Sir Scott - Ivanhoe

Cedric would have inquired farther into the purpose which she thus darkly announced, but the stern voice of Front-de-Bœuf was heard exclaiming, “Where tarries this loitering priest? By the scallop-shell of Compostella, I will make a martyr of him, if he loiters here to hatch treason among my domestics!”

“What a true prophet,” said Ulrica, “is an evil conscience! But heed him not; out and to thy people. Cry your Saxon onslaught; and let them sing their war-song of Roller, dmif they will, vengeance shall bear a burden to it.” dn

As she thus spoke, she vanished through a private door, and Reginald Front-de-Bœuf entered the apartment. Cedric, with some difficulty, compelled himself to make obeisance to the haughty Baron, who returned his courtesy with a slight inclination of the head.

“Thy penitents, father, have made a long shrift: it is the better for them, since it is the last they shall ever make. Hast thou prepared them for death?”

“I found them,” said Cedric, in such French as he could command, “expecting the worst, from the moment they knew into whose power they had fallen.”

“How now, Sir Friar,” replied Front-de-Bœuf, “thy speech, methinks, smacks of a Saxon tongue?”

“I was bred in the convent of St. Withold of Burton,” answered Cedric.

“Ay?” said the Baron; “it had been better for thee to have been a Norman, and better for my purpose too; but need has no choice of messengers. That St. Withold’s of Burton is a howlet’s nest worth the harrying. The day will soon come that the frock shall protect the Saxon as little as the mailcoat.”

“God’s will be done,” said Cedric, in a voice tremulous with passion, which Front-de-Bœuf imputed to fear.

“I see,” said he, “thou dreamest already that our men-at-arms are in thy refectory and thy ale-vaults. But do me one cast of thy holy office, and, come what list of others, thou shalt sleep as safe in thy cell as a snail within his shell of proof.”

“Speak your commands,” said Cedric, with suppressed emotion. “Follow me through this passage, then, that I may dismiss thee by the postern.”

And as he strode on his way before the supposed friar, Front-de-Bœuf thus schooled him in the part which he desired he should act.

“Thou seest, Sir Friar, yon herd of Saxon swine, who have dared to environ this castle of Torquilstone. Tell them whatever thou hast a mind of the weakness of this fortalice, or aught else that can detain them before it for twenty-four hours. Meantime bear thou this scroll. But soft—canst read, Sir Priest?”

“Not a jot I,” answered Cedric, “save on my breviary; and then I know the characters, because I have the holy service by heart, praised be Our Lady and St. Withold!”

“The fitter messenger for my purpose. Carry thou this scroll to the castle of Philip de Malvoisin; say it cometh from me, and is written by the Templar Brian de Bois-Guilbert, and that I pray him to send it to York with all the speed man and horse can make. Meanwhile, tell him to doubt nothing, he shall find us whole and sound behind our battlement. Shame on it, that we should be compelled to hide thus by a pack of runagates, who are wont to fly even at the flash of our pennons and the tramp of our horses! I say to thee, priest, contrive some cast of thine art to keep the knaves where they are, until our friends bring up their lances. My vengeance is awake, and she is a falcon that slumbers not till she has been gorged.”

“By my patron saint,” said Cedric, with deeper energy than became his character, “and by every saint who has lived and died in England, your commands shall be obeyed! Not a Saxon shall stir from before these walls, if I have art and influence to detain them there.”

“Ha!” said Front-de-Bœuf, “thou changest thy tone, Sir Priest, and speakest brief and bold, as if thy heart were in the slaughter of the Saxon herd; and yet thou art thyself of kindred to the swine?”

Cedric was no ready practiser of the art of dissimulation, and would at this moment have been much the better of a hint from Wamba’s more fertile brain. But necessity, according to the ancient proverb, sharpens invention, and he muttered something under his cowl concerning the men in question being excommunicated outlaws both to church and to kingdom.

“Despardieux,” answered Front-de-Bœuf, “thou hast spoken the very truth: I forgot that the knaves can strip a fat abbot as well as if they had been born south of yonder salt channel. Was it not he of St. Ives whom they tied to an oak-tree, and compelled to sing a mass while they were rifling his mails and his wallets? No, by Our Lady, that jest was played by Gualtier of Middleton, one of our own companions-at-arms. But they were Saxons who robbed the chapel at St. Bees of cup, candlestick, and chalice, were they not?”

“They were godless men,” answered Cedric.

“Ay, and they drank out all the good wine and ale that lay in store for many a secret carousal, when ye pretend ye are but busied with vigils and primes! Priest, thou art bound to revenge such sacrilege.”

“I am indeed bound to vengeance,” murmured Cedric; “St. Withold knows my heart.”

Front-de-Bœuf, in the meanwhile, led the way to a postern, where, passing the moat on a single plank, they reached a small barbican, or exterior defence, which communicated with the open field by a well-fortified sallyport.

“Begone, then; and if thou wilt do mine errand, and if thou return hither when it is done, thou shalt see Saxon flesh cheap as ever was hog’s in the shambles of Sheffield. And, hark thee, thou seemest to be a jolly confessor; come hither after the onslaught, and thou shalt have as much Malvoisie as would drench thy whole convent.”

“Assuredly we shall meet again,” answered Cedric.

“Something in hand the whilst,” continued the Norman; and, as they parted at the postern door, he thrust into Cedric’s reluctant hand a gold byzant, adding, “Remember, I will flay off both cowl and skin if thou failest in thy purpose.”

“And full leave will I give thee to do both,” answered Cedric, leaving the postern, and striding forth over the free field with a joyful step, “if, when we meet next, I deserve not better at thine hand.” Turning then back towards the castle, he threw the piece of gold towards the donor, exclaiming at the same time, “False Norman, thy money perish with thee!”

Front-de-Bœuf heard the words imperfectly, but the action was suspicious. “Archers,” he called to the warders on the outward battlements, “send me an arrow through yon monk’s frock! Yet stay,” he said, as his retainers were bending their bows, “it avails not; we must thus far trust him since we have no better shift. I think he dares not betray me; at the worst I can but treat with these Saxon dogs whom I have safe in kennel. Ho! Giles jailor, let them bring Cedric of Rotherwood before me, and the other churl, his companion—him I mean of Coningsburgh—Athelstane there, or what they call him? Their very names are an encumbrance to a Norman knight’s mouth, and have, as it were, a flavour of bacon. Give me a stoup of wine, as jolly Prince John said, that I may wash away the relish; place it in the armoury, and thither lead the prisoners.”

His commands were obeyed; and, upon entering that Gothic apartment, hung with many spoils won by his own valour and that of his father, he found a flagon of wine on the massive oaken table, and the two Saxon captives under the guard of four of his dependants. Front-de-Bœuf took a long draught of wine, and then addressed his prisoners; for the manner in which Wamba drew the cap over his face, the change of dress, the gloomy and broken light, and the Baron’s imperfect acquaintance with the features of Cedric, who avoided his Norman neighbours, and seldom stirred beyond his own domains, prevented him from discovering that the most important of his captives had made his escape.