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

D’Aulon strode in, dagger in hand, followed by the physician.

“What make you here with doors barred, false priest?” he said, laying his hand on the frock of Noiroufle.

“And what make you here, fair squire, with arms in a sick man’s chamber, and loud words to disturb the dying?  And wherefore callest thou me ‘false priest’?  But an hour agone, the blessed Maid herself brought me hither, to comfort and absolve her follower, to tend him, if he lived and, if he must die, to give him his dues as a Christian man.  And the door was bolted that the penitent might be private with his confessor, for he has a heavy weight to unburden his sinful soul withal.”

“Ay, the Maid sent thee, not knowing who thou wert, the traitor friar taken at St. Loup, and thou hast a tongue that beguiled her simplicity.  But one that knew thee saw thy wolfs face in her company, and told me, and I told the Maid, who sent me straightway back from the gate, that justice might be done on thee.  Thou art he whom this Scot charged with treason, and would have slain for a spy, some nights agone.”

Brother Thomas cast up his eyes to heaven.

“Forgive us our trespasses,” said he, “as we forgive them that trespass against us.  Verily and indeed I am that poor friar who tends the wounded, and verify I am he against whom this young Scot, as, I fear, is the manner of all his benighted people, brought a slanderous accusation falsely.  All the more reason was there that I should hear his last confession, and forgive him freely, as may I also be forgiven.”

“Thou liest in thy throat,” said D’Aulon.  “This is a brave man-at-arms, and a loyal.”

“Would that thou wert not beguiled, fair sir, for I have no pleasure in the sin of any man.  But, if thou wilt believe him rather than me, even keep thy belief, and read this written confession of his falsehood.  Of free will, with his own hand, my penitent hereby absolves me from all his slanders.  As Holy Church enjoins, in the grace of repentance he also makes restitution of what he had stolen, namely, all my wealth in this world, the good name of a poor and lowly follower of the blessed Francis.  Here is the scroll.”

With these words, uttered in a voice of sorrowing and humble honesty, the friar stretched out the written sheet of paper to D’Aulon.

“Had I been a false traitor,” he said, “would not her brethren of heaven have warned the blessed Maid against me?  And I have also a written safe-conduct from the holy sister Colette.”

Then I knew that he had fallen into my trap, and, weak as I was, I could have laughed to think of his face, when the words I had written came out in place of the words he had bidden me write.  For a clerk hath great power beyond the simple and unlettered of the world, be they as cunning even as Brother Thomas.

“Nom Dieu! this is another story,” said D’Aulon, turning the paper about in his hands and looking doubtfully at me.  But I smiled upon him, whereby he was the more perplexed.  “The ink is hardly dry, and in some places has run and puddled, so that, poor clerk as I am, I can make little of it”; and he pored on it in a perplexed sort.  “Tush, it is beyond my clerkhood,” he said at last.  “You, Messire Saint-Mesmin,”—turning to the physician—“must interpret this.”

“Willingly, fair sir,” said the physician, moving round to the shutter, which he opened, while the cordelier’s eyes glittered, for now there was one man less between him and the half-open door.  I nodded to D’Aulon that he should shut it, but he marked me not, being wholly in amaze at the written scroll of my confession.

The physician himself was no great clerk, and he read the paper slowly, stumbling over the words, as it were, while Brother Thomas, clasping his crucifix to his breast, listened in triumph as he heard what he himself had bidden me write.

“I, Norman Leslie, of—of Peet—What name is this?  Peet—I cannot utter it.”

“Passez outre,” quoth D’Aulon.

“I, Norman Leslie, being now in the article of death”—here the leech glanced at me, shaking his head mournfully—“do attest on my hope of salvation, and do especially desire Madame Jeanne La Pucelle, and all Frenchmen and Scots loyal to our Sovereign Lord the Dauphin, to accept my witness that Brother Thomas, of the Order of St. Francis, called Noiroufle while of the world, has been most truly and righteously accused by me of divers deeds of black treason.”

At these words the cordelier’s hand leaped up from his breast, his crucifix dagger glittered bright, he tore his frock from D’Aulon’s grip, leaving a rag of it in his hand, and smote, aiming at the squire where the gorget joins the vambrace.  Though he missed by an inch, yet so terrible was the blow that D’Aulon reeled against the wall, while the broken blade jingled on the stone floor.  Then the frock of the friar whisked through the open door of the chamber; we heard the stairs cleared in two leaps, and D’Aulon, recovering his feet, rushed after the false priest.  But he was in heavy armour, the cordelier’s bare legs were doubtless the nimbler, and the physician, crossing himself, could only gape and stare on the paper in his hand.  As he gazed with his mouth open his eyes fell on me, white as my sheets, that were dabbled with the blood from my mouth.

“Nom Dieu!” he stammered, “Nom Dieu! here is business more to my mind and my trade than chasing after mad cordeliers that stab with crucifixes!”

Then, coming to my side, he brought water, bathed my face, and did what his art might do for a man in such deadly extremity as was mine.  In which care he was still busy when D’Aulon returned, panting, having sent a dozen of townsfolk to hunt the friar, who had made good his flight over garden walls, and was now skulking none knew where.  D’Aulon would fain have asked me concerning the mystery of the confession in which Brother Thomas had placed his hope so unhappily, but the physician forbade him to inquire, or me to answer, saying that it was more than my life was worth.  But on D’Aulon’s battered armour there was no deeper dint than that dealt by the murderous crucifix.

Thus this second time did Brother Thomas make his way out of our hands, the devil aiding him, as always; for it seemed that ropes could not bind or water drown him.

But, for my part, I lay long in another bout of sore fever, sick here at Orleans, where I was very kindly entreated by the people of the house, and notably by the daughter thereof, a fair maid and gentle.  To her care the Maid had commanded me when she left Orleans, the English refusing battle, as later I heard, and withdrawing to Jargeau and Paris.  But of the rejoicings in Orleans I knew little or nothing, and had no great desire for news, or meat, or drink, but only for sleep and peace, as is the wont of sick men.  Now as touches sickness and fever, I have written more than sufficient, as Heaven knows I have had cause enow.  A luckless life was mine, save for the love of Elliot; danger and wounds, and malady and escape, where hope seemed lost, were and were yet to be my portion, since I sailed forth out of Eden-mouth.  And so hard pressed of sickness was I, that not even my outwitting of Brother Thomas was a cause of comfort to me, though to this day I cannot think of it without some mirthful triumph.

It little concerns any man to know how I slowly recovered my health after certain failings back into the shadow of death.  Therefore I need not tell how I was physicked, and bled, and how I drew on from a diet of milk to one of fish, and so to a meal of chicken’s flesh, till at last I could sit, wrapped up in many cloaks, on a seat in the garden, below a great mulberry tree.  In all this weary time I knew little, and for long cared less, as to what went on in the world and the wars.  But so soon as I could speak it was of Elliot that I devised, with my kind nurse, Charlotte Boucher, the young daughter of Jacques Boucher, the Duke’s treasurer, in whose house I lay.  She was a fair lass, and merry of mood, and greatly hove up my heart to fight with my disease.  It chanced that, as she tended me, when I was at my worst, she marked, hanging on a silken string about my neck, a little case of silver artfully wrought, wherein was that portrait of my mistress, painted by me before I left Chinon.  Being curious, like all girls, and deeming that the case held some relic, she opened it, I knowing nothing then of what she did.  But when I was well enough to lie abed and devise with her, it chanced that I was playing idly with my fingers about the silver case.

“Belike,” said Charlotte, “that is some holy relic, to which, maybe, you owe your present recovery.  Surely, when you are whole again, you have vowed a pilgrimage to the shrine of the saint, your friend?”  Here she smiled at me gaily, for she was a right merry damsel, and a goodly.

“Nay,” she said, “I have done more for you than your physician, seeing that I, or the saint you serve, have now brought the red colour into these wan cheeks of yours.  Is she a Scottish saint, then? perchance St. Margaret, of whom I have read?  Will you not let me look at the sacred thing?”

“Nay,” said I.  “Methinks, from your smiling, that you have taken opportunity to see my treasure before to-day, being a daughter of our mother Eve.”

“She is very beautiful,” said Charlotte; “nay, show her to me again!”

With that I pressed the spring and opened the case, for there is no lover but longs to hear his lady commended, and to converse about her.  Yet I had spoken no word, for my part, about her beauty, having heard say that he who would be well with one woman does ill to praise another in her presence.

“Beautiful, indeed, she is,” said Charlotte.  “Never have I seen such eyes, and hair like gold, and a look so gracious!  And for thy pilgrimage to the shrine of this fair saint, where does she dwell?”

I told her at Chinon, or at Tours, or commonly wheresoever the Court might be, for that her father was the King’s painter.

“And you love her very dearly?”

“More than my life,” I said.  “And may the saints send you, demoiselle, as faithful a lover, to as fair a lady.”

“Nay,” she said, reddening.  “This is high treason, and well you wot that you hold no lady half so fair as your own.  Are you Scots so smooth-spoken?  You have not that repute.  Now, what would you give to see that lady?”

“All that I have, which is little but my service and goodwill.  But she knows not where I am, nor know I how she fares, which irks me more than all my misfortunes.  Would that I could send a letter to her father, and tell him how I do, and ask of their tidings.”

“The Dauphin is at Tours,” she said, “and there is much coming and going between Tours and this town.  For the Maid is instant with the Dauphin to ride forthwith to Reims, and there be sacred and crowned; but now he listens and believes, and anon his counsellors tell him that this is foolhardy, and a thing impossible.”

“O they of little faith!” I said, sighing.

“None the less, word has come that the Maid has been in her oratory at prayers, and a Voice from heaven has called to her, saying, ‘Fille de Dieu, va, va, va!  Je serai en ton aide.  Va!’ {27}  The Dauphin is much confirmed in his faith by this sign, and has vowed that he will indeed march with the Maid to Reims, though his enemies hold all that country which lies between.  But first she must take the towns which the English hold on Loire side, such as Jargeau.  Now on Jargeau, while you lay knowing nothing, the Bastard of Orleans, and Xaintrailles, and other good knights, made an onslaught, and won nothing but loss for their pains, though they slew Messire Henry Bisset, the captain of the town.  But if the Maid takes Jargeau, the Dauphin will indeed believe in her and follow her.”

“He is hard of