The White Company by Arthur Conan Doyle (top rated books of all time txt) 📖

the lady’s fair face was writhed and drawn like that of one who looks upon a horror which strikes, the words from her lips. Du Guesclin gazed round the tapestried room, at the screens, the tables, the abace, the credence, the buffet with its silver salver, and the half-circle of friendly, wondering faces. There was an utter stillness, save for the sharp breathing of the Lady Tiphaine and for the gentle soughing of the wind outside, which wafted to their ears the distant call upon a swine-herd’s horn.

“The danger may bide,” said he, shrugging his broad shoulders. “And now, Tiphaine, tell us what will come of this war in Spain.”

“I can see little,” she answered, straining her eyes and puckering her brow, as one who would fain clear her sight. “There are mountains, and dry plains, and flash of arms and shouting of battle-cries. Yet it is whispered to me that by failure you will succeed.”

“Ha! Sir Nigel, how like you that?” quoth Bertrand, shaking his head. “It is like mead and vinegar, half sweet, half sour. And is there no question which you would ask my lady?”

“Certes there is. I would fain know, fair lady, how all things are at Twynham Castle, and above all how my sweet lady employs herself.”

“To answer this I would fain lay hand upon one whose thoughts turn strongly to this castle which you have named. Nay, my Lord Loring, it is whispered to me that there is another here who hath thought more deeply of it than you.”

“Thought more of mine own home?” cried Sir Nigel. “Lady, I fear that in this matter at least you are mistaken.”

“Not so, Sir Nigel. Come hither, young man, young English squire with the gray eyes! Now give me your hand, and place it here across my brow, that I may see that which you have seen. What is this that rises before me? Mist, mist, rolling mist with a square black tower above it. See it shreds out, it thins, it rises, and there lies a castle in green plain, with the sea beneath it, and a great church within a bow-shot. There are two rivers which run through the meadows, and between them lie the tents of the besiegers.”

“The besiegers!” cried Alleyne, Ford, and Sir Nigel, all three in a breath.

“Yes, truly, and they press hard upon the castle, for they are an exceeding multitude and full of courage. See how they storm and rage against the gate, while some rear ladders, and others, line after line, sweep the walls with their arrows. They are many leaders who shout and beckon, and one, a tall man with a golden beard, who stands before the gate stamping his foot and hallooing them on, as a pricker doth the hounds. But those in the castle fight bravely. There is a woman, two women, who stand upon the walls, and give heart to the men-at-arms. They shower down arrows, darts and great stones. Ah! they have struck down the tall leader, and the others give back. The mist thickens and I can see no more.”

“By Saint Paul!” said Sir Nigel, “I do not think that there can be any such doings at Christchurch, and I am very easy of the fortalice so long as my sweet wife hangs the key of the outer bailey at the head of her bed. Yet I will not deny that you have pictured the castle as well as I could have done myself, and I am full of wonderment at all that I have heard and seen.”

“I would, Lady Tiphaine,” cried the Lady Rochefort, “that you would use your power to tell me what hath befallen my golden bracelet which I wore when hawking upon the second Sunday of Advent, and have never set eyes upon since.”

“Nay, lady,” said du Guesclin, “it does not befit so great and wondrous a power to pry and search and play the varlet even to the beautiful chatelaine of Villefranche. Ask a worthy question, and, with the blessing of God, you shall have a worthy answer.”

“Then I would fain ask,” cried one of the French squires, “as to which may hope to conquer in these wars betwixt the English and ourselves.”

“Both will conquer and each will hold its own,” answered the Lady Tiphaine.

“Then we shall still hold Gascony and Guienne?” cried Sir Nigel.

The lady shook her head. “French land, French blood, French speech,” she answered. “They are French, and France shall have them.”

“But not Bordeaux?” cried Sir Nigel excitedly.

“Bordeaux also is for France.”

“But Calais?”

“Calais too.”

“Woe worth me then, and ill hail to these evil words! If Bordeaux and Calais be gone, then what is left for England?”

“It seems indeed that there are evil times coming upon your country,” said Du Guesclin. “In our fondest hopes we never thought to hold Bordeaux. By Saint Ives! this news hath warmed the heart within me. Our dear country will then be very great in the future, Tiphaine?”

“Great, and rich, and beautiful,” she cried. “Far down the course of time I can see her still leading the nations, a wayward queen among the peoples, great in war, but greater in peace, quick in thought, deft in action, with her people’s will for her sole monarch, from the sands of Calais to the blue seas of the south.”

“Ha!” cried Du Guesclin, with his eyes flashing in triumph, “you hear her, Sir Nigel?—and she never yet said word which was not sooth.”

The English knight shook his head moodily. “What of my own poor country?” said he. “I fear, lady, that what you have said bodes but small good for her.”

The lady sat with parted lips, and her breath came quick and fast. “My God!” she cried, “what is this that is shown me? Whence come they, these peoples, these lordly nations, these mighty countries which rise up before me? I look beyond, and others rise, and yet others, far and farther to the shores of the uttermost waters. They crowd! They swarm! The world is given to them, and it resounds with the clang of their hammers and the ringing of their church bells. They call them many names, and they rule them this way or that but they are all English, for I can hear the voices of the people. On I go, and onwards over seas where man hath never yet sailed, and I see a great land under new stars and a stranger sky, and still the land is England. Where have her children not gone? What have they not done? Her banner is planted on ice. Her banner is scorched in the sun. She lies athwart the lands, and her shadow is over the seas. Bertrand, Bertrand! we are undone for the buds of her bud are even as our choicest flower!” Her voice rose into a wild cry, and throwing up her arms she sank back white and nerveless into the deep oaken chair.

“It is over,” said Du Guesclin moodily, as he raised her drooping head with his strong brown hand. “Wine for the lady, squire! The blessed hour of sight hath passed.”

 

CHAPTER XXX.

HOW THE BRUSHWOOD MEN CAME TO THE CHATEAU OF VILLEFRANCHE.

 

It was late ere Alleyne Edricson, having carried Sir Nigel the goblet of spiced wine which it was his custom to drink after the curling of his hair, was able at last to seek his chamber. It was a stone-flagged room upon the second floor, with a bed in a recess for him, and two smaller pallets on the other side, on which Aylward and Hordle John were already snoring. Alleyne had knelt down to his evening orisons, when there came a tap at his door, and Ford entered with a small lamp in his hand. His face was deadly pale, and his hand shook until the shadows flickered up and down the wall.

“What is it, Ford?” cried Alleyne, springing to his feet.

“I can scarce tell you,” said he, sitting down on the side of the couch, and resting his chin upon his hand. “I know not what to say or what to think.”

“Has aught befallen you, then?”

“Yes, or I have been slave to my own fancy. I tell you, lad, that I am all undone, like a fretted bow-string. Hark hither, Alleyne! it cannot be that you have forgotten little Tita, the daughter of the old glass-stainer at Bordeaux?”

“I remember her well.”

“She and I, Alleyne, broke the lucky groat together ere we parted, and she wears my ring upon her finger. `Caro mio,’ quoth she when last we parted, `I shall be near thee in the wars, and thy danger will be my danger.’ Alleyne, as God is my help, as I came up the stairs this night I saw her stand before me, her face in tears, her hands out as though in warning—I saw it, Alleyne, even as I see those two archers upon their couches. Our very finger-tips seemed to meet, ere she thinned away like a mist in the sunshine.”

“I would not give overmuch thought to it,” answered Alleyne. “Our minds will play us strange pranks, and bethink you that these words of the Lady Tiphaine Du Guesclin have wrought upon us and shaken us.”

Ford shook his head. “I saw little Tita as clearly as though I were back at the Rue des Apotres at Bordeaux,” said he.

“But the hour is late, and I must go.”

“Where do you sleep, then?”

“In the chamber above you. May the saints be with us all!” He rose from the couch and left the chamber, while Alleyne could hear his feet sounding upon the winding stair. The young squire walked across to the window and gazed out at the moonlit landscape, his mind absorbed by the thought of the Lady Tiphaine, and of the strange words that she had spoken as to what was going forward at Castle Twynham. Leaning his elbows upon the stonework, he was deeply plunged in reverie, when in a moment his thoughts were brought back to Villefranche and to the scene before him.

The window at which he stood was in the second floor of that portion of the castle which was nearest to the keep. In front lay the broad moat, with the moon lying upon its surface, now clear and round, now drawn lengthwise as the breeze stirred the waters. Beyond, the plain sloped down to a thick wood, while further to the left a second wood shut out the view. Between the two an open glade stretched, silvered in the moonshine, with the river curving across the lower end of it.

As he gazed, he saw of a sudden a man steal forth from the wood into the open clearing. He walked with his head sunk, his shoulders curved, and his knees bent, as one who strives hard to remain unseen. Ten paces from the fringe of trees he glanced around, and waving his hand he crouched down, and was lost to sight among a belt of furze-bushes. After him there came a second man, and after him a third, a fourth, and a fifth stealing across the narrow open space and darting into the shelter of the brushwood. Nine-and-seventy Alleyne counted of these dark figures flitting across the line of the moonlight. Many bore huge burdens upon their backs, though what it was that they carried he could not tell at the distance. Out of the one wood and into the other they passed, all with the same crouching, furtive gait, until the black bristle of trees had swallowed up the last of them.

For a moment Alleyne stood in the window, still staring down at the silent forest, uncertain as to what he should think of these midnight walkers. Then he bethought