The Siege of Norwich Castle Part 27

'The decision is final, Sir Knight,' replied Emma curtly; thinking to herself that William of Normandy had not scrupled to insult the son and daughter of William Fitzosbern. She added to those in attendance, 'Let this brave gentleman be reconducted to the gate without delay.'

The envoy bowed in silence, and, allowing the silken kerchief to be again bound over his eyes, he marched with stately grace from the apartment.

So Emma de Guader cast down her gauntlet beside that of her husband, and dared the power of her great cousin.

Before the sun was midway in the heavens, a fierce struggle had begun between the besiegers and the besieged for possession of the barbican.

This was not a strong construction of masonry as in the Norman castles of the twelfth century, but a deep and wide fosse or moat, with a high vallum strengthened with stout palisading on its inner side, of a semicircular or horseshoe form, the horns nearly touching the present ditch. The causeway that pa.s.sed between the horns and the present ditch, by which access was given to the castle, was amply protected by the towers of the gate-house and the walls of the castle itself, from whence arrows and quarrels would easily reach a.s.sailants. The similar fosse and palisaded vallum surrounding the castle meadow afforded additional protection to the eastern extremity of the causeway; the portion of the semicircle to the south-west being most open to attack.

Spearmen and javelin-throwers lined the palisades, and from their cover repelled the onslaught of the a.s.saulting men-at-arms, who had further to withstand a whizzing shower of arrows from bowmen hiding in the wooden stalls of the market.

The king's men were endeavouring to throw a wooden bridge across the ditch. One end was furnished with wheels, the other with huge grappling-irons, which they strove to make fast in the vallum.

Watching them stood Leofric Ealdredsson, who, on the night before, when Sir Alain de Gourin had been sneering at the primitive Saxon earthworks, had said, with a laugh and a fierce gleam in his eyes, 'Let me defend them; I am used to the rude English fashions.' A band of his terrible house-carles, armed with their great battle-axes, and long of hair and large of limb, waited his orders with the air of bloodhounds in a leash straining at their collars.

From a loophole on the southern side of the keep, lighting the gallery which runs within the walls on a level with the great entrance, the countess and her bower-maiden Eadgyth watched the strife.

Eadgyth had been present in the council-chamber during the audience of Robert Malet. 'Thou wast grand, Emma,' she was saying to her lady and friend. 'Thou wast so strong and courageous, while, to say sooth, my own heart was beating like an armourer's hammer.'

'Thou art a strange child, my Eadgyth,' said Emma affectionately, well pleased with the admission of the English maiden.

A wilder shout from the besiegers than any preceding broke their converse, and for some moments each watched the progress of the fight in breathless silence.

For the a.s.sailants had established their bridge against the vallum, and over it the attacking knights charged in a body, led by Robert Malet in person, his high crest topping them all, and by sheer weight of horse and harness they drave down the barricades and pressed in, hewing in sunder all before them.

Eadgyth gave a shrill scream and threw her arms wildly round the countess, who stood motionless, with eyes dilated and heaving breast.

Then rang out the wild Norse war-cry, 'Ahoi! ahoi!' And Leofric and his fierce carles sprang forward like tigers; and the flash and crash of their great axes smote eye and ear, while more than one knightly saddle was emptied, more than one riderless destrier ran neighing around the enclosure; more than one mailed warrior, impervious to arrows and quarrels, was cloven through his helm and lay lifeless on the ground.

The Anglo-Danes laughed in their yellow beards, and vigorously improved their advantage, so that in a few moments the knights were forced back beyond the line of the barricades, some getting back across the bridge, some falling into the water.

'See, foolish child! thy cousin has driven them back!' cried Emma. For Leofric was akin to Harold on the mother's side, and so akin to Eadgyth. She stroked the cheek of the frightened girl as a mother who comforts an infant. 'And had he not, there are stout walls and strong arms betwixt them and thee.'

'I know it! I know it! But it is all so terrible! I have not thy nerves of steel! Oh, Emma, in pity watch no longer! I cannot bear it!'

'Faint heart!' cried Emma lovingly. 'The clash of arms doth but spur my courage. I have always loved it from my cradle. Methinks I had made a doughty knight! It is not danger that quells me.'

Her face grew sad, for the bitter pang of an uneasy conscience gnawed her soul. Danger did not quell her, but her doubting heart tormented her.

'_Let me then starve, dear lady; I cannot lift my hand against my heart's witness to the right._'

The sentence sprang into her mind and seemed to glow before her eyes as if it had been seared upon her brain with red-hot irons.

She drew her breath with a long shuddering sigh. In the rapid crowding of events that morning, the man who had spoken it in such despairing earnest had been forgotten, though she had thought of nothing else through the long watches of the night.

She turned to Eadgyth, and bade her go to the chapel, and offer prayers for the earl, and the garrison, and the souls of the fallen. 'Thou wilt feel safe within the holy precincts,' she said; 'and Dame Amicia shall attend me. She is short of sight, and the shouts of yonder madmen will scarce penetrate her ears; she will prove more courageous than art thou.'

When the aged lady-in-waiting came to her, in obedience to the message Eadgyth had conveyed, the countess left the loophole through which so stirring a drama was visible, and advanced to meet her. 'I need the support of thy reverend presence, dear dame,' she said, and told her how she had found one of her lord's knights imprisoned, as she believed, on a misunderstanding, and that she wished to question him again, having taken it upon her to free him.

The old lady could hear each syllable of Emma's clear, soft voice, though she was untroubled by the shouts of the combatants below, and she nodded her stately head with its crown of snow-white hair, tastefully draped with a broidered veil of Cyprian c.r.a.pe.

'A good lad, a good lad, and ever courteous,' answered Dame Amicia.

'Thou dost well to probe the matter. I thought he had gone to Bretagne.'

'It seems he was in durance in this castle,' said Emma. 'But we knew it not; or, if my lord knew it, he had no time to sift the charges against him. Methinks, if he have somewhat erred, he has been punished enough, and I may grant him pardon.'

'Ay; if we forgive not the trespa.s.ses of others, how can we pray with a clean heart that our own may be forgiven?' replied the old lady, nodding again. 'We must practise forgiveness, or our paternosters are but a mockery.'

No further words were spoken till they reached the apartment to which, according to the orders of the countess, Sir Aimand had been conveyed.

De Gourin had taken the precaution to place a stout warder at the door, who announced the visit of the countess to the knight.

When Emma entered the chamber, Sir Aimand threw himself on his knee before her, with an expression of deep homage, and bowed to her and to her venerable attendant.

'n.o.ble countess,' he exclaimed, 'I scarce know how to form my grat.i.tude in words!'

Emma was freshly shocked when she saw his face and form. Shaven and close-clipped as became a Norman knight, and clad in tunic and hose, the ravages of two months of misery were but the more conspicuous, as they owed no advent.i.tious aid to wild elf-locks and s.h.a.ggy beard. His cheeks were sunken, and his eyes unnaturally bright with fever, and the bones of his thin hands and limbs were pitiful to see. His voice also was hoa.r.s.e and hollow. Emma felt that the revelations of the morning moved her more, not less, than the doleful horrors of the preceding night.

'I fear me thou hast greatly suffered,' she said involuntarily. 'Rise, Sir Aimand, and be seated; thou art not fit to stand.'

And Sir Aimand was forced to obey her, for, as he rose to his feet, he tottered and clutched at a stool for support, and Emma recalled some fears that had crossed her mind during the night, with pathetic amus.e.m.e.nt, for she had been haunted with the idea that she had perhaps let loose a very dangerous champion in the castle. The poor knight looked little able to fight either for her cause or against it.

'I had come hither to question thee more closely as to the circ.u.mstances of thy imprisonment,' the countess said, 'and to see if thy proud spirit be at all softened by my bounty, but methinks the best thing I can do is to send thee a good leech.'

'n.o.ble countess, thy generosity hath not left me unmoved,' said Sir Aimand eagerly. 'I give thee my parole, neither to attempt escape, nor in any way to communicate with, aid, or abet the besiegers, if indeed thou wilt be gracious enough to accept it so ungraciously and tardily given.'

'I will accept it,' replied the countess, with a gratified smile; and Dame Amicia smiled also, seeing that her lady was well pleased, although her deafness prevented her from knowing very clearly her reasons for satisfaction.

The countess had felt that the old dame's infirmity might be convenient, for the chief object of her visit was to question the knight more closely regarding the circ.u.mstances of his imprisonment, and she cared not to trust his indictment of Sir Alain to any of her gossip-loving ladies.

'I would that Sir Alain bore not so important a position in the garrison,' she said, after listening again to De Sourdeval's story.

'The Bretons make the most part of our strength, and, save one or two, who are va.s.sals to my lord, he hath them all under his command.'

'Lady,' answered De Sourdeval, 'strive not to see me righted to the detriment of thy welfare. It may well be that De Gourin will serve thee faithfully, though he satisfied a private vengeance against me. Let him not know that I accuse him; say only that thou dost grant me pardon.

But be on thy guard against him.'

'It must be so,' answered the countess, '_for the present_.'

So saying, she took her leave, the knight following her with grateful eyes.

When Emma regained her bower, she summoned Eadgyth to her.

'I have news to comfort thy courage,' she said. 'A doughty champion is in the castle. Does not thy heart tell thee his name?'

Eadgyth opened her blue eyes in vague surprise, then cried, with a start of joy,--

'Ah, Emma, dear Emma! hath the earl so soon returned?'

'Fie, maiden! wouldst make me jealous? Doth _thy heart_ suggest the name of my lord?'