Philip Augustus; or, The Brothers in Arms

by G. P. R. James

So saying, the count rode on, and Ermold de Marcy followed with his train; speaking earnestly, though not very sagely perhaps, with D'Auvergne's chief squire, concerning the sudden fit of insanity that had seized his lord.

Notwithstanding the strange turn which the mind of count Thibalt had taken, he mistook not his road to Paris, nor did he once err in the various turnings of the city. On the contrary, with a faculty sometimes possessed by madness, he seemed to proceed with more readiness than usual, following all the shortest and most direct streets towards the house of the canons of St. Berthe's; where, on his arrival, he went straight to the apartments which had been assigned to him by the good fathers; and calling for his treasurer, whom he had left behind on his visit to Compiègne, he demanded the key of his treasure.

The case which contained the sums he had destined to defray the expenses of his return to the Holy Land was soon laid open before him. For a moment or two, he gazed from it to the page, with one of the painful, wandering looks of a mind partially gone, striving vainly to collect all its remaining energies, and concentrate them on some matter of deep and vital import.

"Take it!" cried he at length--"take what is necessary.--Tell thy lord," he added with great effort, as if the linking each idea to the other was a work of bitter labour--"tell thy lord, I would come--I would strive to free him myself--I would do much.--But, but--Auvergne is not what he was. My heart is the same--but my brain, youth! my brain!"--and he carried his hand to his brow, wandering over it with his fingers, while his eyes fixed gradually on vacancy; and he continued muttering broken sentences to himself, such as, "This morning!--ay! this morning.--The hot sun of the desert.--And Agnes--yes, Agnes--her cold words." Then suddenly catching the eye of the page fixed upon his countenance, he pointed to the gold, exclaiming angrily, "Take it! Why dost thou not take it?--Get thee gone with it to thy lord. Dost thou stay to mock. Take the gold and get thee gone, I say!"

The page, without further bidding, kneeled beside the case, and took thence as many bags of gold as he thought necessary for the purpose of ransoming De Coucy; placing them one by one in his pouch. When he had done, he paused a moment for licence to depart, which was soon given in an angry "Get thee gone!" and, descending the stairs as quickly as possible, he only stayed with the servants of the count d'Auvergne, to bid them have a care of their lord; for that, to a certainty, he was as mad as a marabout; after which, he mounted his horse and rode away.

Ermold de Marcy first turned the head of his weary beast towards the east; but no sooner was he out of Paris, than he changed that direction for one nearly west; and, without exactly retreading his steps, he took quite an opposite path to that which he first intended. This retrograde movement proceeded from no concerted purpose, but was, in reality and truth, a complete change of intention; for, to say sooth, the poor page was not a little embarrassed with the business he had in hand.

"Here," thought he, "I have about me twelve thousand crowns in gold. The roads are full of cotereaux, routiers, and robbers of all descriptions; my horse is so weary, that if I am attacked, I must e'en stand still and be plundered. Night is coming on fast; and I have nowhere to lie--and what to do I know not. If I carry all this gold about with me too, till I find my master, I shall lose it, by Saint Jude! By the holy rood! I will go to the old hermit of Vincennes. He cheated me, and proved himself a true man, after all, about that ring. So I will leave the gold under his charge till I have learned more of my lord, and to whom he has surrendered himself."

This resolution was formed just as he got out of the gate of the city; and skirting round on the outside, he took his way towards the tower of Vincennes; after passing which, he soon reached the dwelling of the hermit in the forest of Saint Mandé, with but little difficulty in finding his road. The old man received him with somewhat more urbanity than usual, and heard his tale in calm silence. Ermold related circumstantially all that had occurred to him since he followed his lord from Paris, looking upon the hermit in the light of a confessor, and relieving his bosom of the load that had weighed upon it ever since his truant escapade to the good town of La Flêche. He told, too, all the efforts he had made to avert the unhappy effects of Jodelle's treachery; and pourtrayed, with an air of bitter mortification, that interested the old man in his favour, the degree of despair he had felt when, on mounting the hill above Mirebeau, he saw the English army in possession of the city and country round about.

"And saw you no one who had escaped?" demanded the anchorite, with some earnestness.

"No one," replied the page, "but our own mad juggler. Gallon the fool, who had got away, though sore wounded with an arrow. From him, however, I learned nothing, for he was so cursed with the pain of his wound, that he would speak no sense; and when I questioned him sharply, he shouted like a devil, as is his wont, and ran off as hard as he could. I then rode forward to Tours," continued the page, "and for a crown, got a holy clerk to write me a letter to the count d'Auvergne, in case I could not have speech of him, telling him of my lord's case, and praying his help; and never did I doubt that the noble count would instantly go down to Tours himself, to ransom his brother in arms; but, God help us all! I found his wit a cup-full weaker than when I left him."