The White Company, Arthur Conan Doyle [chrome ebook reader txt] 📗

filed slowly through the side-door to the great chamber in which the royal tables were set forth.

 

CHAPTER XX.

HOW ALLEYNE WON HIS PLACE IN AN HONORABLE GUILD.

 

Whilst the prince’s council was sitting, Alleyne and Ford had remained in the outer hall, where they were soon surrounded by a noisy group of young Englishmen of their own rank, all eager to hear the latest news from England.

“How is it with the old man at Windsor?” asked one.

“And how with the good Queen Philippa?”

“And how with Dame Alice Perrers?” cried a third.

“The devil take your tongue, Wat!” shouted a tall young man, seizing the last speaker by the collar and giving him an admonitory shake. “The prince would take your head off for those words.”

“By God’s coif! Wat would miss it but little,” said another. “It is as empty as a beggar’s wallet.”

“As empty as an English squire, coz,” cried the first speaker. “What a devil has become of the maitre-des-tables and his sewers? They have not put forth the trestles yet.”

“Mon Dieu! if a man could eat himself into knighthood, Humphrey, you had been a banneret at the least,” observed another, amid a burst of laughter.

“And if you could drink yourself in, old leather-head, you had been first baron of the realm,” cried the aggrieved Humphrey. “But how of England, my lads of Loring?”

“I take it,” said Ford, “that it is much as it was when you were there last, save that perchance there is a little less noise there.”

“And why less noise, young Solomon?”

“Ah, that is for your wit to discover.”

“Pardieu! here is a paladin come over, with the Hampshire mud still sticking to his shoes. He means that the noise is less for our being out of the country.”

“They are very quick in these parts,” said Ford, turning to Alleyne.

“How are we to take this, sir?” asked the ruffling squire.

“You may take it as it comes,” said Ford carelessly.

“Here is pertness!” cried the other.

“Sir, I honor your truthfulness,” said Ford.

“Stint it, Humphrey,” said the tall squire, with a burst of laughter. “You will have little credit from this gentleman, I perceive. Tongues are sharp in Hampshire, sir.”

“And swords?”

“Hum! we may prove that. In two days’ time is the vepres du tournoi, when we may see if your lance is as quick as your wit.”

“All very well, Roger Harcomb,” cried a burly, bull-necked young man, whose square shoulders and massive limbs told of exceptional personal strength. “You pass too lightly over the matter. We are not to be so easily overcrowed. The Lord Loring hath given his proofs; but we know nothing of his squires, save that one of them hath a railing tongue. And how of you, young sir?” bringing his heavy hand down on Alleyne’s shoulder.

“And what of me, young sir?”

“Ma foi! this is my lady’s page come over. Your cheek will be browner and your hand harder ere you see your mother again.”

“If my hand is not hard, it is ready.”

“Ready? Ready for what? For the hem of my lady’s train?”

“Ready to chastise insolence, sir,” cried Alleyne with hashing eyes.

“Sweet little coz!” answered the burly squire. “Such a dainty color! Such a mellow voice! Eyes of a bashful maid, and hair like a three years’ babe! Voila!” He passed his thick fingers roughly through the youth’s crisp golden curls.

“You seek to force a quarrel, sir,” said the young man, white with anger.

“And what then?”

“Why, you do it like a country boor, and not like a gentle squire. Hast been ill bred and as ill taught. I serve a master who could show you how such things should he done.”

“And how would he do it, O pink of squires?”

“He would neither be loud nor would he be unmannerly, but rather more gentle than is his wont. He would say, `Sir, I should take it as an honor to do some small deed of arms against you, not for mine own glory or advancement, but rather for the fame of my lady and for the upholding of chivalry.’ Then he would draw his glove, thus, and throw it on the ground; or, if he had cause to think that he had to deal with a churl, he might throw it in his face—as I do now!”

A buzz of excitement went up from the knot of squires as Alleyne, his gentle nature turned by this causeless attack into fiery resolution, dashed his glove with all his strength into the sneering face of his antagonist. From all parts of the hall squires and pages came running, until a dense, swaying crowd surrounded the disputants.

“Your life for this!” said the bully, with a face which was distorted with rage.

“If you can take it,” returned Alleyne.

“Good lad!” whispered Ford. “Stick to it close as wax.”

“I shall see justice,” cried Norbury, Sir Oliver’s silent attendant.

“You brought it upon yourself, John Tranter,” said the tall squire, who had been addressed as Roger Harcomb. “You must ever plague the new-comers. But it were shame if this went further. The lad hath shown a proper spirit.”

“But a blow! a blow!” cried several of the older squires. “There must be a finish to this.”

“Nay; Tranter first laid hand upon his head,” said Harcomb. “How say you, Tranter? The matter may rest where it stands?”

“My name is known in these parts,” said Tranter, proudly, “I can let pass what might leave a stain upon another. Let him pick up his glove and say that he has done amiss.”

“I would see him in the claws of the devil first,” whispered Ford.

“You hear, young sir?” said the peacemaker. “Our friend will overlook the matter if you do but say that you have acted in heat and haste.”

“I cannot say that,” answered Alleyne.

“It is our custom, young sir, when new squires come amongst us from England, to test them in some such way. Bethink you that if a man have a destrier or a new lance he will ever try it in time of peace, lest in days of need it may fail him. How much more then is it proper to test those who are our comrades in arms.”

“I would draw out if it may honorably be done,” murmured Norbury in Alleyne’s ear. “The man is a noted swordsman and far above your strength.”

Edricson came, however, of that sturdy Saxon blood which is very slowly heated, but once up not easily to be cooled. The hint of danger which Norbury threw out was the one thing needed to harden his resolution.

“I came here at the back of my master,” he said, “and I looked on every man here as an Englishman and a friend. This gentleman hath shown me a rough welcome, and if I have answered him in the same spirit he has but himself to thank. I will pick the glove up; but, certes, I shall abide what I have done unless he first crave my pardon for what he hath said and done.”

Tranter shrugged his shoulders. “You have done what you could to save him, Harcomb,” said he. “We had best settle at once.”

“So say I,” cried Alleyne.

“The council will not break up until the banquet,” remarked a gray-haired squire. “You have a clear two hours.”

“And the place?”

“The tilting-yard is empty at this hour.”

“Nay; it must not be within the grounds of the court, or it may go hard with all concerned if it come to the ears of the prince.”

“But there is a quiet spot near the river,” said one youth. “We have but to pass through the abbey grounds, along the armory wall, past the church of St. Remi, and so down the Rue des Apotres.”

“En avant, then!” cried Tranter shortly, and the whole assembly flocked out into the open air, save only those whom the special orders of their masters held to their posts. These unfortunates crowded to the small casements, and craned their necks after the throng as far as they could catch a glimpse of them.

Close to the banks of the Garonne there lay a little tract of green sward, with the high wall of a prior’s garden upon one side and an orchard with a thick bristle of leafless apple-trees upon the other. The river ran deep and swift up to the steep bank; but there were few boats upon it, and the ships were moored far out in the centre of the stream. Here the two combatants drew their swords and threw off their doublets, for neither had any defensive armor. The duello with its stately etiquette had not yet come into vogue, but rough and sudden encounters were as common as they must ever be when hotheaded youth goes abroad with a weapon strapped to its waist. In such combats, as well as in the more formal sports of the tilting-yard, Tranter had won a name for strength and dexterity which had caused Norbury to utter his well-meant warning. On the other hand, Alleyne had used his weapons in constant exercise and practice for every day for many months, and being by nature quick of eye and prompt of hand, he might pass now as no mean swordsman. A strangely opposed pair they appeared as they approached each other: Tranter dark and stout and stiff, with hairy chest and corded arms, Alleyne a model of comeliness and grace, with his golden hair and his skin as fair as a woman’s. An unequal fight it seemed to most; but there were a few, and they the most experienced, who saw something in the youth’s steady gray eye and wary step which left the issue open to doubt.

“Hold, sirs, hold!” cried Norbury, ere a blow had been struck. “This gentleman hath a two-handed sword, a good foot longer than that of our friend.”

“Take mine, Alleyne,” said Ford.

“Nay, friends,” he answered, “I understand the weight and balance of mine own. To work, sir, for our lord may need us at the abbey!”

Tranter’s great sword was indeed a mighty vantage in his favor. He stood with his feet close together, his knees bent outwards, ready for a dash inwards or a spring out. The weapon he held straight up in front of him with blade erect, so that he might either bring it down with a swinging blow, or by a turn of the heavy blade he might guard his own head and body. A further protection lay in the broad and powerful guard which crossed the hilt, and which was furnished with a deep and narrow notch, in which an expert swordsman might catch his foeman’s blade, and by a quick turn of his wrist might snap it across. Alleyne, on the other hand, must trust for his defence to his quick eye and active foot—for his sword, though keen as a whetstone could make it, was of a light and graceful build with a narrow, sloping pommel and a tapering steel.

Tranter well knew his advantage and lost no time in putting it to use. As his opponent walked towards him he suddenly bounded forward and sent in a whistling cut which would have severed the other in twain had he not sprung lightly back from it. So close was it that the point ripped a gash in the jutting edge of his linen cyclas. Quick as a panther, Alleyne sprang in with a thrust, but Tranter, who was as active as he was strong, had already recovered himself and turned it aside with a movement of his heavy blade. Again he whizzed in a blow which made the spectators hold their breath, and again Alleyne very quickly and swiftly slipped from under it, and sent back