Complete Works of Ford Madox Ford, page 357
“It was you who stirred up the archers to fray against the Flemings,” the Queen repeated. “I have a letter from your wife in Wiltshire praying me to pardon you for this deed and to be favourable to her.”
The Young Knight had got himself into his coat.
“Merciful God!” he said, “the Lady Blanche again! Is there nothing we can do but this fool will be in it? A thousand miles away, and she will still poke her fingers in. She has longer arms than the giant Hobokolus, who picked apples in Wales when he stood in Ireland.” The Knight of Coucy strode heavily towards his armour, which lay still upon the hutch at the foot of the bed. He caught at the hilt of his sword and shook it out of the scabbard, so that all the harness fell on to the stone floor with a threatening and echoing clang. The Lord Roger Mortimer shrank back against the wall; the young King hurriedly stood out before his mother.
“Will you kill us!” the Queen cried out, and she felt behind her back for the hasp of the door. The Knight of Coucy set the point of his sword on the floor. His chin he leaned upon the hilt that was like an iron cross. He fought still with those great, long swords, though it was the fashion then to have them lighter and easier to wield; but he was a very strong man.
“Gentle Queen,” he said, “I desire no more than that you should see my strongest argument, for I am a man of little skill with words.”
Swaying gently as the sword bent like a great spring, he grinned with his cunning peasant’s face at the Queen.
“Would you make war upon us?” the Queen said hotly.
“May God forbid it!” the Knight of Coucy answered. “May God forbid that I should make war upon my King. But what would you have, gentle Queen? If I am put to it with imprisonment and the losing of my head, it is certain that I will do what I may to save my neck.”
“What would you be — aye, you and your cousin — against all our many,” the Queen said contemptuously.
“Ah, do not be too certain of your many,” the Knight said. “It is certain that the great strength of the army if ever we had found the Scots would have lain in the archers. And our archers and the Lincolnshire bowmen are all you have. Nor have you even all the knighthood with you, as well you know, if it is a matter of Flemings against Englishmen. And that is all the quarrel that there is between us.”
“Is it the Knight of Coucy who upholds the peasants’ vile bow?” Lord Mortimer swung himself away from the wall to sneer. “The peasants’ vile bow against the knight’s spear and mace.”
The Knight of Coucy bent his brows upon Mortimer.
“Is it the Lord Mortimer who talks of things of arms?” he asked. “He knows of them very little if he knows not that in wars as in policies arms have their day. So the day of the bow has come, the spear being left to be the arm of knight against knight in the tournaments that are so gentle and joyous. So, if you press me, Sir Mortimer, I will rely upon my bowmen and the bowmen of Lincolnshire against your knights and the Flemings. And well you know that there will be with us not a few knights.”
The Lord Mortimer said:
“Before God, that I should hear a knight uphold the bow! These are indeed degenerate days.”
The little King said suddenly:
“Will you make war upon me! Ah, gentle knight, this is sad hearing.”
“Nay, surely I will not make war upon thee,” the Knight answered. “It is a far way from ‘can’ to ‘will.’”
“You are a very traitor, Knight of Coucy,” the Queen said. “I have it in your wife’s hand against you. And you have other letters come from Wiltshire; I heard it as you called down the stairway. What new treacheries are you preparing in the south?”
The Young Knight, all in white and blue, said with a jocular irresponsibility:
“Nay, if the letter would but come you might keep if for yourself. I do not like letters, and would sell this for a groat.”
The Knight of Coucy looked for a moment at his cousin and then at the Queen.
“That is very true,” he said, “and welcome you are to the letter, for I cannot read it, nor my cousin.”
“I do not believe we shall have this letter,” the Queen said. “You will edge it away by some trick. You are the cunningest man that ever I saw, gentle knight.”
“Well, I am a cunning man,” the Knight said complacently, “so you would do better to have me upon your side than against you.”
“You are as bitter a foe as ever I had,” the Queen said.
“Gentle Queen,” the Knight answered, “for a clever woman you are a very foolish one. And it is your cleverness that makes you foolish. You know very well what make of a woman my wife is — how she will never let me be; how she will always be putting her nose in and crying out so that for peace and comfort, I am nine months of the year driven out of my home. My wife was a lady of your body, and very well you know her. Knowing her, you should know that she knows nothing of my mind, for she has never listened to words that came from my mouth. She has embroiled me with priests, with peasants, with nuns, and with burgesses, so that house is hornet’s nest for outcries and complaints. It may well be that she has heard that I set the archers upon the Flemings! Your flatterers and favourites have been buzzing that story abroad till it would be a deaf person that should not have heard it. So my wife will poke her nose in where I should be safe away from her. But if you will be such a fool as to believe your flatterers and favourites and my wife as against me — well, your folly will skip it till it skips into a war between us. That I swear is the truth of the matter, and you are not the woman that can look me in the face and say I lie.”
The Queen looked at him for a long time, but said nothing. At last she brought out:
“Nevertheless, your archers did set upon the Hainaulters.”
“And I have hamstrung twenty of them, and my cousin twenty more. Forty good men that will never march again! I wish I had them now.”
“But you did not do it till after I commanded it,” the Queen said.
The Knight roared out suddenly:
“A lie! It was done before your messenger reached me. Your messenger was Lord Mortimer, and well you know that he would not put his nose out of the door — and you would not let him — till twelve hours after all the fighting in the streets was over. Whether you made that story or he is all one — it is a foul lie. You live among lies, and should know it. I am tired of you: I am tired of this place. To-morrow I and my men will get me gone from this place to the south. You may fight the Scots how you will without me.”
And casting his sword contemptuously on to the pile of his black armour, he turned his back upon the Queen. Then slowly he winked at Gertrude the leman, who was beside the fireplace, for he was a much more patient man than to have lost his temper so early.
The Queen cast a look of concern at Roger Mortimer. This was what she had the most to fear. For it was agreed between them that if they were to carry on this war against the Scots they must do it with the archers, light horsemen, and the more agile of the knights. And they must carry on the war against the Scots; for there could be no doubt that the country of England cried out that the Scots must be chastised, so that already there was dissatisfaction with the Queen and her party. Liars had said that the Lord Mortimer had been paid by David le Bruce to let their troops be worsted. So that she cried out to the Knight’s leathern back:
“Nay, you shall not go.”
The Knight crossed his arms and did not speak.
“It is against the law that you should go,” the Queen said. “You are here by the King’s summons.”
Gazing at the fireplace, the Knight addressed nobody, but spoke as if with himself:
“Hear how this Queen lies!” he said. “No summonses were issued to knights south of the Trent, and none called me for a war in Scotland. I am here at my own cost and will.”
Again the Queen glanced with perturbation at Roger Mortimer. Though she had forgotten it, it was true what the Knight of Coucy said.
“Ah, gentle knight,” the little King said, “if you are here without my summons you are a very good servant to me.”
The Knight slowly shrugged his huge shoulders, and at that moment the leman Griselda came into the room with the wallet that held the letter from Wiltshire. She was tall and blonde, and her bones were well covered. She wore green and gold, and her coif of white linen was very large and folded like a napkin.
CHAPTER III.
HAVING been kissed by the Queen out of courtesy, and having kissed the little King’s hand, Griselda, who had come hurrying as soon as she had heard that the Queen was there, went with the letter to her paramour. The Knight kept his arms crossed.
“I will not take it,” he said. “Give it to my cousin.” The Young Knight put his arms behind his back.
“I do not like letters,” he said; “I will not take it. Give it to the Queen.”
The Queen took the letter as if it had been something dangerous. Having been persuaded that it would be kept from her, she could only believe that it was some new trap when it was so surrendered. She looked at the wallet, turned it this way and that, and then handed it to the leman.
“Read you this letter,” she said, “and tell us what it says.”
“Ah, gentle Queen,” the leman said, “letters I have none.”
The Queen looked round the room.
“Who of us can read?” she asked.
And there was a silence until the little King said:
“I think I am the only one of us that can.”
“Then take you it and read it, gentle son of mine!” the Queen said. The Lord Mortimer sprang to disembarrass her of the wallet; to take from it the sealed scroll of the letter; to break the seal, unroll the many sheets of vellum, and to hand them half kneeling to the King.
The Young Knight shot a glance of question at the Knight of Coucy. But the Knight had his back to them all, and the Young Knight turned to the window and called out to a man in the street, bidding him saddle a horse as soon as the shower was past, since his pains had left him and he was minded to supple his limbs by riding.
The little King read with puzzled brows, and his lips moving slowly. It was not easy for him to read anything but Mass writing.
“Do you find anything of treason?” the Queen asked.
The little King shook his head impatiently, for what he read engrossed him.
“Nothing of treason,” he said; “but a very strange story.” And he continued to read on, raising his small brows.
The Queen looked down upon the letter over his head. The Lord Mortimer edged nearer and nearer to gaze over his shoulder at the incomprehensible marks upon the vellum. The young King frowned.
“Now this I do not understand,” he exclaimed suddenly, and he smote his little thigh. “How that thing should be a disgrace to these two knights!”
The Knight of Coucy asked suddenly:
“Nenni?”
And the Queen said:
“What things?”
“Even,” the King began, as if he were talking to very stupid people, “that the ladies of these two knights should fight a tournament and a mêlée the one against the other.”
“Merciful God!” the Young Knight exclaimed. He looked amazed, puzzled, and then suddenly joyous.
“Cousin,” he said, “if thy wife kill mine, or mine thine, what a grace would God be showing us! If mine were dead, I should have her dower intact; if thine died, you would have joy of your fireside.”
“And you would take your leman safe into Wiltshire,” the Lord Mortimer laughed at him.
The Young Knight looked him coolly between the eyes.
“I will take my leman into Wiltshire,” he said, “if all the wives of all the devils in hell await me there. And Roger Mortimer may be at the head of them.”
The Knight of Coucy had come round upon his heel.
“Gentle King,” he said, “of your mercy read us this letter.”
The King had finished his private perusal, and he looked up at his mother for encouragement.
“Read! read!” she said. “I warrant there is treason in it.”
“No treason,” the King said; “but a very strange story!”
He arranged the sheets, coughed in his throat, and addressed his eyes to the page:
“‘From the Abbess of the poor convent of St. Radigund by Stapleton-by-Salisbury, to the Knights of Coucy and of Egerton, greeting in God!
The young King stuttered a little.
“Who is this Abbess?’’ the Queen asked of Roger Mortimer.
He shrugged his shoulders.
“What know I?” he said. “I think she is from France.”
“‘Know,’” the young King read again, “‘that a very great disgrace awaits ye at the hands of your intemperate wives. It behoves ye at once to leave all other things and to hasten back here.’”
“Ha!” the Queen exclaimed, “here is the treason that I knew I should smell out. These knights have had this letter written to them as an excuse to hurry away from our army. This plot is very plain!”
The Knight of Coucy bent his brows upon the Queen and cleared his throat, but the young King stamped his foot.
“Queen-Mother, be silent,” he said. “If I am to read this letter I will have peace,” for he was proud of his reading. Nevertheless, he had never before so spoken to his mother, and she glanced at Roger Mortimer.
“I think we will not have this letter,” she said. “It is like to be all a parcel of lies.”
“But I will read the letter,” the King said angrily. “We are the King; we do not leave off what we have begun.” And the Lord Mortimer almost invisibly shook his head at the Queen.
“‘... hasten back here,’” the King began once more to read. For of a truth,’” he continued, whilst the Queen snorted, “‘here all things are at a very evil pass, and there is no more any order in this countryside. It began with the coming of the Greek slave of the old Knight of Egerton of Tamworth, and since then there has been no more peace in this world.’”
“Ha!” the Young Knight interjected; “that slave of my brother is come, then. We had awaited him for a month before I left. It was a very faithful servant.”
The King frowned, and once more let his fluting voice sound out.
“‘If this slave, who is called the Sieur Guilhelm Sorrell, were not come with a very holy miracle, I should write that he is the son of the devil. But in truth I know not what to think. Know then that, upon his coming, he wrought several miracles among the halt and the maimed. Our nuns of this convent, too, he has restored to health in a singular fashion. And, with his own hand alone, by the aid of spirits in shining armour — as has been testified — he slew and put to flight one hundred robbers, taking many prisoners and laying a log across their legs to hold them down, ten in one row.’”
“Nenni! that was a good stroke,” the Knight of Coucy exclaimed.
“‘And since then his miracles have never ceased,’” the King read on. He stopped and looked at the Knight.
“Now what is in all this to make a cry about?” he asked. “I see nothing, nor in this that follows:
‘“The sacred relic which this pilgrim or slave bears is the cross which. St. Joseph of Arimathea fashioned out of the gold of the money-changers whom our Lord did scourge in the Temple of Jerusalem, and though this is a very sacred thing, yet it has what must, in my blindness, appear an evil property. For no sooner do the eyes of beholders fall upon it than they are filled with desire for its possession. My own nuns became mad at the sight of it, so that they sought to take it by force. And when I prevented them they cried out upon me. And they continue to cry out, so that there is no more any peace in this convent. Work that should be done is neglected; the gardens are no more cultivated; the fruit upon the trees goes unpicked; the very prayers are hurried and gabbled through, so that the sisters may come together at the hour of blood-letting and cry out against me, their Abbess and shepherd, for that I did prevent their taking this cross into my keeping. All this is very strange.’”
Again the King looked at the faces of his hearers.
“Now this I do not find strange at all,” he said. “If a sacred relic came, what more natural than it should work miracles, and if it be of gold, what more natural than to desire to possess it? I think that this Abbess was very foolish to prevent the nuns from taking it. I should desire to take it myself.”
“Yet it is my cross!” the Young Knight said.
“Someone’s it must be,” the King said, “that is evident.” And he read on:
“‘Thus things are in a very evil pass. But worse is to be told: worse things, almost unimaginable; for no sooner does this slave come to the castle here than a great wrangling breaks out between the wife of you, gentle Knight of Coucy, and the wife of you, Young Knight, as to who shall possess this cross. The Lady Blanche says she will have it, being the cousinly blood of the Young Knight. The Lady Dionissia says she will have it, being his wife. The Lady Blanche says that the Lady Dionissia is no more than the wife for the time of you, gentle Knight of Egerton.’”
“Well, that is a very nice point,” the Young Knight said. “Who won it? If it was my wife whom I have never seen, I dread for my life. For anyone who can beat my cousin Blanche will throw me over a windmill.”
“And your leman too?” the Lord Mortimer said.
“Nay, that she shall not,” Gertrude exclaimed suddenly from the bed on which she was sitting. “I will not go into this Wiltshire.”
“Aye, you shall,” the Young Knight said. “I will bind you hand and foot, and throw you over a pack-horse.”
“Now this is a very hot passion of a knight for his leman,” the Lord Mortimer said; “there shall be many ballads made of this ride into Wiltshire.”
“‘Oh, the shame! oh, the disgrace!’” the King continued to read out the Abbess’s words. “‘I have seen these two ladies at it. Almost they did tear each other’s coifs in their straining desire to possess this cross. And — I shudder to write the words — now they will fight a tournament and a mêlée, they and all their ladies, for it.’
