Part 20 (1/2)
”False loon!” cried Sholto, shaking his axe at him in the extremity of his anger, ”we have beaten them fairly. Would that I could get at thee! Come down and fight an encounter to the end. I will take any Maxwell here in my s.h.i.+rt!”
”Hold your tongue!” commanded his father, briefly, ”what else can ye expect of a border man but broken faith?”
The archers of the guard rushed in, as was their duty, and separated the remaining combatants. Hugh and his brother William fought it to the last, the younger with all his vigour and with a fierce energy born of his brother James's taunts, William with the calm courtesy and forbearance of an old and a.s.sured knight towards one who has yet his spurs to win.
The stunned knights and squires were conveyed to their several pavilions, where the Earl's apothecaries were at once in attendance.
William of Douglas was the first to revive, which he did almost as soon as the laces of his helm had been undone and water dashed upon his face. His head still sang, he declared, like a hive of bees, but that was all.
He bent with the anxiety of a generous enemy over the unconscious form of the Marshal de Retz, from whom they were stripping his armour. At the removal of the helmet, the strange parchment face with its blue-black stubbly beard was seen to be more than usually pale and drawn. The upper lip was retracted, and a set of long white teeth gleamed like those of a wild beast.
The apothecary was just commencing to strip off the leathern under-doublet from the amba.s.sador's body to search for a wound, when Poitou, his squire, happened to open his eyes. He had been laid upon the floor, as the most seriously wounded of the combatants, though being the least in honour he fell to be attended last.
Instantly he cried out a strange Breton word, unintelligible to all present, and, leaping from the floor, he flung himself across the body of his master, das.h.i.+ng aside the astonished apothecary, who had only time to discern on the marshal's shoulder the scar of a recent cautery before Poitou had restored the leathern under-doublet to its place.
”Hands off! Do not touch my master. I alone can bring him to. Leave the room, all of you.”
”Sirrah!” cried the Earl, sternly, striding towards him, ”I will teach you to speak humbly to more honourable men.”
”My lord,” cried Poitou, instantly recalled to himself, ”believe me, I meant no ill. But true it is that I only can recover him. I have often seen him taken thus. But I must be left alone. My master hath a blemish upon him, and one great gentleman does not humiliate another in the presence of underlings. My Lord Douglas, as you love honour, bid all to leave me alone for a brief s.p.a.ce.”
”Much cared he for honour, when he threw the lance at my master!”
growled Sholto. ”Had I known, I would have driven my bill-point six inches lower, and then would there have been a most satisfactory blemish in the joining of his neck-bone.”
CHAPTER XXIII
SHOLTO WINS KNIGHTHOOD
The amba.s.sador recovered quickly after he had been left with his servant Poitou, according to the latter's request. The Lady Sybilla manifested the most tender concern in the matter of the accident of judgment which had been the means of diverting her kinsman from his own opponent and bringing him into collision with the Earl Douglas.
”Often have I striven with my lord that he should ride no more in the lists,” she said, ”for since he received the lance-thrust in the eye by the side of La Pucelle before the walls of Orleans, he sees no more aright, but bears ever in the direction of the eye which sees and away from that wherein he had his wound.”
”Indeed, I knew not that the Marshal de Retz had been wounded in the eye, or I should not have permitted him to ride in the tourney,”
returned the Earl, gravely. ”The fault was mine alone.”
The Lady Sybilla smiled upon him very sweetly and graciously.
”You are great soldiers--you Douglases. Six knights are chosen from the muster of half a kingdom to ride a _melee_. Four are Douglases, and, moreover, cousins germain in blood.”
”Indeed, we might well have compa.s.sed the sword-play,” said the Earl William, ”for in our twenty generations we never learned aught else.
Our arms are strong enough and our skulls thick enough, for even mine uncle, the Abbot, hath his Latin by the ear. And one Semple, a plain burgher of Dumfries, did best him at it--or at least would have shamed him, but that he desired not to lose the custom of the Abbey.”
”When you come to France,” replied the girl, smiling on him, ”it will indeed be stirring to see you ride a bout with young Messire Lalain, the champion of Burgundy, or with that Miriadet of Dijon, whose arm is like that of a giant and can fell an ox at a blow.”
”Truly,” said the young Earl, modestly, ”you do me overmuch honour. My cousin James there, he is the champion among us, and alone could easily have over-borne me to-day, without the aid of your uncle's blind eye. Even William of Avondale is a better lance than I, and young Hugh will be when his time comes.”