The Siege of Norwich Castle Part 22

The countess listened with kindling eyes and glowing cheeks.

'A device worthy of a hero!' she exclaimed. 'Let the garrison be summoned to the courtyard of the castle, and I will tell them these brave news. I would they should receive them from mine own lips. See also that this worthy messenger enjoys all hospitality the castle may afford.'

She unfastened a golden collar from her neck, and added it to the many bracelets which already glittered upon the Dane's muscular arms.

The warrior thanked her earnestly, with the frank reverence which characterised the wild sea-kings in their behaviour to women.

Half-an-hour later, the countess, arrayed in her richest robes, with steel-cap on her head, and her gorget glistening in the morning sun as it rose and fell with the swift heaving of her bosom, stood at the great east portal, with the Danish messenger at her side, and looked down upon the eager faces of the hastily a.s.sembled garrison.

A rumour had gone forth that the earl had escaped, and would yet return in triumph, and a glow of excitement lighted every eye. As Emma saw the stalwart forms and the strong determined countenances before her, a thrill of pride swelled her heart at the thought that her warrior husband should have given her command over them. The spirit of William Fitzosbern lived again in the breast of his daughter. 'I will be worthy of the honour that Ralph's choice bestowed on me,' she thought. 'If aught a woman can say or do may inspire men to gallant deeds, these men shall not fail their lord.'

Emotion brought high words to her lips and fire to her eyes. Her heart verily shouted with delight for the joyful message which she had to deliver. 'Brave knights and soldiers!' she cried, and her voice rang through the fresh morning air like the clang of a silver trumpet, 'glad news have I for loyal ears. Earl Ralph yet lives! See, this missive is signed by his own n.o.ble hand! His signet blazes on my finger!'

She held the scroll aloft in her hands, and the suns.h.i.+ne flashed on the ring.

'A Guader! a Guader!' shouted the a.s.sembled host; and arms were raised and weapons clashed, while some three hundred stout throats echoed the shout, 'St. Nicholas for Guader!'

'Yesterday your countess and her counsellors were sore distressed,'

Emma went on; 'for, as ye know, the unfortunate squire, Stephen le Hareau, and those who followed him, believed that the earl was slain; but we would not vex ye with our grief till doubt was changed into certainty. Doubt _is_ changed into certainty;--but a certainty of life, not death!'

A roar of cheers rent the air again.

'Yes, your lord lives!' cried Emma. 'His first field is lost, but it will not be his last! He is wounded, sorely, but not dangerously. See!

so the letter says! His way is open to Denmark. This gallant Dane has borne his message across field and over flood, faithfully, as he helped to carry the earl himself from the battlefield.'

She turned to the messenger beside her, who clashed his great axe upon his round wooden s.h.i.+eld, with its strange embossing of iron nails, and shouted 'Waes hael!'

Then Emma told again the story of the earl's rescue, though she did not reveal his hiding-place, lest there should be traitors in the camp, and how he intended to take s.h.i.+p for Denmark to ask aid of King Sweyn, 'who,' she said,'has already promised it. Then the earl will seek his own fair lands in Bretagne, and he will call his va.s.sals to his standard, and come across the sea at the head of a great host to relieve his faithful garrison in Blauncheflour. Is any man so mean of heart that he will not vow to good St. Nicholas to do his best to keep the castle to that hour? If so, let him declare himself a _noding_, and quit the company of gallant men!'

'Not one! Not one!' rang round the castle yard, and echoed back from the high stone tower of the keep, reverberating in tumultuous thunder from base to summit.

Then old Sir Hoel de St. Brice took off his plumed barret, and waved it in the air, where he stood behind his lady, his eyes humid and his lips quivering, as he echoed, 'Not one!'

Sir Alain de Gourin, listening with a strange expression of satirical disdain on his florid countenance, rattled his sword from its sheath and waved it in the air, where he stood behind his lady, and shouted with a l.u.s.ty voice, 'Not one!'

'I thank ye, friends!' cried the countess. 'To your strong arms and your loyal hearts I commit my fate and that of my lord. St. Nicholas give ye fort.i.tude!'

Turning to a page who stood beside her with a silver tray, she took a velvet purse from it, and scattered broad pieces amongst the soldiery.

'A largesse! a largesse!' they cried; and all was joy and hilarity.

'Ye shall taste a vintage better than ever grew even in the vineyards of Hereford or Kent,' cried the countess; and she gave orders to the steward to broach a cask of French wine which had been amongst her brother's gifts at the bride-ale; an order which called forth a fresh burst of applause.

'Drink it,' cried Emma, 'to the safe return of your lord!'

CHAPTER XVII.

HOW RALPH CAME HOME.

'Sweet nuncle, methinks some of thy wits adhered to my cap, and that, when I put the same upon thy n.o.ble skull, they found an entrance into it by that crack the wors.h.i.+pful bishop's mace rove therein, else thou hadst never a.s.sayed this mad journey! Why, thou hast scarce taken a step without giving a groan.'

'Have I been so weak, Grillonne?' Earl Ralph asked, a faint smile brightening his pale, worn face.

He was on horseback, but rode at a foot's pace, and bent over the neck of his _hacquenee_ like an aged and decrepit man. He was dressed in a loose flowing Saxon blouse, and had not a link of mail on his person from top to toe. On his left rode Grillonne, who strove to cheer him with loving banter; on his right the young Anglo-Dane, Leofric Ealdredsson, the son of his late host in the Fenland refuge; a little behind came a small band of men-at-arms, a squire leading Ralph's Spanish destrier, and a mule bearing the earl's harness, making some score in all.

'In good sooth,' continued the earl, 'it hath not seemed to me that my path was strewn with rose-leaves, but only with the thorns stripped bare of flowers. Yet would I go through it seven times over to see my lady's face again.'

'Well-a-day, nuncle! and a pretty galliard thou art, forsooth, to figure before a gracious dame, with thy hollow cheeks and thy hawk's eyes glaring out of caverns deep eno' for pixies to bide in,' replied the privileged jester. 'Cogs bones! thou hadst done better to go to Denmark first as thou didst intend, there to have picked up a few stout followers and a little flesh to cover thy worn framework withal. The women ever love the signs of power.'

A jealous pang flushed the earl's gaunt face with a faint hue of red.

What if the fool spoke truth, and Emma should turn from him in his defeat, and embitter his humiliation by fresh reproaches? She had sent him forth with a doubting heart, scarce wis.h.i.+ng him success, in that he fought against her kinsman and suzerain, William of Normandy. All his feudal pomp and glory, at the head of the eager army he then led to battle, had failed to move the bosom of the daughter of William Fitzosbern, who, young as she was, had seen many a fair host go forth with streaming pennons and noisy clarions. How, then, would she greet the weary, wounded wight who crept back to his castle like a thief in the night, with a poor remnant of faithful followers in little better plight than himself?

Truth is seldom palatable to men in high places, and the jester's light words had struck home too surely.

'Thou presumest, Sir Fool!' quoth the earl sharply. 'Thine office doth not establish thee a critic of mine actions!'

'Mercy, sweet nuncle! I cry you mercy! A fool's words count for nothing!' cried Grillonne, looking into his lord's face with so much love in his clear, keen eyes, that De Guader instantly forgave him.

'Thou art the best friend I have, Grillonne!' he said impulsively.

'Nay, there thou dost wrong to a thousand stout hearts, good my lord!'

answered the jester, 'n.o.ble Leofric there amongst the number. But see, thy toils are well-nigh ended. Yonder rise the white walls of Norwich Castle.'

'St. Nicholas be praised!' exclaimed the earl fervently. 'Right glad shall I be to shelter my aching head within the towers. The next bosquet shall serve me for tiring-room. I will show myself in harness as befits a knight.'

Some two hours later, the warders at the great gate of Castle Blauncheflour saw a small troop of hors.e.m.e.n approaching the portal at a foot-pace, amongst them a knight in mail, but without cognisance, or surcoat, or s.h.i.+eld, his countenance covered by his large round helmet, and, riding beside him, a motley-coated jester, whose well-known visage caused a thrill of excitement amongst the guards, greater than the general appearance of the group; for many a similar one had demanded and received admittance within the castle during the preceding days, since Stephen le Hareau had pioneered the fugitives.

This party had little difficulty in gaining entrance, for the faces of the men-at-arms composing it were all more or less familiar to the warders; and, after a short parley, the portcullis was raised and the drawbridge lowered to admit of their pa.s.sage into the courtyard of the castle.

The news that the earl's jester had returned spread like wildfire through the garrison, with the mysterious celerity that sometimes makes it seem as if intelligence was circulated by magic.

Before the new-comers had dismounted from their horses, the countess, who was pa.s.sing from the chapel to the spital, heard the rumour, and came forth into the courtyard to ascertain if it indeed were true.

Sir Alain de Gourin, who had been overlooking some target practice amongst the archers in the tilt-yard, came also to receive and examine the fugitives.

Seeing the countess and the ladies who had followed her, glad that duty gave them the opportunity to satisfy their own curiosity, he louted low, and took his place beside them.

Archers and soldiers of various arms from the guardroom, servants and others, had swarmed from all quarters, and the courtyard was well-nigh full of animated faces.

One new-comer after another was recognised, and, so to speak, 'pa.s.sed'

by De Gourin, and it came to the turn of the helmeted knight to declare himself--most of the others wore round steel-caps with a nasal, which left the features visible.

He doffed his steel headpiece silently, and looked around upon the throng. The gaunt, pale face woke no instant response from the many onlookers, but the countess sprang forward with outstretched arms to his saddle-bow.

'My lord!' she cried. 'Soldiers! do you not know your earl?'