Ivanhoe (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) (46 page)

“And be it so,” said Cedric; “and let him tear me with beak and talons, ere my tongue say one word which my heart doth not warrant. I will die a Saxon—true in word, open in deed. I bid thee avaunt! touch me not, stay me not! The sight of Front-de-Bœuf himself is less odious to me than thou, degraded and degenerate as thou art.”

“Be it so,” said Ulrica, no longer interrupting him; “go thy way, and forget, in the insolence of thy superiority, that the wretch before thee is the daughter of thy father’s friend. Go thy way; if I am separated from mankind by my sufferings—separated from those whose aid I might most justly expect—not less will I be separated from them in my revenge! No man shall aid me, but the ears of all men shall tingle to hear of the deed which I shall dare to do! Farewell! thy scorn has burst the last tie which seemed yet to unite me to my kind—a thought that my woes might claim the compassion of my people.”

“Ulrica,” said Cedric, softened by this appeal, “hast thou borne up and endured to live through so much guilt and so much misery, and wilt thou now yield to despair when thine eyes are opened to thy crimes, and when repentance were thy fitter occupation?”

“Cedric,” answered Ulrica, “thou little knowest the human heart. To act as I have acted, to think as I have thought, requires the maddening love of pleasure, mingled with the keen appetite of revenge, the proud consciousness of power—draughts too intoxicating for the human heart to bear, and yet retain the power to prevent. Their force has long passed away. Age has no pleasures, wrinkles have no influence, revenge itself dies away in impotent curses. Then comes remorse, with all its vipers, mixed with vain regrets for the past and despair for the future! Then, when all other strong impulses have ceased, we become like the fiends in hell, who may feel remorse, but never repentance. But thy words have awakened a new soul within me. Well hast thou said, all is possible for those who dare to die! Thou hast shown me the means of revenge, and be assured I will embrace them. It has hitherto shared this wasted bosom with other and with rival passions; henceforward it shall possess me wholly, and thou thyself shalt say that, whatever was the life of Ulrica, her death well became the daughter of the noble Torquil. There is a force without beleaguering this accursed castle; hasten to lead them to the attack, and when thou shalt see a red flag wave from the turret on the eastern angle of the donjon,
^dk
press the Normans hard: they will then have enough to do within, and you may win the wall in spite both of bow and mangonel.
^dl
Begone, I pray thee; follow thine own fate, and leave me to mine.”

Cedric would have inquired farther into the purpose which she thus darkly announced, but the stern voice of Front-de-Bœuf was heard exclaiming, “Where tarries this loitering priest? By the scallop-shell of Compostella, I will make a martyr of him, if he loiters here to hatch treason among my domestics!”

“What a true prophet,” said Ulrica, “is an evil conscience! But heed him not; out and to thy people. Cry your Saxon onslaught; and let them sing their war-song of Roller,
^dm
if they will, vengeance shall bear a burden to it.”
^dn

As she thus spoke, she vanished through a private door, and Reginald Front-de-Bœuf entered the apartment. Cedric, with some difficulty, compelled himself to make obeisance to the haughty Baron, who returned his courtesy with a slight inclination of the head.

“Thy penitents, father, have made a long shrift: it is the better for them, since it is the last they shall ever make. Hast thou prepared them for death?”

“I found them,” said Cedric, in such French as he could command, “expecting the worst, from the moment they knew into whose power they had fallen.”

“How now, Sir Friar,” replied Front-de-Bœuf, “thy speech, methinks, smacks of a Saxon tongue?”

“I was bred in the convent of St. Withold of Burton,” answered Cedric.

“Ay?” said the Baron; “it had been better for thee to have been a Norman, and better for my purpose too; but need has no choice of messengers. That St. Withold’s of Burton is a howlet’s nest worth the harrying. The day will soon come that the frock shall protect the Saxon as little as the mailcoat.”

“God’s will be done,” said Cedric, in a voice tremulous with passion, which Front-de-Bœuf imputed to fear.

“I see,” said he, “thou dreamest already that our men-at-arms are in thy refectory and thy ale-vaults. But do me one cast of thy holy office, and, come what list of others, thou shalt sleep as safe in thy cell as a snail within his shell of proof.”

“Speak your commands,” said Cedric, with suppressed emotion. “Follow me through this passage, then, that I may dismiss thee by the postern.”

And as he strode on his way before the supposed friar, Front-de-Bœuf thus schooled him in the part which he desired he should act.

“Thou seest, Sir Friar, yon herd of Saxon swine, who have dared to environ this castle of Torquilstone. Tell them whatever thou hast a mind of the weakness of this fortalice, or aught else that can detain them before it for twenty-four hours. Meantime bear thou this scroll. But soft—canst read, Sir Priest?”

“Not a jot I,” answered Cedric, “save on my breviary; and then I know the characters, because I have the holy service by heart, praised be Our Lady and St. Withold!”

“The fitter messenger for my purpose. Carry thou this scroll to the castle of Philip de Malvoisin; say it cometh from me, and is written by the Templar Brian de Bois-Guilbert, and that I pray him to send it to York with all the speed man and horse can make. Meanwhile, tell him to doubt nothing, he shall find us whole and sound behind our battlement. Shame on it, that we should be compelled to hide thus by a pack of runagates, who are wont to fly even at the flash of our pennons and the tramp of our horses! I say to thee, priest, contrive some cast of thine art to keep the knaves where they are, until our friends bring up their lances. My vengeance is awake, and she is a falcon that slumbers not till she has been gorged.”

“By my patron saint,” said Cedric, with deeper energy than became his character, “and by every saint who has lived and died in England, your commands shall be obeyed! Not a Saxon shall stir from before these walls, if I have art and influence to detain them there.”

“Ha!” said Front-de-Bœuf, “thou changest thy tone, Sir Priest, and speakest brief and bold, as if thy heart were in the slaughter of the Saxon herd; and yet thou art thyself of kindred to the swine?”

Cedric was no ready practiser of the art of dissimulation, and would at this moment have been much the better of a hint from Wamba’s more fertile brain. But necessity, according to the ancient proverb, sharpens invention, and he muttered something under his cowl concerning the men in question being excommunicated outlaws both to church and to kingdom.

“Despardieux,”
answered Front-de-Bœuf, “thou hast spoken the very truth: I forgot that the knaves can strip a fat abbot as well as if they had been born south of yonder salt channel. Was it not he of St. Ives whom they tied to an oak-tree, and compelled to sing a mass while they were rifling his mails and his wallets? No, by Our Lady, that jest was played by Gualtier of Middleton, one of our own companions-at-arms. But they were Saxons who robbed the chapel at St. Bees of cup, candlestick, and chalice, were they not?”

“They were godless men,” answered Cedric.

“Ay, and they drank out all the good wine and ale that lay in store for many a secret carousal, when ye pretend ye are but busied with vigils and primes! Priest, thou art bound to revenge such sacrilege.”

“I am indeed bound to vengeance,” murmured Cedric; “St. Withold knows my heart.”

Front-de-Bœuf, in the meanwhile, led the way to a postern, where, passing the moat on a single plank, they reached a small barbican, or exterior defence, which communicated with the open field by a well-fortified sallyport.

“Begone, then; and if thou wilt do mine errand, and if thou return hither when it is done, thou shalt see Saxon flesh cheap as ever was hog’s in the shambles of Sheffield. And, hark thee, thou seemest to be a jolly confessor; come hither after the onslaught, and thou shalt have as much Malvoisie as would drench thy whole convent.”

“Assuredly we shall meet again,” answered Cedric.

“Something in hand the whilst,” continued the Norman; and, as they parted at the postern door, he thrust into Cedric’s reluctant hand a gold byzant, adding, “Remember, I will flay off both cowl and skin if thou failest in thy purpose.”

“And full leave will I give thee to do both,” answered Cedric, leaving the postern, and striding forth over the free field with a joyful step, “if, when we meet next, I deserve not better at thine hand.” Turning then back towards the castle, he threw the piece of gold towards the donor, exclaiming at the same time, “False Norman, thy money perish with thee!”

Front-de-Bœuf heard the words imperfectly, but the action was suspicious. “Archers,” he called to the warders on the outward battlements, “send me an arrow through yon monk’s frock! Yet stay,” he said, as his retainers were bending their bows, “it avails not; we must thus far trust him since we have no better shift. I think he dares not betray me; at the worst I can but treat with these Saxon dogs whom I have safe in kennel. Ho! Giles jailor, let them bring Cedric of Rotherwood before me, and the other churl, his companion—him I mean of Coningsburgh—Athelstane there, or what they call him? Their very names are an encumbrance to a Norman knight’s mouth, and have, as it were, a flavour of bacon. Give me a stoup of wine, as jolly Prince John said, that I may wash away the relish; place it in the armoury, and thither lead the prisoners.”

His commands were obeyed; and, upon entering that Gothic apartment, hung with many spoils won by his own valour and that of his father, he found a flagon of wine on the massive oaken table, and the two Saxon captives under the guard of four of his dependants. Front-de-Bœuf took a long draught of wine, and then addressed his prisoners; for the manner in which Wamba drew the cap over his face, the change of dress, the gloomy and broken light, and the Baron’s imperfect acquaintance with the features of Cedric, who avoided his Norman neighbours, and seldom stirred beyond his own domains, prevented him from discovering that the most important of his captives had made his escape.

“Gallants of England,” said Front-de-Bœuf, “how relish ye your entertainment at Torquilstone? Are ye yet aware what your
surquedy
and
outrecuidance,
^do
merit, for scoffing at the entertainment of a prince of the house of Anjou? Have ye forgotten how ye requited the unmerited hospitality of the royal John? By God and St. Denis, an ye pay not the richer ransom, I will hang ye up by the feet from the iron bars of these windows, till the kites and hooded crows have made skeletons of you! Speak out, ye Saxon dogs—what bid ye for your worthless lives? How say you, you of Rotherwood?”

“Not a doit
^dp
I,” answered poor Wamba; “and for hanging up by the feet, my brain has been topsy-turvy, they say, ever since the biggin
^dq
was bound first round my head; so turning me upside down may peradventure restore it again.”

“St. Genevieve!” said Front-de-Bœuf, “what have we got here?”

And with the back of his hand he struck Cedric’s cap from the head of the Jester, and throwing open his collar, discovered the fatal badge of servitude, the silver collar round his neck.

“Giles—Clement—dogs and varlets!” exclaimed the furious Norman, “what have you brought me here?”

“I think I can tell you,” said De Bracy, who just entered the apartment. “This is Cedric’s clown, who fought so manful a skirmish with Isaac of York about a question of precedence.”

“I shall settle it for them both,” replied Front-de-Bœuf; “they shall hang on the same gallows, unless his master and this boar of Coningsburgh will pay well for their lives. Their wealth is the least they can surrender; they must also carry off with them the swarms that are besetting the castle, subscribe a surrender of their pretended immunities, and live under us as serfs and vassals; too happy if, in the new world that is about to begin, we leave them the breath of their nostrils. Go,” said he to two of his attendants, “fetch me the right Cedric hither, and I pardon your error for once; the rather that you but mistook a fool for a Saxon franklin.”

“Ay, but,” said Wamba, “your chivalrous excellency will find there are more fools than franklins among us.”

“What means the knave?” said Front-de-Bœuf, looking towards his followers, who, lingering and loth, faltered forth their belief that, if this were not Cedric who was there in presence, they knew not what was become of him.

“Saints of Heaven!” exclaimed De Bracy, “he must have escaped in the monk’s garments!”

“Fiends of hell!” echoed Front-de-Bœuf, “it was then the boar of Rotherwood who I ushered to the postern, and dismissed with my own hands! And thou,” he said to Wamba, “whose folly could overreach the wisdom of idiots yet more gross than myself—I will give thee holy orders—I will shave thy crown for thee! Here, let them tear the scalp from his head, and then pitch him headlong from the battlements. Thy trade is to jest, canst thou jest now?”

“You deal with me better than your word, noble knight,” whimpered forth poor Wamba, whose habits of buffoonery were not to be overcome even by the immediate prospect of death; “if you give me the red cap you propose, out of a simple monk you will make a cardinal.”

“The poor wretch,” said De Bracy, “is resolved to die in his vocation. Front-de-Bœuf, you shall not slay him. Give him to me to make sport for my Free Companions. How sayst thou, knave? Wilt thou take heart of grace, and go to the wars with me?”

“Ay, with my master’s leave,” said Wamba; “for, look you, I must not slip collar (and he touched that which he wore) without his permission.”

“Oh, a Norman saw will soon cut a Saxon collar,” said De Bracy.