A Clerk of Oxford, and His Adventures in the Barons' War

by Evelyn Everett-Green

CHAPTER XII.

WINTER DAYS WITHIN THE CASTLE.

All Oxford was thrown into excitement by the news. Hugh le Barbier, whose disappearance after the jousting in Beaumont meadows two months before had created a certain stir in some quarters, had now been found in fetters in the Magician's Tower, as people sometimes called it, and had been carried off to the Castle for security by the Constable.

It was in all mouths that the foreign magician, whose doings and wonders had attracted no small notice during the Fair of St. Frideswyde, was none other than the Italian youth Tito Balzani, who had grown up in their midst, and had therefore an intimate knowledge of those who consulted him. It was further said that both he and Roger de Horn had been in the plot for abducting and imprisoning the missing man, and that they were now being searched for all through the neighbouring forests, to which they had most likely fled for safety so soon as they found themselves discovered.

Jack Dugdale was forward to tell the tale to the gaping throng who surrounded him whenever he appeared in the streets.

He had spent pretty nigh three days himself searching for the fugitives, and had often been hot upon their trail; but they had eluded him and the other pursuers with a cunning which had in it almost a touch of the supernatural, some thought, and now the chase had been reluctantly abandoned, and it was admitted that the quarry had escaped for the present.

But the excitement did not immediately die down. The story was in every one's mouth. Pedro Balzani's house was thronged with guests, all eager to learn what was to be known; and though the house was watched closely by the authorities, the man himself was not interfered with. He had made it plain that he was ignorant of the doings of his son, and as he himself bore a good character, the misdeeds of Tito were not visited upon his head.

But great anger prevailed against that young man throughout the town. Numbers of the citizens, and still more their wives and daughters, had consulted the magician, and had paid him what to them were large sums for scraps of information which had seemed to them marvellous as coming from the lips of a stranger from beyond the seas, but which lost all their value when it was known that Tito was the speaker. Others had been lured by him to the tower, and had paid heavily for a glance into the magic mirror, the crystal bowl, or that other bowl the thought of whose dark contents now made them shudder. Some still declared that he had dealings with the Evil One, and that the things they had seen could only be produced by the co-operation of spirits; but others vowed that it was nothing but trickery from first to last, and longed to see Tito brought back into the city, that he might be made to disgorge his ill-gotten gains, which doubtless he had kept securely fastened upon his person, so as to be ready for any emergency.

As for the other members of the Balzani household, the mother was deeply indignant at the trick which had been played upon her daughter by the girl's half-brother and his friend. She saw clearly that they sought to impose upon her credulity, and to induce her by that means to pledge her hand to Roger de Horn as the price of the life and liberty of her lover, Hugh. The mother learned much from the delirious ravings of the girl, who had been stricken with brain-fever, and lay in a most precarious condition. Indeed so dangerous was her state, and so imperative was it that she should be kept perfectly quiet, that after three days she had been conveyed by water up the river to the little village of Eynsham, where her mother's sister lived; and there, far away from the tumult of the city, which always set up excitement and paroxysms of fear, it was hoped she would recover from the shock to her system, and regain her normal health.

"And learn to forget the past," spoke the mother to her sister, before leaving the patient in her kindly care. "She is full young for thoughts of love. Methinks in these troublous days the less a maid dreams of such things the better. Hugh le Barbier is a goodly youth, and I desire none better for child of mine; but he is above her in rank. When he sees more of life and of the world, he will make more fitting choice. It would be better that they should not meet—that both should learn to forget. Naught but trouble and peril have followed from their early affection. Better it should be put aside and forgotten. Wherefore I will the more gladly leave Linda here, where, amid new scenes and surroundings, she may well forget the past, and cease to think of him for whom she is no fitting spouse in the eyes of the world."