Chivalry Part 13

She found the Marquess in bed, groaning, the coverlet pulled up to his chin. "Pardon, Highness," said Lord Hastings, "but I am an ill man. I cannot rise from this couch."

"I do not question the gravity of your disorder," the Queen retorted, "since it is well known that the same illness brought about the death of Iscariot. Nevertheless, I bid you get up and lead our troops against the Scot."

Now the hand of the Marquess veiled his countenance. "I am an ill man," he muttered, doggedly. "I cannot rise from this couch."

There was a silence.

"My lord," the Queen presently began, "without is an army prepared--yes, and quite able--to defend our England. The one requirement of this army is a leader. Afford them that, my lord--ah, I know that our peers are sold to the Bruce, yet our yeomen at least are honest. Give them, then, a leader, and they cannot but conquer, since G.o.d also is honest and incorruptible. Pardieu! a woman might lead these men, and lead them to victory!"

Hastings answered: "I am ill. I cannot rise from this couch."

"There is no man left in England," said the Queen, "since Sire Edward went into France. Praise G.o.d, I am his wife!" She went away without flurry.

Through the tent-flap Hastings beheld all that which followed. The English force was marshalled in four divisions, each commanded by a bishop and a baron. You could see the men fidgeting, puzzled by the delay; as a wind goes about a corn-field, vague rumors were going about those wavering spears. Toward them rode Philippa, upon a white palfrey, alone and perfectly tranquil. Her eight lieutenants were now gathered about her in voluble protestation, and she heard them out.

Afterward she spoke, without any particular violence, as one might order a strange cur from his room. Then the Queen rode on, as though these eight declaiming persons had ceased to be of interest. She reined up before her standard-bearer, and took the standard in her hand. She began again to speak, and immediately the army was in an uproar; the barons were cl.u.s.tering behind her, in stealthy groups of two or three whisperers each; all were in the greatest amazement and knew not what to do; but the army was shouting the Queen's name.

"Now is England shamed," said Hastings, "since a woman alone dares to encounter the Scot. She will lead them into battle--and by G.o.d! there is no braver person under heaven than yonder Dutch Frau! Friend David, I perceive that your venture is lost, for those men would follow her to storm h.e.l.l if she desired it."

He meditated, and shrugged. "And so would I," said Hastings.

A little afterward a gaunt and haggard old man, bareheaded and very hastily dressed, reined his horse by the Queen's side. "Madame and Queen," said Hastings, "I rejoice that my recent illness is departed.

I shall, by G.o.d's grace, on this day drive the Bruce from England."

Philippa was not given to verbiage. Doubtless she had her emotions, but none was visible upon the honest face. She rested one plump hand upon the big-veined hand of Hastings. That was all. "I welcome back the gallant gentleman of yesterday. I was about to lead your army, my friend, since there was no one else to do it, but I was hideously afraid. At bottom every woman is a coward."

"You were afraid to do it," said the Marquess, "but you were going to do it, because there was no one else to do it! Ho, madame! had I an army of such cowards I would drive the Scot not past the Border but beyond the Orkneys."

The Queen then said, "But you are unarmed."

"Highness," he replied, "it is surely apparent that I, who have played the traitor to two monarchs within the same day, cannot with either decency or comfort survive that day." He turned upon the lords and bishops twittering about his horse's tail. "You merchandise, get back to your stations, and if there was ever an honest woman in any of your families, the which I doubt, contrive to get yourselves killed this day, as I mean to do, in the cause of the honestest and bravest woman our time has known." Immediately the English forces marched toward Merrington.

Philippa returned to her pavilion and inquired for John Copeland. She was informed that he had ridden off, armed, in company with five of her immediate retainers. She considered this strange, but made no comment.

You picture her, perhaps, as spending the morning in prayer, in beatings upon her breast, and in lamentations. Philippa did nothing of the sort. She considered her cause to be so clamantly just that to expatiate to the Holy Father upon its merits would be an impertinence; it was not conceivable that He would fail her; and in any event, she had in hand a deal of sewing which required immediate attention.

Accordingly she settled down to her needlework, while the Regent of England leaned his head against her knee, and his mother told him that ageless tale of Lord Huon, who in a wood near Babylon encountered the King of Faery, and subsequently bereaved an atrocious Emir of his beard and daughter. All this the industrious woman narrated in a low and pleasant voice, while the wide-eyed Regent attended and at the proper intervals gulped his cough-mixture.

You must know that about noon Master John Copeland came into the tent.

"We have conquered," he said. "Now, by the Face!"--thus, scoffingly, he used her husband's favorite oath,--"now, by the Face! there was never a victory more complete! The Scottish army is fled, it is as utterly dispersed from man's seeing as are the sands which dried the letters King Ahasuerus gave the admirable Esther!"

"I rejoice," the Queen said, looking up from her sewing, "that we have conquered, though in nature I expected nothing else--Oh, horrible!"

She sprang to her feet with a cry of anguish. Here in little you have the entire woman; the victory of her armament was to her a thing of course, since her cause was just, whereas the loss of two front teeth by John Copeland was a calamity.

He drew her toward the tent-flap, which he opened. Without was a mounted knight, in full panoply, his arms bound behind him, surrounded by the Queen's five retainers. "In the rout I took him," said John Copeland; "though, as my mouth witnesses, I did not find this David Bruce a tractable prisoner."

"Is that, then, the King of Scots?" Philippa demanded, as she mixed salt and water for a mouthwash. "Sire Edward should be pleased, I think. Will he not love me a little now, John Copeland?"

John Copeland lifted both plump hands toward his lips. "He could not choose," John Copeland said; "madame, he could no more choose but love you than I could choose."

Philippa sighed. Afterward she bade John Copeland rinse his gums and then take his prisoner to Hastings. He told her the Marquess was dead, slain by the Knight of Liddesdale. "That is a pity," the Queen said.

She reflected a while, reached her decision. "There is left alive in England but one man to whom I dare entrust the keeping of the King of Scots. My barons are sold to him; if I retain Messire David by me, one or another lord will engineer his escape within the week, and Sire Edward will be vexed. Yet listen, John--" She unfolded her plan.

"I have long known," he said, when she had done, "that in all the world there was no lady more lovable. Twenty years I have loved you, my Queen, and yet it is only to-day I perceive that in all the world there is no lady more wise than you."

Philippa touched his cheek, maternally. "Foolish boy! You tell me the King of Scots has an arrow-wound in his nose? I think a bread poultice would be best." She told him how to make this poultice, and gave other instructions. Then John Copeland left the tent and presently rode away with his company.

Philippa saw that the Regent had his dinner, and afterward mounted her white palfrey and set out for the battle-field. There the Earl of Neville, as second in command, received her with great courtesy. G.o.d had shown to her Majesty's servants most singular favor: despite the calculations of reasonable men,--to which, she might remember, he had that morning taken the liberty to a.s.sent,--some fifteen thousand Scots were slain. True, her gallant general was no longer extant, though this was scarcely astounding when one considered the fact that he had voluntarily entered the melee quite unarmed. A touch of age, perhaps; Hastings was always an eccentric man: in any event, as epilogue, this Neville congratulated the Queen that--by blind luck, he was forced to concede,--her worthy secretary had made a prisoner of the Scottish King. Doubtless, Master Copeland was an estimable scribe, and yet--Ah, yes, Lord Neville quite followed her Majesty--beyond doubt, the wardage of a king was an honor not lightly to be conferred. Oh, yes, he understood; her Majesty desired that the office should be given some person of rank. And pardie! her Majesty was in the right. Eh?

said the Earl of Neville.

Intently gazing into the man's shallow eyes, Philippa a.s.sented. Master Copeland had acted unwarrantably in riding off with his captive. Let him be sought at once. She dictated to Neville's secretary a letter, which informed John Copeland that he had done what was not agreeable in purloining her prisoner. Let him without delay deliver the King to her good friend the Earl of Neville.

To Neville this was satisfactory, since he intended that once in his possession David Bruce should escape forthwith. The letter, I repeat, suited this smirking gentleman in its tiniest syllable, and the single difficulty was to convey it to John Copeland, for as to his whereabouts neither Neville nor any one else had the least notion.

This was immaterial, however, for they narrate that next day a letter signed with John Copeland's name was found pinned to the front of Neville's tent. I cite a pa.s.sage therefrom: "I will not give up my royal prisoner to a woman or a child, but only to my own lord, Sire Edward, for to him I have sworn allegiance, and not to any woman. Yet you may tell the Queen she may depend on my taking excellent care of King David. I have poulticed his nose, as she directed."

Here was a nonplus, not without its comical side. Two great realms had met in battle, and the king of one of them had vanished like a soap-bubble. Philippa was in a rage,--you could see that both by her demeanor and by the indignant letters she dictated; true, none of these letters could be delivered, since they were all addressed to John Copeland. Meanwhile, Scotland was in despair, whereas the traitor English barons were in a frenzy, because they did not know what had become of their fatal letters to the Bruce, or of him either. The circ.u.mstances were unique, and they remained unchanged for three feverish weeks.

We will now return to affairs in France, where on the day of the Nativity, as night gathered about Calais, John Copeland came unheralded to the quarters of King Edward, then besieging that city.

Master Copeland entreated audience, and got it readily enough, since there was no man alive whom Sire Edward more cordially desired to lay his fingers upon.

A page brought Master Copeland to the King, that stupendous, blond and incredibly big person. With Sire Edward were that careful Italian, Almerigo di Pavia, who afterward betrayed Sire Edward, and a lean soldier whom Master Copeland recognized as John Chandos. These three were drawing up an account of the recent victory at Creci, to be forwarded to all mayors and sheriffs in England, with a cogent postscript as to the King's incidental and immediate need of money.

Now King Edward sat leaning far back in his chair, a hand on either hip, and with his eyes narrowing as he regarded Master Copeland. Had the Brabanter flinched, the King would probably have hanged him within the next ten minutes; finding his gaze unwavering, the King was pleased. Here was a novelty; most people blinked quite honestly under the scrutiny of those fierce big eyes, which were blue and cold and of an astounding l.u.s.tre. The lid of the left eye drooped a little: this was Count Manuel's legacy, they whispered.

The King rose with a jerk and took John Copeland's hand. "Ha!" he grunted, "I welcome the squire who by his valor has captured the King of Scots. And now, my man, what have you done with Davie?"

John Copeland answered: "Highness, you may find him at your convenience safely locked in Bamborough Castle. Meanwhile, I entreat you, sire, do not take it amiss if I did not surrender King David to the orders of my lady Queen, for I hold my lands of you, and not of her, and my oath is to you, and not to her, unless indeed by choice."

"John," the King sternly replied, "the loyal service you have done us is considerable, whereas your excuse for kidnapping Davie is a farce.

Hey, Almerigo, do you and Chandos avoid the chamber! I have something in private with this fellow." When they had gone, the King sat down and composedly said, "Now tell me the truth, John Copeland."

"Sire," Copeland began, "it is necessary you first understand I bear a letter from Madame Philippa--"

"Then read it," said the King. "Heart of G.o.d! have I an eternity to waste on you slow-dealing Brabanters!"

John Copeland read aloud, while the King trifled with a pen, half negligent, and in part attendant.

Read John Copeland:

"My DEAR LORD,--_recommend me to your lords.h.i.+p with soul and body and all my poor might, and with all this I thank you, as my dear lord, dearest and best beloved of all earthly lords I protest to me, and thank you, my dear lord, with all this as I say before. Your comfortable letter came to me on Saint Gregory's day, and I was never so glad as when I heard by your letter that ye were strong enough in Ponthieu by the grace of G.o.d for to keep you from your enemies. Among them I estimate Madame Catherine de Salisbury, who would have betrayed you to the Scot. And, dear lord, if it be pleasing to your high lords.h.i.+p that as soon as ye may that I might hear of your gracious speed, which may G.o.d Almighty continue and increase, I shall be glad, and also if ye do continue each night to chafe your feet with a rag of woollen stuff, as your physician directed. And, my dear lord, if it like you for to know of my fare, John Copeland will acquaint you concerning the Bruce his capture, and the syrup he brings for our son Lord Edward's cough, and the great malice-workers in these s.h.i.+res which would have so despitefully wrought to you, and of the manner of taking it after each meal. I am lately informed that Madame Catherine is now at Stirling with Robert Stewart and has lost all her good looks through a fever. G.o.d is invariably gracious to His servants. Farewell, my dear lord, and may the Holy Trinity keep you from your adversaries and ever send me comfortable tidings of you. Written at York, in the Castle, on Saint Gregory's day last past, by your own poor_

"PHILIPPA.

_"To my true lord."_

"H'm!" said the King; "and now give me the entire story."

John Copeland obeyed. I must tell you that early in the narrative King Edward arose and strode toward a window. "Catherine!" he said. He remained motionless while Master Copeland went on without any manifest emotion. When he had ended, King Edward said, "And where is Madame de Salisbury now?"

At this the Brabanter went mad. As a leopard springs he leaped upon the King, and grasping him by each shoulder, shook that monarch as one punis.h.i.+ng a child.