A Monk of Fife<br />Being the Chronicle Written by Norman Leslie of Pitcullo, Concerning Marvellous, Andrew Lang [speld decodable readers TXT] 📗

led himself, and a sore tussle there was that time on the wall-crest, one or two of our men leaping into the fort, whence they came back no more.

Now it was eight hours of the evening, the sky grey, the men out-worn and out of all heart, and the captains were gathered in council.  Of this I conceived the worst hope, for after a counsel men seldom fight.  So I watched the fort right sullenly, and the town of Orleans looking black against a red, lowering sky in the west.  Some concourse of townsfolk I saw on the bridge, beside the broken arch, and by the Boulevard Belle Croix; but I deemed that they had only come to see the fray as near as might be.  Others were busy under the river wall with a great black boat, belike to ferry over the horses from our side.

All seemed ended, and I misdoubted that we would scarce charge again so briskly in the morning, nay, we might well have to guard our own gates.

As I sat thus, pondering by the vineyard ditch, the Maid stood by me suddenly.  Her helmet was off, her face deadly white, her eyes like two stars.

“Bring me my horse,” she said, so sternly that I crushed the answer on my lips, and the prayer that she would risk herself no more.

Her horse, that had been cropping the grass near him happily enough, I found, and brought to her, and so, with some ado, she mounted and rode at a foot’s pace to the little crowd of captains.

“Maiden, ma mie,” said the Bastard.  “Glad I am to see you able to mount.  We have taken counsel to withdraw for this night.  Martin,” he said to his trumpeter, “sound the recall.”

“I pray you, sir,” she said very humbly, “grant me but a little while”; and so saying, she withdrew alone from the throng of men into the vineyard.

What passed therein I know not and no man knows; but in a quarter of an hour’s space she came forth, like another woman, her face bright and smiling, her cheeks like the dawn, and so beautiful that we marvelled on her with reverence, as if we had seen an angel.

“The place is ours!” she cried again, and spurred towards the fosse.  Thence her banner had never gone back, for D’Aulon held it there, to be a terror to the English.  Even at that moment he had given it to a certain Basque, a very brave man, for he himself was out-worn with its weight.  And he had challenged the Basque to do a vaillance, or boastful deed of arms, as yesterday I and the Spaniard had done.  So D’Aulon leaped into the fosse, his shield up, defying the English; but the Basque did not follow, for the Maid, seeing her banner in the hands of a man whom she knew not, laid hold of it, crying, “Ha, mon estandart! mon estandart!”

There, as they struggled for it, the Basque being minded to follow D’Aulon to the wall foot, the banner wildly waved, and all men saw it, and rallied, and flocked amain to the rescue.

“Charge!” cried the Maid.  “Forward, French and Scots; the place is yours, when once my banner fringe touches the wall!”

With that word the wind blew out the banner fringe, and so suddenly that, though I saw the matter, I scarce knew how it was done, the whole host swarmed up and on, ladders, lifted, and so furiously went they, that they won the wall crest and leaped within the fort.  Then the more part of the English, adread, as I think, at the sight of the Maid whom they had deemed slain, fled madly over the drawbridge into Les Tourelles.

Then standing on the wall crest, whither I had climbed, I beheld strange sights.  First, through the dimness of the dusk, I saw a man armed, walking as does a rope-dancer, balancing himself with his spear, across the empty air, for so it seemed, above the broken arch of the bridge.  This appeared, in very sooth, to be a miracle; but, gazing longer, I saw that a great beam had been laid by them of Orleans to span the gap, and now other beams were being set, and many men, bearing torches, were following that good knight, Nicole Giresme, who first showed the way over such a bridge of dread.  So now were the English in Les Tourelles between two fires.

Another strange sight I saw, for in that swift and narrow stream which the drawbridge spanned whereby the English fled was moored a great black barge, its stem and stern showing on either side of the bridge.  Boats were being swiftly pulled forth from it into the stream, and as I gazed, there leaped up through the dark one long tongue of fire.  Then I saw the skill of it, namely, to burn down the drawbridge, and so cut the English off from all succour.  Fed with pitch and pine the flame soared lustily, and now it shone between the planks of the drawbridge.  On the stone platform of the boulevard, wherein the drawbridge was laid, stood a few English, and above them shone the axe of a tall squire, Glasdale, as it fell on shield and helm of the French.  Others held us at bay with long lances, and never saw I any knight do his devoir more fiercely than he who had reviled the Maid.  For on his head lay all the blame of the taking of the boulevard.  To rear of him rang the shouts of them of Orleans, who had crossed the broken arch by the beam; but he never turned about, and our men reeled back before him.  Then there shone behind him the flames from the blazing barge; and so, black against that blaze, he smote and slew, not knowing that the drawbridge began to burn.

On this the Maid ran forth, and cried to him—

“Rends-toi, rends-toi!  Yield thee, Glacidas; yield thee, for I stand in much sorrow for thy soul’s sake.”

Then, falling on her knees, her face shining transfigured in that fierce light, she prayed him thus—

“Ah! Glacidas, thou didst call me ribaulde, but I have sorrow for thy soul.  Ah! yield thee, yield thee to ransom”; and the tears ran down her cheeks, as if a saint were praying for a soul in peril.

Not one word spoke Glasdale: he neither saw nor heard.  But the levelled spears at his side flew up, a flame caught his crest, making a plume of fire, and with a curse he cast his axe among the throng, and the man who stood in front of it got his death.  Glasdale turned about as he threw; he leaped upon the burning drawbridge, where the last of his men were huddled in flight, and lo! beneath his feet it crashed; down he plunged through smoke and flame, and the stream below surged up as bridge and flying men went under in one ruin.

The Maid gave a cry that rang above the roar of fire and water.

“Saints! will no man save him?” she shrieked, looking all around her on the faces of the French.

A mad thought leaped up in my mind.

“Unharness me!” I cried; and one who stood by me undid the clasps of my light jaseran.  I saw a head unhelmeted, I saw a hand that clutched at a floating beam.  I thought of the Maid’s desire, and of the ransom of so great a squire as Glasdale, and then I threw my hands up to dive, and leaped head foremost into the water.

Deep down I plunged, and swam far under water, to avoid a stroke from floating timber, and then I rose and glanced up-stream.  All the air was fiercely lit with the blaze of the burning barge; a hand and arm would rise, and fall ere I could seize it.  A hand was thrown up before me, the glinting fingers gripping at empty air.  I caught the hand, swimming strongly with the current, for so the man could not clutch at me, and if a drowning man can be held apart, it is no great skill to save him.  In this art I was not unlearned, and once had even saved two men from a wrecked barque in the long surf of St. Andrews Bay.  Save for a blow from some great floating timber, I deemed that I had little to fear; nay, now I felt sure of the Maid’s praise and of a rich ransom.

A horn of bank with alder bushes ran out into the stream, a smooth eddy or backwater curling within.  I caught a bough of alder, and, though nigh carried down by the drowning man’s weight, I found bottom, yet hardly, and drew my man within the backwater.  He lay like a log, his face in the stream.  Pushing him before me, I rounded the horn, and, with much ado, dragged him up to a sloping gravelly beach, where I got his head on dry land, his legs being still in the water.  I turned him over and looked eagerly.  Lo! it was no Glasdale, but the drowned face of Brother Thomas!

Then something seemed to break in my breast; blood gushed from my mouth, and I fell on the sand and gravel.  Footsteps I heard of men running to us.  I lifted my hand faintly and waved it, and then I felt a hand on my face.

CHAPTER XV—HOW NORMAN LESLIE WAS ABSOLVED BY BROTHER THOMAS

Certain Scots that found me, weak and bleeding, by the riverside, were sent by the Maid, in hopes that I had saved Glasdale, whereas it was the accursed cordelier I had won from the water.  What they did with him I knew not then, but me they laid on a litter, and so bore me to a boat, wherein they were ferrying our wounded men across to Orleans.  The Maid herself, as she had foretold, returned by way of the bridge, that was all bright with moving torches, as our groaning company were rowed across the black water to a quay.  Thence I was carried in a litter to our lodgings, and so got to bed, a physician doing what he might for me.  A noisy night we passed, for I verily believe that no man slept, but all, after service held in the Church of St. Aignan, went revelling and drinking from house to house, and singing through the streets, as folk saved from utter destruction.

With daybreak fell a short silence; short or long, it seemed brief to me, who was now asleep at last, and I was rueful enough when a sound aroused me, and I found the Maid herself standing by my bedside, with one in the shadow behind her.  The chamber was all darkling, lit only by a thread of light that came through the closed shutters of wood, and fell on her pale face.  She was clad in a light jaseran of mail, because of her wound, and was plainly eager to be gone and about her business, that is, to meet the English in open field.

“Leslie, my friend,” she said, in her sweet voice, “there were many brave men in the fight yesterday, but, in God’s name, none did a braver deed than thou!  Nay, speak not,” she said, as I opened my lips to thank her, “for the leech that tended thee last night forbids it, on peril of thy very life.  So I have brought thee here a sheet of fair paper, and a pen and horn of ink, that thou, being a clerk, mayst write what thou hast to say.  Alas! such converse is not for me, who know not A from his brother B.  But the saints who helped thee have rewarded thee beyond all expectation.  Thou didst not save that unhappy Glacidas, whom God in His mercy forgive! but thou hast taken a goodlier prize—this holy man, that had been prisoner in the hands of the English.”

Here she stood a little aside, and the thread of light shone on the fell face of Brother Thomas, lowering beneath his hood.

Then I would have spoken, leech or no leech, to denounce him, for the Maid had no memory of his face, and knew him not for the false friar taken at St. Loup.  But she laid her mailed finger gently on my lips.

“Silence!  Thou art my man-at-arms and must obey thy captain.  This worthy friar hath been long in the holy company of the blessed Colette, and hath promised to bring me acquainted with that daughter of God.  Ay, and he hath given to me, unworthy as I am, a kerchief which has touched her wonder-working hands.  Almost I believe that it will heal thee by miracle, if the saints are pleased to grant it.”

Herewith she drew a kerchief across my lips, and I began, being most eager to