Ivanhoe (Barnes & Noble Classics Series)

by Walter Scott

  “Where be these dog-priests now,” growled the baron, “who set such price on their ghostly mummery?—where be all those unshod Carmelites, for whom old Front-de-Bœuf founded the convent of St. Anne, robbing his heir of many a fair rood of meadow, and many a fat field and close—where be the greedy hounds now? Swilling, I warrant me, at the ale, or playing their juggling tricks at the bedside of some miserly churl. Me, the heir of their founder—me, whom their foundation binds them to pray for—me—ungrateful villains as they are!—they suffer to die like the houseless dog on yonder common, unshriven and unhouseled!ec Tell the Templar to come hither; he is a priest, and may do something. But no! as well confess myself to the devil as to Brian de Bois-Guilbert, who recks neither of Heaven nor of Hell. I have heard old men talk of prayer—prayer by their own voice—such need not to court or to bribe the false priest. But I—I dare not!”

  “Lives Reginald Front-de-Bœuf,” said a broken and shrill voice close by his bedside, “to say there is that which he dares not?”

  The evil conscience and the shaken nerves of Front-de-Bœuf heard, in this strange interruption to his soliloquy, the voice of one of those demons who, as the superstition of the times believed, beset the beds of dying men, to distract their thoughts, and turn them from the meditations which concerned their eternal welfare. He shuddered and drew himself together; but, instantly summoning up his wonted resolution, he exclaimed, “Who is there? what are thou, that darest to echo my words in a tone like that of the night-raven? Come before my couch that I may see thee.”

  “I am thine evil angel, Reginald Front-de-Bœuf,” replied the voice.

  “Let me behold thee then in thy bodily shape, if thou be’st indeed a fiend,” replied the dying knight; “think not that I will blench from thee. By the eternal dungeon, could I but grapple with these horrors that hover round me as I have done with mortal dangers, Heaven or Hell should never say that I shrunk from the conflict!”

  “Think on thy sins, Reginald Front-de-Bœuf,” said the almost unearthly voice—“on rebellion, on rapine, on murder! Who stirred up the licentious John to war against his grey-headed father—against his generous brother?”

  “Be thou fiend, priest, or devil,” replied Front-de-Bœuf, “thou liest in thy throat! Not I stirred John to rebellion—not I alone; there were fifty knights and barons, the flower of the midland counties, better men never laid lance in rest. And must I answer for the fault done by fifty? False fiend, I defy thee! Depart, and haunt my couch no more. Let me die in peace if thou be mortal; if thou be a demon, thy time is not yet come.”

  “In peace thou shalt NOT die,” repeated the voice; “even in death shalt thou think on thy murders—on the groans which this castle has echoed—on the blood that is engrained in its floors!”

  “Thou canst not shake me by thy petty malice,” answered Front-de-Bœuf, with a ghastly and constrained laugh. “The infidel Jew—it was merit with Heaven to deal with him as I did, else wherefore are men canonised who dip their hands in the blood of Saracens? The Saxon porkers whom I have slain—they were the foes of my country, and of my lineage, and of my liege lord. Ho! ho! thou seest there is no crevice in my coat of plate. Art thou fled? art thou silenced?”

  “No, foul parricide!” replied the voice; “think of thy father!— think of his death!—think of his banquet-room flooded with his gore, and that poured forth by the hand of a son!”

  “Ha!” answered the Baron, after a long pause, “an thou knowest that, thou art indeed the Author of Evil, and as omniscient as the monks call thee! That secret I deemed locked in my own breast, and in that of one besides—the temptress, the partaker of my guilt. Go, leave me, fiend! and seek the Saxon witch Ulrica, who alone could tell thee what she and I alone witnessed. Go, I say, to her, who washed the wounds, and straighted the corpse, and gave to the slain man the outward show of one parted in time and in the course of nature. Go to her; she was my temptress, the foul provoker, the more foul rewarder, of the deed; let her, as well as I, taste of the tortures which anticipate Hell!”

  “She already tastes them,” said Ulrica, stepping before the couch of Front-de-Bœuf; “she hath long drunken of this cup, and its bitterness is now sweetened to see that thou dost partake it. Grind not thy teeth, Front-de-Bœuf-roll not thine eyes—clench not thy hand, nor shake it at me with that gesture of menace! The hand which, like that of thy renowned ancestor who gained thy name, could have broken with one stroke the skull of a mountain-bull, is now unnerved and powerless as mine own!”

  “Vile, murderous hag!” replied Front-de-Bœuf—“detestable screech-owl! it is then thou who art come to exult over the ruins thou hast assisted to lay low?”

  “Ay, Reginald Front-de-Boeuf,” answered she, “it is Ulrica!—it is the daughter of the murdered Torquil Wolfganger!—it is the sister of his slaughtered sons! it is she who demands of thee, and of thy father’s house, father and kindred, name and fame—all that she has lost by the name of Front-de-Bœuf! Think of my wrongs, Front-de-Bœuf, and answer me if I speak not truth. Thou hast been my evil angel, and I will be thine: I will dog thee till the very instant of dissolution!”

  “Detestable fury!” exclaimed Front-de-Bœuf, “that moment shalt thou never witness. Ho! Giles, Clement, and Eustace! St. Maur and Stephen! seize this damned witch, and hurl her from the battlements headlong; she has betrayed us to the Saxon! Ho! St. Maur! Clement! false-hearted knaves, where tarry ye?”

  “Call on them again, valiant baron,” said the hag, with a smile of grisly mockery; “summon thy vassals around thee, doom them that loiter to the scourge and the dungeon. But know, mighty chief,” she continued, suddenly changing her tone, “thou shalt have neither answer, nor aid, nor obedience at their hands. Listen to these horrid sounds,” for the din of the recommenced assault and defence now rung fearfully loud from the battlements of the castle; “in that war-cry is the downfall of thy house. The blood-cemented fabric of Front-de-Bœufs power totters to the foundation, and before the foes he most despised! The Saxon, Reginald! —the scorned Saxon assails thy walls! Why liest thou here, like a worn-out hind, when the Saxon storms thy place of strength?”

  “Gods and fiends!” exclaimed the wounded knight. “O, for one moment’s strength, to drag myself to the mêlée, and perish as becomes my name!”

  “Think not of it, valiant warrior!” replied she; “thou shalt die no soldier’s death, but perish like the fox in his den, when the peasants have set fire to the cover around it.”

  “Hateful hag! thou liest!” exclaimed Front-de-Bœuf; “my followers bear them bravely—my walls are strong and high—my comrades in arms fear not a whole host of Saxons, were they headed by Hengist and Horsa! The war-cry of the Templar and of the Free Companions rises high over the conflict! And by mine honour, when we kindle the blazing beacon for joy of our defence, it shall consume thee, body and bones; and I shall live to hear thou art gone from earthly fires to those of that Hell which never sent forth an incarnate fiend more utterly diabolical!”

  “Hold thy belief,” replied Ulrica, “till the proof reach thee. But no!” she said, interrupting herself, “thou shalt know even now the doom which all thy power, strength, and courage is unable to avoid, though it is prepared for thee by this feeble hand. Markest thou the smouldering and suffocating vapour which already eddies in sable folds through the chamber? Didst thou think it was but the darkening of thy bursting eyes, the difficulty of thy cumbered breathing? No! Front-de-Bœuf, there is another cause. Rememberest thou the magazine of fuel that is stored beneath these apartments?”

  “Woman!” he exclaimed with fury, “thou hast not set fire to it? By Heaven, thou hast, and the castle is in flames!”

  “They are fast rising at least,” said Ulrica, with frightful composure; “and a signal shall soon wave to warn the besiegers to press hard upon those who would extinguish them. Farewell, Front-de-Bœuf! May Mista, Skogula, and Zernebock, gods of the ancient Saxons—fiends, as the priests now call them—supply the place of comforters at
your dying bed, which Ulrica now relinquishes! But know, if it will give thee comfort to know it, that Ulrica is bound to the same dark coast with thyself, the companion of thy punishment as the companion of thy guilt. And now, parricide, farewell for ever! May each stone of this vaulted roof find a tongue to echo that title into thine ear!”

  So saying, she left the apartment; and Front-de-Bœuf could hear the crash of the ponderous key as she locked and double-locked the door behind her, thus cutting off the most slender chance of escape. In the extremity of agony, he shouted upon his servants and allies—“Stephen and St. Maur! Clement and Giles! I burn here unaided! To the rescue—to the rescue, brave Bois-Guilbert, valiant De Bracy! It is Front-de-Bœuf who calls! It is your master, ye traitor squires! Your ally—your brother in arms, ye perjured and faithless knights! All the curses due to traitors upon your recreant heads, do you abandon me to perish thus miserably! They hear me not—they cannot hear me—my voice is lost in the din of battle. The smoke rolls thicker and thicker, the fire has caught upon the floor below. O, for one draught of the air of heaven, were it to be purchased by instant annihilation!” And in the mad frenzy of despair, the wretch now shouted with the shouts of the fighters, now muttered curses on himself, on mankind, and on Heaven itself. “The red fire flashes through the thick smoke!” he exclaimed; “the demon marches against me under the banner of his own element. Foul spirit, avoid! I go not with thee without my comrades—all, all are thine that garrison these walls. Thinkest thou Front-de-Bœuf will be singled out to go alone? No; the infidel Templar, the licentious De Bracy, Ulrica, the foul murdering strumpet, the men who aided my enterprises, the dog Saxons and accursed Jews who are my prisoners—all, all shall attend me—a goodly fellowship as ever took the downward road. Ha, ha, ha!” and he laughed in his frenzy till the vaulted roof rang again. “Who laughed there?” exclaimed Front-de-Bœuf, in altered mood, for the noise of the conflict did not prevent the echoes of his own mad laughter from returning upon his ear—“who laughed there? Ulrica, was it thou? Speak, witch, and I forgive thee; for only thou or the Fiend of Hell himself could have laughed at such a moment. Avaunt—avaunt—!” ”

  But it were impious to trace any farther the picture of the blasphemer and parricide’s death-bed.

  CHAPTER XXXI

  Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more,

  Or close the wall up with our English dead.

  ... And you, good yeomen,

  Whose limbs were made in England, show us here

  The mettle of your pasture—let us swear

  That you are worth your breeding.

  King Henry VI

  Cedric, although not greatly confident in Ulrica’s message, omitted not to communicate her promise to the Black Knight and Locksley. They were well pleased to find they had a friend within the place, who might, in the moment of need, be able to facilitate their entrance, and readily agreed with the Saxon that a storm, under whatever disadvantages, ought to be attempted, as the only means of liberating the prisoners now in the hands of the cruel Front-de-Bœuf.

  “The royal blood of Alfred is endangered,” said Cedric.

  “The honour of a noble lady is in peril,” said the Black Knight.

  “And, by the St. Christopher at my baldric,”ed said the good yeoman, “were there no other cause than the safety of that poor faithful knave, Wamba, I would jeopard a joint ere a hair of his head were hurt.”

  “And so would I,” said the Friar; “what, sirs! I trust well that a fool—I mean, d’ye see me, sirs, a fool that is free of his guild and master of his craft, and can give as much relish and flavour to a cup of wine as ever a flitch of bacon can—I say, brethren, such a fool shall never want a wise clerk to pray for or fight for him at a strait, while I can say a mass or flourish a partizan.”

  And with that he made his heavy halberd to play around his head as a shepherd boy flourishes his light crook.

  “True, holy clerk,” said the Black Knight—“true as if St. Dunstan himself had said it. And now, good Locksley, were it not well that noble Cedric should assume the direction of this assault?”

  “Not a jot I,” returned Cedric; “I have never been wont to study either how to take or how to hold out those abodes of tyrannic power which the Normans have erected in this groaning land. I will fight among the foremost; but my honest neighbours well know I am not a trained soldier in the discipline of wars or the attack of strongholds.”

  “Since it stands thus with noble Cedric,” said Locksley, “I am most willing to take on me the direction of the archery; and ye shall hang me up on my own trysting-tree an the defenders be permitted to show themselves over the walls without being stuck with as many shafts as there are cloves in a gammon of bacon at Christmas.”

  “Well said, stout yeoman,” answered the Black Knight; “and if I be thought worthy to have a charge in these matters, and can find among these brave men as many as are willing to follow a true English knight, for so I may surely call myself, I am ready, with such skill as my experience has taught me, to lead them to the attack of these walls.”

  The parts being thus distributed to the leaders, they commenced the first assault, of which the reader has already heard the issue.

  When the barbican was carried, the Sable Knight sent notice of the happy event to Locksley, requesting him at the same time to keep such a strict observation on the castle as might prevent the defenders from combining their force for a sudden sally, and recovering the outwork which they had lost. This the knight was chiefly desirous of avoiding, conscious that the men whom he led, being hasty and untrained volunteers, imperfectly armed and unaccustomed to discipline, must, upon any sudden attack, fight at great disadvantage with the veteran soldiers of the Norman knights, who were well provided with arms both defensive and offensive; and who, to match the zeal and high spirit of the besiegers, had all the confidence which arises from perfect discipline and the habitual use of weapons.

  The knight employed the interval in causing to be constructed a sort of floating bridge, or long raft, by means of which he hoped to cross the moat in despite of the resistance of the enemy. This was a work of some time, which the leaders the less regretted, as it gave Ulrica leisure to execute her plan of diversion in their favour, whatever that might be.

  When the raft was completed, the Black Knight addressed the besiegers: “It avails not waiting here longer, my friends; the sun is descending to the west, and I have that upon my hands which will not permit me to tarry with you another day. Besides, it will be a marvel if the horsemen come not upon us from York, unless we speedily accomplish our purpose. Wherefore, one of ye go to Locksley, and bid him commence a discharge of arrows on the opposite side of the castle, and move forward as if about to assault it; and you, true English hearts, stand by me, and be ready to thrust the raft endlong over the moat whenever the postern on our side is thrown open. Follow me boldly across, and aid me to burst yon sallyport in the main wall of the castle. As many of you as like not this service, or are but ill armed to meet it, do you man the top of the outwork, draw your bowstrings to your ears, and mind you quell with your shot whatever shall appear to man the rampart. Noble Cedric, wilt thou take the direction of those which remain?”

  “Not so, by the soul of Hereward!” said the Saxon; “lead I cannot; but may posterity curse me in my grave, if I follow not with the foremost whatever thou shalt point the way. The quarrel is mine, and well it becomes me to be in the van of the battle.”

  “Yet, bethink thee, noble Saxon,” said the knight, “thou hast neither hauberk, nor corslet, nor aught but that light helmet, target, and sword.”

  “The better!” answered Cedric; “I shall be the lighter to climb these walls. And—forgive the boast, Sir Knight—thou shalt this day see the naked breast of a Saxon as boldly presented to the battle as ever ye beheld the steel corslet of a Norman.”

  “In the name of God, then,” said the knight, “fling open the door, and launch the floating bridge.”

&nb
sp; The portal, which led from the inner wall of the barbican to the moat, and which corresponded with a sallyport in the main wall of the castle, was now suddenly opened; the temporary bridge was then thrust forward, and soon flashed in the waters, extending its length between the castle and outwork, and forming a slippery and precarious passage for two men abreast to cross the moat. Well aware of the importance of taking the foe by surprise, the Black Knight, closely followed by Cedric, threw himself upon the bridge, and reached the opposite side. Here he began to thunder with his axe upon the gate of the castle, protected in part from the shot and stones cast by the defenders by the ruins of the former drawbridge, which the Templar had demolished in his retreat from the barbican, leaving the counterpoise still attached to the upper part of the portal. The followers of the knight had no such shelter; two were instantly shot with cross-bow bolts, and two more fell into the moat; the others retreated back into the barbican.

  The situation of Cedric and of the Black Knight was now truly dangerous, and would have been still more so but for the constancy of the archers in the barbican, who ceased not to shower their arrows upon the battlements, distracting the attention of those by whom they were manned, and thus affording a respite to their two chiefs from the storm of missiles which must otherwise have overwhelmed them. But their situation was eminently perilous, and was becoming more so with every moment.

  “Shame on ye all!” cried De Bracy to the soldiers around him; “do ye call yourselves cross-bowmen, and let these two dogs keep their station under the walls of the castle? Heave over the coping stones from the battlement, an better may not be. Get pickaxe and levers, and down with that huge pinnacle!” pointing to a heavy piece of stone carved-work that projected from the parapet.