  That was a long night. I fell asleep with my head in my arms over the table with the scrivener opposite me. De Marsac took no chances of my escape. He left four men in the room, two to stand guard in turn while the others snatched a wink of sleep. After he had cleared the plates and dishes away the landlord disappeared. Once in a while I awoke and looked around. But this time I was sure there would be no rescue, no helping hand. The first streaks of dawn were struggling in at the little window when I got to my feet. My muscles were as sore as if I had been dragged a mile through a mire. I yawned and stretched myself and listened for a moment to the birds chirping and quarreling in the ivy that covered the outer walls of the inn. One of my guards brought breakfast for us all. It was then that I observed for the first that my companion, the scrivener, was nowhere to be seen. He must have slipped out in the dead of night, unnoticed. The men looked at each other in question, puzzled, but I smiled to myself. I knew it was one of those little tricks that he so dearly loved to play. We went once again out on the highway. The sun was up big and red. Three of the men remained at the inn, but the fourth, a fellow called Pierre, was to lead me far down the valley of the Loire. For days I was to be his prisoner. I was to eat and sleep with him. He was to be all the companion I was to have, so I determined I would make the best of it and be on as friendly a footing as I could. But I found from the first that he was the surliest and coarsest man alive. During the afternoon, he scarcely uttered a word, but went on grumbling and muttering to himself. His face wore a perpetual scowl. He kicked viciously at the stones along the road as if they were actually his enemies. He complained of the long journey ahead of us. “One man gets the money,” he said under his breath. “Another does the work.” “You don’t have to go,” I said. “If you say the word, I’ll leave you.” He shot a look at me that was enough to kill me. “Try it,” he growled. And his jaws came together with a snap. After that I shrank back into my shell. I knew I was in company with a savage. At the slightest sign of trifling, I was convinced, he would stick a dagger into my heart and leave me on the road to die. At noon we halted in the shade of the trees along the side of the highway. He took from his shoulder a packet which he had brought from the inn. In it were a lump of cheese and a length of hard bread. With as much deliberation as he could show, he took a dagger from his coat and wiped the blade two or three times over the knees of his trousers. Then he cut the cheese into squares and tore the bread into pieces with his hands. As though I were only an animal to be fed, he tossed them to me through the air. The first piece flew past me and fell into the dirt. The second landed at my feet. Another caught me in the chest and tumbled in between my folded hands. I was hungry, of course, but the manner of the man sickened me. So I sat there glaring into his face. He fell to with the appetite of a bear. He stuffed one lump after another between his teeth and shoved them into his mouth with his thumb. He gulped to swallow and that so hard that I thought he would choke. When he had eaten twice as much as an ordinary man he rose and threw what remained into my lap. “You should starve,” he said, “—you spy!” “I am no spy,” I declared. He made no answer but gave me a look that was filled with hate. I picked up the pieces that were clean and began to eat slowly. Thoughts of my home and of the comfort I had there started to run through my mind. A burning anger rose within me that I should be treated thus by a fellow who was no equal of mine—who should have been glad to run at my beck and call. Without a word of warning he came over and caught me by the collar. With a swift jerk he landed me on my feet. I was amazed at the suddenness of it and the enormous strength of the man. I was sure that he could have held me in the air with his outstretched arm as easily as I could have held a bundle of straw. We were on the road again, both going along in silence. During the afternoon, I noticed small groups of men, some clad as ordinary soldiers, some in finer dress like captains and officers, others on horseback with armor and coats of mail. I had seen the like before in the village at home to be sure, for in my day there was always war in this or that part of France to attract the minds of men. But what struck me was that these were all going in the same direction (towards the west); they all seemed bent on the same errand; and they were so numerous that I was set wondering. That night we found no place in an inn. The common room was crowded to the doors with swashbuckling soldiers of every kind. Loud talk and boasting filled the air, together with the clanking of swords, the thumping of heavy boots on the floor, the clamoring of men hungry for their supper, quarrels over this or that and even blows struck and returned. We were lucky to get any food at all, but the worst of it all was that we were forced to sleep in the open. Pierre found a spot in the shelter of the barn where we would be protected from the wind. He brought an armful of straw and scattered it over the ground. Then he took from his pockets two strands of rope and bade me lie down. He tied one strand firmly about my right wrist, the other about my left. The ends he drew apart in opposite directions, tying one to a post at the corner of the barn, the other he fastened on the other side of me to a stone that was imbedded in the soil. It was as though I was stretched out like a cross. I could move my hands outwards as far as I liked. But when I drew them together as far as the ropes allowed, they remained more than a foot apart. If I rolled over on my side the one arm was behind me and the other in front. If I had tried to get to my feet, I wouldn’t have been halfway up before I would have been forced down again. It was thus I passed the night. You can imagine that I slept only in fits and starts, for as soon as I was in a doze I was sure to stir and the tautness of the ropes, with the pain awakened me. The day came as a relief. My captor let me lie until he brought me my breakfast. Then he loosed my bonds. After we had eaten we started out on the journey that was becoming irksome and even a torment. That day passed about the same as the first. We toiled along the road for the most part in gloomy silence. The soldiers were pouring in thicker and thicker. Sometimes as many as two hundred of them in a single body passed us so that we were forced to leave the highway and stand on the banks to let them go by. At another time later on a great lord from the east swept along. He was dressed in shining armor from head to heel. In his helmet waved a plume of feathers dyed red and white and a broadsword hung in its glittering scabbard by his side. In his train were at least five hundred followers, some of them of almost as high degree as he; others with long lances rode directly behind him, while further back a troop of archers completed the array. It was a sight to admire. From where we had halted on the side of the road, my captor pointed at them with his finger. “That,” said he, “is what you have come to see.” His grimness puzzled me. “Has a war broken out?” I asked. “Not yet,” was the answer, “—and it will never be called a war. These men are on their way to crush the Black Prince of England.” I drew a long breath. “—the Black Prince!” I exclaimed. “Why, you can’t do that. There is not a leader alive who can cope with him in the field.” A slow smile came over his face. “Within a week, there will be fifteen thousand men on their way down this valley,” he replied. “The Black Prince is far off towards the west. He is as ignorant of this preparation as a child.” “But he’ll learn of it?” I said. My captor shook his head. “He’ll be struck with the suddenness of a thunderbolt. We’re going to cut him off at Poitiers—when he starts back to his headquarters at Bordeaux.” He snapped his fingers in contempt. “He has seven thousand men who are half starved, weak from long marches and disease. What can they do against these?” He pointed with pride at the men marching past. “When the Black Prince is a prisoner of the King of France,” he went on, scowling in my face with a wicked grin, “we shall move against Normandy——” “The Norman Barons can defeat any army the French can send against them!” I cried. “They have proved that more than once.” He clenched his fingers over my arm till the pain of it shot up through my shoulder. “No, they won’t,” he said, gritting his teeth. “They won’t have time to unite.” “I see it all now,” I cried again. “That is why De Marsac is so anxious. He thinks he has a claim on our estates already. He can’t wait——” A hard expression covered his countenance. “Before the snow flies I shall be toasting my shins before the fire-place in your house,” my captor boasted. “De Marsac has promised that I shall be the bailiff when he is master there.” A long breath like a sob broke from my throat. It was plain to me now for the first time why I was sent on this errand down the valley of the Loire. “Have you ever heard of a youth called ‘Charles of Gramont’?” I demanded. “Of course,” came the answer, “he’s the son of the old Count. He was a prisoner of ours for a while—but escaped——” “—escaped?” The word jumped from my mouth. “Yes,” was the reply. “Gone. Like smoke in the air.” “He has joined the Black Prince!” I exclaimed. “I am glad of that. He will let him know of the danger he is in.” My captor threw back his head and uttered a low grunt that was meant for a laugh. “A fly couldn’t get out of this valley—or into it—unless we knew it,” he said. “That lad has either starved to death or is hiding somewhere in the woods.” A thrill of joy ran up and down every nerve in my body. For a while I stood staring at the soldiers passing before us, but with eyes that did not see. A world of new thoughts was seething in my brain. Then a fresh notion came to me. “Just to think how I have wasted my time,” I said slyly to my captor. “I was sent here to find him. I might as well have remained at home.” He turned on me with a knowing look. “You weren’t sent here for any purpose of the kind,” he answered with as much cunning as he could show. “You came to learn of this army that is passing down the valley of the Loire. You were to find out the numbers of it, where it was heading, how soon it would be ready to strike. In one word you were sent here as a spy!” If I had had the strength, I would have felled him with a blow. Yet for all that I now realized that every syllable he uttered was the naked truth. If I had been told in the beginning that I was to act as a sneak, (as he said “a spy”) I would have refused boldly and I was sent in blindness to follow a false trail. I was duped into a position that was contrary to my ideas of manliness and honor. I had information that the Black Prince would give half a kingdom to know. The cruelties of De Marsac and the men whom he had set on my heels were as humiliating as ever I had suffered. His trickery and deceit were of the kind that no man of self-respect would practice. It was his aim to drive my brother and me from the home which our family had enjoyed for generations. All these things galled me and drove me to a kind of desperation. The thought came slowly to me to be sure, but while I stood gazing on the soldiers whose mission was to destroy the only friend that Normandy had at this time—the Black Prince—I resolved that I would go no further with my captor than force compelled me. I would watch every opportunity. I would play the fox to the last degree. When the time came I would try once more to escape. If I could get through that circle of men who guarded the Valley of the Loire I would risk my very life to inform the Black Prince of the plans that were ripening against him, for I knew that if I did, I would be saving my home in Normandy. |
|
