CHAPTER XX.

À OUTRANCE.

The morning came, and with it cares more important than the fate of the poor Knight of Sourdeval.

Before the dew was off the meadows, the shrill trumpets of the besiegers were heard at the barbican, demanding a parley, and calling for admittance in the name of the king.

The countess, holding counsel with Sir Hoël de St. Brice and Sir Alain de Gourin, and other of the knights of the garrison, replied that she would accede to the parley, and receive the messenger in person; and, accordingly, the messenger was blindfolded, admitted within the castle, and conducted to the council-chamber in the great tower.

The knight who bore the message of the king's lieutenants was sheathed in complete armour, and exceedingly stately in his mien and figure, being tall and of great personal strength. He was no other than Robert Malet, whose father, the loved and honoured William Malet, had been in bodily prowess second to none but the Conqueror himself of those who fought on the Norman side at Hastings.

As he entered the room, the rebel knights instinctively straightened themselves, and assumed such dignity of bearing as they were capable of showing; but none bore comparison with him save Leofric Ealdredsson, the stalwart Anglo-Dane, who had never bent the knee to the Norman Conqueror, and who now stood at the right hand of the countess, with the lightnings of a noble defiance gleaming in his blue eyes.

Yet Malet himself was to become a rebel before his death. When the silken kerchief with which his eyes had been covered was removed, he gazed proudly round the assembly, and bowed his tall head to the countess alone.

'In the name of William the Conqueror, King of England and Duke of Normandy,' he said in a commanding voice, 'I call upon Ralph de Guader and Montfort, heretofore Earl of East Anglia, but deprived of his earldom for that he has wrongfully taken arms against his suzerain and liege lord; and I demand that he instantly surrenders this castle, which he holds only as the Constable of the king. I demand that entrance into the said castle be at once given to the troops of his Grace the king, and that he thereby refrain from adding still further to his guilt, by contumaciously retaining it.'

'The Earl of East Anglia hath taken ship from this country, and hath devolved the duties of Castellan upon me, his countess,' replied Emma calmly.

'In that case, noble lady,--I cannot style thee countess, for thou hast no longer right to the title,--I call upon thee, as Castellan of this castle of Blauncheflour, to surrender it to the lieutenants of thy liege and kinsman, William of Normandy,' answered the young knight, fixing his keen blue eyes upon Emma's fair face, whose features, worn by the anxiety she had undergone, were pathetic in their pallor, and moved his heart to pity. 'I may well suppose,' he continued boldly, 'that in so doing thou wilt with pleasure disburden thy slender shoulders of so heavy and unwomanly a burden.'

Emma drew herself up with a slight gesture of disdain for such misbestowed sympathy. The knight responded by adding hastily, 'Moreover, I would appeal to thy gentleness and natural instincts of mercy to prevent the useless shedding of blood which the holding of this castle must cause, by prolonging a struggle which can only end one way.'

Emma's delicate nostrils quivered, and the fine firm lips set fiercely.

'The Countess of East Anglia desires to know the terms on which she is asked to yield up her faithful garrison to the tender mercies of the men who mutilated Stephen le Hareau,' she said, still calmly, but with flashing eyes, and due emphasis on her title. 'The race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, and methinks her gentleness and love of mercy are more nearly concerned in preventing her faithful defenders from encountering such a fate as his.'

'To the Castellan of Blauncheflour I reply, that the surrender must be without conditions,' answered the knight.

'In that case,' answered Emma, 'the Countess of East Anglia replies, that her garrison will win their own terms by their swords.'

Leofric Ealdredsson burst out with a loud 'Ahoi!' in the exuberance of his approbation, and clashed his heavy axe upon the floor, his many bracelets jingling like small bells. 'Well said!' exclaimed the venerable Sir Hoël de St. Brice, looking at the young countess with an expression of reverent affection, and from one and all the representatives of the garrison who stood around her chair broke various expressions of approval.

The countess turned to her knights with sparkling eyes. 'I have ye with me, then, in this reply, fair sirs?' she asked, and the tumult of assent with which they answered hindered Robert Malet, for some moments, from further speech.

In truth the enthusiasm was contagious, and the royal envoy's own eyes flashed. The chivalrous spirit of Fitzosbern's daughter jumped well with his humour. He had been a sorry Norman else; no true heritor of the wild sea-kings. It cost him some effort to resist his impulse to join in the applause, but he controlled himself, and said gravely, 'I pray thee, noble lady, to consider well before coming to so direful a decision; involving, as it doth, no less an issue than the adding of high treason on thine own part to the heavy guilt of the man thou hast wedded against the express mandate of thy suzerain. The daughter of William Fitzosbern should be slow to draw the sword against William of Normandy.'

'The decision is final, Sir Knight,' replied Emma curtly; thinking to herself that William of Normandy had not scrupled to insult the son and daughter of William Fitzosbern. She added to those in attendance, 'Let this brave gentleman be reconducted to the gate without delay.'

The envoy bowed in silence, and, allowing the silken kerchief to be again bound over his eyes, he marched with stately grace from the apartment.

So Emma de Guader cast down her gauntlet beside that of her husband, and dared the power of her great cousin.

Before the sun was midway in the heavens, a fierce struggle had begun between the besiegers and the besieged for possession of the barbican. This was not a strong construction of masonry as in the Norman castles of the twelfth century, but a deep and wide fosse or moat, with a high vallum strengthened with stout palisading on its inner side, of a semicircular or horseshoe form, the horns nearly touching the present ditch. The causeway that passed between the horns and the present ditch, by which access was given to the castle, was amply protected by the towers of the gate-house and the walls of the castle itself, from whence arrows and quarrels would easily reach assailants. The similar fosse and palisaded vallum surrounding the castle meadow afforded additional protection to the eastern extremity of the causeway; the portion of the semicircle to the south-west being most open to attack.

Spearmen and javelin-throwers lined the palisades, and from their cover repelled the onslaught of the assaulting men-at-arms, who had further to withstand a whizzing shower of arrows from bowmen hiding in the wooden stalls of the market.

The king's men were endeavouring to throw a wooden bridge across the ditch. One end was furnished with wheels, the other with huge grappling-irons, which they strove to make fast in the vallum.

Watching them stood Leofric Ealdredsson, who, on the night before, when Sir Alain de Gourin had been sneering at the primitive Saxon earthworks, had said, with a laugh and a fierce gleam in his eyes, 'Let me defend them; I am used to the rude English fashions.' A band of his terrible house-carles, armed with their great battle-axes, and long of hair and large of limb, waited his orders with the air of bloodhounds in a leash straining at their collars.

From a loophole on the southern side of the keep, lighting the gallery which runs within the walls on a level with the great entrance, the countess and her bower-maiden Eadgyth watched the strife.

Eadgyth had been present in the council-chamber during the audience of Robert Malet. 'Thou wast grand, Emma,' she was saying to her lady and friend. 'Thou wast so strong and courageous, while, to say sooth, my own heart was beating like an armourer's hammer.'

'Thou art a strange child, my Eadgyth,' said Emma affectionately, well pleased with the admission of the English maiden.

A wilder shout from the besiegers than any preceding broke their converse, and for some moments each watched the progress of the fight in breathless silence.

For the assailants had established their bridge against the vallum, and over it the attacking knights charged in a body, led by Robert Malet in person, his high crest topping them all, and by sheer weight of horse and harness they drave down the barricades and pressed in, hewing in sunder all before them.

Eadgyth gave a shrill scream and threw her arms wildly round the countess, who stood motionless, with eyes dilated and heaving breast.

Then rang out the wild Norse war-cry, 'Ahoi! ahoi!' And Leofric and his fierce carles sprang forward like tigers; and the flash and crash of their great axes smote eye and ear, while more than one knightly saddle was emptied, more than one riderless destrier ran neighing around the enclosure; more than one mailed warrior, impervious to arrows and quarrels, was cloven through his helm and lay lifeless on the ground.

The Anglo-Danes laughed in their yellow beards, and vigorously improved their advantage, so that in a few moments the knights were forced back beyond the line of the barricades, some getting back across the bridge, some falling into the water.

'See, foolish child! thy cousin has driven them back!' cried Emma. For Leofric was akin to Harold on the mother's side, and so akin to Eadgyth. She stroked the cheek of the frightened girl as a mother who comforts an infant. 'And had he not, there are stout walls and strong arms betwixt them and thee.'

'I know it! I know it! But it is all so terrible! I have not thy nerves of steel! Oh, Emma, in pity watch no longer! I cannot bear it!'

'Faint heart!' cried Emma lovingly. 'The clash of arms doth but spur my courage. I have always loved it from my cradle. Methinks I had made a doughty knight! It is not danger that quells me.'

Her face grew sad, for the bitter pang of an uneasy conscience gnawed her soul. Danger did not quell her, but her doubting heart tormented her.

'_Let me then starve, dear lady; I cannot lift my hand against my heart's witness to the right._'

The sentence sprang into her mind and seemed to glow before her eyes as if it had been seared upon her brain with red-hot irons.

She drew her breath with a long shuddering sigh. In the rapid crowding of events that morning, the man who had spoken it in such despairing earnest had been forgotten, though she had thought of nothing else through the long watches of the night.

She turned to Eadgyth, and bade her go to the chapel, and offer prayers for the earl, and the garrison, and the souls of the fallen. 'Thou wilt feel safe within the holy precincts,' she said; 'and Dame Amicia shall attend me. She is short of sight, and the shouts of yonder madmen will scarce penetrate her ears; she will prove more courageous than art thou.'

When the aged lady-in-waiting came to her, in obedience to the message Eadgyth had conveyed, the countess left the loophole through which so stirring a drama was visible, and advanced to meet her. 'I need the support of thy reverend presence, dear dame,' she said, and told her how she had found one of her lord's knights imprisoned, as she believed, on a misunderstanding, and that she wished to question him again, having taken it upon her to free him.

The old lady could hear each syllable of Emma's clear, soft voice, though she was untroubled by the shouts of the combatants below, and she nodded her stately head with its crown of snow-white hair, tastefully draped with a broidered veil of Cyprian crape.

'A good lad, a good lad, and ever courteous,' answered Dame Amicia. 'Thou dost well to probe the matter. I thought he had gone to Bretagne.'

'It seems he was in durance in this castle,' said Emma. 'But we knew it not; or, if my lord knew it, he had no time to sift the charges against him. Methinks, if he have somewhat erred, he has been punished enough, and I may grant him pardon.'

'Ay; if we forgive not the trespasses of others, how can we pray with a clean heart that our own may be forgiven?' replied the old lady, nodding again. 'We must practise forgiveness, or our paternosters are but a mockery.'

No further words were spoken till they reached the apartment to which, according to the orders of the countess, Sir Aimand had been conveyed.

De Gourin had taken the precaution to place a stout warder at the door, who announced the visit of the countess to the knight.

When Emma entered the chamber, Sir Aimand threw himself on his knee before her, with an expression of deep homage, and bowed to her and to her venerable attendant.

'Noble countess,' he exclaimed, 'I scarce know how to form my gratitude in words!'

Emma was freshly shocked when she saw his face and form. Shaven and close-clipped as became a Norman knight, and clad in tunic and hose, the ravages of two months of misery were but the more conspicuous, as they owed no adventitious aid to wild elf-locks and shaggy beard. His cheeks were sunken, and his eyes unnaturally bright with fever, and the bones of his thin hands and limbs were pitiful to see. His voice also was hoarse and hollow. Emma felt that the revelations of the morning moved her more, not less, than the doleful horrors of the preceding night.

'I fear me thou hast greatly suffered,' she said involuntarily. 'Rise, Sir Aimand, and be seated; thou art not fit to stand.'

And Sir Aimand was forced to obey her, for, as he rose to his feet, he tottered and clutched at a stool for support, and Emma recalled some fears that had crossed her mind during the night, with pathetic amusement, for she had been haunted with the idea that she had perhaps let loose a very dangerous champion in the castle. The poor knight looked little able to fight either for her cause or against it.

'I had come hither to question thee more closely as to the circumstances of thy imprisonment,' the countess said, 'and to see if thy proud spirit be at all softened by my bounty, but methinks the best thing I can do is to send thee a good leech.'

'Noble countess, thy generosity hath not left me unmoved,' said Sir Aimand eagerly. 'I give thee my parole, neither to attempt escape, nor in any way to communicate with, aid, or abet the besiegers, if indeed thou wilt be gracious enough to accept it so ungraciously and tardily given.'

'I will accept it,' replied the countess, with a gratified smile; and Dame Amicia smiled also, seeing that her lady was well pleased, although her deafness prevented her from knowing very clearly her reasons for satisfaction.

The countess had felt that the old dame's infirmity might be convenient, for the chief object of her visit was to question the knight more closely regarding the circumstances of his imprisonment, and she cared not to trust his indictment of Sir Alain to any of her gossip-loving ladies.

'I would that Sir Alain bore not so important a position in the garrison,' she said, after listening again to De Sourdeval's story. 'The Bretons make the most part of our strength, and, save one or two, who are vassals to my lord, he hath them all under his command.'

'Lady,' answered De Sourdeval, 'strive not to see me righted to the detriment of thy welfare. It may well be that De Gourin will serve thee faithfully, though he satisfied a private vengeance against me. Let him not know that I accuse him; say only that thou dost grant me pardon. But be on thy guard against him.'

'It must be so,' answered the countess, '_for the present_.'

So saying, she took her leave, the knight following her with grateful eyes.

When Emma regained her bower, she summoned Eadgyth to her.

'I have news to comfort thy courage,' she said. 'A doughty champion is in the castle. Does not thy heart tell thee his name?'

Eadgyth opened her blue eyes in vague surprise, then cried, with a start of joy,--

'Ah, Emma, dear Emma! hath the earl so soon returned?'

'Fie, maiden! wouldst make me jealous? Doth _thy heart_ suggest the name of my lord?'

'What meanest thou, Emma? Jest not, I pray thee. These days are too terrible for jesting,' said Eadgyth, with distressed mien and paling cheeks.

Emma took both her slender wrists in hers and looked lovingly in her face. 'Nay, we must jest to keep our blood from curdling, Eadgyth. But I will not tease thee. Sweet, 'tis Sir Aimand de Sourdeval of whom I speak.'

Eadgyth said nothing, but met Emma's gaze with eyes in which joy and surprise, and doubt of herself that was almost terror, were struggling for mastery.

Emma drew her gently upon the seat beside her. 'Surely thou art glad to know that he is safe, if thou joyest not that he is near?'

'Ah yes! I am glad--glad indeed of his safety!' replied Eadgyth in a low, thrilling voice, and her hand sought the bracelet which she wore as ever.

'And not of his nearness?'

'I know not! I know not! It means but fresh struggle and misery!' The tears rolled down her cheeks.

'Why struggle, Eadgyth? Fate has united you when all pointed to separation. Eadgyth, he needs thee. I told thee sooth when I said he was in safety. But he has suffered much. He is ill. Be thou his leech. Dame Amicia will attend thee--her motherly heart warms towards the youth.'

'Ill?' Eadgyth looked in the countess's eyes with almost fierce questioning.

'Ill,' repeated Emma, smiling. 'Not dying; not in danger; I said "safe." It is a long story, Eadgyth, but I must tell it thee.'

Then she told the history we already know; and how, after Eadgyth's remark about him on the battlements, it had entered her heart to have a mass said for him; how it had led to his discovery, and how she had visited him in his dungeon.

When she came to that point, and narrated her visit, describing his sorrowful aspect with unconscious pathos, Eadgyth sprang up and clasped her hands above her head. 'Oh, the terrible injustice of it!' she groaned, and afterwards she paced backwards and forwards, unable to control her emotion.

'But thy hero was shrewdly saucy, Eadgyth. Woebegone and desperate as he was,--I almost wish I had let thee see the figure he cut, with his unkempt beard and tangled locks, as long as those of thy Saxon champions,--natheless he would make no terms. I might free him, or leave him chained by the leg like a hobbled steed, as I found him. One might have thought he had passed a pleasant time down there in the dark. He would not even give me his parole not to help our besiegers if I gave him the chance.'

Eadgyth's eyes lighted up with a proud joy. 'That was noble,' she said under her breath.

Emma laughed. 'He had come to a better mind this morning,' she said; 'I found means whereby to tame his proud spirit.'

Eadgyth turned to her with a start, and wild visions of racks and thumbscrews, and other fashionable instruments of the time, passed through her mind. Her spirit was so torn with the terror of the day, and the excitement she had undergone, that she did not pause to consider probabilities. 'Emma! thou hadst not heart to crush one so unhappy?'

'I had!' said Emma.

Eadgyth's eyes looked dumb reproach more eloquent than words.

'Yes,' said Emma; 'I hold not the office of Castellan of Blauncheflour by halves! I made use of my power.'

'What didst thou do?' asked Eadgyth in a scarcely audible voice.

'I gave him his liberty without conditions, and had him lodged in one of the best apartments of the castle. _That_ touched my knight's pride; he would not have me outdo him in generosity, so he capitulated this morning, and offered me his parole without further asking!' and the countess broke into a silvery peal of laughter.

'Oh, Emma, that was like thy dear self!' cried Eadgyth, running to the countess, throwing herself on her knees before her, and hiding her head in Emma's robes like a repentant child.

Emma kissed her. 'Now, maiden, thy part must be done. The knight has promised neither to help the enemy nor to attempt escape. Be it for thee to persuade him to buckle on his harness and fight for us. He can scarce see thy sweet face, and know thou art in danger, and not lift his hand to help thee!'

'_I_ persuade him!--to break his knightly vows and fight against his lawful liege? Never!' cried Eadgyth, raising her head and throwing it back proudly. 'Strange,' she continued, more to herself than to the countess, indeed, scarce knowing that she spoke aloud, 'how thy haught courage and noble generosity are allied with so little sense of moral right!'

A flash of pain and some indignation crossed the countess's brow. 'I deny thy right to judge me,' she said coldly. 'There are some who strain after such high ideals, they fail to see the duties that lie near; gratitude, for instance, and the welfare of their friends!'

Eadgyth was silent, for she felt that Emma was unjust; she would have given her life to serve her, though she would not go a step against her conscience.

'Sir Aimand has suffered much,' said the countess gently, after a pause. 'He is out of health and out of hope. A little happiness would serve him in better stead than an armful of herbs and simples. Go to him, Eadgyth! Encourage his contumacy if thou wilt, but go to him.'

And Eadgyth went.