Runnymede and Lincoln Fair: A Story of the Great Charter by John G. Edgar
CHAPTER XXI
DE MOREVILLE’S DAUGHTER
A girl not more than seventeen, with eyes of deep blue, fair face,features slightly aquiline, a soft and somewhat pensive, but still nobleexpression, her auburn hair not almost entirely concealed, as was thefashion of the court ladies of the period, but flowing free over hershoulders; and her graceful figure not decorated or deformed as theirswere with meretricious ornaments, but arrayed in a simple robe of white,girdled at the slender waist with a belt of blue--such was the Normandemoiselle who suddenly appeared before the eyes of Oliver Icingla andput his melancholy musings to flight. Nor could he doubt who she was,seeing her where he did.
“By the Holy Cross!” he exclaimed to himself, “surely that is no otherthan the demoiselle who has so often been present to me in my dreams andvisions! And yet she can be none other than the daughter of my worstwoe--she whom the Lord Neville mentioned as so fascinating and so fair.Verily, my lord was guilty of no exaggeration when he spoke so highly inpraise of her grace and comeliness!”
Beatrix de Moreville could not know what eyes were upon her, or possiblyshe would not have lingered so long that July evening on “the ladies’walk.” However, if she had known all, her vanity would perhaps have beengratified; for, in spite of his strong antipathy to the father, Oliverwas enchanted with the daughter, and, when she vanished with herwaiting-women at the sound of the vesper bell, he devoutly prayed thatshe might return again and again to cheer the solitude which he hadbegun so much to abhor. In fact, although he knew it not, he was, as oldFroissart said on a similar occasion, “stricken to the heart with asparkle of fine love that endured long after.” All that evening sheoccupied his thoughts; and, after comparing her to the various heroinesof the chivalrous romances then in vogue, always giving her thepreference, he finally fell asleep to dream that he was being put byHugh de Moreville into a frightful instrument of torture, and that hewas saved from the threatened infliction by De Moreville’s daughter.
Next day appeared marvellously long to Oliver, so impatiently did heawait the coming of evening and the coming of the fair being who hadmade so strong an impression on his fancy. Again she appeared, andevening after evening during August, when from the ramparts ofChas-Chateil the rustics could be seen gathering in the yellow corn,always remaining until the bat begun to hunt the moth and the vesperbell sounded. Oliver grew more and more interested, and thought of hermore highly the oftener he saw her; for, as the old chronicler puts it,“love reminded him of her day and night, and represented her beauty andbehaviour in such bewitching points of view, that he could think ofnothing else, albeit her father had done him grievous wrong.”
But Oliver Icingla was a youth of mettle, and not the youth to becontent to worship Beatrix de Moreville at a distance as an Indianworships his star. Naturally enough, he began to form plans for makingthis Norman damsel aware of his existence, and not altogether withoutsuccess. In fact, fortune very highly favoured the captive Englishman inthis respect. The Lady Beatrix was frequently in her evening walksaccompanied by a very devoted attendant in the shape of a dog, and thisdog sometimes found its way to the rampart without its mistress. Oliverfrom his window very easily made the dog’s acquaintance, and speedilyconverted the acquaintance into a friendship so close that it would notpass the place of his incarceration without giving audible signs ofrecognition. This led to important consequences.
One evening late in August, when Oliver’s captivity had lasted for morethan ten weeks, he was posted, as usual, at his window, looking throughthe bars, when Beatrix de Moreville passed close to him with her dog andher maidens. The dog stopped, looked up in his face, wagged his tail,and began to spring up towards him, and the lady naturally enough turnedher eyes in the same direction to see what was the cause of her caninefavourite’s excitement. Such an opportunity might never, as Oliverthought, occur again, and he was not likely, under the circumstances, toallow it to pass for lack of presence of mind.
“May God and Our Lady bless thee, noble demoiselle!” said he, notwithout a slight tremulousness in his voice. “I would that, like thee, Ihad the privilege of walking at freedom; for methinks that freedom, eversweet, is doubly sweet on such an eve as this.”
Oliver sighed as he spoke. The lady appeared startled, and lookedembarrassed; but influenced, doubtless, by courtesy, she stayed hersteps and gazed timidly through the iron bars on the face of thespeaker, so young, so fair, and yet so melancholy.
“Pardon my boldness, noble demoiselle,” continued Oliver, “and fear not.I am no wild beast, though thus caged, but an English squire who wastaught from childhood by a widowed mother to serve God and the ladies;and I comprehended my duties in both respects even before I wasapprenticed to chivalry in the castle of my kinsman, the noble Earl ofSalisbury. But I am well-nigh beside myself with this captivity. Creditme, that hardly have I heard the sound of any one’s voice for weeks,save when visited by the holy man who is the chaplain in this castle;for my gaoler is the most churlish of churls, and answers only with asullen scowl when I address him. To all men, I doubt not, captivity isirksome; but to me it is not only irksome but horrible; for I am Englishby birth and lineage, and of all nations it is well known that theEnglish most thoroughly abhor the thought of being deprived of liberty.”
“Gentle sir,” said the Lady Beatrix, speaking with an effort and notwithout agitation, “I know not what you would have me to do. Is it thatyou wish me to speak to my lord and father on your behalf? If such beyour object, say so, I pray you, and it shall be done forthwith.”
“Nay, noble demoiselle,” replied Oliver, shaking his head; “that werevain as to appeal to the wolf of the forest to abstain from preying onthe deer in the chase. He would not listen.”
“But he ever listens to me--he shall listen!”
“By the Holy Cross!” exclaimed Oliver, giving way to the enthusiasmwhich the presence of Beatrix de Moreville created, “I marvel who couldrefuse to listen to a being so gentle and beautiful. However,” added he,checking himself as he perceived that she was startled by the warmth ofhis speech, “I will not so far trespass on your generosity as to acceptyour intercession: nor, in truth, could it avail ought. Between the LordHugh de Moreville and myself there has never been much love, and we havetwice parted of late not just the best of friends. Moreover, I chance tobe of kin through my mother to the house of Moreville, and the Lord Hughdislikes me more on that account than mayhap he would otherwise do.Wherefore accept my thanks and leave me to my fate. Events have ere thisopened stronger doors than keep me here; and credit me, that when I doleave this castle where I have passed so many weary, weary hours, Ishall at least carry with me one pleasant memory--the memory of thefairest face that I have seen in England, France, or Spain. Adieu, nobledemoiselle; may the saints--especially Our Lady--ever watch over thywelfare and safety!”
Beatrix de Moreville moved on pensively, and not without indulging inpity for the young warrior whose language was so earnest and whoseplight was so sad. Nor did the knowledge that he was there prevent herreturning to the battlements to breathe the evening air; nor, so far ascan be ascertained, did she make a point of avoiding furtherconversation. In fact, she became inspired with a very dangerousinterest in her father’s captive, and contrived not only to learn whoand what he was, but how he had fought at Muradel and Bovines, and muchmore about his parentage and his history than was likely to add to herpeace of mind. In short, the daughter of De Moreville, the Norman ofAnglo-Normans, passed the winter of 1215 dreaming of her Englishkinsman and picturing him as a hero. Ere the spring of 1216 came he wascosting her many a sigh and many a tear.
As for Oliver Icingla, he almost felt that he was content with hiscondition. It would be too much to say that if his prison doors had beenopened he would have said with the heroine of the ballad of “The SpanishLady’s Love”--
“Full woe is me: Oh, let me still sustain this kind captivity!”--
but certainly he did find his prison infinitely less intolerable than it
“On my faith,” said he to himself one day in April, after having wornhimself out by the intensity of his ravings, “never did the hart pantfor the water-brook more than I pant for freedom and air and exercise,and yet the chance seems as far away from me as ever. I marvel how longI have been here. Ha! I have lost count. By St. Edward, I fear me thatere long I shall lose my senses!”
As Oliver thus soliloquised he went to the window, and, seating himselfon the broad sill of stone, looked out on meadows and woodlands whichspring, “that great painter of the earth,” had once more robed in green,and on the ploughed fields to which, in spite of war and rumours of war,the husbandmen were committing the seeds, with every hope of reaping indue season. Almost as he did so, his ear caught the sound of a musicalinstrument and of a voice singing a Castilian ballad in very indifferentSpanish, but in accents which were so familiar that his heart leapedwithin him. Oliver listened, and as he listened the singer sang--
“They have carried afar into Navarre the great Count of Castile, And they have bound him sorely, they have bound him hand and heel; The tidings up the mountains go, and down among the valleys-- To the rescue! to the rescue, ho! they have ta’en Fernan Gonsalez!”
Interrupting without ceremony, and taking the ballad out of the singer’smouth, Oliver repeated the verse at the top of his voice, so emphasisingseveral of the words as to leave little room for mistake as to hismeaning. As he did so he observed a figure climb slowly but withoutdifficulty up a parapet, at such a distance from him that there was nopossibility of communicating by words; but the figure, on reaching thetop of the parapet, reared itself and stood in the form of a boy dressedin crimson, holding some musical instrument in his hand, and lookingscrutinously from window to window, and from casement to casement,apparently with the object of discovering from which had come the voiceof the person who had caught up his song. Oliver, to aid him, took hiscap, put his hand between the bars of the window, and dexterously tossedthe cap in the air. The signal was observed and had the desired effect.The singer returned it, and having dropped nimbly to the grounddisappeared, while Oliver, withdrawing into the interior of his chamber,began to marvel what consequences would flow from this unexpectedincident.
But days and weeks elapsed, and nothing came to alter his situation; andOliver, thinking he was forgotten by those on whom he had been relying,was musing over the song that had raised his hopes, and ever and anonasking himself with a smile whether or not it would be possible topersuade De Moreville’s daughter to play the part of the infanta whobribed the alcaydé with her jewels to set free the great Count ofCastile, and who then fled with him to his own land, when there occurredan event which changed the aspect of his affairs.
It was somewhere about the middle of May, 1216, and Oliver had beennearly eleven months in captivity, and Hugh de Moreville, with RalphHornmouth in attendance, had been many months absent from Chas-Chateil,being, in fact at the court of Paris; and the castle, which was wellgarrisoned, was under the command of a Norman knight who had seen aboutfifty winters, and who rejoiced in the name of Anthony Waledger. He wasa man of courage and prudence, Sir Anthony Waledger, and had married the“lady governess” of Beatrix de Moreville, she being a distant kinswomanof the house. And Hugh de Moreville had the most implicit confidence inher husband’s fidelity and discretion. It is true that the old knightwas a man of violent temper and intemperate habits, and much given tobrimming goblets and foaming tankards. Besides, he had the character ofhaving sometimes in moments of danger shown too much of the discretionwhich is the better part of valour. But De Moreville overlooked hisweaknesses, believing him to be incapable of betraying his trust orfailing in his duty. Moreover, the knight had faith in his garrison,and felt so secure that he would readily have staked his head on holdingout Chas-Chateil against any army in England till the arrival ofsuccour; and his confidence was all the greater because he knew that hehad the means--no matter how closely the castle might be invested--ofcommunicating with the baronial party in time to be rescued, for therewas a subterranean passage, the existence of which Waledger believed tobe known to none save himself and the baron whom he served. In this hewas partly wrong, inasmuch as Styr, the Anglo-Saxon, from his residenceat Chas-Chateil in the days of Edric Icingla, was aware that there wasthis underground passage, and even knew the chamber that communicatedwith it. But he knew no more, and if put into it could no more haveguessed where it was to lead or where it was to terminate than DeMoreville’s horse-boy, Clem the Bold Rider, or Richard de Moreville, thebaron’s nephew, who were equally ignorant that such a passage existed.Everything, however, tended to inspire the governor of Chas-Chateil witha feeling of security. Indeed, over his cups he was in the habit oftalking big to De Moreville’s knights and squires, and especially to DeMoreville’s nephew Richard, about his engines of war, and what he coulddo with their aid.
“Sirs,” he was wont to say at such moments, “let who will tremble at afalse tyrant’s frown, I defy his malice. Let him do his worst, and, bythe head of St. Anthony, if King John makes his appearance before thecastle of Chas-Chateil, the said king will be the luckiest of Johns ifhe can escape from before it alive and at liberty.”
Never had Sir Anthony Waledger boasted more loudly of the impregnabilityof the fortress he commanded than as he sat at supper in the great hallon the evening of the day to which allusion has been made; and never didthe garrison retire to rest with a better prospect of reposingundisturbed till the return of daylight. But it appeared, as RalphHornmouth remarked, that “his confidence did not rest on quite so firm afoundation as the Bass rock.” About three hours after sunset, when themoon afforded but a faint light, shouts suddenly resounded throughChas-Chateil, and gradually swelled into such an uproar as if all thefiends had congregated within its walls to fight out the quarrels theyhad been fostering from the beginning of time.
Oliver Icingla, roused from his repose, started from his couch andrushed to the window; but as there was nothing visible in the directiontowards which it looked to explain the uproar, that grew louder and morealarming, he hastily donned his garments, and stood calm, though greatlycurious, to await the issue. As he did so, voices were heard; the gaoleropened the door, and as the door opened in rushed, pell-mell, DeMoreville’s daughter with her two maidens and the wife of Waledger, allin the utmost trepidation, weeping and wringing their hands, and showingsigns of hasty toilets.
“Gentle sir,” said Beatrix, coming towards him, “I implore you by ourkindred blood and for the sake of your mother to save us from thesecruel men.”
“Assuredly, noble demoiselle,” replied Oliver very calmly, as he tookhis fair kinswoman’s hand and kissed it most gallantly by the moonlight.“I am under the vows of chivalry, and albeit I wear not the spurs ofknighthood, I am bound to save imperilled ladies or to die in theirdefence. But I marvel who they can be?”
“Oh,” cried the spouse of Waledger, whose consternation increased everymoment, “who should they be but your own friends, the ravening wolveswhom the false king has brought into the realm--Falco the Cruel, Manlemthe Bloody, Soltim the Merciless, Godeschal the Iron-hearted? Woe is methat I should live to be in their power!”
“On my faith, madam,” said Oliver, who had listened to her vehemence andthe names and epithets with amazement, “I am more puzzled than ever.Beshrew me if I ever heard of the men before. In truth, their namessound as strange to my ear as if you had called the roll of theEthiopians who kept guard over the caliph’s palace at Bagdad.”
But at that moment steps sounded in the gallery, and a loud knock at thedoor made Beatrix de Moreville tremble and the three other women shriekwith terror.