CHAPTER XXVIII
The night before the southern troops marched for the north, Agravale gave herself up to riot and revelry. Though it was winter, the days were warm, the townsfolk held a carnival in the gardens of St. Pelinore. The houses were decked with rich cloths and banners, the churches with boughs of cypress and yew and garlands of purple amaranth. Companies of monks passed through the streets with crosses and reliquaries, chanting under the stars.
Such was the prologue in Agravale to the storm-cry of war over the Seven Streams. There was a veneer of sanctity over the venture, a professed piety more sonorous than real. Though the priests paraded the crowded streets, held crosses and relics to the lips of the people, the taverns teemed, as did the houses of infamy. The southern folk were prepared to make war in velvet, and prayed more for plunder than the good of the Church.
The dawn of that winter day came crisp and clear, with a sky like crystal, hills and woods sharply carved against the cloudless blue. The clangour of trumpets woke the town, with its vanes and casements mimicking the dawn. Jocelyn had ordered his Bishop’s chair to be set on a mound in the meadows without the western gate. Soon after sunrise he rose and celebrated Mass in the cathedral church of St. Pelinore. Thence from the crowded aisles, with their mail-clad worshippers, he passed in state to his throne in the meadows, a great following of priests chanting at his heels. All Agravale had hurried to the walls and meadows to watch the host march out for the north.
Certain of the southern companies were already under arms in the meadows, their lances rising towards the blue, their shields aflicker in the sun. The black masses were dusted over with colour, while many a banner waved in the wind. Behind the Bishop’s chair was planted the Sacred Standard of the Golden Keys, destined to flash benedictions over the soldiers of the Church. A crowd of monks surrounded the knoll where Jocelyn sat, with the precentor of St. Pelinore’s to lead the chanting. The walls and housetops, the glistening fields were crowded by the townsfolk in holiday dress.
From the western gate the pomp and panoply of the south poured forth with a sounding of trumpets, a sparkling of pennons. First came Count Reynaud with the knights and spears of Vanclure, some five hundred men in red and green surcoats. Benedict of the Mountains followed hard on their heels, with three hundred spears and a company of archers. The monks about the Bishop’s chair raised a wild chant that came as a counterblast to the clangour of the trumpets. The mailed masses gathered about the Sacred Banner with the Golden Keys. The whole host shouted, tossed up shield and lance, while horns and clarions pierced the din. On the walls the women waved scarves and kerchiefs, their shrill cries mingling with the clamour of war.
Jocelyn, wearing his mitre and bearing his cross, stood before the chair to give the sons of the Church his blessing. He made a noble figure enough in his splendid robes, jewels and rich cloth agleam in the sun. There was a complacent pride on his handsome face; his eyes flashed as he gazed round on these henchmen in steel.
“Sons of the Church,” he cried, with cross upraised, “the Holy Father has blessed you—behold here his banner. We march to uphold the decrees of the Church, to hurl down heresy, to destroy the wicked. See to it, sirs, that your swords shine bright. The saints in paradise shall watch over your souls.”
The men cheered him lustily enough.
“God for His Church!” they cried.
“St. Pelinore for Agravale.”
With a pealing of trumpets, the whole host was soon in motion on the great white road, pennon and casque pouring into the solemn shade of the woods. Horn answered horn, bugle cried to bugle; the trampling of the horses thrilled the bright air. Shields and surcoats shone and shimmered under the dark pines and ilexes. Thus the Sacred Banner went out from Agravale to march on Holy Guard and the Seven Streams.
As for Jocelyn, his mood changed with the moods of men. He passed back to his palace to doff his pontificals for more worldly gear. Since he was to play the shepherd to this warlike horde, he would act in keeping with the enterprise before him. The cross and mitre were well enough in Agravale; Jocelyn had determined to discard them for attributes more temporal. He donned a trellised coat and a steel casque, girded on a long sword, took an embossed shield. He would lead his own household knights against the heretics, strike a blow for the Banner with the Golden Keys.
Three days’ hard marching brought Benedict, who held the van, within three leagues of the River Lorient, where it parted the Southern Marches from the province of the Seven Streams. It was here that certain grey-faced, mud-bespattered riders fell in with the vanguard as they came riding south. They were the remnant of a garrison that had been driven out of Marvail by Samson the Heretic, a town beyond the fords of the River Lorient. The men told how Tristan le Sauvage stormed hither and thither through the Seven Streams, falling on outposts, putting garrisons to the sword. They told also how Samson and his heretics had been reinforced from the north, though they were ignorant that Blanche the Duchess had herself taken the field.
With such news to set him cogitating, Jocelyn halted his banners south of the Lorient, and took counsel with his captains as to what their schemes should be. To strike at Holy Guard, they had to cross the river and march along the northern bank through the enemy’s country. Now Samson the Heretic was at Marvail with three hundred men, ignorant, perhaps, that the southern barons had drawn so near. Samson was the one man in all Christendom whom the Holy Father desired to see in chains, and the chance was too flattering for Jocelyn to eschew it.
The Bishop’s tent was pitched in the woods south of the river, with the crusaders camped around under cover of the trees. Jocelyn had called Count Reynaud, Benedict, and several other barons to him in council. He had determined to set the necessity of Samson’s capture before his confederates that night. They were gathered under the shade of a huge ilex tree, with the great banner adroop over the embroidered canopy of the tent. Through the opening they could see the woods billowing below them to the river valley, the dark domes of the trees clear cut under the sky.
Jocelyn was very suave, yet mightily in earnest. He gestured with his hands, used the subtlest modulations of his voice, lifted his eyes to the darkening heavens as though ever ready to behold visions, stars portending the triumph of the truth.
“Remember, sirs,” he said, “that our faith constrains us to save the ignorant from the powers of those who trade upon their folly. If we could bind the arch-fiend, how many souls we should preserve from hell! Even so is it in this war of ours. This Samson, foul-mouthed blasphemer, perverter of the Scriptures, has bewitched with his tongue the province of the Seven Streams. To slay the heresy, we must slay the arch-heretic. Heaven seems eager to deliver him even now into our hands. You, sirs, as men of the sword, are able to deal with the elements of war.”
Benedict of the Mountains was quick to understand the churchman’s argument. He and Jocelyn were cronies of a common cult, and the soldier would have been more outspoken in the vulgar sense had not the occasion constrained him to dignity. Count Reynaud of Vanclure was a good Catholic and an honest knight, one who hated coarseness and would not suffer a lie. And since he was a powerful noble and necessary to the cause, Jocelyn pandered to his respect with a display of exaggerated zeal. His great power over the Count was by the power of fanaticism; even such a Christian as Reynaud could wax brutal in the battle for a faith.
“So, my lord, you would have us strike at this Samson, speedily?”
Jocelyn spread his hands, made a pretence of leaving all technical machinations to their military intelligence.
“An ambuscade, a false message, a night attack,” he said; “these, sirs, are ruses I may abandon to your strategy. All I desire is that you shall deliver this blasphemer into my hands, and I vouch that the Holy Father will bless your children.”
“The man is a lying whelp,” said Benedict, with a pious leer. “What say you, Sir Reynaud and gentlemen, to a night attack?”
The Lord of Vanclure bent his brows.
“Samson is at Marvail,” he argued, “with three hundred men. It will be well for us to send out riders over the river, that we may know whether the heretics hold the fords, also as to whether Samson has moved his banner or no.”
“True enough,” quoth Benedict. “Scent out the bear before you set the dogs on. My light riders know the ways.”
“Then, sirs,” said Jocelyn, “we are agreed on this point—if Samson is at Marvail, and the fords are not held, we will swoop at night and seize the town.”
“Plain as your Mass Book, Bishop,” said he of the Mountains.
Jocelyn made the sign of the cross in the air.
“God bless ye, good sons of the Church,” he said. “The saints are with us. And assuredly ye shall prosper.”