Philip Augustus; or, The Brothers in Arms

CHAPTER XIV.

We must now return for a time to the château of Compiègne, in one of the principal chambers of which, surrounded by a bevy of fair maids, sat Agnes de Meranie, bending her graceful head over an embroidery frame. As far as one might judge from the lively colours upon the ground of white satin, she was engaged in working a coat of arms; and she plied her small fingers busily as if in haste. Her maids also were all fully engaged, each in some occupation which had in a degree a reference to that of the queen. One richly embroidered a sword belt with threads of gold; another wove a golden fringe for the coat of arms; and a third was equally intent in tracing various symbols on a banner.

From what internal emotion it is hard to say--for song is not always a sign of joy--the queen, as she sat at her work, sang, from time to time, some of the verses of one of the cançons of the day, in a sweet low voice, and in that sort of indifferent tone, which seemed to show, that while her hands were busy with the embroidery, and her voice was as mechanically modulating the song, that nobler part of the mind, which seems to dwell more in the heart than the brain, and whose thoughts are feelings, was busy with very different matter.

"Should these flowers, in the treasure, be azure or gold, Blanche?" demanded the queen.

"Gold, madam!--Oh, certainly gold!" replied the lady, and the queen resumed her work and her song.

"Was it not on Thursday the king went?" demanded the queen.

"No, madam," answered the lady who had spoken before. "He went on Friday; and he cannot be back till the day after to-morrow, if he come then; for that false, uncourteous king of England is as full of wiles as of villanies, and will never give a clear reply; so that it always costs my lord the king longer to deal with him than any of his other vassals. Were I his brother, the Earl of Salisbury, who has been twice at Paris, and is as good a knight as ever wore a lady's favour, I would sweep his head off with my long sword, and restore the crown to our little Arthur, who is the rightful king."

"Where is the young truant?" demanded the queen. "I would fain ask him, whether he would have these straps on the shoulder of plain silk or of gold. See forhim, good girl!"

But at that moment a part of the tapestry was suddenly pushed aside, and a slight, graceful boy, of about fifteen, sprang into the room. He was gaily dressed in a light tunic of sky-blue silk, and a jewelled bonnet of the same colour, which showed well on his bright, fair skin, and the falling curls of his sunny hair.

"Not so far off as you thought, fair cousin," said he, casting himself on one knee beside the queen, and kissing one of the small delicate hands that lay on the embroidery frame.

"Not eaves-dropping, I hope, Arthur," said Agnes de Meranie. "You, who are so soon to become a knight, are too noble for that, I am sure."

"Oh, surely!" said the boy, looking up in her face with an ingenuous blush. "I had but been to see my mother; and, as I came back, I stopped at the window above the stairs to watch an eagle that was towering over the forest so proudly, I could not help wishing I had been an eagle, to rise up like it into the skies, and see all the world stretched out beneath me. And then I heard you singing, and there was no harm in staying to listen to that, you know, belle cousine," he added, looking up with a smile.

"And how is the lady Constance, now?" demanded the queen.

"Oh! she is somewhat better," replied Arthur. "And she bade me thank you, fair queen, in her name, as well as my own, for undertaking the task which her illness prevented her from accomplishing."

"No thanks! no thanks! prince Arthur," replied the queen. "Is it not the duty of every dame in France to aid in arming a knight when called upon? But tell me, sir runaway, for I have been waiting these ten minutes to know,--will you have these straps of cloth of gold, or simple silk?"

This question gave rise to a very important discussion, which was just terminated by Arthur's predilection for gold, when a page, entering, announced to the queen that Guerin, the chancellor, desired a few minutes' audience.

The queen turned somewhat pale, for the first sting of adversity had gone deep in her heart, and she trembled lest it should be repeated. She commanded the attendant, however, to admit the minister, endeavouring, as much as possible, to conceal the alarm and uneasiness which his visit caused her. The only symptom indeed of impatience which escaped her appeared in her turning somewhat quickly round, and pointing to a falcon that stood on its perch in one of the windows, and amused itself, on seeing some degree of bustle, by uttering one or two loud screams, thinking probably it was about to be carried to the field.

"Take that bird away, Arthur, good youth," said the queen; "it makes my head ache."

Arthur obeyed; and as he left the room the hospitaller entered, but not alone. He was followed by a tall, thin, wasted man, dressed in a brown frock, or bure, over which his white beard flowed down to his girdle. In fact, it was Bernard the hermit, that, for the purposes we shall explain, had once more for a time quitted his solitude, and accompanied the minister of Philip Augustus to Compiègne.

The hospitaller bowed his head as he advanced towards the queen, and the hermit gave her his blessing; but still, for a moment, the heart of poor Agnes de Meranie beat so fast, that she could only reply by pointing to two seats which her women left vacant by her side.

"Madame, we come to speak to you on matters of some importance," said Guerin, looking towards the queen's women, who, though withdrawn from her immediate proximity, still stood at a little distance. "Would it please you to let us have a few minutes of your presence alone. Myself and my brother Bernard are both unworthy members of the holy church, and therefore may claim a lady's ear for a short space, without falling into the danger of evil tongues."

"I fear no evil tongues, good brother," replied Agnes, summoning courage to meet whatever was to come; "and though I know of no subject concerning myself that I could wish concealed from the world, yet I will bid these poor girls go at your desire. Go, Blanche," she continued, turning to her principal attendant,--"go, and wait in the ante-room till I call. Now, good brother, may I crave what can be your business with so unimportant a person as my poor self?"

"As far, madam," replied Guerin, after a moment's pause, "as the weal of this great realm of France is concerned, you are certainly any thing but an unimportant person; nor can a fair, a noble, and a virtuous lady ever be unimportant, be she queen or not. My brother Bernard, from whom that most excellent knight and king, your royal husband, has, as doubtless you know, lady, received many sage and prudent counsels, has consented to join himself to me for the bold purpose of laying before you a clear view of the state of this realm, risking thereby, we know, to hurt your feelings, and even to offend our lord the king, who has anxiously kept it concealed from you."

"Hold, fair brother!" said Agnes mildly, but firmly; "and before you proceed, mark me well! Where the good of my noble Philip, or of his kingdom of France, may be obtained by the worst pain you can inflict on me, let no fear of hurting my feelings stop you in your course. Agnes gives you leave to hurt Agnes, for her husband's good; but where, in the slightest degree, the confidence you would place in me is in opposition to the will of Philip, your king and mine, the queen commands you to be silent. Stay, good brother, hear me out: I know that you would say, it is for the king's ultimate good, though he may disapprove of it at present; but to me, good bishop, and you father hermit,--to me, my husband's wisdom is supreme, as his will to me is law; and though I will listen to your counsel and advice with all humility, yet you must tell me nothing that my lord would not have me hear, for on his judgment alone will I depend."

Guerin looked to the hermit, who instantly replied:--"Daughter, you have spoken well, wisely, and nobly; and I, even I, marvel not,--though my heart is like a branch long broken from its stem, withered and verdureless,--that Philip of France clings so fondly to one, where beauty, and wisdom, and love, are so strangely united: strangely indeed for this world! where if any two of such qualities meet, 'tis but as that eastern plant which blossoms but once an age. Let us only to council then, my child, and see what best may be done to save the realm from all the horrors that menace it."

The hermit spoke in a tone of such unwonted mildness, that Guerin, apparently doubting his firmness in executing the purpose that had brought them thither, took up the discourse.

"Lady," said he, "after the ungrateful occurrence which terminated the tournament of the Champeaux,--forgive me, that I recall what must pain you,--you can hardly doubt that our holy father the pope, in his saintly wisdom, considers that the decree of the prelates of France, annulling the marriage of the king with Ingerburge of Denmark, was illegal, and consequently invalid. Need I--need I, lady, urge upon you the consequences, if our royal lord persists in neglecting, or resisting, the repeated commands of the supreme pontiff?"

Agnes turned deadly pale, and pointed to a crystal cup filled with water, which stood near. The minister gave it to her; and, having drunk a few drops, she covered her eyes with her hand for a moment--then raised them, and replied with less apparent emotion than might have been expected: "You do not clothe the truth, sir, in that soft guise which makes it less terrible of aspect to a weak woman's eyes, though not less certain; but you have been a soldier, sir, and also a recluse, mingling not with such feeble things as we are; and, therefore, I must forgive you the hard verities you speak. What is it you wish me to do?--for I gather from your manner that there is some task you would fain impose upon me."

Pained by the effect his words had had upon the queen, and feeling uncertain of how far he might venture, without driving her to actual despair, embarrassed also by his small habits of intercourse with women, Guerin turned once more to the hermit.

"The task, my child," said the old man, in compliance with the minister's look, "is indeed a painful one--bitterly painful; but, if it approaches to the agony of martyrdom, it is by its self-devotion equally sublime and glorious. Think, daughter, what a name would that woman gain in history, who, to save her husband's realm from civil war and interdict, and himself from excommunication and anathema, should voluntarily take upon herself the hard duty of opposing not only his inclinations but also her own; should tear herself from all that was dear to her, and thereby restore him to his glory and himself,--his realm to peace,--and tranquillity to the bosom of the church! Think what a name she would gain in history, and what such a sacrifice might merit from Heaven!"

"Stay! stay! father," said Agnes, raising her hand. "Stay,--let me think;" and casting down her beautiful eyes, she remained for a few moments in profound thought. After a short pause, Guerin, lest the impression should subside, attempted to fortify the hermit's arguments with his own; but the queen waved her hand for silence, thought again, and then raising her eyes, she replied:--

"I understand you, father; and, from my heart, I believe you seek the good of my husband the king. But this thing must not be--it cannot be!"

"It is painful, lady," said Guerin; "but to a mind like yours,--to a heart that loves your husband better than yourself----"

"Hold, my good brother!" said Agnes, "I, a weak, unwise woman, am ill fitted to contend with two wise and learned men like you; and therefore I will at once tell you why I reject a task that no consideration of my own feelings would have caused me to refuse;--no, not had it slain me!" she added, raising her eyes to heaven, as if appealing there for testimony of the truth of her assertion. "In the first place, I am the wife of Philip king of France; and my lips shall never do my fame the dishonour to admit that for an instant I have been aught else, since his hand clasped mine before the altar of St. Denis, in presence of all the prelates and bishops of his realm. I should dishonour myself--I should dishonour my child, did I think otherwise. As his wife, I am bound never to quit him with my good-will; and to submit myself in all things to his judgment and his wisdom. His wisdom then must be the judge; I will in no one thing oppose it. If but in the slightest degree I see he begins to think the sacrifice of our domestic happiness necessary to the public weal, I will yield without resistance, and bear my sorrows alone to the grave that will soon overtake me; but never till that grave has closed upon me will I admit that there is another queen of France; never will I acknowledge that I am not the lawful wife of Philip Augustus; nor ever will I oppose myself to my husband's will, or arrogate to myself the right of judging where he himself has decided. No! Philip has formed his own determination from his own strong mind; and far be it from me, his wife, by a word to shake his resolution, or by a thought to impeach his judgment!"

The queen spoke calmly, but decidedly; and though no tone in her voice betrayed any degree of vehemence, yet the bright light of her eye, and the alternate flushing and paleness of her cheek, seemed to evince a far more powerful struggle of feeling within, than she suffered to appear in her language.

"But hear me, lady,--hear me once more, for all our sakes!" exclaimed Guerin.

"Sir, I can listen no longer!" said Agnes, rising from her seat, with a degree of energy and dignity, that her slight form and gentle disposition seemed incapable of displaying. "My resolution is taken--my course is fixed--my path is made; and nothing on earth shall turn me therefrom. The icy mountains of my native land," she continued, pointing with her hand in the direction, as she fancied, of the Tyrol, "whose heads have stood for immemorial ages, beaten in vain by storm and tempest, are not more immoveable than I am. But I am not well," she added, turning somewhat pale--"I pray you, good sirs, leave me!"

Guerin bowed his head, yet lingered, saying, "And yet I would fain----"

"I am not well, sir," said the queen, turning paler and paler. "Send me my women, I beseech you!"

Guerin made a step towards the door, but suddenly turned, just in time to catch the beautiful princess in his arms, as, overcome by excitement and distress of mind, she fell back in one of those deathlike fainting fits which had seized her first at the Champeaux.

Her women were immediately called to her assistance; and the minister and the hermit retired, disappointed indeed in the purpose they had proposed to effect, but hardly less admiring the mingled dignity, gentleness, and firmness with which the queen had conducted herself in one of the most painful situations wherein ever a good and virtuous woman was placed on earth.

"And now, what more can be done?" said Guerin, pausing on the last step of the staircase, and speaking in a tone that implied abandonment of farther effort rather than expectation of counsel. "What can be done?"

"Nothing, my son," replied the hermit,--"nothing, without thou wouldst again visit yon fair, unhappy girl, to torture her soul without shaking her purpose. For me, I have no call to wring my fellow-creatures' hearts; and therefore I meddle herein no more. Fare thee well! I go to De Coucy Magny, as they call it, to see a wild youth whose life I saved, I fear me, to little purpose."

"But not on foot!" said Guerin; "'tis far, good brother. Take a horse, a mule, from my stable, I pray thee!"

"And why not on foot?" asked the old man. "Our Lord and Saviour walked on foot, I trow; and he might have well been prouder than thou or I."

CHAPTER XV.

The woods of De Coucy Magny stretched far over hill and dale, and plain, where now not the root of one ancient tree is to be seen; and many a vineyard, and a cornfield, and a meadow are to-day spread fair out in the open sunshine, which were then covered with deep and tangled underwood, or shaded by the broad arms of vast primeval oaks.

Two straight roads passed through the forest, and a multitude of smaller paths, which, winding about in every different direction, crossing and recrossing each other,--now avoiding the edge of a pond and making a large circuit, now taking advantage of a savannah, to proceed straight forward, and now turning sharp round the vast boll of some antique tree,--formed altogether an absolute labyrinth, through which it needed a very certain clue, or very long experience, to proceed in safety.

These paths, also, however multiplied and intersected, left between them many a wide unbroken space of forest ground, where apparently the foot of man had never trod, nor axe of woodman ever rung, the only tracks through which seemed to be some slight breaks in the underwood, where the rushing sides of a boar or deer had dashed the foliage away. Many of these spaces were of the extent of several thousand acres; and if the very intricacy of the general forest paths themselves would not have afforded shelter and concealment to men who, like the cotereaux and routiers, as much needed a well hidden lair as ever did the wildest savage of the wood, such asylum was easily to be found in the dark recesses of these inviolate wilds.

Here, on a bright morning of July, when the grey of the sky was just beginning to warm with the rising day, a single man, armed with sword, corselet, and steel bonnet, all shining with the last polishing touch which they had received at the shop of the armourer, took his way alone down one of the narrowest paths of the forest. In his hand he held an arbalète,^[18] or cross-bow, then a very late invention; and, by the careful manner in which he examined every bush as he passed, he seemed some huntsman tracing, step by step, the path of a deer.

"Cursed be the fools!" muttered he to himself; "they have not taken care to mark the brisé well; and, in this strange forest, how am I to track them? Ah, here is another!" and, passing on from tree to tree, he at length paused where one of the smaller branches, broken across, hung with its leaves just beginning to wither from the interruption of the sap. Here, turning from the direct path, he pushed his way through the foliage, stooping his head to prevent the branches striking him in the face, but still taking pains to remark at every step each tree or bush that he passed; and wherever he perceived a broken branch, keeping it to his right-hand as he proceeded. His eyes nevertheless were now and then turned to the left, as well as the right; and at length, after he had advanced about four hundred yards in this cautious manner, he found the boughs broken all around, so that the brisé, as he called it, terminated there; and all guide by which to direct his course seemed at an end.

At this place he paused; and, after examining more scrupulously every object in the neighbourhood, he uttered a long whistle, which, after a moment or two, met with a reply, but from such a distance that it was scarcely audible. The cross-bowman whistled again; and the former sound was repeated, but evidently nearer. Then came a slight rustling in the bushes, as if some large body stirred the foliage, and then for a moment all was still.

"Ha, Jodelle!" cried a voice at last, from the other side of the bushes. "Is it you?" and pushing through the leaves, which had concealed him while he had paused to examine the stranger we have described, a genuine routier, if one might judge by his very rude and rusty arms, entered the little open space in which the other had been waiting. He had an unbent bow in his hand, and a store of arrows in his belt, which was garnished still farther with a strong short sword, and of knives and daggers not a few, from the miséricorde of a hand's breadth long, to the thigh knife of a peasant of those days, whose blade of nearly two feet in length rendered it a serviceable and tremendous weapon.

He had on his back, by way of clothing, a light iron haubert, which certainly shone not brightly; nor possibly was it desirable for him that it should. Though of somewhat more solid materials than a linen gown, it had more than one rent in it, where the rings had either been broken by a blow, or worn through by age: but, in these places, the deficient links had been supplied by cord, which at all events kept the yawning mouths of the gaps together. On his head was placed an iron hat, as it was called, much in the shape of the famous helmet of Mambrino, as described by Cervantes; and round about it were twined several branches of oak, which rendered his head, when seen through the boughs, scarce distinguishable from the leaves themselves; while his rugged and dingy haubert might well pass for a part of the trunk of one of the trees.

"Well met! well met, Jodelle!" cried he, as the other approached. "Come to the halting place. We have waited for you long, and had scanty fare. But say, what have you done? Have you slit the devil's weasand, or got the knight's purse? Do you bring us good news or bad? Do you come gay or sorry? Tell me! tell me, Jodelle! Thou art our leader, but must not lead us to hell with thy new-fashioned ways."

"Get thee on to the halt," replied Jodelle; "I will tell all there."

The two cotereaux--for such they were--now made their way through the trees and shrubs, to a spot where the axe had been busily plied to clear away about half an acre of ground, round which were placed a range of huts, formed of branches, leaves, and mud, capable of containing perhaps two or three hundred men.

In the open space in the centre several personages of the same respectable class as the two we have already introduced to the reader, were engaged in various athletic sports--pitching an immense stone, shooting at a butt, or striking downright blows at a log of wood, to see who could hew into its substance most profoundly.

Others again were scattered about, fashioning bows out of strong beechen poles, pointing arrows and spears, or sharpening their knives and swords; while one or two lay listlessly looking on, seemingly little inclined to employ very actively either their mental or corporeal faculties.

The arrival of Jodelle, as he was called, put a stop to the sports, and caused a momentary bustle amongst the whole party, the principal members of which seemed to recognise in him one of the most distinguished of their fraternity, although some of those present gazed on him as a stranger.

"Welcome, welcome, sire Jodelle!" cried one who had been fashioning a bow. "By my faith! we have much needed thy presence. We are here at poor quarters. Not half so good as we had in the mountains of Auvergne, till that bad day's work we made of it between the Allier and the Puy; and a hundred thousand times worse than when we served the merry king of England, under that bold knight Mercader. Oh, the quarrel of that cross-bow at Chaluz was the worst shaft ever was shot for us. Those days will never come again."

"They may, they may!" replied Jodelle, "and before we dream of,--for good, hard wars are spoken of; and then the detested cotereaux grow, with these good kings, into their faithful troops of Brabançois,--their excellent free companions! But we shall see. In the mean time, tell me where is Jean le Borgne?"

"He is gone with a party to look for some rich Jews going to Rouen," replied the person who had spoken before. "But we have plenty of men here for any bold stroke, if there be one in the market; and besides----"

"Did you meet with captain Vanswelder?" interrupted Jodelle. "The fools at the castle believe he has two thousand bows with him. Where does he lie? How many has he?"

"He never had above four hundred," replied another of the many cotereaux who by this time had gathered round Jodelle; "and when your men came--if you are the captain, Jodelle--he took such of us as would go with him down to Normandy, to offer himself to the bad king John for half the sum of crowns we had before. Now, fifty of us, who had served king Richard, and value our honour, agreed not to undersell ourselves after such a fashion as that; so we joined ourselves to your men, to take the chance of the road."

"You did wisely and honourably," replied Jodelle; "but nevertheless you would have been very likely to get hanged or roasted for your pains, if I had not, by chance, stuck myself to the skirts of that Guy de Coucy, who is now at his château hard by, menacing fire and sword to every man of us that he finds in his woods. By St. Macrobius! I believe the mad-headed boy would have attacked Vanswelder and his whole troop, with the few swords he can muster, which do not amount to fifty. A brave youth he is, as ever lived:--pity 'tis he must die! And yet, when he dashed out my brother's brains with his battle-axe, I vowed to God and St. Nicolas that I would die or slay him, as well as that treacherous slave who betrayed us into attacking a band of men-at-arms instead of a company of pilgrims. It is a firm vow, and must be kept."

"And yet, good master Jodelle, thou hast been somewhat slow in putting it in execution," said one of the cotereaux. "Here thou and Gerard Pons have been near a month with him--and yet, from all that I can divine, thou hast neither laid thy finger on master or man!"

"Ha! sir fool, wouldst thou have done it better?" demanded Jodelle, turning on the speaker fiercely. "If I slew the fool juggler first, which were easy to do, never should I get a stroke at his lord; and, let me tell thee, 'tis no such easy matter to reach the master, who has never doffed his steel haubert since I have seen him--except when he sleeps, and then a varlet and a page lie across his door--a privilege which he gave them in the Holy Land, where they saved his life from a raw Saracen; and now, the fools hold it as such an honour, they would not yield it for a golden ring. Besides," he added, grinning with a mixture of shrewd malevolence and self-conceit in his countenance, "I have a plot in my head. You know, I bear a brain."

"Yes, yes!" replied several; "we know thou art rare at a plot. What goes forward now? I vow a wax-candle to the Virgin Mary if it be a good plot, and succeeds," added one of them. But this liberality towards the Virgin, unhappily for the priests, met with no imitators.

"My plot," replied Jodelle, "is as good a plot as ever was laid--ay, or hatched either--and will succeed too. Wars are coming on thick. We have no commander since our quarrel with Mercader. This De Coucy has no men. To the wars he must and will; and surely would rather be followed by a stout band of free companions, than have his banner fluttering at the head of half a dozen varlets, like a red rag on a furze bush. I will find means to put it in his head, and means to bring about that you shall be the men. Then shall he lead us to spoil and plunder enough, and leave it all to us when he has got it--for his hand is as free as his heart is bold. My vow will stand over till the war is done, and then the means of executing it will be in my own hands. What say you?"

"A good plot!--an excellent good plot!" cried several of the cotereaux; but nevertheless, though plunged deep in blood and crime, there were many of the band who knit their brow, and turned down the corner of the mouth, at the profound piece of villany with which master Jodelle finished his proposal. This did not prevent them from consenting, however; and Jodelle proceeded to make various arrangements for disposing comfortably of the band, during the space of time which was necessarily to elapse before his plan could be put in execution.

The first thing to be done was to evacuate the woods of De Coucy Magny, that no unpleasant collision might take place between the cotereaux and De Coucy; and the next consideration was, where the band was to lie till something more should be decided. This difficulty was soon set aside, by one of the troop which had been originally in possession of the forest, proposing as a refuge some woods in the neighbourhood, which they had haunted previous to betaking themselves to their present refuge. They then agreed to divide into two separate bands, and to confine their system of plundering as much as possible to the carrying off of horses; so that no difficulty might be found in mounting the troop, in case of the young knight accepting their services.

"And now," cried Jodelle, "how many are you, when all are here?"

"One hundred and thirty-three," was the reply.

"Try to make up three fifties," cried Jodelle, "and, in the first place, decamp with all speed; for this very day De Coucy, with all the horsemen he can muster, will be pricking through every brake in the forest. Carry off all your goods--unroof the huts--and if there be a clerk amongst you, let him write me a scroll, and leave it on the place, to say you quit it, all for the great name of De Coucy. So shall his vanity be tickled."

"Oh! there's Jeremy the monk can both read and write, you know," cried several; "and as for parchment, he shall write upon the linen that was in the pedlar's pack."

"And now," cried Jodelle, "to the work! But first show me where haunt the deer, for I must take back a buck to the castle to excuse my absence."

With very little trouble a fine herd was found, just cropping the morning grass; and Jodelle instantly brought down a choice buck with a quarrel from his cross-bow. He then bade adieu to his companions, and casting the carcase over his shoulders, he took his way back to the castle.

It may be almost needless here to say, that this very respectable personage, calling himself Jodelle, was one of the two men who had been received into De Coucy's service in Auvergne, for the purpose of leading to Paris two beautiful Arabian horses he had brought from Palestine. His objects in joining the young knight at all, and for fixing himself in his train more particularly afterwards, having been already explained by himself, we shall not notice them; but shall only remark, that personal revenge being in those days inculcated even as a virtue, it was a virtue not at all likely to be so confined to the better classes, as not to ornament in a high degree persons of Jodelle's station and profession.

The gates of the castle were open, and de Coucy himself standing on the drawbridge, as the coterel returned.

"Ha! varlet," said he. "Where hast thou been without the gates so early? I must have none here that stray forth when they may be needed!"

"I had nought to do, beau sire," replied Jodelle, "and went but to strike a buck in the wood, that your board might show some venison:--I have not been long, though it led me farther than I thought."

"Ha! canst thou wing a shaft, or a quarrel well?" demanded De Coucy. "Thou hast brought down indeed a noble buck, and hit him fair in the throat. What distance was your shot?"

"A hundred and twenty yards," answered the coterel; "and if I hit not a Normandy pippin at the same, may my bowstring be cut by your mad fool, sir knight!"

"By the blessed saints!" cried De Coucy, "thou shalt try this very day at a better mark; for thou shalt have a coterel's head within fifty steps, before yon same sun, that has just risen, goes down over the wood!"

"The poor cotereaux!" cried Jodelle, affecting a look of compassion. "They are hunted from place to place, like wild beasts; and yet there is many a good soldier amongst them, after all."

"Out, fellow!" cried the knight. "Speakest thou for plunderers and common thieves?"

"Nay, beau sire! I speak not for them," replied Jodelle. "Yet what can the poor devils do? Here, in time of war, they spend their blood and their labour in the cause of one or other of the parties; and then, the moment they are of no further use, they are cast off like a mail-shirt after a battle. They have no means of living but by their swords; and when no one will employ them, what can they do? What could I have done myself, beau sire, if your noble valour had not induced you to take me into your train? All the money I had got in the wars was spent; and I must have turned routier, or starved."

"But would you say, fellow, that you have been a coterel?" demanded De Coucy, eyeing him from head to foot, as a man might be supposed to do on finding himself unexpectedly in company with a wolf, and discovering that it was a much more civilised sort of animal than he expected.

"I will not deny, beau sire," replied Jodelle, "that I once commanded two hundred as good free lances as ever served king Richard."

"Where are they now?" demanded De Coucy, with some degree of growing interest in the man to whom he spoke. "Are they dispersed? What has become of them?"

"I do not well know, beau sire," replied the coterel. "When Peter Gourdun's arblast set Richard, the lion-hearted, on the same long, dark journey that he had given to so many others himself, I quarrelled with count Mercader, under whom I served. Richard with his dying breath, as you have doubtless heard, fair sir, ordered the man Gourdun, who had killed him, to be spared and set free; and Mercader promised to obey: but, no sooner was king Richard as cold as king Pepin, than Mercader had Gourdun tied hand and foot to the harrow of the drawbridge of Chaluz, and saw him skinned alive with his own eyes."

"Cruel villain!" cried De Coucy.

"Ay! fair knight," rejoined the coterel. "I ventured to say that he was disobedient as a soldier, as well as cruel as a knight; and that he ought to have obeyed the king's commands, just as much after he was dead, as if he had lived to see them obeyed. What will you have? There were plenty to tell Mercader what I said:--there were high words followed; and I left the camp as soon as peace was trumpeted. I had saved some money, and hoped to buy a haubert feof under some noble lord; but, as evil fortune would have it, I met with a menestrandie, consisting of the chief menestrel, and four or five jongleurs and glee-maidens; and never did they leave me till all I had was nearly gone: what lasted, kept me a year at Besançon; after which I was glad enough to engage myself for hire, to ride your horses from Vic le Comte to Paris."

"But your troop!" said De Coucy. "Have you never heard any news of all your men?"

"I have heard, through one of the minstrels," said the coterel, "that soon after I was gone, they repented and would not take service with king John, as they had at first proposed; but came to offer themselves to the noble king Philip of France, who, however, being at peace, would not entertain them; and that they are now roaming about, seeking some noble baron who will give them protection, and lead them where they may gain both money and a good name."

"By the rood! they want the last, perhaps, more than the first," replied De Coucy, turning to enter the château.

The coterel's brow darkened, and he set his teeth hard, feeling the head of his dagger as he followed the knight, as if his hand itched to draw it and strike De Coucy from behind; which indeed he might easily have done, and with fatal effect, at the spot where the haubert ending left his throat and collar bare.

It is not improbable that Jodelle would have yielded without hesitation to the temptation of opportunity, especially as his escape over the drawbridge into the wood might have been effected in an instant; but he saw clearly that his words had made an impression upon the knight. For the moment indeed they seemed to produce no determinate result, yet it was evident that whenever he found a fitting opportunity, it would be easy to re-awaken the ideas to which he had already given birth, and by suggesting a very slight link of connection, cause De Coucy to make the application to himself.

One reason, perhaps, why very prudent men are often not so successful as rash ones, may be that, even in the moment of consideration, opportunity is lost. While the coterel still held his hand upon his dagger, De Coucy's squire, Hugo de Barre, approached to tell the young châtelain that his seven vassals--the poor remains of hundreds--were very willing to ride against the cotereaux, though such was no part of their actual tenure; and that, as soon as they could don their armour and saddle their horses, they would be up at the castle. They promised also to bring with them all the armed men they could get to aid them, in the towns and villages in the neighbourhood, not one of which had escaped without paying some tribute to the dangerous tenants of the young knight's woods.

In little less than an hour, De Coucy found himself at the head of near one hundred men; and, confident in his own powers both of mind and body, he waited not for many others that were still hastening to join him; but, giving his banner to the wind, set forth to attack the banditti, in whatever numbers he might find them.

It were uninteresting to detail all the measures that De Coucy took to ensure that no part of the forests should remain unsearched; especially as we already know, that his perquisitions were destined to be fruitless. Nor is it necessary to dwell upon the means that the coterel employed to draw the young knight and his followers, without seeming to do so, towards the spot which his companions had so lately evacuated.

De Coucy, by nature, was not suspicious; but yet his eye very naturally strayed, from time to time, to the face of Jodelle, whose fellow feeling for the cotereaux had been so openly expressed in the morning; and, as they approached the former halting-place of the freebooters, he remarked somewhat of a smile upon his lip.

"Ha!" said he, in an under voice, at the same time turning his horse and riding up to him. "What means that smile, sir Brabançois?"

Jodelle's reply was ready. "It means, sir knight, that I can help you, and I will; for even were these my best friends, the laws by which we are ruled bind me to render you all service against them, on having engaged with you.--Do you see that broken bough? Be you sure it means something. The men you seek for are not far off."

"So, my good friend," said De Coucy, "methinks you must have exercised the trade of Brabançois in the green wood, as well as in the tented field, to know so well all the secret signs of these gentry's hiding places."

"I have laid many an ambush in the green wood," replied Jodelle undauntedly; "and the signs that have served me for that may well lead me to trace others."

"Here are foot-marks, both of horse and foot," cried Hugo de Barre, "and lately trodden too, for scarce a fold of the moss has risen since."

"Coming or going?" cried De Coucy, spurring up to the spot.

"Both, my lord," replied the squire. "Here are hoof marks all ways."

Without wasting time in endeavouring to ascertain which traces were the last imprinted, De Coucy took such precautions as the scantiness of his followers permitted for ensuring that the cotereaux did not make their escape by some other outlet; and then boldly plunged in on horseback, following through the bushes, as well as he could, the marks that the band had left behind them when they decamped. He was not long in making his way to the open space, surrounded with huts, which we have before described. The state of the whole scene at once showed, that it had been but lately abandoned; though the unroofing of the hovels evinced that its former tenants entertained no thought of making it any more their dwelling-place.

In the centre of the opening, however, stood the staff of a lance, on the end of which was fixed a scroll of parchment, written in very fair characters to the following effect:--

"Sire de Coucy! hearing of your return to your lands, we leave them willingly--not because we fear you, or any man, but because we respect your knightly prowess, and would not willingly stand in deadly fight against one of the best knights in France."

"By St. Jerome! the knaves are not without their courtesy!" exclaimed De Coucy. "Well, now they are off my land, God speed them!"

"Where the devil did they get the parchment?" muttered Jodelle to himself:--and thus ended the expedition with two exclamations that did not slightly mark the age.

CHAPTER XVI.

There are no truer chameleons than words, changing hue and aspect as the circumstances change around them, and leaving scarce a shade of their original meaning. Piety has at present many acceptations, according to the various lips that pronounce it, and the ears that hear; but in the time of the commonwealth, it meant the grossest fanaticism; and in the time of Philip Augustus, the grossest superstition.

An age where knowledge and civilisation have made some progress, yet not produced a cold fondness for abstract facts, may be called the period of imagination in a nation; and then it will generally be found that, in matters of religion, a brooding, a melancholy, and a fanatical spirit reigns. Sectarian enthusiasm is then sufficient to keep itself alive in each man's breast, without imagination requiring any aid from external stimulants; and though the language of the pulpit may be flowery and extravagant, the manners are rigid and austere, and the rites simple and unadorned.

In more remote periods, however, where brutal ignorance is the general character of society, the only means of communicating with the dull imagination of the people is by their outward senses. Pomp, pageant, and display, music and ceremony, accompany each rite of the church, to give it dignity in the eyes of the multitude, who, if they do not understand the spirit, at least worship the form. Such was the case in the days of Philip Augustus. The people, with very few exceptions,--barons, knights, serfs and ecclesiastics,--beheld, felt, and understood little else in religion than the ceremonies of the church of Rome. Each festival of that church was for them a day of rejoicing; each saint was an object of the most profound devotion; and each genuflexion of the priest (though the priest himself was often bitterly satirised in the sirventes of the trouvères and troubadours) was a sacred rite, that the populace would not have seen abrogated for the world. The ceremonies of the church were the link--the only remaining link--between the noble and the serf; and, common to all,--the high, the low, the rich, the poor,--they were revered and loved by all classes of the community.

Such was the general state of France, in regard to religious feelings, when the kingdom was menaced with interdict by pope Innocent the Third. The very rumour cast a gloom over the whole nation; but when the legate, proceeding according to the rigid injunctions of the pope, called the bishops, archbishops, and abbots of France to a council at Dijon, for the purpose of putting the threat in execution, murmurs and lamentations burst forth all over France.

Philip Augustus, however, remained inflexible in his resolution of resistance; and, though he sent two messengers to protest against the proceedings of the council, he calmly suffered its deliberations to proceed, without a change of purpose. The pope was equally unmoved; and the cardinal of St. Mary's proceeded to the painful task which had been imposed upon him; declaring to the assembled bishops the will of the sovereign pontiff, and calling upon them to name the day themselves on which the interdict should be pronounced. The bishops and abbots found all opposition in vain, and the day was consequently named.

It was about this period that Count Thibalt d'Auvergne, having laid the ashes of his father in the grave, prepared to retrace his steps to Paris. His burden upon earth was a heavy one; yet, like the overloaded camel in the desert, he resolutely bore it on without murmur or complaint, waiting till he should drop down underneath it, and death should give him relief. A fresh furrow might be traced on his brow, a deeper shade of stern melancholy in his eye; but that was all by which one might guess how painfully he felt the loss of what he looked on as his last tie to earth. His voice was calm and firm, his manner clear and collected: nothing escaped his remembrance; nothing indicated that his thoughts were not wholly in the world wherein he stood, except the fixed contraction of his brow, and the sunshineless coldness of his lips.

When, as we have before said, he had given his power, as suzerain of Auvergne, into the hands of his uncle, he himself mounted his horse, and, followed by a numerous retinue, set out from Vic le Comte.

He turned not, however, his steps towards Paris in the first instance, but proceeded direct to Dijon. Here he found no small difficulty in obtaining a lodging for himself and train: the monasteries, on whose hospitality he had reckoned, being completely occupied by the great influx of prelates, which the council had brought thither; and the houses of public entertainment being, in that day, unmeet dwellings for persons of his rank. Nevertheless, dispersing his followers through the town, with commands to keep his name secret, the Count d'Auvergne took up his abode at the house of a tavernier, or vintner, and proceeded to make the inquiries which had caused him so far to deviate from his direct road.

These referred entirely to--and he had long before determined to make them--the property of the Count de Tankerville; on which, however, he soon found that king Philip had laid his hands; and therefore, the story of Gallon the fool being confirmed in this point, he gave up all farther questions upon the subject, as not likely to produce any benefit to his friend De Coucy.

Occupied as he had been in Auvergne, the progress of the council of bishops had but reached his ears vaguely; and he determined that the very next day he would satisfy himself in regard to its deliberations, which, though indeed they could take no atom from the load on his heart, nor restore one drop of happiness to his cup, yet interested him, perhaps, as much as any human being in France.

The day had worn away in his other inquiries, the evening had passed in bitter thoughts; and midnight had come, without bringing even the hope of sleep to his eyelids; when suddenly he was startled by hearing the bells of all the churches in Dijon toll, as for the dead. Immediately rising, he threw his cloak about him, and, drawing the hood over his head and face, proceeded into the street to ascertain whether the fears which those sounds had excited in his bosom were well founded.

In the street he found a multitude of persons flocking towards the cathedral; and, hurrying on with the rest, he entered at one of the side-doors, and crossed to the centre of the nave.

The sight that presented itself was certainly awful. No tapers were lighted at the high altar, not a shrine gave forth a single ray; but on the steps before the table stood the cardinal legate, dressed in the deep purple stole worn on the days of solemn fast in the church of Rome. On each hand, the steps, and part of the choir, were crowded with bishops and mitred abbots, each in the solemn habiliments appropriated by his order to the funeral fasts; and each holding in his hand a black and smoky torch of pitch, which spread through the whole church their ungrateful odour and their red and baleful light. The space behind the altar was crowded with ecclesiastics and monks, on the upper part of whose pale and meagre faces the dim and ill-favouring torch-light cast an almost unearthly gleam; while streaming down the centre of the church, over the kneeling congregation, on whose dark vestments it seemed to have no effect, the red glare spread through the nave and aisles, catching faintly on the tall pillars and Gothic tracery of the cathedral, and losing itself, at last, in the deep gloom all around.

The choir of the cathedral were in the act of singing the Miserere as the Count d'Auvergne entered; and the deep and solemn notes of the chant, echoed by the vaulted roofs, and long aisles, and galleries, while it harmonised well with the gloominess of the scene, offered frightful discord when the deep toll of the death-bell broke across, with sounds entirely dissonant. No longer doubting that his apprehensions were indeed true, and that the legate was about to pronounce the realm in interdict, Thibalt d'Auvergne advanced as far as he could towards the choir, and, placing himself by one of the pillars, prepared, with strange and mingled emotions, to hear the stern thunder of the church launched at two beings whose love had made his misery, and whose happiness was built upon his disappointment.

It were too cruel an inquest of human nature to ask if, at the thought of Agnes de Meranie being torn from the arms of her royal lover, a partial gleam of undefined satisfaction did not thrill through the heart of the Count d'Auvergne; but this at least is certain, that could he, by laying down his life, have swept away the obstacles between them, and removed the agonising difficulties of Agnes's situation, Thibalt d'Auvergne would not have hesitated--no, not for a moment!

At the end of the Miserere, the legate advanced, and in a voice that trembled even at the sentence it pronounced, placed the whole realm of France in interdict,--bidding the doors of the churches to be closed; the images of the saints, and the cross itself, to be veiled; the worship of the Almighty to be suspended; marriage to the young, the eucharist to the old and dying, and sepulture to the dead, to be refused; all the rites, the ceremonies, and the consolations of religion to be denied to every one; and France to be as a dead land, till such time as Philip the king should separate himself from Agnes his concubine, and take again to his bosom Ingerburge, his lawful wife.

At that hard word, concubine, applied to Agnes de Meranie, the Count d'Auvergne's hand naturally grasped his dagger; but the legate was secure in his sacred character, and he proceeded to anathematise and excommunicate Philip, according to the terrible form of the church of Rome, calling down upon his head the curses of all the powers of Heaven!

"May he be cursed in the city, and in the field, and in the highway! in living, and in dying!" said the legate; "cursed be his children, and his flocks, and his domaines! Let no man call him brother, or give him the kiss of peace! Let no priest pray for him, or admit him to God's altar! Let all men flee from him living, and let consolation and hope abandon his death-bed! Let his corpse remain unburied, and his bones whiten in the wind! Cursed be he on earth, and under the earth! in this life, and to all eternity!"

Such was in some degree, though far short of the tremendous original, the anathema which the legate pronounced against Philip Augustus--to our ideas, unchristian, and almost blasphemous; but then the people heard it with reverence and trembling; and even when he summed up the whole, by announcing it in the name of the Holy Trinity--of the Father--of all mercy!--of the Son--the Saviour of the world!--and of the Holy Ghost--the Lord and Giver of Life! the people, instead of starting from the impious mingling of Heaven's holiest attributes with the violent passions of man, joined the clergy in a loud and solemn Amen!

At the same moment all the sounds ceased, the torches were extinguished; and in obscurity and confusion, the dismayed multitude made their way out of the cathedral.