Wager of Battle: A Tale of Saxon Slavery in Sherwood Forest

by Henry William Herbert

It was fortunate, for all concerned, that no long time elapsed before more efficient aid came on the ground, than the gentleman who first reached the spot, and who, although a member of that dauntless chivalry, trained from their cradles to endure hardship, to despise danger, and to look death steadfastly and unmoved in the face, was so utterly paralyzed by what he deemed, not unnaturally, the death of his darling, that he made no effort to relieve her from the weight of the slaughtered animal, though it rested partially on her lower limbs, and on one arm, which lay extended, nevertheless, as it had fallen, in the dust. But up came, in an instant, Philip de Morville, on his superb, snow-white Andalusian, a Norman baron to the life—tall, powerful, thin-flanked, deep-chested, with the high aquiline features and dark chestnut hair of his race, nor less with its dauntless valor, grave courtesy, and heart as impassive to fear or tenderness or pity, as his own steel hauberk. Up came esquires and pages, foresters and grooms, and springing tumultuously to the ground, under the short, prompt orders of their lord, raised the dead palfrey bodily up, while Sir Philip drew the fair girl gently from under it, and raising her in his arms more tenderly than he had ever been known to entreat any thing, unless it were his favorite falcon, laid her on the short, soft greensward, under the shadow of one of the huge, broad-headed oaks by the wayside.

"Cheer thee, my noble lord and brother," he exclaimed, "the Lady Guendolen is not dead, nor like to die this time. 'Tis only fear, and perchance her fall, for it was a heavy one, that hath made her faint. Bustle, knaves, bustle. Bring water from the spring yonder. Has no one a leathern bottiau? You, Damian, gallop, as if you would win your spurs of gold by riding, to the sumpter mule with the panniers. It should be at the palmer's spring by this time; for, hark, the bells from the gray brothers' chapel, in the valley by the river, are chiming for the noontide service. Bring wine and essences, electuaries and ambergris, if the refectioner have any with him. You, Raoul," he continued, addressing a sturdy, grim-featured old verdurer, who was hanging over the still senseless girl with an expression of solicitude hardly natural to his rugged and scar-seamed countenance, "take a led horse, and hie thee to the abbey; tell the good prior what hath befallen, and pray the brother mediciner he will ride this way, as speedily as he may; and you," turning to the old, white-haired seneschal, "send up some of the varlets to the castle, for the horse-litter; she may not ride home this day."

In the mean time, while he was accumulating order on order, while pages and horse-boys, grooms and esquires, were galloping off, in different directions, as if with spurs of fire, and while the barons themselves were awkwardly endeavoring to perform those ministrations for the fair young creature, which they were much more used themselves to receive at the hands of the softer sex, who were in those rude days often the chirurgeons and leeches, as well as the comforters and soothers of the bed of pain and sickness, than to do such offices for others, the bold defender of Guendolen—Kenric the dark-haired—lay in his blood, stark and cold, deemed dead, and quite forgotten, even by the lowest of the Norman varletry, who held themselves too noble to waste services upon a Saxon, much more upon a thral and bondsman.

They—such of them, that is to say, as were not needed in direct attendance on the persons of the nobles, or as had not been dispatched in search of aid—applied themselves, with characteristic zeal and eagerness, to tend and succor the nobler animals, as they held them, of the chase; while they abandoned their brother man and fellow-countryman, military Levites as they were, to his chances of life or death, without so much as even caring to ask or examine whether he were numbered with the living or the dead.

The palfrey was first seen to, and pronounced dead; when his rich housings were stripped off carefully, and cleaned as well as time and place permitted; when the carcass was dragged off the road, and concealed, for the moment, with fern leaves and boughs lopped from the neighboring bushes, while something was said among the stable boys of sending out some of the "dog Saxon serfs" to bury him on the morrow.

The deer was then dragged roughly whence it lay, across the breast of Kenric, in whose left shoulder one of its terrible brow antlers had made a deep gash, while his right arm was badly shattered by a blow of its sharp hoofs. So careless were the men of inflicting pain on the living, or dishonor on the dead, that one of them, in removing the quarry, set his booted foot square on the Saxon's chest, and forced, by the joint effect of the pressure and the pain, a stifled, choking sound, half involuntary, half a groan, from the pale lips of the motionless sufferer. With a curse, and a slight, contemptuous kick, the Norman groom turned away, with his antlered burthen, muttering a ribald jest on "the death-grunt of the Saxon boar;" and drawing his keen wood-knife, was soon deep in the mysteries of the cureé, and deeper yet in blood and grease, prating of "nombles, briskets, flankards, and raven-bones," then the usual terms of the art of hunting, or butchery, whichever the reader chooses to call it, which are now probably antiquated. The head was cabbaged, as it was called, and, with the entrails, given as a reward to the fierce hounds, which glared with ravenous eyes on the gory carcass. Even its peculiar morsel was chucked to the attendant raven, the black bird of St. Hubert, which—free from any apprehension of the gentle hunters, who affected to treat him with respectful and reverential awe—sat on the stag-horned peak of an aged oak-tree, awaiting his accustomed portion, with an observant eye and an occasional croak. By-and-by, when the sumpter mule came up, with kegs of ale and bottiaus of mead and hypocras, and wine of Gascony and Anjou, before even the riders' throats were slaked by the generous liquor, the bridle-bits and cavessons, nose-bags and martingales of the coursers were removed, and liberal drenches were bestowed on them, partly in guerdon of past services, partly in order to renew their strength and stimulate their valiant ardor.

Long ere this, however, fanned by two or three pages with fans of fern wreaths, and sprinkled with cold spring-water by the hands of her solicitous kinsman, the young girl had given symptoms of returning life, and a brighter expression returned to the dark, melancholy visage of her father.

Two or three long, faint, fluttering sighs came from her parted lips; and then, regular, though low and feeble, her breathing made itself heard, and her girlish bosom rose and fell responsive.

Her father, who had been chafing her hands assiduously, pressed one of them caressingly, at this show of returning animation, and raised it to his lips; when, awakening at the accustomed tenderness, her languid eyes opened, a faint light of intelligence shone forth from them, a pale glow of hectic color played over her face, and a smile glittered for a second on her quivering lips.

"Dear father," she whispered, faintly; but, the next moment, an expression of fear was visible in all her features, and a palpable shiver shook all her frame. "The stag!" she murmured; "the stag! save me, save"—and before the word, uttered simultaneously by the two lords—"He is dead, dear one," "He will harm no one any more"—had reached her ears, she again relapsed into insensibility, while with equal care, but renewed hope, they tended and caressed her.