CHAPTER XIV.

HOW THE CONQUEROR DEALS WITH REBELS.

The days passed drearily for the Countess of East Anglia, mewed up within the protecting walls of Norwich Castle, and the anxiety she felt on behalf of her husband and brother made the hours seem unutterably long.

Her office of Castellan was no unusual one for women in those days. The annals of chivalry teem with stories of noble ladies who held castles for their male relatives or feudal superiors, but as no enemy was, at present, near the castle, it did not afford her much occupation.

An occasional hawking or fishing party was organised for her entertainment, but the disturbed state of the country, the fear of treachery, and the uncertainty of the whereabouts of the king's forces, rendered so large an escort necessary, and entailed so much trouble and preparation, that the sport was robbed of all zest. If orders were given in the evening, it most frequently happened that the morning would be wet and uninviting; if left till a suitable morning had dawned, all freshness had vanished before the advancing sun ere so large a party could be put in motion.

Moreover, Emma had little heart for such entertainment, which chiefly served to bring back memories of happier days, when Earl Roger and Ralph de Guader had been beside her; and all the prowess of her Danish hawk did but remind her of her husband and his dangers. Soar, and stoop, and chancelier as he might, he failed to move her enthusiasm, and did but render her more sad, while the encomiums of Sir Alain De Gourin, who made a point of attending her on these expeditions, irked rather than pleased her. His criticisms, admiring as they were, seemed to her impertinent when passed on a bird which Ralph de Guader had pronounced as one of the most perfect he had ever seen.

So she strove to cheat the hours by embroidering a magnificent mantle for her absent lord, using all the most elaborate Saxon stitches, which she had learned from Eadgyth, who sat ever at her elbow to help her, if she forgot her lesson. Such gorgeous mantles were much in fashion among the Norman exquisites.

Eadgyth herself was busy, by Emma's desire, making an altar-cloth for the chapel of the castle, in which the De Guader and East Anglian arms were mingled somewhat incongruously with pictorial illustrations of the life of St. Nicholas. The chaplain of the aforesaid chapel had drawn the designs, being a very clever limner and illuminator, and he took great interest in the progress of the pious work, losing no opportunity to visit the fair embroideress when she was engaged upon it.

He was a young Breton of good family, but had sunk his patronymic for the priestly 'Father Pierre,' the venerable title being rather incongruous to his boyish face and shy, shrinking ways. He was an ascetic enthusiast, believing sternly in the mortification of the flesh, and his young cheeks were sunken, his large dark eyes hollow and glittering, and his tall figure painfully emaciated. But his sternness was all for himself; to his flock he was the kindest of pastors, and in his humility he did not venture to enter upon political matters, accepting the judgment of his feudal superior as paramount, and not to be questioned.

Emma did not feel drawn to him. Her practical nature could not comprehend or draw comfort from his mystic and dreamy ecstasies, and she needed a strong, clear-headed guide, to advise her on the tangible and imminent perplexities that encircled her.

'Oh for an hour of Father Theodred!' she sighed one day, when Father Pierre had left the apartment, after making a vague reply to a question she had addressed to him, touching some small urgent duty of the hour. 'Our good chaplain hath more anxiety regarding the ordering of thy needlework warriors for the adornment of his chapel, than for the bodies of the living men who are defending it, methinks! In good sooth, Eadgyth, I feel tired of this stitchery. I would the wind blew not so keenly on the battlements. I could be ever watching the horizon like some sea-rover's deserted mate, looking out for the glint of sun on a steel headpiece, as such an one would watch for a sail. The stone walls well-nigh stifle me! I feel entombed sitting here, where I cannot see if any approach to bring tidings of my dear lord! Fetch me mantle and headrail, sweet damsel. Methinks, if I sit here longer, chewing the cud of bitter reflection, I shall go stark staring mad. Let us go to the battlements and fight the wind!'

Eadgyth, whose more phlegmatic temperament did not seek relief from mental pain in physical exercise, smiled at the restlessness of her friend, but instantly laid aside her needlework, and sought her lady's tire-woman, who brought the wished-for garments.

In a few moments Emma and Eadgyth had left the lodge, ascended the spiral staircase in the great tower, and were pacing upon the battlements. It was one of those grey chilly days, frequent in the Eastern counties, when the north-west wind brings haze from the Fenlands, and the Wash, and the North Sea; covering the sky with a leaden pall, and bringing winter into summer's heart. Columns of dust rose along the roadways, but the wind swept away all mist and fog, and the country showed bleak and naked to the horizon.

The sentinels saluted their countess and her lady-in-waiting with a deep reverence, but they were accustomed to see their fair Castellan scanning the distance, as if distrusting that any eyes could be so keen and faithful as her own.

They paced the circuit of the battlements some five or six times, and played with the pigeons that crowded upon the merlons, and greeted them with soft cooing and much fluttering of soft-coloured pinions, for they knew well that Emma's gipsire was generally stored with peas for them.

Suddenly Emma caught her bower-maiden by the wrist.

'See!' she cried. 'My sail is in sight! Dost thou not catch the glint of a morion over yonder?'

They were on the southern side of the keep, and she indicated a far speck upon the course of the Ikenield way.

'Nay,' replied Eadgyth, 'mine eyes reach not so far, the more especially as this stinging wind brings unbidden tears into them.'

'I am right, Eadgyth--it is a horseman approaching! Ho, sentinel! thy vigil is no very keen one!'

'In sooth, lady, I can see naught,' answered the sentinel, with a respectful salutation.

It had been a favourite amusement with Emma, when a girl at Clifford Castle, to challenge her maidens and squires, and any noble visitor who might chance to be present, to a trial of sight, from the walls of that goodly fortress, and seldom had she found any who could rival her for length of vision. She proved to be right on this occasion. A horseman was approaching, and at a gallop, and the sentinels soon acknowledged his coming and gave the fitting signal.

A while later, and the traveller had reached the barbican, and, after a short parley, the portcullis was raised, the drawbridge lowered, and he rode forward into the courtyard of the castle.

Emma descended full of tremulous excitement. Sir Alain de Gourin met her, on his way to the courtyard, to question the new-comer.

'I will send word at once, if he prove to be one of the earl's men, or brings any message or news,' said Sir Alain.

'Nay,' replied Emma, 'I will myself go down. Each moment of waiting will prove a year.'

So, with Eadgyth beside her, and her train of ladies following, she went down to the great portal on the east side of the keep, whence a short time before she had bidden 'God Speed' to her noble spouse and his army.

The horseman was surrounded by a curious crowd of soldiers and domestics. Archers and men-at-arms of all sorts and conditions from the guard-room, pages, squires, cooks, and scullions, had all come forth to see. Certain of the garrison who had been trying their strength for pastime in a wrestling bout, had left their sport, and stood with brawny arms akimbo, and mouths agape. Even the pale face of the chaplain was amongst the group, his dark eyes gazing with pity and awe upon the man who formed its centre.

He was in sorry plight! His horse, flecked with foam and bloody with spurring, head down, nostrils red, and limbs trembling with fatigue, looked as though another mile had been utterly beyond his spent powers. The casque of the rider was battered, and his countenance so gashed with wounds as to be beyond recognition, nor did his surcoat or harness in any way help to show his identity, so stained and torn were they. Shield he had none, and his right arm hung straightly at his side.

He took no heed of the crowd buzzing round him, nor of the countess standing at the portal of the keep, with Sir Alain de Gourin at her right, and Sir Hoël de St. Brice on her left, and her train of ladies and squires behind her, but sat on his panting steed, with his chin sunk on his breast.

Suddenly one from the circle around him cried, '_Mort de ma vie!_ He has lost a foot as well as a hand!'

A murmur of surprise burst round him.

'Those are no gashes gained in fair fighting! His nose is slit! Saints and angels! He has been in the hands of the Bastard's men! We all know how William serves his prisoners!'

'Speak, Sir Fugitive, or Sir Messenger, or whatever your name is,' thundered De Gourin, 'and speedily! Is it so? Who art thou? For thy beauty is so spoiled we are at a loss by what title to greet thee! By the rood! his own mother would not know him!'

The countess hastily bade her leech be called, and shuddered, not only with pity, but with a dread presentiment of evil, as the ghastly witness of men's merciless cruelty turned his maimed face towards them, his bloodshot eyes staring vacantly, half dazed with terror and pain.

'It is all over!' he muttered hoarsely, forcing his swollen lips to utter the words with difficulty. 'The earl is slain, and my master; and the army is scattered like a flock of sheep! Flee, flee! They are coming after me to storm the castle!'

He raised his right arm, from which the hand had been riven, the stump black with the searing of red-hot irons with which the flow of blood had been staunched, in a gesture of entreaty.

A fearful witness truly as to what might be expected to follow on defeat.

A howl of fierce anger ran around the courtyard, and many a strong breast heaved with an indignant sob of impotent rage; curses loud and deep were showered on the heads of William of Normandy and his vicegerents.

'Heed him not, noble Emma!' cried Sir Hoël de St. Brice hastily. 'By the Holy Virgin! 'tis but a recreant who has let himself be made prisoner, and now repeats the story they have stuffed him with! Out of his wits with their rough treatment, and small wonder! May the Foul Fiend seize them for their barbarity!'

'Christ be my witness, I speak sooth!' cried the unfortunate fugitive. 'I am Stephen le Hareau, squire of the body to Sir Guy de Landerneau, and I swear by the Holy Cross, I saw the earl fall with mine own eyes!'

'Thou Stephen le Hareau? Thou?' shouted Sir Alain de Gourin, startled out of his equanimity as he looked at the pitiful object before his eyes, and remembered the handsome gallant he had seen ride from the castle gates a few weeks before.

A fresh hiss of execration burst from the bystanders, as the cruelty of the young man's fate came home to them.

Stephen le Hareau! The handsomest and most popular squire in the earl's following! They knew him, too, for a brave and dauntless soldier.

Sir Hoël looked towards the countess, wondering how she would bear the blow, for the difficulty with which she had maintained her self-control when she had parted with her noble bridegroom had been manifest to all, and now the worst fears she could then have entertained were declared to have come to pass.

But Emma, who had shrunk from the approach of evil, stood firm to meet its actual contact. Her face was white as marble, and her lips quivered, but she said in a firm voice,--

'The cruelty this poor gentleman has undergone may well nerve our hearts to resistance. St. Nicholas grant thou art in the right, Sir Hoël. He may well deem things blacker than they are! I prithee, keep him no longer answering our vain queries. Let him be lifted from his horse and carried to the spital. I will tend him with my own hands. His poor steed also, let it be cared for.'

Eadgyth and several of the ladies were sobbing hysterically behind her. She turned to them.

'Courage, dames and damsels!' she said, with a simple dignity that shamed them into self-control. 'I have heard as evil tales as this, and found them vanish like dreams at the breaking of the morn.'

She gathered her robes around her and swept back into the keep, and, calling her tirewoman, ordered her to bring sundry essences and simples, which, like every noble lady of the time, she kept by her, the science of medicine being chiefly in feminine hands in those days. Then, bidding Eadgyth to attend her, she proceeded at once to the spital, to leech the unfortunate squire.

She stopped a few moments in the chapel, to direct the chaplain to offer masses for the souls of those who had fallen in the battle. A sob caught her breath as she remembered the earnest repetition with which Stephen le Hareau had declared that the earl was amongst them.

But she dare not think, and went on hurriedly to direct that others should be offered for the safety of those who had escaped, and for the success of their undertaking.

Her ministrations to the wounded man kept at bay the fierce troop of agonising thoughts that were thronging down upon her like a pack of hungry wolves. Rolling bandages, and preparing salves and unguents, she had scarce time to speculate upon the probability of the truth of her patient's direful news. True, no doubt, it was as far as his knowledge went, but there was hope, as Sir Hoël had suggested, that his report of the battle had been supplied by their opponents, and himself sent off by them, as a messenger of evil tidings, with the express intent of demoralising the garrison of Blauncheflour.

The physical sufferings of the poor squire were so terrible to witness, that Emma almost forgot the awful shadow of death and impending peril that hung over her own head, and the hours flew past without her noticing their flight. All that she and her leech and her ladies could do to lessen his pain was done, but it was not much.

Even in these days little could be done for such a case, with all the skill of advanced science.

Presently a page came to the countess with a message from the two knights, St. Brice and De Gourin, begging her to give them audience in the council-chamber.

'Watch over my sufferer, Eadgyth,' said Emma.

When she entered the apartment in which the two knights were awaiting her, she quivered with apprehension as she saw their grave faces. Sir Hoël's kindly visage was white as his silver hair, and even Sir Alain's inflamed countenance was a shade less purple-red than usual, while his expression was distinctly anxious.

They both hesitated to speak, but the countess broke the pause.

'Tell me the worst, gentle sirs, I pray you. Suspense is ever hardest to bear, and I see you have ill news.'

Sir Hoël advanced and took her hand in both his own, a little forgetting the ceremony due to her rank, in his huge pity for her youth and the forlorn fate that he feared too surely had befallen her.

'Alas, dear lady, the news is ill indeed! Sir Walter Deresfort, and the Saxon thegn, Alfnoth of Walsham, with some dozen men-at-arms, have ridden in from Cambridgeshire, and confirm'--a sob broke his voice--'in every item the dire tidings brought by poor Stephen le Hareau.'

'Do they say, then, that I am a widow?' asked Emma in a strange, hard voice, with so awful a calm in it, that the thick-skinned Sir Alain, who was little wont to heed the tears or shrieks of women, or to spare them in any respect if they stood in his way, shuddered as he heard it. He thought the countess was going mad.

'I fear,' answered Sir Hoël, 'there is no doubt the earl is slain, St. Nicholas rest his soul!'

'Then, gentlemen,' asked Emma in the same strange tone, 'what is to be done?'

'God knows!' exclaimed Sir Hoël, the great tears running down his furrowed face, and dripping upon his hauberk.

'Noble lady,' said Sir Alain eagerly, speaking for the first time, 'it is well known that the wrath of the Primate, and of his master, William the Norman, is principally enkindled against the countrymen of the late earl. Thy safety, most noble countess, is, of course, what every man in the garrison would give his life to insure, therefore my humble counsel, for what it may be worth, is that thou shouldest at once take ship with the trusty Bretons under my command, and make for Bretagne, and thy late husband's estates of Guader and Montfort.'

'What is thy counsel, Sir Hoël?' demanded Emma, still with the same unnatural calm.

'Dear lady, I would advise thee as doth Sir Alain.'

'But would not the garrison, thus bereft of half their numbers, fall an instant prey to the enemy?' asked Emma.

'It is not William's policy to provoke the Saxons, and to his own countrymen he is ever complacent,' urged De Gourin, with the same eagerness. 'Therefore my meaning is, that the castle be surrendered at once, in which case the garrison would probably be softly dealt with, we Bretons being out of the way; whereas further resistance will be useless, and will but further provoke their vengeance, the style of which we have seen.'

'Art thou of this advice also, Sir Hoël?' demanded Emma.

Sir Hoël bowed his head. 'Dear lady,' he said, 'there is no doubt that the Primate hath animosity against us Bretons, and may prove kinder to Normans and Saxons; yet methinks I will stand by them, and advise them not to try his mercy sooner than is needful. I counsel, therefore, that thou shouldest so far follow Sir Alain's advice, as to take ship with himself and his band for Bretagne. For my part, I will fight for it with the garrison remaining to me. Blauncheflour has been built to stand a siege, and we may well victual it before supplies can be cut off. We may yet make good terms.'

'There spoke the spirit of a true knight!' cried Emma, turning on De Gourin with so fierce a flash in her eyes, that he started, so great a change was it from the stony indifference of her former manner.

'Go, fair sir, if it suits thee! Take all thy fainthearted mercenaries with thee to their native Bretagne! I will stay with Sir Hoël and defend this castle, which the earl gave into my charge. The _late_ earl, thou said'st? Methinks thou art wondrous quick to make so certain of his death! Methinks all these gallant gentlemen who have galloped back to the safe walls of Blauncheflour in such hot haste, scarce waited to see if he was wounded or slain! For _me_ he will never be the _late_ earl. On earth or in heaven he is my husband still, and I will hold his castle, hoping, perhaps selfishly, that he will come to claim it. I will hold it if only to have vengeance on his foes!'

Sir Hoël watched her in delighted surprise. Sir Alain flushed hotly under her attack, but could not but admire the high-spirited beauty as she hurled her indignant taunts at his head.

'Now, by all the saints! thou art unjust to me and my poor following, noble lady!' he exclaimed. 'My object was but to secure thy safety.'

'If the earl be indeed slain,' said Emma, with a tremor in her voice, 'my safety boots me but little; if he be not, it is important that Blauncheflour hold out to the last gasp. Besides, ye know not how it fares with my brother of Hereford; his arms have perchance prevailed, and he may be able to relieve us.'

'A slender hope,' said Sir Alain impatiently. 'But our lives are at thy disposal, noble Emma.'

He accompanied this speech with a smile of homage, which he meant to be irresistibly touching and pathetic; for a new idea had come into the adventurer's bullet-head, which somewhat gilded the pill of hard fighting without hope of plunder, which the countess's decision forced him to swallow. He remembered that if, as he fully believed, De Guader was slain, the beautiful Emma had become a widow with a goodly dower! for even if, as was probable, her late husband's possessions in England were forfeit through his treason, and all English and Norman property of her own, the estates of Guader and Montfort were beyond William's jurisdiction, and she would doubtless draw rich rents from them. This rich prize was here under his hand, and, to a great extent, in his power. If he played his cards well, he might secure her for himself, albeit she was William of Normandy's kinswoman.

But the good old Sir Hoël looked at her fair, flushed face with very different thoughts. 'God bless thee, dear young lady,' he said, with a husky voice. 'He would be a coward indeed who grudged to give his life for thee! Though, for that matter, we must needs fight for our own sakes, so we need not try to make out that all our valour is on thy behalf!'

Emma met his kind eyes, and scarce bore their sympathy.

She turned away hastily. 'There must be more wounded in the spital,' she said; 'I must tend them. Make what preparation needs for holding out under a long siege.'

And so saying she quitted the apartment.

'Alas!' Sir Hoël murmured, more to himself than to De Gourin, when she was gone, 'I doubt she is buoying herself with a false hope, and that our noble De Guader will glad her eyes no more.'

'By the rood!' answered Sir Alain, 'I doubt so too. But methinks so fair a widow, and so well-dowered and youthful withal, may find consolation on this side the grave. Holy Mary! A dame of spirit! If our motley garrison, Saxons, Danes, Flemings, and other, were of metal that would ring to the same tune, our case would not look so desperate.'

'Methinks the mercenaries under thy hand are the most doubtful metal within the walls, good sir,' answered Sir Hoël gravely, eyeing his companion somewhat keenly. 'If thou canst get the right ring out of _them_, I think I can answer for the rest!'