Cliges: A Romance by active 12th century de Troyes Chrétien (the read aloud family TXT) 📖

the battle and steals away; and he has taken seven of his companions together with him. He has returned towards his castle by so hidden a way that he thinks that no one sees; but Alexander marks him; for he sees them flee from the host, and thinks to steal away and meet them, so that no one will know where he has gone. But before he was in the valley he saw as many as thirty knights coming after him along a path, six of whom were Greeks, and the other four-and-twenty Welsh; for they thought that they would follow him at a distance until it should come to the pinch. When Alexander perceived them he stopped to wait, and marks which way those who are returning to the castle take until he sees them enter. Then he begins to meditate on a very hazardous venture and on a very wondrous stratagem. And when he had finished all his thinking, he turns towards his comrades, and thus has related and said to them: "Lords," quoth he, "without gainsaying me, if ye wish to have my love, whether it be prompted by folly or wisdom, grant me my wish." And they have granted it; for never will they refuse him anything that he may choose to do. "Let us change our insignia," quoth he; "let us take shields and lances from the traitors that we have slain. Thus we shall go towards the castle, and the traitors within will think that we are of their party, and whatever the requital may be the doors will be opened to us. Know ye in what wise we shall requite them? We shall take them all or dead or living if God grant it us; and if any of you repent you know that as long as I live, I shall never love him with a good heart."

All grant him his will: they go and seize the shields from the Dead; and they arrive with this equipment. And the folk of the castle had mounted to the battlements of the tower, for they recognised the shields full well and think that they belong to their own men; for they were unsuspicious of the ambush which lurks beneath the shields. The porter opens the door to them and has received them within. He is so beguiled and deceived that he does not address them at all; and not one of them breathes a word, but they pass on mute and silent, feigning such grief that they drag their lances behind them and bend beneath their shields, so that it seems that they are sorrowing greatly; and they go in whatever direction they wish until they have passed the three walls. Up yonder they find so many foot-soldiers and knights with the count, I cannot tell you the number of them; but they were all unarmed except the eight alone, who had returned from the army; and these even were preparing to take off their armour. But they might well prove over-hasty; for those who have come upon them up yonder no longer hid themselves, but put their steeds to the gallop. All press on their stirrups and fall upon them and attack them, so that they strike dead thirty-and-one before they have given the challenge. The traitors are much dismayed thereat and cry, "Betrayed! Betrayed!" But Alexander and his friends are not confused; for as soon as they find them all unarmed they test their swords well there. Even three of those whom they found armed have they so served that they have only left five. Count Engres has rushed forward, and before the eyes of all goes to strike Calcedor on his golden shield, so that he throws him to the ground dead. Alexander is much grieved when he sees his comrade slain; he well-nigh goes mad with the fury that comes upon him. His reason is dimmed with anger, but his strength and courage are doubled, and he goes to strike the count with such a mighty force that his lance breaks; for willingly, if he could, would he avenge the death of his friend. But the count was of great strength, a good and bold knight to boot, such that there would not have been a better in the world if he had not been disloyal and a traitor. The count, on his side, prepares to give him such a blow that he bends his lance, so that it altogether splinters and breaks; but the shield does not break and the one knight does not shake the other from his seat any more than he would have shaken a rock, for both were very strong. But the fact that the count was in the wrong mightily vexes and weakens him. The one grows furious against the other, and both have drawn their swords, since they had broken their lances. And there would have been no escape if these two champions had wished further to prolong the fight; one or the other would have had to die forthwith at the end. But the count does not dare to stand his ground, for he sees his men slain around him, who, being unarmed, were taken unawares. And the king's men pursue them fiercely, and hack and hew, and cleave, and brain them, and call the count a traitor. When he hears himself accused of treason, he flees for refuge towards his keep; and his men flee with him. And their enemies who fiercely rush after take them captive; they let not a single one escape of all those that they catch. They kill and slay so many that I do not think that more than seven reached a place of safety. When the traitors entered the keep, they are stayed at the entrance; for their pursuers had followed them so close that their men would have got in if the entrance had been open. The traitors defend themselves well; for they expect succour from them who were arming in the town below. But by the advice of Nabunal, a Greek who was very wise, the way was held against the reinforcements, so that they could not come in time, for they had tarried over-long from lukewarmness and indolence. Up there into that fortress there was only one single entry; if the Greeks stop up that entrance, they will have no need to fear the coming of any force from which ill may befall them. Nabunal bids and exhorts that twenty of them go to defend the outer gateway; for easily there might they press in that way to attack and overwhelm them—foemen who would do them harm if they had strength and power to do so. "Let a score of men go to defend the gateway, and let the other ten assail the keep from without, so that the count may not shut himself up inside." This is what Nabunal advises: the ten remain in the melee before the entrance of the keep; the score go to the gate. They have delayed almost too long; for they see coming a company, flushed and heated with desire of fighting, in which there were many crossbow-men and foot-soldiers of divers equipment, bearing diverse arms. Some carried light missiles, and others, Danish axes, Turkish lances and swords, arrows and darts and javelins. Very heavy would have been the reckoning that the Greeks would have had to pay, peradventure, if this company had come upon them, but they did not come in time. By the wisdom and by the prudence of Nabunal, they forestalled them and kept them without. When the reinforcements see that they are shut out, then they remain idle, for they see well that by attacking they will be able to accomplish nought in the matter. Then there rises a mourning and a cry of women and of little children, of old men and of youths, so great that if it had thundered from the sky those within the castle would not have heard aught of it. The Greeks greatly rejoice thereat; for now they all know of a surety that never by any chance will the count escape being taken. They bid four of them mount in haste to the battlements of the wall to see that those without do not from any quarter, by any stratagem or trick, press into the castle to attack them. The sixteen have returned to the ten who are fighting. Now was it bright daylight, and now the ten had forced their way into the keep, and the count, armed with an axe, had taken his stand beside a pillar where he defends himself right fiercely. He cleaves asunder all who come within his reach. And his followers range themselves near him; in their last day's work they take such good vengeance that they spare not their strength at all. Alexander's knights lament that there were no more than thirteen of them left though even now there were twenty-and-six. Alexander well-neigh raves with fury when he sees such havoc among his men who are thus killed and wounded, but he is not slow to revenge. He has found at hand, by his side, a long and heavy beam, and goes to strike therewith a traitor; and neither the foeman's shield nor hauberk availed him a whit against being borne to the ground. After him, he attacks the count; in order to strike well he raises the beam; and he deals him such a blow with his square-hewn beam that the axe falls from his hands; and he was so stunned and so weak, that if he had not leaned against the wall his feet would not have supported him.

With this blow the battle ceases. Alexander leaps towards the count and seizes him in such wise that he cannot move. No need is there to tell more of the others, for easily were they vanquished when they saw their lord taken. They capture them all with the count and lead them away in dire shame even as they had deserved. Of all this, King Arthur's host who were without, knew not a word; but in the morning when the battle was ended they had found their shields among the bodies; and the Greeks were raising a very loud lamentation for their lord but wrongly. On account of his shield which they recognise they one and all make great mourning, and swoon over his shield, and say that they have lived too long. Cornix and Nerius swoon; and when they come to themselves they blame their lives for being yet whole in them. And so do Torins and Acoriondes; the tears ran in streams from their eyes right on to their breasts. Life and joy are but vexation to them. And above all Parmenides has dishevelled and torn his hair. These five make so great a mourning for their lord that greater there cannot be. But they disquiet themselves in vain; instead of him, they are bearing away another; and yet they think that they are bearing away their lord. The other shields too cause them much sorrow by reason whereof they think that the bodies are those of their comrades; and they swoon and lament over them. But the shields lie one and all; for of their men there was but one slain who was named, Neriolis. Him truly would they have borne away had they known the truth. But they are in as great distress about the others as about him; and they have borne and taken them all. About all but one they are mistaken; but even like a man who dreams, who believes a lie instead of truth, the shields made them believe that this lie was true. They are deceived by the shields. They have set out with the bodies of the slain, and have come to their tents where there were many folk lamenting; but one and all of the others joined in the lament the Greeks were making. There was a great rally to their mourning. Now Soredamors, who hears the wailing and the lament for her friend, thinks and believes that she was born in an evil hour. For anguish and grief she loses memory and colour; and this it is that grieves and wounds her much, but she dare not openly show her grief; she has hidden her mourning in her heart. And yet, if any one had marked it, he would have seen by her countenance and by her outer semblance, that she suffered great pain and sorrow of body; but each one had enough to do to utter his own grief and recked nought of another's. Each was lamenting his own sorrow; for they find their kinsmen and their friends in evil case; for the river-bank was covered with them. Each lamented his own loss which is heavy and bitter. There the son weeps for the father, and here the father for the son; this man is swooning over his cousin, and this other, over his nephew; thus