CHAPTER XXIII.

HOW OLIVER DIED.

But there was little time for asking questions and making inquiries, or for celebrating the exploits of heroes, Norman or Anglo-Dane.

The morning light was creeping up the east, and the chirp and twitter of wakening sparrows was the signal for the battering-rams and pickers to commence their ominous clatter.

The attack was made at several points simultaneously; and all the strength of the garrison, weakened as it was by the losses of a month of strife, was needed on the walls.

From every loophole the archers and slingers aimed whizzing arrows and hurtling stones upon the columns of the assailants, and from between the merlons great sacks of wool and horsehair were suspended to protect the walls from the battering-rams, while huge logs of timber were hurled upon the pickers. Molten lead and boiling water was poured down upon the heads of the besiegers like a veritable hell-rain.

But for all their efforts the assault made progress. In two distinct places the walls were so battered that horsemen could have ridden through the breach.

The garrison did their best to throw up earthworks inside the broken walls, and fought valiantly to defend them, sallying forth at intervals with the impetus of men who felt their case desperate.

But the besiegers fought with fury also. They were weary of dallying week after week before the walls of a castle which was under the command of a woman, and were determined to get the mastery, if energy and valour could accomplish it.

The countess, mounting the battlements of the keep one day, that she might see for herself the working of the mighty engines which were plied against her stronghold, had seen Earl William de Warrenne and Robert Malet standing together in one of the wooden towers already described. As she bent forward to look below, a stone from a petronel struck the wall not far beneath her, and the fragments and dust flew into her face and upon the wall on which her hand had rested.

Her noble adversaries, who were watching her, could not repress an exclamation of dismay at this; but Emma, without blenching, took her kerchief from her gipsire and nonchalantly dusted the walls with it.

'You do well to fight a housewife with dust, fair sirs!' she cried, sending a mocking peal of silvery laughter to follow her words.

Such taunts were not unheeded or forgiven. They helped to nerve the leaders who led the attack; and they were men who were accustomed to lead their men to victory. On this day the chequered shield of Earl Warrenne pressed forward as if it were possessed of magic powers, which made it proof against every blow, and wherever it went it had eager followers; while young Robert Malet showed himself the worthy son of his great father. As for the Bishop of Coutances, he contented himself with blessing the column before it started, and reminding the soldiers that the brother of the Countess Emma was an excommunicated man.

Earl Warrenne strained every nerve to make the assault a success. He led his men in person to the breach; and his strong voice dominated the tumult with trumpet tones, as he cried, 'Dex aie! For William the Norman!'

'A Warrenne! a Warrenne!' responded his men, as they struggled forward over the counter-scarp, under a pelting hail of arrows and javelins from the battlements.

Within the breach stood Leofric Ealdredsson, holding his great double-edged axe in his hand, with his men arranged in a Saxon wedge, the front row kneeling, with shield touching shield, and a forest of spears bristling out above them, like the spines of a porcupine. They answered the Norman battle-cry with a wild shout that made the walls ring again, and echoed up the sides of the keep behind them, 'Ahoi! ahoi! A Guader! a Guader!' otherwise they were motionless as statues.

Earl Warrenne had won experience of that formation at Hastings, and he well knew how invulnerable it was, and how the terrible seaxes could crash through helm and hauberk. He knew how stratagem alone had prevailed over it; how pretended flight had cheated the Saxons into pursuit, and how they had so foregone their advantage; and he determined to employ the same device again.

So he leapt his horse in over the shattered wall, and his men-at-arms followed him, but spent their force in vain on the living rampart before them; more than one reeled with cleft helmet from the saddle, and Warrenne himself wavered and turned.

Seeing their leader give way, the band broke and pressed tumultuously back over the temporary drawbridge thrown across the waterless moat for their use; and Leofric and his men sprang forward to pursue them.

Then Warrenne turned again with a fierce rallying cry, and his knights, used to strict discipline, and instantly understanding his aim, turned with him, and, as at Hastings, the advantage was won. It was a hazardous experiment, but it had succeeded.

Man to man the battleaxes and spearmen were no match for the mailed and mounted Normans. The struggle was bitter. Horses and knights, Normans and English, fell cursing and kicking from the bridge into the moat. But Earl Warrenne, with a bevy of knights at his heels, made their way through the breach, penetrating into the courtyard of the castle; while Leofric lay senseless on the bridge, with his yellow curls dangling over the edge, streaked with crimson, and dripping red drops into the gulf below.

So the king's men had made their way within the walls of Blauncheflour, after two months of strong endeavour; and the sight of Warrenne's chequered banner inside the defences they had held so manfully brought terror into the hearts of the besieged. Their unnerved arms struck feeble blows; and the king's knights rode them down, driving them to the very stairway of the great entrance to the donjon keep.

All at once, from above their heads came a clear voice like a clarion,--

'St. Nicholas for Guader! A Guader! a Guader! Shall your lord come back, and find his castle lost?'

There, on the platform before the grand entrance, stood a white-robed figure, with uplifted arms and a wildly shining face, which set the half-pagan Anglo-Danes thinking of Valkyries and Norns, and the Bretons and Normans of angels and saints; but when they recognised the face of Emma the countess, they shouted a mighty shout, and the blood came back into their hearts with a great glow of determination, and they rushed once more fiercely against their assailants.

'I am here to see how bravely you maintain his cause in his absence!' cried Emma from the portal.

Then the knights mixed in the wild _mêlée_ at her feet; while the king's archers shot their whizzing shafts from the wooden towers, and the king's slingers hurled their leaden balls and stones, fighting the men who upheld the East Anglian banners on the walls. Whether or no every arrow had its billet, as it is said every bullet has in modern days, many an arrow flew far beyond the men at whom it was aimed, and whistled down into the courtyard.

As the besieged knights looked for inspiration to their beloved Châtelaine, brimming over with the strong desire to distinguish themselves before her eyes, they saw a cloth-yard shaft fly straight to her white figure, and strike the tender form they were burning to protect, marring it with a crimson streak. A great howl of rage rose up against the sky, and the passion of vengeance nerved their arms with furious force.

They sprang at the foe, who had also seen the arrow strike its mark, and had paused a moment in chivalrous horror, and so were unprepared to meet the onslaught. Thus the tide of battle turned once more, and Earl Warrenne and his followers were driven out through the breach by which they had entered.

Then, when the knights of the garrison rode back in grievous haste to satisfy their anxiety for their lord's bride, the countess still stood before the portal, laughing, though the arrow stuck in her arm.

'See!' she said, 'it is nothing! Only a flesh-wound. I have leeched a hundred worse.'

The Normans and the Bretons and the Saxons all joined in tumultuous cheers, and vowed to save their countess and their castle if they died to the last man.

'_Merci!_ brave hearts!' cried the countess. 'That was well spoken! Holy Mary grant my lord may relieve us ere many days are past!'

Then they entreated her to have her wound looked to; and she swept away to the spital, and there had the arrow cut out of her white arm, so all her wounded warriors might see; and the legend of her unflinching courage spread like wildfire through the garrison, and even into the camp of the besiegers without.

'By St. Michael!' cried Robert Malet, 'these rebels seem to have the knack of coining heroines. Thou and my father, Earl Warrenne, had shrewd experience of Hereward's witch of a wife in the Fenlands by Ely,--how she wound up the wild galliards her husband got to follow him with her sorceries and incantations till they were at the point of madness! Sooth, methinks we have to deal with such another.'

Then Leofric Ealdredsson, who had been carried into the camp, and lay within earshot, raised himself up and swore mightily.

'No witch was Torfrida,' he cried in anger, 'but as true and noble a woman as ever God made! So truly is De Guader's countess, Norman though she be!'

At which the king's captains laughed, and turned to Leofric.

'Ay! thou wast one of that pestilent Hereward's most saucy upholders, I well remember; and now thou art leader in this hornet's nest also, I trow!' said Earl William. 'Dost thou know the mark we are bid to set on all our prisoners in this affair, to the end that we may recognise them again when we meet them?'

'Do your worst, usurping cowards!' answered the furious Anglo-Dane. 'When Sweyn Ulfsson follows De Guader home, and claims his own, and drives the tanner's grandson from the throne he has stolen, he will put _his_ mark on _you_ in return, I warrant me!'

Malet's face grew dark; for William himself and William's followers resented no insult so deeply as any allusion to the honest fell-monger of Falaise.

But Earl Warrenne was too wise to quarrel with a wounded man, and said good-humouredly,--

''Twould be a pity to lop a limb from so fine a warrior as thyself, noble Leofric. Perhaps some exception can be made in this case. We are told that Sir Aimand de Sourdeval is detained in Blauncheflour against his will, and that he is faithful to the king. If that be so, an exchange might be effected.'

Leofric, who did not relish the prospect of having his right foot hewed off, courageous as he was, gasped for joy at this proposition. It meant even more to him than escape from cripplehood for life; it meant that he would regain entrance into Blauncheflour, and be near the fair cousin who had become dear to his heart, and that his rival would be parted from her.

'That is true,' he said eagerly. 'The knight is there, and has refused to strike a blow against the king's troops.'

Meanwhile the sun was sinking in the sky, and with night came partial cessation of hostilities. The besieged were holding council as to what step should next be taken, but the counsellors had dwindled in number. Sir Alain de Gourin was no longer there with his purple face and blatant ways, but he could be better spared than Leofric, and than several others who had fallen during the month.

'We cannot hold the walls another day,' said Sir Hoël sadly; 'there is nothing for it but to retire into the keep. It will take them some time to dislodge us from thence; the masonry is solid as the earth.'

'And time is all we need!' exclaimed the countess eagerly. She was very pale, and had her arm in bandages, but her eyes were bright with fever and determination, and she insisted on taking her part in the discussion. 'My lord must soon be here.'

'We may hold the keep for months,' said a knight.

'Yes, if manna would fall from heaven,' suggested another jestingly; 'else I fear we must needs eat each other ere many moons had waned.'

'Gentlemen,' said Sir Hoël gravely, 'there is a means by which we may increase our supplies a shade less desperate than that.'

The countess turned to him with anxious curiosity. Sir Hoël continued,--

'We cannot stable all our horses in the keep, some must be sacrificed; better we kill them with our own good swords, and salt their flesh, than let the king's men have them. Horse-flesh may not be palatable, but at least it would be better fare than picking each other's bones. Relief may come before we need fall back on such provender. Still, it will be there.'

A sick shudder of horror passed through Emma's heart. Was famine indeed so near?

The faces of the knights grew serious. No man stood forward to proffer his own steed for the sacrifice. More than one gave evidence, by trembling lip and quickened breathing, of the hardness of the trial. For those mailed warriors were a centaur race. Their steeds were almost a part of themselves. Their lives were constantly hanging on the qualities of their mounts. A hard mouth or a nervous temper might bring them their death any day, and docility and nimble limbs be their safeguard. The horse became a trusted friend, and a champion's destrier was often as celebrated as himself.

The countess's lip trembled also, and her cheeks grew even paler than before, while her heart throbbed in cruel doubt.

For was not Oliver, the earl's noble Spanish warhorse, in the castle? Had she not visited him morning and night, and seen with her own eyes that he had his due ration of corn, and that his satin skin was sleek as grooming could make it? Had she not patted his splendid neck morn and night, and plaited his thick mane, and had his velvet nose thrust into her soft palms for an apple or a wastel cake? She knew how the earl loved the creature, and had misliked leaving him behind, and she herself loved him both for his master's sake and for his own. He seemed to her half human as she thought of his intelligent eyes, and the clear, soft neigh, musical as the whistle of a blackbird, with which he was wont to greet her, and a sob caught her breath as she thought of condemning him to death. She knew also that he was worth his weight in gold.

Yet to sacrifice him seemed to her a clear duty, as she looked round the circle of reluctant men about her. They would never ask it, she knew. Some few horses would be kept, and the earl's destrier amongst them, as a matter of course; but she remembered how she had heard it told of William the Conqueror, that when, on his march on Chester, his men, weary with labour and cold, begged him to let them go back, he dismounted and went afoot to encourage them, and shared all their hardships. Was her lord a less generous knight than William? A thousand times no! If he were in Blauncheflour, he would be the first to lead the sacrifice. As he was absent, she must do it for him. These thoughts flashed through her mind in a moment, though they are long to write.

'Thou art right, Sir Hoël,' she said in a steady voice. ''Tis like killing a child for a knight to kill his steed, I well understand. Yet it is but wisdom as we are circumstanced, and I make no doubt if my lord were here, he would be the first to make the sacrifice. Therefore I beg thee, dear Sir Hoël,'--she laid her left hand on his arm, and would have put the other with it, had it not been stiffened with bandages, and looked into his face with her clear, brave eyes, very pathetic now, with heavy rings of blue round them, and thin, wan cheeks beneath,--'I beg thee, dear Sir Hoël, despatch my lord's destrier with thine own blade, and see that he suffer no needless pain.'

A chorus of protests burst from the knights; not a man but offered his steed to save Oliver; but the countess said hastily, 'Attend to my behest, I pray thee, Sir Hoël!' and hurried from the room.

She went to her bower, where Eadgyth was awaiting her. She had not trusted any of her ladies to attend her in her council-chamber, lest their courage should give way, and so weaken her influence over the knights. Now, when she met Eadgyth's look of tender inquiry, and felt her caressing arms round her, she was overcome herself. She dropped her poor weary head on Eadgyth's shoulder and wept--wept as she had never done in her life before--no, not even in the chapel through that long sad night when she believed herself a widow; for her fresh young strength was in its prime then, and now she was weakened physically by the strain of continued anxiety and the acute pain of her wounded arm.

The storm of sobs was so long and violent, that Eadgyth, who had scarcely ever seen her cry, was sore afraid. She dreaded that some fell disaster had befallen.

But she was a good comforter; she did not tease with questions, she only pressed her friend fondly to her, and kissed and caressed her till she grew calmer.

'Oh, Eadgyth,' said the countess at length, 'they are going to kill the horses, and Ralph's destrier must die. The dear Oliver!'

To Eadgyth this reason for such excessive grief seemed almost absurd, and her blue eyes opened widely.

'Oh, I am a poor weak fool!' said Emma, drawing away, 'to break down so utterly. But my arm aches shrewdly, Eadgyth, and I am not used to pain.'

She threw herself upon the embroidered bed, tears rolling silently down her cheeks.

'Poor sweet!' said Eadgyth. 'I do not marvel that even thy wonderful spirit should yield to nature. This day has been fearful indeed.'

'Why does not Ralph come? Why does he not come?' exclaimed Emma, covering her face with her slender hands, which had grown so thin that she could scarce keep on her wedding ring. 'My heart is full of fears, Eadgyth. I dreamt of him last night, ill and sorrowful, tossing on a bed of fever. He was ill when he went away, his wounds half-healed. It is all doubt and dread--and horror!'

'Ah, Christ have mercy upon us!' said Eadgyth, who was kneeling beside the bed.

'I dare not ask for mercy,' said Emma piteously. 'I am fighting in a wrong cause! Thy Sir Aimand said it. I have brought all this woe and suffering on the man who loved me, and on those who love him and follow him, like leal knights and true!'

'Oh, do not torment yourself with such thoughts, sweet heart! Surely it was no wrong cause to strive with the oppressor of this wretched land,--he whose minions were killing the heart out of his victims with every species of wrong and outrage!'

The tears were running swiftly enough down Eadgyth's cheeks now.

'Alas!' said Emma, 'I fear we thought less of that than of our own revenge and ambition.'

'But how couldst thou have helped it?'

'I might have helped it. I might have refused to marry against the king's command, and gone into a convent, and then the bride-ale would never have been, nor its direful following.'

'Perchance it had been better,' said Eadgyth thoughtfully.

'No, it would not have been better!' cried Emma, starting up, impatient at Eadgyth's acquiescence; she had given her scruples voice that they might be combated, not confirmed. 'I would go through it all again and more to be Ralph's wife, and I am a contemptible coward, a _noding_, to be puling here because my roses are not thornless, when I might be helping to keep my hero's castle for him!'

She sprang from the bed, and insisted on going to the spital to leech the day's wounded, though Eadgyth told her that she needed leeching far more sorely herself.

Yet in all her self-abandonment she had spared Eadgyth, and had not told her that they were to be imprisoned in the keep from that day forth, nor that her cousin Leofric Ealdredsson was dead or in the hands of the enemy.