Philip Augustus; or, The Brothers in Arms

by G. P. R. James

The king gazed on him, at once recognising his person; but hardly able to believe that, in the wild lunatic before him, he saw the calm, cold, tranquil Thibault of Auvergne.

In the meanwhile the count came forward, impatiently twisting in his haste the already tangled lacings of his helmet into still more intricate knots.

"Now, discourteous knight!--now!" cried he, glaring on the king,--"now will I do battle with thee on the cause; and make you confess that she is queen of France, and true and lawful wife of Philip the king! Wait but till I have laced my casque, and, on horse or on foot, I will give thee the lie! What! has the pope at length sent thee to Mount Libanus to defy me? I tell thee, miscreant, I will prove it against him, and all his host!"

The first thought that passed through the brain of Philip Augustus, was the memory of his ancient hatred to the unfortunate Count d'Auvergne, and the revived desire of vengeance for the injury he believed him to have attempted against him. Those feelings, however, in their full force, soon left him; and pity for the unhappy state in which he saw him, though it could not remove his dislike, put a bar against his anger. "I come not to defy you, sir knight," said the king. "You mistake me. I am a stranger wandering this way----"

"The glove! the glove!" cried the count, interrupting him. "You have taken down my glove--you have accepted the challenge. Have I not written it up all over Mount Libanus, that whoever denies her to be his lawful wife shall die? If you draw not your sword, I will cleave you down as a traitor, and proclaim you a coward too. In Jerusalem and in Ascalon, before the hosts of the crescent and the cross, I will brand you as a felon, a traitor, and a coward.--Draw, draw, if you be knight and noble!"

So saying, he cast his casque away from him on the ground; and, drawing his broadsword, rushed upon Philip with the fury of a lion. Self-defence became now absolutely necessary, for the king well knew that he was opposed to one of the best and most skilful knights of Christendom, whose madness was no hindrance to his powers as a man-at-arms; and consequently, loosing the bridle of his horse, he drew his sword, and prepared to repel the madman's attack.

The conflict was long and desperate, though, had not the natural generosity of his disposition interfered, the king possessed an infinite advantage over the Count d'Auvergne, whose head was, as we have said, totally undefended. He refrained, however, from aiming one blow at that vulnerable part of his antagonist's person, till his scruples had nearly cost him his life, by the rings of his haubert giving way upon his left shoulder. The Count d'Auvergne saw his advantage, and pressed on with all the blind fury of insanity, at the same time leaving his head totally unguarded. The heat of the combat had irritated the monarch, and he now found it necessary to sacrifice all other considerations to the safety of his own life. He opposed his shield, therefore, to the thundering blows of his adversary; and raising his heavy double-edged sword high above the count's naked head, in another moment would have terminated his sorrows for ever, when the blow was suspended by a circumstance which shall be related hereafter.

CHAPTER V.

In the great hall of the ducal palace at Rouen, sat John, King of England, now the undisputed possessor of the British throne; and, though the blood of his nephew was scarce washed from his hands, and the record of his crime scarce dry in the annals of the world, he bore upon his lip that same idle smile, whose hideous lightness was the more dreadful when contrasted with the profound depravity of his heart. He was seated in an ivory chair, beneath a crimson dais, gorgeously arrayed after the fashion of the day, and surrounded with all the pomp of royalty. On his right hand stood the Earl of Pembroke, with bitter grief and indignation written in his curled lip and contracted brow, which found an answering expression in the countenance of Lord Bagot, the Earl of Essex, and almost every English peer in the presence.

John saw their stern and discontented looks, and understood their import well; but, strange to say, the chief cause of his fear being removed by the death of Arthur, he felt a degree of triumphant joy in the angry sorrow of his barons; and calculated upon easily calming their irritation, before any new danger should arise to menace him. Indeed, with his usual false calculation, he already planned a new act of baseness, which, by punishing one who had contributed to the death of Arthur, by betraying him at Mirebeau, he hoped might, in some degree, satisfy those whom that death had rendered discontented; forgetting, in his utter ignorance of such a thing as virtue, that, in the eyes of the honest, one base act can never repair another.