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

Stealthily I took the chain and the key from about the neck of the sleeping lourdaud, and then drew near her on tiptoe.

I listened, and, from her breathing, I believe that she slept, as extreme labour and weariness and sorrow do sometimes bring their own remede.

Then a thought came into my mind, how I should best awake her, and stooping, I said in her ear—

“Fille Dé!”

Instantly she turned about, and, sitting up, folded her hands as one in prayer, deeming, belike, that she was aroused by the voices of her Saints.  I kneeled down beside the bed, and whispered—“Madame, Jeanne, look on my face!”

She gazed on me, and now I saw her brave face, weary and thin and white, and, greater than of old, the great grey eyes.

“I said once,” came her sweet voice, “that thou alone shouldst stand by me when all had forsaken me.  Fair Saints, do I dream but a dream?”

“Nay, Madame,” I said, “thou wakest and dost not dream.  One has sent me who loves thee, even my lady Elliot; and now listen, for the time is short.  See, here I have the master-key, and when I have unlocked thy bonds . . . ”

“Thou hast not slain these men?” she asked.  “That were deadly sin.”

“Nay, they do but sleep, and will waken belike ere the fresh guard comes, wherefore we must make haste.”

“When I have freed thee, do on thy body, above thy raiment, this doublet of mine, for it carries the cross of England, and, I being of little stature, you may well pass for me.  Moreover, this cloak and its hood, which I wore when I came in, will cover thee.  Then, when thou goest forth give the word ‘Bedford’ to the sentinels; and, to the porter in the gate, show this written pass of John Grey’s.  He knows it already, having seen it this night.  Next, when thou art without the castle, fare to the hostelry called ‘The Rose and Apple,’ which is nearest the castle gate, and so straight into the stable, where stand two steeds, saddled and bridled.  Choose the black, he is the swifter.  If the hostler be awake, he expects me, and will take thee for me; mount, with no word, and ride to the eastern port.  There show to the gate ward this signet of Sir Thomas Grey, and he will up with portcullis and down with drawbridge, for he has often done no less for me and that signet.

“Then, Madame, ride for Louviers, and you shall break your fast with the Bastard and La Hire.”  Her white face changed to red, like the morning light, as on that day at Orleans, before she took Les Tourelles.

Then the flush faded, and she grew ashen pale, while she said—

“But thou, how shalt thou get forth?”

“Madame,” I said, “fear not for me.  I will follow after thee, and shame the sleepy porter to believe that he has dreamed a dream.  And I have written this other pass, on seeing which he will needs credit me, being adrowse, and, moreover, I will pay him well.  And I shall be at the stable as soon almost as thou, and I have told the hostler that belike I shall ride with a friend, carrying a message to the Bishop of Avranches.  For I have beguiled the English to believe me of their party, as Madame Judith wrought to the tyrant Holofernes.”

“Nay,” she answered simply, “this may not be.  Even if the porter were to be bought or beguiled, thou couldst not pass the sentinels.  It may not be.”

“The sentinels, belike, are sleeping, or wellnigh sleeping, and I have a dagger.  O Madame! for the sake of the fortune of France, and the honour of the King”—for this, I knew, was my surest hope—“delay not, nor reck at all of me.  I have but one life, and it is thine freely.”

“They will burn thee, or slay thee with other torments.”

“Not so,” I said; “I shall not be taken alive.”

“That were deadly sin,” she answered.  “I shall not go and leave thee to die for me.  Then were my honour lost, and I could not endure to live.  Entreat me not, for I will not go forth, as now.  Nay more, I tell thee as I have told my judges, that which the Saints have spoken to me.  ‘Bear this thy martyrdom gently,’ they say, ‘tu t’en viendras en royaume du Paradis.’  Moreover, this I know, that I am to be delivered with great victory!”

Here she clasped her hands, looking upwards, and her face was as the face of an angel.

“Fair victory it were to leave thee in my place, and so make liars of my brethren of Paradise.”

Then, alas! I knew that I was of no more avail to move her; yet one last art I tried.

“Madame,” I said, “I have prayed you in the name of the fortune of France, and the honour of the King, which is tarnished for ever if you escape not.”

“I shall be delivered,” she answered.

“I pray you in the dear name of your lady mother, Madame du Lys.”

“I shall be delivered,” she said, “and with great victory!”

“Now I pray thee in my own name, and in that of thy first friend, my lady.  She has made a vow to give her virginity to Heaven unless either thou art set free, or she have tidings from thee that thou willest her to wed me, without whom I have no desire to live, but far rather this very night to perish.  For I am clean confessed, within these six hours, knowing that I was like to be in some jeopardy.”

“Then,” she said, smiling sweetly, and signing that I should take her hand—“Then live, Norman Leslie, for this is to me an easy thing and a joyous.  Thou art a clerk, hast thou wherewithal to write?”

“Yes, Madame, here in my wallet.”

“Then write as I tell thee:—

“JHESU MARIA”

“‘I, Jehanne la Pucelle, send from prison here in Rouen my tidings of love to Elliot Hume, my first friend among women, and bid her, for my sake, wed him who loves her, Norman Leslie of Pitcullo, my faithful servant, praying that all happiness may go with them.  In witness whereto, my hand being guided to write, I set my name, Jehanne la Pucelle, this ninth day of May, in the year Fourteen hundred and thirty-one.’

“So guide my hand,” she said, taking the pen from my fingers; and thus guided, while my tears fell on her hand, she wrote JEHANNE LA PUCELLE.

“Now,” quoth she, smiling as of old, “we must seal this missive.  Cut off one lock of my hair with your dagger, for my last gift to my first friend, and make the seal all orderly.”

I did as she bade, and, bringing a lighted stick from the brazier, I melted wax.  Then, when it was smooth, she laid on it two hairs from the little sundered lock (as was sometimes her custom), and bade me seal with my own signet, and put the brief in my wallet.

“Now, all is done,” she said.

“Nay, nay,” I said, “to die for thee is more to me than to live in love.  Ah, nay, go forth, I beseech thee!”

“With victory shall I go forth, and now I lay my last commands on the last of all my servants.  If in aught I have ever offended thee, in word or deed, forgive me!”

I could but bow my head, for I was weeping, though her eyes were dry.

“And so, farewell,” she said—

“As thou art leal and true, begone; it is my order, and make no tarrying.  To-morrow I have much to do, and needs must I sleep while these men are quiet.  Say to thy lady that I love her dearly, and bid her hope, as I also hope.  Farewell!”

She moved her thin hand, which I kissed, kneeling.

Again she said “Farewell,” and turned her back on me as if she would sleep.

Then I hung the chain and key again on the neck of the lourdaud; I put some of the fallen coins in the men’s pouches, but bestowed the dice and tablier in my wallet.  I opened the door, and went forth, not looking back; and so from the castle, showing my pass, and giving the porter another coin.  Then I went home, in the sweet dawn of May, and casting myself on my bed, I wept bitterly, for to-day she should be tormented.

* * * * *

Of the rest I have no mind to tell (though they had not the heart to torture the Maid), for it puts me out of charity with a people who have a name to be Christians, and it is my desire, if I may, to forgive all men before I die.

At Rouen I endured to abide, even until the day of unjust doom, and my reason was that I ever hoped for some miracle, even as her Saints had promised.  But it was their will that she should be made perfect through suffering, and being set free through the gate of fire, should win her victory over unfaith and mortal fear.  Wherefore I stood afar off at the end, seeing nothing of what befell; yet I clearly heard, as did all men there, the last word of her sweet voice, and the cry of JHESUS!

Then I passed through the streets where men and women, and the very English, were weeping, and, saddling my swiftest horse, I rode to the east port.  When the gate had closed behind me, I turned, and, lifting my hand, I tore the cross of St. George from my doublet.

“Dogs!” I cried, “ye have burned a Saint!  A curse on cruel English and coward French!  St Andrew for Scotland!”  The shafts and bolts hailed past me as I wheeled about; there was mounting of steeds, and a clatter of hoofs behind me, but the sound died away ere I rode into Louviers.

There I told them the tale which was their shame, and so betook me to Tours, and to my lady.

It serves not to speak of my later fortunes, being those of a private man, nor have I the heart to recall old sorrows.  We were wedded when Elliot’s grief had in some sort abated, and for one year we were happier than God has willed that sinful men should long be in this world.  Then that befell which has befallen many.  I may not write of it: suffice it that God took from me both her and her child.  Then, after certain weeks and days of which I am blessed enough to keep little memory, I forswore arms, and served in the household of the Lady Margaret of Scotland, who married the Dauphin on an unhappy day.  I have known much of Courts and of the learned, I have seen the wicked man exalted, and Brother Thomas Noiroufle in great honour with Charles VII. King of France, and offering before him, with his murderous hands, the blessed sacrifice of the Mass.

The death of the Lady Margaret, slain by lying tongues, and the sudden sight of that evil man, Brother Thomas, raised to power and place, drove me from France, and I was certain years with the King’s ambassadors at the Courts of Italy.  There I heard how the Holy Inquisition had reversed that false judgment of the English and false French at Rouen, which made me some joy.  And then, finding old age come upon me, I withdrew to my own country, where I have lived in religion, somewhile in the Abbey of Dunfermline, and this year gone in our cell of Pluscardine, where I now write, and where I hope to die and be buried.

Here ends my tale, in my Latin Chronicle left untold, of how a Scots Monk was with the Maid both in her victories and recoveries of towns, and even till her death.

For myself, I now grow old, and the earthly time to come is short, and there remaineth a rest for all souls Christian.  Miscreants I have heard of, men misbelieving and heretics, who deny that the spirit abides after the death of the body, for in the long years, say they, the spirit with the flesh wanes, and at last dies with the bodily death.  Wherein they not only make Holy Church a liar, but are visibly confounded by this truth which I know and feel, namely, that while my flesh wastes hourly towards old age, and of many things my memory is weakened, yet of that day in Chinon I mind me as clearly, and see my love as well, and hear her sweet voice as plain, as if she had but now left the room.

Herein my memory does not fail, nor does love faint, growing stronger with the years, like the stream