Ivanhoe (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) (62 page)

“And will I not?” said Beaumanoir, with a frown. “Is it not written in the forty-second capital,
De Lectione Literarum,
^fe
that a Templarshall not receive a letter, no not from his father, without communicating the same to the Grand Master, and reading it in his presence?”

He then perused the letter in haste, with an expression of surprise and horror; read it over again more slowly; then holding it out to Conrade with one hand, and slightly striking it with the other, exclaimed—“Here is goodly stuff for one Christian man to write to another, and both members, and no inconsiderable members, of religious professions! When,” said he solemnly, and looking upward, “wilt Thou come with Thy fanners to purge the thrashing-floor?”
⁶

Mont-Fitchet took the letter from his superior, and was about to peruse it. “Read it aloud, Conrade,” said the Grand Master; “and do thou (to Isaac) attend to the purport of it, for we will question thee concerning it.”

Conrade read the letter, which was in these words: “Aymer, by divine grace, prior of the Cistercian house of St. Mary’s of jorvaulx, to Sir Brian de Bois-Guilbert, a knight of the holy order of the Temple, wisheth health, with the bounties of King Bacchus and of my Lady Venus. Touching our present condition, dear brother, we are a captive in the hands of certain lawless and godless men, who have not feared to detain our person, and put us to ransom; whereby we have also learned of Front-de-Bœuf’s misfortune, and that thou hast escaped with that fair Jewish sorceress whose black eyes have bewitched thee. We are heartily rejoiced of thy safety; nevertheless, we pray thee to be on thy guard in the matter of this second Witch of Endor; for we are privately assured that your Great Master, who careth not a bean for cherry cheeks and black eyes, comes from Normandy to diminish your mirth and amend your misdoings. Wherefore we pray you heartily to beware, and to be found watching, even as the Holy Text hath it,
Invenientur vigilantes.
And the wealthy Jew her father, Isaac of York, having prayed of me letters in his behalf, I gave him these, earnestly advising, and in a sort entreating, that you do hold the damsel to ransom, seeing he will pay you from his bags as much as may find fifty damsels upon safer terms, whereof I trust to have my part when we make merry together, as true brothers, not forgetting the wine-cup. For what saith the text,
Vinum lœtficat
cor
hominis;
and again,
Rex delectabitur pulchritudine tua.
⁷

“What sayest thou to this, Conrade?” said the Grand Master. “Den of thieves! and a fit residence is a den of thieves for such a prior. No wonder that the hand of God is upon us, and that in the Holy Land we lose place by place, foot by foot, before the infidels, when we have such churchmen as this Aymer. And what meaneth he, I trow, by ‘this second Witch of Endor’?” said he to his confidant, something apart.

Conrade was better acquainted, perhaps by practice, with the jargon of gallantry than was his superior; and he expounded the passage which embarrassed the Grand Master to be a sort of language used by worldly men towards those whom they loved
par amours;
but the explanation did not satisfy the bigoted Beaumanoir.

“There is more in it than thou dost guess, Conrade; thy simplicity is no match for this deep abyss of wickedness. This Rebecca of York was a pupil of that Miriam of whom thou hast heard. Thou shalt hear the Jew own it even now.” Then turning to Isaac, he said aloud, “Thy daughter, then, is prisoner with Brian de Bois-Guilbert?”

“Ay, reverend valorous sir,” stammered poor Isaac, “and whatsoever ransom a poor man may pay for her deliverance—”

“Peace!” said the Grand Master. “This thy daughter hath practised the art of healing, hath she not?”

“Ay, gracious sir,” answered the Jew, with more confidence; “and knight and yeoman, squire and vassal, may bless the goodly gift which Heaven hath assigned to her. Many a one can testify that she hath recovered them by her art, when every other human aid hath proved vain; but the blessing of the God of Jacob was upon her.”

Beaumanoir turned to Mont-Fitchet with a grim smile. “See, brother,” he said, “the deceptions of the devouring Enemy! Beholdthe baits with which he fishes for souls, giving a poor space of earthly life in exchange for eternal happiness hereafter. Well said our blessed rule,
Semper percutiatur leo vorans.
^fg
Upon the lion! Down with the destroyer!” said he, shaking aloft his mystic abacus, as if in defiance of the powers of darkness. ”Thy daughter worketh the cures, I doubt not,” thus he went on to address the Jew, ”by words and sigils, and periapts,
^fh
and other cabalistical mysteries.”

“Nay, reverend and brave knight,” answered Isaac, “but in chief measure by a balsam of marvellous virtue.”

“Where had she that secret?” said Beaumanoir.

“It was delivered to her,” answered Isaac, reluctantly, “by Miriam, a sage matron of our tribe.”

“Ah, false Jew!” said the Grand Master; “was it not from that same witch Miriam, the abomination of whose enchantments have been heard of throughout every Christian land?” exclaimed the Grand Master, crossing himself. “Her body was burnt at a stake, and her ashes were scattered to the four winds; and so be it with me and mine order, if I do not as much to her pupil, and more also! I will teach her to throw spell and incantation over the soldiers of the blessed Temple! There, Damian, spurn this Jew from the gate; shoot him dead if he oppose or turn again. With his daughter we will deal as the Christian law and our own high office warrant.”

Poor Isaac was hurried off accordingly, and expelled from the preceptory, all his entreaties, and even his offers, unheard and disregarded. He could do no better than return to the house of the Rabbi, and endeavour, through his means, to learn how his daughter was to be disposed of. He had hitherto feared for her honour; he was now to tremble for her life. Meanwhile, the Grand Master ordered to his presence the preceptor of Templestowe.

Albert Malvoisin, president, or, in the language of the order, preceptor of the establishment of Templestowe, was brother to that Philip Malvoisin who has been already occasionally mentioned in this history, and was, like that baron, in close league with Brian de Bois-Guilbert.

Amongst dissolute and unprincipled men, of whom the Temple order included but too many, Albert of Templestowe might be distinguished; but with this difference from the audacious Bois-Guilbert, that he knew how to throw over his vices and his ambition the veil of hypocrisy, and to assume in his exterior the fanaticism which he internally despised. Had not the arrival of the Grand Master been so unexpectedly sudden, he would have seen nothing at Templestowe which might have appeared to argue any relaxation of discipline. And, even although surprised, and to a certain extent detected, Albert Malvoisin listened with such respect and apparent contrition to the rebuke of his superior, and made such haste to reform the particulars he censured—succeeded, in fine, so well in giving an air of ascetic devotion to a family which had been lately devoted to license and pleasure, that Lucas Beaumanoir began to entertain a higher opinion of the preceptor’s morals than the first appearance of the establishment had inclined him to adopt.

But these favourable sentiments on the part of the Grand Master were greatly shaken by the intelligence that Albert had received within a house of religion the Jewish captive, and, as was to be feared, the paramour of a brother of the order; and when Albert appeared before him he was regarded with unwonted sternness.

“There is in this mansion, dedicated to the purposes of the holy order of the Temple,” said the Grand Master, in a severe tone, “a Jewish woman, brought hither by a brother of religion, by your connivance, Sir Preceptor.”

Albert Malvoisin was overwhelmed with confusion; for the unfortunate Rebecca had been confined in a remote and secret part of the building, and every precaution used to prevent her residence there from being known. He read in the looks of Beaumanoir ruin to Bois-Guilbert and to himself, unless he should be able to avert the impending storm.

“Why are you mute?” continued the Grand Master.

“Is it permitted to me to reply?” answered the preceptor, in a tone of the deepest humility, although by the question he only meant to gain an instant’s space for arranging his ideas.

“Speak, you are permitted,” said the Grand Master—“speak, and say, knowest thou the capital of our holy rule—
De commilitonibus Templi in sancta civitate, qui cum miserrimis mulieribus versantur, propter oblectationem carnis?”
^fi

“Surely, most reverend father,” answered the preceptor, “I have not risen to this office in the order, being ignorant of one of its most important prohibitions.”

“How comes it, then, I demand of thee once more, that thou hast suffered a brother to bring a paramour, and that paramour a Jewish sorceress, into this holy place, to the stain and pollution thereof?”

“A Jewish sorceress!” echoed Albert Malvoisin, “good angels guard us!”

“Ay, brother, a Jewish sorceress,” said the Grand Master, sternly. “I have said it. Darest thou deny that this Rebecca, the daughter of that wretched usurer Isaac of York, and the pupil of the foul witch Miriam, is now—shame to be thought or spoken! —lodged within this thy preceptory?”

“Your wisdom, reverend father,” answered the preceptor, “hath rolled away the darkness from my understanding. Much did I wonder that so good a knight as Brian de Bois-Guilbert seemed so fondly besotted on the charms of this female, whom I received into this house merely to place a bar betwixt their growing intimacy, which else might have been cemented at the expense of the fall of our valiant and religious brother.”

“Hath nothing, then, as yet passed betwixt them in breach of his vow?” demanded the Grand Master.

“What! under this roof?” said the preceptor, crossing himself; “St. Magdalene and the ten thousand virgins forbid! No! if I have sinned in receiving her here, it was in the erring thought that I might thus break off our brother’s besotted devotion to this Jewess, which seemed to me so wild and unnatural, that I could not but ascribe it to some touch of insanity, more to be cured by pity than reproof. But, since your reverend wisdom hath discovered this Jewish quean
^fj
to be a sorceress, perchance it may account fully for his enamoured folly.”

“It doth!—it doth!” said Beaumanoir. “See, brother Conrade, the peril of yielding to the first devices and blandishments of Satan! We look upon woman only to gratify the lust of the eye, and to take pleasure in what men call her beauty; and the Ancient Enemy, the devouring lion, obtains power over us, to complete, by talisman and spell, a work which was begun by idleness and folly. It may be that our brother Bois-Guilbert does in this matter deserve rather pity than severe chastisement, rather the support of the staff than the strokes of the rod; and that our admonitions and prayers may turn him from his folly, and restore him to his brethren.”

“It were deep pity,” said Conrade Mont-Fitchet, “to lose to the order one of its best lances, when the holy community most requires the aid of its sons. Three hundred Saracens hath this Brian de Bois-Guilbert slain with his own hand.”

“The blood of these accursed dogs,” said the Grand Master, “shall be a sweet and acceptable offering to the saints and angels whom they despise and blaspheme; and with their aid will we counteract the spells and charms with which our brother is entwined as in a net. He shall burst the bands of this Dalilah as Sampson burst the two new cords with which the Philistines had bound him, and shall slaughter the infidels, even heaps upon heaps. But concerning this foul witch, who hath flung her enchantmentsover a brother of the Holy Temple, assuredly she shall die the death.”

“But the laws of England—” said the preceptor, who, though delighted that the Grand Master’s resentment, thus fortunately averted from himself and Bois-Guilbert, had taken another direction, began now to fear he was carrying it too far.

“The laws of England,” interrupted Beaumanoir, “permit and enjoin each judge to execute justice within his own jurisdiction. The most petty baron may arrest, try, and condemn a witch found within his own domain. And shall that power be denied to the Grand Master of the Temple within a preceptory of his order? No! we will judge and condemn. The witch shall be taken out of the land, and the wickedness thereof shall be forgiven. Prepare the castle hall for the trial of the sorceress.”

Albert Malvoisin bowed and retired, not to give directions for preparing the hall, but to seek out Brian de Bois-Guilbert, and communicate to him how matters were likely to terminate. It was not long ere he found him, foaming with indignation at a repulse he had anew sustained from the fair Jewess. “The unthinking,” he said—“the ungrateful, to scorn him who, amidst blood and flames, would have saved her life at the risk of his own! By heaven, Malvoisin! I abode until roof and rafters crackled and crashed around me. I was the butt of a hundred arrows; they rattled on mine armour like hailstones against a latticed casement, and the only use I made of my shield was for her protection. This did I endure for her; and now the self-willed girl upbraids me that I did not leave her to perish, and refuses me not only the slightest proof of gratitude, but even the most distant hope that ever she will be brought to grant any. The devil, that possessed her race with obstinacy, has concentrated its full force in her single person!”