The Caged Lion, Charlotte M. Yonge [dark books to read TXT] 📗

beings require an earthly hope, nearer home, to brace our hearts, and nerve our arms.’

‘I thought the Sieur de Glenuskie was destined to a religious life.’

‘Never by any save his enemies, lady.  The Regent Albany and his fierce sons have striven to scare Malcolm into a cloister, that his sister and his lands may be their prey; and they would have succeeded had not I come to Scotland in time.  The lad never had any true vocation.’

‘That may be,’ said Esclairmonde, somewhat sorrowfully.

‘Still,’ added James, ‘he is of a thoughtful and somewhat tender mould, and the rudeness of life will try him sorely unless he have some cheering star, some light of love, to bear him up and guide him on his way.’

‘If so, may he find a worthy one.’

‘Lady, it is too late to talk of what he may find.  The brightness that has done so much for him already will hinder him from turning his eyes elsewhere.’

‘You are a minstrel, Sir King, and therefore these words of light romance fall from your lips.’

‘Nay, lady, hitherto my romance has been earnest.  It rests with you to make Malcolm’s the same.’

‘Not so, Sir.  That has long been out of my hands.’

‘Madame, you might well shrink from what it was as insult to you to propose; but have you never thought of the blessings you might confer in the secular life, with one who would be no hindrance, but a help?’

‘No, Sir, for no blessings, but curses, would follow a breach of dedication.’

‘Lady, I will not press you with what divines have decided respecting such dedication.  Any scruples could be removed by the Holy Father at Rome, and, though I will speak no further, I will trust to your considering the matter.  You have never viewed it in any light save that of a refuge from wedlock with one to whom I trust you would prefer my gentle cousin.’

‘It were a poor compliment to Lord Malcolm to name him in the same day with Sir Boëmond of Burgundy,’ said Esclairmonde; ‘but, as I said, it is not the person that withholds me, but the fact that I am not free.’

‘I do not ask you to love or accept the poor boy as yet,’ said James; ‘I leave that for the time when I shall bring him back to you, with the qualities grown which you have awakened.  At least, I can bear him the tidings that it is not your feelings, but your scruples that are against him.’

‘Sir King,’ said Esclairmonde, gravely, ‘I question not your judgment in turning your kinsman and subject to the secular life; but if you lead him by false hopes, of which I am the object, I tell you plainly that you are deluding him; and if any evil come thereof, be it on your own head.’

She moved away, with a bend of her graceful neck, and James stood with a slight smile curving his lip.  ‘By my troth,’ he said to himself, ‘a lordly lady!  She knows her own vocation.  She is one to command scores of holy maids, and have all the abbots and priors round at her beck, instead of one poor man.  Rather Malcolm than I!  But he is the very stuff that loves to have such a woman to rule him; and if she wed at all, he is the very man for her!  I’ll not give it up!  Love is the way to make a man of him, whether successful or not, and she may change her mind, since she is not yet on the roll of saints.  If I could get a word with her father confessor, and show him how much it would be for the interest of the Church in Scotland to get such a woman there, it would be the surest way of coming at her.  Were she once in Scotland, my pretty one would have a stay and helper!  But all must rest till after the campaign.’

James therefore told Malcolm so much as that he had spoken to his lady-love for him, and that she had avowed that it was not himself, but her own vows, that was the obstacle.

Malcolm crimsoned with joy as well as confusion; and the King proceeded: ‘For the vows’—he shrugged his shoulders—‘we knew there is a remedy!  Meantime, Malcolm, be you a man, win your spurs, and show yourself worth overcoming something for!’

Malcolm smiled and brightened, holding his head high and joyously, and handling his sword.  Then came the misgiving—‘But Lilias, Sir, and Patrick Drummond.’

‘We will provide for them, boy.  You know Drummond is bent on carving his own fortune rather than taking yours, and that your sister only longs to see you a gallant knight.’

It was true, but Malcolm sighed.

‘You have not spoken to the lady yourself?’ asked the King.

‘No, Sir.  Oh, how can I?’ faltered Malcolm, shamefaced and frightened.

James laughed.  ‘Let that be as the mood takes you, or occasion serves,’ he said, wondering whether the lad’s almost abject awkwardness and shame would be likely to create the pity akin to love or to contempt, and deciding that it must be left to chance.

Nor did Malcolm find boldness enough to do more than haunt Esclairmonde’s steps, trembling if she glanced towards him, and almost shrinking from her gaze.  He had now no doubts about going on the campaign, and was in full course of being prepared with equipments, horses, armour, and attendants, as became a young prince attending on his sovereign as an adventurer in the camp.  It was not even worth while to name such scruples to the English friar who shrived him on the last day before the departure, and who knew nothing of his past history.  He knew all priests would say the same things, and as he had never made a binding vow, he saw no need of consulting any one on the subject; it would only vex him again, and fill him with doubts.  The suspicion that Dr. Bennet was aware of his previous intention made him shrink from him.  So the last day had come, and all was farewell.  King Henry had persuaded the Queen to seclude herself for one evening from Madame of Hainault, for his sake.  King James was pacing the gardens on the Thames banks, with Joan Beaufort’s hand for once allowed to repose in his; many a noble gentleman was exchanging last words with his wife—many a young squire whispering what he had never ventured to say before—many a silver mark was cloven—many a bright tress was exchanged.  Even Ralf Percy was in the midst of something very like a romp with the handsome Bessie Nevil for a knot of ribbon to carry to the wars.

Malcolm felt a certain exaltation in being enough like other people to have a lady-love, but there was not much comfort otherwise; indeed, he could so little have addressed Esclairmonde that it was almost a satisfaction that she was the centre of a group of maidens whose lovers or brothers either had been sent off beforehand, or who saw their attentions paid elsewhere, and who all alike gravitated towards the Demoiselle de Luxemburg for sympathy.  He could but hover on the outskirts, conscious that he must cut a ridiculous figure, but unable to detach himself from the neighbourhood of the magnet.  As he looked back on the happy weeks of unconstrained intercourse, when he came to her as freely as did these young girls with all his troubles, he felt as if the King had destroyed all his joy and peace, and yet that these flutterings of heart and agonies of shame and fits of despair were worth all that childish calm.

He durst say nothing, only now and then to gaze on her with his great brown wistful eyes, which he dropped whenever she looked towards him; until at last, when the summer evening was closing in, and the last signal was given for the break-up of the party, Malcolm ventured on one faltering murmur, ‘Lady, lady, you are not offended with me?’

‘Nay,’ said Esclairmonde, kindly; ‘nothing has passed between us that should offend me.’

His eye lighted.  ‘May I still be remembered in your prayers, lady?’

‘As I shall remember all who have been my friends here,’ she said.

‘And oh, lady, if I should—should win honour, may I lay it at your feet?’

‘Whatever you achieve as a good man and true will gladden me,’ said Esclairmonde, ‘as it will all others that wish you well.  Both you and your sister in her loneliness shall have my best prayers.  Farewell, Lord Malcolm; may the Saints bless and guard you, whether in the world or the Church.’

Malcolm knew why she spoke of his sister, and felt as if there were no hope for him.  Esclairmonde’s grave kindness was a far worse sign than would have been any attempt to evade him; but at any rate she had spoken with him, and his heart could not but be cheered.  What might he not do in the glorious future?  As the foremost champion of a crusading king, bearing St. Andrew’s cross through the very gates of Jerusalem, what maiden, however saintly, could refuse him his guerdon?

And he knew that, for the present, Esclairmonde was safe from retiring into any convent, since her high birth and great possessions would make any such establishment expect a large dower with her as a right, and few abbesses would have ventured to receive a runaway foreigner, especially as one of her guardians was the Bishop of Thérouenne.

CHAPTER VII: THE SIEGE OF MEAUX

Wintry winds and rains were sweeping over the English tents on the banks of the Marne, where Henry V. was besieging Meaux, then the stronghold of one of those terrible freebooters who were always the offspring of a lengthened war.  Jean de Gast, usually known as the Bastard de Vaurus, nominally was of the Armagnac or patriotic party, but, in fact, pillaged indiscriminately, especially capturing travellers on their way to Paris, and setting on their heads a heavy price, failing which he hung them upon the great elm-tree in the market-place.  The very suburbs of Paris were infested by the forays of this desperate routier, as such highway robbers were called; the supplies of previsions were cut off, and the citizens had petitioned King Henry that he would relieve them from so intolerable an enemy.

The King intended to spend the winter months with his queen in England, and at once attacked the place in October, hoping to carry it by a coup de main.  He took the lower city, containing the market-place and several large convents, with no great difficulty; but the upper city, on a rising ground above the river, was strongly fortified, well victualled, and bravely defended, and he found himself forced to invest it, and make a regular siege, though at the expense of severe toil and much sickness and suffering.  Both his own prestige in France and the welfare of the capital depended on his success, and he had therefore fixed himself before Meaux to take it at whatever cost.

The greater part of the army were here encamped, together with the chief nobles, March, Somerset, Salisbury, Warwick, and likewise the King of Scots.  James had for a time had the command of the army which besieged and took Dreux while Henry was elsewhere engaged, but in general he acted as a sort of volunteer aide-de-camp to his brother king, and Malcolm Stewart of Glenuskie was always with him as his squire.  A great change had come over Malcolm in these last few months.  His feeble, sickly boyhood seemed to have been entirely cast off, and the warm genial summer sun of France to have strengthened his frame and developed his powers.  He had shot up suddenly to a fair height, had almost lost his lameness, and gained much more appearance of health and power of enduring fatigue.  His nerves had become less painfully sensitive, and when after his first skirmish, during which he had kept close to King James, far too much terrified to stir an inch from him, he had not only found himself perfectly safe, but had been much praised for his valour, he had been so much pleased with himself that he quite wished for another occasion of displaying his bravery; and, what with use, and what with the increasing spirit of pugnacity, he was as sincere as Ralf Percy in abusing the French for never coming to a pitched battle.  Perhaps, indeed, Malcolm spoke even more eagerly than Ralf, in his own surprise and gratification at finding himself no coward, and his fear lest Percy should detect that he ever had been supposed to be such.

So far the King of Scots had succeeded in awakening martial fire in the boy, but he found him less the companion in other matters than he had intended.  When at Paris, James would have taken him to explore the learned hoards of the already venerable University of Paris, where