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

the refectory, James with his harp in his hand, from time to time dreamily calling forth a few plaintive notes, such as he said always rang in his ears after hearing a Scottish voice, when they again heard Henry’s voice in hot displeasure with the provost-marshal for having deferred the execution of the runaways till after the hearing of the story of the King of Scots.

‘His commands were not to be transgressed for the king of anything,’ and he only reprieved the wretches till morning that their fate might be more signal.  He spoke with the peremptory fierceness that had of late almost obscured his natural good-humour and kindliness; and when he entered the refectory and threw himself into a chair by the fire, he looked wearied out in body and mind, shivered and coughed, and said with unwonted depression that the sullen fellows would make a quagmire of their camp after all, since a French reinforcement had come up, and the vigilance that would be needed would occupy the whole army.  At supper he ate little and spoke less; and when James would have related his encounter within the Scots, he cut him short, saying, ‘Let that rest till morning; I am sick of hearing of it!  An air upon thy harp would be more to the purpose.’

Nor would James have been unwilling to be silent on old Douglas’s conduct if he had not been anxious to plead for the panic-stricken archers, as well as to extol the conduct of the two youths, and of the Yorkshire squires; but, as he divined that the young Hotspur would regard praise from him as an insult, he deferred the subject for his absence, and launched into a plaintive narrative ballad, to which Henry listened, leaning back in his chair, often dozing, but without relaxation of the anxiety that sat on his pale face, and ever and anon wakening within a heavy sigh, as though his buoyant spirits were giving way under the weight of care he had brought on himself.

James was just singing of one of the many knightly orphans of romance, exposed in woods to the nurture of bears, his father slain, his mother dead of grief—a ditty he had perhaps chosen for its soporific powers—when a gay bugle blast rang through the court of the convent.

‘The French would scarce send to parley thus late,’ exclaimed James; but the next moment a joyful clamour arose without, and Henry, springing to his feet, spoke not, but stood awaiting the tidings with the colour burning on cheek and brow in suppressed excitement.

An esquire, splashed to the ears, hurried into the room, and falling on his knees, cried aloud, ‘God save King Harry!  News, news, my lord!  The Queen has safely borne you a fair son at Windsor Castle, five days since.’

Henry did not speak, but took the messenger’s hand, wrung it, and left a costly ring there.  Then, taking off his cap, he put his hands over his face, uttering a few words of fervent thanksgiving almost within himself, and then turning to the esquire, made further inquiries after his wife’s welfare, took from him the letter that Archbishop Chicheley had sent, poured out a cup of wine for him, bade the lords around make him good cheer, but craved license for himself to retire.

It was so unlike his usual hilarious manner that all looked at one another in anxiety, and spoke of his unusual susceptibility to fatigue and care; while the squire, looking at the rich jewel in his hand, declared within disappointment in his tone, that he would rather have had a mere flint stone so he had heard King Harry’s own cheery voice.

James was not the least anxious of them, but long ere light the next morning Henry stood at his bedside, saying, ‘I must go round the posts before mass, Jamie.  Will you face the matin frost?’

‘I am fitter to face it than thou,’ said James, rising.  ‘Is there need for this?’

‘Great need,’ said Henry.  ‘Here are these fresh forces all aglow within their first zeal, and unless they are worse captains than I suppose them, they will attempt some mischief ere long—nor is any time so slack as cock-crow.’

James was speedily ready, and, within some suppressed sighs, so was Malcolm, who knew himself in duty bound to attend his master, and was kept on the alert by seeing Ralf Percy also on foot.  But it was a great relief to him that the young gentleman murmured in no measured terms against the intolerable activity of their kings.  No other attendants went within them, since Henry was wont to patrol his camp with as little demonstration as possible.

‘I would scarcely ask a dog to come out with me this wintry morn,’ said he, as he waved back his sleepy chamberlain, Fitzhugh, and took his brother king’s arm; ‘but I could not but crave a turn with thee, Jamie, ere the hue and cry of rejoicing begins.’

‘That is poor welcome for your heir,’ said James.

‘Poor child!’ said Henry; then, after they had walked some space in silence, he added, ‘You’ll mock me, but I would that this had not befallen at Windsor.  I had laid my plans that it should be otherwise; but ladies are ill to guide.’

‘And wherefore should it not have been at fair Windsor?  If I can love it as a prison, sure your son may well love it as a cradle.’

‘No dishonour to Windsor,’ said Henry; ‘but, sleeping or waking, this whole night hath this adage rung in my ears—

“Harry, born at Monmouth, shall short time live and all get;
Harry, born at Windsor, shall long time live and lose all.”’

‘A most choice piece of royal poesy and prophecy,’ laughed James.

‘Nay, do not charge me with it, thou dainty minstrel.  It was sung to me by mime old Herefordshire nurse, when Windsor seemed as little within my reach as Meaux, and I never thought of it again till I looked to have a son.’

‘Then balk the prophecy,’ said James; ‘Edward born at Windsor got enough, and lived long enough to boot!’

‘Too late!’ was the answer.  ‘The Archbishop christened the poor child Harry in the very hour of his birth.’

‘Poor child!’ echoed James, rather sarcastically.

‘Nay, ’tis not solely the rhyme,’ said Henry; ‘but this has been a wakeful night, and not without misgivings whether I am one who ought to look for joy in his children.’

‘What is past was not such that you alone should cry mea culpa,’ said James.

‘I never thought so till now,’ said Henry.  ‘Yet who knows?  My father was a winsome young man ere his exile, full of tenderness to us all, at the rare times he was with us.  Who knows what cares may make of me ere my boy learns to knew me?’

‘You will not hold him aloof, and give him no chance of loving you?’

‘I trow not!  I’ll have him with me in the camp, and he and my brave men shall be one another’s pride.  Which Roman emperor is it that hears the nickname his father’s soldiers gave him as a child?  Nay—Caligula was it?  Omens are against me this morning.’

‘Then laughs them to scorn, and be yourself,’ said James.  ‘Bless God for the goodly child, who is born to two kingdoms, won by his father’s and his grandsire’s swords.’

‘Ah!’ said Henry, depressed by failing health, a sleepless night, and hungry morning, ‘maybe it were better for him, soul and body both, did I stand here Duke of Lancaster, and good Edmund of March yonder were head of realm and army.’

‘Never would he be head of this army,’ said James.  ‘He would be snoring at Shene; that is, if he could sleep for the trouble the Duke of Lancaster would be giving him.’

Henry laughed at last.  ‘Good King Edmund, he would assuredly never try to set the world right on its hinges.  Honest fellow, soon he will be as hearty in his congratulations as though he did not lie under a great wrong.  Heigh-ho! such as he may be in the right on’t.  I’ve marvelled of late, whether any priest or hermit could bring back my old assurance, that all this is my work on earth, or tell me if it be all one grand error.  Men there have been like Cæsar, Alexander, or Charlemagne, who thought my thoughts and worked them out; and surely Church and nations cry aloud for purifying.  Jerusalem, and a general council—I saw them once clear and bright before me; but now a mist seems to rise up from Richard’s blood, and hide them from me; and there comes from it my father’s voice when he asked on his deathbed what right I had to the crown.  What would it be if I had to leave this work half done?’

He was interrupted by the sight of a young knight stealing into the camp, after a furtive expedition to Paris.  It was enough to rouse him from his despondent state; and the severity of his wrath was in full proportion to the offence.  Nor did he again utter his misgivings, but was full of his usual alacrity and life, as though daylight had restored his buoyancy.

James, on the way back to the thanksgiving mass, interceded for last night’s offenders, as an act of grace suitable to the occasion; but Henry was inexorable.

‘Had they stood to die like Englishmen, they had not lied like dogs! ‘he said; ‘and as dogs they shall hang!’

In fact, in the critical state of his army, he knew that the only safety lay in the promptest and sternest justice; and therefore the three foremost in accusing King James of treachery were hung long before noon.

However, he called for the two Yorkshiremen, and thus addressed them: ‘Well done, my masters!  Thanks for showing Scots and Frenchmen what stuff Englishmen are made of!  I keep my word, good fellows.  Kneel down, and I’ll dub each a knight.  How now! what are you blundering and whispering for?’

‘So please you, Sir,’ said Kitson, ‘this is no matter to win one’s spurs for—mere standing still without a blow.’

‘I would all had that same gift of standing still,’ returned Henry.  ‘What is it sticks in your gizzard, friend?  If ’tis the fees, I take them on myself.’

‘No, Sir,’ hoarsely cried both.

And Kitson explained: ‘Sir, you said you’d knight the one of us that was foremost.  Now, the two being dubbed, we shall be but where we were before as to Mistress Agnes of Mineshull, unless of your good-will you would be pleased to let us fight out the wager of the heriard in all peace and amity.’

Henry burst out laughing, with all his old merriment, as he said, ‘For no Mistress Agnes living can I have honest men’s lives wasted, specially of such as have that gift of standing still.  If she does not knew her own mind, one of you must get himself killed by the Frenchmen, not by one another.  So kneel down, and we’ll make your knighthood’s feast fall in with that of my son.’

Thus Sir Christopher Kitson and Sir William Trenton rose up knights; and bore their honours with a certain bluntness that made them butts, even while they were the heroes of the day; and Henry, who had resumed his gay temper, made much diversion out of their mingled shrewdness and gruffness.

‘So,’ muttered Malcolm to Ralf Percy, ‘we are passed over in the self-same matter for which these fellows are knighted.’

‘Tush!’ answered Percy; ‘I’d scorn to be confounded with a couple of clowns like them!  Moreover,’ he added, with better reason, ‘their valour was more exercised than ours, inasmuch as they thought there was treachery, and we did not.  No, no; when my spurs are won, it shall be for some prowess, better than standing stock-still.’

Malcolm held his tongue, unwilling that Percy should see that he did feel this an achievement; but he was vexed at the lack of reward, fancying that knighthood would be no small step in the favour of that imaginary Esclairmonde whom he had made for himself.

‘Light of the world’ he loved to call her still, but it was in the commonplace romance of his time, the mere light of beauty and grace illuminating the world of chivalry.

CHAPTER VIII: THE CAPTURE

The seven months’ siege ended at last, but it was not until the brightness of May was on the fields outside, and the deadly blight of famine on all within, that a haggard, wasted-looking deputation came down from the upper city to treat with the King.

Henry was never severe with the inhabitants of French cities, and exacted no harsh terms, save that he insisted that Vaurus, the robber captain, and his two chief lieutenants, should be given up to him to suffer condign punishment.  The warriors who had shut themselves up to hold out the place by honourable warfare for the Dauphin must be put to ransom as prisoners of war; but the