XVI. HOW THE KING'S COURT FEASTED IN CALAIS CASTLE
It was a bright sunshiny morning when Nigel found himself at last
able to leave his turret chamber and to walk upon the rampart of
the castle. There was a brisk northern wind, heavy and wet with
the salt of the sea, and he felt, as he turned his face to it,
fresh life and strength surging in his blood and bracing his
limbs. He took his hand from Aylward's supporting arm and stood
with his cap off, leaning on the rampart and breathing in the cool
strong air. Far off upon the distant sky-line, half hidden by the
heave of the waves, was the low white fringe of cliffs which
skirted England. Between him and them lay the broad blue Channel,
seamed and flecked with flashing foam, for a sharp sea was running
and the few ships in sight were laboring heavily. Nigel's eyes
traversed the wide-spread view, rejoicing in the change from the
gray wall of his cramped chamber. Finally they settled upon a
strange object at his very feet.
It was a long trumpet-shaped engine of leather and iron bolted
into a rude wooden stand and fitted with wheels. Beside it lay a
heap of metal slugs and lumps of stone. The end of the machine
was raised and pointed over the battlement. Behind it stood an
iron box which Nigel opened. It was filled with a black coarse
powder, like gritty charcoal.
"By Saint Paul!" said he, passing his hands over the engine, "I
have heard men talk of these things, but never before have I seen
one. It is none other than one of those wondrous new-made
bombards."
"In sooth, it is even as you say," Aylward answered, looking at it
with contempt and dislike in his face. "I have seen them here
upon the ramparts, and have also exchanged a buffet or two with
him who had charge of them. He was jack-fool enough to think that
with this leather pipe he could outshoot the best archer in
Christendom. I lent him a cuff on the ear that laid him across
his foolish engine."
"It is a fearsome thing," said Nigel, who had stooped to examine
it. "We live in strange times when such things can be made. It
is loosed by fire, is it not, which springs from the black dust?"
"By my hilt! fair sir, I know not. And yet I call to mind that
ere we fell out this foolish bombardman did say something of the
matter. The fire-dust is within and so also is the ball. Then
you take more dust from this iron box and place it in the hole at
the farther end-so. It is now ready. I have never seen one
fired, but I wot that this one could be fired now."
"It makes a strange sound, archer, does it not?" said Nigel
wistfully.
"So I have heard, fair sir - even as the bow twangs, so it also
has a sound when you loose it."
"There is no one to hear, since we are alone upon the rampart, nor
can it do scathe, since it points to sea. I pray you to loose it
and I will listen to the sound." He bent over the bombard with an
attentive ear, while Aylward, stooping his earnest brown face over
the touch-hole, scraped away diligently with a flint and steel. A
moment later both he and Nigel were seated some distance off upon
the ground while amid the roar of the discharge and the thick
cloud of smoke they had a vision of the long black snakelike
engine shooting back upon the recoil. For a minute or more they
were struck motionless with astonishment while the reverberations
died away and the smoke wreaths curled slowly up to the blue
heavens.
"Good lack!" cried Nigel at last, picking himself up and looking
round him. "Good lack, and Heaven be my aid! I thank the Virgin
that all stands as it did before. I thought that the castle had
fallen."
"Such a bull's bellow I have never heard," cried Aylward, rubbing
his injured limbs. "One could hear it from Frensham Pond to
Guildford Castle. I would not touch one again - not for a hide of
the best land in Puttenham!"
"It may fare ill with your own hide, archer, if you do," said an
angry voice behind them. Chandos had stepped from the open door
of the corner turret and stood looking at them with a harsh gaze.
Presently, as the matter was made clear to him his face relaxed
into a smile.
"Hasten to the warden, archer, and tell him how it befell. You
will have the castle and the town in arms. I know not what the
King may think of so sudden an alarm. And you, Nigel, how in the
name of the saints came you to play the child like this?"
"I knew not its power, fair lord."
"By my soul, Nigel, I think that none of us know its power. I can
see the day when all that we delight in, the splendor and glory of
war, may all go down before that which beats through the plate of
steel as easily as the leathern jacket. I have bestrode my
warhorse in my armor and have looked down at the sooty, smoky
bombardman beside me, and I have thought that perhaps I was the
last of the old and he the first of the new; that there would come
a time when he and his engines would sweep you and me and the rest
of us from the field."
"But not yet, I trust, honored sir?"
"No, not yet, Nigel. You are still in time to win your spurs even
as your fathers did. How is your strength?"
"I am ready for any task, my good and honored lord."
"It is well, for work awaits us - good work, pressing work, work
of peril and of honor. Your eyes shine and your face flushes,
Nigel. I live my own youth over again as I look at you. Know
then that though there is truce with the French here, there is not
truce in Brittany where the houses of Blois and of Montfort still
struggle for the dukedom. Half Brittany fights for one, and half
for the other. The French have taken up the cause of Blois, and
we of Montfort, and it is such a war that many a great leader,
such as Sir Walter Manny, has first earned his name there. Of
late the war has gone against us, and the bloody hands of the
Rohans, of Gaptooth Beaumanoir, of Oliver the Flesher and others
have been heavy upon our people. The last tidings have been of
disaster, and the King's soul is dark with wrath for that his
friend and comrade Gilles de St. Pol has been done to death in the
Castle of La Brohiniere. He will send succors to the country, and
we go at their head. How like you that, Nigel?"
"My honored lord, what could I ask for better?"
"Then have your harness ready, for we start within the week. Our
path by land is blocked by the French, and we go by sea. This
night the King gives a banquet ere he returns to England, and your
place is behind my chair. Be in my chamber that you may help me
to dress, and so we will to the hall together."
With satin and with samite, with velvet and with fur, the noble
Chandos was dressed for the King's feast, and Nigel too had donned
his best silk jupon, faced with the five scarlet roses, that he
might wait upon him. In the great hall of Calais Castle the
tables were set, a high table for the lords, a second one for the
less distinguished knights, and a third at which the squires might
feast when their masters were seated.
Never had Nigel in his simple life at Tilford pictured a scene of
such pomp and wondrous luxury. The grim gray walls were covered
from ceiling to floor with priceless tapestry of Arras, where
hart, hounds and huntsmen circled the great hall with one long
living image of the chase. Over the principal table drooped a
line of banners, and beneath them rows of emblazoned shields upon
the wall carried the arms of the high noblemen who sat beneath.
The red light of cressets and of torches burned upon the badges of
the great captains of England. The lions and lilies shone over
the high dorseret chair in the center, and the same august device
marked with the cadency label indicated the seat of the Prince,
while glowing to right and to left were the long lines of noble
insignia, honored in peace and terrible in war. There shone the
gold and sable of Manny, the engrailed cross of Suffolk, the red
chevron of Stafford, the scarlet and gold of Audley, the blue lion
rampant of the Percies, the silver swallows of Arundel, the red
roebuck of the Montacutes, the star of the de Veres, the silver
scallops of Russell, the purple lion of de Lacy, and the black
crosses of Clinton.
A friendly Squire at Nigel's elbow whispered the names of the
famous warriors beneath. "You are young Loring of Tilford, the
Squire of Chandos, are you not?" said he. "My name is Delves, and
I come from Doddington in Cheshire. I am the Squire of Sir James
Audley, yonder round-backed man with the dark face and close-
cropped beard, who hath the Saracen head as a crest above him."
"I have heard of him as a man of great valor," said Nigel, gazing
at him with interest.
"Indeed, you may well say so, Master Loring. He is the bravest
knight in England, and in Christendom also, as I believe. No man
hath done such deeds of valor."
Nigel looked at his new acquaintance with hope in his eyes. "You
speak as it becomes you to speak when you uphold your own master,"
said he. "For the same reason, Master Delves, and in no spirit of
ill-will to you, it behooves me to tell you that he is not to be
compared in name or fame with the noble knight on whom I wait.
Should you hold otherwise, then surely we can debate the matter in
whatever way or time may please you best."
Delves smiled good-humoredly. "Nay, be not so hot," said he.
"Had you upheld any other knight, save perhaps Sir Walter Manny, I
had taken you at your word, and your master or mine would have had
place for a new Squire. But indeed it is only truth that no
knight is second to Chandos, nor would I draw my sword to lower
his pride of place. Ha, Sir James' cup is low! I must see to
it!" He darted off, a flagon of Gascony in his hand. "The King
hath had good news to-night," he continued when he returned. "I
have not seen him in so merry a mind since the night when we took
the Frenchmen and he laid his pearl chaplet upon the head of de
Ribeaumont. See how he laughs, and the Prince also. That laugh
bodes some one little good, or I am the more mistaken. Have a
care! Sir John's plate is empty."
It was Nigel's turn to dart away; but ever in the intervals he
returned to the corner whence he could look down the hall and
listen to the words of the older Squire. Delves was a short,
thick-set man past middle age, weather-beaten and scarred, with a
rough manner and bearing which showed that he was more at his ease
in a tent than a hall. But ten years of service had taught him
much, and Nigel listened eagerly to his talk.
"Indeed the King hath some good tidings," he continued. "See now,
he has whispered it to Chandos and to Manny. Manny spreads it on
to Sir Reginald Cobham, and he to Robert Knolles, each smiling
like the Devil over a friar."
"Which is Sir Robert Knolles?" asked Nigel with interest. "I have
heard much of him and his deeds."
"He is the tall hard-faced man in yellow silk, he with the
hairless cheeks and the split lip. He is little older than
yourself, and his father was a cobbler in Chester, yet he has
already won the golden spurs. See how he dabs his great hand in
the dish and hands forth the gobbets. He is more used to a
camp-kettle than a silver plate. The big man with the black beard
is Sir Bartholomew Berghersh, whose brother is the Abbot of
Beaulieu. Haste, haste! for the boar's head is come and the
plate's to be cleaned."
The table manners of our ancestors at this period would have
furnished to the modern eye the strangest mixture of luxury and of
barbarism. Forks were still unknown, and the courtesy fingers,
the index and the middle of the left hand, took their place. To
use any others was accounted the worst of manners. A crowd of
dogs lay among the rushes growling at each other and quarreling
over the gnawed bones which were thrown to them by the feasters.
A slice of coarse bread served usually as a plate, but the King's
own high table was provided with silver platters, which were wiped
by the Squire or page after each course. On the other hand the
table-linen was costly, and the courses, served with a pomp and
dignity now unknown, comprised such a variety of dishes and such
complex marvels of cookery as no modern banquet could show.
Besides all our domestic animals and every kind of game, such
strange delicacies as hedgehogs, bustards, porpoises, squirrels,
bitterns and cranes lent variety to the feast.
Each new course, heralded by a flourish of silver trumpets, was
borne in by liveried servants walking two and two, with rubicund
marshals strutting in front and behind, bearing white wands in
their hands, not only as badges of their office, but also as
weapons with which to repel any impertinent inroad upon the dishes
in the journey from the kitchen to the hall. Boar's heads,
enarmed and endored with gilt tusks and flaming mouths, were
followed by wondrous pasties molded to the shape of ships, castles
and other devices with sugar seamen or soldiers who lost their own
bodies in their fruitless defense against the hungry attack.
Finally came the great nef, a silver vessel upon wheels laden with
fruit and sweetmeats which rolled with its luscious cargo down the
line of guests. Flagons of Gascony, of Rhine wine, of Canary and
of Rochelle were held in readiness by the attendants; but the age,
though luxurious, was not drunken, and the sober habits of the
Norman had happily prevailed over the license of those Saxon
banquets where no guest might walk from the table without a slur
upon his host. Honor and hardihood go ill with a shaking hand or
a blurred eye.
Whilst wine, fruit and spices were handed round the high tables
the squires had been served in turn at the farther end of the
hall. Meanwhile round the King there had gathered a group of
statesmen and soldiers, talking eagerly among themselves. The
Earl of Stafford, the Earl of Warwick, the Earl of Arundel, Lord
Beauchamp and Lord Neville were assembled at the back of his
chair, with Lord Percy and Lord Mowbray at either side. The
little group blazed with golden chains and jeweled chaplets, flame
colored paltocks and purple tunics.
Of a sudden the King said something over his shoulder to Sir
William de Pakyngton the herald, who advanced and stood by the
royal chair. He was a tall and noble-featured man, with long
grizzled beard which rippled down to the gold-linked belt girdling
his many-colored tabard. On his head he had placed the heraldic
barret-cap which bespoke his dignity, and he slowly raised his
white wand high in the air, while a great hush fell upon the hall.
"My lords of England," said he, "knight bannerets, knights,
squires, and all others here present of gentle birth and
coat-armor, know that your dread and sovereign lord, Edward, King
of England and of France, bids me give you greeting and commands
you to come hither that he may have speech with you."
In an instant the tables were deserted and the whole company had
clustered in front of the King's chair. Those who had sat on
either side of him crowded inward so that his tall dark figure
upreared itself amid the dense circle of his guests.
With a flush upon his olive cheeks and with pride smoldering in
his dark eyes, he looked round him at the eager faces of the men
who had been his comrades from Sluys and Cadsand to Crecy and
Calais. They caught fire from that warlike gleam in his masterful
gaze, and a sudden wild, fierce shout pealed up to the vaulted
ceiling, a soldierly thanks for what was passed and a promise for
what was to come. The King's teeth gleamed in a quick smile, and
his large white hand played with the jeweled dagger in his belt.
"By the splendor of God!" said he in a loud clear voice, "I have
little doubt that you will rejoice with me this night, for such
tidings have come to my ears as may well bring joy to everyone of
you. You know well that our ships have suffered great scathe from
the Spaniards, who for many years have slain without grace or ruth
all of my people who have fallen into their cruel hands. Of late
they have sent their ships into Flanders, and thirty great cogs
and galleys lie now at Sluys well-filled with archers and
men-at-arms and ready in all ways for battle. I have it to-day
from a sure hand that, having taken their merchandise aboard,
these ships will sail upon the next Sunday and will make their way
through our Narrow Sea. We have for a great time been
long-suffering to these people, for which they have done us many
contraries and despites, growing ever more arrogant as we grow
more patient. It is in my mind therefore that we hie us to-morrow
to Winchelsea, where we have twenty ships, and make ready to sally
out upon them as they pass. May God and Saint George defend the
right!"
A second shout, far louder and fiercer than the first, came like a
thunderclap after the King's words. It was the bay of a fierce
pack to their trusted huntsman.
Edward laughed again as he looked round at the gleaming eyes, the
waving arms and the flushed joyful faces of his liegemen. "Who
hath fought against these Spaniards?" he asked. " Is there anyone
here who can tell us what manner of men they be?"
A dozen hands went up into the air; but the King turned to the
Earl of Suffolk at his elbow.
"You have fought them, Thomas?" said he.
"Yes, sire, I was in the great sea-fight eight years ago at the
Island of Guernsey, when Lord Lewis of Spain held the sea against
the Earl of Pembroke."
"How found you them, Thomas?"
"Very excellent people, sire, and no man could ask for better. On
every ship they have a hundred crossbowmen of Genoa, the best in
the world, and their spearmen also are very hardy men. They would
throw great cantles of iron from the tops of the masts, and many
of our people met their death through it. If we can bar their way
in the Narrow Sea, then there will be much hope of honor for all
of us."
"Your words are very welcome, Thomas," said the King, "and I make
no doubt that they will show themselves to be very worthy of what
we prepare for them. To you I give a ship, that you may have the
handling of it. You also, my dear son, shall have a ship, that
evermore honor may be thine."
"I thank you, my fair and sweet father," said the Prince, with joy
flushing his handsome boyish face.
"The leading ship shall be mine. But you shall have one, Walter
Manny, and you, Stafford, and you, Arundel, and you, Audley, and
you, Sir Thomas Holland, and you, Brocas, and you, Berkeley, and
you, Reginald. The rest shall be awarded at Winchelsea, whither
we sail to-morrow. Nay, John, why do you pluck so at my sleeve?"
Chandos was leaning forward, with an anxious face. "Surely, my
honored lord, I have not served you so long and so faithfully that
you should forget me now. Is there then no ship for me?"
The King smiled, but shook his head. "Nay, John, have I not given
you two hundred archers and a hundred men-at-arms to take with you
into Brittany? I trust that your ships will be lying in Saint
Malo Bay ere the Spaniards are abreast of Winchelsea. What more
would you have, old war-dog? Wouldst be in two battles at once?"
"I would be at your side, my liege, when the lion banner is in the
wind once more. I have ever been there. Why should you cast me
now? I ask little, dear lord - a galley, a balinger, even a
pinnace, so that I may only be there."
"Nay, John, you shall come. I cannot find it in my heart to say
you nay. I will find you place in my own ship, that you may
indeed be by my side."
Chandos stooped and kissed the King's hand. "My Squire?" he
asked.
The King's brows knotted into a frown. "Nay, let him go to
Brittany with the others," said he harshly. "I wonder, John, that
you should bring back to my memory this youth whose pertness is
too fresh that I should forget it. But some one must go to
Brittany in your stead, for the matter presses and our people are
hard put to it to hold their own." He cast his eyes over the
assembly, and they rested upon the stern features of Sir Robert
Knolles.
"Sir Robert," he said, "though you are young in years you are
already old in war, and I have heard that you are as prudent in
council as you are valiant in the field. To you I commit the
charge of this venture to Brittany in place of Sir John Chandos,
who will follow thither when our work has been done upon the
waters. Three ships lie in Calais port and three hundred men are
ready to your hand. Sir John will tell you what our mind is in
the matter. And now, my friends and good comrades, you will haste
you each to his own quarters, and you will make swiftly such
preparations as are needful, for, as God is my aid, I will sail
with you to Winchelsea to-morrow!"
Beckoning to Chandos, Manny and a few of his chosen leaders, the
King led them away to an inner chamber, where they might discuss
the plans for the future. At the same time the assembly broke up,
the knights in silence and dignity, the squires in mirth and
noise, but all joyful at heart for the thought of the great days
which lay before them.
