Part 21 (2/2)

”And, oh! who is yonder dark-browed dwarfish Knight at the Prince's right hand?” cried Arthur.

Eustace could scarcely believe his eyes, as he looked where the boy pointed.

The royal party were now seated in full array on their raised platform; the Prince upon his chair of state, with more brightness in his eye and of vigour in his movements than when Eustace had last seen him; and at his side sat his wife,--her features still retaining the majestic beauty of Joan Plantagenet, the Fair Maid of Kent--but worn and faded with anxiety. She watched her princely Lord with an eye full of care, and could scarcely spare attention for the lovely child who clung to her side, and whose brilliantly fair complexion, wavy flaxen hair, high brow, and perfectly formed though infantine features, already promised that remarkable beauty which distinguished the countenance of Richard II. On the other side of the Prince sat his sister-in-law, the Countess of Cambridge, a Spanish Infanta; and her husband, Edmund, afterwards Duke of York, was beside the Princess of Wales. But more wonderful than all, among them stood the Constable of France. The two boys, Prince Edward and his cousin Henry of Lancaster, were stationed as pages on each side of the Princess, but as their play-fellow, Arthur, advanced with his uncle, they both sprang down the steps of the gallery to meet him, and each took a hand. Edward, however, first bethinking himself of the respect which, Prince as he was, he owed to a belted Knight, made his reverence to Sir Eustace, who, at a sign from the Prince of Wales, mounted the steps and bent his knee to the ground before him.

”Nay, Sir Eustace,” said the Prince, bending forward, ”it is rather I who should kneel to you for pardon; I have used you ill, Eustace, and, I fear me, transgressed the pledge which I gave to your brother on the plain of Navaretta.”

”Oh, say not so, my gracious liege,” said Eustace, as tears gathered in his eyes,--”it was but that your n.o.ble ear was deceived by the slanders of my foes!”

”True, Sir Eustace--yet, once, Edward of England would not have heard a slanderous tale against one of his well-proved Knights without sifting it well. But I am not as once I was--sickness hath unnerved me, and, I fear me, hath often led me to permit what may have dimmed my fame. Who would have dared to tell me that I should suffer my castles to be made into traps for my faithful Knights? And now, Sir Eustace, that I am about to repair my injustice towards you, let me feel, as a man whose account for this world must ere long be closed, that I have your forgiveness.”

The Prince took the hand of the young Knight, who struggled hard with his emotion. ”And here is another friend,” he added--”a firmer friend, though foe, than you have found some others.”

”Well met, my chivalrous G.o.dson,” said the Constable du Guesclin, holding out his hand. ”I rejoice that my neighbour, Oliver, did not put an end to your _faits d'armes_.”

”I marvel--,” Eustace hardly found words between wonder and condolence.

The Prince caught the import of his hesitating sentences.

”He thinks you a prisoner, Sir Bertrand,” he said. ”No, Sir Eustace, Messire le Connetable is captive only in his good-will to you. I wrote, to pray him to send me his witness to those last words of your brother, since you had ever appealed to him, and he replied by an offer, which does us too much honour, to become our guest.”

”I am no scribe, apart from my fairy Dame Tiphaine,” said Du Guesclin, abruptly. ”It cost me less pains to ride hither,--besides that I longed to renew my old English acquaintances, and see justice done to you, fair G.o.dson.”

”Ha! Sir Bertrand, thou recreant!--so no other spell drew thee hither?

Thou hast no gallantry even for such an occasion as this!” said a gay voice.

”How should the ill-favoured Knight deal in gallantries?” said Du Guesclin, turning. ”Here is one far fitter for your Grace's eyes.”

”And you, discourteous Constable, were keeping him for you own behoof, when all my maidens have been speaking for weeks of no name but the Knight of the beleaguered Castle!”

And Eustace had to kiss the fair hand of the Princess of Wales.

In the meantime, the three boys were whispering together. ”It is all well, all gloriously well, is it not, Arthur, as I told you?” said Edward. ”I knew my father would settle all in his own n.o.ble fas.h.i.+on.”

”What said the master of the Damoiseaux?” asked Arthur, as the sight of that severe functionary revived certain half-forgotten terrors.

”Oh, he, the old crab-stock!” said Henry,--”he looked sour enough at first; but Edward kept your counsel well, till you were safe at a good distance from Bordeaux; and then, though he said somewhat of complaining to my Lord the Prince, it was too late to mend it. And when Sir John Chandos came back, and bade him be content, he vowed you were enough to spoil a whole host of pages; but did not we all wish some of our uncles would get themselves betrayed?”

”But what means all this preparation?” asked Arthur--”these lists! Oh, surely, there is not to be a tourney, which I have so longed to see!”

”No,” said Edward, ”that cannot be, my mother says, while my father is so weakly and ill. But there are the trumpets! you will soon see what will befall.”

And, with a loud blast of trumpets, the gorgeously arrayed heralds rode into the court, followed by a guard of halberdiers, in the midst of whom rode a Knight in bright armour, his visor closed, but his s.h.i.+eld and crest marking the Baron of Clarenham.

When the trumpets had ceased, and the procession reached the centre of the lists, they halted, and drew up in order,--the princ.i.p.al herald, Aquitaine, immediately in front of the Prince. After another short clear trumpet-blast, Aquitaine unrolled a parchment, and, in a loud voice, proclaimed the confession of Fulk, Baron of Clarenham, of his foul and unknightly conduct, in attempting to betray the person of the good Knight and true, Eustace Lynwood, Knight Banneret, with that of his Esquire, Gaston d'Aubricour, and of certain other trusty and well-beloved subjects of his liege Lord, King Edward of England, together with the fortalice, called Chateau Norbelle, in the county of Gascogne, appertaining to my Lord Edward, Prince of Wales and Duke of Aquitaine, into the hands of the enemy--having for that purpose tampered with and seduced Thibault Sanchez, Seneschal of the Castle, Tristan de la Fleche, and certain others, who, having confessed their crime, have received their deserts, by being hung on a gallows--upon which same gallows it was decreed by the authority of the Prince, Duke and Governor of Aquitaine, that the s.h.i.+eld of Fulk de Clarenham should be hung--he himself being degraded from the honours and privileges of knighthood, of which he had proved himself unworthy--and his lands forfeited to the King, to be disposed of at his pleasure.

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