CHAPTER XVIOF THE GRIEVOUS MISHANDLING OF HIS LORDSHIP’S GRACE
Youare now to remark, gentle reader, that this beautiful creature, whom three humble courtiers of fortune were about to serve with their faith, had, in addition to a nature of truly noble valiancy, a knowledge of affairs that was highly pertinent, and a wit that was wonderful indeed for one so tender in her years.
So soon as the English giant fell to driving the duke’s men-at-arms before him like sheep, she ordered the Count of Nullepart and myself to leave the daïs. We were advised to take up a new position between the door, Don Luiz, and the duke. And when the Englishman returned with a smile of humour about his mouth, yet breathing somewhat hard with his exercise, the Countess Sylvia addressed her three servants in a low voice.
“Forth of this, my friends. Let the door be secured behind us, so that they cannot break out; and as there is no other, they shall play with their thumbs for an hour while we prepare them a strategy.”
In the pursuit of this piece of wisdom, the four of us slipped into the antechamber, while the foolish old duke, who had appeared utterly to fail under the stress of these affairs, was still using so much querulousness to his trusty gentleman-usher that he did not observe thelatest device of his daughter. Thus was he none the wiser for our escape, nor for the project that was presently to be set afoot for his undoing.
In the antechamber were the six soldiers who had been so mishandled by one purposeful man of brawn. They stood in a group, regarding us with unintelligent goatlike eyes. Her ladyship turned upon them, and said scornfully, “Do you go and summon the smiths out of the armoury, you paltry knaves. Send them here with their tools immediately.”
She then commanded the Count of Nullepart, Sir Richard Pendragon, and myself to stand with drawn swords before the door leading to the duke’s apartment, so that neither he nor his councillor should pass out before it was sealed.
“Why, madam, these precautions?” asked the Count of Nullepart.
“It is my intention to draw out every fang that this old bear hath in his chaps,” said the Countess Sylvia.
“How so, and why so, madam? Do you propose to wall up your old father, his lordship’s grace, and do him to death with good Don Paunch, his trusty fat man?”
“You ought to be wise, sir; you ask many questions,” said madam imperiously. “But perhaps it were not amiss if I unfolded my design to my good followers.”
“That is well spoke, thou sweet bud of the rose garden,” said Sir Richard Pendragon. “Let us hear whether thy dear little poll be a proper comrade to thy valiance.”
“Stand you to the door then, friends, and this is my design. While his lordship’s grace is stewing and sweating in durance with that fat fellow, and braying like an old mule for his liberty, I will have every one of his three hundred men-at-arms answer to the roster. I will issue a proclamation, by which they shall learn that in the person of their mistress they have a new master; and each shall take the oath of his fealty in his new service. And I will cause the master armourer and the master treasurer to do the same, for I have to tell you, my friends, that henceforward this castle is to have only one generalissimo.”
“Marry and amen!” said the Count of Nullepart, bowing low before her.
“By my hand!” said the English giant, imitating the Count of Nullepart in this particular with as much grace as his inches and his nation could arrange, “Harry of England breathes again in this small thing. My sweet pretty ladyship, you have a right Pendragon at your elbow, under whose doublet flows the blood of kings. And if thy performance, perfect queen of the roses that thou art, be in anywise equal to thy disposition, one of these sunny mornings they shall crown thee Queen of all the Spains.”
“No, my good Sirrah Red Dragon,” said this beautiful creature, with a natural dignity that nought could surpass, “I ask no more than my right; I covet no dominion above my own. But that will I keep, God helping me! There is like to come a bitter enemy at the gate; yet when he rides up the hill and winds his trumpet, he shall find me within.”
“If there is not statecraft and good politics behindthat cheek of damask,” cried the Englishman, “I am a micher and a thief in the night.”
“Madam,” said I, feeling the same enthusiasm, “Miguel Jesus Maria de Sarda y Boegas will yield you no lack in your affairs. They have a strong hand to guide them, which they appear to need, but upon the honour of my father, Don Ygnacio, and under the gracious permission of your ladyship, I will not forswear your service while blood flows in my veins.”
Hardly had I spoken than Sir Richard Pendragon began to roar like a heifer.
“That name again!” he cried. “Ods life I can feel a fluxion! A surgeon, or I perish!”
“Don Miguel,” said the Countess Sylvia with the gravest simplicity, and paying no heed whatever to this unmannerly outcry of the English barbarian, “I do need your good service, and I cherish it.”
Upon these words, spoken as became a princess, I fell to my knee and saluted the hand of this valiant and noble lady.
“If I am not blind like a newt, this is my former squire that ran away from me,” said Sir Richard Pendragon. “How came you again in this parish, youthful varlet? But as I am a good Christian man, I am glad to see thee. My young companion, I prithee, take my hand upon it.”
Although I gave him a smile of courtesy, I did not accede to his request. For I had a lively recollection of his hand.
The arrival of the smiths put a term to our speeches. As soon as they began to seal up the door with screws and nails, the duke and Don Luiz, immured within, weremoved to try it. Finding that with all their shaking and rattling they could not come out, they set up a most desperate hullabaloo.
“Their throats will wear a little sooner than this honest wood,” said our mistress sternly.
She then bade the smiths cease their hammering while she spoke his lordship’s grace and his fat companion.
“My lord,” she cried in her strong and clear young speech, “abate your old foolishness for the space of one minute. I do but intend to lock up your lordship’s grace for the term of two hours, while I have deliverance made of your authority. I would have you play a game at mumchance with your trusty fat man, while I muster your three hundred men-at-arms and swear them to my service. If your lordship’s grace will not babble so, and you will request that fat fellow whose bulk is so large as a bag, who is so undecent in his appearance as any sow that grouts in a kennel, if you will request him not to brawl so much, you will be able to pass the time of day agreeably, and without that excitement that is so inclement to the mind.”
“You speak like a physician, madam,” said the Count of Nullepart. “Your words are as choice as though you held a diploma from the College of Surgeons.”
“Aye, she speaks shrewd,” said Sir Richard Pendragon, wagging his beard in cordial admiration of this beautiful and masterful thing. “She is fit to advise a kingdom; one of these days she shall speak from a throne to her respectful parliament. My dear and intimate friend, the Dowager-Empress and Queen-Mother of the Austrian nation, never spoke better sooth thanshe; never spoke it with a better use of tongue and of language; never spoke it with a more subtle penetration of wit or a more lofty and wise demeanour. I speak thee fair, sweet ladyship and countess, and he who addresseth thee hath the blood of kings under his doublet, don’t forget that. By my sword, if thou wert but of the English nation, I would ask thine hand in matrimony, thou lovely chit, and Betty Tucker, a good wench who can handle a tankard as well as another at the sign of the Knight in Armour public-house, next the town of Barnet, in the kingdom of Great Britain, should hang herself in her shift or strangle herself in her garters.”
Much of that which followed of our conversation next the door of the duke’s apartment was drowned by the incessant beating and brawling upon the panel of those behind it. But the wood was staunch, and already the smiths had the most of it screwed up. When they had finished their task, and the Countess Sylvia was assured that his lordship’s grace and his fat companion could not possibly come out, she dismissed the smiths, and sent for the captain of the guard.
“Caballero,” she said to this worthy, “I would have you assemble immediately our three hundred men-at-arms. Have them drawn up in line of battle in the great courtyard, and let them appear in full accoutrement. For I am about to speak to them, and to swear each mother’s son to fealty upon the sword.”
“She speaks like a queen!” cried the English giant, with a roar of delight. “Betty Tucker, if thine ear doth not burn with jealousy as thou drawest that pot of small ale for that low jack pudding with a ring in hislug, thou art no true woman. Thou little knowest, good Bet o’ the Bib and Tucker—a weak jest, yet of mine own contrivance—thou little knowest the imminent danger of our banns that were asked five years come Maundy Thursday at St. Clement’s Church in London City.”
“Sirrah Red Dragon,” said the Countess Sylvia with a sternness that cowed the English barbarian, “cease your babblements. You are a big man, but you talk too much. Accompany me to the master armourer and help inhabit me in a corslet and a steel cap; and if you will not use the same bulk of language that you have of inches, you shall choose me a good honest blade that I may bear in mine hand.”
“By cock,” cried Sir Richard Pendragon, “she speaks as shrewishly as Betty when she hath been drinking cognac.”
The English giant, who might have borne the little Countess Sylvia within the sleeve of his jerkin, accompanied her to the armoury with a spreading yet withal something of a crestfallen air.
When they had passed the Count of Nullepart sat himself down on a settle, and with a face twisted with mirth took forth his instrument and strove to improvise a melody. Three times did he essay to do so and three times did he fail.
“I am laughing myself into my tomb,” said he. “That is why I am so thin and frail, my dear Don Miguel. All my days I have been cursed with a passion for laughter, and it wears me to the bone. Oh, my good soul! do you not hear his lordship’s grace beating his loud tattoos upon yonder panel?”
“Do you still believe, dear Count of Nullepart, that our adorable one will evanish into the air?”
“Yes, my friend, so far as she is any concern of ours. That English giant will carry her off.”
“Never, Sir Count, as I am a caballero. He is a barbarian, an uncivil Goth, a rude fellow. Besides, hath she not already punished the presumption of his speech?”
“She is a woman, dear Don Miguel, and remark me, she will do something whimsical. You and I, my dear, are men of the first ton, as they say at Paris, but this barbarous giant, this ruffling English swaggerer, is already the apple of that fine bright eye. Mark me, dear Don Miguel, he is the hero. Did she ask you to choose a piece for her head at the armoury and a sword for her hand; did she ask me? Not so, my dear friend. She asks this gigantic island Goth, this swaggerer. And there you have the whole of the female woman. Her mind resembles nothing so much as a game of dice. None shall dare to predict what is turned up in it: the double six at the first cast, at the second the double one.”
The Count of Nullepart had scarcely got through this prologue to his philosophy when little madam, his thesis, returned with a proud walk, wearing a steel cap that was so big that it fitted down over her ears, a corslet of the same complexion that fell down over her knees, while in her small hand was a piece of fine Toledo craftsmanship which yet could not be called too delicate for a lady. How she could stagger along at all under these accoutrements was a matter for surprise. Yet not only did she do so, but also she contrived to invest her gaitwith its natural dignity. At her side walked Sir Richard Pendragon, as near seven feet as no matter, while the peak of the little Countess Sylvia’s helmet appeared to ascend hardly above his leg. Yet, as in accordance with the Count of Nullepart’s prediction, they already seemed mighty close and pleasant with one another.
“My friends,” said the Lady Sylvia, “I have duly appointed Sirrah Richard Red Dragon to the high office of master of my horse, captain-generalissimo of my three hundred men-at-arms, and captain of my guard, at an emolument of two thousand maravedis a month, including his victual.”
“Three thousand, madam and ladyship, under your gracious pleasure and permission,” said the Englishman.
“Did I say three, Sirrah Red Dragon? Dear, my good soul! my memory is weak. Well, Sirrah Red Dragon, three it shall be.”
“To be disbursed in advance, worshipful madam and ladyship.”
“So be it, Sirrah Red Dragon. Your first emolument shall be paid to you so soon as the master treasurer hath delivered to me the keys of the coffers of his lordship’s grace.”
“And I crave the permission of your ladyship to suggest that sack be included in the terms touching the victual.”
“Sack shall be included, sirrah.”
“Unlimited and without stint, madam, I trow and trust, and to be delivered if I knock once on the buttery door.”
“Yes, indeed, good Sirrah Red Dragon, that is quite understood.”
The giant showed his teeth in a grin of broad humour and smacked his lips complacently.
“Is there no post of honour in your household, madam, for the least of your servants?” asked the Count of Nullepart in his softest accent.
“You will be keeper of accounts, sir, and also I will appoint you to the mastership of the treasury.”
“I thank you, madam, and make you my service,” said the Count of Nullepart.
“I have a mind to be master of the treasury myself, brother,” said Sir Richard Pendragon, pricking up his ears. “You shall be captain of the guard, brother, and I will take upon myself to hold the keys of the mint.”
“Would you traffic in your office, Sirrah Red Dragon?” said his mistress sternly. “I have a mind to remove you from the position of master of my horse, and reduce your emolument by a thousand maravedis.”
A threat of this gravity had an instant effect upon the Englishman, who fell to silence and the stroking of his beard; yet it was clear above all things he yearned to hold the keys of the mint.
Our mistress now led the way to the great courtyard of the castle, where the three hundred men-at-arms were to be assembled. How she contrived to walk ten paces in her habiliments I know not, for, in addition to the steel with which her slight person was encumbered, her long riding skirt trailed over her heels.
However, before she came to the courtyard she must needs dispatch Sir Richard Pendragon for a milk-white courser, if such a steed was to be found in the stablesof his lordship’s grace; or failing a quadruped of that chaste hue, the master of the horse was to procure one as near to that condition as he could discover.
“Statecraft, dear lady, statecraft!” said the Count of Nullepart with an arch smile. “I perceive you are determined to present to your warriors the appearance of the goddess of battles.”
Sir Richard Pendragon being unable to discover a courser of milk-white hue was fain to lead a palfrey of a dubious dapple colour into the austere presence of his mistress. She directed a glance upon it of the most instant disapproval.
“Is there no worthier thing than this, Sirrah Red Dragon?” she demanded haughtily.
“None, good countess, ladyship, and madam.”
“Wherefore, sirrah, wherefore?” she demanded, beating her sword on her boot in a threatful manner. “You are the master of our horse, are you not, and you keep no milk-white courser for our use? How so, Sirrah Horse Master, wherefore and why?”
“Under your ladyship’s good favour,” said the giant humbly, “your good Dick, an old honest fellow, hath not been in his office more than twenty minutes.”
“Answer my question, sirrah,” stormed his mistress. “Why is there no milk-white courser for my use?”
Sir Richard Pendragon plucked at his beard furiously, and directed a sidelong look at the Count of Nullepart, who stood very upright and gazing before him as solemnly as an owl in a cold evening.
“I have the greatest mind, Sirrah Red Dragon, do you mark me,” said the Countess Sylvia, “to proceed on foot to swear my three hundred men-at-arms. I havethe greatest mind, I say, to proceed on foot. This is no milk-white courser you have brought me; it is the colour of mud. Am I one of a low condition, Sirrah Red Dragon, that I should repair to meet my honest lieges on a horse that is the colour of mud?”
“Under your ladyship’s good favour,” said the giant modestly, “this matter shall be rectified. I will procure a courser for you that shall be as white as the driven snow. But you cannot have for asking, good ladyship and madam, as we English say; therefore your good Dick, an old honest fellow and a lover of sherris, must first hold a draft on the treasury of your ladyship. The which, as this old honest fellow submits duteously, the which would not be necessary were he entitled to hold the keys of your ladyship’s treasury, as becomes his true merit and his gentle nurture.”
“Peace, Sirrah Red Dragon,” said his mistress. “We will attend you in council after a while.”
The weight of her accoutrements rendered it necessary to lift the Countess Sylvia to the saddle, and there was almost a brawl among her three devoted followers before this could be arranged. The Count of Nullepart had the most address, the English barbarian had the most power, and I myself, if I may make bold to say so, had the most tenacity. Yet in the end, I believe, each one of us could claim a share in this courteous operation. The subject of this attention, although mishandled in some sort, yet retained a superb dignity and composure through it all; and so far was she from visiting this procedure with a reproof, that it did not seem to afford her the least displeasure.
In the great patio of the castle it was a glorioussight to see the duke’s three hundred men-at-arms ranged around in a single file. The bright sun wantoned brilliantly upon their arms and breastplates, and when the Countess Sylvia rode into their midst, almost obscured in armour except for the tip of her chin, the tip of her nose, a piece of a damask cheek, and two clear and masterful eyes that glanced from under their steel canopy with the brightness of the sword she bore in her hand, they raised a cry from their honest throats. For they had seen enough to be aware that beauty and genius reigned in that proud mien. She took her place in their midst with the Count of Nullepart, Sir Richard Pendragon, and Don Miguel Jesus Maria de Sarda y Boegas beside her with drawn swords. Such a flashing and noble glance as she directed along each row could never before have met these men-at-arms.
“Sirrah Red Dragon,” she said, “do you remove my headpiece that I may speak them better.”
When the English giant lifted the steel canopy off her ears, and these warriors, for the most part mercenaries, beheld so much beauty and disdain, they raised another cry in her honour, for indeed there never was a more superb thing.
“Lieges and virtuous bearers of my sword,” she said in her clear and spreading speech, “from this day I am your captain. I will lead ye truly through all the strait places. When the culverin bellows, the caliver barks, and the good Toledo blades flash and clang together, you will find me on my milk-white courser in the forefront of the battle, vindicating mine own right with mine own puissance. There is a great work toward, for our cousin John, the rude Castilianprince, bids us deliver this fair castle into his covetous hand. But I do tell thee, my honest lieges, it shall not be so. I have good servants; they shall strike shrewd blows; and if the rude Castilian enters this castle, if enter he must, he shall come in chains as a captive, or there shall not be a stick or a stone or a breathing soul to give him welcome.”
At this moment the English giant standing at her side raised his bonnet, adorned with a great plume, on the point of his sword, and cried out in a voice that drowned everything: “These be words, these be words! ’Tis queenly speaking! Give it tongue, friends and rascals! Let the little queen’s majesty know that ye heed.”
In his own great voice this mad fellow led their shouts.
“I thank you, Sirrah Red Dragon,” said his mistress, “and, my honest lieges, I say to you marry and amen. That ye will make true service I see by your shining glances, but I would have you swear your fealty in the olden manner upon this good sword. For I would have you to know that my father, his lordship’s grace, fell into a strange senility a twelvemonth since; there is such a distemper in his wits that he can no longer ride over his dominion. His old eye, which should be an eagle’s to look proud at the sun, now watereth readily on a small occasion. There is no virtue in his mind; his heart hath not the constancy to make him bold before an adversary. This rude Castilian prince, this wicked king, would override him as easily as he would a plain of mustard. Do you mark me, my lieges, his lordship’s grace is now a figure for your tears. He is a pitiful old man, a babbler of nothings, his mind is vanity.Therefore, my lieges, he and his trusty fat man, whose ribs are larded like butter, and who is so slow in his mind as a snail, will speak ye no more. From this day I am your duke and captain, your liege lord and liege lady. I will lead ye against the Castilian host, and if we do not prevail we will fall together with our swords in our hands.”
“Again, again, brothers, give it tongue!” cried the English giant, waving his plumed hat on the point of his sword, and leading the soldiers in their lusty cheers.
“Sirrah Red Dragon,” said his mistress, when their cries had subsided, “I would have you cause all these good honest men defile before us, that they may be sworn upon our sword.”
“Would it not be properer, your majesty,” said the English giant, with a dangerous light of admiration in his eye, “if you first made them acquainted with their new captain-generalissimo, the captain of the guard and master of the horse, whose emoluments amount to the not inconsiderable sum of four thousand maravedis a month?”
“You speak sooth, Sirrah Red Dragon,” said the Countess Sylvia; “I will do so.”
Again their respectfulness attended her while she recommended Sir Richard Pendragon to their notice in another clear and ringing speech.
“A worshipful knight, a true warrior—”
“—And the blood of kings under his doublet, an it please your majesty. I pray you, out of regard for virtue, to let them know that.”
The Countess Sylvia having condescended to inform her vassals of this fact, together with many others thatthe English giant interpolated into her discourse, somewhat to her impatiency, on matters touching his many and surprising deeds by sea and land, the magnificence of his talents and his ancestry, and diverse things of a like character, he was able at last to bring himself to do her bidding. And you must believe me, reader, it was one of the bravest sights in the world to see these fierce men-at-arms, clad in bright steel, defile before the palfrey of their mistress, and swear their devotion upon the good sword she held so staunchly in her hand.