Philip Augustus; or, The Brothers in Arms

by G. P. R. James

CHAPTER II.

Seven hundred years ago, the same bright summer sun was shining in his glory, that now rolls past before my eyes in all the beneficent majesty of light. It was the month of May, and every thing in nature seemed to breathe of the fresh buoyancy of youth. There was a light breeze in the sky, that carried many a swift shadow over mountain, plain, and wood. There was a springy vigour in the atmosphere, as if the wind itself were young. The earth was full of flowers, and the woods full of voice; and song and perfume shared the air between them.

Such was the morning when a party of travellers took their way slowly up the south-eastern side of the famous Monts d'Or in Auvergne. The road, winding in and out through the immense forest which covered the base of the hills, now showed, now concealed, the abrupt mountain-peaks starting out from their thick vesture of wood, and opposing their cold blue summits to the full blaze of the morning sun. Sometimes, turning round a sharp angle of the rock, the trees would break away and leave the eye full room to roam, past the forest hanging thick upon the edge of the slope, over valleys and hills, and plains beyond, to the far wanderings of the Allier through the distant country. Nor did the view end here; for the plains themselves, lying like a map spread out below, stretched away to the very sky: and even there, a few faint blue shadows, piled up in the form of peaks and cones, left the mind uncertain whether the Alps themselves did not there bound the view, or whether some fantastic clouds did not combine with that bright deceiver, fancy, to cheat the eye.

At other times, the road seemed to plunge into the deepest recesses of the mountains, passing through the midst of black detached rocks and tall columns of grey basalt, broken fragments of which lay scattered on either side; while a thousand shrubs and flowers twined, as in mockery, over them; and the protruding roots of the large ancient trees grasped the fallen prisms of the volcanic pillars, as if vaunting the pride of even vegetable life over the cold, dull, inanimate stone.

Here and there, too, would often rise up on each side high masses of the mountain, casting all in shadow between them; while the bright yellow lights which streamed amidst the trees above, spangling the foliage as if with liquid gold, and the shining of the clear blue sky overhead, were the only signs of summer that reached the bottom of the ravine. Then again, breaking out upon a wide green slope, the path would emerge into the sunshine, or, passing even through the very dew of the cataract, would partake of the thousand colours of the sunbow that hung above its fall.

It was a scene and a morning like one of those days of unmixed happiness that sometimes shine in upon the path of youth--so few, and yet so beautiful. Its very wildness was lovely; and the party of travellers who wound up the path added to the interest of the scene by redeeming it from perfect solitude, and linking it to social existence.

The manner of their advance, too, which partook of the forms of a military procession, made the group in itself picturesque. A single squire, mounted on a strong bony horse, led the way at about fifty yards' distance from the rest of the party. He was a tall, powerful man, of a dark complexion and high features; and from beneath his thick, arched eyebrow gazed out a full, brilliant, black eye, which roved incessantly over the scene, and seemed to notice the smallest object around. He was armed with cuirass and steel cap, sword and dagger; and yet the different form and rude finishing of his arms did not admit of their being confounded with those of a knight. The two who next followed were evidently of a different grade; and, though both young men, both wore a large cross pendant from their neck, and a small branch of palm in the bonnet. The one who rode on the right hand was armed at all points, except his head and arms, in plate armour, curiously inlaid with gold in a thousand elegant and fanciful arabesques, the art of perfecting which is said to have been first discovered at Damascus. The want of his gauntlets and brassards showed his arms covered with a quilted jacket of crimson silk, called a gambesoon, and large gloves of thick buff leather. The place of his casque was supplied by a large brown hood, cut into a long peak behind, which fell almost to his horse's back; while the folds in front were drawn round a face which, without being strikingly handsome, was nevertheless noble and dignified in its expression, though clouded by a shade of melancholy which had channelled his cheek with many a deep line, and drawn his brow into a fixed but not a bitter frown.

In form he was, to all appearance, broad made and powerful; but the steel plates in which he was clothed, of course greatly concealed the exact proportions of his figure; though withal there was a sort of easy grace in his carriage, which, almost approaching to negligence, was but the more conspicuous from the very stiffness of his armour. His features were aquiline, and had something in them that seemed to betoken quick and violent passions; and yet such a supposition was at once contradicted by the calm, still, melancholy of his large dark eyes.

The horse on which the knight rode was a tall, powerful German stallion, jet black in colour; and though not near so strong as one which a squire led at a little distance behind, yet, being unencumbered with panoply itself, it was fully equal to the weight of its rider, armed as he was.

The crusader's companion--for the palm and cross betokened that they both returned from the Holy Land--formed as strong a contrast as can well be conceived to the horseman we have just described. He was a fair, handsome man, round whose broad, high forehead curled a profusion of rich chestnut hair, which behind, having been suffered to grow to an extraordinary length, fell down in thick masses upon his shoulders. His eye was one of those long, full, grey eyes, which, when fringed with very dark lashes, give a more thoughtful expression to the countenance than even those of a deeper hue; and such would have been the case with his, had not its clear powerful glance been continually at variance with a light, playful turn of his lip, that seemed full of sportive mockery.

His age might be four or five and twenty--perhaps more; for he was of that complexion that retains long the look of youth, and on which even cares and toils seem for years to spend themselves in vain:--and yet it was evident, from the bronzed ruddiness of what was originally a very fair complexion, that he had suffered long exposure to a burning sun; while a deep scar on one of his cheeks, though it did not disfigure him, told that he did not spare his person in the battle-field.

No age or land is, of course, without its foppery; and however inconsistent such a thing may appear, joined with the ideas of cold steel and mortal conflicts, no small touch of it was visible in the apparel of the younger horseman. His person, from the shoulders down to the middle of his thigh, was covered with a bright haubert, or shirt of steel rings, which, polished like glass, and lying flat upon each other, glittered and flashed in the sunshine as if they were formed of diamonds. On his head he wore a green velvet cap, which corresponded in colour with the border of his gambesoon, the puckered silk of which rose above the edge of the shirt of mail, and prevented the rings from chafing upon his neck. Over this hung a long mantle of fine cloth of a deep green hue, on the shoulder of which was embroidered a broad red cross, distinguishing the French crusader. The hood, which was long and pointed, like his companion's, was thrown back from his face, and exposed a lining of miniver.

The horse he rode was a slight, beautiful Arabian, as white as snow in every part of his body, except where round his nostrils, and on the tendons of his pastern and hoof, the white mellowed into a fine pale pink. To look at his slender limbs, and the bending pliancy of every step, one would have judged him scarcely able to bear so tall and powerful a man as his rider, loaded with a covering of steel; but the proud toss of his head, the snort of his wide nostril, and the flashing fire of his clear crystal eye, spoke worlds of unexhausted strength and spirit; though the thick dust, with which the whole party were covered, evinced that their day's journey had already been long. Behind each knight, except where the narrowness of the road obliged them to change the order of their march, one of their squires led a battle-horse in his right hand; and several others followed, bearing the various pieces of their offensive and defensive armour.

This, however, was to be remarked, that the arms of the first-mentioned horseman were distributed amongst a great many persons; one carrying the casque upright on the pommel of the saddle, another bearing his shield and lance, another his brassards and gauntlets; while the servants of the second knight, more scanty in number, were fain to take each upon himself a heavier load.

To these immediate attendants succeeded a party of simple grooms leading various other horses, amongst which were one or two Arabians, and the whole cavalcade was terminated by a small body of archers.

For long, the two knights proceeded silently on their way, sometimes side by side, sometimes one preceding the other, as the road widened or diminished in its long tortuous way up the acclivity of the mountains, but still without exchanging a single word. The one whom--though there was probably little difference of age--we shall call the elder, seemed, indeed, too deeply absorbed in his own thoughts, to desire, or even permit of conversation, and kept his eyes bent pensively forward on the road before, without even giving a glance to his companion, whose gaze roamed enchanted over all the exquisite scenery around, and whose mind seemed fully occupied in noting all the lovely objects he beheld. From time to time, indeed, his eye glanced to his brother knight, and a sort of sympathetic shade came over his brow, as he saw the deep gloom in which he was involved. Occasionally, too, a sort of movement of impatience seemed to agitate him, as if there was something that he fain would speak. But then again the cold unexpecting fixedness of his companion's features appeared to repel it, and, returning to the view, he more than once apparently suppressed what was rising to his lips, or only gave it vent in humming a few lines of some lay, or some sirvente, the words of which, however, were inaudible. At length what was labouring within seemed to break through all restraint, and, drawing his rein, he made his horse pause for an instant, while he exclaimed--

"Is it possible. Beau Sire d'Auvergne, that the sight of your own fair land cannot draw from you a word or a glance?" while, as he spoke, he made his horse bound forward again, and throwing his left hand over the whole splendid scene that the opening of the trees exposed to the sight, he seemed to bid it appeal to the heart of his companion, and upbraid him with his indifference.

The Count d'Auvergne raised his eyes, and let them rest for an instant on the view to which his companion pointed; then dropped them to his friend's face, and replied calmly--

"Had any one told me, five years ago, that such would be the case, Guy de Coucy, I would have given him the lie."

Guy de Coucy answered nothing directly, but took up his song again, saying--

"He who tells his sorrow, may find
That he sows but the seed of the empty wind;
But he who keeps it within his breast,
Nurses a serpent to gnaw his rest."

"You sing truly, De Coucy, as I have proved too bitterly," replied the Count d'Auvergne; "but since we have kept companionship together, I have ever found you gay and happy. Why should I trouble your repose with sorrows not your own?"

"Good faith! fair count, I understand you well," replied the other, laughing. "You would say that you have ever held me more merry than wise; more fit to enliven a dull table than listen to a sad tale; a better companion in brawls or merrymaking than in sorrows or solemnities; and 'faith you are right, I love them not; and, therefore, is it not the greatest proof of my friendship, when hating sorrows as much as man well may, I ask you to impart me yours?"

"In truth, it is," answered the Count d'Auvergne; "but yet I will not load your friendship so, De Coucy. Mine are heavy sorrows, which I would put upon no man's light heart. However, I have this day given way to them more than I should do; but it is the very sight of my native land, beautiful and beloved as it is, which, waking in my breast the memory of hopes and joys passed away for ever, has made me less master of myself than I am wont."

"Fie now, fie!" cried his friend; "Thibalt d'Auvergne, wouldst thou make me think the heart of a bold knight as fragile as the egg of a chaffinch, on which if but a cat sets her paw, it is broken never to be mended again? Nay, nay! there is consolation even in the heart of all evils; like the honey that the good knight, Sir Samson, found in the jaws of the lion which he killed when he was out hunting with the king of the Saracens."

"You mean, when he was going down to the Philistines," said his friend with a slight smile; though such mistakes were no way rare in those days; and De Coucy spoke it in somewhat of a jesting tone, as if laughing himself at the ignorance he assumed.

"Be it so, be it so!" proceeded the other. "'Tis all the same. But, as I said, there is consolation in every evil. Hast thou lost thy dearest friend in the battle-field? Thank God! that he died knightly in his harness! Hast thou pawned thy estate to the Jew? Thank God! that thou may'st curse him to thy heart's content in this world, and feel sure of his damnation hereafter!" The count smiled; and his friend proceeded, glad to see that he had won him even for a time from himself:--"Has thy falcon strayed? Say, 'twas a vile bird and a foul feeder, and call it a good loss. Has thy lady proved cold? Has thy mistress betrayed thee. Seek a warmer or a truer, and be happily deceived again."

The colour came and went in the cheek of the Count d'Auvergne; and for an instant his eyes flashed fire; but reading perfect unconsciousness of all offence in the clear open countenance of De Coucy, he bit his lip till his teeth left a deep white dent therein, but remained silent.

"Fie, fie! D'Auvergne!" continued De Coucy, not noticing the emotion his words had produced. "Thou, a knight who hast laid more Saracen heads low than there are bells on your horse's poitral, not able to unhorse so black a miscreant as Melancholy! Thou, who hast knelt at the holy sepulchre," he added in a more dignified tone, "not to find hope in faith, and comfort in the blessed Saviour, for whose cross you've fought!"

The count turned round, in some surprise at the unwonted vein which the last part of his companion's speech indicated; but De Coucy kept to it but for a moment, and then, darting off, he proceeded in the same light way with which he had begun the conversation. "Melancholy!" he cried in a loud voice, at the same time taking off his glove, as if he would have cast it down as a gage of battle--"Melancholy and all that do abet him. Love, Jealousy, Hatred, Fear, Poverty, and the like, I do pronounce ye false miscreants, and defy you all! There lays my glove!" and he made a show of throwing it on the ground.

"Ah, De Coucy!" said D'Auvergne, with a melancholy smile, "your light heart never knew what love is; and may it never know!"

"By the rood! you do me wrong," cried De Coucy--"bitter wrong, D'Auvergne! I defy you, in the whole lists of Europe's chivalry, to find a man who has been so often in love as I have--ay, and though you smile--with all the signs of true and profound love to boot. When I was in love with the Princess of Suabia, did not I sigh three times every morning, and sometimes sneeze as often? for it was winter weather, and I used to pass half my nights under her window. When I was in love with the daughter of Tancred of Sicily, did I not run seven courses for her with all the best champions of England and France, in my silk gambesoon, with no arms but my lance in my hand, and my buckler on my arm? When I was in love with the pretty Marchioness of Syracuse, did not I ride a mare one whole day,[^[4]] without ever knowing it, from pure absence of mind and profound love?--and when I was in love with all the ladies of Cyprus, did not I sing lays and write sirventes for them all?"

"Your fighting in your hoqueton," replied D'Auvergne, "showed that you were utterly fearless; and your riding on a mare showed that you were utterly whimsical; but neither one nor the other showed you were in love, my dear De Coucy. But look, De Coucy! the road bends downwards into that valley. Either I have strangely forgotten my native land, or your surly squire has led us wrong, and we are turning away from the Puy to the valleys of Dome.--Ho, sirrah!" he continued, elevating his voice and addressing the squire, who rode first, "Are you sure you are right?"

"Neither Cotereaux, nor Brabançois, nor Routiers, nor living creatures of any kind, see I, to the right or left, Beau Sire," replied the squire, in a measured man-at-arms-like tone, without either turning his head or slackening his pace in the least degree.

"But art thou leading us on the right road? I ask thee," repeated the count.

"I know not. Beau Sire," replied the squire. "I was thrown out, to guard against danger,--I had no commands to seek the right road." And he continued to ride on the wrong way as calmly as if no question existed in respect to its direction.

"Halt!" cried De Coucy. The man-at-arms stood still; and a short council was held between the two knights in regard to their farther proceedings, when it was determined that, although they were evidently wrong, they should still continue for some way on the same road, rather than turn back after so long a journey. "We must come to some château or some habitation soon," said De Coucy; "or, at the worst, find some of your country shepherds to guide us on towards the chapel. But, methinks, Hugo de Barre, you might have told us sooner, that you did not know the way!"

"Now, good sir knight," replied the squire, speaking more freely when addressed by his own lord, "none knew better than yourself, that I had never been in Auvergne in all my days before. Did you ever hear of my quitting my cot and my glebe, except to follow my good lord the baron, your late father, for a forty days' chevauchée against the enemy, before I took the blessed cross, and went a fool's errand to the Holy Land?"

"How now, sir!" cried De Coucy. "Do you call the holy crusade a fool's errand? Be silent, Hugo, and lead on. Thou art a good scout and a good soldier, and that is all thou art fit for."

The squire replied nothing; but rode on in silence, instantly resuming his habit of glancing his eye rapidly over every object that surrounded him, with a scrupulous accuracy that left scarce a possibility of ambuscade. The knights and their train followed; and turning round a projecting part of the mountain, they found that the road, instead of descending, as they had imagined, continued to climb the steep, which at every step gained some new feature of grandeur and singularity, till the sublime became almost the terrific. The verdure gradually ceased, and the rocks approached so close on each side as to leave no more space than just sufficient for the road, and a narrow deep ravine by its side, at the bottom of which, wherever the thick bushes permitted the eye to reach it, the mountain torrent was seen dashing and roaring over enormous blocks of black lava, which it had channelled into all strange shapes and appearances. High above the heads of the travellers, also, rose on either hand a range of enormous basaltic columns, fringed at the top by some dark old pines that, hanging seventy or eighty feet in the air, seemed to form a frieze to the gigantic colonnade through which they passed.

De Coucy looked up with a smile, not unmixed with awe. "Could you not fancy, D'Auvergne," he said, "that we were entering the portico of a temple built by some bad enchanter to the Evil Spirit? By the holy rood! it is a grand and awful scene! I did not think thy Auvergne was so magnificent."

As he spoke, the squire, who preceded them, suddenly stopped, and, turning round--

"The road ends here. Beau Sire," he cried. "The bridge is broken, and there is no farther passage."

"Light of my eyes!" cried De Coucy; "this is unfortunate! But let us see, at all events, before we turn back:" and, riding forward, he approached the spot where his squire stood.

It was even as he had said, however. All farther progress in a direct line was stopped by an immense mass of lava, which had probably lain there for immemorial centuries. Certainly when the road was made, which was probably in the days of the Romans, the same obstruction had existed; for, instead of attempting to continue the way along the side of the hill any farther in that direction, a single arch had been thrown over the narrow ravine, and the road carried on through a wide breach in the rocks on the other side. This opening, however, offered nothing to the eye of De Coucy and his companions but a vacant space, backed by the clear blue sky. The travellers paused, and gazed upon the broken bridge and the road beyond for a minute or two, before turning back, with that sort of silent pause which generally precedes the act of yielding to some disagreeable necessity. However, after a moment, the younger knight beckoned to one of his squires, crying--"Give me my casque and sword!"

"Now, in the name of Heaven! what Orlando trick are you going to put in practice, De Coucy?" cried the Count d'Auvergne, watching his companion take his helmet from the squire, and buckle on his long, straight sword by his side. "Are you going to cleave that rock of lava, or bridge over the ravine, with your shield?"

"Neither," replied the knight, with a smile; "but I hear voices, brought by the wind through that cleft on the other side, and I am going over to ask the way."

"De Coucy, you are mad!" cried the count. "Your courage is insanity. Neither man nor horse can take that leap!"

"Pshaw! you know not what Zerbilin can do!" said De Coucy, calmly patting the arching neck of his slight Arabian horse: "and yet you have yourself seen him take greater leaps than that!"

"But see you not the road slopes upwards," urged the count. "There is no hold for his feet. The horse is weary."

"Weary!" exclaimed De Coucy: "nonsense! Give me space--give me space!"

And, in spite of all remonstrance, he reined his horse back, and then spurred him on to the leap. The obedient animal galloped onward to the brink, shot forward like an arrow, and reached the other side.[^[5]] But what the Count d'Auvergne had said was just. The road beyond sloped upwards from the very edge, and was composed of loose volcanic scoria, which afforded no firm footing; so that the horse, though he accomplished the leap, slipped backwards the moment he had reached the opposite side, and rolled with his rider down into the ravine below!

"Jesu Maria!" cried the count, springing to the ground, and advancing to the edge of the ravine. "De Coucy, De Coucy!" cried he, "are you in life?"

"Yes, yes!" answered a faint voice from below: "and Zerbilin is not hurt!"

"But yourself, De Coucy!" cried his friend,--"speak of yourself!"

A groan was the only reply.