In the Days of Chivalry: A Tale of the Times of the Black Prince

"Ah! I have been hearing of thee and of thy prowess, my fair young sir. My good brother Alexander, who has followed the King's banner, would gladly have been in thy place on the day of Crecy. Thou and thy brother were amongst that gallant little band who fought around the Prince and bore him off the field unhurt. Did not I say of thee that thou wouldst quickly win thy knighthood's spurs? And thou mightest already have been a belted knight if thy prudence and thy modesty had not been greater than thine ambition. Is it not so?"

Raymond's face glowed like a child's beneath the praises of Mistress Joan Vavasour, and the light of her bright eyes seemed fairly to dazzle him. John came to the rescue by telling Raymond's own version of the story; and then he eagerly asked Joan of herself and what had become of her these past years, for he had seldom seen her, and knew not where she was living nor what she was doing – knew not even if she were wedded, nor if Peter Sanghurst's suit were at an end or had been crowned by success.

At the sound of that name the girl's face darkened quickly, and a spark of fire gleamed in her eyes.

"Talk not of him," she said; "I would that he were dead! Have I not said that I would never wed him, that I would die first? Fair fortune hath befriended me in this thing. Thou knowest perchance that my father and brother have been following the King's banner of late, first in Flanders and then in France. My mother and I meantime have not been residing at Woodcrych, but in London, whither all news of the war is first known, and where travellers from the spot are like to come. We are here but for a short space, to spend the merry Yuletide season with my mother's brother, who lives, as thou knowest, within the town of Guildford. After that we return once more to London, there to await the return of my father and brother. Alexander, in truth, has once visited us, but has returned to the siege of Calais, hoping to be amongst those who will reap plenteous spoil when the city is given over to plunder, as Caen was given. Of the Sanghursts, I thank my kindly saints, I have heard naught all this while. My mother loved them not, albeit she was always entreating me in nowise to thwart or gainsay my father. I cannot but hope that these long months of absence will have gone far to break the spell that those evil men seemed to cast about him. Be that as it may, I myself have grown from a child to a woman, and I say now, as I said then, that no power in the world shall induce me to give my hand in marriage to Peter Sanghurst. I will die first!"

The girl threw back her handsome head, and her great eyes glowed and flashed. Raymond looked at her with a beating heart, feeling once more that mysterious kindling of the soul which he could not understand, and yet of which he had been before in the presence of Joan so keenly conscious. She appeared to him to be far older than himself, though in reality he was a few months the senior; for at eighteen a girl is always older in mind than a boy, and Joan's superb physique helped to give to her the appearance of a more advanced age than was really hers. Just then, too, Raymond, though grown to his full height, which was stately enough, was white and thin and enfeebled. He felt like a mere stripling, and it never occurred to him that the many glances bent upon him by the flashing eyes of the queenly maiden were glances of admiration, interest, and romantic approval. To her the pale, silent youth, with the saint-like face and the steadfast, luminous eyes, was in truth a very preux chevalier amongst men. She had seen something too much of those knights of flesh and blood and nothing else, who could fight gallantly and well, but who knew nothing of the deeper and truer chivalry of the days of mythical romance in which her own ardent fancies loved to stray. Feats of arms she delighted in truly with the bold spirit of her soldier race; but she wanted something more than mere bravery in the field. It was not physical courage alone that made Sir Galahad her favourite of all King Arthur's knights. Ah no! There was another quest than that of personal glory which every true knight was bound to seek. Yet how many of them felt this and understood the truer, deeper meaning of chivalry? She knew, she felt, that Raymond did; and as she turned her palfrey's steps homeward when the twilight began to fall that cold December day, it was with her favourite Sir Galahad that her mind was engrossed, and to him she gave a pale, thin face, with firm, sweet lines and deep-set dreamy eyes – eyes that looked as though they had never quailed before the face of foe, and which yet saw far into the unseen mysteries of life, and which would keep their sweet steadfastness even to the end.

As for Raymond, an unwonted restlessness came over him at this time. He was growing stronger and better. Moderate exercise was recommended as beneficial, and almost every day during the bright hours of the forenoon his steps were turned towards the town of Guildford, lying hard by his uncle's Rectory house. Scarce a day passed but what he was rewarded by a chance encounter with Mistress Joan – either a glimpse of her at a window, or a smile from her bright eyes as she passed him upon her snow-white palfrey; or sometimes he would have the good hap to meet her upon foot, attended by her nurse, or some couple of stout retainers, if her walk had been in any wise extended; and then she would pause and bring him to her side by a look, and inquire after his own health and that of John, who seldom stirred out in the bitter cold of winter. Then he would ask and obtain her permission to accompany her as far as the gate of her own home – the place where she was staying; and though he never advanced beyond the gate – for she knew not what her relatives might say to these encounters with a gallant without money and without lands – they were red-letter days in the calendar of two young lives, and were strong factors moulding their future lives, little as either knew it at the time.

Had either the radiant maiden or the knightly youth had eyes for any but the other, they might have observed that these encounters, now of almost daily occurrence, were not unheeded by at least one evil-faced watcher. The servants who attended Mistress Joan were all devoted to her, and kept their own counsel, whatever they might think, and Raymond's fame as one of the heroes of Crecy had already gone far and wide, and won him great regard in and about the walls of his uncle's home; but there was another watcher of Mistress Joan's movements who took a vastly different view of the little idyll playing itself out between the youth and the maiden, and this watcher was none other than the evil and vengeful Peter Sanghurst the younger.

Once as Raymond turned away, after watching Joan's graceful, stately figure vanish up the avenue which led to her uncle's house, he suddenly encountered the intensely malevolent glance of a pair of coal-black eyes, and found himself most unexpectedly face to face with the same man who had once confronted him in the forest and had demanded the restitution of the boy Roger.

"You again!" hissed out between his teeth the dark-browed man. "You again daring to stand in my path to thwart me! Have a care how you provoke me too far. My day is coming! Think you that I threaten in vain? Go on then in your blind folly and hardihood! But remember that I can read the future. I can see the day when you, a miserable crushed worm, will be wholly and solely in my power; when you will be mine mine to do with what I will, none hindering or gainsaying me. Take heed then how you provoke me to vengeance; for the vengeance of the Sanghurst can be what thou dreamest not of now. Thwart me, defy me, and the hour will come when for every pang of rage and jealousy I have known thou shalt suffer things of which thou hast no conception now, and none shall be able to rescue thee from my hand. Yon maiden is mine – mine – mine! Her will I wed, and none other. Strive as thou wilt, thou wilt never pluck her from my hand. Thou wilt but draw down upon thine own head a fearful fate, and she too shall suffer bitterly if thou failest to heed my words."

And with a look of hatred and fury that seemed indeed to have something positively devilish in it, Sanghurst turned and strode away, leaving Raymond to make what he could of the vindictive threats launched at him. Had this man, in truth, some occult power of which none else had the secret; or was it but an idle boast, uttered with the view of terrifying one who was but a boy in years?

Raymond knew not, could not form a guess; but his was a nature not prone to coward fears. He resolved to go home and take counsel with his good cousin John.

CHAPTER XV. THE DOUBLE SURRENDER

On a burning day in July, nearly a year from the time of their parting, the twin brothers met once more in the camp before Calais, where they had parted the previous autumn. Raymond had been long in throwing off the effect of the severe injuries which had nearly cost him his life after the Battle of Crecy; but thanks to the rest and care that had been his in his uncle's house, he had entirely recovered. Though not quite so tall nor so broad-shouldered and muscular as Gaston, who was in truth a very prince amongst men, he was in his own way quite as striking, being very tall, and as upright as a dart, slight and graceful, though no longer attenuated, and above all retaining that peculiar depth and purity of expression which had long seemed to mark him out somewhat from his fellow men, and which had only intensified during the year that had banished him from the stirring life of the camp.

"Why, Brother," said Gaston, as he held the slim white hands in his vise-like clasp, and gazed hungrily into the face he had last seen so wan and white, "I had scarce dared to hope to see thee again in the camp of the King after the evil hap that befell thee here before; but right glad am I to welcome thee hither before the final act of this great drama, for methinks the city cannot long hold out against the famine within and our bold soldiers without the walls. Thou hast done well to come hither to take thy part in the final triumph, and reap thy share of the spoil, albeit thou lookest more like a youthful St. George upon a church window than a veritable knight of flesh and blood, despite the grip of thy fingers, which is well-nigh as strong as my own."

"I will gladly take my share in any valorous feat of arms that may be undertaken for the honour of England and of England's King. But I would sooner fight with warriors who are not half starved to start with. Say not men that scarce a dog or a cat remains alive in the city, and that unless the citizens prey one upon the other, all must shortly perish?"

"Yea, in very truth that is so; for, as perchance thou hast heard, a vessel was sighted leaving Calais harbour but a few short days ago, and being hotly pursued, was seen to drop a packet overboard. That packet at ebb tide was found tied to an anchor, and being brought to the King and by him opened, was found to contain those very words addressed to the King of France by the governor of the city, praying him to come speedily to the rescue of his fortress if he wished to save it from the enemy's hand. Our bold King having first read it, sent it on posthaste to his brother of France, crying shame upon him to leave his gallant subjects thus to perish with hunger. Methinks that message will shame yon laggard monarch into action. How he has been content to idle away the year, with the foe besieging the key of his kingdom, I know not. But it is a warm welcome he shall get if he comes to the relief of Calais. We are as ready to receive him here as we were a year ago on the field of Crecy!"

"Ay, in fair fight with Philip's army would I gladly adventure my life again!" cried Raymond, with kindling eyes; "but there be fighting I have small relish for, my Gaston, and I have heard stories of this very siege which have wrung my heart to listen to. Was it true, brother, that hundreds of miserable creatures, more than half of them women and little children, were expelled from the city as 'useless mouths,' and left to starve to death between the city walls and the camp of the English, in which plenty has all the winter reigned? Could that be true of our gallant King and his brave English soldiers?"

A quick flush dyed Gaston's cheek, but he strove to laugh.

"Raymond, look not at me with eyes so full of reproach. War is a cruel game, and in some of its details I like it little better than thou. But what can we soldiers do? Nay, what can even the King do? Listen, and condemn him not too hastily. Long months ago, soon after thou hadst left us, the same thing was done. Seventeen hundred persons – men, women, and children – were turned out of the town, and the King heard of it and ordered some of them to be brought before him. In answer to his question they told him that they were driven from the city because they could not fight, and were only consuming the bread, of which there was none to spare for useless mouths. They had no place to go to, no food to eat, no hope for the future. Then what does our King do but give them leave to pass through his camp; and not only so, but he orders his soldiers to feed them well, and start them refreshed on their way; and before they went forth, to each of them was given, by the royal order, two sterlings of silver, so that they went forth joyously, blessing the liberality and kindness of the English and England's King. But thou must see he could not go on doing these kindly acts if men so took advantage of them. He is the soul of bravery and chivalry, but there must be reasonable limits to all such royal generosity."

Raymond could have found in his heart to wish that the limit had not been quite so quickly reached, and that the hapless women and children had not been left to perish miserably in the sight of the warmth and plenty of the English camp; but he would not say more to damp his brother's happiness in their reunion, nor in that almost greater joy with which Roger received him back.

"In faith," laughed Gaston, "I believe that some of the wizard's art cleaves yet to yon boy, for he has been restless and dreamy and unlike himself these many days; and when I have asked him what ailed him, his answer was ever the same, that he knew you were drawing nigh; and verily he has proved right, little as I believed him when he spoke of it."

Roger had so grown and improved that Raymond would scarce have recognized in him the pale shrinking boy they had borne out from the house of the sorcerer three years before. He had developed rapidly after the first year of his new life, when the shackles of his former captivity seemed finally broken; but this last year of regular soldier's employment had produced a more marked change in his outward man than those spent in the Brotherhood or at Raymond's side. His figure had widened. He carried himself well, and with an air of fearless alertness. He was well trained in martial exercises, and the hot suns of France had bronzed his cheeks, and given them a healthy glow of life and animation. He still retained much of his boyish beauty, but the dreaminess and far-away vacancy had almost entirely left his eyes. Now and again the old listening look would creep into them, and he would seem for a few moments to be lost to outward impressions; but if recalled at such moments from his brief lapse, and questioned as to what he was thinking, it always proved to be of Raymond, not of his old master.

Once or twice he had told Gaston that his brother was in peril – of what kind he knew not; and Gaston had wondered if indeed this had been so. One of these occasions had been just before Christmastide, and the date being thus fixed in his mind, he asked his brother if he had been at that time exposed to any peril. Raymond could remember nothing save the vindictive threat of Peter Sanghurst, and Gaston was scarce disposed to put much faith in words, either good or bad, uttered by such a man as that.

And now things began to press towards a climax in this memorable siege. The French King, awakened from his long and inexplicable lethargy by the entreaties of his starving subjects so bravely holding the town for a pusillanimous master, and stung by the taunts of the English King, had mustered an army, and was now marching to the relief of the town. It was upon the last day of July, when public excitement was running high, and all men were talking and thinking of an approaching battle, that word was brought into the camp, and eagerly passed from mouth to mouth, to the effect that the King of France had despatched certain messengers to hold parley with the royal Edward, and that they were even now being admitted to the camp by the bridge of Nieulay – the only approach to Calais through the marshes on the northeast, which had been closely guarded by the English throughout the siege.

"Hasten, Raymond, hasten!" cried Gaston, dashing into the small lodging he and his brother now shared together. "There be envoys come from the French King. The Prince will be with his father to hear their message, and if we but hasten to his side, we may be admitted amongst the number who may hear what is spoken on both sides."

Raymond lost no time in following his brother, both eager to hear and see all that went on; and they were fortunate enough to find places in the brilliant muster surrounding the King and his family, as these received with all courtesy the ambassador from the French monarch.

That messenger was none other than the celebrated Eustache de Ribeaumont, one of the flower of the French chivalry, to whom, on another occasion, Edward presented the celebrated chaplet of pearls, with one of the highest compliments that one brave man could give another. The boys, and indeed the whole circle of English nobility, looked with admiration at his stately form and handsome face, and though to our ears the message with which he came charged sounds infinitely strange, it raised no smile upon the faces of those who stood around the royal Edward.

"Sire," began the messenger, "our liege lord, the King of France, sends us before you, and would have you know that he is here, and is posted on the Sandgatte Hill to fight you; but intrenched as you are in this camp, he can see no way of getting at you, and therefore he sends us to you to say this. He has a great desire to raise the siege of Calais, and save his good city, but can see no way of doing so whilst you remain here. But if you would come forth from your intrenchments, and appoint some spot where he could meet you in open fight, he would rejoice to do it, and this is the thing we are charged to request of you."

A shout, led by the Prince of Wales, and taken up by all who stood by, was proof enough how acceptable such a notion was to the ardent spirits of the camp; for it was not a shout of derision, but one of eager assent. Indeed, for a moment it seemed as though the King of England were disposed to give a favourable reply to the messenger; but then he paused, and a different expression crossed his face. He sat looking thoughtfully upon the ground, whilst breathless silence reigned around him, and then he and the Queen spoke in low tones together for some few minutes.

When Edward looked up again his face had changed, and was stern and set in expression.

"Tell your lord," he said, speaking slowly and distinctly, "that had he wished thus to fight, he should have sent his challenge before. I have been near a twelvemonth encamped before this place, and my good people of England have been sore pressed to furnish me with munitions for the siege. The town is now on the point of falling into my hands, and then will my good subjects find plunder enough to recompense them for their labour and loss. Wherefore tell your lord that where I am there will I stay; and that if he wishes to fight he must attack me in my camp, for I assuredly have no intention of moving out from it."

A slight murmur of disappointment arose from the younger and more ardent members of the crowd; but the older men saw the force of the King's words, and knew that it would be madness to throw away all the hardly-earned advantages of those long months just for a piece of chivalrous bravado. So De Ribeaumont had to ride back to the French camp with Edward's answer; and ere two more days had passed, the astonishing news was brought to the English lines that Philip had abandoned his camp, which was now in flames, and was retreating with his whole army by the way he had come.

"Was ever such a craven coward!" cried the Prince, in indignant disappointment; for all within the English camp had been hoping for battle, and had been looking to their arms, glad of any incident to vary the long monotony of the siege. "Were I those gallant soldiers in yon fortress, I would serve no longer such a false, treacherous lord. Were my father but their king, he would not leave them in such dire strait, with an army at his back to fight for him, be the opposing force a hundredfold greater than it is!"

And indeed it seemed as though the brave but desperate garrison within those walls saw that it was hopeless to try to serve such a master. How bitter must their feelings have been when Philip turned and left them to their fate may well be imagined. Hopeless and helpless, there was nothing but surrender before them now; and to make the best terms possible was the only thing that remained for them. The day following Philip's dastardly desertion, the signal that the city was ready to treat was hung out, and brave Sir Walter Manny, whose own history and exploits during the campaigns in Brittany and Gascony would alone fill a volume either of history or romance, was sent to confer on this matter with the governor of the city, the gallant De Vienne, who had been grievously wounded during the long siege.

Raymond's sympathies had been deeply stirred by what he had heard and imagined of the sufferings of the citizens, and with the love of adventure and romance common to those days, he arrayed himself lightly in a dress that would not betray his nationality, and followed in the little train which went with Sir Walter. The conference took place without the walls, but near to one of the gates. Raymond did not press near to hear what was said, like the bulk of the men on both sides who accompanied the leaders, but he passed through the eager crowd and made for the gate itself, the wicket of which stood open; and so calm and assured was his air, and so deeply were the minds of the porters stirred by anxiety to know the fate of the town, that the youth passed in unheeded and unchallenged, and once within the ramparts he could go where he chose and see what he would.

But what a sight met his eyes! Out into the streets were flocking the inhabitants, all trembling with anxiety to hear their fate. Every turn brought him to fresh knots of famine-stricken wretches, who had almost lost the wish to live, or any interest in life, till just stirred to a faint and lingering hope by the news that the town was to be surrendered at last. Gaunt and hollow-eyed men, women little better than skeletons, and children scarce able to trail their feeble bodies along, were crowding out of the houses and towards the great marketplace, where the assembly to hear the conditions was likeliest to meet. The soldiers, who had been better cared for than the more useless townsfolk, were spectre-like in all conscience; but the starving children, and the desperate mothers who could only weep and wring their hands in answer to the piteous demand for bread, were the beings who most stirred Raymond's heart as he went his way amongst them.

Again that sense of horror and shrinking came upon him that he had experienced upon the field of Crecy amongst the dying and the dead. If war did indeed entail such ghastly horrors and frightful sufferings, could it be that glorious thing that all men loved to call it?

Curious glances began to be levelled at him as he passed through the streets, sometimes pausing to soothe a wailing child, sometimes lending a hand to assist a tottering woman's steps, and speaking to all in that gentle voice of his, which with its slightly unfamiliar accent smote strangely upon the ears of the people. He wore no helmet on his head, and his curly hair floated about his grave saint-like face, catching golden lights from the glory of the August sunshine.

"Is it one of the blessed saints?" asked a little child of his mother, as Raymond paused in passing by to lay a caressing hand upon his head, and speak a soft word of encouragement and hope to the weary mother.

And the innocent question was taken up and passed from mouth to mouth, till it began to be whispered about that one of the holy saints had appeared in their midst in the hour of the city's deadly peril. As Raymond passed on his way, many a knee was bent and many a pleading voice asked a blessing; whilst he, feeling still as one who moves in a dream, made the sign of the cross from time to time over some kneeling suppliant without understanding what was said of him or why all eyes were bent upon him.

But the great town bell was ringing now to summon the citizens to assemble themselves together to hear the final terms agreed upon for the capitulation of the city, and all else was forgotten in the overwhelming anxiety of that moment; for none could form a guess what terms would be granted to a town in such sore straits as was theirs. The English King could be generous and merciful, but he could also be stern and implacable; and the long resistance made by the town was like to have stirred his wrath, as well as the fact that the sea port of Calais had done more harm to his ships and committed more acts of piracy than any other port in France.

Raymond himself had great fears for the fate of the hapless town, and was as eager as any to hear what had been decreed.

"Sure if the King could see the famished gathering here his heart would relent," murmured the youth to himself, as he looked round at the sea of wan faces gathered in the open square.

But the grave and sorrowful expression upon the governor's face told that he had no very happy tidings to impart. He stood upon a flight of steps where all men could well behold him, and in the dead silence that fell upon the multitude every word spoken could be distinctly beard.

"My friends," he said, in grave, mournful accents, "I come to you with news of the only terms of capitulation that I have been able to win from England's King. I myself offered to capitulate if he would permit all within the walls to depart unharmed, whilst his demand was for unconditional surrender. The brave knight who came forth to confer with me went back more than once to strive to win for us better terms, and his intercession was thus far successful. The King will take the rest of the citizens to mercy if six of their chief burgesses be given up to his vengeance, and appear before him bareheaded and barefooted, with halters about their necks and the keys of the city in their hands. For such there will be no mercy. Brave Sir Walter Manny, who bore hack this message with so sorrowful a countenance, bid me not hope that the lives of these men would be spared. He said he saw the fierce sparkle in Edward's eyes as he added, grinding his teeth, 'On them will I do my will.' Wherefore, my good friends, we are this day in a great strait, and I would that I might myself give up my life to save the town; but the King's command is that it shall be six of the burgesses, and it is for you and them to say if these hard conditions shall be accepted."

The deepest silence had hitherto prevailed in that vast place, but now it was broken by the weeping and wailing of a great multitude. Raymond's throat swelled and his eyes glistened as he looked around upon that sea of starving faces, and tried to realize all that this message must mean to them. If his own life could have paid the ransom, he would have laid it down that moment for these miserable weeping beings; but he was helpless as the brave governor, and could only stand and see the end of the drama.

Slowly up the steps of the marketplace, where stood the governor of the city, advanced a fine-looking man in the prime of life, and a hushed murmur ran through the crowd, in which Raymond caught the name of Eustache de St. Pierre. This man held up his hand in token that he wished to speak, and immediately a deathlike silence fell again upon the crowd.

"My friends," spoke the clear deliberate voice, "it would be a great pity and mischief to let such a people as this assembled here die by famine or any other way, if a means can be found to save them; and it would be great alms and great grace in the sight of the Lord for any one who could save them from such harm. I have myself so great hope of finding grace and pardon in the sight of our Lord, if I die to save this people, that I will be the first, and will yield myself willingly, in nothing but my shirt, with my head bare and a halter round my neck, to the mercy of the King of England."

As these simple but truly heroic words were spoken a burst of weeping and blessing arose from the crowd, women pressed forward and fell at the feet of the worthy citizen, and Raymond said in his heart:

"Sure if the King of England could but see it, there is more chivalry in yon simple merchant than in half the knights who stand about his throne."