of Oxford having no thought of such life. We must allow something for that.
The Bishop did not think him a fool, though he saw that he was cautious to pledge his word. He judged it a word which the man who gave it would be likely to keep.
"I see not," Halt said, "how you can bring this thing to a swift end if the town should seek to delay. You have asked that they yield a bride, as is required by an old law. That, you say, is no more than a feint, knowing they will refuse so to do. Yet if they say that as yet the maid will not wed, then is your point foiled."
"That is so," the Bishop agreed. "And then should we ask that they yield on this matter of tolls in a plain way We will bring it, whether by black or white, to a swift end.
"And if they accord with the Count when they see that they have no succour from this camp, how do I stand then?"
"It was that which I was about to make clear. If you come to the castle tonight, the Count will give you what entertainment he may, and the florins shall be paid down. If the town accord thereon (which it will not do) you have earned the fee with not a sword drawn, and we shall be content on our side."
Halt considered this, and it had a fair sound. "Yes," he said at last, "I will do that. . . . But that they will not accord I am less sure."
In the next hour he sent letter to the maire to let him know that he could not give aid to the town. It was easy to read the meaning of that. Yet it did not bring the town to a will for the