Part 10

The weary weeks the latter had spent as a prisoner since that fatal morning when she was hurried into the castle, and the intense mental anguish she had endured since the helmet of the wounded knight had been handed to her on the ramparts that same evening, had left their traces on Aliva's pale cheek. The listless attitude in which she sank upon a stone seat, and gazed with mournful eyes out into the fast-falling summer twilight, contrasted strangely with the natural vigour and vivacity of the brave horsewoman who had led William de Breaute such a chase over the Ouse marshes. Something akin to despair had crushed her soul since Sir Fulke had brought her the news of Sir Ralph's death.

"Daughter," began Lady Margaret, tenderly drawing the fair head which leaned so wearily upon the thin hand down upon her knee, "I have somewhat to say to thee. This suit of my husband's brother--methinks Sir Fulke knew, as well as thou and I, how vain it was to urge it while thy true knight yet lived--"

"It were ever vain, lady, were Ralph alive or dead. Death would be sweeter to me than marriage with William de Breaute," replied Aliva mournfully.

"He hath used treachery once to gain his end; what if he hath also used deceit of words?" Lady Margaret went on. "Other De Beauchamps than thy knight bear the crest thou sawest on the casque."

"Ah, lady," moaned Aliva, "beguile me not with vain hopes. Did not Beatrice here see him fall?"

"In good sooth! But, lady, I saw him not die."

"Mind you how the townsfolk bore him off with much care? Perchance Hubert of Provence aimed not o'er true with his quarrel--"

"He is but a sorry wight in many things, lady," put in Beatrice scornfully.

"And the leeches are possessed of marvellous skill, as thou well knowest, and Sir Ralph is young and strong--"

"_Was_ young and strong, you mean, lady. O prithee, peace! Open not thus afresh a wound which bleeds, ay, and will bleed for ever!"

"My lady means what she says, and naught else," interrupted Beatrice, unable to restrain herself any longer. "He is young and strong, or beshrew me for a deaf old crone, for I trow his voice was strong enough this noontide!"

"His voice!" exclaimed Aliva, raising herself eagerly, and a faint colour overspreading her pallid cheek. "O Beatrice, mock me not!"

"Thou mockest thyself, daughter," said Lady Margaret, smiling. "Take heart o' grace. Beatrice speaks true; she hath heard him not many hours since."

And Beatrice, coming forward and falling at her lady's knees, poured forth her wonderful tale in a torrent of words.

When she paused for lack of breath, Aliva rose, like one waking from a dream, and clutched Beatrice's arm.

"Beatrice, an thou lovest me, take me to this chink in the vault of the old tower. Haste thee, haste thee! Let me hear him speak again."

"Alas, lady! but this very evening William de Breaute hath ordered that all women keep within the keep, as the enemy presseth us round so close."

A merry laugh as of old, the first which had rung from her since she had been a prisoner, and the first to which the lady's bower had re-echoed for many a day, burst from Aliva's lips. With the violent revulsion of feeling born of her youth and high mettle, she waved her hand scornfully and laughed again.

"William de Breaute! Oh, he may command and order, in good sooth, if it please him. What for him now, or for his commands! Methinks his time comes apace, and Ralph de Beauchamp will be master here. My Ralph--to think they had dared to tell me that he was slain!"

And then she fell to bidding Beatrice tell her story all over again.

"Pretty Beatrice, an could I, I would give thee a lapful of gold nobles for this news thou hast brought. It is to me worth a king's ransom. I feel like one risen from the dead. But I trow, Mistress Beatrice," she added archly, "that thou hast had thy reward, in that the bold miner was also below. But tell me once more the very words Sir Ralph spake."

"Nay, nay, maidens," put in Lady Margaret; "it is already night, and joy oft wearies as much as grief. Let us now to rest while we may. The strife will begin again at dawn."

"Lady," cried Aliva, embracing the elder woman with tenderness, "go thou and rest if thou canst. I could not close my eyes for very joy.--Go, Beatrice, and leave me here a while alone, that I may think it all o'er again. Go to thy dreams of mines and miners!"

Left to herself, Aliva sat down in the deep window-seat where Lady Margaret had sat when Sir Fulke related to her a less pleasant vision of the night than that which probably haunted the couch of Beatrice--a dream which now seemed in fair way of coming true. The short July darkness had fallen. Across the river the petraria were at rest, and in the silence of the night Aliva only

"Heard the sound, and could almost tell The sullen words of the sentinel, As his measured step on the stone below Clanked as he paced it to and fro."

Aliva gazed out into the beautiful balmy night, and a peace to which she had long been a stranger stole in upon her heart. The world was at rest, and it seemed sad to think that in a few short hours, when the darkness should be over, man would be once more at his cruel work of war. But the stars, shining deep in the purple overhead and reflected in the placid stream below, seemed to her stars of hope.

"It is the hour when lovers' vows Seem sweet in every whispered word, And gentle winds and waters near Make music to the lonely ear."

As she gazed she thought she heard her name called softly from out of the gloom below.

"Aliva!" said a voice, "Aliva!"

*CHAPTER XX.*

_*LOVE LAUGHS AT LOCKSMITHS.*_

When the interview with his uncle had ended and Ralph's endeavours to cheer the latter's gloom had in a measure succeeded, the young knight went off to make his report upon John de Standen's operations to his superiors. Evening was falling fast ere he found himself free, and then it suddenly came into his mind to pay a kind of unofficial visit to the sentries on the south side of the river, and see if they were on the alert. Perhaps, also, he was impelled by an uncontrollable desire to gaze from as close a point as was possible on that stern keep, where he had that noontide learned from Beatrice Mertoun that his lady-love lingered in much doubt and distress.

He crossed the bridge and walked along the river-bank, giving the required password to each post, and adding a few syllables of caution. In so doing, he told himself he was but fulfilling the object of his nocturnal ramble. Ere long he found himself facing the huge keep, rising on the opposite shore of the river black against the northern sky.

Ralph knew every window of the southern face of the keep, and well-nigh every stone. He perceived a light in one of the large openings of the upper story. He knew that window well. It was that of the lady's bower, which had been his cousin's apartment in the old days, and was probably now occupied by the Lady Margaret.

Dark though the night was, the young man's eyesight was keen, and as he gazed at that window, a crowd of tender thoughts flooding his heart, he saw in the opening two figures in dark profile against the light behind them.

Seized by an uncontrollable impulse, Ralph hastily doffed his armour, and, clad only in the soft leathern dress which knights wore beneath their harness, dropped into the stream so quietly as to be unperceived by the nearest sentry on the river-bank.

Starting from a well-known old pollard willow, Ralph breasted the stream manfully, making, as nearly as the sweep of the current and the darkness of the night would allow him, for certain iron stanchions which he remembered he had fixed, when a boy, into the castle wall.

To his great joy he found they had not been removed. He caught hold of the lowest, which was near the water's edge, and quickly scaled the wall. When he reached the top he looked eagerly down and around.

No one was near. William de Breaute, whose garrison was but scanty, had judged that no attack would be made upon the river side of the castle, except by boat, and accordingly had contented himself with posting sentries at each end of the long river-wall, concentrating his principal strength on the landward side of the castle.

Ralph slid down the other side of the wall, and cautiously crossed the open space which separated him from the huge mound on which stood the keep. He was still unperceived; so, climbing the steep side of the mound, he crouched down against the lofty wall, immediately beneath the lighted window.

Were those two figures still there?

Twice he softly called Aliva by name, and then, to his intense rapture, sweet as an angel's voice from heaven to him, came the words from above,--

"Ralph! Ralph! can it be thou?"

"Stone walls do not a prison make, Nor iron bars a cage."

Love laughs at locksmiths. In this case it made light, too, of some forty perpendicular feet of massive stone wall. After five weary months of uncertainty, all doubts, mistrusts, and tortures of anxiety were swept away in a breath, as these two heard, each one once more, the loved voice neither had expected ever to hear again; and old Father Ouse, rippling sluggishly on between the willows through the dark summer night, had never listened to warmer raptures, to more passionate protestations of love.

But some one else was listening too.

In the thickness of the wall, at the south-east corner of the keep, on the same floor as the great hall, was the small chapel of the castle. It was a tiny apartment, affording room for but few worshipping besides those attending on the ministrations of the priest. Behind a round arched arcading in a stone gallery were accommodated the ladies and the household of the lord's family; but the bulk of the congregation would have to stand in a sort of antechapel opening out of the great hall, and join in the mass from that position.

Up and down the narrow space in front of the altar--freshly repaired and cleaned for the bridal of Aliva and De Breaute--paced restlessly at midnight Bertram de Concours. His thoughts were not pleasant ones. The freshly-appointed chaplain of Bedford Castle had conceived that his new position would be one which would lead him to power and authority, and probably give him an opportunity to triumph over those whom he considered his enemies, the ecclesiastical superiors who had dishonoured and disowned him. But now, instead of rising to power with the De Breaute family, he found his new patrons in sore distress. He was well aware that the two assaults which had already been made on the castle had been completely successful, and that all the outer defences had been taken. He gleaned, from the talk of De Breaute and his under-officers, that if the walls were really undermined, and a fresh attack should be made with the same vigour, nothing could avert the fall of the castle.

For the fate of De Breaute and his men Bertram de Concours cared nothing, but in the event of his own capture he clearly foresaw for himself condemnation in the ecclesiastical court. The sentence would be perpetual imprisonment in the cell of some stringent order, where offending priests were subjected to even more severe discipline than that voluntarily assumed by the most austere monks themselves.

"Fool that I was," he muttered to himself, "to have thrown in my lot with these French upstarts! Why did I not see this maiden safe to her father's house, and so have won me the eternal gratitude of this love-sick knight, and what is more, the favour of his family?"

As he moved restlessly to and fro, he paused, and opening the rude shutter which closed the narrow window on the south, looked out into the silent summer night. The calm freshness seemed to mock the consuming uneasiness in his mind.

But as he gazed he heard voices. He leaned out and listened intently.

Yes, he was not mistaken: a voice there was above him--a woman's--answering to a man's below in the darkness.

"Escape, my Ralph, ere dawn break! There are watchers at each end of the long wall, and they will certes espy thee if thou lingerest till it grows light. How it came that thou crossedst the glacis, and scaledst the keep mound unseen, I cannot tell. May the saints bear thee safe across the river!"

And then another female voice went on,--

"And take my message to thy revered uncle, bold young Sir Knight. Tell him that Margaret de Ripariis has but lived these long years in sorrow and mourning for the false step into which she was both forced and betrayed, and that she hath ever held his memory dear."

Then a man's voice answered from below,--

"Fare thee well, my heart's darling, Aliva!--My Lady Margaret, I salute thee. Forget not the signal. When the last assault comes--as come full soon it must--and we attack this mighty keep, hang your scarves from the windows of the chamber to which ye retreat, and I will come and convey ye both away in safety."

Then Bertram heard the speaker cautiously feeling his way among the loose stones which lay at the foot of the keep.

He drew a short, sharp breath, and clinched his teeth.

"By the mass," he exclaimed, "though naught can undo my folly in the past, yet I will have vengeance now! Ho, warder, ho!" he cried, hurrying from the chapel into the hall, and shouting to the sentry on duty at the entrance; "ho! quick to the window, and take thy aim at yon figure hastening down to the river wall. 'Tis the young knight De Beauchamp. It grows light enow for thee to see thy mark."

At that moment William de Breaute entered the hall from the turret staircase in the corner. He had been taking a few hours' sleep in one of the upper chambers, and was now about to sally out on his early morning rounds, fearing an attack when his guards were weary and drowsy.

"How sayest thou, Sir Chaplain?" he exclaimed; "Ralph de Beauchamp here--beneath the castle wall! 'Tis not possible!"

"Nay, Sir William, not so impossible," replied the priest. "I trow he hath been drawn across the Ouse by a lodestar within these walls. From the chapel window I heard him e'en now hold converse with the Lady Aliva at a window above."

With a furious volley of French oaths William de Breaute rushed wildly out of the hall, calling upon all the sentries near to stop or kill Sir Ralph.

It was a maddening race. From the upper window the girl watched it in agony. The cross-bow bolts flew thick and fast around Ralph as he hurried to the wall. Some shattered themselves against the stones as he scaled it.

For a brief moment he stood out clearly upon the summit against the gray dawn, an easy mark for the archers. Then, without waiting to descend by the iron stanchions, he took a desperate plunge into the stream.

Aliva saw him rise to the surface, and watched him swimming with all his might to the opposite bank.

But as he leaped from the top of the wall she saw another figure reach it, and she recognized the pursuer to be William de Breaute.

He held in his hand a ready-strung cross-bow which he had snatched from one of the warders.

Aliva saw him take aim and loose the shaft.

The figure of the swimmer half rose in the water, and then disappeared from view beneath its surface.

With a faint cry Aliva fell back swooning into the arms of Lady Margaret.

*CHAPTER XXI.*

_*THE CASTLE FALLS.*_

The unfortunate Lady Aliva was in despair.

The cup of happiness had been rudely dashed from her lips. After all her perils and anxieties of the last few weeks, her lover had been suddenly restored to her; once more she had heard his voice, had listened to his vows and caressing words, but only to see him slain, as she imagined, by his rival before her very eyes. From the summit of unexpected joy she was plunged into a depth of misery tenfold harder to bear than that which had gone before. All hope seemed over.

But within some twenty-four hours she was rudely awakened from her grief by the horrible din of the assault, which at dawn of day commenced against the old tower and the inner bailey.

"Hark how the hall, resounding to the strain, Shakes with the martial music's novel din! The heralds of a warrior's haughty reign, High-crested banners wave thy walls within. Of changing sentinels, the distant hum, The mirth of feasts, the clang of burnished arms, The braying trumpets, and the hoarser drum Unite in concert with increased alarms."

"The wall is rent, the ruins yawn, And, with to-morrow's earliest dawn, O'er the disjointed mass shall vault The foremost of the fierce assault."

The storm of war reached nearer to the ladies in the keep than it had ever yet done. Through the crack of the closely-shuttered windows they could watch the fray below, and catch the sound of angry voices borne up to them, and mingling with the crash of falling masonry.

The Lady Margaret, whose shattered nerves could ill bear such tumult, betook herself to the little chapel in the angle of the wall, and passed the time upon her knees in prayer. But Aliva and Beatrice, impelled by the curiosity of youth, could not forbear to see what was to be seen.

The point of interest was the old tower. The girls knew it to be undermined, and watched anxiously to see it totter to its fall.

"I see a mass of soldiers gathering under the outer wall and halting as if for a signal," cried Aliva.

"The tower will soon fall, and these are ready to rush in," said Beatrice.

"But how falls it?" asked Aliva. "Thou art in the miner's secrets; tell, prithee."

"They tie ropes to the great wooden beams and props on which John hath supported the foundations. At a safe distance stand men ready to pull them away; and then--ah, our Lady have them in her keeping!"

And as she spoke a sound was heard, a rumbling as of thunder, followed by a cloud of blinding dust, which obscured everything--court-yard, men, and masonry. There was a fearful crash, and the girls shrank with terror and looked at each other.

"Oh, this is horrible!" whispered Aliva, hiding her face.

"My lady, my lady, I can see! The tower is down--it is a heap of rubble; and they come, they come! O lady, you are saved!"

"Saved!" said Aliva with a sad smile, shaking her head; "what boots it now? What wish have I for aught but death?"

"Death, lady? and in the moment of victory? Oh, speak not so! See the king's men, how they hurry, they scramble, they pour through the breach! 'Tis a noble sight. Forward, forward! Down with the Breaute!" shouted the excited waiting-woman, opening the shutter wide and craning out her neck.

"Beatrice, have a care. They will let fly a bolt at thee, and what will say the master miner? _Thou_ hast some one to live for!"

"If I die for it, I must look!" protested Beatrice. "Oh, the king's men, how they fall! Alas, alas! William de Breaute hath well posted his men in all the best places for defence! But on they come--they waver not! By my halidom, there comes a gallant band, though small! How fast that knight leads them across the inner bailey! They make for the steps of the door of the keep. But how thick the arrows fly! William must have lined every loophole in the donjon and in the hall with men!"

"But how the royal men-at-arms pour in! De Breaute is far outnumbered--his men fly--they fall back--they seek to gain the steps," gasped Aliva, looking over Beatrice's shoulder.

"Gallantly done, gallantly done! That little close band follows them hard up the steps. Well led, Sir Knight! (Hold my hand, prithee, lady, lest I fall out and break my neck! I _must_ see.) But our men make a stand upon the steps; that is to gain time to close the door. The swords are at it now--I hear the ringing. Ah me! it is Sir William himself defends the steps. He raises his sword; he will smite that bold knight who leads them! He _has_ smitten--By our Lady, 'twas a near thing! Who was that parried the stroke with his staff? I see! a man in monkish dress. And now the knight falls--he rolls down the steps--his armour is heavy--he strives in vain to rise, but alack, alack!"

"What seest thou? speak, Beatrice!"

"The poor brother, lady, he who saved the knight--he has fallen. Oh, he moves not! Alack, he is slain!"

"They are all falling back; what means it, Beatrice?"

"I cannot see, lady; the wooden porch over the steps hinders me. But the knight has risen--he is unhurt--he calls his men back."

"They retreat--they retreat?"

"Meseemeth Sir William and his men have shut to the door, lady," replied Beatrice, drawing in her head; and as the two girls stared blankly in each other's faces, the Lady Margaret, pallid and haggard, entered the apartment.

"Daughters," she exclaimed, "the king's men have won the inner bailey; the old tower is down; we now only hold the keep!"

That evening sore disappointment reigned in the camp of the besiegers. Had they but been able to reach the door ere it was closed, the keep would have been theirs; but as it was, they were compelled to draw off after considerable loss from the storm of arrows which rained upon them from the loopholes.

All had to be begun over again. John de Standen and his men once more set to work. The cat was wheeled up close to the walls of the keep, and the digging recommenced. This time the task was more laborious and difficult than ever. The foundations were strongly laid. The work of Pain de Beauchamp was built to last, and the besieged did all they could to hinder the operations. It was not till the fourteenth of August that De Standen could report that his work was ready.

Late that afternoon the fourth and last attack commenced. The miners sprung a huge fissure in the wall of the keep. Simultaneously another agent was set to work--fire. A light was set to the wooden porch over the steps.

The work was finished. The flames, caught the woodwork within, and broke out in some of the apartments. Through fire and smoke the besiegers stormed the breach, the besieged fighting desperately, and only yielding step by step.

At last, however, William de Breaute was forced to acknowledge himself beaten.

"My brother cannot say I did not do my utmost," he gasped to one of his officers as they leaned exhausted against the pillar of the turret stair.

"Yield thee, now yield thee, William de Breaute!" cried a voice through the din.

"I yield me to the king's mercy," began the Frenchman, "but not to thee," he added, as the tall form and gloomy visage of William de Beauchamp loomed down upon through the smoke. "To a De Beauchamp? never!"

His men had ceased to offer any resistance, and stood with spears and swords point downwards and cross-bows unstrung. William looked around.

"My Lord Lisle of Rougemount, I surrender to you, rescue or no rescue."

The baron thus addressed seized De Breaute's outstretched sword, and signalled to his men. They closed round the prisoner and his immediate attendants, and prepared to march them off to the dungeon.

But as they crossed the great hall they met a young knight, followed by two or three men-at-arms, hurrying towards the turret stair.

"Ho, nephew!" exclaimed Sir William de Beauchamp, pointing to Lord Lisle's prisoner with the nearest approach to a smile of which his lugubrious features were capable; "see here! He hath tried long enough how it feels to sit in our great hall; we go now to give him a taste of our dungeon."

William de Breaute turned his head, and for the first time, and for a few moments only, found himself face to face with his rival, Ralph de Beauchamp. He cast upon him a look in which malignant hatred was mingled with the haggard despair of frustrated hopes.

"Dog!" he ejaculated, "methought thou liedst safe at the bottom of thy muddy Ouse!"