The coutelier nodded.
Then look that none of the links find their way to the wine house ere the monk touches them; for if it so chance, thou shalt taste of saddle girth and stirrup leather till thou art as raw as Saint Bartholomew [he was flayed alive. In Michael Angelos Last Judgment he is represented as holding his skin in his hand] Yet hold, I see thy eye has fixed on the wine measure, and thou shalt not go without tasting.
So saying, he filled him a brimful cup, which the coutelier drank off, and retired to do his patrons commission.
And now, fair nephew, let us hear what was your own fortune in this unhappy matter.
I fought it out among those who were older and stouter than I was, till we were all brought down, said Durward, and I received a cruel wound.
Not a worse slash than I received ten years since myself, said Le Balafre. Look at this, now, my fair nephew, tracing the dark crimson gash which was imprinted on his face. An Ogilvys sword never ploughed so deep a furrow.
They ploughed deep enough, answered Quentin, sadly, but they were tired at last, and my mothers entreaties procured mercy for me, when I was found to retain some spark of life; but although a learned monk of Aberbrothik, who chanced to be our guest at the fatal time, and narrowly escaped being killed in the fray, was permitted to bind my wounds, and finally to remove me to a place of safety, it was only on promise, given both by my mother and him, that I should become a monk.
A monk! exclaimed the uncle. Holy Saint Andrew! that is what never befell me. No one, from my childhood upwards, ever so much as dreamed of making me a monk. And yet I wonder when I think of it; for you will allow that, bating the reading and writing, which I could never learn, and the psalmody, which I could never endure, and the dress, which is that of a mad beggar Our Lady forgive me! [here he crossed himself] and their fasts, which do not suit my appetite, I would have made every whit as good a monk as my little gossip at St. Martins yonder. But I know not why, none ever proposed the station to me. Oh, so, fair nephew, you were to be a monk, then and wherefore, I pray you?
That my fathers house might be ended, either in the cloister or in the tomb, answered Quentin, with deep feeling.
I see, answered his uncle I comprehend. Cunning rogues very cunning! They might have been cheated, though; for, look ye, fair nephew, I myself remember the canon Robersart who had taken the vows and afterwards broke out of cloister, and became a captain of Free Companions. He had a mistress, the prettiest wench I ever saw, and three as beautiful children. There is no trusting monks, fair nephew no trusting them they may become soldiers and fathers when you least expect it but on with your tale.
I have little more to tell, said Durward, except that, considering my poor mother to be in some degree a pledge for me, I was induced to take upon me the dress of a novice, and conformed to the cloister rules, and even learned to read and write.
To read and write! exclaimed Le Balafre, who was one of that sort of people who think all knowledge is miraculous which chances to exceed their own. To write, sayst thou, and to read! I cannot believe it never Durward could write his name that ever I heard of, nor Lesly either. I can answer for one of them I can no more write than I can fly. Now, in Saint Louiss name, how did they teach it you?
It was troublesome at first, said Durward, but became more easy by use; and I was weak with my wounds, and loss of blood, and desirous to gratify my preserver, Father Peter, and so I was the more easily kept to my task. But after several months languishing, my good, kind mother died, and as my health was now fully restored, I communicated to my benefactor, who was also Sub Prior of the convent, my reluctance to take the vows; and it was agreed between us, since my vocation lay not to the cloister, that I should be sent out into the world to seek my fortune, and that to save the Sub Prior from the anger of the Ogilvies, my departure should have the appearance of flight; and to colour it I brought off the Abbots hawk with me. But I was regularly dismissed, as will appear from the hand and seal of the Abbot himself.
That is right, that is well, said his uncle. Our King cares little what other theft thou mayst have made, but hath a horror at anything like a breach of the cloister. And I warrant thee, thou hadst no great treasure to bear thy charges?
Only a few pieces of silver, said the youth; for to you, fair uncle, I must make a free confession.
Alas! replied Le Balafre, that is hard. Now, though I am never a hoarder of my pay, because it doth ill to bear a charge about one in these perilous times, yet I always have (and I would advise you to follow my example) some odd gold chain, or bracelet, or carcanet, that serves for the ornament of my person, and can at need spare a superfluous link or two, or it may be a superfluous stone for sale, that can answer any immediate purpose. But you may ask, fair kinsman, how you are to come by such toys as this. (He shook his chain with complacent triumph.) They hang not on every bush they grow not in the fields like the daffodils, with whose stalks children make knights collars. What then? you may get such where I got this, in the service of the good King of France, where there is always wealth to be found, if a man has but the heart to seek it at the risk of a little life or so.
I understood, said Quentin, evading a decision to which he felt himself as yet scarcely competent, that the Duke of Burgundy keeps a more noble state than the King of France, and that there is more honour to be won under his banners that good blows are struck there, and deeds of arms done; while the most Christian King, they say, gains his victories by his ambassadors tongues.
You speak like a foolish boy, fair nephew, answered he with the scar; and yet, I bethink me, when I came hither I was nearly as simple: I could never think of a King but what I supposed him either sitting under the high deas, and feasting amid his high vassals and Paladins, eating blanc mange, with a great gold crown upon his head, or else charging at the head of his troops like Charlemagne in the romaunts, or like Robert Bruce or William Wallace in our own true histories, such as Barbour and the Minstrel. Hark in thine ear, man it is all moonshine in the water. Policy policy does it all. But what is policy, you will say? It is an art this French King of ours has found out, to fight with other mens swords, and to wage his soldiers out of other mens purses. Ah! it is the wisest prince that ever put purple on his back and yet he weareth not much of that neither I see him often go plainer than I would think befitted me to do.
[Charlemagne (742? -814): King of the Franks and crowned Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire in 800. His kingdom included Germany and France, the greater part of Italy, and Spain as far as the Ebro. As Emperor of the West he bore the title Caesar Augustus. He established churches and monasteries, and encouraged arts and learning. He figures largely in mediaeval minstrelsy, where the achievements of his knights, or paladins, rival those of Arthurs court.]
[Robert Bruce: the grandson of Robert Bruce, the competitor with John Baliol for the Scottish throne. He defeated the English forces at Bannockburn in 1314, and thus secured the independence of Scotland, an independence which lasted until the two kingdoms were united under one crown in 1707.]
[William Wallace: another brave Scottish leader in the war for independence against Edward I of England. Wallace was betrayed in 1305 and carried to London, where he was cruelly executed as a traitor.]
[Charlemagne (742? -814): King of the Franks and crowned Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire in 800. His kingdom included Germany and France, the greater part of Italy, and Spain as far as the Ebro. As Emperor of the West he bore the title Caesar Augustus. He established churches and monasteries, and encouraged arts and learning. He figures largely in mediaeval minstrelsy, where the achievements of his knights, or paladins, rival those of Arthurs court.]
[Robert Bruce: the grandson of Robert Bruce, the competitor with John Baliol for the Scottish throne. He defeated the English forces at Bannockburn in 1314, and thus secured the independence of Scotland, an independence which lasted until the two kingdoms were united under one crown in 1707.]
[William Wallace: another brave Scottish leader in the war for independence against Edward I of England. Wallace was betrayed in 1305 and carried to London, where he was cruelly executed as a traitor.]
[Barbour: an eminent Scottish poet contemporary with Chaucer. His principal work, The Bruce, records the life and deeds of Robert Bruce.]
[Harry the Minstrel or Blind Harry was the author of a poem on the life and deeds of Wallace which was held in peculiar reverence by the Scotch people.]
But you meet not my exception, fair uncle, answered young Durward; I would serve, since serve I must in a foreign land, somewhere where a brave deed, were it my hap to do one, might work me a name.
I understand you, my fair nephew, said the royal man at arms, I understand you passing well; but you are unripe in these matters. The Duke of Burgundy is a hot brained, impetuous, pudding headed, iron ribbed dare all. He charges at the head of his nobles and native knights, his liegemen of Artois and Hainault; think you, if you were there, or if I were there myself, that we could be much farther forward than the Duke and all his brave nobles of his own land? If we were not up with them, we had a chance to be turned on the Provost Marshals hands for being slow in making to; if we were abreast of them, all would be called well and we might be thought to have deserved our pay; and grant that I was a spears length or so in the front, which is both difficult and dangerous in such a melee where all do their best, why, my lord Duke says in his Flemish tongue, when he sees a good blow struck, Ha! gut getroffen [well struck]! a good lance a brave Scot give him a florin to drink our health; but neither rank, nor lands, nor treasures come to the stranger in such a service all goes to the children of the soil.
And where should it go, in Heavens name, fair uncle? demanded young Durward.
To him that protects the children of the soil, said Balafre, drawing up his gigantic height. Thus says King Louis My good French peasant mine honest Jacques Bonhomme, get you to your tools, your plough and your harrow, your pruning knife and your hoe here is my gallant Scot that will fight for you, and you shall only have the trouble to pay him. And you, my most serene duke, my illustrious count, and my most mighty marquis, een rein up your fiery courage till it is wanted, for it is apt to start out of the course, and to hurt its master; here are my companies of ordnance here are my French Guards here are, above all, my Scottish Archers, and mine honest Ludovic with the Scar, who will fight, as well or better than you, will fight with all that undisciplined valour which, in your fathers time, lost Cressy and Azincour [two famous victories in the Hundred Years War gained over the French by the English, near the towns of Crecy and Agincourt, in 1346 and 1415. See Shakespeares Henry V for a description of the latter.]. Now, see you not in which of these states a cavalier of fortune holds the highest rank, and must come to the highest honour?
I think I understand you, fair uncle, answered the nephew; but, in my mind, honour cannot be won where there is no risk. Sure, this is I pray pardon me an easy and almost slothful life, to mount guard round an elderly man whom no one thinks of harming, to spend summer day and winter night up in yonder battlements, and shut up all the while in iron cages, for fear you should desert your posts uncle, uncle, it is but a hawk upon his perch, who is never carried out to the fields!
Now, by Saint Martin of Tours, the boy has some spirit! a right touch of the Lesly in him; much like myself, though always with a little more folly in it. Hark ye, youth Long live the King of France! scarce a day but there is some commission in hand, by which some of his followers may win both coin and credit. Think not that the bravest and most dangerous deeds are done by daylight. I could tell you of some, as scaling castles, making prisoners, and the like, where one who shall be nameless hath run higher risk and gained greater favour than any desperado in the train of desperate Charles of Burgundy. And if it please his Majesty to remain behind, and in the background, while such things are doing, he hath the more leisure of spirit to admire, and the more liberality of hand to reward the adventurers, whose dangers, perhaps, and whose feats of arms, he can better judge of than if he had personally shared them. Oh, t is a sagacious and most politic monarch!
His nephew paused, and then said, in a low but impressive tone of voice, the good Father Peter used often to teach me there might be much danger in deeds by which little glory was acquired. I need not say to you, fair uncle, that I do in course suppose that these secret commissions must needs be honourable.
For whom or for what take you me, fair nephew, said Balafre, somewhat sternly; I have not been trained, indeed, in the cloister, neither can I write or read. But I am your mothers brother; I am a loyal Lesly. Think you that I am like to recommend to you anything unworthy? The best knight in France, Du Guesclin himself, if he were alive again, might be proud to number my deeds among his achievements.
I cannot doubt your warranty, fair uncle, said the youth; you are the only adviser my mishap has left me. But is it true, as fame says, that this King keeps a meagre Court here at his Castle of Plessis? No repair of nobles or courtiers, none of his grand feudatories in attendance, none of the high officers of the crown; half solitary sports, shared only with the menials of his household; secret councils, to which only low and obscure men are invited; rank and nobility depressed, and men raised from the lowest origin to the kingly favour all this seems unregulated, resembles not the manners of his father, the noble Charles, who tore from the fangs of the English lion this more than half conquered kingdom of France.
You speak like a giddy child, said Le Balafre, and even as a child, you harp over the same notes on a new string. Look you: if the King employs Oliver Dain, his barber, to do what Oliver can do better than any peer of them all, is not the kingdom the gainer? If he bids his stout Provost Marshal, Tristan, arrest such or such a seditious burgher, take off such or such a turbulent noble, the deed is done, and no more of it; when, were the commission given to a duke or peer of France, he might perchance send the King back a defiance in exchange. If, again, the King pleases to give to plain Ludovic le Balafre a commission which he will execute, instead of employing the High Constable, who would perhaps betray it, doth it not show wisdom? Above all, doth not a monarch of such conditions best suit cavaliers of fortune, who must go where their services are most highly prized, and most frequently in demand? No, no, child, I tell thee Louis knows how to choose his confidants, and what to charge them with; suiting, as they say, the burden to each mans back. He is not like the King of Castile, who choked with thirst, because the great butler was not beside to hand his cup. But hark to the bell of St. Martins! I must hasten, back to the Castle Farewell make much of yourself, and at eight tomorrow morning present yourself before the drawbridge, and ask the sentinel for me. Take heed you step not off the straight and beaten path in approaching the portal! There are such traps and snap haunches as may cost you a limb, which you will sorely miss. You shall see the King, and learn to judge him for yourself farewell.