CHAPTER XXVIII
THE COURT OF GUELDRES
Here he saw the king approaching,
And he ended gallantly;
Left the crowd of knights about him,
Bending to the king his knee.
Poetry of Spain.
As we have much to narrate, we must hasten over the mere diplomacy in which the captain of the guard was concerned.
Next day the duke's party traversed the marshes of Peeland, and reached the city of Gueldres. A fleet horseman having been sent on before, Gray was received with considerable state at the ducal castle, in honour of the king, his master.
The capital city of Gueldres was then surrounded by marshes which added materially to its security, by making all approaches to it difficult and dangerous to invaders or strangers. It was girt by ramparts and deep trenches, through which flowed the river Niers, and thus it was deemed the strongest place in Flanders.
It was a curious little town of narrow streets, overshadowed by galleried houses of quaint aspect, with projecting eaves and steep roofs; old churches, grim and mysterious in architecture; and convents with high and sombre walls. The mass of the population seemed to be industrious Flemish artisans, mingled with the usual number of peasants, who brought their wares to market; cowled monks, dozing at the gates in the sunshine; and helmeted men-at-arms dicing and drinking in the hostelries.
Twenty great bombards were fired from the ramparts of the ducal castle, as a salute in honour of Sir Patrick's arrival, and the great banner of the duchy, azure a lion or crowned, for Gueldres; with a lion gules for Zutphen, was displayed on the keep, while a body of knights, archers, and well-mounted men-at-arms stood in military array within the gates. Gueldres was then famous for its cavalry, and for the spirit of its people, who were deemed so warlike, that to lessen their military genius and secure the possession of that province in his family, Charles V., in after times, excluded its natives from his armies.
The great ducal fortress, a portion of which was built in 878 by Wichardus a Ponte, the first lord of Gueldres, on his marriage with a daughter of the count of Zutphen, was deemed the strongest castle in the Netherlands, till its demolition by the Prussians in 1764.
There, in that old castle, situated amid the thick woods and rushlands, through which the Niers flows towards the Maese, Gray was presented to the duchess, Katherine of Cleves; to her daughter, the future queen of Scotland; the little princess Mary, then in her ninth year; and to her brother, prince Adolphus, by whose wickedness in after years the house of Gueldres was ruined, and its possessions merged into the line of Burgundy.
For when Adolphus rebelled against his father, old Arnold d'Egmont, and shut him up in a close prison, he was disinherited, and his title and patrimony sold in 1473 to Charles the Terrible, Duke of Burgundy, for a yearly pension of fourscore and ten thousand golden crowns of the Rhine; but no thought or anticipation had they then of those dark days that were coming, when civil war and misrule would rend the land asunder; and so old Duke Arnold feasted royally the knight who had come from the Scottish court, in presence of all his peers, the knights of the duchy, the governors of the country districts, and the deputies of Nimeguen, Arnheim, Ruremond, and Zutphen, his four great counties or provinces.
He presented him with a cassock, embroidered with gold and precious stones, worth a thousand ducats. The Duchess Katherine in the name of the princess, her daughter, entrusted him with a valuable ring for the young king, her future son-in-law, to whose ministers letters were prepared, expressive of the pleasure with which the coming ambassadors would be received.
Four days Sir Patrick remained at the castle of Gueldres, and then, leaving with impatience to overtake the Douglases about Breda, he bade adieu to the ducal court, and was convoyed, as the abbot of Tongland relates, twelve miles on his way, as far as Wees, by Prince Adolphus, the counts of Bommel and Nassau, with forty gentlemen on horseback "in cassocks of brocade, each with a gold chain at his neck."
Sir Patrick rejoiced when all this ceremony and state were over; when he was once more alone, and at liberty to pursue his own way towards Breda, which, however, he was fated never to reach.
CHAPTER XXIX
A STRANGE RENCONTRE
"I wake to sad reality, the days of youth have fled —
The flower, the shrub, the velvet turf have long ere now been dead;
The brook that ran so merrily has ceased to bubble by,
The pebble bed whereon it flowed is broken up and dry."
As Sir Patrick Gray had no desire to traverse again the swampy wastes of the Peel Morass, with the chance of perhaps encountering, when alone, Ludwig of Endhoven, and his ruffianly Brabanciones, he took the way which led towards the principality of Ravenstein, intending to cross the Maese and travel to Breda through Dutch Brabant.
Eagerness to see, to meet, to rejoin Murielle, or to make his presence there known to her, made him travel without delay; but in his ignorance of the route, through a flat country, destitute of those strong natural features, to which his eyes were accustomed at home, caused him frequently to make mistakes and detours; thus the evening of the first day found him only at the town of Grave, which had a fortress, situated by the margin of the Maese, and of such strength that it was deemed the Key of Gueldreland, and had thus been the object of many a bloody contest between the dukes of Brabant and the earls of Holland.
As the town was small, he soon found an hostelry, and delivered his horse to the groom and his sword to the tapster, according to what was then, and for long after, the custom in all places of entertainment; but retained his chain shirt and dagger while he sat at supper in the large public room, or chamber-of-dais, in which were two gentlemen, apparently travellers like himself, and similarly employed, in deciding upon the merits of broiled fowls and a stoup of Burgundy.
Full of his own thoughts and of Murielle, reckoning the miles of flat and monotonous Flemish scenery that lay between them, the hours that must intervene ere he could see her; the mode in which he should discover himself, the promises he would exact, and the vows he would repeat, Gray took no notice of the strangers, who conversed freely, and somewhat noisily, over their wine, their brusquerie of manner appearing to increase as the twilight deepened with their potations; so that when Gray was at last roused from his reveries and looked towards them, the dusk was so great that he could scarcely discern their features.
They were talking of the proceedings of the great ecclesiastical council, which was then sitting in the Swiss archbishopric of Basle, and of the laws it was framing for the extirpation of heresy – topics upon which all men were beginning to question, or rather to sound each other, as such questions, in those days of the stake and faggot, were fraught with danger. They conversed in French; but finding that Gray sat resolutely silent, one turned and said to him abruptly, "Pray, sir, what think you of Procopius?"
"Of – who?" said Gray, with hesitation.
"Procopius, the Shaved."
"The leader of the Hussites?"
"Yes – the protesting heretics."
"I think him a bold Bohemian captain," was the cautious reply.
"What think you of his disputation at the holy council of Basle?" continued the other.
"I am not capable of judging."
"Peste! Did he not bear hard on the monks?" persisted the querist.
"I am not aware," replied Gray, with increasing reserve, "as I have not heard; but what said he?"
"At the head of two hundred gentlemen of his party, the valiant Procopius came before the council, and stoutly maintained that monkery was an invention of the devil.
"'Can you prove this?' asked Cardinal St. Julien, while his face flushed red as his stockings.
"'Yes!' replied the Bohemian, stoutly.
"'How?' thundered the cardinal, knitting his brows.
"'Thus; will you deny that the Saviour did not institute it?'
"'We do not.'
"'Then,' quoth Procopius, ''tis plainly an invention of the devil,' whereat Ænies Sylvius Piccolomini – "
"He who was in Scotland?"
"Yes; burst into a fit of laughter, which however did not prevent him from committing several poor devils to the flames in the course of the evening, where they spluttered and burned bravely for the amusement of all good Catholics."
"We have had some such work at home, where John Resby and Paul Crawar have perished at the stake, for preaching doctrines which some term false and others simply new."
"How do you term them?" asked the second traveller.
"Sir," replied Gray, "I am a soldier, and, being neither priest nor clerk may not know the difference."
"So you are of Scotland?" said the first stranger, suddenly relinquishing his French for the old dialect then spoken by the upper classes of the northern kingdom; "we bid you welcome, as countrymen. Pray join us – and harkee, tapster, let us have lights and more wine – we too, sir, are of Scotland."
More Burgundy was promptly brought, and on four torch-like candles of yellow wax being lighted in four great brass sconces, Gray was enabled to observe the aspect and bearing of his fellow travellers, or rather sojourners at the hostelry.
Both had their hair cut closely round above their ears, in the unbecoming fashion of twenty years before. They were moustached, but had their beards and whiskers shaved off in what was then the Scottish mode; they wore armour, with skirts composed of horizontal steel bands, called taces, with circular epaulets, to protect the armpits from sword thrusts, with spikes on the oriellets of their helmets.
The tallest and most handsome forcibly recalled to Gray's memory the late King James I.; he seemed to have something of that unhappy monarch's voice too, but his air and manner, though soldierly and stately, were reckless and blasé, and at times even abrupt and rough, yet not altogether unpleasing.
The other had pale grey cunning eyes, which were either bloodshot by dissipation, or reddened by the fire of innate cruelty, and they twinkled so far apart from his nose that it appeared almost impossible for him to see an object with both at once, for each seemed to be looking at the ear which adjoined it, and his hair and beard were a fiery red. But what were the emotions of Gray, and how firmly did he grasp his dagger, while a gust of fury filled his heart – a fury which he had great difficulty in repressing – when, in this person we have just described, he recognized that venal wretch, James Achanna!
By the light of the sconces the latter and his companion had a full view of Gray, but they seemed not to recognize him, for, as already stated, the ghisarma of Earl James had laid both cheeks open, thus a hideous wound traversed his whole face like a livid bar sinister. It was slowly passing away, however, for the old duchess of Gueldres had given him a rare balsam, which she said would effectually efface the scars; but as yet they, and a new curl which Gray had fancifully given his moustache, had so effectually altered his appearance, as to conceal his identity from this ruffianly swashbuckler of the earl of Douglas.
"So you are of Scotland, sir?" resumed the other traveller.
"I am come from thence but lately," replied Gray; "and may I ask your names?"
"Certainly," replied our old acquaintance, with perfect confidence; "I am James Achanna, a gentleman of the Lord Douglas, a name at which men prick their ears in Nithsdale, whatever they may do in foggy Flanders."
"And I," said the other, "am the Lord Rosse."
"Rosse!" reiterated Gray; "pardon me, sir, but, under favour, we have no such lord in Scotland."
"Not when I am out of it," said he, laughing.
"I know not the title," added Gray, coldly.
"Indeed! one seems to be soon forgotten then. Shall I state to you more fully that I am Robert Stewart, duke of Albany and earl of Rosse."
"The son of Duke Murdoch!" exclaimed Gray, starting from his seat with mingled surprise and respect.
"Yes; son of that Duke Murdoch, who, with his second son, and Duncan, earl of Lennox, was foully butchered at the Lady's Rock, before the castle gates of Stirling. Vengeance has a long and bitter memory! and by that extrajudicial murder, for such I will maintain it to be in the face of Europe, I have been since boyhood an exile, a wanderer, and now, when little more than thirty years of age, my hair is greyer than my poor old father's was, when his venerable head rolled in the sand beneath the doomster's axe."
Gray bowed low, for respect to the royal blood was strongly graven then in the hearts of the Scots, in none more than his, and Albany, though exiled and outlawed, in consequence of the malpractices of his father (who had been regent during the detention of James I. in England), was the cousin of King James II.
"And you, sir?" asked Albany, loftily.
"I am your grace's most humble servant," replied Gray pausing, as he dreaded to tell his name before Achanna, lest it might reveal to the Douglases his royal mission, and blight his hope of meeting Murielle.
"But your name, sir," said the duke, with growing displeasure; "your name?"
"Yes," added Achanna, imitating him, "we must have your name."
"I am the laird of Luaig," replied Gray, with ready wit, taking the name of a little obscure loch, which lies in a narrow glen near his father's castle of Foulis.
CHAPTER XXX
BOLD SCHEMES
Many have ruined their fortunes; many have escaped ruin by want of fortune. To obtain it the great have become little, and the little great. – Zimmerman.
"Luaig, laird of Luaig," said Albany, ponderingly; "I do not recognize the name."
"Lairds are plenty as heather hills in the far north country," said Achanna, sneeringly.
"And I have been long enough in France and elsewhere to forget even my mother tongue, as well as my dear mother's face; yet she was Isabel of Lennox," said Albany, sadly; "but lairds in the north are plenty, I know."
"And poor as plenty," added Achanna.
"True, sir," said Gray, "and hence my mission here in Flanders."
"How; I was just about to inquire," observed the duke; "seek you knight's service?"
"Yes; fortune has made me a free lance."
"And ready to follow any banner?"
"Yes; provided it find me in food, horse, and armour."
"Then follow me," said Albany, "and ere long, my friend, I may find work for your sword at home."
"At home; do you mean in Scotland?"
"Aye, in Scotland; how now, Achanna, why the devil dost twitch my sleeve?"
"As a warning that your grace should be wary."
"Here thought and speech are free. True, we have not eaten a peck of salt with our new friend, the laird of Luaig, but at this distance from that bloody rock which lies before Stirling gate, we may trust him nevertheless," said the reckless Albany, draining his wine cup at a draught; "wilt follow me, Luaig – is it a bargain?" he added, holding out his hand.
"But whither goes your grace?"
"To tread the same path my hapless father trod," replied the duke, with something of dignity and pathos in his manner.
"It may lead, alas! – "
"To the same bloody doom, you would say?"
"Yes; I would pray your grace to be wary."
"I care not; I shall live and die, Robert Stewart, duke of Albany and earl of Rosse, if I die not something better."
A cunning smile twinkled in the hawk-like eyes of the unfathomable Achanna.
"Sit with us, Luaig," said Albany; "my heart ever warms to my countrymen, though cold as ice to my little cousin their king; and there are times when I hope to close my eyes peacefully in the same place where they first saw the light, the old castle of Rothesay by the sea – the waves that flow through the bonnie kyles of Bute, and past the hills of Cowal; but of all that more anon. Sit with us, sir, the more the merrier."
"With this poor stoup of wine?" said the prosaic Achanna, peering into the tankard with one of his cunning eyes.
"True, the old saw did not add that," said Albany, rattling the purse at his girdle; "but gibe me not about it. What can be worse than having too much liquor?"
"Having none at all," returned the thirsty parasite.
"Laus Deo! you are right, Achanna. Hallo, tapster! more wine, and quickly too. Think of Robert of Albany having for a server that slipshod varlet, who is all breeches and horn buttons! But you seem to have been severely wounded, laird of Luaig?"
"Almost to death," said Gray, and while Achanna, as if inspired by some undefinable suspicion, surveyed him keenly, he writhed at having to falsify so much, and trembled for the next question; but, on the wine being placed on the table, the careless Albany filled their cups to the brim, saying, "Drink, my friend, drink of this, it comes from the land of old Duke Philip the Good, and you will find it better than arquebusade," he added, referring to a medicinal lotion then famous for gun-shot wounds.
"May I ask in what direction your grace is travelling?" inquired Gray, who had some anxiety in the matter.
"The direction that suits our fancy," replied Achanna.
"I spoke to the duke of Albany," said Gray, with a flash in his eye, and a gush of fury through his heart.
"True, and Albany can answer for himself," said the duke; "we are travelling with all speed to overtake the earl of Douglas and his friends."
"Who are now at Breda?" said Gray, eagerly.
"No; they are at – how name you the place, Achanna?"
"Where?" asked Gray, as the latter hesitated.
"At Bommel."
"Is it distant?"
"Nay, 'tis thirty miles nearer than Breda, and we shall reach it to-morrow."
"And to-morrow, perhaps, I may see her," thought the lover in his heart.
"To the great Earl James of Douglas, Abercorn, and Avondale, and to our happy meeting," exclaimed Albany, draining another large cup of wine.
Rendered reckless by years of disappointment, by dissipation, and the mortifications incident to exile and dependence, the unfortunate young duke, the victim of circumstances and the treasons of his father, drank, as seemed to be his wont, deeply; and, as he did so, unfolded unwittingly no doubt to Gray (and to the great discomposure of Achanna), the extent and daring of the designs entertained by the Douglases; and he continued to do so, regardless of their more wary and more subtle follower, who, with one eye glistening apparently on each, listened impatiently, and seemed to scrutinize Gray as if he would have read his soul.
That Albany should be plotting with Douglas to subvert the king's power, or to usurp his crown, did not excite Gray's wonder; but his heart almost died within him, when the duke, in a half-serious and half-bantering way, mentioned incidentally, the proposed firmer and more lasting alliance between the great earl and himself, by marriage with Murielle Douglas; and had it not happened that the worthy master James Achanna's dagger fell from its sheath upon the floor, and that he had to stoop beneath the table to pick it up, keen and sharp as he was, he could not have failed to remark the pallor which overspread the lover's face, and the wild light that flashed in his eyes, at this crushing information. However, rallying all his energies to seem collected and cool, after a pause, Gray said,
"But, under favour, is not your grace contracted to a daughter of Charles VII. of France."
"Yes; I believe my father, poor duke Murdoch, made some such arrangement ere his head was cut off – when I was a child, and his captive nephew, James I., was twangling on his ghittern to Jane Beaufort in the gardens of Windsor."
"Believe! are you not certain?" said Gray earnestly.
"Since I have been among Hussites, Parisians, Bohemians, and Germans, I have been certain of nothing my friend – not even of my own existence – for this is a land of fog and philosophy; but I would have been much more certain of that spousal contract, had Monseigneur Charles the Victorious been a little more liberal with his French crowns, and a little less so with his French compliments, as I could live on the first, but not on the second. Moreover, I think my little princess Radegonde is not quite pleased with me, since my affair with Madame d'Armagnac."
"Who is she?"
"A woman more beautiful than Agnes Sorel – the lady of beauty. I have seen them both together. And then, as the devil would have it, I got embroiled with Madame la Marchale de Loheac, while her patriotic husband was fighting those insolent English last year in Bretagne and Anjou."
"But – but, your grace," stammered Gray, who felt as if he was on the eve of losing his Murielle for ever, "you are solemnly betrothed to Mademoiselle of France."
"I am – and what then?"
"Such a contract cannot be broken."
"Save by the pope, so the earl of Douglas is now on his way to Rome with Dame Murielle; I mean to accompany them, and so may you, if you care for attaching yourself to my fortunes, or misfortunes rather. That contract, moreover, was made when my father was regent of Scotland, and the king was a prisoner of war in England – and Mademoiselle of France considers me but as an outlaw now." Then after humming a lively French air, Albany said, "'tis said Murielle Douglas sings like a throstle, when winging its way aloft on a beltane morning. The throstle!" he added, letting his chin drop on his breast with an air of tipsy sadness, "Ah! that makes me think of poor old Scotland, which, despite these desperate plots, I may never see again, and my heart is wrung within me, when I think of the bonnie birken woods that shed their autumn leaves upon my mother's grave."
After a pause Albany suddenly raised his head, and Gray was moved to perceive that his fine dark eyes were full of tears; but he again filled and drained his cup of wine, and it had the effect of completely intoxicating him.
"It has been arranged that your grace was to meet the earl on his travel?" asked Gray.
"Yes; and he sent our good friend Achanna, with a message inviting me to join him and my intended little duchess at Bommel," replied Albany, laughing; "and so I have been travelling so fast, that my horses must have discovered an impatient lover was in the saddle; but what the devil dost think was master Achanna's first information for me?"
"I cannot guess," said Gray, not much interested in the matter.
"That she has a lover already."
"A lover!" exclaimed Gray, in a very different tone.
"Aye, a lover here in Flanders," hiccuped Albany, while Gray sat breathless, and toyed with his dagger in the shade.
"His name?" said he.
"Sir Patrick Gray, captain of my dear cousin's royal guard. Laus Deo! if I discover him, he is extremely likely to rot in Flemish earth, while his papers may be of service to us."
"How so?"
"Because he is on a mission from the earl's three enemies – my cousin, his regent Livingstone, and the chancellor Crichton – aid me to discover – to kill him, and in Lennox, I will more than double your lands of Luaig."
"And object of this mission – "
"Ah! that is just what we want to know, though many say, 'tis but to Arnold d'Egmont of Gueldres, anent a royal marriage. But I'll brook no lovers, no rivals, near my throne —Laus Deo, no! and I would give all I have – not much certainly – to be as near this Sir Patrick Gray as I am to you at this moment. But a friend of mine is on his track already, I believe – one whom he cannot hope to escape."
"A friend?" said Gray.
"An unfortunate and valiant Count of Flanders."
"Who?"
"Ludwig of Endhoven, a captain of Brabanciones; by St. Christopher our lover is not likely to escape him– eh, Achanna! but now let us to bed – to bed; for we must be in our saddles by cockcrow to-morrow. Achanna, your arm," said the poor young duke, staggering up; "Lua-Luaig – fare, sir – fare you well."
"Good night to your grace, and God be wi' you!" said Gray, opening and closing the door as they separated.
After the duke and Achanna were gone, he sat long and late, full of anxious and bitter thoughts that came thick and fast upon him. He felt agony at the idea of Murielle being about to be sacrificed to the wild, ambitious, and revengeful schemes of the earl of Douglas and the duke of Albany; and he actually trembled lest her heart might have changed or her fancy have been dazzled, for he now remembered with pain the banter of his comrade and kinsman, MacLellan. He pitied and despised the outlawed duke, yet he trembled for the trouble, which he, with the earl, when combined, might give the young king James, their master. He was filled with wrath at the resolution, so fully expressed, to destroy himself, and starting to his feet, he was about to get his sword from the tapster, and summon Achanna forth into the moonlight, which shone brightly, to upbraid him with his villany, and then kill him on the spot; and in doing so, he would not have committed a crime, but have acted simply in the spirit of the age. However, cooler reflection showed that he might serve Murielle, the king, and himself better, by preserving his incognito. So master Achanna, that utilitarian Scot, who would have sold his own father and his mother to boot, without compunction, slept that night without a yard of cold iron in his body.
Yet, as it was impossible for Gray to travel with Duke Robert and this scurvy companion to Bommel, he resolved to set forward alone. Thus, after a restless night, he was up and mounted an hour before sunrise, and while the frowsy haze hung thick and yellow over the pale-green willow-copse of the Maese, veiling all Grave and the quaint old castle of Otho, lord of Cuick and Haverale, he was far on his journey to Bommel.