Now, too, God began to take pity upon us; for, on August the fifteenth, the eighty-fifth day of the siege, came news to the Duke of Burgundy that Philip, Duke of Brabant, was dead, and he must go to make sure of that great heritage. The Duke having departed, the English Earls had far less heart for the leaguer; I know not well wherefore, but now, at least, was seen the truth of that proverb concerning the “eye of the master.” The bastille, too, which our enemies had made to prevent us from going out by our Pierrefonds Gate on the landward side, was negligently built, and of no great strength. All this gave us some heart, so much that my hosts, the good Jacobins, and the holy sisters of the Convent of St. John, stripped the lead from their roofs, and bestowed it on the town, for munition of war. And when I was in case to walk upon the walls, and above the river, I might see men and boys diving in the water and searching for English cannon-balls, which we shot back at the English.
It chanced, one day, that I was sitting and sunning myself in the warm September weather, on a settle in a secure place hard by the Chapel Gate. With me was Barthélemy Barrette, for it was the day of Our Lady’s Feast, that very day whereon we had failed before Paris last year, and there was truce for the sacred season. We fell to devising of what had befallen that day year, and without thought I told Barthélemy of my escape from prison, and so, little by little, I opened my heart to him concerning Brother Thomas and all his treasons.
Never was man more astounded than Barthélemy; and he bade me swear by the Blessed Trinity that all this tale was true.
“Mayhap you were fevered,” he said, “when you lay in the casement seat, and saw the Maid taken by device of the cordelier.”
“I was no more fevered than I am now, and I swear, by what oath you will, and by the bones of St. Andrew, which these sinful hands have handled, that Flavy’s face was set the other way when that cry came, ‘Down portcullis, up drawbridge, close gates!’ And now that I have told you the very truth, what should I do?”
“Brother Thomas should burn for this,” quoth Barthélemy; “but not while the siege endures. He carries too many English lives in his munition-box. Nor can you slay him in single combat, or at unawares, for the man is a priest. Nor would Flavy, who knows you not, listen to such a story.”
So there he sat, frowning, and plucking at his beard. “I have it,” he said; “D’Aulon is no further off than Beaulieu, where Jean de Luxembourg holds him till he pays his ransom. When the siege is raised, if ever we are to have succour, then purchase safe-conduct to D’Aulon, take his testimony, and bring it to Flavy.”
As he spoke, some stir in the still air made me look up, and suddenly throw my body aside; and it was well, for a sword swept down from the low parapet above our heads, and smote into the back of that settle whereon we were sitting.
Ere I well knew what had chanced, Barthélemy was on his feet, his whinger flew from his hand, and he, leaping up on to the parapet, was following after him who smote at me.
In the same moment a loud grating voice cried—