The Iron Arrow Head or The Buckler Maiden Part 11

"Where is your father?"

"He, as well as my mother, are dead."

"He surely was not of the Northman race?"

"No, although he was born in their country, and always went to battle with them. He was of the Gallic race--"

"In what year did your father's father go to live among the Northmans?"

"Towards the middle of the last century."

"Was that not after a fresh and violent insurrection broke out in Brittany, when the Bretons, in order to make a head against the Franks, applied for aid from the Northmans, who happened to have their camp at the mouth of the Loire?"

"Yes," answered Gaelo. "But how come you to know all that? Who told you of it?"

"What were the circ.u.mstances that induced your grandfather to join the Northmans?"

"After the fresh insurrection of Armorica, which at first bade fair to succeed, dissensions broke out among the Breton chiefs. Even my grandfather's family was divided. In the course of a violent altercation with one of his brothers, the two drew their swords. Wounded in that fratricidal duel, my grandfather left Brittany forever, and embarked with a troop of Northmans who were just then setting sail at the mouth of the Loire to return to Denmark, where my father and myself were born."

"Your grandfather's name was Ewrag," Eidiol proceeded with increasing emotion; "he was the son of Vortigern,[5] one of the most valiant companions-in-arms of Morvan, who heroically resisted the arms of Louis the Pious on the moor of Kennor, the marsh of Peulven and across the defiles of Armorica. Vortigern's grandfather was Amael, who lived to be more than a hundred years, declined to be the jailor of the last descendant of Clovis, and was one of the chiefs of the bands of Charles Martel, the ancestor of Charles the Great, whose descendant reigns to-day under the name of Charles the Simple."

"Old man!" cried Gaelo, "who could have informed you so accurately on the history of my family?"

"Your family is mine," answered Eidiol, over whose eyes the film of a tear was gathering. "I am a descendant of Joel, the brenn of the tribe of Karnak.[6] My grandfather was your grandfather's brother. That is our kinship."

"What say you?" cried Gaelo. "Are you really of Joel's stock, like myself? Are we of the same family?"

"These words, which your father traced on your arm as a sign of identification, are carried by me also, as well as by my son and my daughter, obedient to the recommendation of Ronan the Vagre,[7] one of our joint ancestors who lived in the days of Queen Brunhild."

"We are relatives!" cried Anne and Guyrion in chorus, drawing near to Gaelo, while Shigne and Rustic listened with redoubled interest to the conversation between the old skipper and Gaelo.

"We are relatives!" repeated Gaelo looking alternately from Eidiol to Anne and Guyrion, and turning to the warrior maid he proceeded: "Shigne, I am doubly grateful to you; the young girl so magnanimously saved by you happens to be my own relative."

"She shall be like a sister to me," answered the Buckler Maiden in her grave and sonorous voice. "My sword will ever be ready in her defense."

"And in default of your sword, fair heroine," put in Rustic, "my two arms joined to those of Master Eidiol and of my friend Guyrion will ever protect Anne the Sweet, although it unfortunately happened that all our three pairs of arms proved insufficient to defend the poor child from Rolf."

"Good father," Gaelo said to Eidiol, "please tell me for what reason you left Brittany."

"Your grandfather, Ewrag, had two brothers, like himself, the sons of Vortigern. When, on the occasion of the fatal dissension that you spoke of, Ewrag quitted Brittany to settle down in the country of the Northmans, his two brothers, Rosneven and Gomer, the latter of whom was my grandfather, continued to live at the cradle of our family, near the sacred stones of Karnak. Nominoe, Judicael, Allan Strong-Beard were successively elected the chiefs of Armorica. More than once during that time did the Franks invade and ravage our country, but they never were able to establish their conquest as firmly as they succeeded in doing in the other regions of Gaul. The druid influence long kept alive among our people an inveterate hatred for the foreigner. Unhappily, the perfidious counsels of the Christian priests, coupled with the example set by the Frankish seigneurs, who had gradually become by the right of conquest the hereditary masters of both the land and the peoples of Gaul, at last had their fatal effect upon the Breton chiefs themselves. Originally elected by the free suffrage of the people, as was the ancient Gallic custom, and chosen by reason of their bravery, wisdom and patriotism, these chiefs sought to render their office hereditary in their own families, in imitation of the seigneurs all over Gaul. The Christian priests joined the Breton chiefs in their iniquitous scheme, and ordered the people to submit to these new masters, as they had ordered them to submit to Clovis and his leudes. By little and little Brittany lost her old franchises. The chiefs, one time elective and temporary, now having become hereditary and autocratic with the a.s.sistance of the clergy, stripped the Breton people of almost all their rights. Nevertheless, until now they have not degraded them to the point of treating them as slaves or serfs. Of the two brothers of your grandfather, one, Gomer, my own grandfather, saw the gradual debas.e.m.e.nt of Brittany with grief and indignation. Gomer was a mariner. His home being in Vannes, like Albinik's,[8] one of our ancestors, he often made trips to England and also carried cargoes as far south as the mouths of the Somme and the Seine. On one occasion he ascended the river as far as Paris. His trade of mariner brought him in contact with the dean of the Skippers' Guild of Paris, who had a pretty and bright daughter. My grandfather married her. My father was born of that union. He also became a skipper. His life was spent amidst the ordinary trials of our people, good and evil successively alternating. I followed the same trade. My life has until now been as happy as it is possible to be in these disturbed times. Only two misfortunes have so far befallen me: the death of Martha, whom I lost yesterday, and, about thirty years ago, the disappearance of a daughter, the first born of all my children. Her name was Jeanike."

"And how did she come to disappear?"

"My wife, being sick at the time, confided the child to one of our neighbors for a walk outside of the city. We never saw her again, neither her nor the neighbor."

"Fortunately the children that are left to you must have alleviated your grief," remarked Gaelo. "But tell me, good father, did you ever have any tidings from the branch of our family that remained in Brittany?"

"I learned from a traveler that the tyranny of the Breton seigneurs rested ever heavier upon the people of Armorica, and that they are now wholly ridden by the priests."

"Eidiol," said Gaelo picking up the iron arrowhead which the old man dropped on the floor after it was extracted from the arm of the young pirate, "preserve this iron arrowhead. It will increase the number of the relics of our family. Should you ever meet again those of our relatives, who, perhaps, still live in Brittany, and who may have preserved the legends left by our ancestors, add this relic to the others together with the legend of our own times--"

Gaelo was interrupted by a great noise on the street that seemed to be drawing nearer and nearer. Presently the tramp of horses and clanking of arms were distinguished. Rustic ran to open the upper panel of the door, looked out, and turning to those within announced in a low voice:

"It is Count Rothbert pa.s.sing with his men, accompanied by the Archbishop of Rouen. He is no doubt coming back from the ramparts and is returning to his castle."

"Good father," said Gaelo gravely, and rolling down his armlet, "you promised to accompany me and my companion to the palace of the Count of Paris. Come; time presses. I am in a hurry to fulfil the singular mission that has brought me to the city."

"What mission is that?"

"The Beautiful Shigne is to notify the count that Rolf, the Northman pirate chieftain, demands Ghisele, the daughter of Charles the Simple, King of the French, for his wife; and I am to notify him that Rolf demands Neustria for his dower."

Eidiol remained for a moment mute with stupor, and then cried out: "Such is the termination of royal stocks! One of the descendants of Joel declined to be the jailor of the last descendant of Clovis, and now another descendant of Joel is commissioned to notify the successor of Charles the Great that his daughter is demanded from him by an old pirate, soiled with all manner of crimes, and to boot, one of the most beautiful of the few provinces still left to the King!"

A few minutes later the Beautiful Shigne and Gaelo, having again thrown the hooded great-coats of two of the Parisian mariners over their own casques and armor, marched under the guidance of Eidiol to the castle of Count Rothbert, in order to carry to him the message of old Rolf.

CHAPTER XII.

ARCHBISHOP FRANCON.

One of the pavilions of the royal residence at Compiegne served as the apartment of Ghisele, the daughter of Charles the Simple, King of the Franks. The young princess usually was in the company of her female a.s.sociates in the large hall on the first floor. A high and narrow window, made of little gla.s.s squares, pierced a wall ten feet thick, and opened upon the sombre and vast forest in the midst of which rose the palace of Compiegne. This morning Ghisele was engaged upon a piece of tapestry. She had just completed her fourteenth year. Married at sixteen, her father, Charles the Simple, was a parent at seventeen.

Ghisele's face was childlike and mild. Her nurse, a woman of about forty, handed to her the strands of woolen thread of different colors which the princess used at her work. At the princess' feet, on a wooden bench, sat Yvonne, her foster-sister. A little further away, several young girls were busily spinning, or conversed in an undertone while plying their needles.

"Jeanike," said Ghisele to her nurse, "my father always comes to embrace me in the morning; he has not yet come to-day."

"Count Rothbert and seigneur Francon, the Archbishop of Rouen, arrived last night from Paris with a large escort. The chamberlain was sent to wake up the King, your father. Since four in the morning he has been in conversation with the count and the archbishop. The conference must be on some very important matter."

"This night call makes me uneasy. I only hope it does not mean some bad news."

"What bad news is there to be feared? The proverb runs: 'Can the Northmans be in Paris?'" retorted the nurse smiling and shrugging her shoulders. "Do not take alarm so quickly, my dear child."

"I know, Jeanike, that the Northmans are not in Paris. May G.o.d save us from those pirates! May He hold them back in their frozen haunts."

"The chaplain was telling us the other day," put in Yvonne, "that they have hoofs of goats and on their heads horns of oxen."

"Keep still! Keep still, Yvonne!" exclaimed Ghisele with a shudder. "Do not mention those pagans! Their bare name horrifies me! Alas, were they not the cause of my mother's death?"

"It is true," answered the nurse sadly. "Oh, it was a fearful night in which those demons, led by the accursed Rolf, attacked the castle of Kersey-on-the-Oise after a rapid and unexpected ascent of the river. The Queen, your mother, was nursing you at the time. She was so frightened that her b.r.e.a.s.t.s dried and she died. It was upon that misfortune that you shared my milk with my little Yvonne. Until that time I had felt very wretched. A stray child, sold in her early years to the intendant of the royal domain of Kersey, my fate improved when I became your foster-mother. It helped my eldest son, Germain, to become one of the chief foresters of the woods of Compiegne."

"Oh, nurse," replied Ghisele with a sigh, her eyes filling with tears, "everyone has his troubles! I am a King's daughter, but am motherless.

For pity's sake never mention in my hearing the name of those Northmans, of those accursed pagans who deprived me of a mother's love!"

"Come, dear child, do not cry," said Jeanike affectionately and drying the tears on Ghisele's face, while the princess' foster-sister, kneeling upon the little bench and unable to repress her own tears, looked at the princess disconsolately.