CHAPTER XXIX.
HOW THE BLESSED HOUR OF SIGHT CAME TO THE LADY TIPHAINE.
Sir Tristram de Rochefort, Seneschal of Auvergne and Lord of
Villefranche, was a fierce and renowned soldier who had grown
gray in the English wars. As lord of the marches and guardian of
an exposed country-side, there was little rest for him even in
times of so-called peace, and his whole life was spent in raids
and outfalls upon the Brabanters, late-comers, flayers free
companions, and roving archers who wandered over his province.
At times he would come back in triumph, and a dozen corpses
swinging from the summit of his keep would warn evil-doers that
there was still a law in the land. At others his ventures were
not so happy, and he and his troop would spur it over the
drawbridge with clatter of hoofs hard at their heels and whistle
of arrows about their ears. Hard he was of hand and harder of
heart, hated by his foes, and yet not loved by those whom he
protected, for twice he had been taken prisoner, and twice his
ransom had been wrung by dint of blows and tortures out of the
starving peasants and ruined farmers. Wolves or watch-dogs, it
was hard to say from which the sheep had most to fear.
The Castle of Villefranche was harsh and stern as its master. A
broad moat, a high outer wall turreted at the corners, with a
great black keep towering above all--so it lay before them in the
moonlight. By the light of two flambeaux, protruded through the
narrow slit-shaped openings at either side of the ponderous gate,
they caught a glimpse of the glitter of fierce eyes and of the
gleam of the weapons of the guard. The sight of the two-headed
eagle of Du Guesclin, however, was a passport into any fortalice
in France, and ere they had passed the gate the old border knight
came running forwards with hands out-thrown to greet his famous
countryman. Nor was he less glad to see Sir Nigel, when the
Englishman's errand was explained to him, for these archers had
been a sore thorn in his side and had routed two expeditions
which he had sent against them. A happy day it would be for the
Seneschal of Auvergne when they should learn that the last yew
bow was over the marches.
The material for a feast was ever at hand in days when, if there
was grim want in the cottage, there was at least rude plenty in
the castle. Within an hour the guests were seated around a board
which creaked under the great pasties and joints of meat, varied
by those more dainty dishes in which the French excelled, the
spiced ortolan and the truffled beccaficoes. The Lady Rochefort,
a bright and laughter-loving dame, sat upon the left of her
warlike spouse, with Lady Tiphaine upon the right. Beneath sat
Du Guesclin and Sir Nigel, with Sir Amory Monticourt, of the
order of the Hospitallers, and Sir Otto Harnit, a wandering
knight from the kingdom of Bohemia. These with Alleyne and Ford,
four French squires, and the castle chaplain, made the company
who sat together that night and made good cheer in the Castle of
Villefranche. The great fire crackled in the grate, the hooded
hawks slept upon their perches, the rough deer-hounds with
expectant eyes crouched upon the tiled floor; close at the elbows
of the guests stood the dapper little lilac-coated pages; the
laugh and jest circled round and all was harmony and comfort.
Little they recked of the brushwood men who crouched in their
rags along the fringe of the forest and looked with wild and
haggard eyes at the rich, warm glow which shot a golden bar of
light from the high arched windows of the castle.
Supper over, the tables dormant were cleared away as by magic and
trestles and bancals arranged around the blazing fire, for there
was a bitter nip in the air. The Lady Tiphaine had sunk back in
her cushioned chair, and her long dark lashes drooped low over
her sparkling eyes. Alleyne, glancing at her, noted that her
breath came quick and short, and that her cheeks had blanched to
a lily white. Du Guesclin eyed her keenly from time to time, and
passed his broad brown fingers through his crisp, curly black
hair with the air of a man who is perplexed in his mind.
"These folk here," said the knight of Bohemia, "they do not seem
too well fed."
"Ah, canaille!" cried the Lord of Villefranche. "You would
scarce credit it, and yet it is sooth that when I was taken at
Poictiers it was all that my wife and foster-brother could do to
raise the money from them for my ransom. The sulky dogs would
rather have three twists of a rack, or the thumbikins for an
hour, than pay out a denier for their own feudal father and liege
lord. Yet there is not one of them but hath an old stocking full
of gold pieces hid away in a snug corner."
"Why do they not buy food then?" asked Sir Nigel. "By St. Paul!
it seemed to me their bones were breaking through their skin."
"It is their grutching and grumbling which makes them thin. We
have a saying here, Sir Nigel, that if you pummel Jacques
Bonhomme he will pat you, but if you pat him he will pummel you.
Doubtless you find it so in England."
"Ma foi, no!" said Sir Nigel. "I have two Englishmen of this
class in my train, who are at this instant, I make little doubt,
as full of your wine as any cask in your cellar. He who
pummelled them might come by such a pat as he would be likely to
remember."
"I cannot understand it," quoth the seneschal, "for the English
knights and nobles whom I have met were not men to brook the
insolence of the base born."
"Perchance, my fair lord, the poor folk are sweeter and of a
better countenance in England," laughed the Lady Rochefort.
"Mon Dieu! you cannot conceive to yourself how ugly they are!
Without hair, without teeth, all twisted and bent; for me, I
cannot think how the good God ever came to make such people. I
cannot bear it, I, and so my trusty Raoul goes ever before me
with a cudgel to drive them from my path."
"Yet they have souls, fair lady, they have souls!" murmured the
chaplain, a white-haired man with a weary, patient face.
"So I have heard you tell them," said the lord of the castle;
"and for myself, father, though I am a true son of holy Church,
yet I think that you were better employed in saying your mass and
in teaching the children of my men-at-arms, than in going over
the country-side to put ideas in these folks' heads which would
never have been there but for you. I have heard that you have
said to them that their souls are as good as ours, and that it is
likely that in another life they may stand as high as the oldest
blood of Auvergne. For my part, I believe that there are so many
worthy knights and gallant gentlemen in heaven who know how such
things should be arranged, that there is little fear that we
shall find ourselves mixed up with base roturiers and swine-herds.
Tell your beads, father, and con your psalter, but do not
come between me and those whom the king has given to me!"
"God help them!" cried the old priest. "A higher King than yours
has given them to me, and I tell you here in your own castle
hall, Sir Tristram de Rochefort, that you have sinned deeply in
your dealings with these poor folk, and that the hour will come,
and may even now be at hand, when God's hand will be heavy upon
you for what you have done." He rose as he spoke, and walked
slowly from the room.
"Pest take him!" cried the French knight. "Now, what is a man to
do with a priest, Sir Bertrand?--for one can neither fight him
like a man nor coax him like a woman."
"Ah, Sir Bertrand knows, the naughty one!" cried the Lady
Rochefort. "Have we not all heard how he went to Avignon and
squeezed fifty thousand crowns out of the Pope."
"Ma foi!" said Sir Nigel, looking with a mixture of horror and
admiration at Du Guesclin. "Did not your heart sink within you?
Were you not smitten with fears? Have you not felt a curse hang
over you?"
"I have not observed it," said the Frenchman carelessly. "But by
Saint Ives! Tristram, this chaplain of yours seems to me to be a
worthy man, and you should give heed to his words, for though I
care nothing for the curse of a bad pope, it would be a grief to
me to have aught but a blessing from a good priest."
"Hark to that, my fair lord," cried the Lady Rochefort. "Take
heed, I pray thee, for I do not wish to have a blight cast over
me, nor a palsy of the limbs. I remember that once before you
angered Father Stephen, and my tire-woman said that I lost more
hair in seven days than ever before in a month."
"If that be sign of sin, then, by Saint Paul! I have much upon
my soul," said Sir Nigel, amid a general laugh. "But in very
truth, Sir Tristram, if I may venture a word of counsel, I should
advise that you make your peace with this good man."
"He shall have four silver candlesticks," said the seneschal
moodily. "And yet I would that he would leave the folk alone.
You cannot conceive in your mind how stubborn and brainless they
are. Mules and pigs are full of reason beside them. God He
knows that I have had great patience with them. It was but last
week that, having to raise some money, I called up to the castle
Jean Goubert, who, as all men know, has a casketful of gold
pieces hidden away in some hollow tree. I give you my word that
I did not so much as lay a stripe upon his fool's back, but after
speaking with him, and telling him how needful the money was to
me, I left him for the night to think over the matter in my
dungeon. What think you that the dog did? Why, in the morning
we found that he had made a rope from strips of his leathern
jerkin, and had hung himself to the bar of the window."
"For me, I cannot conceive such wickedness!" cried the lady.
"And there was Gertrude Le Boeuf, as fair a maiden as eye could
see, but as bad and bitter as the rest of them. When young Amory
de Valance was here last Lammastide he looked kindly upon the
girl, and even spoke of taking her into his service. What does
she do, with her dog of a father? Why, they tie themselves
together and leap into the Linden Pool, where the water is five
spears'-lengths deep. I give you my word that it was a great
grief to young Amory, and it was days ere he could cast it from
his mind. But how can one serve people who are so foolish and so
ungrateful?"
Whilst the Seneschal of Villefranche had been detailing the evil
doings of his tenants, Alleyne had been unable to take his eyes
from the face of Lady Tiphaine. She had lain back in her chair,
with drooping eyelids and bloodless face, so that he had feared
at first her journey had weighed heavily upon her, and that the
strength was ebbing out of her. Of a sudden, however, there came
a change, for a dash of bright color flickered up on to either
cheek, and her lids were slowly raised again upon eyes which
sparkled with such lustre as Alleyne had never seen in human eyes
before, while their gaze was fixed intently, not on the company,
but on the dark tapestry which draped the wall. So transformed
and so ethereal was her expression, that Alleyne, in his
loftiest dream of archangel or of seraph, had never pictured so
sweet, so womanly, and yet so wise a face. Glancing at Du
Guesclin, Alleyne saw that he also was watching his wife closely,
and from the twitching of his features, and the beads upon his
brick-colored brow, it was easy to see that he was deeply
agitated by the change which he marked in her.
"How is it with you, lady?" he asked at last, in a tremulous
voice.
Her eyes remained fixed intently upon the wall, and there was a
long pause ere she answered him. Her voice, too, which had been
so clear and ringing, was now low and muffled as that of one who
speaks from a distance.
"All is very well with me, Bertrand," said she. "The blessed
hour of sight has come round to me again."
"I could see it come! I could see it come!" he exclaimed,
passing his fingers through his hair with the same perplexed
expression as before.
"This is untoward, Sir Tristram," he said at last. "And I scarce
know in what words to make it clear to you, and to your fair
wife, and to Sir Nigel Loring, and to these other stranger
knights. My tongue is a blunt one, and fitter to shout word of
command than to clear up such a matter as this, of which I can
myself understand little. This, however, I know, that my wife is
come of a very sainted race, whom God hath in His wisdom endowed
with wondrous powers, so that Tiphaine Raquenel was known
throughout Brittany ere ever I first saw her at Dinan. Yet these
powers are ever used for good, and they are the gift of God and
not of the devil, which is the difference betwixt white magic and
black."
"Perchance it would be as well that we should send for Father
Stephen," said Sir Tristram.
"It would be best that he should come," cried the Hospitaller.
"And bring with him a flask of holy water," added the knight of
Bohemia.
"Not so, gentlemen," answered Sir Bertrand. "It is not needful
that this priest should be called, and it is in my mind that in
asking for this ye cast some slight shadow or slur upon the good
name of my wife, as though it were still doubtful whether her
power came to her from above or below. If ye have indeed such a
doubt I pray that you will say so, that we may discuss the matter
in a fitting way."
"For myself," said Sir Nigel, "I have heard such words fall from
the lips of this lady that I am of the opinion that there is no
woman, save only one, who can be in any way compared to her in
beauty and in goodness. Should any gentleman think otherwise, I
should deem it great honor to run a small course with him, or
debate the matter in whatever way might be most pleasing to him."
"Nay, it would ill become me to cast a slur upon a lady who is
both my guest and the wife of my comrade-in-arms," said the
Seneschal of Villefranche. "I have perceived also that on her
mantle there is marked a silver cross, which is surely sign
enough that there is nought of evil in these strange powers which
you say that she possesses."
This argument of the seneschal's appealed so powerfully to the
Bohemian and to the Hospitaller that they at once intimated that
their objections had been entirely overcome, while even the Lady
Rochefort, who had sat shivering and crossing herself, ceased to
cast glances at the door, and allowed her fears to turn to
curiosity.
"Among the gifts which hare been vouchsafed to my wife," said Du
Guesclin, "there is the wondrous one of seeing into the future;
but it comes very seldom upon her, and goes as quickly, for none
can command it. The blessed hour of sight, as she hath named it,
has come but twice since I have known her, and I can vouch for it
that all that she hath told me was true, for on the evening of
the Battle of Auray she said that the morrow would be an ill day
for me and for Charles of Blois. Ere the sun had sunk again he
was dead, and I the prisoner of Sir John Chandos. Yet it is not
every question that she can answer, but only those----"
"Bertrand, Bertrand!" cried the lady in the same mutterings far-away
voice, "the blessed hour passes. Use it, Bertrand, while you may."
"I will, my sweet. Tell me, then, what fortune comes upon me?"
"Danger, Bertrand--deadly, pressing danger--which creeps upon you
and you know it not."
The French soldier burst into a thunderous laugh, and his green
eyes twinkled with amusement. "At what time during these twenty
years would not that have been a true word?" he cried. "Danger
is in the air that I breathe. But is this so very close,
Tiphaine?"
"Here--now--close upon you!" The words came out in broken,
strenuous speech, while the lady's fair face was writhed and
drawn like that of one who looks upon a horror which strikes, the
words from her lips. Du Guesclin gazed round the tapestried
room, at the screens, the tables, the abace, the credence, the
buffet with its silver salver, and the half-circle of friendly,
wondering faces. There was an utter stillness, save for the
sharp breathing of the Lady Tiphaine and for the gentle soughing
of the wind outside, which wafted to their ears the distant call
upon a swine-herd's horn.
"The danger may bide," said he, shrugging his broad shoulders.
"And now, Tiphaine, tell us what will come of this war in Spain."
"I can see little," she answered, straining her eyes and
puckering her brow, as one who would fain clear her sight.
"There are mountains, and dry plains, and flash of arms and
shouting of battle-cries, Yet it is whispered to me that by
failure you will succeed."
"Ha! Sir Nigel, how like you that?" quoth Bertrand, shaking his
head. "It is like mead and vinegar, half sweet, half sour. And
is there no question which you would ask my lady?"
"Certes there is. I would fain know, fair lady, how all things
are at Twynham Castle, and above all how my sweet lady employs
herself."
"To answer this I would fain lay hand upon one whose thoughts
turn strongly to this castle which you have named. Nay, my Lord
Loring, it is whispered to me that there is another here who hath
thought more deeply of it than you."
"Thought more of mine own home?" cried Sir Nigel. "Lady, I fear
that in this matter at least you are mistaken."
"Not so, Sir Nigel. Come hither, young man, young English squire
with the gray eyes! Now give me your hand, and place it here
across my brow, that I may see that which you have seen. What is
this that rises before me? Mist, mist, rolling mist with a
square black tower above it. See it shreds out, it thins, it
rises, and there lies a castle in green plain, with the sea
beneath it, and a great church within a bow-shot. There are two
rivers which run through the meadows, and between them lie the
tents of the besiegers."
"The besiegers!" cried Alleyne, Ford, and Sir Nigel, all three in
a breath.
"Yes, truly, and they press hard upon the castle, for they are an
exceeding multitude and full of courage. See how they storm and
rage against the gate, while some rear ladders, and others, line
after line, sweep the walls with their arrows. They are many
leaders who shout and beckon, and one, a tall man with a golden
beard, who stands before the gate stamping his foot and hallooing
them on, as a pricker doth the hounds. But those in the castle
fight bravely. There is a woman, two women, who stand upon the
walls, and give heart to the men-at-arms. They shower down
arrows, darts and great stones. Ah I they have struck down the
tall leader, and the others give back. The mist thickens and I
can see no more."
"By Saint Paul!" said Sir Nigel, "I do not think that there can
be any such doings at Christchurch, and I am very easy of the
fortalice so long as my sweet wife hangs the key of the outer
bailey at the head of her bed. Yet I will not deny that you have
pictured the castle as well as I could have done myself, and I am
full of wonderment at all that I have heard and seen."
"I would, Lady Tiphaine," cried the Lady Rochefort, "that you
would use your power to tell me what hath befallen my golden
bracelet which I wore when hawking upon the second Sunday of
Advent, and have never set eyes upon since."
"Nay, lady," said du Guesclin, "it does not befit so great and
wondrous a power to pry and search and play the varlet even to
the beautiful chatelaine of Villefranche. Ask a worthy question,
and, with the blessing of God, you shall have a worthy answer."
"Then I would fain ask," cried one of the French squires, "as to
which may hope to conquer in these wars betwixt the English and
ourselves."
"Both will conquer and each will hold its own," answered the Lady
Tiphaine.
"Then we shall still hold Gascony and Guienne?" cried Sir Nigel.
The lady shook her head. "French land, French blood, French
speech," she answered. "They are French, and France shall have
them."
"But not Bordeaux?" cried Sir Nigel excitedly.
"Bordeaux also is for France."
"But Calais?"
"Calais too."
"Woe worth me then, and ill hail to these evil words! If
Bordeaux and Calais be gone, then what is left for England?"
"It seems indeed that there are evil times coming upon your
country," said Du Guesclin. "In our fondest hopes we never
thought to hold Bordeaux. By Saint Ives! this news hath warmed
the heart within me. Our dear country will then be very great in
the future, Tiphaine?"
"Great, and rich, and beautiful," she cried. "Far down the
course of time I can see her still leading the nations, a wayward
queen among the peoples, great in war, but greater in peace,
quick in thought, deft in action, with her people's will for her
sole monarch, from the sands of Calais to the blue seas of the
south."
"Ha!" cried Du Guesclin, with his eyes flashing in triumph, "you
hear her, Sir Nigel?--and she never yet said word which was not
sooth."
The English knight shook his head moodily. "What of my own poor
country?" said he. "I fear, lady, that what you have said bodes
but small good for her."
The lady sat with parted lips, and her breath came quick and
fast. "My God!" she cried, "what is this that is shown me?
Whence come they, these peoples, these lordly nations, these
mighty countries which rise up before me? I look beyond, and
others rise, and yet others, far and farther to the shores of the
uttermost waters. They crowd! They swarm! The world is given
to them, and it resounds with the clang of their hammers and the
ringing of their church bells. They call them many names, and
they rule them this way or that but they are all English, for I
can hear the voices of the people. On I go, and onwards over
seas where man hath never yet sailed, and I see a great land
under new stars and a stranger sky, and still the land is
England. Where have her children not gone? What have they not
done? Her banner is planted on ice. Her banner is scorched in
the sun. She lies athwart the lands, and her shadow is over the
seas. Bertrand, Bertrand! we are undone for the buds of her bud
are even as our choicest flower!" Her voice rose into a wild cry,
and throwing up her arms she sank back white and nerveless into
the deep oaken chair.
"It is over," said Du Guesclin moodily, as he raised her drooping
head with his strong brown hand. "Wine for the lady, squire!
The blessed hour of sight hath passed."
