Chapter XV Ralph raps at the Castle Gate
At the moment when the Benedictine lay-brother, haggard and wounded, rushed into the yard of Eaton Castle, Ralph de Beauchamp was on the point of starting for Bletsoe, reassured as to Aliva by his cousin’s account of the reception the former had given to William de Breauté. The single sentence uttered by the Benedictine ere he fell senseless to the ground came as a terrible reaction. His impulse had been to ride off rapidly to Bletsoe and urge his suit with Aliva and her father; and now, at one fell swoop, came the news that she was prisoner in the hands of his rival, her discarded and insulted lover. Overcome with the shock of the news, following so soon upon his late rapture, he rode out of the castle yard, after commending the messenger to the care of the by-standers. He was almost reeling in his saddle with mental agony.
When the lay-brother, left senseless at the door of the bridge chapel, had been restored to consciousness by his mother’s care, his first thought was for the young lady so treacherously kidnapped.
Despite his mother’s entreaties, he made his way into Bedford, his bleeding head roughly bandaged; and soon learned that the horse-litter of Margaret de Ripariis had passed through the town into the castle in the early morning. But who might be within it no one could tell.
Then the Benedictine hastened to tell the townsfolk of this new outrage on the part of the De Breautés, and endeavoured, but in vain, to stir them to action. They had lived too long under the tyranny of the Robber Baron to have courage enough to attempt to throw off his yoke.
Baffled and disheartened, the brave young fellow now determined to seek Ralph de Beauchamp. The latter’s devotion to the Lady Aliva was too well known among the dependents of the De Pateshulles for the Benedictine to think for a moment that he should implore his aid in vain.
Once outside the castle wall, Sir Ralph turned his horse’s head towards Bedford. What he intended to do there, alone and unaided, he perhaps had scarcely considered. An irresistible impulse drew him to the spot where she whom he loved was imprisoned.
Bedford is some twelve miles from Eaton Socon, and when Ralph arrived there he found the burghers much exercised in their minds over the event of that morning. They had hardly recovered from the shock of seeing Henry de Braybrooke, but the evening before, hurried through the streets as a prisoner, ere this fresh outrage had followed. Not that it was by any means strange to see luckless women carried off to the castle—as, for instance, after the St. Alban’s raid; but never yet had the Robber Baron dared to treat a member of one of the noble families of the county in this fashion.
But though the Bedford burgesses were duly impressed with the enormity of Fulke de Breauté’s doings, they were loath to take any steps to put a stop to them. And indeed Ralph himself was obliged to confess that any attempt to climb those lofty stone walls, or to throw themselves on to the spears of the armed men who kept watch and ward night and day at the castle gate, would have been utter madness. The only hope was that, now that one of the king’s justices was actually a prisoner, the royal forces might be sent to extirpate this nest of robbers.
“Ah, Sir Knight,” quoth one of the fathers of the town to Ralph, as he gravely shook his head, “our goodly town has indeed grievously suffered since thy noble family and thy renowned uncle were driven away. In the old days the castle was a protection and a great benefit to us. But now—alas, fair sir! thou knowest as well as we do what we suffer. We can scarce call our souls our own.”
“Ay,” put in one of the clergy of the town, who formed one of the group which had gathered round young De Beauchamp, “see our fair church of St. Paul. It hath stood here since the days of the Saxon Bedicanford. And now, alas! how forlorn and shorn it standeth, even as a widow in her weeds mourning for her lord! Thus hath she stood since the day the impious Fulke did wickedly break down the carved work of our Zion with axes and hammers, and carry off her stones to strengthen yon great castle which towers above us. In the chancel resteth thy ancestor Simon, he who finished the good work begun by his mother, the Lady Roisia—to wit, the priory at Newenham for the canons of St. Paul’s. In good sooth, Sir Knight, thy house and Holy Church have both good reason to curse these French intruders.”
Ralph turned dejectedly away from priests and burghers. The loss of his family possessions hardly weighed with him, compared with the loss of her who was more precious to him than spoils wrested from the Church. He rode slowly and deliberately to the castle gate.
The sentinels on duty stood at attention, ready to resist an attack should a single horseman be so foolhardy as to ride against their uplifted spears.
Ralph looked upwards at the stern walls frowning down upon him, and shook his sword at them in futile rage.
As he did so two figures appeared above the battlement of the barbican. They were the Robber Baron and his brother, who had been informed that Sir Ralph de Beauchamp had ridden up to the castle.
Fulke made the knight a mocking gesture of salutation.
“Sir Ralph,” he said, “it grieves me sore that I cannot bid thee enter within these walls, and proffer thee the hospitality which is suitable to thy rank. But we entertain guests already.”
So saying, he turned round and shoved forward the disconsolate-looking judge, Henry de Braybrooke.
“Our worthy guest here,” he continued, “has not yet thought proper to cancel those writs which he and his brethren were pleased to issue from their court at Dunstable. In consequence, he hath been forced to partake of the somewhat meagre hospitality of bread and water in the dungeon-vault beneath the keep. It may perchance be even necessary to resort to yet more painful measures.”
“Sir Ralph de Beauchamp,” called out the plucky little judge, trying to lean over the battlements, “I prithee, convey to the king, my royal master, that his servant will never consent to any reversal of judgments given in concert with the learned Thomas de Muleton and the learned Martin de Pateshulle, at the bidding of the unlearned—
“Peace!” cried De Breauté, pushing the little man back violently; “I brought thee not hither to speak, but to be seen.—Soho, warder! take the justice back again to the dungeon, and see that his supper be somewhat more scanty than was his dinner. Those who bend not must starve.”
And the warder led away the little justice, remonstrating and quoting legal Latin anent wrongful imprisonment and detention.
Fulke de Breauté again looked over the parapet.
“Yet another prisoner have I here, Sir Ralph,” he said; “but she is entertained in the lady’s bower, as befits a damsel who is shortly to be the bride of the brother to the lord of the castle. Even now our new chaplain, Bertram de Concours, he who anon served the chapel on Bromham Bridge, prepares our long-disused chapel for the marriage rites.”
Ralph could bear it no longer. He gnashed his teeth, and whirling his sword round his head in impotent fury, flung it at the speaker. The good blade shivered in two against the stone wall, and Fulke resumed his banter.
“Little boots it sending thy sword where thou thyself darest not follow,” said he; “but methinks thou hast tarried long enow beneath our walls. Get thee gone ere thy churlishness be returned with usury.”
Ralph sprang from his horse. Unarmed though he was, he made for the gate, as if he would tear it down with his bare hands.
Fulke coolly signed to the sentinel who stood at his post over the gate-house, with cross-bow ready strung and quarrel fitted in the slot. The man took aim and released his string. The missile struck Ralph in a spot where his hastily-donned armour was imperfectly fastened, and he fell wounded to the ground.
At the same moment two female figures reached the western end of the walk which ran along the top of the long wall bordering the river side of the castle, at right angles to the gate-house.
One of them, a damsel of inquisitive disposition, hearing the twang of the cross-bow, sprang on to the parapet to see what was happening. From the angle she could look down upon the level space outside the gate.
“What see you, Beatrice, that you watch so closely?” inquired a girl’s voice from the wall beneath the former’s vantage-ground.
“My lady,” exclaimed Beatrice Mertoun, “the archer hath struck some knight below, for I see the townsfolk carrying off a wounded man clad in armour. His helmet hath rolled from his head. What curly hair! How pale he looks, alas, poor youth! Ah, I see my lord pointing to the helmet. There goes a man from the wicket-gate. He has picked it up; he is bringing it in. Marry, how the burghers shrank back when he appeared! Methought they were like to drop the wounded man. But no; they have borne him off.”
“I wot not what this may mean,” said Lady Aliva; for she was the speaker from below. “There is no attack on the castle? There come no more armed men?”
“Nay, none but the wounded one,” replied Beatrice. “But stay, my lady; I will to the gate-house. Perchance I may learn somewhat.”
Impelled by curiosity, the girl made her way down from the wall, and quickly crossed the yard.
Fulke, when the helmet had been brought him, glanced at it and then threw it contemptuously on one side. Then, when the burghers carrying Ralph had disappeared into a neighbouring house, he turned away and went to another part of the castle.
No sooner had he vanished than Beatrice Mertoun, standing below, called up in her most bewitching tones to the archer who had shot the quarrel.
“Ho, Hubert—Hubert of Provence! Wilt do me a favour?”
The man-at-arms was one of her most ardent admirers. He looked down on the pretty upturned face.
“A thousand, Mistress Beatrice! You have but to ask, pardie.”
“Then throw me down yon helmet your lord cast away anon.”
The man hesitated. He glanced round; but Sir Fulke was out of sight. Beatrice pouted deliciously.
“I said not a thousand, but one favour, Hubert. By my troth, Arnoul or Denis would have given it me in a trice. Methinks you set less store on my words than—”
“Be not so cruel, fair one,” exclaimed the admiring archer. “I obey your slightest wish. Here!”
The helmet fell at her feet. Beatrice picked it up, and then, without so much as a look at the archer, ran back with it to Aliva.
“See, my lady,” she cried, “thou canst read these riddles of the heralds.”
Aliva recognized on the helmet the crest of the De Beauchamps.