The Life and Death of Richard Yea-and-Nay Part 9

'Kill him, by G.o.d,' said the Marquess; and young Saint-Pol added, 'Give us his life, O lord King.'

King Philip thought. He was fresh from making a treaty with Richard; but that was in a war of requital only, and would be ended so soon as the last drop had been drained from the old King. What would follow the war?

He was by this time cooler towards Richard, very much vexed at what he had just heard; he could not help remembering that marriage with Alois would have been the proper reply to scandalous report. Should he be able, when the war was done, to squeeze Richard into marriage or an equivalent in lands? He wondered, he doubted greatly. On the other hand, if he and Richard could crush old Henry, and Saint-Pol afterwards bruise Richard--why, what was Philip but a gainer?

Chewing the fringe of his mantle as he considered this and that,'If I give Madame Jehane in marriage to your Gurdun,' he said dubiously, 'what will Gurdun do?'

Saint-Pol named the sum, a fair one.

'But what part will he take in the quarrel?' asked the King.

'He will take my part, as he is bound, sire.'

'Pest!' cried Philip, 'let us get at it. What is this part of yours?'

'The part of him who has a blood-feud, my lord,' said young Saint-Pol; and the Marquess said, 'That is my part also.'

'Have it according to your desires, my lords,' then said King Philip. 'I give you this marriage. Make it as speedily as may be, but let not Count Richard have news until it is done. There is a fire, I tell you, hidden in that tall man. Remember this too, Saint-Pol. You shall not make war on the side of England against Richard, for that will be against me.

Your feud must wait its turn. For this present I have an account to settle in which Poictou is on my side. Marquess, you likewise are in my debt. See to it that you give my enemies no advantage.'

The Marquess and his cousin gave their words, holding up the hilts of their swords before their faces.

Richard, in his city of Poictiers, was calmly forwarding his plans. His first act, since he now considered himself perfectly free, had been to send Gaston of Bearn with letters to Saint-Pol-la-Marche; his second, seeing no reason why he should wait for King Philip or any possible ally, to cross the frontier of Touraine in force. He took castle after castle in that rich land, clearing the way for the invest.i.ture of Tours, which was his first great objective.

I leave him at this employment and follow Gaston on his way to the North. It was early in March when that young man started, squally, dusty weather; but perfect trobador as he was, the nature of his errand warmed him; he composed a whole nosegay of scented songs in honour of Richard and the crocus-haired lady of the March who wore the broad girdle.

Riding as he did through the realm of France, by Chateaudun, Chartres, and Pontoise, he narrowly missed Eustace of Saint-Pol, who was galloping the opposite way upon an errand dead opposed to his own. Gaston would have fought him, of course, but would have been killed to a certainty; for Saint-Pol rode as became his lordship, with a company, and the other was alone. He was spared any such mischance, however, and arrived in the highest spirits, with an _alba_ (song of the dawn) for what he supposed to be Jehane's window. It shows what an eye he had for a lady's chamber that he was very nearly right. A lady did put her head out; not Jehane, but a rock-faced matron of vast proportions with grey hair plastered to her cheeks.

'Behold, behold the dawn, my tender heart!' breathed Gaston.

'Out, you c.o.c.kerel,' said the old lady, and Gaston wooed her in vain. It appeared that she was an aunt, sworn to the service of the Count, and had Jehane safe in a tower under lock and key. Gaston retired into the woods to meditate. There he wrote five identic notes to the prisoner.

The first he gave to a boy whom he found birds'-nesting. 'Take a turtle's nest, sweet boy,' said Gaston, 'to my lady Jehane; say it is first-fruits of the year, and win a silver piece. Beware of an old lady with a jaw like a flat-iron.' The second he gave to a woodman tying billets for the Castle ovens; the third a maid put in her placket, and he taught her the fourth by heart in a manner quite his own and very much to her taste. With the fifth he was most adroit. He demanded an interview with the duenna, whose name was Dame Gudule. She accorded.

Gaston spilled his very soul out before her; he knelt to her, he kissed her large velvet feet. The lady was touched, I mean literally, for Gaston as he stooped fitted his fifth note into the braid of her ample skirt. The only one to arrive was the boy's in the bird's nest. The boy wanted his silver piece, and got it. So Jehane had another note to cherish.

But she had to answer it first. It said, '_Vera Copia_. Ma mye, I set on to the burden you gave me, but it failed of breaking my back. I have punished some of the wicked, and have some still to punish. When this is done I shall come to you. Wait for me. I regret your brother's death.

He deserved it. The fight was fair. Learn of me from Gaston.--Richard of Anjou.' Her answer was leaping in her heart; she led the boy to the window.

'Look down, boy, and tell me what you can see.'

'_Dame_!' said the boy, 'I see the moat, and ducks on it.'

'Look again, dear, and tell me what you see.'

'I see an old fish on his back. He is dead.'

Jehane laughed quietly. 'He has been there many days. Tell the knight who sent you to stand thereabout, looking up. Tell him not to be there at any hour save that of ma.s.s, or vespers. Will you do this, dear boy?'

'Certain sure,' said the boy. Jehane gave him money and a kiss, then fastened herself to the window.

Gaston excelled in pantomime. Every day for a week he saw Jehane at her window, and enacted many strange plays. He showed her the old King stormy in his tent, the meagre white unrest of Alois, the outburst at Autafort and Bertran de Born with his tongue out; the meeting at Tours, the battle, the death of the Count her brother. He was admirable on Richard's love-desires. There could be no doubt at all about them.

p.r.i.c.ked by his feats in this sort, Jehane overcame her reserve and turned her members into marionettes. She puffed her cheeks, hung her head, scowled upwards: there was Gilles de Gurdun to the life. She looped finger and thumb of the right hand and pierced them with the ring finger: ohe! her fate. Gaston in reply to this drew his sword and ran a cypress-tree through the body. Jehane shook a sorrowful head, but he waved all such denials away with a hand so expressive that Jehane broke the window and leaned her body out. Gaston uttered a cheerful cry.

Have no fear, lovely prisoner. If that is his intention he is gone. I kill him. It is arranged.'

'My brother Eustace is in Paris,' says Jehane in a low but carrying voice, 'to get my marriage from the King.'

'Again I say, fear nothing,' Gaston cried; but Jehane strained out as far as she could.

'You must go away from here. The window is broken now, and they will find me out. Take a message to my lord. If he is free indeed, he knows me his in life or death. I seek to do him service. Wed or unwed, what is that to me? I am still Jehane.'

'Your name is Red Heart, and Golden Rose, and Loiale Amye! Farewell, Star of the North,' said Gaston on his knees. 'I seek this Gurdun of yours.'

He found him after some days' perilous prowling of the Norman march.

Gilles had received the summons of his Duke to be _vi et armis_ at Rouen; a little later Gaston might have met him in the field of broad battle, but such delay was not to his mind. He met him instead in a woodland glade near Gisors, alone (by a great chance), sword on thigh.

'Beef, thou diest,' said the Bearnais, peaking his beard. Gilles made no reply that can be written, for what letters can shape a Norman grunt?

Perhaps 'Wauch!' comes nearest. They fought on horseback, with swords, from noon to sunset, and having hacked one another out of the similitude of men, there was nothing left them to do but swoon side by side on the sodden leaves. In the morning Gaston, unclogging one eye, perceived that his enemy had gone. 'No matter,' said the spent hero to himself. 'I will wait till he comes back, and have at him again.'

He waited an unconscionable time, a month in fact, during which he delighted to watch the shy oncoming of a Northern spring, so different from the sudden flooding of the South. He found the wood-sorrel, he measured the crosiers of the brake, and saw the blue mist of the hyacinth carpet the glades. All this charmed him quite, until he learned, by hazard, that the Sieur de Gurdun was to be married to Dame Jehane Saint-Pol on Palm Sunday in the church of Saint Sulpice of Gisors. 'G.o.d ha' mercy!' he thought, with a stab at the heart; 'there is merely time.' He rode South on the wind's wings.

CHAPTER VIII

HOW THEY HELD RICHARD OFF FROM HIS FATHER'S THROAT

Long before the pink flush on the almond announced the earth a bride, on all Gaulish roads had been heard the tramp of armed men, the ring of steel on steel. This new war splintered Gaul. Aquitaine held for Richard, who, though he had quelled and afterwards governed that great duchy with an iron whip, had made himself respected there. So the Count of Provence sent him a company, the Count of Toulouse and Dauphin of Auvergne each brought a company; from Perigord, from Bertram Count of Roussillon, from Bearn, and (for reasons) from the wise King of Navarre, came pikemen and slingers, and long-bowmen, and knights with their esquires and banner-bearers. The Duke of Burgundy and Count of Champagne came from the east to fill the battles of King Philip; in the west the Countess of Brittany sent about the war-torch. All the extremes of Gaul were in arms against the red old Angevin who sat at her heart, who was now still snarling in England, and sending message after secret message to his son John. That same John, alone in Paris, headed no spears, partly because he had none of his own, partly because he dared not declare himself openly. He had taken a side, driven by his vehement brother; for the first time in his life he had put pen to parchment.

G.o.d knew (he thought) that was committal enough. So he stayed in Paris, shifting his body about to get comfort as the winds veered. n.o.body inquired of him, least of all his brother Richard, who, beyond requiring his signature, cared little what he did with his person. This was characteristic of Richard. He would drive a man into a high place and then forget him. Reminded of his neglect, he would shrug and say, 'Yes.

But he is a fool.' Insufficient answer: he did not see or did not choose to see that there are two sorts of fools. Stranded on his peak, one man might be fool enough to stop there, another to try a descent. Prince John (no fool either) was of this second quality. How he tried to get down, and where else he tried to go, will be made clear in time. You and I must go to the war in the west.

War showed Count Richard entered into his birthright. As a strategist he was superb, the best of his time. What his eye took in his mind snapped up--like a steel gin. And his eye was the true soldier's eye, comprehending by signs, investing with life what was tongueless else.

Over great stretches of barren country--that limitless land of France--he could see ma.s.sed men on the move; creeping forward in snaky columns, spread fanwise from clump to woody clump; here camping snugly under the hill, there lining the river bluffs with winged death; checked here, helped there by a moraine--as well as you or I may foresee the conduct of a chess-board. He omitted nothing, judged times and seasons, reckoned defences at their worth, knew all the fordable places by the lie of the land, timed cavalry and infantry to rendezvous, forestalled communications, provided not only for his own base, but against the enemy's. All this, of course, without maps, and very much against the systems of his neighbours. It was thus he had outwitted the heady barons of Aquitaine when little more than a lad, and had turned the hill forts into death-traps against their tenants. He had the secret of swift marching by night, of delivering a.s.sault upon a.s.sault, so that while you staggered under one blow you received another full. He could be as patient as Death, that inchmeal stalker of his prey; he could be as ruthless as the sea, and incredibly generous upon occasion. To the men he led he was a father, known and beloved as such; it was as a ruler they found him too lonely to be loved. In war he was the very footboy's friend. Personally, when the battles joined, he was rash to a fault; but so blithe, so ready, and so gracefully strong, that to think of wounds upon so bright a surface was an impiety. No one did think of them: he seemed to play with danger as a cat with whirling leaves. 'I have seen him,' Milo writes somewhere, 'ride into a serry of knights, singing, throwing up and catching again his great sword Gaynpayn; then, all of a sudden, stiffen as with a gush of sap in his veins, dart his head forward, gather his horse together under him, and fling into the midst of them like a tiger into a herd of bulls. One saw nothing but tossing steel; yet Richard ever emerged, red but scatheless, on the further side.

Upon this man the brunt of war fell naturally: having begun, he did not hold his hand. By the beginning of February he had laid his plans, by the end of it he had taken Saumur, cut Angers off from Tours, and turned all the valley of the Loire into a scorched cinder-bed. In the early days of March he sat down before Tours with his siege-engines, petraries, mangonels, and towers, and daily battered at the walls, with intent to reduce it before the war was really afloat. The city of Saint Martin was doomed; no help from Anjou could save it, for none could come that way. Meantime the King his father had landed at Honfleur, a.s.sembled his Normans at Rouen, and was working his way warily down through the duchy, feeling for the French on his left, and for the Bretons on his right. He never found the French; they were far south of him, pushing through Orleans to join Richard at Le Mans. But the Countess of Brittany's men, under Hugh of Dinan, were sacking Avranches when old Henry heard the bad news from Touraine. That country and Maine were as the apple of his eye; yet he dared not leave Avranches fated behind him.

All he could do was to send William the Marshal with a small force into Anjou, while he himself spread out westward to give Hugh of Dinan battle and save Avranches, if that might be. So it was that King Philip slipped in between him and Le Mans. By this time Richard was master of Tours, and himself on the way to Le Mans, nosing the air for William the Marshal. This was in the beginning of April. Then on one and the same day he risked all he had won for the sake of a girl's proud face, and nearly lost his life into the bargain.

He had to cross the river Aune above La Fleche. That river, a sluggish but deep little stream, moves placidly among osiers on its way to swell the Loire. On either side the water-meadows stretch for three-quarters of a mile; low chalk-hills, fringed at the top, are ramparts to the sleepy valley. Creeping along the eastern spurs at dawn, Richard came in touch with his enemy, William the Marshal and his force of Normans and English. These had crossed the bridge at La Fleche, and came p.r.i.c.king now up the valley to save Le Mans. Heading them boldly, Richard threw out his archers like a waterspray over the flats, and while these checked the advance and had the van in confusion, thundered down the slopes with his knights, caught the Marshal on the flank, smote him hip and thigh, and swept the core of his army into the river. The Marshal's battle was thus destroyed; but the wedge had made too clean a cleft.

Front and rear joined up and held; so Richard found himself in danger.

The Viscount of Beziers, who led the rearguard, engaged the enemy, and pushed them slowly back towards the Aune; Richard wheeled his men and charged, to take them in the rear. His horse, stumbling on the rotten ground, fell badly and threw him: there were cries, 'Hola! Count Richard is down!' and some stayed to rescue and some pushed on. William the Marshal, on a white horse, came suddenly upon him as he lay. 'Mort de dieu!' shrilled this good soldier, and threw up his spear arm. 'G.o.d's feet, Marshal, kill one or other of us!' said Richard lightly: he was pinned down by his struggling beast. 'I leave you to the devil, my lord Richard,' said the Marshal, and drove his spear into the horse's chest.

The beast's death-plunge freed his master. Richard jumped up: even on foot his head was level with the rider's shield. 'Have at you now!' he cried; but the Marshal shook his head, and rode after his flying men.

The day was with Poictou, Le Mans must fall.

It fell, but not yet; nor did Richard see it fall. Gaston of Bearn joined his master the next day. 'Hasten, hasten, fair lord!' he cried out as soon as he saw him. Richard looked as if he had never known the word.

'What news of Normandy, Gaston?'

'The English are through, Richard. The country swarms with them. They hold Avranches, and now are moving south.'