In the Days of Chivalry: A Tale of the Times of the Black Prince by Everett-Green (best romantic books to read TXT) 📖

fitted together. At that our uncle seemed yet more moved; and after he had done what he could to ease my pain, he left me with Roger, and bid Gaston follow him to his own tent. There he told him the history of that ring, and how for many generations it had been in the De Brocas family, its last owner having been the Arnald de Brocas who had quarrelled with his kindred, and had died ere the dispute had been righted. Seeing that it was useless to hide the matter longer, Gaston told our uncle all; and he listened kindly and with sympathy to the tale. At the first he seemed as if he would have told your father all the story likewise, and have had us owned before the world. But either Gaston's reluctance to proclaim ourselves before we had won our way to fortune, or else his own uncertainty as to how your father would take the news, held him silent; and he said we were perchance right and wise to keep our secret. He added that to reveal ourselves, though it might gain us friends, would also raise up many bitter and powerful enemies. The Sieur de Navailles in the south, who by joining the French King's standard had already made himself a mark for Edward's just displeasure when the time should come for revenging himself upon those treacherous subjects in Gascony, would be certain to hold in especial abhorrence any De Brocas who would be like to cast longing eyes upon the domain he had so long ruled over; whilst in England the fierce and revengeful Sanghursts would have small scruple in seeking the destruction of any persons who would rise to dispute their hold on Basildene. The King's time and thought were too much engrossed in great matters of the state to give him leisure to concern himself with private affairs. Let the youths then remain as they were for the present, serving under his banner, high in favour with the youthful Prince, and like to win fame and honour and wealth through the victorious war about to be waged in France. When that war had triumphantly ended, and the King was rewarding those whose faithful service had gained him the day, then might the time come for the brothers of Basildene to make themselves known, and plead for their own again."

"I trow he is in the right," said John, "and I am glad that he knows all himself. So would he take the more interest in you, good Raymond; and thus it was, I take it, that he brought you to England himself when he came hither."

"Ay, truly his kindness was great; and after he knew all, I was moved to better quarters, and a prince could not have been better treated. But it was long before I could stand upon my own feet, and save for the hope of seeing you once again, I would gladly have been spared the journey to England. But the sea passage was favourable, and gave me strength, though the wind from the east blew so strong that we could not make the harbour of Dover, and were forced to beat westward along the coast till we reached the friendly port of Southampton. Then we took horse and rode hither, and glad am I to be at the journey's end. But our uncle tells me that in a few short weeks I shall be sound and whole again, and before the winter ends I may hope to join my brother beneath the King's banner."

"I hope it will be so," answered John; "and if rest is what thou needest for thy recovery, it will not be lacking to thee here. It is well that the sword is not the only weapon thou lovest, but that the quill and the lore of the wise of the earth have attractions for thee likewise."

It quickly seemed to Raymond as if the incidents of that stirring campaign had been but part and parcel of a fevered dream. He was disposed to believe that he had never quitted the retreat of his uncle's roof, and took up his old studies with John with the greatest zest. John found him marvellously advanced since the days they had studied together before. His two years with Father Paul in the Brotherhood had wonderfully enlarged his mind and extended his field of vision. It was a delight to both cousins to exchange ideas, and learn from one another; and the time fled by only too fast, each day marked by a steady though imperceptible improvement in Raymond's state of health, as his fine constitution triumphed over the serious nature of the injury received.

Although he often thought of Basildene, he made no attempt to see the place. The winter cold had set in with severity; John had little disposition to face it, and quiet and rest were far more congenial to him than any form of activity or amusement. John believed that the Sanghursts were still there, engaged in their mysterious experiments that savoured so strongly of magic. But after hearing of Raymond's bold defiance of the implacable Peter in the forest near to the Brotherhood, John was by no means desirous that the fact of Raymond's residence at the Rectory of St. Nicholas should become known at Basildene. Without sharing to the full the fears of the country people with regard to the occult powers of the father and son in that lonely house, John believed them to be as cruel and unscrupulous a pair as ever lived, even in those half-civilized times. He therefore charged his servants to say nothing of Raymond's visit, and hoped that it would not reach the ears of the Sanghursts.

But there was another person towards whom Raymond's fancy had sometime strayed during the years of his absence from Guildford, and this person he was unaccountably shy of naming even to John, though he would have been quite unable to allege a reason for his reticence.

But fortune favoured him in this as in other matters, for on entering the library one day after a short stroll around the Rector's garden, he found himself face to face with a radiant young creature dressed in the picturesque riding gear of the day, who turned to him with a beaming smile as she cried:

"Ah! I have been hearing of thee and of thy prowess, my fair young sir. My good brother Alexander, who has followed the King's banner, would gladly have been in thy place on the day of Crecy. Thou and thy brother were amongst that gallant little band who fought around the Prince and bore him off the field unhurt. Did not I say of thee that thou wouldst quickly win thy knighthood's spurs? And thou mightest already have been a belted knight if thy prudence and thy modesty had not been greater than thine ambition. Is it not so?"

Raymond's face glowed like a child's beneath the praises of Mistress Joan Vavasour, and the light of her bright eyes seemed fairly to dazzle him. John came to the rescue by telling Raymond's own version of the story; and then he eagerly asked Joan of herself and what had become of her these past years, for he had seldom seen her, and knew not where she was living nor what she was doing -- knew not even if she were wedded, nor if Peter Sanghurst's suit were at an end or had been crowned by success.

At the sound of that name the girl's face darkened quickly, and a spark of fire gleamed in her eyes.

"Talk not of him," she said; "I would that he were dead! Have I not said that I would never wed him, that I would die first? Fair fortune hath befriended me in this thing. Thou knowest perchance that my father and brother have been following the King's banner of late, first in Flanders and then in France. My mother and I meantime have not been residing at Woodcrych, but in London, whither all news of the war is first known, and where travellers from the spot are like to come. We are here but for a short space, to spend the merry Yuletide season with my mother's brother, who lives, as thou knowest, within the town of Guildford. After that we return once more to London, there to await the return of my father and brother. Alexander, in truth, has once visited us, but has returned to the siege of Calais, hoping to be amongst those who will reap plenteous spoil when the city is given over to plunder, as Caen was given. Of the Sanghursts, I thank my kindly saints, I have heard naught all this while. My mother loved them not, albeit she was always entreating me in nowise to thwart or gainsay my father. I cannot but hope that these long months of absence will have gone far to break the spell that those evil men seemed to cast about him. Be that as it may, I myself have grown from a child to a woman, and I say now, as I said then, that no power in the world shall induce me to give my hand in marriage to Peter Sanghurst. I will die first!"

The girl threw back her handsome head, and her great eyes glowed and flashed. Raymond looked at her with a beating heart, feeling once more that mysterious kindling of the soul which he could not understand, and yet of which he had been before in the presence of Joan so keenly conscious. She appeared to him to be far older than himself, though in reality he was a few months the senior; for at eighteen a girl is always older in mind than a boy, and Joan's superb physique helped to give to her the appearance of a more advanced age than was really hers. Just then, too, Raymond, though grown to his full height, which was stately enough, was white and thin and enfeebled. He felt like a mere stripling, and it never occurred to him that the many glances bent upon him by the flashing eyes of the queenly maiden were glances of admiration, interest, and romantic approval. To her the pale, silent youth, with the saint-like face and the steadfast, luminous eyes, was in truth a very preux chevalier amongst men. She had seen something too much of those knights of flesh and blood and nothing else, who could fight gallantly and well, but who knew nothing of the deeper and truer chivalry of the days of mythical romance in which her own ardent fancies loved to stray. Feats of arms she delighted in truly with the bold spirit of her soldier race; but she wanted something more than mere bravery in the field. It was not physical courage alone that made Sir Galahad her favourite of all King Arthur's knights. Ah no! There was another quest than that of personal glory which every true knight was bound to seek. Yet how many of them felt this and understood the truer, deeper meaning of chivalry? She knew, she felt, that Raymond did; and as she turned her palfrey's steps homeward when the twilight began to fall that cold December day, it was with her favourite Sir Galahad that her mind was engrossed, and to him she gave a pale, thin face, with firm, sweet lines and deep-set dreamy eyes -- eyes that looked as though they had never quailed before the face of foe, and which yet saw far into the unseen mysteries of life, and which would keep their sweet steadfastness even to the end.

As for Raymond, an unwonted restlessness came over him at this time. He was growing stronger and better. Moderate exercise was recommended as beneficial, and almost every day during the bright hours of the forenoon his steps were turned towards the town of Guildford, lying hard by his uncle's Rectory house. Scarce a day passed but what he was rewarded by a chance encounter with Mistress Joan -- either a glimpse of her at a window, or a smile from her bright eyes as she passed him upon her snow-white palfrey; or sometimes he would have the good hap to meet her upon foot, attended by her nurse, or some couple of stout retainers, if her walk had been in any wise extended; and then she would pause and bring him to her side by a look, and inquire after his own health and that of John, who seldom stirred out in the bitter cold of winter. Then he would ask and obtain her permission to accompany her as far as the gate of her own home -- the place where she was staying; and though he never advanced beyond the gate -- for she knew not what her relatives might say to these encounters with a gallant without money and without lands -- they were red-letter days in the calendar of two young lives, and were strong