Kitobni o'qish: «In the Days of Chivalry: A Tale of the Times of the Black Prince»

CHAPTER I. THE TWIN EAGLETS

Autumn was upon the world – the warm and gorgeous autumn of the south – autumn that turned the leaves upon the trees to every hue of russet, scarlet, and gold, that transformed the dark solemn aisles of the trackless forests of Gascony into what might well have been palaces of fairy beauty, and covered the ground with a thick and soundless carpet of almost every hue of the rainbow.

The sun still retained much of its heat and power, and came slanting in between the huge trunks of the forest trees in broad shafts of quivering light. Overhead the soft wind from the west made a ceaseless, dreamy music and here and there the solemn silence of the forest was broken by the sweet note of some singing bird or the harsh croak of the raven. At night the savage cry of the wolf too often disturbed the rest of the scattered dwellers in that vast forest, and made a belated traveller look well to the sharpness of his weapons and the temper of his bowstring; but by day and in the sunlight the forest was beautiful and quiet enough – something too quiet, perhaps, for the taste of the two handsome lads who were pacing the dim aisles together, their arms entwined and their curly heads in close proximity as they walked and talked.

The two lads were of exactly the same height, and bore a strong likeness one to the other. Their features were almost identical, but the colouring was different, so that no one who saw them in a good light would be likely to mistake or confuse them. Both had the oval face and delicate regular features which we English sometimes call "foreign-looking;" but then again they both possessed the broad shoulders, the noble height, the erect carriage, and frank, fearless bearing which has in it something distinctively English, and which had distinguished these lads from their infancy from the children of the country of their adoption. Then, though Raymond had the dark, liquid eyes of the south, Gaston's were as blue as the summer skies; and again, whilst Gaston's cheek was of a swarthy hue, Raymond's was as fair as that of an English maiden; and both had some golden gleams in their curly brown hair – hair that clustered round their heads in a thick, waving mass, and gave a leonine look to the bold, eager faces. "The lion cubs" had been one of the many nicknames given to the brothers by the people round, who loved them, yet felt that they would not always keep them in their quiet forest. "The twin eaglets" was another such name; and truly there was something of the keen wildness of the eagle's eye in the flashing blue eyes of Gaston. The eager, delicate features and the slightly aquiline noses of the pair added, perhaps, to this resemblance; and there had been many whispers of late to the effect that the eaglets would not remain long in the nest now, but would spread their wings for a wider flight.

Born and bred though they had been at the mill in the great forest that covered almost the whole of the district of Sauveterre, they were no true children of the mill. What had scions of the great house of the De Brocas to do with a humble miller of Gascony? The boys were true sons of their house – grafts of the parent stock. The Gascon peasants looked at them with pride, and murmured that the day would come when they would show the world the mettle of which they were made. Those were stirring times for Gascony – when Gascony was a fief of the English Crown, sorely coveted by the French monarch, but tenaciously held on to by the "Roy Outremer," as the great Edward was called; the King who, as was rumoured, was claiming as his own the whole realm of France. And Gascony, it must be remembered, did not in those days hold herself to be a part of France nor a part of the French monarchy. She held a much more important place than she would have done had she been a mere fief of the French Crown. She had a certain independence of her own – her own language, her own laws, her own customs and she saw no humiliation in owning the sovereignty of England's King, since she bad passed under English rule through no act of conquest or aggression on England's part, but by the peaceful fashion of marriage, when nearly two centuries ago Eleanor of Aquitaine had brought to her lord, King Henry the Second, the fair lands of which Gascony formed a part. Gascony had grown and flourished apace since then, and was rich, prosperous, and content. Her lords knew how important she might be in days to come, when the inevitable struggle between the rival Kings of France and England should commence; and like an accomplished coquette, she made the most of her knowledge, and played her part well, watching her opportunity for demanding an increase of those rights and privileges of which she had not a few already.

But it was not of their country's position that the twin brothers were so eagerly talking as they wandered together along the woodland paths. It was little indeed that they knew of what was passing in the wide world that lay beyond their peaceful home, little that they heard of the strife of party or the suspicious jealousy of two powerful monarchs – jealousy which must, as all long-sighted men well knew, break into open warfare before long. It was of matters nearer to their own hearts that the brothers spoke as they sauntered through the woodland paths together; and Gaston's blue eyes flashed fire as he paused and tossed back the tangled curls from his broad brow.

"It is our birthright – our land, our castle. Do they not all say that in old days it was a De Brocas, not a Navailles, that ruled there? Father Anselm hath told us a thousand times how the English King issued mandate after mandate bidding him give up his ill-gotten gains, and restore the lands of his rival; and yet he failed to do it. I trow had I been in the place of our grandsire, I would not so tamely have sat down beneath so great an affront. I would have fought to the last drop of my blood to enforce my rights, and win back my lost inheritance Brother, why should not thou and I do that one day? Canst thou be content for ever with this tame life with honest Jean and Margot at the mill? Are we the sons of peasants? Does their blood run in our veins? Raymond, thou art as old as I – thou hast lived as long. Canst thou remember our dead mother? Canst thou remember her last charge to us?"

Raymond had nodded his head at the first question; he nodded it again now, a glance of strange eagerness stealing into his dark eyes. Although the two youths wore the dress of peasant boys – suits of undyed homespun only very slightly finer in make than was common in those parts – they spoke the English tongue, and spoke it with purity and ease. It needed no trained eye to see that it was something more than peasant blood that ran in their veins, albeit the peasant race of Gascony in those days was perhaps the freest, the finest, the most independent in the whole civilized world.

"I remember well," answered Raymond quickly; "nay, what then?"

"What then? Spoke she not of a lost heritage which it behoved us to recover? Spoke she not of rights which the sons of the De Brocas had power to claim – rights which the great Roy Outremer had given to them, and which it was for them to win back when the time should come? Dost thou remember? dost thou heed? And now that we are approaching to man's estate, shall we not think of these things? Shall we not be ready when the time comes?"

Raymond gave a quick look at his brother. His own eyes were full of eager light, but he hesitated a moment before asking:

"And thinkest thou, Gaston, that in speaking thus our mother would fain have had us strive to recover the castle and domain of Saut?"

"In good sooth yea," answered Gaston quickly. "Was it not reft from our grandsire by force? Has it not been kept from him ever since by that hostile brood of Navailles, whom all men hate for their cruelty and oppression? Brother, have we not heard of dark and hideous deeds done in that same castle – deeds that shame the very manhood of those that commit them, and make all honest folk curse them in their hearts? Raymond, thou and I have longed this many a day to sally forth to fight for the Holy Sepulchre against the Saracens; yet have we not a crusade here at home that calls us yet more nearly? Hast thou not thought of it, too, by day, and dreamed of it by night? To plant the De Brocas ensign above the walls of Saut – that would indeed be a thing to live for. Methinks I see the banner already waving over the proud battlements."

Gaston's eyes flashed and glowed, and Raymond's caught an answering gleam, but still he hesitated awhile, and then said:

"I fain would think that some day such a thing might be; but, Brother, he is a powerful and wily noble, and they say that he is high in favour with the Roy Outremer. What chance have two striplings like ourselves against so strong a foe? To take a castle, men must be found, and money likewise, and we have neither; and all men stand in deadly terror of the wrath of the Sieur de Navailles. Do they not keep even our name a secret from him, lest he should swoop down upon the mill with his armed retainers and carry us off thence – so hates he the whole family that bears the name of De Brocas? What could we do against power such as his? I trow nothing. We should be but as pygmies before a giant."

Gaston's face had darkened. He could not gainsay his brother's reluctant words, but he chafed beneath them as a restive horse beneath the curb rein tightly drawn.

"Yet our mother bid us watch and be ready. She spoke often of our lost inheritance, and she knew all the peril, the danger."

Raymond's eyes sought his brother's face. He looked like one striving to recall a dim and almost lost memory.

"But thinkest thou, Gaston, that in thus speaking our mother was thinking of the strong fortress of Saut? I can scarce believe that she would call that our birthright. For we are not of the eldest branch of our house. There must be many whose title would prove far better than our own. We might perchance win it back to the house of De Brocas by act of conquest; but even so, I misdoubt me if we should hold it in peace. We have proud kinsfolk in England, they tell us, whose claim, doubtless, would rank before ours. They care not to cross the water to win back the lands themselves, yet I trow they would put their claim before the King did tidings reach them that their strong and wily foe had been ousted therefrom. We win not back lands for others to hold, nor would we willingly war against our own kindred. Methinks, my Brother, that our mother had other thoughts in her mind when she spoke of our rightful inheritance."

"Other thoughts! nay, now, what other thoughts?" asked Gaston, with quick impatience. "I have never dreamed but of Saut. I have called it in my thoughts our birthright ever since we could walk far enow to look upon its frowning battlements perched upon yon wooded crag."

And Gaston stretched out his hand in the direction in which the Castle of Saut lay, not many leagues distant.

"We have heard naught save of Saut ever since we could run alone. What but that could our mother's words have boded? Sure she looked to us to recover yon fortress as our father once meant to do?"

"I know not altogether, and yet I can scarce believe it was so. Would that our father had left some commands we might have followed. But, Brother, canst thou not recall that other name she spoke so many a time and oft as she lay a-dying? Sure it was some such name as Basildon or Basildene – the name of some fair spot, I trow, where she must once have lived. Gaston, canst thou remember the day when she called us to her, and joined our hands together, and spoke of us as 'the twin brothers of Basildene'? I have scarce thought of it from that hour to this, but it comes back now clearly to my mind. In sooth, it might well have been of Basildene she was thinking when she gave us that last charge. What could she have known or cared for Saut and its domain? She had fled hither from England, I know not why. She knew but little of the ways and the thoughts of those amongst whom she had come to dwell. It might well have been of her own land that she was thinking so oft. I verily believe that Basildene is our lost inheritance."

"Basildene!" said Gaston quickly, with a start as of recollection suddenly stirred to life; "sure I remember the name right well now that thy words bring it back to mind. Yet it is years since I have heard it spoke. Raymond, knowest thou where is this Basildene?"

"In England, I well believe," was the answer of the other brother. "Methinks it was the name of our mother's home. I seem to remember how she told us of it – the old house over the sea, where she had lived. Perchance it was once her own in very sooth, and some turbulent baron or jealous kinsman drove her forth from it, even as we of the house of De Brocas have been ousted from the Castle of Saut. Brother, if that be so, Basildene is more our inheritance than yon gloomy fortress can be. We are our mother's only children, and when she joined our hands together she called us the twins of Basildene. I trow that we have an inheritance of our very own, Gaston, away over the blue water yonder."

Gaston's eyes flashed with sudden ardour and purpose.

Often of late had the twins talked together of the future that lay before them, of the doughty deeds they would accomplish; yet so far nothing of definite purpose had entered into their minds. Gaston's dreams had been all of the ancient fortress of Saut, now for long years passed into the hands of the hostile family, the terrible and redoubtable Sieur de Navailles, who was feared throughout the length and breadth of the country round about his house. Raymond had been dimly conscious of other thoughts and purposes, but memory was only gradually recalling to his mind the half-forgotten days of childhood, when the twin eaglets had stood at their mother's knee to talk with her in her own tongue of the land across the water where was her home – the land to which their father had lately passed, upon some mission the children were too young to understand.

Now the faint dim memories had returned clear and strong. The long silence was broken. Eagerly the boys strove to recall the past, and bit by bit things pieced themselves together in their minds till they could not but marvel how they had so long forgotten. Yet it is often so in youth. Days pass by one after the other unnoticed and unmarked. Then all in a moment some new train of thought or purpose is awakened, a new element enters life, making it from that day something different; and by a single bound the child becomes a youth – the youth a man.

Some such change as this was passing over the twin brothers at this time. A deep-seated dissatisfaction with their present surroundings had long been growing up in their hearts. They were happy in a fashion in the humble home at the mill, with good Jean the miller, and Margot his wife who had been their nurse and a second mother to them all their lives; but they knew that a great gulf divided them from the Gascon peasants amongst whom they lived – a gulf recognized by all those with whom they came in contact, and in nowise bridged by the fact that the brothers shared in a measure the simple peasant life, and had known no other.

Their very name of De Brocas spoke of the race of nobles who had long held almost sovereign rights over a large tract of country watered by the Adour and its many tributary streams; and although at this time, the year of grace 1342, the name of De Brocas was no more heard, but that of the proud Sieur de Navailles who now reigned there instead, the old name was loved and revered amongst the people, and the boys were bred up in all the traditions of their race, till the eagle nature at last asserted itself, and they felt that life could no longer go on in its old accustomed groove. Had they not been taught from infancy that a great future lay before them? and what could that future be but the winning back of their old ancestral lands and rights?

Perhaps they would have spoken more of this deeply-seated hope had it not been so very chimerical – so apparently impossible of present fulfilment. To wrest from the proud and haughty Sieur de Navailles the vast territory and strong castle that had been held by him in open defiance of many mandates from a powerful King, was a task that even the sanguine and ambitious boys knew to be a hundred times too hard for them. If they had dreamed of it in their hearts, they had scarce named the hope even to each other. But today the brooding silence had been broken. The twins had taken counsel one with the other; and now burning thoughts of this other fair inheritance were in the minds of both. What golden possibilities did not open out before them? How small a matter it seemed to cross the ocean and claim as their own that unknown Basildene! Both were certain that their mother had held it in her own right. Sure, if there were right or justice in the kingdom of the Roy Outremer, they would but have to show who and what they were, to become in very fact what their mother had loved to call them – the twin brothers of Basildene.

How their young hearts swelled with delighted expectation at the thought of leaving behind the narrow life of the mill, and going forth into the wide world to seek fame and fortune there! And England was no such foreign land to them, albeit they had never been above ten leagues from the mill where they had been born and brought up. Was not their mother an Englishwoman? Had she not taught them the language of her country, and begged them never to forget it? And could they not speak it now as well as they spoke the language of Gascony – better than they spoke the French of the great realm to which Gascony in a fashion belonged?

The thought of travel always brings with it a certain exhilaration, especially to the young and ardent, and thoughts of such a journey on such a quest could not but be tinged with all the rainbow hues of hope.

"We will go; we will go right soon!" cried Gaston. "Would that we could go tomorrow! Why have we lingered here so long, when we might have been up and doing years ago?"

"Nay, Brother, we were but children years ago. We are not yet sixteen. Yet methinks our manhood comes the faster to us for that noble blood runs in our veins. But we will speak to Father Anselm. He has always been our kindest friend. He will best counsel us whether to go forth, or whether to tarry yet longer at home – "

"I will tarry no longer; I pant to burst my bonds," cried the impetuous Gaston; and Raymond was in no whit less eager, albeit he had something more of his mother's prudence and self-restraint.

"Methinks the holy Father will bid us go forth," he said thoughtfully. "He has oft spoken to us of England and the Roy Outremer, and has ever bidden us speak our mother's tongue, and not forget it here in these parts where no man else speaks it. I trow he has foreseen the day when we should go thither to claim our birthright. Our mother told him many things that we were too young to hear. Perchance he could tell us more of Basildene than she ever did, if we go to him and question him thereupon."

Gaston nodded his head several times.

"Thou speakest sooth, Brother," said he. "We will go to him forthwith. We will take counsel with him, albeit – "

Gaston did not finish his sentence, for two reasons. One was that his brother knew so well what words were on his lips that speech was well-nigh needless; the other, that he was at that moment rudely interrupted. And although the brothers had no such thought at the time, it is probable that this interruption and its consequences had a very distinct bearing upon their after lives, and certainly it produced a marked effect upon the counsel they subsequently received from their spiritual father, who, but for that episode, might strongly have dissuaded the youths from going forth so young into the world.

The interruption came in the form of an angry hail from a loud and gruff voice, full of impatience and resentment.

"Out of my path, ye base-born peasants!" shouted a horseman who had just rounded the sharp angle taken by the narrow bridle path, and was brought almost to a standstill by the tall figures of the two stalwart youths, which took up the whole of the open way between the trees and their thick undergrowth. "Stand aside, ye idle loons! Know ye not how to make way for your betters? Then, in sooth, I will teach you a lesson;" and a thick hide lash came whirling through the air and almost lighted upon the shoulders of Gaston, who chanced to be the nearer.

But such an insult as that was not to be borne. Even a Gascon peasant might well have sprung upon a solitary adversary of noble blood had he ventured to assault him thus, without support from his train of followers. As for Gaston, he hesitated not an instant, but with flashing eyes he sprang at the right arm of his powerful adversary, and had wrested the whip from him and tossed it far away before the words were well out of the angry lord's mouth.

With a great oath the man drew his sword; but the youth laughed him to scorn as he stepped back out of reach of the formidable weapon. He well knew his advantage. Light of foot, though all unarmed, he could defy any horseman in this wooded spot. No horse could penetrate to the right or left of the narrow track. Even if the knight dismounted, the twin brothers, who knew every turn and winding of these dim forest paths, could lead him a fine dance, and then break away and let him find his way out as best he could. Fearless and impetuous as Gaston ever was, at this moment his fierce spirit was stirred more deeply within him than it had ever been before, for in this powerful warrior who had dared to insult both him and his brother, ay, and their mother's fair fame too – he recognized the lineaments of the hated Sieur de Navailles.

The more cautious Raymond had done the same, and now he spoke in low though urgent accents.

"Have a care, Brother! Knowest thou who it be?"

"Know? ay, that I do. It is he who now holds by force and tyranny those fair lands which should be ours – lands which our forefathers held from generation to generation, which should be theirs now, were right and justice to be had, as one day it may be, when the Roy Outremer comes in person, as men say he will one day come, and all men may have access to his royal presence. And he, the tyrant, the usurper, dares to call us base born, to call us peasants, we who own a nobler name than he!

"The day will come, proud man, when thou shalt rue the hour when thou spakest thus to me – to me who am thy equal, ay, and more than thy equal, in birth, and who will some day come and prove it to thee at the sword's point!"

Many expressions had flitted over the rider's face as these bold words had been spoken – anger, astonishment, then an unspeakable fury, which made Gaston look well to the hand which held the shining sword; last of all an immense astonishment of a new kind, a perplexity not unmixed with dismay, and tinged with a lively curiosity. As the youth ceased speaking the knight sheathed his sword, and when he replied his voice was pitched in a very different key.

"I pray you pardon, young sirs," he said, glancing quickly from one handsome noble face to the other. "I knew not that I spoke to those of gentle birth. The dress deceived me. Tell me now, good youths, who and whence are ye? You have spoken in parables so far; tell me more plainly, what is your name and kindred?"

Raymond, who had heard somewhat of the enmity of the Sieur de Navailles, and knew that their identity as sons of the house of De Brocas had always been kept from his knowledge, here pressed his brother's arm as though to suggest the necessity for caution; but Gaston's hot blood was up. The talk they had been holding together had strung his nerves to the utmost pitch of tension. He was weary of obscurity, weary of the peasant life. He cared not how soon he threw off the mask. Asked a downright question, even by a foe, it was natural to him to make a straightforward answer, and he spoke without fear and without hesitation.

"We are the sons of Arnald de Brocas. De Brocas is our name; we can prove it whenever such proof becomes needful. Our fathers held these fair lands long ere you or yours did. The day may come when a De Brocas may reign here once more, and the cursed brood of Navailles be rooted out for ever."

And without waiting to see the effect produced by such words upon the haughty horseman, the two brothers dashed off into the wood, and were speedily lost to sight.