CHAPTER XIII.
It would seem a strange command in our day, were any one to order his servant to bring down the library; and certainly would infer a much more operose undertaking than fell to the lot of old Onfroy, the seneschal, who, while Calord, his man, cast almost a whole tree in the chimney, and the varlets of De Coucy unloaded his baggage-horses, easily brought down a small wooden box, containing the whole literature of the château. And yet, perhaps, had not the De Coucys, from father to son, been distinguished trouvères, no such treasure of letters would their castle have contained; for, to count the nobles of the kingdom throughout, scarce one in a hundred could read and write.
De Coucy, however, had wasted--as it was then called--some of his earlier years in the study of profane literature, till the death of his two elder brothers had called him from such pursuits; from which time his whole course of reading had been in the romances of the day, where figured either Charlemagne with his peers and paladins, or the heroes, writers, and philosophers of antiquity, all mingled together, and habited as knights and magicians.
A manuscript, however, in those days, was of course much more precious in the eyes of those who could read, than such a thing possibly can be now; and De Coucy, hoping, as many have done since, to shelter himself behind a book, from the sharp attacks of unpleasant thought, eagerly opened the manifold bars and bucklings of the wooden case, and took out the first vellum that his hand fell upon. This proved to be but a collection of tensons, lais, and pastourelles,--all of which he knew by heart, so that he was obliged to search farther. The next he came to had nearly shared the same fate, being a copy of the Life of Louis the Fat, written in Latin a few years before, by Suger, abbot of St. Denis. The Latin, however, was easy, and De Coucy's erudition coining to his aid, he read various passages from those various pages, wherein the great minister who wrote it gives such animated pictures of all that passed immediately previous to the very age and scenes amidst which the young knight was then living. At length his eye rested on the epigraph of the sixteenth chapter, "Concerning the treachery committed at the Roche Guyon, by William, brother-in-law of the king;--concerning, also, the death of Guy; and the speedy vengeance that overtook William."
No title could have been more attractive in the eyes of De Coucy; and skipping a very little of his text, where his remembrance of the language failed him, he went on to read.
"Upon a promontory formed by the great river Seine, at a spot difficult of access, is built an ignoble castle, of a frightful aspect, called La Roche Guyon. On the surface of the promontory the castle is invisible, being hollowed out of the bowels of the high rock. The skilful hand of him who formed it has cut the high rock itself on the side of the hill, and by a mean and narrow opening has practised a subterranean habitation of immense extent.
* * * * *
"This subterranean castle, not more hideous in the sight of men than in the sight of God, had about this time for its lord, Guy de la Roche Guyon,--a young man of gentle manners, a stranger to the wickedness of his ancestors. He had indeed interrupted its course, and showed himself resolved to lead a tranquil and honourable life, free from their infamous and greedy rapacity.
"Surprised by the very position of his wretched castle, and massacred by the treachery of his own father-in-law, the most wicked of the wicked, he lost, by an unexpected blow, both his dwelling and his life.
"William, his father-in-law, was by birth a Norman; and, unequalled in treachery, he made himself appear the dearest friend of his daughter's husband. This man, tormented by black envy, and brewing wicked designs, unhappily found, on the evening of a certain Sunday, an opportunity of executing his diabolical designs. He came then, with his arms covered with a mantle, and accompanied by a handful of assassins; and mingled himself, though with very different thoughts, amongst a crowd of pious people hastening to a church, which communicated by a passage in the rock with the subterranean castle of Guy. For some time, while the rest gave themselves up to prayer, he feigned to pray also; but, in truth, occupied himself in examining attentively the passage communicating with the dwelling of his son-in-law. At that moment, Guy entered the church; when, drawing his sword, and seconded by his criminal associates, William, madly yielding to the iniquity of his heart, cast himself into the doorway, and struck down his son-in-law, who was already smiling a welcome upon him, when he felt the edge of his sword. The noble bride of the châtelain, stupefied at the sight, tore her hair and her cheeks, after the manner of women in their anger, and running towards her husband, without fearing the fate that menaced her, she cast herself upon him to cover his body from the blows of the murderer, crying, while he received a thousand wounds,--'Vile butchers! slay me rather than him!--What has he done to merit death?'"
* * * * *
"Seizing her by the hair, the assassins dragged her away from her husband, who, crushed by their repeated blows, pierced by their swords, and almost torn in pieces with his various wounds, soon expired under their hands. Not contented yet, with a degree of cruelty worthy of Herod, such of his unhappy children as they could find they dashed mercilessly against the rock--"[[16]]
"Give me my lance!" cried De Coucy, starting up, with his blood boiling at this picture of an age so near his own--"give me my lance, ho! By all the saints of France----"
But at that moment remembering that the event which Suger recounted must have taken place full fifty years before, and therefore that none of the actors therein could be a fit object for the vengeance which he had thought of inflicting with his own hand, he sat down again, and read out the tale, running rapidly through the murderer's first triumphant contemplation of the property he had obtained by the death of his son-in-law, and even of his own daughter, but pausing with an angry sort of gladness over the detail of the signal punishment inflicted on him and his accomplices. Nor did he find the barbarous aggravation of tearing his heart from his bosom, and casting his body, attached to a plank, into the river Seine, to float to his native place, in any degree too horrible an award for so horrible a villain. On the contrary, starting from his chair, with all the circumstances of his own fate forgotten, he was striding up and down the hall, wishing that this same bloodthirsty Guillaume had been alive then to meet him in fight; when suddenly, just as the old seneschal was bustling in to lay out the table for his young lord's supper, the long, loud blast of a horn sounded at the outer gates.
"Throw open the gates, and see who is there!" cried De Coucy. "By the blessed rood! I have visiters early!"
"In the holy Virgin's name! beau sire, open not the gates to-night!" cried the old seneschal. "You do not know what you do. All the neighbouring barons have driven the cotereaux off their own lands on to yours, because it is here a terre libre; and there are at least two thousand in the woods round about. Be ruled. Sir Guy!--be ruled!"
"Ha, say you?" cried De Coucy. "But how is it, good Onfroy, that you can then drive out the swine you speak of, to feed in the forest?"
"Because--because--because, beau sire," replied the old man, hesitating as if he feared the effect of his answer,--"because I agreed with their chief, that if he and his would never show themselves within half a league of the castle, I would pay him a tribute of two fat hogs monthly.
"A tribute!" thundered De Coucy, striking his clenched fist upon the table--"a tribute!" Then suddenly lowering his voice, he added: "Oh, my good Onfroy! what are the means of a De Coucy shrunk to, that his castle, in his absence even, should pay a tribute to thieves and pick-purses! How many able serfs have you within the walls? I know your power was small. How many?"
"But nine good men, and three old ones," replied the seneschal, shaking his head sadly; "and they are but serfs, you know, my lord--I am but weakling, now-a-day; and Calord, though a freeman, has known no service."
"And how many vassals bound to furnish a man?" demanded De Coucy.--"Throw open the gates, I say!" he continued, turning fiercely upon Calord, while the horn sounded again. "I would fain see the coterel who should dare to take two steps in this hall with Guy de Coucy standing by his own hearth. How many vassals, Onfroy?"
"But seven, beau sire," replied the old man, looking from time to time towards the door of the hall, which led out into the court, and which Calord had left open behind him,--"but seven, Sir Guy; and they are only bound to a forty days' riding in the time of war."
"And now tell me, Onfroy," continued De Coucy, standing as calmly with his back towards the door as if he had been surrounded by a host of his friends. "If you have paid this tribute, why are you now afraid of these thieves?"
"Because, Sir Guy," replied the seneschal, "the last month's hogs have not been sent; there being soldiers of the king's down at the town, within sound of the bancloche.--But see, Sir Guy! see! they are pouring into the court! I told you how 'twould be!--See, see!--torches and all! Well, one can die now as well as a week hence!"
De Coucy turned, and at first the number of horsemen that were filing into the court, two at a time, as they mounted the steep and narrow road, almost induced him to bid the gates be shut, that he might deal with them with some equably: but a second glance changed his purpose, for though here and there was to be seen a haubert or a plastron glistening in the torch-light, by far the greater part of the horsemen were in the garb of peace.
"These are no cotereaux, good Onfroy," said he, staying the old seneschal, who was in the act of drawing down from the wall some rusty monument of wars long gone. "These are peaceable guests, and must be as well treated as we may. For the cotereaux, I will take order with them before I be two days older; and they shall find the woods of De Coucy Magny too hot a home for summer weather.--Who is it seeks De Coucy?" he continued, advancing as he saw one of the cavalcade dismounting at the hall door.
"Guillaume de la Roche Guyon," replied the stranger, walking forward into the hall; while De Coucy, with his mind full of all he had just been reading connected with that name, instinctively started back, and laid his hand on his dagger; but, instantly remembering himself, he advanced to meet the cavalier, and welcomed him to the château.
The stranger was a slight young man, without other arms than his sword; but he wore knightly spurs and belt, and in the front of his hat appeared the form of a grasshopper, beautifully modelled in gold. His features had instantly struck De Coucy as being familiar to him, but it was principally this little emblem, joined with a silk scarf hanging from his neck, that fully recalled to his mind the young troubadour he had seen at the château of Vic le Comte.
"I crave your hospitality, beau sire, for myself and train," said the young stranger. "Hardly acquainted with this part of fair France, for my greater feofs lie in sweet Provence, I have lost my way in these forests--But methinks we have met before, noble châtelain;" and as he recognised De Coucy, a slight degree of paleness spread over the youth's face.
De Coucy, however, remarked it not: his was one of those generous natures, from which resentments pass like clouds from the summer sun, and he forgot entirely a slight feeling of jealousy which the young troubadour had excited in his bosom while at Vic le Comte; and, instead of wishing, as he had then done, to have him face to face in deadly arms, he welcomed him to his château with every hospitable greeting.
"'Tis but an hour since I arrived myself, good knight," said he; "and after a ten years' absence my castle is scantily furnished for the reception of such an honourable guest. But see thou servest us the best of all we have, Onfroy, and speedily."
"Haw, haw! haw, haw!" cried Gallon the fool, with his head protruded through one of the doors--"haw, haw! The lion feasted the fox, and the fox got the best of the dinner."
"I will make thee juggle till thy limbs ache," said De Coucy, "and this very night. Sir Gallon! So will I punish thine insolence,--'Tis a juggler slave, beau sire," he continued, turning to Guillaume de la Roche Guyon, who gazed with some astonishment at the juggler's apparition. "I bought him of the Infidels, into whose power he had fallen, several years ago. He must have been once a shrewd-witted knave, and wants not sense now when he chooses to employ it; but for some trick he played his miscreant master, the Saracen tied him by the legs to his horse's tail one day, and dragged him a good league across the sands to sell him at our camp, in time of truce. Poor Gallon himself says his brain was then turned the wrong way, and has never got right again since, so that he breaks his sour jests on every one."
The tables were soon spread, and the provisions, which indeed consisted of little else than pork, or bacon, as it was then called in France, with the addition of two unfortunate fowls, doomed to suffer for their lord's return, were laid out in various trenchers all the way down the middle of the board. De Coucy and his guest took their places, side by side, at the top; and all the free men in the train of either, were ranged along the sides. No fine dressoir, covered with silver and with gold, ornamented the hall of the young knight; all the plate which the crusades had left in his castle, consisting of two large hanaps, or drinking cups, of silver, and a saltcellar in the form of of a ship. Jugs of earthenware, and cups of horn, lay ranged by platters of wood and pewter; and a momentary sting of mortified pride passed through De Coucy's heart, as the poverty of his house stood exposed to the eyes of the young troubadour.
For his part, however, Guillaume de la Roche seemed perfectly contented with his fare and reception; praised the wine, which was indeed excellent, and evinced a traveller's appetite towards the hot steaks of pork, and the freshly slaughtered fowls.
Gradually De Coucy began to feel more at his ease, and, forgetting the poverty of his household display, laughed and jested with his guest. Pledging each other in many a cup, and at last adding thereto many a song, the hours passed rapidly away. Gallon the fool was called; and a stiff cord being stretched across the apartment, he performed feats thereon, that would have broken the heart of any modern rope-dancer, adding flavour and piquancy to the various contortions of his limbs, by the rich and racy ugliness of his countenance.
"That cannot be his real nose?" observed the young Provençal, turning with an inquiring look to De Coucy.
"By all the saints of heaven! it is," replied De Coucy; "at least, I have seen him with no other."
"It cannot be!" said the troubadour, almost in the words of Slawkenbergius, "There never was a nose like that! 'Tis surely a sausage of Bijorre--both shape, and colour, and size. I will never believe it to be a true nose!"
"Ho! Gallon," cried De Coucy. "Bring thy nose here, and convince this fair knight that 'tis thine own lawful property."
Gallon obeyed; and jumping down from his rope, approached the place where the two knights sat, swaying his proboscis up and down in such a manner, as to show that it was almost preternaturally under the command of his volition.
This, however, did not satisfy the young Provençal, who, as he came nearer, was seized with an irresistible desire to meddle with the strange appendix to the jongleur's face; and, giving way to this sort of boyish whim, at the moment when Gallon was nearest, he seized his nose between his finger and thumb, and gave it a tweak fully sufficient to demonstrate its identity with the rest of his flesh.
Gallon's hand flew to his dagger; and it was already gleaming half out of the sheath, when a loud "How now!" from De Coucy stayed him; and affecting to take the matter as a joke, he threw a somerset backwards, and bounded out of the hall.
"I could not have resisted, had he been an emperor!" said the young man, laughing. "Oh, 'tis a wonderful appendage, and gives great dignity to his countenance!"
"The dignity of ugliness," said De Coucy. "But take care that Gallon the fool comes not across you with his dagger. He is as revengeful as an ape."
"Oh, I will give him some gold," said the troubadour. "One touch of such a nose as that is worth all the sheckles of Solomon's temple."
De Coucy laughed, and the evening passed on in uninterrupted glee and harmony; but when the young knight found that his new companion was the grandson of the unfortunate Guy de la Roche Guyon, the account of whose assassination he had just read, his heart seemed to open to him more than ever; and telling him, with a smile at the remembrance of having called for his lance, how much the history had moved him, Guy de Coucy poured forth his free and generous heart in professions of interest and regard. The young stranger seemed to meet him as frankly; but to a close observer perhaps, the very rounding of his phrases would have betrayed more study than was consistent with the same effusion of feeling which might be seen in all De Coucy's actions.
The châtelain, however, did not remark any defect; but after having commanded a sleeping cup to be brought to the young Provençal's bedroom, he led him thither himself. Here indeed his pride was somewhat gratified to find that the old seneschal had preserved the sleeping apartments with the most heedful care from the same decay that had affected the rest of the castle, and that the rich tapestries over the walls, the hangings of the bed, and its coverings of miniver and sable, attested that the family of De Coucy Magny had once at least known days of splendour.
The next morning, by sunrise, the whole party in the castle were stirring; and Guillaume de la Roche Guyon gave orders to prepare his horses. De Coucy pressed his stay, but could not prevail; and after having adduced a thousand motives to induce his guest to prolong his visit, he added one, which to his mind was irresistible. "I find," said he, "that during my absence, fighting for the recovery of Christ's cross and sepulchre, a band of lawless routiers and cotereaux have refuged themselves in my woods. Some two thousand, they are called; but let us strike off one-half for exaggeration. Now, I propose to drive them out with fire and sword, and doubt not to muster fifty good men-at-arms. Your train amounts to nearly the same number, and I shall be very happy to share the honour and pastime with so fair a knight, if you be disposed to join me."
The young man coloured slightly, but declined. "Important business," he said, "which he was afraid must have suffered by the mishap of his having lost his way the evening before, would utterly prevent him from enjoying the great honour of fighting under Sir Guy de Coucy;--but he should be most happy," he added, "to leave all the armed men of his train, if they could be of assistance in expelling the banditti from the territories of the Sire de Coucy. As for himself he no way feared to pursue his journey with merely his unarmed servants."
De Coucy, however, declined--somewhat drily too; his favourable opinion of the young stranger being greatly diminished by his neglecting, on any account, so fair an opportunity of exercising his prowess and gaining renown. He conducted him courteously to his horse, notwithstanding, drank the stirrup cup with him at parting, and, wishing him a fair and prosperous journey, returned into his castle.
Guillaume de la Roche Guyon rode on in silence at the head of his troop, till he had descended to the very bottom of the hill on which the château stood; then, turning to one of his favourite retainers, as they entered the forest--"By the Lord! Philippeau," cried he, "saw ye ever such beggarly fare? I slept not all night, half-choked as I was with hog's flesh. And did you hear how he pressed me to my meat, as if he would fain have choked me outright? The Lord deliver us from such poor châtelains, and send them back to fight in Palestine.
"So say I, beau sire," replied the retainer: "if they will take ship thither, we will pray for a fair wind."
"And the cups of horn, Philippeau," cried his lord, "and the wooden platters--did you mark them? Oh, they were well worthy the viands they contained!"
"So say I, beau sire," replied the living echo. "May they never contain any thing better!--for château and châtelain, dinner and dishes, were all of a piece."
"And think of his dreaming that I would go against the honest cotereaux with him!" cried the youth--"risking my horse and my life, and losing my time: all to rid his land of some scores of men as brave as himself, I dare say, and a great deal richer. 'Twould have been a rare folly, indeed!"
"So say I, beau sire," rejoined the inevitable Philippeau; "that would have been turning his man before he had shown himself your master.--Ha, ha, ha!"
"Haw, haw, haw!" shouted a voice in answer, whose possessor remained for a moment invisible. The next instant, however, the legs of a man appeared dangling from one of the trees, a few yards before them; then down dropped his body at the extent of his arms; and, letting himself fall like a piece of lead, Gallon the fool stood motionless in their way.
"Ha!" cried Guillaume de la Roche, drawing forward what was called his aumonière[[17]], a sort of pouch by his side, and taking out a couple of pieces of gold, "Our good jongleur come for his guerdon!--Hold, fellow!" and he cast the money to Gallon the fool, who caught each piece before it fell to the ground.
"Haw, haw! haw, haw!" cried Gallon. "Gramercy, beau sire! gramercy! Now will I tell thee a piece of news," he continued in his abrupt and unconnected manner,--"a piece of news that never should you have heard but for these two pieces of gold. Your lady love is at the castle of the Sire de Montmorency. Speed thither fast, and you shall win her yet.--Haw, haw! Do you understand? Win her old father first. Tell him of your broad lands, and your rich castles; for old Sir Julian loves gold, as if it paved the way to heaven.--Haw, haw, haw! When his love is won, never fear but that his daughter's will come after; and then, all because thou hast broad lands enough of thine own, thou shall have all good Count Julian's to back them,--Haw, haw! haw, haw! Thus it is we give to those that want not; and to those who want, we spit in their face--a goodly gift!--Haw, haw! The world is mad, not I--'tis but the mishap of being single in one's opinion!--Haw, haw, haw!" and darting away into the forest without staying farther question, he was soon lost to their sight.
No sooner, however, had Gallon the fool assured himself that he was out of reach of pursuit, than suddenly stopping, he cast himself on the ground, and rolled over and over two or three times, while he made the wood ring with his laughter. "Now have I murdered him!--now have I slaughtered him!--now have I given his throat to the butcher!" cried he, "as sure as if I held his head under knock-me-down De Coucy's battle-axe!--now will he go and buy the old fool Julian's consent and promise, for gold and rich furniture.--Haw, haw, haw! Then will Isadore refuse; and let the De Coucy know.--Haw, haw! Then will De Coucy come with lance and shield, and provoke my gallant to the fight, which for his knighthood he dare not refuse--then will my great man-slayer, my iron-fisted singer of songs, crush me this tiny, smoothed-faced, quaint apparelled imp of Provence, as I've seen a great eater crunch a lark.--Haw, haw! haw, haw! And all for having tweaked my nose, though none of them know any thing about it! He will insult my countenance no more, I trow, when the velvet black moles are digging through his cold heart with their white hands. Ah, cursed countenance!" he cried as if seized with some sudden emotion of rage, and striking his clenched fist hard upon his hideous face--"Ah, cursed countenance! thou hast brought down upon me mock and mimicry, hatred and contempt! Every thing is loved--every thing is sought--every thing is admired, but I; and I am fled from by all that see me. I am hated, and I hate myself--I am the devil--surely I am the devil!--and if so, I will enjoy my reign.--Beware! beware! ye that mock me; for I will live by gnawing your hearts--I will, I will!--Haw, haw!--that I will!" and suddenly bounding up, he caught one of the large boughs above his head, swung himself backward and forward for a minute in the air; and then springing forward, with a loud screaming laugh, flew back to the castle like an arrow shot from a bow.