CHAPTER II.
There stood in ancient days, on the banks of the river Seine, a tall strong tower, forming one of the extreme defences of the city of Rouen towards the water. It has long, long been pulled down; but I have myself seen a picture of that capital of Normandy, taken while the tower I speak of yet stood; and though the painter had indeed represented it as crumbling and dilapidated, even in his day, there was still an air of menacing gloom in its aspect, that seemed to speak it a place whose dungeons might have chronicled many a misery--a place of long sorrows, and of ruthless deeds.
In this tower, some four months after the events which we have recorded in the end of the last volume and the beginning of this, were confined two persons of whom we have already spoken much--Arthur Plantagenet and Guy de Coucy.
The chamber that they inhabited was not one calculated either to raise the spirits of a prisoner by its lightsome airiness, or to awaken his regrets by the prospect of the free world without. It seemed as if made for the purpose of striking gloom and terror into the bosoms of its sad inhabitants; and strong must have been the heart that could long bear up under the depressing influence of its heavy atmosphere.
Its best recommendation was its spaciousness, being a square of near thirty feet in length and breadth; but this advantage was almost completely done away by the depression of the roof, the highest extent of which, at the apex of the arches whereof it was composed, was not above eight feet from the floor. In the centre rose a short column of about two feet in diameter, from which, at the height of little more than a yard from the ground, began to spring the segments of masonry forming the low but pointed arches of the vault.
Window there was none; but at the highest part, through the solid bend of one of the arches, was pierced a narrow slit, or loophole, admitting sufficient light into the chamber to render the objects dimly visible, but nothing more.
The furniture which this abode of wretchedness contained was as scanty as could well be, though a pretence of superior comfort had been given to it over the other dungeons, when it was about to be tenanted by a prince. Thus, in one part was a pile of straw, on which De Coucy made his couch; and in another corner was a somewhat better bed, with two coverings of tapestry, placed there for the use of Arthur. There were also two settles--an unknown luxury in prisons of that day, and by the massy column in the centre stood a small oaken table.
At the side of this last piece of furniture, with his arms stretched thereon, and his face buried in his arms, sat Arthur Plantagenet. It was apparently one of those fine sunny days that sometimes break into February; and a bright ray of light found its way through the narrow loophole we have mentioned, and fell upon the stooping form of the unhappy boy, exposing the worn and soiled condition of his once splendid apparel, and the confused dishevelled state of the rich, curling, yellow hair, which fell in glossy disarray over his fair cheeks, as his brow rested heavily upon his arms. The ray passed on, and forming a long narrow line of light upon the pillar, displayed a rusty ring of iron, with its stauncheon deeply imbedded in the stone. Attached to this hung several links of a broken chain; but though the unhappy prince, when he looked upon the manacles that had been inflicted on some former tenant of the prison, might have found that comparative consolation which we derive from the knowledge of greater misery than our own; yet the other painful associations, called up by the sight, more than counterbalanced any soothing comparisons it suggested; and he seemed, in despair, to be hiding his eyes from all and every thing, in a scene where each object he looked upon called up, fresh, some regret for the past, or some dread for the future.
A little beyond, in a leaning position, with his hand grasping one of the groins of the arch, stood De Coucy, in the dim half light that filled every part of the chamber, where that ray already mentioned fell not immediately; and with a look of deep mournful interest, he contemplated his young fellow-captive, whose fate seemed to affect him even more than his own.
During the first few days of their captivity, all the prisoners taken at Mirebeau had been treated by the crafty John with kindness and even distinction; more especially Arthur and De Coucy, at least while William Longsword, the Earl of Pembroke, and some others of the more independent of the English nobility, remained near the person of the king. While this lasted, the youthful mind of Arthur Plantagenet recovered in some degree its tone, though the fatal events of Mirebeau had at first sunk it almost to despair.
On one pretence or another, however, John soon contrived that all those who might have obstructed his schemes, either by opposition or remonstrance, should be despatched on distant and tedious expeditions; and, free from the restraint of their presence, his real feelings towards Arthur, and those who supported him, were not long in displaying themselves.
Though ungifted with that fine quality which, teaching us to judge and direct our own conduct as well as to understand and govern that of others, truly deserves the name of wisdom, John possessed that knowledge of human nature,--that cunning science in man's weaknesses, which is too often mistaken for wisdom. He well understood, therefore, that the good and noble--even in an age when virtue was chivalrous, and when the protection of the oppressed was a deed of fame--would often suffer violence and cruelty to pass unnoticed, after time had taken the first hard aspect from the deed. He knew that what would raise a thousand voices against it to-day, would to-morrow be canvassed in a whisper, and the following day forgotten: and he judged that, though the first rumour of his severity towards his nephew might for a moment wake the indignation of his barons, yet, long before they were reunited on the scene of action, individual interests, and newer events, would step in, and divert their thoughts to very different channels.
Lord Pembroke was consequently despatched to Guyenne, with several of those unmanageable honest men, whose straightforward honour is the stumbling-block of evil intentions. Lord Salisbury was left once more to protect Touraine with very inefficient forces; and John himself retreated across the Loire, with the prisoners and the bulk of his army.
Each day's march changed his demeanour towards Arthur and his unfortunate companions. His kingly courtesy became gradually scanty kindness, manifest neglect, and, at last, cruel ill usage. The revolted nobles of Poitou had given quite sufficient excuse for the king's severity, towards them, at least; and with little ceremony, either of time or manner, they were consigned to separate prisons, scattered over the face of Maine and Brittany. Arthur and De Coucy were granted a few days more of comparative liberty, following the English army, strongly escorted indeed; but still breathing the free air, and enjoying the sight of fair nature's face. At length, as the army passed through Normandy, their escort, already furnished with instructions to that effect, turned from the line of march, and deposited them within the walls of the castle of Falaise; from which place they were removed to Rouen in the midst of the winter, and confined in the chamber we have already described.
Arthur's mind had borne up at Falaise; so far, at least, that, though he grieved over the breaking of his first splendid hopes, and felt, with all the eager restlessness of youth, the uncomforts of imprisonment, the privation of exercise, the dull monotonous round of daily hours, the want of novelty, and the wearisome continuity of one unchanging train of thought; yet hope was still alive--nay, even expectation; and ceaselessly would he build those blessed castles in the air, that, like the portrait of an absent friend, picture forth the sweet features of distant happiness, far away, but not lost for ever. The air of the prison had there been fresh and light, the governor mild and urbane; and though, there, he had been lodged in a different chamber from De Coucy, yet his spirits had not sunk, even under solitude.
At Rouen, however, though the jailer, for his own convenience, rather than their comfort, placed the two prisoners in the same apartment, Arthur's cheerfulness quickly abandoned him; his health failed, and his hopes and expectations passed away like dreams, as they were. The air, though cold, was close and heavy; and the dim, grey light of the chamber seemed to encourage every melancholy thought.
When De Coucy strove to console him, he would but shake his head with an impatient start, as if the very idea of better days was but a mockery of his hopelessness; and at other times he would sit, with the silent tears of anguish and despair chasing each other down his fair, pale cheeks, hour after hour; as if weeping had become his occupation. As one day followed another, his depression seemed to increase. The only sign of interest he had shown in what was passing in the busy world without, had been the questions which he asked the jailer, morning and evening, when their food or a light was brought them. Then, he had been accustomed anxiously to demand when his uncle John was expected to return from England, and sometimes to comment on the reply; but, after a while, this too ceased, and his whole energies seemed benumbed with despair, from the rising till the setting of the sun.
After it was down, however, he seemed in a degree to re-awaken; and then alone he showed an interest in any thing unconnected with his own immediate fate, when the day had gone, and by the light of the lamp that was given them at night, De Coucy would relate to him many a battle and adventure in the Holy Land--scenes of danger, and terror, and excitement; and deeds of valour, and strength, and generosity, all lighted up with the romantic and chivalrous spirit of the age, and tinged with that wild and visionary superstition which cast a vague sort of shadowy grandeur over all the tales of those days.
Then Arthur's cheek would glow with a flush of feverish interest; and he would ask many an eager question, and listen to long and minute descriptions, that would weary beyond all patience any modern ears; and, in the end, he would wish that, instead of having embarked his hopes in the fatal endeavour of recovering lost kingdoms, and wresting his heritage from the usurper, he had given his life and hopes to the recovery of Christ's blessed cross and sepulchre.
This, however, was only, as we have said, after the sun had gone down, and when the lamp was lighted; for it seemed that then, when the same darkness was apportioned to every one, and when every one sought a refuge within the walls of their dwellings, that he felt not his imprisonment so painfully as when day had risen--day, which to him was without any of day's enjoyments. He could not taste the fresh air--he could not catch the sunshine of the early spring--he could not stretch his enfeebled limbs in the sports of the morning--he could not gaze upon all the unrivalled workmanship of God's glorious, beauty-spreading hand. Daylight to him was all privation; and even the sunbeam that found its way through the loophole in the masonry, seemed but given to wring him with the memory of sweets he could not taste. He thus therefore turned his back towards it, as we have at first depicted him; and burying his eyes upon his arms, gave himself up to the recollection of broken hopes, long-gone visions of empiry and dominion, stifled aspirations after honour and fame, brilliant past schemes of justice and equity, and universal benevolence, and all those bright materials given to youth, out of which manhood preserves so few to carry on into old age. Powerful feelings and generous designs are, alas! too like the inheritance of a miser in the hands of some spendthrift heir--lavished away on trifles in our early years, and needed, but not possessed, in our riper age.
None had been more endowed in such sort than Arthur Plantagenet; but it seemed the will of Fortune, to snatch from him, piece by piece, each portion of his heritage, and to crush the energies of his mind at the same time that she tore from him his right of dominion; and thus, while he lay and pondered over all he had once hoped, there was a touch of bitterness mingled with his grief, to feel that the noblest wishes are but the mock and sport of Fate. Born to a kingdom, yet doomed to a prison; as a child he had entered on the career of a man; he had mingled the bright aspirations of youth with the ambitious yearnings of maturity; and now his infancy lay crushed under the misfortunes of manhood.
De Coucy gazed on him with feelings of deep and painful interest. What he might have been, and what he was; his youth, and his calamities; his crushed mind, and its former gallant energy, stood forth in strong contrast to the eyes of De Coucy, as, leaning against the arch, he contemplated the unhappy prince, whose thin, pale hands, appearing from beneath the curls of his glossy hair, spoke plainly the ravages that confinement and sorrow had worked upon him.
The knight was about to speak, when the sounds of voices approaching were heard through the low small door that opened from their chamber upon a stone gallery at the head of the staircase. De Coucy listened.
"Thou art bold!--thou art too bold!" cried one of the speakers, pausing opposite the door. "Tell not me of other prisoners! Thine orders were strict, that he should be kept alone.--What was 't to thee, if that mad De Coucy had rotted with fifty others in a cell? Thy charge is taken from thee. Speak not! but begone! Leave me thy keys.--Thou, Humbert, stand by with thy men. Listen not; but if I call, rush in. Mark me, dost thou? If I speak loud, rush in!"
The bolts were withdrawn, the key turned, and, the door opening, John, King of England, entered, stooping his head to pass the low arch of the doorway. Arthur had looked up at the first sound, and his pale cheek had become a hue paler, even before the appearance of his uncle; but, when John did at length approach, a quick sharp shudder passed over his nephew's form, as if there had been indeed some innate antipathy, which warned the victim that he was in presence of him destined to be his murderer.
The king advanced a step or two into the chamber, and then paused, regarding Arthur, who had risen from his seat, with a cold and calculating eye. A slight smile of gratification passed over his lip, as he remarked the sallow and emaciated state to which imprisonment and despair had reduced a form but three short months before full of life, and strength, and beauty.
The smile passed away instantly from a face little accustomed to express the real feelings of the heart; but John still continued for a moment to contemplate his nephew evidently little pained at the sight of the change he beheld, whether from that change he augured sufficient depression of mind to second his purpose of wringing from his nephew the cession of his claims, or whether he hoped that sickness might prove as good an auxiliary as murder, and spare him bloodshed, that would inevitably be accompanied by danger, as well as reproach. His eye then glanced through the sombre arches of the vault, till it rested on De Coucy with a sort of measuring fixedness, as if he sought to ascertain the exact space between himself and the knight.
Satisfied on this point, he turned again to Arthur.
"Well, fair nephew," said he, with that kind of irony which he seldom banished from his lips, "for three years I asked you in vain to honour my poor court with your noble presence. You have come at last, and doubtless the reception I have given you is such, that you will never think of departing from a place where you may be hospitably entertained for life. How love you prison walls, fair nephew?"
Arthur replied not; but, casting himself again upon the settle, covered his eyes as before, and seemed, from the quick rise and fall of his shoulders, to weep bitterly.
"Sir King," said De Coucy, interposing indignantly, "thou art, then, even more cruel than report gives thee out. Must thou needs add the torture of thy words to the tyranny of thine actions. In the name of God! bad man, leave this place of wretchedness, and give thy nephew, at least, such tranquillity as a prison may afford."
"Ha! beau sire de Coucy," cried John with an unaltered tone. "Methinks thou art that gallant knight who proclaimed Arthur Plantagenet King of England in the heart of Mirebeau. His kingdom is a goodly one," he continued, looking round the chamber, "gay and extensive is it! He has to thank thee much for it!--Let me tell thee, sir knight," he added, raising his voice and knitting his brow, "to the bad counsels of thee, and such as thee, Arthur Plantagenet owes all his sorrows and captivity. Ye have poisoned his ear against his kindred; ye have raised up in him ambitious thoughts that become him not; ye have taught him to think himself a king; and ye have cast him down from a prince to a prisoner."
John spoke loudly and angrily, and at the sound the door of the vault was pushed open, showing the form of a man-at-arms about to enter, followed by several others. But the king waved them back with his hand, and turning to Arthur, he proceeded:--"Hearken to me, nephew! The way to free yourself, and to return to the bright world from which you are now cut off, is free and open before you."[23]
Arthur raised his head.
"Renounce your claim to kingdoms you shall never possess, and cast from you expectations you can never realise, and you shall be free to-morrow. I will restore to you your duchy of Brittany; I will give you a portion befitting a Plantagenet; and I will treat you kindly as my brother's son. What would you more? You shall have the friendship and protection of the King of England."
"I would rather have the enmity of the King of France," cried Arthur, starting up, as the long catalogue of all John's base perfidies rushed across his mind, coupled with the offer of his friendship--"I would rather have the enmity of the King of France! There is always some resource in the generosity of a true knight."
"Thou art a fool, stubborn boy!" cried John, his eye flashing and his lip curling at his nephew's bold reply--"thou art a stubborn fool! Are not the kings of France the hereditary enemies of our race?"
"Philip of France is my godfather in chivalry," replied Arthur, drawing somewhat nearer to De Coucy, as if for protection from the wrath that was gathering on his uncles brow, "and I would rather place my confidence in him, than in one who wronged my uncle Richard, who wronged my father Geoffrey, and who has broken his word even in respect to me, by thrusting me into a prison, when he promised his barons, as they themselves have told me, to leave me at liberty and to treat me well. He that breaks his word is no good knight, and I tell thee, John of Anjou, thou art false and foresworn!"
John lost his habitual command over his countenance in the excess of his wrath; and his features seemed actually to change under the vehemence of his passion. He set his teeth; he clenched his left hand, as if he would have buried his finger-nails in the palm; and, thrusting his right under his crimson mantle, he evidently drew some weapon from its sheath. But at that moment, De Coucy, taking one stride in advance, opposed himself between the king and his nephew, and with his head thrown back, and his broad chest displayed, prepared at all risks to seize the tyrant, and dash him to atoms if he offered any violence to the unhappy youth that fortune had cast into his power.
John, however, possessed not the heart, even had he been armed in proof, to encounter a knight like De Coucy, though unarmed; and, sheathing again his dagger, he somewhat smoothed his look.
"By St. Paul!" he cried, taking pains, however, not to affect coolness too suddenly, lest the rapidity of the transition should betray its falseness, but carefully letting his anger appear to be slow in subsiding--"by St. Paul! Arthur Plantagenet, thou wilt drive me mad! Wert thou not my brother's son, I would strike thee with my dagger! I came to thee, to give thee liberty, if this taste of imprisonment had taught thee to yield thy empty pretensions to a crown thou canst never win; and thou meetest me with abuse and insult. The consequences be on thine own head, minion! I have dungeons deeper than this, and chains that may weigh somewhat heavy on those frail limbs!"
"Neither dungeons nor chains," replied the gallant boy firmly, "no, nor death itself, shall make me renounce my rights of birth! You judge me cowardly, by the tears I shed but now; but I tell thee, that though I be worn with this close prison, and broken by sorrow, I fear not to meet death, rather than yield what I am bound in honour to maintain. England, Anjou, Guyenne, Touraine, are mine in right of my father; Brittany comes to me from my mother, its heiress; and, even in the grave, my bones shall claim the land, and my tomb proclaim thee an usurper!"
"Ha!" said John, "ha!" and there was a sneering accent on the last monosyllable that was but too fatally explained afterwards. "Be it as thou wilt, fair nephew," he added with a smile of dark and bitter meaning--"be it as thou wilt;" and he was turning to leave the apartment.
"Hold, sir, yet one moment!" cried De Coucy. "One word on my account. When I yielded my sword to William of Salisbury, your noble brother, it was under the express promise that I should be treated well and knightly; and he was bound, in delivering me to you, to make the same stipulation in my behalf. If he did do it, you have broken your word. If he did not do it, he has broken his; and one or other I will proclaim a false traitor, in every court of Europe."
John heard him to an end; and then, after eyeing him from head to foot in silence, with an air of bitter triumphant contempt, he opened the door and passed out, without deigning to make the least reply. The door closed behind him--the heavy bolts were pushed forward--and Arthur and De Coucy once more stood alone, cut off from all the world.
The young captive gazed on his fellow-prisoner for a moment or two, with a glance in which the agitation of a weakened frame and a depressed mind might be traced struggling with a sense of dignity and firmness.
De Coucy endeavoured to console him; but the prince raised his hand, with an imploring look, as if the very name of comfort were a mockery. "Have I acted well, sir knight?" he asked. "Have I spoken as became me?"
"Well and nobly have you acted, fair prince," replied De Coucy, "with courage and dignity worthy your birth and station."
"That is enough then!" said Arthur--"that is enough!" and, with a deep and painful sigh, he cast himself again upon the seat; and, once more burying his face on his arms, let the day flit by him without even a change of position.
In the mean while, De Coucy, with his arms folded on his breast, paced up and down the vaulted chamber, revolving thoughts nearly as bitter as those of his fellow-captive. Mirebeau had proved as fatal to him as to Arthur. It had cast down his all. Arthur had struck for kingdoms, and he had struck for glory and fortune--the object of both, however, was happiness, though the means of the one was ambition, and of the other, love. Both had cast their all upon the stake, and both had lost. He, too, had to mourn then the passing away of his last hopes, the bright dream of love, and all the gay and delightful fabrics that imagination had built up upon its fragile base. They had fallen in ruins round him; and his heart sickened when he thought of all that a long captivity might effect in extinguishing the faint, faint glimmering of hope which yet shone upon his fate.
Thus passed the hours till night began to fall; and all the various noises of the town,--the shouts of the boatmen on the river, the trampling of the horses in the streets, the busy buzz of many thousand tongues, the cries of the merchants in the highways, and the rustling tread of all the passers to and fro, which during the day had risen in a confused hum to the chamber in which they were confined, died one by one away; and nothing was at length heard but the rippling of the waters of the Seine, then at high tide, washing against the very foundations of the tower.
It was now the hour at which a lamp was usually brought them; and Arthur raised his head, as if anxious for its coming.
"Enguerand is late to-night," said he. "But I forgot; I heard my uncle discharge him from his office. Perhaps the new governor will not give us any light. Yet, hark! I hear his footstep. He is lighting the lantern in the passage."
He was apparently right, for steps approached, stopping twice for a moment or two, as if to fulfil some customary duty, and then coming nearer, they paused at the door of their prison. The bolts were withdrawn, and a stranger, bearing a lamp, presented himself. His face was certainly not very prepossessing, but it was not strikingly otherwise; and Arthur, who with a keen though timid eye scanned every line in his countenance, was beginning in some degree to felicitate himself on the change of his jailer, when the stranger turned and addressed him in a low and somewhat unsteady voice.
"My lord," said he, "you must follow me; as I am ordered to give you a better apartment. The sire De Coucy must remain here till the upper chamber is prepared."
Fear instantly seized upon Arthur. "I will not leave him," cried he, running round the pillar, and clinging to De Coucy's arm. "This chamber is good enough; I want no other."
"Your hand is not steady, sirrah!" said De Coucy, taking the lamp from the man, and holding it to his pale face. "Your lip quivers, and your cheek is as blanched as a templar's gown."
"'Tis the shaking fever I caught in the marshes by Du Clerc," replied the other; "but what has that to do with the business of Prince Arthur, beau sire?"
"Because we doubt foul play, varlet," replied De Coucy, "and you speak not with the boldness of good intent."
"If any ill were designed, either to you or to the prince," replied the man more boldly, "'t would be easily accomplished, without such ceremony. A flight of arrows, shot through your doorway, would leave you both as dead as the saints in their graves."
"That is true too!" answered De Coucy, looking to Arthur, who still clung close to his arm. "What say you, my prince?"
"It matters little what the duke says, beau sire," said the jailer, interposing, "for he must come. Several of the great barons have returned to the court sooner than the king expected; and he would not have them find prince Arthur here, it seems. So, if he come not by fair means, I must e'en have up the guard, and take him to his chamber by force."
"Ha!" said Arthur, somewhat loosening his hold of De Coucy's arm. "What barons are returned, sayest thou?
"I know not well," said the jailer carelessly; "Lord Pembroke I saw go by, and I heard of good William with the Longsword; but I marked not the names of the others, though I was told them."
Arthur looked to De Coucy as if for advice. "The ague fit has marvellously soon passed," said the knight, fixing his eyes sternly upon the stranger. "By the holy rood! if I thought that thou playedst us false, I would dash thy brains out against the wall!"
"I play you not false, sir knight," replied the man in an impatient tone. "Come, my lord," he continued to Arthur, "come quickly, for come you must. You will find some fresh apparel in the other chamber. To-morrow they talk of having you to the court; for these proud lords, they say, murmur at your being kept here."
There was a vague suspicion of some treachery still rested on the mind of De Coucy. The man's story was probable. It was more than probable, it was very likely; but yet the knight did not believe it, he knew not why. On Arthur, however, it had its full effect. He was aware that lord Pembroke, together with several of the greater barons of England, had wrung a promise for his safety, from king John, long before the relief of Mirebeau; and he doubted not that to their remonstrance he owed this apparent intention to alleviate his imprisonment.
"I must leave you, I am afraid, beau sire de Coucy," said the prince. "I would fain stay here; but, I fear me, it is vain to resist."
"I fear me so too," replied the knight. "Farewell, my noble prince! We shall often think of each other, though separated. Farewell!"
De Coucy took the unhappy boy in his arms, and pressed him for a moment to his heart, as if he had been parting with a brother or a child. He could no way explain his feelings at that moment. They had long been companions in many of those bitter hours which endear people to each other, more perhaps than even hours of mutual happiness; but there was something in his bosom beyond the pain of parting with a person whose fate had even thus been united with his own. He felt that he saw Arthur Plantagenet for the last time; and he gave him, as it were, the embrace of the dying.
He would not, however, communicate his own apprehensions to the bosom of the prince; and, unfolding his arms, he watched him while, with a step still hesitating, he approached the doorway.
The jailer followed, and held open the door for him to pass out. Arthur, however, paused for a moment, and turned a timid glance towards De Coucy, as if there was some misdoubting in his bosom too; then, suddenly passing his hand over his brow, as if to clear away irresolution, he passed the doorway.
The instant he entered the passage beyond, he stopped, exclaiming, "It is my uncle!" and turned to rush back into the cell; but before he could accomplish it, or De Coucy could start forward to assist him, the new jailer passed out, pushed the unhappy prince from the threshold, and shutting the door, fastened it with bolt after bolt.
"Now, minion," cried a voice without, which De Coucy could not doubt was that of king John, "wilt thou brave me as thou didst this morning?--Begone, slave!" he added, apparently speaking to the jailer; "quick! begone!" and then again turning to his nephew, he poured upon him a torrent of vehement and angry vituperation.
In that dark age such proceedings could have but one purpose, and De Coucy, comprehending them at once, glanced round the apartment in search of some weapon wherewith he might force the door; but it was in vain--nothing presented itself. The door was cased with iron, and the strength of Herculus would not have torn it from its hinges. Glaring then like a lion in a cage, the knight stood before it, listening for what was to follow,--doubting not for a moment the fearful object of the bad and bloodthirsty monarch,--his heart swelling with indignation and horror, and yet perfectly impotent to prevent the crime that he knew was about to be perpetrated.
"John of Anjou!" he cried, shouting through the door. "Bloodthirsty tyrant! beware what you do! Deeply shall you repent your baseness, if you injure but a hair of his head! I will brand your name with shame throughout Europe! I will publish it before your barons to your teeth! You are overheard, villain, and your crime shall not sleep in secret!"
But, in the dreadful scene passing without, neither nephew nor uncle seemed to heed his call. There was evidently a struggle, as if the king endeavoured to free himself from the agonised clasp of Arthur, whose faint voice was heard, every now and then, praying in vain for mercy, at the hands of the hard-hearted tyrant in whose power he was. At length the struggle seemed to grow fainter. A loud horrific cry rang echoing through the passages; and then a heavy, deadly fall, as if some mass of unelastic clay were cast at once upon the hollow stone of the pavement. Two or three deep groans followed; and then a distinct blow, as if a weapon of steel, stabbed through some softer matter, struck at last against a block of stone. A retreating step was heard; then whispering voices; then, shortly after, the paddling of a boat in the water below the tower--a heavy plunge in the stream--and all was silent.[24]
CHAPTER III.
No language can express the joy that spread over the face of France, when the first peal from the steeples of the churches announced that the interdict was raised--that the nation was once more to be held as a Christian people--that the barrier was cast down which had separated it from the pale of the church. Labour, and care, and sorrow seemed suspended. The whole country rang with acclamations; and so crowded were the churches, when the gates were first thrown open, that several hundred serfs were crushed to death in the struggle for admission.
Every heart was opened--every face beamed with delight; and the aspect of the whole land was as glad and bright, as if salvation had then first descended upon earth. There were but two beings, in all the realm, to whom that peal sounded unjoyfully; and to them it rang like the knell of death. Agnes de Meranie heard it on her knees, and mingled her prayers with tears. Philip Augustus listened to it with a dark and frowning brow; and, striding up and down his solitary hall, he commented on each echoing clang, with many a deep and bitter thought. "They rejoice," said he mentally--"they rejoice in my misery. They ring a peal to celebrate my disappointment; but each stroke of that bell breaks a link of the chain that held them together, secure from my vengeance. Let them beware! Let them beware! or that peal shall be the passing bell to many a proud knight and rebellious baron."
Philip's calculations were not wrong. During the existence of the interdict, the nobles of France had been held together in their opposition to the monarch, by a bond entwined of several separate parts, which were all cut at once by the king's submission to the papal authority. The first tie had been general superstition; but this would have hardly proved strong enough to unite them powerfully together, had the cause of Philip's opposition to the church been any thing but entirely personal. In his anger, too, the king had for a moment forgotten his policy, and added another tie to that which existed before. Instead of courting public opinion to his support, he had endeavoured to compel his unwilling barons to co-operate in his resistance; and by severity and oppression, wherever his will was opposed, had complicated the bond of union amongst his vassals, which the interdict had first begun to twine.
The moment, however, that the papal censure was removed, all those who had not really suffered from the king's wrath fell off from the league against him; and many of the others, on whom his indignation had actually fallen, whether from blind fear or clear-sighted policy, judged that safety was no longer to be found but in his friendship, and made every advance to remove his anger.
Philip repelled none. Those on whose services he could best rely, and whose aid was likely to be most useful, he met with courtesy and frankness, remitted the fines he had exacted, restored the feofs he had forfeited, and, by the voluntary reparation of the oppression he had committed, won far more upon opinion, than he had lost by the oppression itself. Those, however, who still murmured, or held back, he struck unsparingly. He destroyed their strong holds, he forfeited their feofs, and thus, joining policy and vengeance, he increased his own power, he punished the rebellious, he scared his enemies, and he added many a fair territory to his own domain.
The eyes of the pope were still upon France; and seeing that the power for which he had made such an effort was falling even by the height to which he had raised it; that the barons were beginning to sympathise and co-operate with the king; and that those who still remained in opposition to the monarch were left now exposed to the full effects of his anger; Innocent resolved at once to make new efforts, both by private intrigue, and by another daring exercise of his power, to establish firmly what he had already gained.
Amidst those who still remained discontented in France, he spared no means to maintain that discontent; and amidst Philip's external enemies he spread the project of that tremendous league, which afterwards, gathering force like an avalanche, rolled on with overwhelming power, in spite of all the efforts which Innocent at last thought fit to oppose to it, when he found that the mighty engine which he had first put in motion threatened to destroy himself. At the same time, to give these schemes time to acquire maturity and strength, and to break the bond of union which war always creates between a brave nation and a warlike monarch, he prepared to interpose between John of England and Philip Augustus, and to command the latter, with new threats of excommunication in case of disobedience, to abandon the glorious course that he was pursuing in person on the right of the Loire, at the moment when we have seen him despatch Arthur to carry on the war on the left.
It was somewhere about the period of the events we have related in our last chapter, and winter had compelled Philip to close the campaign which he had been pursuing against John with his wonted activity, when, one morning, as he sat framing his plans of warfare for the ensuing year, a conversation to the following effect took place between him and Guerin.
"--And then for Rouen!" said the king. "Thus cut off from all supplies, as I have showed you, and beleaguered by such an army as I can bring against it, it cannot hold out a month. But we must be sudden, Guerin, in our movements, carefully avoiding any demonstration of our intentions, till we sit down before the place, lest John should remove our poor Arthur, and thus foil us in the chief point of our enterprise. Three more such bright sunshining mornings as this, and I will call my men to the monstre. God send us an early spring!"
"I fear me much, sire, that the pope will interfere," replied Guerin; "repeated couriers are passing between Rome and England. He has already remonstrated strongly against the war; and, I little doubt, will endeavour, by all means, to put a stop to it."
"Ha, say'st thou?" said the king, looking up with a smile, from a rude plan of the city of Rouen, round which he was drawing the lines of an encampment. "God send he may interfere, Guerin! He has triumphed over me once, good friend. It is time that I should triumph over him."
"But are you sure of being able to do so, sire?" demanded Guerin, with his usual simple frankness, putting the naked truth before the king's eyes, without one qualifying phrase! "The pleasure of resistance would, methinks, be too dear bought, at the expense of a second defeat. The pope is strengthening himself by alliances. But yesterday the Duke of Burgundy informed me, that six successive messengers from the holy see had passed through his territories within a month, all either bound to Otho the emperor, or to Ferrand count of Flanders."
Philip listened with somewhat of an abstracted air. His eye fixed upon vacancy, as if he were gazing on the future; and yet it was evident that he listened still, for a smile of triumphant consciousness in his own powers glanced from time to time across his lip, as the minister touched upon the machinations of his enemies.
"I fear me, sire," continued Guerin, "that your bold resistance to the will of the pontiff has created you at Rome an enemy that it will not be easy to appease."
"God send it!" was all Philip's reply, uttered with the same absent look, as if his mind was still busy with other matters. "God send it, Guerin! God send it!"
The minister was mute; and, after a momentary pause on both sides, Philip Augustus started up, repeating in a louder voice, as if impatient of the silence, "God send it, I say, Guerin! for, if he does commit that gross mistake in meddling in matters where he has no pretence of religious authority to support him in the eyes of the superstitious crowd, by the Lord that lives! I will crush him like a hornet that has stung me!"
"But, my lord, consider," said Guerin, "consider that--"
"Consider!" interrupted the king. "I have considered, Guerin! Think you I am blind, my friend? Think you I do not see? I tell thee, Guerin, I look into the workings of this pope's mind as clearly as ever did prophet of old into the scheme of futurity. He hates me nobly, I know it--with all the venom of a proud and passionate heart. He hates me profoundly, and I hate him as well. Thank God for that! I would not meet him but on equal terms; and, I tell thee, Guerin, I see all which that hatred may produce."
The king paused, and took two or three strides in the apartment, as if to compose himself, and give his thoughts a determinate form; for he had lashed himself already into no small anger, with the very thoughts of the hatred between the proud prelate and himself. In a few moments he stopped, and, sitting down again, looked up in the face of the minister, somewhat smiling at his own vehemence. Yet there was something bitter in the smile too, from remembrance of the events which had first given rise to his enmity towards the pope. After this had passed away, he leaned his cheek upon his hand, and, still looking up, marked the emphasis of his discourse with the other hand, laying it from time to time on the sleeve of the minister's gown.
"I see it all, Guerin," said he, "and I am prepared for all. This arrogant prelate, with his pride elevated by his late triumph, and his heart embittered by my resistance, will do all that man can do to overthrow me. In the first place, he will endeavour to stop my progress against that base unknightly king--John of Anjou: but he will fail, for my barons have already acknowledged the justice of the war; and I have already ten written promises to support me against Rome itself, should Rome oppose me. There is the engagement of the Duke of Burgundy. Read that."
Guerin took up the parchment to which the king pointed, and read a clear and positive agreement, on the part of the Duke of Burgundy, to aid Philip, with all his knights and vassals, against John of England, in despite of even the thunders of the church--to march and fight at his command during the whole of that warfare, how long soever it might last; and never either to lay down his arms, or to make peace, truce, or treaty, either with the king of England, or the bishop of Rome, without the express consent and order of Philip himself.
Guerin was surprised; for though he well knew that--notwithstanding his own office--the king transacted the greater part of the high political negotiations of the kingdom himself, and often without the entire knowledge of any one, yet he had hardly thought that such important arrangements could have been made totally unknown to him. It was so, however; and Philip, not remarking his minister's astonishment--for, as we have said before, the countenance of Guerin was not very apt to express any of the emotions of his mind--proceeded to comment on the letter he had shown him.
"Ten such solemn agreements have I obtained from my great vassals," said he, "and each can bring full two thousand men into the field. But still, Guerin, it is not the immense power that this affords me--greater than I have ever possessed since I sat upon the throne of France--'tis not the power that yields me the greatest pleasure; but it is, that herein is the seed of resistance to the papal authority; and I will water it so well, that it shall grow up into a tall tree, under whose shadow I may sit at ease.--Mark me, Guerin, and remember! Henceforth, never shall an interdict be again cast upon the realm of France,--never shall pope or prelate dare to excommunicate a French king; and should such a thing be by chance attempted, it shall be but as the idle wind that hisses at its own emptiness. The seed is there," continued he, striking his hand proudly on the parchment,--"the seed is there, and it shall spread far and wide."
"But even should the greater part of your barons enter into this compact, sire," said Guerin, "you may be crushed by a coalition from without. I do not wish to be the prophet of evil; but I only seek to place the question in every point of view. Might not then, sire, the coalition of the pope, the emperor, and the King of England--?"
"Might wage war with me, but could never conquer, if France were true to France," interrupted the monarch. "Guerin, I tell thee, that an united nation was never overcome, and never shall be, so long as the world does last. The fate of a nation is always in its own hands. Let it be firm, and it is safe."
"But we unfortunately know, sire," said the minister, with a doubtful shake of the head, "that France is not united. Many, many of the royal vassals, and those some of the most powerful, cannot be depended on. Ferrand, count of Flanders, for instance. I need not tell you, sire, that he waits but an opportunity to throw off his allegiance. There are many more. Count Julian of the Mount has been openly a follower of the court of John of England; and though he is now on his lands, doubtless preparing all for revolt, he has left his daughter, they say, as security for his faith at the court of Rouen. May we not suppose, sire, that, when the moment comes which is to try men's hearts in this affair, we shall find thousands who--either from fear of the papal censure--or from personal enmity--or a treacherous and fickle disposition--or some one of all the many, many circumstances that sow treasons in time of danger and trouble--will fall off from you at the instant you want them most, and go over to swell the ranks of your enemies?"
"I do not believe it," replied Philip thoughtfully,--"I do not believe it! The pope's authority in a war unconnected with any affair of the church will have small effect, and if exerted, will, like a reed in a child's hand, break itself at the first impotent blow. Besides, I much doubt whether Innocent would now exert it against me if it were to be used in favour of Otho of Saxony. He hates me, true! He hates me more than he hates any other king; but yet, Guerin, but yet I see a thread mingling with the web of yon pope's policy that may make it all run down. Again, the war against John is a national, and must be a popular, war. I will take care that it shall not be stretched till France is weary of it; and John's weakness, joined with Innocent's insolence, will soon make it a war against the nation generally, not against the king personally. The barons will find that they are defending themselves, while they defend me; and I will divide the lands of him who turns traitor, amongst those that remain true. I tell thee, Guerin, I tell thee, I would not for the world that this pope should slacken his hand, or abate one atom of his pride. He is sowing enemies, my friend; and he shall reap an iron harvest."
Philip's eyes flashed as his thoughts ran on into the future. His brow knit sternly; his hand clasped tight the edge of the table by which he was seated, and after a moment or two of silence, he burst forth:--"Let him but give me the means of accustoming my barons to resist his usurped power--one great victory--and then!"
"Then what, sire?" demanded the hospitaller calmly, his unimpassioned mind not following the quick and lightning-like turns of Philip's rapid feelings--"then, what?"
"Agnes!" exclaimed Philip, starting up and grasping Guerin's arm--"Agnes and vengeance! By Heaven! it glads my very soul to see Innocent's machinations against me--machinations that, either by the ingratitude of others, or my revenge, shall fall, certainly fall, like a thunderbolt on his head. Let him raise up pomp-loving Otho, that empty mockery of a Cæsar! Let him call in crafty, fickle, bloodthirsty John, with his rebellious, disaffected barons! Let him join them with boasting Ferrand of Flanders! Let him add Italian craft to German stubbornness! Let him cast his whole weight of power upon the die! I will stake my being against it, and perish, or avenge my wrongs, and recover what I have lost!"
"I fear me, sire--" said Guerin.
"Speak not to me of fear!" interrupted the king. "I tell thee, good friend, that in my day I have seen but one man fit to cope with a king--I mean, Richard of England. He is gone--God rest his soul!--but he was a good knight and a great warrior, and might have been a great king, if fate had spared him till time had taken some of the lion's worst part from his heart, and sprinkled some cooler wisdom on his brow. But he is gone, and has left none like him behind. As for the others, I will make their necks but steps to gain the height from which my arm may reach to Rome."
"'Tis a far way to Rome! sire," replied Guerin, "and many have stretched their arm to reach it, and failed in the attempt. I need not remind you of the Emperor Frederic, sire, who struggled in vain to resist."
"Nor of Philip of France, you would say," interposed the king, with a gloomy smile that implied perhaps pain, but not anger. "Philip of France!" he repeated, "who strove but to retain the wife of his bosom, when a proud priest bade him cast her from him--and he too failed! But Philip of France is not yet dead; and between the to-day and the to-morrow, which constitute life and death, much may be done. I failed, Guerin, it is true; but I failed by my own fault. My eyes dazzled with the mist of passion, I made many a sad mistake; but now, my eyes are open, my position is changed, and my whole faculties are bent to watch the errors of my adversaries, and to guard against any myself. But we will speak no more of this. Were it to cost me crown and kingdom, life, and even renown, I would thank God for having given me the means of striking at least one blow for love and vengeance. We will speak no more of it. The day wears."
It needed not the science of an old courtier to understand what the king's last words implied; and Guerin instantly took his leave, and left the monarch alone.
The truth was, that to thoughts of ambition, schemes of policy, and projects of vengeance, other ideas had succeeded in the mind of Philip Augustus. His was a strange state of being. He lived as it were in two worlds. Like the king of old, he seemed to have two spirits. There was the one that, bright, and keen, and active, mingled in the busy scenes of politics and warfare, guiding, directing, raising up, and overthrowing; and there was another, still, silent, deep, in the inmost chambers of his heart, yet sharing more, far more, than half the kingdom of his thoughts, and prompting or commanding all the actions of the other. It was this spirit that now claimed its turn to reign exclusively; and Philip gave up all his soul to the memory of Agnes de Meranie. Here he had a world apart from aught else on earth, wherein the spirit of deep feeling swayed supreme; and thence issued that strong control that his heart ever exercised over the bright spirit of genius and talent, with which he was so eminently endowed.
He thought of Agnes de Meranie. The fine chord of association had been touched a thousand times during his conversation with Guerin, and at every mention of her name, at every thought that connected itself with her unhappy fate, fresh sorrows and regrets, memories sweet, though painful,--most painful, that they were but memories,--came crowding on his heart, and claiming all its feelings. As soon as the minister was gone, he called his page, and bade him see if the canon of St. Berthe's was in attendance. The boy returned in a few minutes, followed by the wily priest, whom we have already heard of as the confessor of Agnes de Meranie. Philip's feelings towards him were very different from those he entertained towards Guerin. There was that certain sort of doubt in the straightforwardness of his intentions, which a cunning man,--let him cover his heart with what veil of art he will,--can hardly ever escape. Philip had no cause to doubt, and yet he doubted. Nor did he love the plausible kind of eloquence, which the priest had some pride in displaying; and therefore he treated him with that proud, cold dignity, which left the subject but little opportunity of exercising his oratory upon the king.
"Good morrow, father," he said, bending his brows upon the canon: "when last I saw you, you were about to speak to me concerning the queen, before persons whom I admit not to mingle in my private affairs. Now answer me, as I shall question you, and remember, a brief reply is the best. When saw you my wife, the queen?"
"It was on the fifth day of the last week," replied the canon, in a low sweet tone of voice, "and it was with sorrow mingled with hope--"
"Bound yourself, in your reply, by my question, sir clerk," said the king sternly. "I ask you neither your sorrows nor your hopes. How was the queen in health?"
"But frail, if one might judge by her appearance, sire," answered the priest; "she was very pale, and seemed weak; but she said that she was well, and indeed, sweet lady, she was like, if I may use a figure--"
"Use none, sir," interrupted the king. "Did she take exercise?"
"Even too much, I fear, beau sire," replied the canon. "For hours, and hours, she wanders through the loneliest parts of the forest, sending from her all her attendants--"
"Ha! alone?" cried the king: "does she go alone?"
"Entirely, sire," replied the canon of St. Berthe's, whose hopes of a bishopric in Istria were not yet extinct. "I spoke with the leech Rigord, whom you commanded to watch over her health; and he did not deny, that the thing most necessary to the lady's cure was the air of her own land, and the tending of her own relations; for he judges by her wanderings, that her mind is hurt, and needs soothing and keeping afar from the noisy turbulence of the world; as we keep a sick man's chamber from the glare of the mid-day sun."
Philip heard him out, fixing his eyes on the wily priest's face, as if seeking to trace the cunning in his countenance, that he was sure was busy at his heart: but the canon kept his look bent upon the ground while speaking; and, when he had done, judging that his words pleased, by being indulged in a much longer speech than Philip had ever before permitted him to make, he raised his eyes to the monarch's face, with a look of humiliated self-confidence, which, though it betrayed none of the secrets of his wishes, did not succeed in producing any favourable impression on the king.
"Begone!" said the monarch, in not the most gentle tone possible; but then, instantly sensible that his dislike to the man might be unjust, and that his haughtiness was at all events ungenerous, he added, more mildly, "Leave me, good father--I would be alone. Neglect not your charge, and you shall feel the king's gratitude."
The canon of St. Berthe's bowed low in silence, and withdrew, pondering, with not a little mortification, on the apparent unsuccessfulness of schemes which, though simple enough, if viewed with the eyes of the world at present, when cunning, like every other art, has reached the corruption of refinement, were deeply politic in that age, when slyness was in the simplicity of its infancy.
In the mean while, Philip Augustus paused on the same spot where the priest had left him, in deep thought. "Alone!" muttered he,--"alone! I have vowed a deep vow, neither to touch her lip, nor enter her dwelling, nor to speak one word to her, for six long months, without, prior to that period's return, a council shall have pronounced on my divorce. But I have not vowed not to see her. I can bear this no longer! Yon priest tortures me with tales of her sickness! He must have some dark motive! Yet, she may be sick, too.--Ho! without there!"
The page who had before conducted the canon of St. Berthe's to the presence of the king, now presented himself again.
"Gilbert!" said the monarch, "come hither, boy! Thou art of noble birth; and art faithful and true, I well believe. Now, doubtless, thou hast learned so much of knightly service, that you know, the page who babbles of his lord's actions is held dishonoured and base.--Fear not, youth, I am not angry. If I find you discreet, this hand shall some day lay knighthood on your shoulder; but, if I find you gossip of my deeds, it shall strike your ears from your head, and send you forth like a serf, into the fields. With that warning, speed to the west hall of the armoury. Thou wilt there find, in the third window from the door, on the left hand, a casque, with the êventaille cut like a cross; a haubert, with a steel hood; a double-handed sword; a table of attente, and other things fitting. Bring them to me hither, and be quick."
The page sped away, proud to be employed by the monarch on an errand usually reserved for his noblest squires; and returned in a few minutes, bearing the haubert and the greaves; for the load of the whole armour would have been too much for his young arms to lift Another journey brought the casque and sword; and a third, the brassards and plain polished shield, called a table of attente. The whole armour was one of those plain and unornamented suits much used in the first fervour of the crusades, when every other decoration than that of the cross was considered superfluous.
Without other aid than the page could afford, whose hands trembled with delight at their new occupation, Philip arrayed himself in the arms that had been brought him; and, taking care to remove every trace by which he could have been recognised, he put on the casque, which, opening at the side, had no visor, properly so called; but which, nevertheless, entirely concealed his face, the only opening, when the clasps were fastened, being a narrow cruciform aperture in the front, to admit the light and air. When this was done, he wrote upon a slip of parchment the simple words, "The king would be alone," and gave them to the page, as his warrant for preventing any one from entering his apartment during his absence. He then ordered him to pass the bridge, from the island to the tower of the Louvre, and to bring a certain horse, which he described, from the stables of that palace, to the end of the garden wall; and waiting some minutes after his departure, to give time for the execution of his commands, the king rose, and, choosing the least frequented of the many staircases in the palace, proceeded towards the street.
In the court he encountered several of his serjeants-at-arms, and his other attendants, who gazed coldly at the strange knight, as he seemed, who, thus encased in complete steel, passed, through them, without offering or receiving any salutation. Thence he proceeded into the busy streets; where, so strong was the force of habit, that Philip started more than once at the want of the reverence to which he was accustomed; and had to recall the disguise he had assumed, ere he could fancy the disrespect unintentional.
At the spot he had named, he found the page with the horse; but the sturdy groom, whose charge it was in the stable, stood there also, fully resolved to let no one mount him without sufficient authority: nor was it till the sight of the king's signet showed him in whose presence he stood, that he ceased his resistance. The groom, suddenly raised to an immense height, in his own conceit, by having become, in any way, a sharer in the king's secret, winked to the page, and held the stirrup while the monarch mounted.
Philip sprang into the saddle. Laying his finger on the aperture of the casque, to enjoin secrecy, and adding, in a stern tone, "On your life!" he turned his horse's head, and galloped away.