The White Company / Белый отряд. Книга для чтения на английском языке

“You see what the wage brings,” he answered. “I eat of the best, and I drink deep. I treat my friend, and I ask no friend to treat me. I clap a silk gown on my girl’s back. Never a knight’s lady shall be better betrimmed and betrinketed. How of all that, mon garçon? And how of the heap of trifles that you can see for yourselves in yonder corner? They are from the South French, every one, upon whom I have been making war. By my hilt! camarades, I think that I may let my plunder speak for itself.”

“It seems indeed to be a goodly service,” said the tooth-drawer.

“Tête bleue![59 - Tête bleue! – (фр.) Тьфу, черт!] yes, indeed. Then there is the chance of a ransom. Why, look you, in the affair at Brignais, some four years back, when the companies slew James of Bourbon, and put his army to the sword, there was scarce a man of ours who had not count, baron, or knight. Peter Karsdale, who was but a common country lout newly brought over, with the English fleas still hopping under his doublet, laid his great hands upon the Sieur Amaury de Chatonville, who owns half Picardy, and had five thousand crowns out of him, with horse and harness. ’Tis true that a French wench took it all off Peter as quick as the Frenchman paid it; but what then? By the twang of string! it would be a bad thing if money was not made to be spent; and how better than on woman – eh, ma belle?”

“It would indeed be a bad thing if we had not our brave archers to bring wealth and kindly customs into the country,” quoth Dame Eliza, on whom the soldier’s free and open ways had made a deep impression.

“À toi, ma chérie![60 - À toi, ma chérie! – (фр.) За тебя, дорогуша!]” said he, with his hand over his heart. “Holà! there is la petite peeping from behind the door. À toi, aussi, ma petite! Mon Dieu![61 - À toi, aussi, ma petite! Mon Dieu! – (фр.) За тебя тоже, малышка! Боже мой!] but the lass has a good colour!”

“There is one thing, fair sir,” said the Cambridge student in his piping voice, “which I would fain that you would make more clear. As I understand it, there was a peace made at the town of Brétigny some six years back between our most gracious monarch and the King of the French. This being so, it seems most passing strange that you should talk so loudly of war and of companies when there is no quarrel between the French and us.”

“Meaning that I lie,” said the archer, laying down his knife.

“May heaven forefend[62 - May heaven forefend – (уст.) Да боже упаси]!” cried the student hastily. “Magna est veritas sed rara[63 - Magna est veritas sed rara – (лат.) Правда – великая вещь, но редкая], which means in the Latin tongue that archers are all honourable men. I come to you seeking knowledge, for it is my trade to learn.”

“I fear that you are yet a ’prentice to that trade,” quoth the soldier; “for there is no child over the water but could answer what you ask. Know, then, that though there may be peace between our own provinces and the French, yet within the marches of France there is always war, for the country is much divided against itself, and is furthermore harried by bands of flayers, skinners, Brabaçons, tardvenus, and the rest of them. When every man’s grip is on his neighbour’s throat, and every five-sous-piece of a baron is marching with tuck of drum to fight whom he will, it would be a strange thing if five hundred brave English boys could not pick up a living. Now that Sir John Hawkwood hath gone with the East Anglian lads and the Nottingham woodmen into the service of the Marquis of Moutferrat to fight against the Lord of Milan, there are but ten-score of us left; yet I trust that I may be able to bring some back with me to fill the ranks of the White Company. By the tooth of Peter! it would be a bad thing if I could not muster many a Hamptonshire man who would be ready to strike in under the red flag of St. George, and the more so if my old master Sir Nigel Loring, of Christchurch, should don hauberk once more and take the lead of us.”

“Ah! you would indeed be in luck then,” quoth a woodman; “for it is said that, setting aside the prince, and mayhap good old Sir John Chandos, there was not in the whole army a man of such tried courage.”

“It is sooth, every word of it,” the archer answered. “I have seen him with these two eyes on stricken fields and never did man carry himself better. Mon Dieu! yes, ye would not credit it to look at him, or to hearken to his soft voice, but for clear twenty years, there was not skirmish, onfall, sally, bushment, escalado[64 - escalado – (исп.) штурм (крепостного вала)] or battle, but Sir Nigel was in the heart of it. I go now to Christchurch with a letter to him from Sir Claude Latour, to ask him if he will take the place of Sir John Hawkwood; and there is the more chance that he will if I bring one or two likely men at my heels. What say you, woodman: wilt leave the bucks to loose a shaft at a nobler mark?”

The forester shook his head. “I have wife and child at Emery Down,” quoth he; “I would not leave them for such a venture.”

“You then, young sir?” asked the archer.

“Nay, I am a man of peace,” said Alleyne Edricson. “Besides, I have other work to do.”

“Peste![65 - Peste! – (фр.) Тьфу ты!]” growled the soldier, striking his flagon on the board until the dishes danced again. “What, in the name of the devil, hath come over the folk? Why sit ye all moping by the fireside, like crows round a dead horse, when there is man’s work to be done within a few short leagues of ye? Out upon you all, as a set of laggards and hang-backs! By my hilt! I believe that the men of England are all in France already, and that what is left behind are in sooth the women dressed up in their paltocks and hosen.”

“Archer,” quoth Hordle John, “you have lied more than once and more than twice; for which, and also because I see much in you to mislike, I am sorely tempted to lay you upon your back.”

“By my hilt! then, I have found a man at last!” shouted the bowman. “And, ’fore God, you are a better man than I take you for if you can lay me on my back, mon garçon. I have won the ram more times than there are toes to my feet and for seven long years I have found no man in the Company who could make my jerkin dusty.”

“We have had enough bobance and boasting,” said Hordle John, rising and throwing off his doublet. “I will show you that there are better men left in England than ever went thieving to France.”

“Pasques Dieu![66 - Pasques Dieu! – (фр. воскл.) Боже ты мой!]” cried the archer, loosening his jerkin, and eyeing his foeman over with the keen glance of one who is a judge of manhood. “I have only once before seen such a body of a man. By your leave[67 - By your leave – (разг.) С вашего позволения], my red-headed friend, I should be right sorry to exchange buffets with you; and I will allow that there is no man in the Company who would pull against you on a rope; so let that be a salve to your pride. On the other hand, I should judge that you have led a life of ease for some months back, and that my muscle is harder than your own. I am ready to wager upon myself against you, if you are not afeard.”

“Afeard, thou lurden!” growled big John. “I never saw the face yet of the man that I was afeard of. Come out, and we shall see who is the better man.”

“But the wager?”

“I have nought to wager. Come out for the love and the lust of the thing.”

“Nought to wager!” cried the soldier. “Why, you have that which I covet above all things. It is that big body of thine that I am after. See, now, mon garçon, I have a French feather-bed there, which I have been at pains to keep these years back. I had it at the sacking of Issodun, and the king himself hath not such a bed. If you throw me, it is thine; but, if I throw you, then you are under a vow to take bow and bill and hie with me to France, there to serve in the White Company as long as we be enrolled.”

“A fair wager!” cried all the travellers, moving back their benches and trestles, so as to give fair field for the wrestlers.

“Then you may bid farewell to your bed, soldier,” said Hordle John.

“Nay; I shall keep the bed, and I shall have you to France in spite of your teeth, and you shall live to thank me for it. How shall it be, then, mon enfant[68 - mon enfant – (фр.) дитя мое]? Collar and elbow, or close-lock, or catch how you can?”

“To the devil with your tricks,” said John, opening and shutting his great red hands. “Stand forth, and let me clip thee.”

“Shalt clip me as best you can, then,” quoth the archer, moving out into the open space, and keeping a most wary eye upon his opponent. He had thrown off his green jerkin, and his chest was covered only by a pink silk jupon[69 - jupon – (фр.) облегающая туника], or undershirt, cut low in the neck and sleeveless. Hordle John was stripped from his waist upwards, and his huge body, with his great muscles swelling out like the gnarled roots of an oak, towered high above the soldier. The other, however, though near a foot shorter, was a man of great strength; and there was a gloss upon his white skin which was wanting in the heavier limbs of the renegade monk. He was quick on his feet, too, and skilled at the game; so that it was clear, from the poise of head and shine of eye, that he counted the chances to be in his favour. It would have been hard that night, through the whole length of England, to set up a finer pair in face of each other.

Big John stood waiting in the centre with a sullen, menacing eye, and his red hair in a bristle, while the archer paced lightly and swiftly to the right and the left with crooked knee and hands advanced. Then, with a sudden dash, so swift and fierce that the eye could scarce follow it, he flew in upon his man and locked his leg round him. It was a grip that, between men of equal strength, would mean a fall; but Hordle John tore him off from him as he might a rat, and hurled him across the room, so that his head cracked up against the wooden wall.

“Ma foi![70 - Ma foi – (фр.) Клянусь честью; признаюсь; право; по правде сказать]” cried the bowman, passing his fingers through his curls, “you were not far from the feather-bed then, mon gar[71 - mon gar – (фр.) = mon garçon]. A little more, and this good hostel would have a new window.”

Nothing daunted, he approached his man once more; but this time with more caution than before. With a quick feint he threw the other off his guard, and then, bounding upon him, threw his legs round his waist and his arms round his bull-neck, in the hope of bearing him to the ground with the sudden shock. With a bellow of rage, Hordle John squeezed him limp in his huge arms; and then, picking him up, cast him down upon the floor with a force which might well have splintered a bone or two, had not the archer with the most perfect coolness clung to the other’s forearms to break his fall. As it was, he dropped upon his feet and kept his balance, though it sent a jar through his frame which set every joint a-creaking. He bounded back from his perilous foeman; but the other, heated by the bout, rushed madly after him, and so gave the practised wrestler the very vantage for which he had planned. As big John flung himself upon him, the archer ducked under the great red hands that clutched for him, and, catching his man round the thighs, hurled him over his shoulder – helped as much by his own mad rush as by the trained strength of the heave. To Alleyne’s eye, it was as if John had taken unto himself wings and flown. As he hurtled through the air, with giant limbs revolving, the lad’s heart was in his mouth[72 - the lad’s heart was in his mouth – (разг.) душа парнишки в пятки ушла]; for surely no man ever yet had such a fall and came scathless out of it. In truth, hardy as the man was, his neck had been assuredly broken had he not pitched head first on the very midriff of the drunken artist, who was slumbering so peacefully in the corner, all unaware of these stirring doings. The luckless limner, thus suddenly brought out from his dreams, sat up with a piercing yell, while Hordle John bounded back into the circle almost as rapidly as he had left it.

“One more fall, by all the saints!” he cried, throwing out his arms.

“Not I,” quoth the archer, pulling on his clothes. “I have come well out of the business. I would sooner wrestle with the great bear of Navarre.”

“It was a trick,” cried John.

“Aye was it. By my ten finger-bones! it is a trick that will add a proper man to the ranks of the Company.”

“Oh, for that,” said the other, “I count it not a fly; for I had promised myself a good hour ago that I should go with thee, since the life seems to be a goodly and proper one. Yet I would fain have had the feather-bed.”

“I doubt it not, mon ami,” quoth the archer, going back to his tankard. “Here is to thee, lad, and may we be good comrades to each other! But holà! what is it that ails our friend of the wrathful face?”

The unfortunate limner had been sitting up, rubbing himself ruefully and staring about with a vacant gaze, which showed that he knew neither where he was nor what had occurred to him. Suddenly, however, a flash of intelligence had come over his sodden features, and he rose and staggered for the door. “,Ware the ale!” he said in a hoarse whisper, shaking a warning finger at the company. “Oh, holy Virgin,,ware the ale!” and clapping his hands to his injury, he flitted off into the darkness, amid a shout of laughter, in which the vanquished joined as merrily as the victor. The remaining forester and the two labourers were also ready for the road, and the rest of the company turned to the blankets which Dame Eliza and the maid had laid out for them upon the floor. Alleyne, weary with the unwonted excitements of the day, was soon in a deep slumber, broken only by fleeting visions of twittering legs, cursing beggars, black robbers, and the many strange folk whom he had met at the “Pied Merlin.”

Chapter VII

How the Three Comrades Journeyed through the Woodlands

At early dawn the country inn was all alive, for it was rare indeed that an hour of daylight would be wasted at a time when lighting was so scarce and dear. Indeed, early as it was when Dame Eliza began to stir, it seemed that others could be earlier still, for the door was ajar and the learned student of Cambridge had taken himself off, with a mind which was too intent upon the high things of antiquity to stoop to consider the fourpence which he owed for bed and board. It was the shrill outcry of the landlady when she found her loss, and the clucking of the hens, which had streamed in through the open door, that first broke in upon the slumbers of the tired wayfarers.

Once afoot, it was not long before the company began to disperse. A sleek mule with red trappings was brought round from some neighbouring shed for the physician, and he ambled away with much dignity upon his road to Southampton. The tooth-drawer and the gleeman called for a cup of small ale apiece, and started off together for Eingwood Fair, the old jongleur looking very yellow in the eye and swollen in the face after his overnight potations. The archer, however, who had drunk more than any man in the room, was as merry as a grig[73 - was as merry as a grig – (разг.) был очень весел], and having kissed the matron and chased the maid up the ladder once more, he went out to the brook, and came back with the water dripping from his face and hair.

“Holà! my man of peace,” he cried to Alleyne, “whither are you bent this morning?”

“To Minstead,” quoth he. “My brother Simon Edricson is socman there, and I go to bide with him for a while. I prythee, let me have my score, good dame.”

“Score, indeed!” cried she, standing with upraised hands in front of the panel on which Alleyne had worked the night before. “Say, rather, what it is that I owe to thee, good youth. Aye, this is indeed a pied merlin, and with a leveret under its claws, as I am a living woman. By the rood of Waltham! but thy touch is deft and dainty.”

“And see the red eye of it!” cried the maid.

“Aye, and the open beak.”

“And the ruffled wing,” added Hordle John.

“By my hilt!” cried the archer, “it is the very bird itself.”

The young clerk flushed with pleasure at this chorus of praise, rude and indiscriminate indeed, and yet so much heartier and less grudging than any which he had ever heard from the critical brother Jerome ot the short-spoken Abbot. There was, it would seem, great kindness as well as great wickedness in this world, of which he had heard so little that was good. His hostess would hear nothing of his paying either for bed or for board, while the archer and Hordle John placed a hand upon either shoulder and led him off to the board, where some smoking fish, a dish of spinach, and a jug of milk were laid out for their breakfast.