Добавил:
ivanov666
Опубликованный материал нарушает ваши авторские права? Сообщите нам.
Вуз:
Предмет:
Файл:Sir Nigel
.pdf
SIR NIGEL
three deeds should be done ere he should set eyes upon her
again. In the privacy of her room the Lady Mary sank upon
her prie-dieu and poured forth the thanks of her heart to the
Virgin that one deed was accomplished; but even as she did so
her joy was overcast by the thought of those two others which
lay before him.
CHAPTER XVI
HOW THE KING’S COURT
FEASTED IN CALAIS CASTLE
It was a bright sunshiny morning when Nigel found himself at last able to leave his turret chamber and to walk upon
the rampart of the castle. There was a brisk northern wind,
heavy and wet with the salt of the sea, and he felt, as he turned
his face to it, fresh life and strength surging in his blood and
bracing his limbs. He took his hand from Aylward’s supporting arm and stood with his cap off, leaning on the rampart
and breathing in the cool strong air. Far off upon the distant
sky-line, half hidden by the heave of the waves, was the low
white fringe of cliffs which skirted England. Between him
and them lay the broad blue Channel, seamed and flecked
with flashing foam, for a sharp sea was running and the few
ships in sight were laboring heavily. Nigel’s eyes traversed the
wide-spread view, rejoicing in the change from the gray wall
of his cramped chamber. Finally they settled upon a strange
object at his very feet.
It was a long trumpet-shaped engine of leather and iron
bolted into a rude wooden stand and fitted with wheels. Beside
it lay a heap of metal slugs and lumps of stone. The end of the
252
SIR NIGEL
machine was raised and pointed over the battlement. Behind
it stood an iron box which Nigel opened. It was filled with
a black coarse powder, like gritty charcoal.
“By Saint Paul!” said he, passing his hands over the engine,
“I have heard men talk of these things, but never before have
I seen one. It is none other than one of those wondrous newmade bombards.”
“In sooth, it is even as you say,” Aylward answered, looking at it with contempt and dislike in his face. “I have seen
them here upon the ramparts, and have also exchanged a buffet or two with him who had charge of them. He was jack-fool
enough to think that with this leather pipe he could outshoot
the best archer in Christendom. I lent him a cuff on the ear
that laid him across his foolish engine.”
“It is a fearsome thing,” said Nigel, who had stooped to examine it. “We live in strange times when such things can be
made. It is loosed by fire, is it not, which springs from the black
dust?”
“By my hilt! fair sir, I know not. And yet I call to mind that
ere we fell out this foolish bombardman did say something of
the matter. The fire-dust is within and so also is the ball. Then
you take more dust from this iron box and place it in the hole
at the farther end – so. It is now ready. I have never seen one
fired, but I wot that this one could be fired now.”
“It makes a strange sound, archer, does it not?” said Nigel
wistfully.
“So I have heard, fair sir – even as the bow twangs, so it
also has a sound when you loose it.”
253
ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE
“There is no one to hear, since we are alone upon the rampart, nor can it do scathe, since it points to sea. I pray you to
loose it and I will listen to the sound.” He bent over the bombard with an attentive ear, while Aylward, stooping his earnest brown face over the touch-hole, scraped away diligently
with a flint and steel. A moment later both he and Nigel were
seated some distance off upon the ground while amid the roar
of the discharge and the thick cloud of smoke they had a vision of the long black snakelike engine shooting back upon
the recoil. For a minute or more they were struck motionless
with astonishment while the reverberations died away and the
smoke wreaths curled slowly up to the blue heavens.
“Good lack!” cried Nigel at last, picking himself up and
looking round him. “Good lack, and Heaven be my aid! I thank
the Virgin that all stands as it did before. I thought that the
castle had fallen.”
“Such a bull’s bellow I have never heard,” cried Aylward,
rubbing his injured limbs. “One could hear it from Frensham
Pond to Guildford Castle. I would not touch one again – not
for a hide of the best land in Puttenham!”
“It may fare ill with your own hide, archer, if you do,” said
an angry voice behind them. Chandos had stepped from the
open door of the corner turret and stood looking at them with
a harsh gaze. Presently, as the matter was made clear to him his
face relaxed into a smile.
“Hasten to the warden, archer, and tell him how it befell.
You will have the castle and the town in arms. I know not
what the King may think of so sudden an alarm. And you, Ni-
254
SIR NIGEL
gel, how in the name of the saints came you to play the child
like this?”
“I knew not its power, fair lord.”
“By my soul, Nigel, I think that none of us know its power.
I can see the day when all that we delight in, the splendor and
glory of war, may all go down before that which beats through
the plate of steel as easily as the leathern jacket. I have bestrode my warhorse in my armor and have looked down at the
sooty, smoky bombardman beside me, and I have thought that
perhaps I was the last of the old and he the first of the new;
that there would come a time when he and his engines would
sweep you and me and the rest of us from the field.”
“But not yet, I trust, honored sir?”
“No, not yet, Nigel. You are still in time to win your spurs
even as your fathers did. How is your strength?”
“I am ready for any task, my good and honored lord.”
“It is well, for work awaits us – good work, pressing work,
work of peril and of honor. Your eyes shine and your face
flushes, Nigel. I live my own youth over again as I look at you.
Know then that though there is truce with the French here,
there is not truce in Brittany where the houses of Blois and of
Montfort still struggle for the dukedom. Half Brittany fights
for one, and half for the other. The French have taken up the
cause of Blois, and we of Montfort, and it is such a war that
many a great leader, such as Sir Walter Manny, has first earned
his name there. Of late the war has gone against us, and the
bloody hands of the Rohans, of Gaptooth Beaumanoir, of Oliver the Flesher and others have been heavy upon our people.
The last tidings have been of disaster, and the King’s soul is
255
ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE
dark with wrath for that his friend and comrade Gilles de
St. Pol has been done to death in the Castle of La Brohiniere.
He will send succors to the country, and we go at their head.
How like you that, Nigel?”
“My honored lord, what could I ask for better?”
“Then have your harness ready, for we start within the
week. Our path by land is blocked by the French, and we go by
sea. This night the King gives a banquet ere he returns to England, and your place is behind my chair. Be in my chamber that
you may help me to dress, and so we will to the hall together.”
With satin and with samite, with velvet and with fur, the
noble Chandos was dressed for the King’s feast, and Nigel too
had donned his best silk jupon, faced with the five scarlet roses, that he might wait upon him. In the great hall of Calais
Castle the tables were set, a high table for the lords, a second
one for the less distinguished knights, and a third at which the
squires might feast when their masters were seated.
Never had Nigel in his simple life at Tilford pictured
a scene of such pomp and wondrous luxury. The grim gray
walls were covered from ceiling to floor with priceless tapestry
of Arras, where hart, hounds and huntsmen circled the great
hall with one long living image of the chase. Over the principal table drooped a line of banners, and beneath them rows of
emblazoned shields upon the wall carried the arms of the high
noblemen who sat beneath. The red light of cressets and of
torches burned upon the badges of the great captains of England. The lions and lilies shone over the high dorseret chair
in the center, and the same august device marked with the cadency label indicated the seat of the Prince, while glowing to
256
SIR NIGEL
right and to left were the long lines of noble insignia, honored
in peace and terrible in war. There shone the gold and sable
of Manny, the engrailed cross of Suffolk, the red chevron of
Stafford, the scarlet and gold of Audley, the blue lion rampant
of the Percies, the silver swallows of Arundel, the red roebuck
of the Montacutes, the star of the de Veres, the silver scallops
of Russell, the purple lion of de Lacy, and the black crosses of
Clinton.
A friendly Squire at Nigel’s elbow whispered the names of
the famous warriors beneath. “You are young Loring of Tilford, the Squire of Chandos, are you not?” said he. “My name
is Delves, and I come from Doddington in Cheshire. I am the
Squire of Sir James Audley, yonder round-backed man with
the dark face and close-cropped beard, who hath the Saracen
head as a crest above him.”
“I have heard of him as a man of great valor,” said Nigel,
gazing at him with interest.
“Indeed, you may well say so, Master Loring. He is the bravest knight in England, and in Christendom also, as I believe.
No man hath done such deeds of valor.”
Nigel looked at his new acquaintance with hope in his eyes.
“You speak as it becomes you to speak when you uphold your
own master,” said he. “For the same reason, Master Delves, and
in no spirit of ill-will to you, it behooves me to tell you that he
is not to be compared in name or fame with the noble knight
on whom I wait. Should you hold otherwise, then surely we
can debate the matter in whatever way or time may please you
best.”
257
ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE
Delves smiled good-humoredly. “Nay, be not so hot,” said
he. “Had you upheld any other knight, save perhaps Sir Walter
Manny, I had taken you at your word, and your master or mine
would have had place for a new Squire. But indeed it is only
truth that no knight is second to Chandos, nor would I draw
my sword to lower his pride of place. Ha, Sir James’ cup is low!
I must see to it!” He darted off, a flagon of Gascony in his hand.
“The King hath had good news to-night,” he continued when
he returned. “I have not seen him in so merry a mind since
the night when we took the Frenchmen and he laid his pearl
chaplet upon the head of de Ribeaumont. See how he laughs,
and the Prince also. That laugh bodes some one little good, or
I am the more mistaken. Have a care! Sir John’s plate is empty.”
It was Nigel’s turn to dart away; but ever in the intervals
he returned to the corner whence he could look down the hall
and listen to the words of the older Squire. Delves was a short,
thick-set man past middle age, weather-beaten and scarred,
with a rough manner and bearing which showed that he was
more at his ease in a tent than a hall. But ten years of service
had taught him much, and Nigel listened eagerly to his talk.
“Indeed the King hath some good tidings,” he continued.
“See now, he has whispered it to Chandos and to Manny. Manny spreads it on to Sir Reginald Cobham, and he to Robert
Knolles, each smiling like the Devil over a friar.”
“Which is Sir Robert Knolles?” asked Nigel with interest.
“I have heard much of him and his deeds.”
“He is the tall hard-faced man in yellow silk, he with the
hairless cheeks and the split lip. He is little older than yourself, and his father was a cobbler in Chester, yet he has already
258
SIR NIGEL
won the golden spurs. See how he dabs his great hand in the
dish and hands forth the gobbets. He is more used to a campkettle than a silver plate. The big man with the black beard
is Sir Bartholomew Berghersh, whose brother is the Abbot
of Beaulieu. Haste, haste! for the boar’s head is come and the
plate’s to be cleaned.”
The table manners of our ancestors at this period would
have furnished to the modern eye the strangest mixture of
luxury and of barbarism. Forks were still unknown, and the
courtesy fingers, the index and the middle of the left hand,
took their place. To use any others was accounted the worst of
manners. A crowd of dogs lay among the rushes growling at
each other and quarreling over the gnawed bones which were
thrown to them by the feasters. A slice of coarse bread served
usually as a plate, but the King’s own high table was provided
with silver platters, which were wiped by the Squire or page
after each course. On the other hand the table-linen was costly, and the courses, served with a pomp and dignity now unknown, comprised such a variety of dishes and such complex
marvels of cookery as no modern banquet could show. Besides
all our domestic animals and every kind of game, such strange
delicacies as hedgehogs, bustards, porpoises, squirrels, bitterns
and cranes lent variety to the feast.
Each new course, heralded by a flourish of silver trumpets,
was borne in by liveried servants walking two and two, with
rubicund marshals strutting in front and behind, bearing
white wands in their hands, not only as badges of their office, but also as weapons with which to repel any impertinent
inroad upon the dishes in the journey from the kitchen to the
259
ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE
hall. Boar’s heads, enarmed and endored with gilt tusks and
flaming mouths, were followed by wondrous pasties molded
to the shape of ships, castles and other devices with sugar seamen or soldiers who lost their own bodies in their fruitless
defense against the hungry attack. Finally came the great nef,
a silver vessel upon wheels laden with fruit and sweetmeats
which rolled with its luscious cargo down the line of guests.
Flagons of Gascony, of Rhine wine, of Canary and of Rochelle
were held in readiness by the attendants; but the age, though
luxurious, was not drunken, and the sober habits of the Norman had happily prevailed over the license of those Saxon
banquets where no guest might walk from the table without
slur upon his host. Honor and hardihood go ill with a shaking
a
hand or a blurred eye.
Whilst wine, fruit and spices were handed round the high
tables the squires had been served in turn at the farther end of
the hall. Meanwhile round the King there had gathered a group
of statesmen and soldiers, talking eagerly among themselves. The
Earl of Stafford, the Earl of Warwick, the Earl of Arundel, Lord
Beauchamp and Lord Neville were assembled at the back of his
chair, with Lord Percy and Lord Mowbray at either side. The little
group blazed with golden chains and jeweled chaplets, flame colored paltocks and purple tunics.
Of a sudden the King said something over his shoulder to Sir
William de Pakyngton the herald, who advanced and stood by
the royal chair. He was a tall and noble-featured man, with long
grizzled beard which rippled down to the gold-linked belt girdling his many-colored tabard. On his head he had placed the heraldic barret-cap which bespoke his dignity, and he slowly raised
260
Соседние файлы в предмете [НЕСОРТИРОВАННОЕ]