Part 6 (1/2)

”That poor boy,” quoth Sir Alain, ”hath not yet forgotten the young syren that led him astray.”

”'Tis witchcraft and sortilege, _maleficium et sortilegium_,” said the abbat. ”But by the help of our prayers and relics we will disenchant him.”

Sir Alain shook his head, but said no word.

Forty men of us put on harness and followed in the track of John-a-Blount when he had been gone some short time. Sir Alain would have willed the lord abbat to tarry in the house with Arthur, but the abbat would on no account be left out of the adventure, saying, that his presence and exhortations might spare unnecessary bloodshed; yet while he was saying the words he was feeling the point of his lance, and he took with him his heavy battle mace. We all journeyed on foot, for war horses would be but an inc.u.mbrance at Sir Ingelric's castle, and by neighing or making other noise they might spoil our ambuscade on the road. That road was a very rough one, and the night continued rather dark; hence divers of us stumbled, and fell more than once: nevertheless we kept up a good pace, and in little more than an hour came to a wooded hollow, about midway between Pangbourne and Speen, through which the robbers must pa.s.s on the way from their castle to our manor-house. The trees were all leafless and bare; but the trunks of the ancient oaks were thick, and so every man of us got him behind an oak, twenty on this side the narrow road and twenty on that, and there we all stood concealed from view, and silent as grave stones. I, Felix, had a bad catarrh, yet did I neither cough nor sneeze all the while I was there, for I had prayed unto the saint that hath controul over coughs and colds. For a s.p.a.ce that seemed to us very long we heard no sound, and in that wooded hollow and night-darkness we could see but a very little way. I began to think that the good strategem had miscarried, and to moan inwardly for John-a-Blount as a murthered man. But at last we heard, not voices, for the unG.o.dly Philistines were as silent as we, but the heavy tread of footsteps on the broad heath, just above the hollow; and these sounds rapidly came nearer; and then, by peeping round the bole of my covering tree, I did faintly discern a score or more of dark figures descending in loose and careless array into the hollow. As we had been bidden, we all stood stock still until the robbers were at the bottom of the hollow, and between us; but so soon as they were there as in a trap, Sir Alain shouted ”Now for the onslaught in the name of King Stephen!” and our abbat shouted ”Down, traitors, down!” and the valorous Lord of Caversham and our not less valorous lord abbat, and every man of us, from this side of the pathway and from that, sprung from behind the trees and hemmed in the evil-doers; and in less time than I can say it the heavy mace of our lord abbat laid two of the robbers on the earth with bleeding pates, and Sir Alain's lance went through the body of one that seemed the leader, and pinned him to the very oak behind which I had been standing. The rest, after making vain effort to retreat the way they had come, laid down their arms and cried piteously for quarter and for that mercy which they had never shown to other men. There were a score of them besides the three that had gotten their death-warrants. We bound the score with the cords and thongs we had brought with us, and putting them in motion with the sharp heads of our lances, we proceeded rapidly to the foul donjon at Speen, our lord abbat saying that thus far was well, and some of our captives already beginning to say to Sir Alain that they would change banners and fight for King Stephen if his lords.h.i.+p would spare their lives and accept their services. The dark wintry clouds rolled away, and the stars shone out brightly as if in approbation of our enterprise, and in no long while we did see that equable little river the Lambourne, which neither overflows in winter nor shrinks in summer, but is at all seasons the same (its pike be pale in colour, and in taste not to compare with those of Ock), gliding to join our own swift, sweet Kennet at the towns.h.i.+p of Shaw; and we saw still clearer the swift Kennet gliding before us, on its way from Speen to our abbey walls at Reading and the broad Thamesis. And then, as we hurried on our way, and as the stars shone out with still more brightness, we discovered broken columns and fragments of walls, standing up from the ground like spectres on a heath; and anon we heard the owls hooting to one another among these ancient ruins. And ancient in sooth they were, for the Romans in the days of the Caesars had built them a city at Spinae which men do now call Speen, and these dark and fantastically shaped fragments and ruins were all that remained of it; for the men of Newbury, who have ever had a great envy to other towns.h.i.+ps and a great liking for the property of other men, had levelled most of the Roman walls and had carried away the stones and bricks thereof to enlarge their own town; and people of other towns.h.i.+ps had helped themselves at Spinae as though it had been a common quarry. Such fate befalls towns in decay; but such will never befall our glorious abbey at Reading, for the saints and angels have custody thereof, even as we have meetly expressed, in large letters graven upon the left door of our gate-house under the abbey arms, ANGELI TUI CUSTODIANT MUROS EIUS. But I wis it was not on this night that I did think of the renowned Romans, or make these sanctifying reflections. True, I walked in the paths of pensive thought; but it was only to think of John-a-Blount and of the emprise we had in hand. And when we reached the lonely mill on the Kennet, a few bow-shots below Sir Ingelric's castle at Speen, we hid ourselves behind the mill and blew three blasts upon a trumpet, for this was the only signal which John-a-Blount had asked for.

”And now,” said our lord abbat, telling his beads, ”may the saints befriend the brave boy from Maple-Durham. The token of his success will be three corresponding blasts. Let us be motionless and silent until we hear them.” For a s.p.a.ce the sound of our own brazen instrument floated along the waters, and was given back in echoes by the sleeping hills; and then for a longer s.p.a.ce, during which an expeditious ma.s.s-priest might have said a camp-ma.s.s, nought was heard but the plash and ripple of the ever sweet and clear Kennet, and the faint moaning of some trees whose bare branches were shaken by the fresh gale which had blown away the clouds, and brought forth the l.u.s.trous and approving stars. But then, I wis, there came from the evil den the sounds of a mighty crash and clangour of arms that made us all start, and then sounds of woe and lamentation, shrieks and yells like those of the d.a.m.ned, which made us all shudder and cross ourselves. And, anon, upon these h.e.l.lish sounds came three blasts from a trumpet, loud and shrill; and at the hearing thereof our lord abbat clasped his hands and said joyously, ”The bold youth is safe, the deed is done; so now to the castle, which is ours!”

And we all ran from behind the mill to the foul den, driving our captives with us at the spear point as before. Short was the distance, and great our speed; yet before we reached the castle moat the draw-bridge was down, the gate was open, and under the archway, in the midst of a company of men who had still chains and fetters on their legs, but who held flaming torches in their hands, stood John-a-Blount with the gashful, blood-dripping head of the Wolf fixed on his lance.

John had released the army of prisoners at the opportune moment, and being joined by some of Sir Ingelric's people, he had made himself master of the castle without need of any aid from us: but the Wolf and some of his evil band who could expect no quarter had made a desperate resistance, and had been slain to a man. The warder who had raised the portcullis and the few others who had aided in the emprise were now shouting for King Stephen, and Sir Alain de Bohun and the lord abbat of Reading, and the terrified captives we had with us, joined in these cries with such voice as their fears and astonishment allowed them to raise. As we all marched in at the gate the abbat said, ”John, my son, I fear thou hast been somewhat too hasty and violent! I would have put some questions to that wild beast before sending him hence; yet is the Wolf better dead than alive! But, my son, I trust thou hast not allowed harm to be done unto the dark ladie of this most dark and b.l.o.o.d.y lair?”

”The evil woman is safe in her bower; I did lock her up before I unlocked the prisoners whose hearts were steeled against her,” said John.

”And where,” asked Sir Alain, ”is the gentle flower that was not made to bloom in this horrent place?”

”There,” quoth John, pointing to one of the female captives who came running across the quadrangle of the castle with the little Alice in her arms. ”She is there, the true and worthy child of her gentle and martyred mother, and may she long live to make compensation to the world for the many cruelties and crimes of her unnatural father;” and as he spake John threw far from him into a dark corner the bleeding head of the Wolf, lest Alice should be scared by the sight thereof.

The dear child was presently in the arms of the good Lord of Caversham; and though she had not seen his face for eighteen long months, and though she had not quite recovered from her great terror on being startled from her sleep by the clas.h.i.+ng of arms and those shrieks and yells, she soon knew Sir Alain, and clung round his neck with many a fond kiss, and with many a fond inquiry after her own dear mother the Ladie Alfgiva and her companion and champion Arthur, whom she had left in sad case at Oxenford.

The first thing we did within the castle was to secure our prisoners with the chains which Sir Ingelric's unhappy captives had been wearing, and to hurl them into that horrible and feculent prison where so many good and peaceful men had long been rotting. Next we gave food to some of the released captives who had been so tortured by fast that their bones were cutting through their skin. And then we did all a.s.semble in the great hall with a great glare of torches and tapers, and the lord abbat and Sir Alain being seated on the dais at the head of the hall in the ma.s.sy chairs in which Sir Ingelric and his dame had been wont to sit in the days of their pride and evil power, that dark ladie was summoned from her uneasy bower to that august presence. A dark dame was she, and fierce as an untamed she-wolf as she came into the hall, screaming that the empress-queen and her husband Sir Ingelric would know how to avenge the traitorous deeds of this night, and the foul surprisal of a loyal castle. These her words, and others that were more vituperative, chafed our good lord abbat, and with a solemn and severe countenance he said unto her, ”Peace, woman! peace! these be not words to be heard by the company here a.s.sembled, who be all true men and faithful lieges to King Stephen. Most fit mate for a bloodthirsty and unG.o.dly lord who hath changed his party as men change their coats, who hath never had in view ought else than his own interest, and who for these eighteen months last past hath stopped at no crime whereby he might enrich himself; dost call it loyalty to the queen or countess to turn thy castle into a den of robbers and torturers, to waste the country round about it until it looks like unto a Golgotha,--to seize, rob, imprison, and torment all manner of men, as well the secret partisans of Matilda as the open partisans of King Stephen, as well the poor and lowly as the rich and great, and as well the quiet franklins and toiling serfs, who be of no party and who only seek to live in peace, as the knights and trained men of war that go forth to battle? Call ye this loyalty and faithfulness to a party? Honourable men, alas! may have honestly differed in these unhappy disputes, but thy husband hath been but a robber, and it is for that there be so many like him in the land that these wars have lasted so long. Dost call the seizing of priests and monks upon the highway loyalty? Dost call it Christian duty and reverence to mother church to kidnap the servants of the altar and put them to the rack as thy people have done? Oh, woman, the holy water that baptised thee was thrown away!

But thou shalt away hence to some sure keeping in a lonely cell, where thou mayest have time for repentance and prayer. We did only send for thee that we might remind thee of thy many sins, and get from thee the keys of thy ill-acquired treasures, and some list or knowledge of those who have been robbed by thee, to the end that we may make rest.i.tution.”

No ways humbled or abashed, the dark ladie of the castle called my lord abbat robber and housebreaker, and said that she had only levied tolls and baronial droits; that Sir Ingelric had taken away most of the money to give it to the misused and distressed queen; and that it was but a small matter that which remained in the house. And then, with great pride and insolency, she threw down upon the table one heavy key, saying that that was the key to the only treasure.

”The foul dame lies in her throat,” cried one of her own people, ”she hath treasure in other places; she hath gold, and silver, and jewels, aye, and church-plate stolen from the very altar, hid in most secret hiding-places; and, my lords, ye will not get to the full knowledge thereof unless ye do put her in her own crucet-house!”

Albeit, they were fully resolved to come at this great wealth, Sir Alain de Bohun shuddered at the mention of that terrible engine of torture, and the lord abbat said that such things were accursed by the church, and that verily he would never crucet a woman.

”Then will ye never get at the silver and gold!” said the man who had before spoken.

But at this juncture the repentant old warder of the castle stood up, and said that his daughter, who had been handmaiden to Sir Ingelric's wife, knew the whole secret, having watched her mistress with feminine curiosity, and could so point out every recess and hiding-place; and at the hearing of these words the dark woman uttered a shriek, and fell to the ground as if her heart had been cleft in twain; so fearfully had she and her lord sold themselves to Lucifer, and made a G.o.d of money. The sight of blood and of the foe standing triumphant on her own hearth had not made her quail, nor had the mention of the crucet-house caused her to tremble; but the thought of losing all her accursed spoil had gone through her like a knife. We could not leave her where she was, lest some of her lately released captives should lay violent hands upon her; so we carried her to a turret-chamber, and having bound her so that she should not lay violent hands upon herself in a maniacal mood, and having placed one of her women to watch by her, we made fast that door and went in search of the treasure, being guided by the warden and his daughter.

It was, in truth, but a small matter that which we found under the lock to which the dark ladie had given us the key; but, in the hiding-places, within the thick walls, and under the stone floors of the dark ladie's bower (places so invisible and recondite that of ourselves we never could have found them), were piled silver and gold, and wrought-plate and jewels, that seemed to me enough to pay a king's ransom, and that made mine eyes twinkle as I looked upon them by that light from many torches. When he had gathered it all together in a mighty great heap, in the middle of the room, our abbat made fast that door also, and hung a crucifix to the door-post, and threatened with excommunication all such as should approach the door until ordered by him so to do. ”Souls have been lost,” said he, ”in the getting together of that heap, and his soul will a.s.suredly perish that touches it for his own use. It is all the property of the church, or the property of the poor, or the heavy ransom of tortured victims. The malison of heaven will go along with every part of it that is not restored to its rightful owners. So now, my children all, follow me down these flinty stairs to refresh yourselves with meat and drink; for the day is dawning in the east, and we shall have hard work at daylight. This infamous donjon must down: not a stone must be left upon another.”

”I did help to build it,” said Sir Alain, ”but will now be more happy in destroying it! Not a nook must be left to be repaired of my false-hearted ravenous friend, or of any other wolf of his choosing.”

”Humanity will bless the destruction! Tears of joy will be shed for leagues round about,” said one of the released captives; ”and when all dens of the like sort be a-level with the earth, England will be England again.”

It was a marvellous and a provoking thing to see how well the foul robbers had been victualled and provided; gaunt hunger ranged all round them, and filled the fertile but untilled valleys with its cries and screams; but their b.u.t.tery was crammed with the best of meat, their stalls were filled with beeves and sheep, their cellars were full of ale, mead, and wine, their granaries with corn, their stables with the best of horses. Rarely have I seen so sumptuous a feast as that to which we did sit down in the castle hall, with our sharp winter-morning appet.i.tes.

By the time this goodly collation was finished it was broad daylight.

”So now,” said the lord abbat, ”will we think of carrying out these goods and chattels, and then of destroying tougher crusts than those of venison-pasties. Bring me forth the rascaille-people from the prison-house, that they may lend us their shoulders and aid us in destroying their own foul nest.”

Being boyishly and unwisely curious to see with mine own eyes the abominable pit of which I had heard so much, I went with those that repaired to the house of captivity and torture, and one who had been released over-night did follow me thither to explain its horrible mysteries, as one who had full experience of them all. Misericordia Dei, into what a bolge of h.e.l.l did my staggering feet carry me! And what an atmosphere was that which made my head turn giddy and my stomach sick!

Deep in the bowels of the earth, within the foundations of the keep of the castellum, was a great chamber paved with the sharpest flints, and, dimly lighted from above by a few c.h.i.n.ks, so narrow that the bats could scarce have crept through them. The noisome air, never fanned by the sweet breath of heaven, was made more foul and poisonous by acc.u.mulated filth and stagnant pools of blood, and a fetid smell of smoke. The torches we brought in to give us light to discover all the mysteries of the place burned with a sickly and uncertain flame.

”Can man live here?” said I.