Delphi Works of Ford Madox Ford (Illustrated) (419 page)

“That is a horse that I would desire to have,” the old knight said when the yellow and white went by them, its rider holding now the broken spear above her head to show that she claimed that course.

“No, no,” the old knight said, though he spoke to himself, “that course I cannot give you, for both lances were broken.”

And then he called aloud:

“Ho! let the tallies be brought.”

From each pavilion came its herald bearing solemnly in his hand a stave with a handle, the one being painted red and the other yellow. These staves they handed up to the old knight, who laid them upon the table that was before him, the two heralds standing side by side below. Upon this table, too, there lay a sharp little knife that was shaped somewhat like a sickle. This knife Sir Ygorac took into his right hand, and with his left he held the tally upon the table.

“Look you, gentle knight,” he said, whilst his eyes remained intent upon the yellow stick that he was cutting, “this course shows you that it is evil to have much hatred in your heart, whether you ride in tournaments or where you will. For you will perceive that this Lady Blanche, being so full of eagerness, omitted to check her horse until it was far beyond the half-way of the barriers, and this is a discourtesy. For you should check your horse very soon, as the other lady did.”

All the while he continued slowly cutting a little white notch in the yellow wood of the tally. Then he took the red tally and began to cut at that He hummed between his teeth a little tune.

“Ah! gentle knight,” the new knight said, “I wonder that you can be so calm, for assuredly you love your kinswoman, and I think here she is in very great peril of life and limb.”

“Hum!” the old knight said, and he continued to whittle away at his stick with his weak and deliberate fingers. “That would be the fortunes of war. I have seen too many taken up with the blood flowing from their mouths and nostrils. It is God, as I have told you, that keeps this issue, and these ladies are very well matched.” By this time he had made a notch in the red tally, and then again he took the yellow one and began to cut it.

“Then if I may not tell you of my fears,” the new knight said, “let me talk of my gratitude.”

“Ah! gentle knight,” Sir Ygorac said, “talk of it if you will, but only a very little.”

“Sir,” the new knight said, “you have made me a very happy man, so that I think that if this accursed folly of a tournament were over I should be the happiest man of this earth. For, whereas yesterday all the world seemed full of doubts to me, to-day everything seems plain and easy. For it is one thing to set out upon adventures from a house or a castle which is your own and to which you may return, and it is another to go wandering about the world when you have no habitation and almost no name. Now I sit in this place and am of this place, and I can look other men in the eyes and think I am as good as they or better or a little worse as the case may be. So that in very truth I may say that you have made a whole man of me.”

The old knight surveyed carefully the notches that he had made in the tallies, feeling them with his fingers to assure himself that they were cleanly cut and straight. Then with slow gesture he gave them down to the two heralds who, patient in their gold and green and yellow and red, stood below him. Then with slow steps they walked round the lists, holding before them those staves so that all the people could plainly see. Then a great acclamation went up from all the throats, for it was observed that the Lady Dionissia had two notches to her score and the Lady Blanche but one.

“Why,” Sir Ygorac said.” for the quality of your joy I am in no way to answer, but only you yourself and the circumstances in which God placed you. As for my merit in conferring upon you that accolade it is nothing, for you have done a deed that deserved it. As for the gift of the little castle, I take shame to myself that it is so little. And surely very great would my shame be if I had not given you at least so much. For an openhanded giving is the mark by which you may know a true knight, and that is why certain orders of bannerets take for their device an open hand. And a very shameful thing for this countryside it would have been if no one had been found thus to requite you. But for one thing you may thank me, in that I gave you my collar which hangs round your neck. For that to me is very precious, since it was given me by a king when I was a very young boy in the Spanish lands. I gave you this as a token that our late quarrel was over, for at such times it is fitting that precious gifts should be exchanged. And if you will take time to think of it, I will presently ask a boon of you.”

And with that Sir Ygorac waved his hand, so that the trumpets might blow and his companion be unable immediately to answer him. At the second course the Lady Dionissia, as was plain to be seen, aimed her spear at the Lady Blanche’s thigh, where the shield did not cover it. This was a very difficult stroke, and one which, when it succeeded, usually unhorsed the opposing rider. But the horse of the Lady Blanche did not run steadily, so that the Lady Dionissia’s spear, glancing off the armour of the thigh, thrust itself deeply into the crupper of the Lady Blanche’s high saddle. The Lady Blanche’s spear, upon the other hand, struck the Lady Dionissia’s shield high up in the left-hand corner where the yellow bend of the blazoning began. It glanced off, but not so soon as to let it be said that she had not scored her stroke. And between the entering of her spear into the saddle and the stroke upon her shield, the Lady Dionissia was almost thrown back over her horse’s thighs. All people there heard her high cry to her horse in the stillness after the clash of metal. The horse fell back on its haunches as it checked dead. But the Lady Blanche’s horse forged ahead, though this time she did not forget altogether to check it. The spear, being fixed deep in the saddle, was twisted round as the horse went by and torn nearly from the Lady Dionissia’s grasp. Indeed, it was taken right round behind her back, so that her arm was stretched right over her horse’s hind-quarters. Then they saw her lean forward in her saddle and, with a great wrench, she had the spear away, so that she was saved from this disgrace. Nevertheless, her helmet with its circlet of gold and its enigmatic grin bowed with humiliation forward over her shield, and she did not hold her lance above her head to show that she claimed that course. Then the supporters of both riders, when the trumpets had blown, cheered hotly against each other, for it was held that both had done very well, the yellow and white having showed great strength. Yet it must be conceded that the Lady Blanche had scored her point, though with a less ambition.

When it was a little silent, Sir Ygorac cried to the herald for the red stave. The new Knight of Winterburne wished to assure Sir Ygorac that he was ready to grant him any boon that he could ask beneath the sun. But having seen the Lady Dionissia nearly cast out of her saddle, his heart had leapt suddenly in his side, his throat felt weak, and in a sort of confusion he could not for some minutes think of any word either in English-French or in French-French. Sir Ygorac looked at him with his fine and friendly smile, “Ah, gentle knight,” he said, “I think if you may you will grant me this boon, and it is this: You have a great skill in the curing of all diseases; many people you have cured, from the cripple that ran on all fours, to the hens of the Abbess of St. Radigund. Now certain grievous maladies beset me. My eyes they are dim, my teeth they shake in my jaws, my hair grows thin, and I cannot well ride my horse. My hands are very weak, compared with what once they were, nor does my mouth take any longer much joy in the savour of meats and the goodly fruits of the earth. Now, gentle knight, if so be you can, of your gentleness, let me lay my fingers upon the cross that depends from your throat, and let all these grievous and creeping ills, or some of them, be taken away from me.”

“Ah, gentle knight” — the new knight was beginning his speech, and at first he was minded to say that he had no power to cure. Then he bethought himself, and desired to say instead that such ills as the knight had catalogued were the creeping ones that old age draws behind it, and that for these there is no cure known under the sun or the stars. But this, again, he did not say, for he was thinking that now he was a knight and sat in that place, and must say only such things as were fitting. And seeking to remember how the Lady Dionissia would have spoken, he delivered himself of the words:

“Ah, gentle knight, we are in the hands of God and His little angels. Of how much I may cure or of how little, that I cannot tell you, but I think that surely the cure under God lies more in you than in me. For your faith will make you whole, or more, or less, according as it is great or little. This I believe to be the truth of the very truth. And in this way only, and in no other that I know of, do I think that you could find the fountain of youth. But for the cross, surely take it into your hand and feel what it is like.”

“You have spoken very gently and courteously,” the old knight said. He stretched out his trembling hand, and for a long time fingered the cross of gold where it hung beneath the new knight’s throat.

Then the herald of the Lady Blanche brought the red stave and laid it upon the table before Sir Ygorac. So the old knight left fingering the cross, and took into his hand the little knife like a sickle, and the red tally-stick. He pressed the blade of the knife into the wood, and, with one stroke this way and one stroke that, the little chip of a full notch fell out and showed a white incision. So he handed down the tally-stick to the herald. And this man, with slow steps, walked round the lists. There rose up a joyous outcry. The Lady Blanche had scored two notches to the Lady Dionissia’s two. Beneath this clamour the old knight clasped his hands and raised his eyes to the canopy of green boughs through which here and there appeared the blue of heaven and the dancing light of the sun.

“Ah, gentle knight,” he said, “did you perceive how I notched that tally? Before this it caused me many little cuts. And behold, you hear my voice is fuller. The sun is more bright, the grass is greener, and I perceive now many waving coifs where before was only a white confusion. Of a surety, under God, you have worked a miracle in me. For though it is only a little thing to cut chips out of a stick, or to speak more loudly, or more plainly to see, yet it is with such little things that the joys of life are made up. So this is a great joy to me, and a most heavy return for the little castle I have given you. I think that yesterday I would have given all that I possess except such clothes as would be sufficient to make me decent only to have as much as this. For the grass is green, the sky blue, and I hear a hundred little sounds of voices and winds that before I did not hear. And this much is to the great glory of God.”

In the third course the horses ran so swiftly together that it was difficult to see how the spears were held, and the sound of the onset at their meeting was very little. But when they were come to a standstill, it was perceived that the Lady Dionissia’s spear was shivered, but upon the point of the Lady Blanche’s spear there hung and shone in the sun the little gold circlet that had been upon the Lady Dionissia’s helmet.

“By my faith,” Sir Ygorac said, “that was a great stroke! Seldom I have seen a better, for there are few things more difficult than this, to pick a circlet or a feather from a helmet, if it was so intended.”

Then he called to him the herald of the Lady Blanche, and when the man stood below him:

“Now, herald,” he said, “upon life and truth, did your rider declare before setting out upon this course that it was her intention to ravish that circlet from that helmet. For if that was her declared intention she should score three notches, but if it was no more than good fortune, no more she scores than one.”

“Upon my faith,” the herald said, “my rider said nothing of this beforehand, but declared that her intention was to bear in her opponent’s visor and so to pierce through the eyes and skull.”

“Well, I am sorry to hear it,” Sir Ygorac said,”for it appeared to me a joyous and skilful feat, and I wish it had been. Go now and fetch the tallies.”

The Lady Blanche had now scored three notches and the Lady Dionissia three. So when this score was made known there was great outcry and contentment. The riders got down from their horses and went into their pavilions to rest themselves and to gain their breath for the combat of axes. And all the people arose from their seats or pressed away from the barriers to stretch their legs by walking over the green grass.

CHAPTER VI.

WHEN the new Knight of Winterburne came down from his seat and the people perceived him, they began running together in ones and twos and threes, so that soon there was about him such a great many that he could hardly move his arms or shoulders. And at first he was in a very good humour. Some cried to him for cure of their sickness, some desired alms, some largesse; some desired him to hear that they prayed for the success of his gentle friend the Lady Dionissia; some declared that she had not been fairly judged, and that the last course should have been notched to her. Thus there was a great noise, and Mr. Sorrell could neither hear nor speak nor so much as think. Always more people came running together, so that he could not any longer see over all their heads. Then a hot anger came over him, for he considered that, being a knight, he was not as these ragged people.

Perceiving close to him one of the shepherds of the Plain leaning upon his crook, he snatched from this man his great staff! This he brandished above his head. Those who were immediately before him pushed a little backwards with faces of alarm, but always those behind came crushing in. Then he brought down the staff upon heads and shoulders. There was a still greater outcry; they made a little way for him and he pushed on. Then, growing more angry, he laid about him as strongly as he could. Still they cheered him, for those whom he did not strike thought he had done well, and those upon whom his blows fell considered that they were deserved.

At last he came near the pavilion of the Lady Dionissia. And when he was near it, her Welsh men-at-arms perceived him in the midst of all these people, and rushing in, to the number of ten, some catching at throats and some striking with the shafts of their pikes, they had very soon made a space in which he could walk. And so, whilst he was talking with his lady through the hinder curtains of her tent, they cleared a large free space about him by holding their pikes sideways like barriers against the chests and faces of this crowd. But all this had taken so much time that the knight and his friend had very little in which to talk. He said that his fear for her was so great that it was an agony. And, with her fair and candid face framed in bright steel that was inlaid with little scrolls of gold — for her head only she could put out between the curtains according to the rules and he might not enter them at all — she answered seriously:

“Why, I do not think, gentle friend, that you need have much fear for me. For I am much the stronger of the two, and if my cousin’s strength be increased by the hot rage and hatred that is within her, I think that should she strike me such a blow as I found inconvenient to withstand, that might raise such an anger in me as should increase my own strength. For as it is, I feel no anger, and, not desiring to harm her, and not desiring even very much the victory in this contest — for I have now all that I can desire — I have not yet struck as hard as I could have done. So you will have perceived that I aimed at her thigh in the second course. This was too difficult a stroke for me and I knew it, yet I was willing that she should have that course. But very nearly, as you saw, it brought me to disaster. But I think you need have little fear, for my horse is good, my armour very strong, so that I think that at the worst I may come off with but a few bruises, unless God judge otherwise.”

At this moment the trumpet blew for her to get upon her horse, and she must go, so that the new knight had found nothing to say of all that he had desired to utter.

The people who had beset him were beginning to run away, to get the best places at the barriers of the lists. The new knight stayed until they were all gone, so that he might walk unhindered over the grass. Now it chanced that while he so waited he looked up the valley towards the castle of Stapleford. Then he saw a great number of people, some on horse with a line of spears and many on foot, whilst at their head was a knight upon a great horse and in dark armour. They were so far away, however, that the new knight could not see any cognisances or arms. He thought to himself that if these people did not hurry they would not see much of the jousting, and so he went back to his seat.

As soon as he was seated the trumpet blew. Then the horses came towards each other, both riders having their shields before them, and shining axes with double heads held on high. The first stroke red and white struck, but the Lady Dionissia caught it upon her extended shield, and in turn she struck a blow that fell upon the helmet of the Lady Blanche, but the axe glanced off and came down on the red and white shield, so that it was bent a little. The next blows each of them caught very well upon their shields, so that no damage was done. But all this while the great and powerful horse of the Lady Blanche was screaming out and squealing with rage, for it hated above all things to be made to stand still when another stallion was near, and once it swerved when the Lady Blanche was striking, so that her blow fell short of the Lady Dionissia, and dropped with a hollow sound into the barrier that was between them, cutting deep in the wood of it and tearing open the fair covering cloths. And this was considered a disgrace to her and to her horse. Then they rode back to their pavilions when six strokes had been struck by each, to deliver up their shields to the herald. For the next battle of six strokes they must fight without shields, according to the rule. So they should have walked to the centre of the lists, and there have stood until three trumpets blew, their axes hanging all the time to their saddle-bows.

But suddenly it was observed that the horse of the Lady Blanche was bounding down the lists, each bound being one of many yards. A great shout went up from all the people, for this was outside the laws of true tourneying, so that they were not called upon to keep silence, nor yet could they have done so had the laws been never so strong. So the great horse continued on its way until it was come almost level with where the other walked stately and slow. Then, enormous, it rose upon its hind legs and struck forward with its forehoofs that were shod with iron. But this blow fell short, and it descended so that its belly struck upon the barrier. Then the barrier fell to the ground, and the great horse sprang forward through the tangle of cloths and of wood. It rushed upon the other, seeking to bite with its huge teeth, but the armour and the covering cloths impeded this. Then all the people there heard how the Lady Dionissia within her helmet cried out: “Draw off! draw off!” But though they saw the Lady Blanche pulling at her reins and driving in her spurs so that blood showed upon the covering cloths and they were all torn, none could say whether the Lady Blanche was seeking to draw off her horse, or whether she was urging it on, hoping that with the terrible blows of its feet it might mount upon the other and so slay her cousin. Then, to the amazement of all there, the Lady Dionissia raised her visor, and all heard her cry out:

“Will you not draw off? Or I will not hold in my beast.”

All the people there said afterwards that they had never seen the like for horror to the combat of these horses, so they laboured, cried out shrill cries, and moved terribly their enormous limbs, whilst their riders swayed backwards and forwards in their saddles. Then all heard how the Lady Dionissia cried out:

“Up, Coppin!”

The Lady Blanche’s horse was then upon its hind legs, balancing to strike with one foot. But the Lady Dionissia’s Coppin rose, mountainous, and as it had been well trained for this adventure it struck with both its feet at once, and at the same time by use of its hind legs it bounded forward. Thus, all its body being off the ground and springing through the air, its forefeet struck the neck of the other horse beneath and at the base, where the breast armour begins. The Lady Blanche’s horse was then upon its hind legs, so over it fell, backwards, a tower of iron, and when it fell it lay upon its rider’s thigh, so that she was crushed down upon the cloths and the ruins of the barrier.

Being down, on account of its heavy armour the horse could not rise, but lay kicking in the air its enormous and hairy legs. Amidst many cries there came running four of the Lady Dionissia’s men-at-arms. They dragged the horse to its feet, but sideways first, so that it should not tread upon its rider. So they led the horse away, and there the Lady Blanche lay still amongst the ruins of the barrier. Her surcoat had been torn away, and all the steel of her armour showed, her hands being spread abroad. One of them still grasped the battle-axe, and the visor of her helmet directed a shining and malicious grin to the bright skies. Then when silence was called, the old knight said clearly to the Lady Dionissia, where she sat still upon her horse:

“Now you may get down and, setting your foot upon that rider’s chest, you may claim the victory if she do not rise before.”

“That will I do,” the Lady Dionissia said.

So she came down from her horse as nimbly as she might for the weight of her armour. She walked across to where the other lay, and, lifting her foot which was cased all in steel, she set it upon the other’s chest.

“Thus do I claim the victory of the day,” she said; “and if there be no other to come against me, so it is mine. And if this lady’s ladies will not meet with me and mine in the mêlée, I claim that they should be my ladies to serve me as I will. For this is my right and due.”

Then there came four men-at-arms with the litter covered with green boughs, and so they bore the Lady Blanche off that field. Then the heralds went to ask those ladies if they would fight in that mêlée, and after a while the trumpets spoke again, and then the herald of the Lady Blanche said from his end of the lists:

“No, these ladies will not fight. They say that three to two is too many, and so they yield themselves.”

“Then the day is mine,” the Lady Dionissia said, “if there come no other to fight against me.”

The new Knight of Winterburne of St. Martin thought he had never seen anything so fair as she was standing upon the crushed barrier. For she was very bright in her yellow and white surcoat, and the blue of the sky was mirrored on her helmet and on her shining arms that were covered with steel.

“Now thanks be to God that this day is over,” he said to the old knight beside him. “But what is that?” Amongst the crowd on the farther barrier there had grown up a great array of light spears and pikes. Many bowmen were there with their bows pointing upwards from behind their shoulders. And in the middle of them all rode a knight in darkish armour, with a long spear, who held before him a great shield chequered in red and white.

“Mercy of God!” said the new Knight of Winterburne, “I think that is the Knight of Coucy of Enguerrand of Stapleford.”

“Why, those are his cognisances,” Sir Ygorac said. “Let us see what he will do.”

The Knight of Coucy sat still upon his horse, his visor was up, and with his large face and cunning eyes he surveyed that scene. It seemed as if he smiled, but that might have been the shadow of his helmet.

“Mercy of God!” the new Knight of Winterburne said, “what will he do?”

“Why, that we shall see,” Sir Ygorac answered. “That is why I wait.”

Then suddenly from the red and white pavilion there came out a herald bearing upon his tabard the chequers of the Knight of Coucy quartered with the arms of the heralds of the King of England, which are three leopards. Behind him there walked out two trumpeters bearing short trumpets from which there fluttered two square banners, chequered also in red and white.

“Why, this is to do things better,” Sir Ygorac said.

“Ah, gentle knight,” the Knight of Winterburne asked, “he has with him a great army of men well armed. Do you think he will now set about us?”

“No, I do not think that he will,” Sir Ygorac answered. “Let us hear what his herald has to say.”

The trumpeters having blown, the herald stood forward and said in a clear voice:

“Lo, my masters, this is the will of the famous and gentle Knight of Coucy of Enguerrand of Stapleford. Now he will run three courses with light spears against this rider who has properly and under all eyes vanguished the lady of this knight, and the prize of these three courses shall be £IOO in gold, and this the gentle knight will pay if he is overthrown, together with a great chaplet of pearls which shall be the prize of the overthrow of the Lady Blanche. But if the gentle knight be vouchsafed by God the victory of this field, they shall cry quits. And if either rider shall be cast from his horse, the victory shall be to the other, and no more courses ridden. So speaks the gentle and most famous knight by my voice. With this addition, that if this lady will claim that she is a woman and so yield her up, the Knight of Coucy and the rest will claim of her what amends he afterwards will.”

The Lady Dionissia had stood motionless during this speech. And first she had gone red and then white, waves of colour pursuing themselves over her face. And for a long time afterwards she stood gazing down at the green grass where it was trampled by hoof-marks as if she neither saw nor heard all the noises and movements that there went on. For many women cried out that their husbands had come back from the wars, some thanking God and some the reverse. And children cried out to fathers, and friends to friends amongst the bowmen and men-at-arms that stood there behind the Knight of Coucy. So at last the Lady Dionissia motioned with her hand that her trumpeter should sound. Then she spoke in a clear voice: