Well, they had just such vests and tunics and hose as I needed, and these, according to the fashion, being laced behind and drawn in at the middle by a loose sword-belt, fitted me without special making. My vest was of the finest doeskin, scalloped round the edge, bound with golden tissue, and worked all up the front with the same in leaves and flowers. My hose were as green as rushes, and my shoes pointed and upturned halfway to my knees. On my shoulders hung a loose cloak of green velvet of the same hue as my hose, lined and puffed with the finest grass-green satin that ever came in merchant bales from over seas. Over my right arm it was held by a gold-and-emerald brooch—a “morse” that worthy clothier termed it—bigger than my palm, and this tunic hung to my small-laced middle. My maunch-sleeves were lined by ermine, and hung to my ankles a yard and more in length. On my head, my cap, again, was all of ermine and velvet, bound with strings of seed-pearls. That same kindly hosier got me a pretty playtime dagger of gold and sapphire for my hip, and green-satin gloves, sewn thick upon the back with golden threads. This, he said, was a fair and knightly vestment, such as became a goodly soldier when he did not wear his harness, but with naught about it of the courtly sumptuousness which so hard and warlike-seeming a lord as I no doubt despised.
From hence I went by many a cobble pavement to where the noisy sound of hammers and anvils filled the narrow streets. And mighty busy I discovered the armor-smiths. There was such a riveting and hammering, such a fitting and filing and brazing going on, that it seemed as though every man in the town were about to don steel and leather. There were long-legged pages in garb of rainbow hue hurrying about with orders to the armorers or carrying home their masters’ finished helms or warlike gear; there were squires and men-at-arms idly watching at the forge doors the pulsing hammers weld rivets and chains; and ever and anon a man-at-arms would come pushing through these groups with sheaves of broken arrows to be ground, or an armful of pikes to be rehandled, casting them down upon the cumbered floor; or perhaps it was a squire came along the way leading over the cobbles a stately war-horse to the shoeing.
In truth, it was a sight to please a soldier’s eyes, and right pleasant was it to me to hear the proud neighing of the chargers, the laughing and the talk, the busy whirr of grindstone on sword and axes, the clangor of the hammers as the hot white spearheads went to the noisy anvil, while forges beat in unison to the singing of the smiths! Ah! and I walked slowly down those streets, wondering and watching with vast pleasure in the busy scene, though every now and then it came over me how solitary I was—I, the one impassive in this turmoil, to whom the very stake they prepared to fight for was unknown!
A little way off were the booths where stores of Milan armor were for sale. To them I went, and was shown piles and stacks of harness such as never man saw before, all of steel and golden inlay, covering every point of a warrior, and so rich and cumbersome that it was only with great hesitation I submitted my free Phrygian limbs to such a steel casementing. But I was a gentleman now, whereof to witness came my gorgeous apparel, backing the grim authority of my face, and the bargaining was easy enough. Skogula and Mista! but those swart, olive-skinned, hook-nosed Jewish apprentices screwed me up and braced me down into that suit of Milan steel until I could scarcely breathe—their black-eyed master all the time belauding the sit and comfort of it.
“Gads! Sir,” quoth he, “many’s a hauberk I have seen laced on knightly shoulders, but by the mail from the back of the Gittite, who fell in Shochoh, I never saw a coat of links sit closer or truer than that!” and then again, “There’s a gorget for you, Sir! Why, if Ahab had but possessed such a one, as I am a miserable poor merchant and your Valor’s humble servant, even the blessed arrows of Israel would have glanced off harmlessly from his ungodly body!” And the cunning, sanctimonious old Jew went fawning and smiling round while his helpers pent me up in my glittering hide until I was steel-and-gold inlay from head to heel.
“By Abraham! noble Sir, those greaves become your legs!—Pull them in a little more at the ankles, Isaac!—And here’s a tabard, Sir, of crimson velvet and emblazoned borderings a prince might gladly wear!”
“By Abraham! noble Sir, those greaves become your legs!”
Then they put a helm upon me with a visor and beaver, through which I frowned, as ill at ease as a young goshawk with his first hood, and girded me with a broad belt chosen from many, and a good English broadsword, the dagger “misericordia” at my other hip, and knightly spurs (they gave me that rank without question) upon my heels, so that I was completely armed at last, after the fantastic style of the time, and fit to take my place again in the red ranks of my old profession.
I will not weary you with many details of the process whereby I adapted myself to the times. From that armorer’s shop I went—leaving my mail to be a little altered—to a hostelry in the center square of the town, and there I fed and rested. There, too, I chose a long-legged squire from among those who hung about every street corner, and he turned out a most accomplished knave. I never knew a villain who could lie so sweetly in his master’s service as that particolored, curly-headed henchman. He fetched my armor back the next day, cheating the armorer at one end of the errand and me at the other. He got me a charger—filling the gray-stoned yard with capering palfreys that I might make my choice—and over the price of my selection he cozened the dealers and hoodwinked me. He was the most accomplished youth in his station that ever thrust a vagrom leg into green-and-canary tights, or put a cock’s feather into a borrowed cap. He would sit among the wallflowers on the inn-yard wall and pipe French ditties till every lattice window round had its idle sewing-maid. He would swear, out in the market-place, when he lost at dice or skittles, until the bronzed troopers looking on blushed under their tawny hides at his supreme expurlatives. There was not such a lad within the town walls for strut, for brag, or bully, yet when he came in to render the service due to me he ministered like a soft, white-fingered damsel. He combed my long black hair, anointing and washing it with wondrous scents, whereof he sold me phials at usurious interest; he whispered into my sullen, unnoticing ear a constant stream of limpid, sparkling scandal; he cleaned my armor till it shone like a brook in May time, and stole my golden lace and a dozen of the sterling links from my dagger chain. He knew the wittiest, most delicately licentious songs that ever were writ by a minstrel, and he could cook such dishes as might have made a dying anchorite sit up and feast.