The Iron Arrow Head or The Buckler Maiden: A Tale of the Northman Invasion

"That is right, my brave skipper! I was mistaken. You were not indifferent but calm, like all brave people in sight of danger."

"To speak truly, I can not see wherein lies the danger."

"Are you not fleeing before the approach of those pagans?"

"No, I am not fleeing. I am returning to Paris to embrace my wife and daughter. And I am all the happier about it, seeing I did not expect to be with them again until to-morrow evening. I meant, after that, to take council with my compères upon what to do."

"And who are your compères?"

"Why, of course, the deans of the other guilds of the city of Paris – of the blacksmiths, carpenters, armorers, weavers, curriers, stone-cutters, and others."

"Of course, the purpose of such a council is to organize the defense of Paris against the pirates! Glory to you, my towns-men! I feel proud of numbering such stalwarts as yourselves in my city!"

"Blessed be they who defend the Church! All their sins will be remitted!" put in the abbot who, until now overwhelmed with grief and fear, seemed to gather some hope from the words of the count.

"Oh!" repeated Rothbert, pointing proudly at Eidiol, "at the head of such men, we shall be invincible!"

"And yet," replied the aged skipper, "only this forenoon, you were ordering your knights to break their lances upon our backs!"

Rothbert bit his lips, puckered his brow, and answered with embarrassment:

"You must excuse an accidental outburst of excitement."

"Your present glorifications contrast singularly with the insolent words that you bestowed upon me this forenoon."

"Fortunat," rejoined the count, turning to the abbot and with difficulty suppressing his anger: "This good fellow loves to banter. I think, however, he should choose his time better. We must run to arms, not joke, when these accursed Northmans threaten our peace."

"Well! well! They are not so deserving of curses, after all," remarked Eidiol, smiling with nonchalance. "Thanks to these very Northmans, you are now treating me with civility and courting my friendship. The noble is flattering the villein!"

"Quit your raillery, old man!" commanded Rothbert, relapsing, despite himself, into his wonted haughty and violent temper.

"Seigneur count, I am speaking to the point because I am in a hurry to embrace my wife and daughter. It is now about twenty-seven years ago, in the year 885, when the Northmans, under the lead of Hastain, to-day master and Seigneur of the country of Chartres, invaded the country and laid siege to Paris for the fifth or sixth time."

"On that occasion, at least, and it was the only time, the plebs of Paris, under the command of Eudes, my brother, offered a brave resistance, since when the pirates have no longer ravaged the city. It will be so again now. I swear it to God, will ye, nill ye, villeins, you shall be marched to the ramparts to give battle!"

"Until that year of which you speak, Paris had never offered any resistance to the pirates. The reason was simple. The people, the guilds and the artisans did not care to undertake the defence – "

"Yes, yes!" broke in Rothbert with concentrated rage "That plebs allowed the churches, the abbeys and the castles to be pillaged and set on fire!"

"The Northmans only plunder the rich. They surely do not care to load their barks with our rags, our rough furniture and our sand-stone pots when they can load them to overflowing with vases of gold and silver and all manner of costly things with which the castles, the churches and the abbeys are gorged. They attack the seigneurs. Let the seigneurs defend themselves!"

"By the death of Christ! This old man has gone crazy!" cried Rothbert beyond himself with rage and yet not daring fully to give a loose to his pent-up anger. "How could we defend ourselves without the aid of the people! Could I repel thirty thousand Northmans with the two thousand soldiers that I keep in my duchy of France?"

"Oh, I know it! You can do nothing without the people. Your brother, Count Eudes, knew it also. At the approach of the pirates he sought to propitiate the people, and convoked the deans of the guilds at his little castle of Paris. My father, the then dean of the skippers, said to your brother: 'You, kings, seigneurs and clergymen, need us to protect your goods from the pillage of the Northmans. Well, then, let us strike a bargain. Lighten our taxes, render our lives less hard, and we shall defend your riches.' 'Agreed!' answered Count Eudes, and certain franchises and other measures of relief for the plebs of the city were agreed on. On the morrow that good plebs rushed to the ramparts and fought with intrepidity. Many of them were killed, many more were wounded. My father and myself were among the latter. The Northmans were repelled. But the danger being over, the King, the seigneurs and the dignitaries of the Church forgot their promise."

While Eidiol spoke the Count of Paris controlled his indignation with difficulty; finally he broke forth pale with rage: "Do you mean that your plebs will refuse to defend the city?"

"I think so. We, the skippers, will take on board our vessels our own families and those of our friends who are willing to follow us. We shall sail out of the waters of Paris on one side while the Northmans enter by the other, and we shall calmly ascend the Seine towards the Marne, leaving you, seigneurs and abbots, to arrange matters with the Northmans the best way you may know how."

"Listen to him! The infamous poltroon! Is your vile slave's heart moved neither with anger nor shame at the bare idea of the disgrace of seeing the foreigners, the Northmans, in Paris!"

At these insulting words a slight flush suffused Eidiol's face, a spark of lightning glistened in his eyes. But the self-possessed old man controlled himself and answered:

"Count, my grandfather read in the old parchments of our family that a small colony of men of my race, now more than three centuries ago, lived free and happy in a corner of Burgundy when the Arabs invaded and ravaged Gaul[3 - See "The Branding Needle" and "The Abbatial Crosier," of this series.]– "

"And that colony of cravens," broke in the count, "trembling before the Arabs, like you now before the Northmans, of course left the pagans to ravage, pillage and burn down the country!"

"Count," proceeded the old skipper proudly, "the people of that colony were killed to the last man because they fought in defence of their rights, their families, their soil and their liberty. But, seeing that that handful of brave men were, with the single exception of the indomitable Bretons, the only free men in all Gaul, the Arabs were able to ravage the other provinces and to settle down in Languedoc. In this century the same thing will happen with the Northmans. The population – a horde of slaves on the field, a mass of wretched beings in the towns – is indifferent to the ills that smite you – you rich seigneurs and prelates. And now, adieu. I am in a hurry to return to Paris and embrace my wife and daughter."

While Eidiol was uttering these last sentences, the count issued some orders in a low voice to one of his officers, who thereupon hurriedly left the apartment. The old man moved towards the door, but Rothbert, motioning his men to bar the passage, cried in a menacing tone:

"You shall not go to introduce disturbance and revolt in my city of Paris!" And addressing the abbot: "Have you a prison in the place?"

"We have cells, and quite strong, too, in which to keep the impious criminals who dare resist our will."

"Let one of your clerks show the way to my men, who will lock this insolent skipper in one of these cells of the abbey."

Eidiol was unable to suppress a first impulse of astonishment and sorrow.

"My son," said he, "has remained on board of my vessel; allow me to see him and apprise him of what has happened to me, that he may inform my wife and daughter. They will otherwise feel uneasy at my absence."

"Your wishes," answered Rothbert with a cruel smile, "shall be satisfied. I have sent to fetch the other skippers from your vessel."

"Treason!" cried Eidiol. "They will come confident that no harm is meant, and a prison cell awaits them!"

"You have said it," replied the Count of Paris, and, pointing his finger at Eidiol, he ordered his officers: "To prison with him!"

"My dear wife, my sweet daughter! How uneasy will you not feel when to-morrow you see neither my son nor myself coming back home," murmured the old man sadly, and, without offering any resistance, he followed the officer who took him in charge and conducted him to the subterranean cells of the abbey.

CHAPTER VI

SISTER AGNES

Shortly after the count's departure from the abbey, the reinforcement of a hundred soldiers promised by him arrived at the place. Their captain spent the night in preparing the fortifications for the defence. Under the physical lash of their foreman, above all intimidated by the fear of the fiery furnace of hell, the serfs and villeins transported to the platform of the walls large stones, logs of wood and heavy beams, intended to serve as projectiles against the expected assailants. They were also made to carry heavy barrels of oil and pitch, which, boiled in large caldrons, were held ready to be poured over the heads of the enemy; besides a large number of bags full of chalk dust, whose contents, dropped upon the besiegers, would serve to blind them.

During the night and part of the morning the cattle of the abbey's domain were driven within its walls. Thither also a large number of the abbey's serfs and villeins congregated, summoned by the abbot to its defence. Many more, however, took to flight, determined to join the Northmans the moment they disembarked and to glean whatever they could in the wake of the invaders' tracks.

Many "Franks", as the free holders of little farms were styled, who lived in the environs of St. Denis, bundled up their most valuable havings and went for shelter behind the walls of the abbey. The court-yards and galleries of the cloister became by the hour more encumbered with a frightened crowd, whose baggage was piled up high hither and thither, while cattle of every description were huddled close together in the garden and on a spacious meadow that was enclosed within the fortifications.

Finally, the abbot himself, helped by his canons who were armed with spades and mattocks, was busily engaged in the work of hastily burying under the ground of a little sequestered court all the rich paraphernalia of the church – vases, reliquaries, chalices, monstrances, statues, crosses, candelabra, chalice-covers, and other holy utensils wrought in silver or solid gold, and enriched with costly ornaments, – all proceeding from the toil and taxes of the serfs and villeins. A small group of priests were upon their knees in the basilica, imploring, amid moans, the assistance of heaven and invoking all manner of maledictions upon the heads of the Northmans.

The larger part of the day had been spent in continual frights. The men at the lookout, who kept watch on the ramparts above the gate, saw it frequently open in order to give passage to belated serfs and herds of cattle, or to wagons filled with the fodder needed for feeding the large number of horses and other animals that had been crowded within the walls. Two of these conveyances, loaded with hay, and each drawn by a double yoke of oxen, were conducted by a man of sinister face and barely dressed in rags. The man was well known in the abbey. So soon as he hove in sight, a monk of large paunch, who was placed at the wicket of the gate, cried:

"Blessings upon you and your load! We have so many cattle within that we have been in fear of want of provender for them. Have you any tidings of those pagan Northmans? Have their vessels been seen on the Seine? Are they near or still far away?"

"They are said to be drawing nearer. But thanks to God, the abbey is impregnable. Oh! A curse upon these Northmans!" answered the serf, whose name was Savinien. As the man spoke, a strange smile flitted over his careworn countenance; he cast a sly side-smile upon the load of hay that was heaped up high on the wagons and added: "I have driven my oxen so fast, in order to place myself at the order of our holy abbot, that, I fear, the poor brutes are foundered. – See how heavy they breathe!"

"They will not have to blow long. They will be speedily killed to feed the large number of noble Franks who have fled hither for refuge," replied the monk.