Philip Augustus; or, The Brothers in Arms

by G. P. R. James

CHAPTER XV.

The woods of De Coucy Magny stretched far over hill and dale, and plain, where now not the root of one ancient tree is to be seen; and many a vineyard, and a cornfield, and a meadow are to-day spread fair out in the open sunshine, which were then covered with deep and tangled underwood, or shaded by the broad arms of vast primeval oaks.

Two straight roads passed through the forest, and a multitude of smaller paths, which, winding about in every different direction, crossing and recrossing each other,--now avoiding the edge of a pond and making a large circuit, now taking advantage of a savannah, to proceed straight forward, and now turning sharp round the vast boll of some antique tree,--formed altogether an absolute labyrinth, through which it needed a very certain clue, or very long experience, to proceed in safety.

These paths, also, however multiplied and intersected, left between them many a wide unbroken space of forest ground, where apparently the foot of man had never trod, nor axe of woodman ever rung, the only tracks through which seemed to be some slight breaks in the underwood, where the rushing sides of a boar or deer had dashed the foliage away. Many of these spaces were of the extent of several thousand acres; and if the very intricacy of the general forest paths themselves would not have afforded shelter and concealment to men who, like the cotereaux and routiers, as much needed a well hidden lair as ever did the wildest savage of the wood, such asylum was easily to be found in the dark recesses of these inviolate wilds.

Here, on a bright morning of July, when the grey of the sky was just beginning to warm with the rising day, a single man, armed with sword, corselet, and steel bonnet, all shining with the last polishing touch which they had received at the shop of the armourer, took his way alone down one of the narrowest paths of the forest. In his hand he held an arbalète,[^[18]] or cross-bow, then a very late invention; and, by the careful manner in which he examined every bush as he passed, he seemed some huntsman tracing, step by step, the path of a deer.

"Cursed be the fools!" muttered he to himself; "they have not taken care to mark the brisé well; and, in this strange forest, how am I to track them? Ah, here is another!" and, passing on from tree to tree, he at length paused where one of the smaller branches, broken across, hung with its leaves just beginning to wither from the interruption of the sap. Here, turning from the direct path, he pushed his way through the foliage, stooping his head to prevent the branches striking him in the face, but still taking pains to remark at every step each tree or bush that he passed; and wherever he perceived a broken branch, keeping it to his right-hand as he proceeded. His eyes nevertheless were now and then turned to the left, as well as the right; and at length, after he had advanced about four hundred yards in this cautious manner, he found the boughs broken all around, so that the brisé, as he called it, terminated there; and all guide by which to direct his course seemed at an end.

At this place he paused; and, after examining more scrupulously every object in the neighbourhood, he uttered a long whistle, which, after a moment or two, met with a reply, but from such a distance that it was scarcely audible. The cross-bowman whistled again; and the former sound was repeated, but evidently nearer. Then came a slight rustling in the bushes, as if some large body stirred the foliage, and then for a moment all was still.

"Ha, Jodelle!" cried a voice at last, from the other side of the bushes. "Is it you?" and pushing through the leaves, which had concealed him while he had paused to examine the stranger we have described, a genuine routier, if one might judge by his very rude and rusty arms, entered the little open space in which the other had been waiting. He had an unbent bow in his hand, and a store of arrows in his belt, which was garnished still farther with a strong short sword, and of knives and daggers not a few, from the miséricorde of a hand's breadth long, to the thigh knife of a peasant of those days, whose blade of nearly two feet in length rendered it a serviceable and tremendous weapon.

He had on his back, by way of clothing, a light iron haubert, which certainly shone not brightly; nor possibly was it desirable for him that it should. Though of somewhat more solid materials than a linen gown, it had more than one rent in it, where the rings had either been broken by a blow, or worn through by age: but, in these places, the deficient links had been supplied by cord, which at all events kept the yawning mouths of the gaps together. On his head was placed an iron hat, as it was called, much in the shape of the famous helmet of Mambrino, as described by Cervantes; and round about it were twined several branches of oak, which rendered his head, when seen through the boughs, scarce distinguishable from the leaves themselves; while his rugged and dingy haubert might well pass for a part of the trunk of one of the trees.

"Well met! well met, Jodelle!" cried he, as the other approached. "Come to the halting place. We have waited for you long, and had scanty fare. But say, what have you done? Have you slit the devil's weasand, or got the knight's purse? Do you bring us good news or bad? Do you come gay or sorry? Tell me! tell me, Jodelle! Thou art our leader, but must not lead us to hell with thy new-fashioned ways."

"Get thee on to the halt," replied Jodelle; "I will tell all there."

The two cotereaux--for such they were--now made their way through the trees and shrubs, to a spot where the axe had been busily plied to clear away about half an acre of ground, round which were placed a range of huts, formed of branches, leaves, and mud, capable of containing perhaps two or three hundred men.

In the open space in the centre several personages of the same respectable class as the two we have already introduced to the reader, were engaged in various athletic sports--pitching an immense stone, shooting at a butt, or striking downright blows at a log of wood, to see who could hew into its substance most profoundly.

Others again were scattered about, fashioning bows out of strong beechen poles, pointing arrows and spears, or sharpening their knives and swords; while one or two lay listlessly looking on, seemingly little inclined to employ very actively either their mental or corporeal faculties.

The arrival of Jodelle, as he was called, put a stop to the sports, and caused a momentary bustle amongst the whole party, the principal members of which seemed to recognise in him one of the most distinguished of their fraternity, although some of those present gazed on him as a stranger.

"Welcome, welcome, sire Jodelle!" cried one who had been fashioning a bow. "By my faith! we have much needed thy presence. We are here at poor quarters. Not half so good as we had in the mountains of Auvergne, till that bad day's work we made of it between the Allier and the Puy; and a hundred thousand times worse than when we served the merry king of England, under that bold knight Mercader. Oh, the quarrel of that cross-bow at Chaluz was the worst shaft ever was shot for us. Those days will never come again."

"They may, they may!" replied Jodelle, "and before we dream of,--for good, hard wars are spoken of; and then the detested cotereaux grow, with these good kings, into their faithful troops of Brabançois,--their excellent free companions! But we shall see. In the mean time, tell me where is Jean le Borgne?"

"He is gone with a party to look for some rich Jews going to Rouen," replied the person who had spoken before. "But we have plenty of men here for any bold stroke, if there be one in the market; and besides----"

"Did you meet with captain Vanswelder?" interrupted Jodelle. "The fools at the castle believe he has two thousand bows with him. Where does he lie? How many has he?"

"He never had above four hundred," replied another of the many cotereaux who by this time had gathered round Jodelle; "and when your men came--if you are the captain, Jodelle--he took such of us as would go with him down to Normandy, to offer himself to the bad king John for half the sum of crowns we had before. Now, fifty of us, who had served king Richard, and value our honour, agreed not to undersell ourselves after such a fashion as that; so we joined ourselves to your men, to take the chance of the road."

"You did wisely and honourably," replied Jodelle; "but nevertheless you would have been very likely to get hanged or roasted for your pains, if I had not, by chance, stuck myself to the skirts of that Guy de Coucy, who is now at his château hard by, menacing fire and sword to every man of us that he finds in his woods. By St. Macrobius! I believe the mad-headed boy would have attacked Vanswelder and his whole troop, with the few swords he can muster, which do not amount to fifty. A brave youth he is, as ever lived:--pity 'tis he must die! And yet, when he dashed out my brother's brains with his battle-axe, I vowed to God and St. Nicolas that I would die or slay him, as well as that treacherous slave who betrayed us into attacking a band of men-at-arms instead of a company of pilgrims. It is a firm vow, and must be kept."

"And yet, good master Jodelle, thou hast been somewhat slow in putting it in execution," said one of the cotereaux. "Here thou and Gerard Pons have been near a month with him--and yet, from all that I can divine, thou hast neither laid thy finger on master or man!"

"Ha! sir fool, wouldst thou have done it better?" demanded Jodelle, turning on the speaker fiercely. "If I slew the fool juggler first, which were easy to do, never should I get a stroke at his lord; and, let me tell thee, 'tis no such easy matter to reach the master, who has never doffed his steel haubert since I have seen him--except when he sleeps, and then a varlet and a page lie across his door--a privilege which he gave them in the Holy Land, where they saved his life from a raw Saracen; and now, the fools hold it as such an honour, they would not yield it for a golden ring. Besides," he added, grinning with a mixture of shrewd malevolence and self-conceit in his countenance, "I have a plot in my head. You know, I bear a brain."

"Yes, yes!" replied several; "we know thou art rare at a plot. What goes forward now? I vow a wax-candle to the Virgin Mary if it be a good plot, and succeeds," added one of them. But this liberality towards the Virgin, unhappily for the priests, met with no imitators.

"My plot," replied Jodelle, "is as good a plot as ever was laid--ay, or hatched either--and will succeed too. Wars are coming on thick. We have no commander since our quarrel with Mercader. This De Coucy has no men. To the wars he must and will; and surely would rather be followed by a stout band of free companions, than have his banner fluttering at the head of half a dozen varlets, like a red rag on a furze bush. I will find means to put it in his head, and means to bring about that you shall be the men. Then shall he lead us to spoil and plunder enough, and leave it all to us when he has got it--for his hand is as free as his heart is bold. My vow will stand over till the war is done, and then the means of executing it will be in my own hands. What say you?"

"A good plot!--an excellent good plot!" cried several of the cotereaux; but nevertheless, though plunged deep in blood and crime, there were many of the band who knit their brow, and turned down the corner of the mouth, at the profound piece of villany with which master Jodelle finished his proposal. This did not prevent them from consenting, however; and Jodelle proceeded to make various arrangements for disposing comfortably of the band, during the space of time which was necessarily to elapse before his plan could be put in execution.

The first thing to be done was to evacuate the woods of De Coucy Magny, that no unpleasant collision might take place between the cotereaux and De Coucy; and the next consideration was, where the band was to lie till something more should be decided. This difficulty was soon set aside, by one of the troop which had been originally in possession of the forest, proposing as a refuge some woods in the neighbourhood, which they had haunted previous to betaking themselves to their present refuge. They then agreed to divide into two separate bands, and to confine their system of plundering as much as possible to the carrying off of horses; so that no difficulty might be found in mounting the troop, in case of the young knight accepting their services.

"And now," cried Jodelle, "how many are you, when all are here?"

"One hundred and thirty-three," was the reply.

"Try to make up three fifties," cried Jodelle, "and, in the first place, decamp with all speed; for this very day De Coucy, with all the horsemen he can muster, will be pricking through every brake in the forest. Carry off all your goods--unroof the huts--and if there be a clerk amongst you, let him write me a scroll, and leave it on the place, to say you quit it, all for the great name of De Coucy. So shall his vanity be tickled."

"Oh! there's Jeremy the monk can both read and write, you know," cried several; "and as for parchment, he shall write upon the linen that was in the pedlar's pack."

"And now," cried Jodelle, "to the work! But first show me where haunt the deer, for I must take back a buck to the castle to excuse my absence."

With very little trouble a fine herd was found, just cropping the morning grass; and Jodelle instantly brought down a choice buck with a quarrel from his cross-bow. He then bade adieu to his companions, and casting the carcase over his shoulders, he took his way back to the castle.

It may be almost needless here to say, that this very respectable personage, calling himself Jodelle, was one of the two men who had been received into De Coucy's service in Auvergne, for the purpose of leading to Paris two beautiful Arabian horses he had brought from Palestine. His objects in joining the young knight at all, and for fixing himself in his train more particularly afterwards, having been already explained by himself, we shall not notice them; but shall only remark, that personal revenge being in those days inculcated even as a virtue, it was a virtue not at all likely to be so confined to the better classes, as not to ornament in a high degree persons of Jodelle's station and profession.

The gates of the castle were open, and de Coucy himself standing on the drawbridge, as the coterel returned.

"Ha! varlet," said he. "Where hast thou been without the gates so early? I must have none here that stray forth when they may be needed!"

"I had nought to do, beau sire," replied Jodelle, "and went but to strike a buck in the wood, that your board might show some venison:--I have not been long, though it led me farther than I thought."

"Ha! canst thou wing a shaft, or a quarrel well?" demanded De Coucy. "Thou hast brought down indeed a noble buck, and hit him fair in the throat. What distance was your shot?"

"A hundred and twenty yards," answered the coterel; "and if I hit not a Normandy pippin at the same, may my bowstring be cut by your mad fool, sir knight!"

"By the blessed saints!" cried De Coucy, "thou shalt try this very day at a better mark; for thou shalt have a coterel's head within fifty steps, before yon same sun, that has just risen, goes down over the wood!"

"The poor cotereaux!" cried Jodelle, affecting a look of compassion. "They are hunted from place to place, like wild beasts; and yet there is many a good soldier amongst them, after all."

"Out, fellow!" cried the knight. "Speakest thou for plunderers and common thieves?"

"Nay, beau sire! I speak not for them," replied Jodelle. "Yet what can the poor devils do? Here, in time of war, they spend their blood and their labour in the cause of one or other of the parties; and then, the moment they are of no further use, they are cast off like a mail-shirt after a battle. They have no means of living but by their swords; and when no one will employ them, what can they do? What could I have done myself, beau sire, if your noble valour had not induced you to take me into your train? All the money I had got in the wars was spent; and I must have turned routier, or starved."

"But would you say, fellow, that you have been a coterel?" demanded De Coucy, eyeing him from head to foot, as a man might be supposed to do on finding himself unexpectedly in company with a wolf, and discovering that it was a much more civilised sort of animal than he expected.

"I will not deny, beau sire," replied Jodelle, "that I once commanded two hundred as good free lances as ever served king Richard."

"Where are they now?" demanded De Coucy, with some degree of growing interest in the man to whom he spoke. "Are they dispersed? What has become of them?"

"I do not well know, beau sire," replied the coterel. "When Peter Gourdun's arblast set Richard, the lion-hearted, on the same long, dark journey that he had given to so many others himself, I quarrelled with count Mercader, under whom I served. Richard with his dying breath, as you have doubtless heard, fair sir, ordered the man Gourdun, who had killed him, to be spared and set free; and Mercader promised to obey: but, no sooner was king Richard as cold as king Pepin, than Mercader had Gourdun tied hand and foot to the harrow of the drawbridge of Chaluz, and saw him skinned alive with his own eyes."

"Cruel villain!" cried De Coucy.

"Ay! fair knight," rejoined the coterel. "I ventured to say that he was disobedient as a soldier, as well as cruel as a knight; and that he ought to have obeyed the king's commands, just as much after he was dead, as if he had lived to see them obeyed. What will you have? There were plenty to tell Mercader what I said:--there were high words followed; and I left the camp as soon as peace was trumpeted. I had saved some money, and hoped to buy a haubert feof under some noble lord; but, as evil fortune would have it, I met with a menestrandie, consisting of the chief menestrel, and four or five jongleurs and glee-maidens; and never did they leave me till all I had was nearly gone: what lasted, kept me a year at Besançon; after which I was glad enough to engage myself for hire, to ride your horses from Vic le Comte to Paris."

"But your troop!" said De Coucy. "Have you never heard any news of all your men?"

"I have heard, through one of the minstrels," said the coterel, "that soon after I was gone, they repented and would not take service with king John, as they had at first proposed; but came to offer themselves to the noble king Philip of France, who, however, being at peace, would not entertain them; and that they are now roaming about, seeking some noble baron who will give them protection, and lead them where they may gain both money and a good name."

"By the rood! they want the last, perhaps, more than the first," replied De Coucy, turning to enter the château.

The coterel's brow darkened, and he set his teeth hard, feeling the head of his dagger as he followed the knight, as if his hand itched to draw it and strike De Coucy from behind; which indeed he might easily have done, and with fatal effect, at the spot where the haubert ending left his throat and collar bare.

It is not improbable that Jodelle would have yielded without hesitation to the temptation of opportunity, especially as his escape over the drawbridge into the wood might have been effected in an instant; but he saw clearly that his words had made an impression upon the knight. For the moment indeed they seemed to produce no determinate result, yet it was evident that whenever he found a fitting opportunity, it would be easy to re-awaken the ideas to which he had already given birth, and by suggesting a very slight link of connection, cause De Coucy to make the application to himself.

One reason, perhaps, why very prudent men are often not so successful as rash ones, may be that, even in the moment of consideration, opportunity is lost. While the coterel still held his hand upon his dagger, De Coucy's squire, Hugo de Barre, approached to tell the young châtelain that his seven vassals--the poor remains of hundreds--were very willing to ride against the cotereaux, though such was no part of their actual tenure; and that, as soon as they could don their armour and saddle their horses, they would be up at the castle. They promised also to bring with them all the armed men they could get to aid them, in the towns and villages in the neighbourhood, not one of which had escaped without paying some tribute to the dangerous tenants of the young knight's woods.

In little less than an hour, De Coucy found himself at the head of near one hundred men; and, confident in his own powers both of mind and body, he waited not for many others that were still hastening to join him; but, giving his banner to the wind, set forth to attack the banditti, in whatever numbers he might find them.

It were uninteresting to detail all the measures that De Coucy took to ensure that no part of the forests should remain unsearched; especially as we already know, that his perquisitions were destined to be fruitless. Nor is it necessary to dwell upon the means that the coterel employed to draw the young knight and his followers, without seeming to do so, towards the spot which his companions had so lately evacuated.

De Coucy, by nature, was not suspicious; but yet his eye very naturally strayed, from time to time, to the face of Jodelle, whose fellow feeling for the cotereaux had been so openly expressed in the morning; and, as they approached the former halting-place of the freebooters, he remarked somewhat of a smile upon his lip.

"Ha!" said he, in an under voice, at the same time turning his horse and riding up to him. "What means that smile, sir Brabançois?"

Jodelle's reply was ready. "It means, sir knight, that I can help you, and I will; for even were these my best friends, the laws by which we are ruled bind me to render you all service against them, on having engaged with you.--Do you see that broken bough? Be you sure it means something. The men you seek for are not far off."

"So, my good friend," said De Coucy, "methinks you must have exercised the trade of Brabançois in the green wood, as well as in the tented field, to know so well all the secret signs of these gentry's hiding places."

"I have laid many an ambush in the green wood," replied Jodelle undauntedly; "and the signs that have served me for that may well lead me to trace others."

"Here are foot-marks, both of horse and foot," cried Hugo de Barre, "and lately trodden too, for scarce a fold of the moss has risen since."

"Coming or going?" cried De Coucy, spurring up to the spot.

"Both, my lord," replied the squire. "Here are hoof marks all ways."

Without wasting time in endeavouring to ascertain which traces were the last imprinted, De Coucy took such precautions as the scantiness of his followers permitted for ensuring that the cotereaux did not make their escape by some other outlet; and then boldly plunged in on horseback, following through the bushes, as well as he could, the marks that the band had left behind them when they decamped. He was not long in making his way to the open space, surrounded with huts, which we have before described. The state of the whole scene at once showed, that it had been but lately abandoned; though the unroofing of the hovels evinced that its former tenants entertained no thought of making it any more their dwelling-place.

In the centre of the opening, however, stood the staff of a lance, on the end of which was fixed a scroll of parchment, written in very fair characters to the following effect:--

"Sire de Coucy! hearing of your return to your lands, we leave them willingly--not because we fear you, or any man, but because we respect your knightly prowess, and would not willingly stand in deadly fight against one of the best knights in France."

"By St. Jerome! the knaves are not without their courtesy!" exclaimed De Coucy. "Well, now they are off my land, God speed them!"

"Where the devil did they get the parchment?" muttered Jodelle to himself:--and thus ended the expedition with two exclamations that did not slightly mark the age.