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

by Henry William Herbert

What was the vision that had so changed the tenor of her mind?

Winding through one of those green lanes—which form so exquisite a feature in the scenery of the lake country, with their sinuous, gray boundary stone walls, bordered with ashes, hazels, wild roses, and beds of tall fern at their base, while the walls themselves are overspread with small ferns, wild strawberries, the geranium, and rich lichens—there came a fair company, the persons of which were easily distinguished by Edith, in that clear atmosphere, when at a mile's distance from the cottage—a mile which was augmented into nearly three by the meanderings of the lane, corresponding with those of the brook.

In the front rode a lady, the Lady Guendolen, on a beautiful chestnut-colored Andalusian jennet, with snow-white mane and tail, herself splendidly attired in a dark murrey-colored skirt, passamented with black embroidery, and above it a surcoat or tunic, fitting the body closely a little way below the hips, of blue satin, embroidered in silver with the armorial bearings of her house—a custom as usual in those days with the ladies as with the knights of the great houses. Her head was covered with a small cap of blue velvet, with one white feather, and on her left hand, covered by a doe-skin hawking-glove, was set a superb gosshawk, unhooded, so familiar was he with his bright mistress, and held only by a pair of silver jesses, corresponding with the silver bells which decked his yellow legs, and jingled at his every motion. By her side, attending far more to his fair companion than to the fiery horse which he bestrode, was a young cavalier, bending over her with an air of the deepest tenderness, hanging on her words as if they were more than the sweetest music to his soul, and gazing on her with affection so obvious as to show him a permitted lover. He was a powerful, finely-formed young man, of six or eight-and-twenty years, with a frank open countenance, full of intellect, nobleness, and spirit, with an occasional shadow of deep thought, but hardly to be called handsome, unless it were for the expression, since the features, though well cut, were not regular, and the complexion was too much sun-burned and weather-hardened even for manly beauty.

Altogether he was, however, a remarkably attractive-looking person. He sat his horse superbly, as a king might sit his throne; his every motion was perfect majesty of grace; and when he smiled, so radiant was the glance lighting up the dark face, that he was, for the moment, actually handsome. He was dressed in a plain, dark hunting suit, with a bonnet and feather of the same hue, and untanned deer buskins, the only ornament he wore being a long blue scarf, of the same color as the surcoat of his mistress, and embroidered, probably by her hand, with the same bearings. The spurs in his buskins, however, were not gilded, and the light estoc, or sharp-pointed hunting-sword, which hung at his left side, showed by its form that he had not yet attained the honors of knighthood.

Aradas de Ratcliffe was the heir male of a line, one of the first and noblest which had settled in the lake country, in the beautiful vale of Rydal, but a little way distant to the northward from the lands of Sir Yvo de Taillebois. His father, a baron of great renown, had taken the Cross when far advanced in life, and proceeding to the Holy Land with that disastrous Second Crusade, led by Conrad III. the German Emperor, and Louis VII. of France, at the summoning of Pope Eugene III., had fallen in the first encounter with the infidels, and dying under shield, knight-like, had left his infant son with no other guardian than his mother, a noble lady of the house of Fitz Norman.

She had discharged her trust as became the character of her race; and so soon as the boy was of sufficient years, he was entered in the household of Sir Yvo de Taillebois, as the finest school in the whole realm for the aspirant to honor in arms.

Here, as page and esquire, he had served nearly twenty years of his life, first following his lord's stirrup, until he was perfect in the use of his arms, and old enough to wield them; then, fighting in his train, until he had proved himself of such stern fidelity and valor, that he became his favorite attendant, and most trusted man-at-arms.

In feudal days, it must be remembered that it was no disgrace to a scion of the highest family to serve his pagehood under a noble or knight of lineage and renown; on the contrary, it was both a condition that must be undergone, and one held as an honor to both parties; so much so, that barons of the greatest name and vastest demesnes in the realm would often solicit, and esteem it as a high favor, to have their sons ride as pages in the train of some almost landless knight, whose extraordinary prowess should have won him an extraordinary name.

These youths, moreover, as they were nobly born, so were they nobly entreated; nothing low or mean was suffered to come before them. Even in their services, nothing menial was required of them. To arm their lord for battle, to follow him to the tournament or to the field, where to rush in to his rescue if beaten down, to tend his hurts if wounded, to bear his messages, and guard his secrets as his own life, to wait on the ladies—these were the duties of a page in the twelfth century. Courage, truth, honor, fidelity unto death, courtesy, humility to the humble, haughtiness to the haughty—these were the lessons taught him. It may be doubted whether our teachings in the nineteenth are so far superior, and whether they bear so far better fruits in the end!

Be this, however, as it may, Aradas de Ratcliffe, having grown up in the same household with the beautiful Guendolen, though some twelve years her senior, had grown up to love her; and his promise of manhood being in no wise inferior to her beauty, his birth equal to her own, and his dead father an old and trusted friend of Sir Yvo, he was now riding by her side, not only as her surest defender, but as her affianced husband; it being settled, that so soon as the youthful esquire should have won his knightly spurs, the lands of Hawkshead, Coniston, and Yewdale, should be united with the adjoining demesnes of Rydal manor, dim with its grand old woods, by the union of the heiress of De Taillebois to the heir of the proud Ratcliffes.