“Constantine Fitzarnulph, I greet thee in the name of God and of good St. Edward.”
“Oliver Icingla!” exclaimed the citizen, taken by surprise. “Do I, in truth, see you, and in the body? Ere this I deemed you were food for worms.”
“By the Holy Cross, Constantine,” replied the squire, “you do see me in the body. I have, it is true, passed through many adventures and perils, seeing I am but a youth; but as for being food for worms, I have as yet no ambition to serve that purpose, being, as is well known to you, the last of my line, and in no haste, credit me, to sing ‘Nunc Dimittis’ till I have done something to employ the tongues of minstrels.”
“Of what adventures and perils speak you?” asked the citizen somewhat jealously; for he himself had passed through neither, save in his visions by day and his dreams by night.
“I would fain not appear vainglorious,” answered the squire, smiling, “and, therefore, I care not to recount my own exploits. But you know that, when I was withdrawn from your companionship, and from the lessons in grammar and letters, to which, be it confessed, I never took very kindly, I entered the castle of my mother’s remote kinsman, William Longsword, Earl of Salisbury, and there, not without profit, served my apprenticeship to chivalry. But no sooner did I attain the rank of squire than I began to sigh for real war, and such fields of fight as, for years, I had been dreaming of. And it chanced that about that time Don Diego Perez, a knight from Spain, reached the castle of Salisbury with tidings that Alphonso of Castille was hard pressed by the Moors, and like to lose his kingdom if not aided by the warriors of Christendom. On hearing Don Diego’s report I and others in my Lord of Salisbury’s household, with the noble earl’s sanction, accompanied the knight to Castille; and I fought at Muradel on that day when the Christian chivalry swept the Moorish host before them as the wind does leaves at Yule.”
“In good faith?”
“In good faith, Constantine,” continued the squire. “But it speedily appeared that we had done our work too well, and routed the Moors so thoroughly that there was no likelihood of reaping more honour or more profit under King Alphonso’s banners; and I was even thinking of going to the Holy Land to fight for the recovery of the Holy Sepulchre, when news reached the court of Castille that King John had allied himself with the Emperor of Germany and the Count of Flanders to oppose the King of France, and that my Lord of Salisbury was leading an English force to join them; and I and others resolved thereupon to hasten where blows were like to be going; and we made our way, through countless perils, to the great earl’s side on the very day when the two armies—one headed by the Emperor Otho, the other by King Philip—drew up in battle array between Lille and Tournay.”
“By St. Thomas!” exclaimed the citizen with a sneer, “you soon learned to your cost that you had better have gone elsewhere.”
“Nay, nay,” replied the squire sharply—for the sneer of the citizen had not been unobserved—“it is the fortune of warriors to know defeat as well as victory, and we did all that brave men could do on that August day—now four months since—when we came face to face with the French at the bridge of Bovines. It was a long and furious battle; but, from the first, fortune favoured the French, and, when all was lost, my Lord of Salisbury yielded his sword to the Bishop of Beauvais, a terrible warrior, who fought not with a sword, lest he should be accused of shedding men’s blood, but with a mighty club, with which he smashed at once head-piece and head. For my own part,” added the squire carelessly, as one who did not relish speaking of himself, “I fought till I was sore wounded in the face and beaten down; and I should have been trodden under foot but for the earl, who, like a noble warrior as he is, looked to my safety; so I accompanied him into captivity; and, when he covenanted for his own ransom, he, at the same time, paid mine for my mother’s sake, and here I am in England safe and sound; but, I almost grieve to add, hardly a free man.”
“Not a free man, Oliver Icingla? How cometh that?” asked the citizen.