The White Company

by Arthur Conan Doyle

  CHAPTER XXIX. HOW THE BLESSED HOUR OF SIGHT CAME TO THE LADY TIPHAINE.

  Sir Tristram de Rochefort, Seneschal of Auvergne and Lord ofVillefranche, was a fierce and renowned soldier who had grown gray inthe English wars. As lord of the marches and guardian of an exposedcountry-side, there was little rest for him even in times of so-calledpeace, and his whole life was spent in raids and outfalls upon theBrabanters, late-comers, flayers, free companions, and roving archerswho wandered over his province. At times he would come back in triumph,and a dozen corpses swinging from the summit of his keep would warnevil-doers that there was still a law in the land. At others hisventures were not so happy, and he and his troop would spur it overthe drawbridge with clatter of hoofs hard at their heels and whistle ofarrows about their ears. Hard he was of hand and harder of heart, hatedby his foes, and yet not loved by those whom he protected, for twice hehad been taken prisoner, and twice his ransom had been wrung by dintof blows and tortures out of the starving peasants and ruined farmers.Wolves or watch-dogs, it was hard to say from which the sheep had mostto fear.

  The Castle of Villefranche was harsh and stern as its master. A broadmoat, a high outer wall turreted at the corners, with a great black keeptowering above all--so it lay before them in the moonlight. By the lightof two flambeaux, protruded through the narrow slit-shaped openings ateither side of the ponderous gate, they caught a glimpse of the glitterof fierce eyes and of the gleam of the weapons of the guard. The sightof the two-headed eagle of Du Guesclin, however, was a passport intoany fortalice in France, and ere they had passed the gate the old borderknight came running forwards with hands out-thrown to greet his famouscountryman. Nor was he less glad to see Sir Nigel, when the Englishman'serrand was explained to him, for these archers had been a sore thorn inhis side and had routed two expeditions which he had sent against them.A happy day it would be for the Seneschal of Auvergne when they shouldlearn that the last yew bow was over the marches.

  The material for a feast was ever at hand in days when, if there wasgrim want in the cottage, there was at least rude plenty in the castle.Within an hour the guests were seated around a board which creaked underthe great pasties and joints of meat, varied by those more daintydishes in which the French excelled, the spiced ortolan and the truffledbeccaficoes. The Lady Rochefort, a bright and laughter-loving dame, satupon the left of her warlike spouse, with Lady Tiphaine upon the right.Beneath sat Du Guesclin and Sir Nigel, with Sir Amory Monticourt, of theorder of the Hospitallers, and Sir Otto Harnit, a wandering knightfrom the kingdom of Bohemia. These with Alleyne and Ford, four Frenchsquires, and the castle chaplain, made the company who sat together thatnight and made good cheer in the Castle of Villefranche. The great firecrackled in the grate, the hooded hawks slept upon their perches, therough deer-hounds with expectant eyes crouched upon the tiled floor;close at the elbows of the guests stood the dapper little lilac-coatedpages; the laugh and jest circled round and all was harmony and comfort.Little they recked of the brushwood men who crouched in their rags alongthe fringe of the forest and looked with wild and haggard eyes at therich, warm glow which shot a golden bar of light from the high archedwindows of the castle.

  Supper over, the tables dormant were cleared away as by magic andtrestles and bancals arranged around the blazing fire, for there was abitter nip in the air. The Lady Tiphaine had sunk back in her cushionedchair, and her long dark lashes drooped low over her sparkling eyes.Alleyne, glancing at her, noted that her breath came quick and short,and that her cheeks had blanched to a lily white. Du Guesclin eyed herkeenly from time to time, and passed his broad brown fingers through hiscrisp, curly black hair with the air of a man who is perplexed in hismind.

  "These folk here," said the knight of Bohemia, "they do not seem toowell fed."

  "Ah, canaille!" cried the Lord of Villefranche. "You would scarce creditit, and yet it is sooth that when I was taken at Poictiers it was allthat my wife and foster-brother could do to raise the money from themfor my ransom. The sulky dogs would rather have three twists of a rack,or the thumbikins for an hour, than pay out a denier for their ownfeudal father and liege lord. Yet there is not one of them but hath anold stocking full of gold pieces hid away in a snug corner."

  "Why do they not buy food then?" asked Sir Nigel. "By St. Paul! itseemed to me their bones were breaking through their skin."

  "It is their grutching and grumbling which makes them thin. We have asaying here, Sir Nigel, that if you pummel Jacques Bonhomme he will patyou, but if you pat him he will pummel you. Doubtless you find it so inEngland."

  "Ma foi, no!" said Sir Nigel. "I have two Englishmen of this class inmy train, who are at this instant, I make little doubt, as full of yourwine as any cask in your cellar. He who pummelled them might come bysuch a pat as he would be likely to remember."

  "I cannot understand it," quoth the seneschal, "for the English knightsand nobles whom I have met were not men to brook the insolence of thebase born."

  "Perchance, my fair lord, the poor folk are sweeter and of a bettercountenance in England," laughed the Lady Rochefort. "Mon Dieu! youcannot conceive to yourself how ugly they are! Without hair, withoutteeth, all twisted and bent; for me, I cannot think how the good Godever came to make such people. I cannot bear it, I, and so my trustyRaoul goes ever before me with a cudgel to drive them from my path."

  "Yet they have souls, fair lady, they have souls!" murmured thechaplain, a white-haired man with a weary, patient face.

  "So I have heard you tell them," said the lord of the castle; "and formyself, father, though I am a true son of holy Church, yet I thinkthat you were better employed in saying your mass and in teaching thechildren of my men-at-arms, than in going over the country-side to putideas in these folks' heads which would never have been there but foryou. I have heard that you have said to them that their souls are asgood as ours, and that it is likely that in another life they may standas high as the oldest blood of Auvergne. For my part, I believe thatthere are so many worthy knights and gallant gentlemen in heaven whoknow how such things should be arranged, that there is little fear thatwe shall find ourselves mixed up with base roturiers and swine-herds.Tell your beads, father, and con your psalter, but do not come betweenme and those whom the king has given to me!"

  "God help them!" cried the old priest. "A higher King than yours hasgiven them to me, and I tell you here in your own castle hall, SirTristram de Rochefort, that you have sinned deeply in your dealings withthese poor folk, and that the hour will come, and may even now be athand, when God's hand will be heavy upon you for what you have done." Herose as he spoke, and walked slowly from the room.

  "Pest take him!" cried the French knight. "Now, what is a man to do witha priest, Sir Bertrand?--for one can neither fight him like a man norcoax him like a woman."

  "Ah, Sir Bertrand knows, the naughty one!" cried the Lady Rochefort."Have we not all heard how he went to Avignon and squeezed fiftythousand crowns out of the Pope."

  "Ma foi!" said Sir Nigel, looking with a mixture of horror andadmiration at Du Guesclin. "Did not your heart sink within you? Were younot smitten with fears? Have you not felt a curse hang over you?"

  "I have not observed it," said the Frenchman carelessly. "But by SaintIves! Tristram, this chaplain of yours seems to me to be a worthy man,and you should give heed to his words, for though I care nothing forthe curse of a bad pope, it would be a grief to me to have aught but ablessing from a good priest."

  "Hark to that, my fair lord," cried the Lady Rochefort. "Take heed, Ipray thee, for I do not wish to have a blight cast over me, nor a palsyof the limbs. I remember that once before you angered Father Stephen,and my tire-woman said that I lost more hair in seven days than everbefore in a month."

  "If that be sign of sin, then, by Saint Paul! I have much upon my soul,"said Sir Nigel, amid a general laugh. "But in very truth, Sir Tristram,if I may venture a word of counsel, I should advise that you make yourpeace with this good man."

  "He shall have four silver candlesticks," sai
d the seneschal moodily."And yet I would that he would leave the folk alone. You cannot conceivein your mind how stubborn and brainless they are. Mules and pigs arefull of reason beside them. God He knows that I have had great patiencewith them. It was but last week that, having to raise some money,I called up to the castle Jean Goubert, who, as all men know, has acasketful of gold pieces hidden away in some hollow tree. I give you myword that I did not so much as lay a stripe upon his fool's back, butafter speaking with him, and telling him how needful the money was tome, I left him for the night to think over the matter in my dungeon.What think you that the dog did? Why, in the morning we found that hehad made a rope from strips of his leathern jerkin, and had hung himselfto the bar of the window."

  "For me, I cannot conceive such wickedness!" cried the lady.

  "And there was Gertrude Le Boeuf, as fair a maiden as eye could see, butas bad and bitter as the rest of them. When young Amory de Valance washere last Lammastide he looked kindly upon the girl, and even spoke oftaking her into his service. What does she do, with her dog of a father?Why, they tie themselves together and leap into the Linden Pool, wherethe water is five spears'-lengths deep. I give you my word that it wasa great grief to young Amory, and it was days ere he could cast itfrom his mind. But how can one serve people who are so foolish and soungrateful?"

  Whilst the Seneschal of Villefranche had been detailing the evil doingsof his tenants, Alleyne had been unable to take his eyes from the faceof Lady Tiphaine. She had lain back in her chair, with drooping eyelidsand bloodless face, so that he had feared at first her journey hadweighed heavily upon her, and that the strength was ebbing out of her.Of a sudden, however, there came a change, for a dash of bright colorflickered up on to either cheek, and her lids were slowly raised againupon eyes which sparkled with such lustre as Alleyne had never seenin human eyes before, while their gaze was fixed intently, not on thecompany, but on the dark tapestry which draped the wall. So transformedand so ethereal was her expression, that Alleyne, in his loftiest dreamof archangel or of seraph, had never pictured so sweet, so womanly, andyet so wise a face. Glancing at Du Guesclin, Alleyne saw that he alsowas watching his wife closely, and from the twitching of his features,and the beads upon his brick-colored brow, it was easy to see that hewas deeply agitated by the change which he marked in her.

  "How is it with you, lady?" he asked at last, in a tremulous voice.

  Her eyes remained fixed intently upon the wall, and there was a longpause ere she answered him. Her voice, too, which had been so clearand ringing, was now low and muffled as that of one who speaks from adistance.

  "All is very well with me, Bertrand," said she. "The blessed hour ofsight has come round to me again."

  "I could see it come! I could see it come!" he exclaimed, passing hisfingers through his hair with the same perplexed expression as before.

  "This is untoward, Sir Tristram," he said at last. "And I scarce knowin what words to make it clear to you, and to your fair wife, and to SirNigel Loring, and to these other stranger knights. My tongue is a bluntone, and fitter to shout word of command than to clear up such a matteras this, of which I can myself understand little. This, however, I know,that my wife is come of a very sainted race, whom God hath in Hiswisdom endowed with wondrous powers, so that Tiphaine Raquenel was knownthroughout Brittany ere ever I first saw her at Dinan. Yet these powersare ever used for good, and they are the gift of God and not of thedevil, which is the difference betwixt white magic and black."

  "Perchance it would be as well that we should send for Father Stephen,"said Sir Tristram.

  "It would be best that he should come," cried the Hospitaller.

  "And bring with him a flask of holy water," added the knight of Bohemia.

  "Not so, gentlemen," answered Sir Bertrand. "It is not needful that thispriest should be called, and it is in my mind that in asking for this yecast some slight shadow or slur upon the good name of my wife, as thoughit were still doubtful whether her power came to her from above orbelow. If ye have indeed such a doubt I pray that you will say so, thatwe may discuss the matter in a fitting way."

  "For myself," said Sir Nigel, "I have heard such words fall from thelips of this lady that I am of the opinion that there is no woman,save only one, who can be in any way compared to her in beauty and ingoodness. Should any gentleman think otherwise, I should deem it greathonor to run a small course with him, or debate the matter in whateverway might be most pleasing to him."

  "Nay, it would ill become me to cast a slur upon a lady who is bothmy guest and the wife of my comrade-in-arms," said the Seneschal ofVillefranche. "I have perceived also that on her mantle there is markeda silver cross, which is surely sign enough that there is nought of evilin these strange powers which you say that she possesses."

  This argument of the seneschal's appealed so powerfully to the Bohemianand to the Hospitaller that they at once intimated that their objectionshad been entirely overcome, while even the Lady Rochefort, who had satshivering and crossing herself, ceased to cast glances at the door, andallowed her fears to turn to curiosity.

  "Among the gifts which have been vouchsafed to my wife," said DuGuesclin, "there is the wondrous one of seeing into the future; but itcomes very seldom upon her, and goes as quickly, for none can commandit. The blessed hour of sight, as she hath named it, has come but twicesince I have known her, and I can vouch for it that all that she hathtold me was true, for on the evening of the Battle of Auray she saidthat the morrow would be an ill day for me and for Charles of Blois.Ere the sun had sunk again he was dead, and I the prisoner of Sir JohnChandos. Yet it is not every question that she can answer, but onlythose----"

  "Bertrand, Bertrand!" cried the lady in the same muttering far-awayvoice, "the blessed hour passes. Use it, Bertrand, while you may."

  "I will, my sweet. Tell me, then, what fortune comes upon me?"

  "Danger, Bertrand--deadly, pressing danger--which creeps upon you andyou know it not."

  The French soldier burst into a thunderous laugh, and his green eyestwinkled with amusement. "At what time during these twenty years wouldnot that have been a true word?" he cried. "Danger is in the air that Ibreathe. But is this so very close, Tiphaine?"

  "Here--now--close upon you!" The words came out in broken, strenuousspeech, while the lady's fair face was writhed and drawn like that ofone who looks upon a horror which strikes the words from her lips. DuGuesclin gazed round the tapestried room, at the screens, the tables,the abace, the credence, the buffet with its silver salver, and thehalf-circle of friendly, wondering faces. There was an utter stillness,save for the sharp breathing of the Lady Tiphaine and for the gentlesoughing of the wind outside, which wafted to their ears the distantcall upon a swine-herd's horn.

  "The danger may bide," said he, shrugging his broad shoulders. "And now,Tiphaine, tell us what will come of this war in Spain."

  "I can see little," she answered, straining her eyes and puckering herbrow, as one who would fain clear her sight. "There are mountains, anddry plains, and flash of arms and shouting of battle-cries. Yet it iswhispered to me that by failure you will succeed."

  "Ha! Sir Nigel, how like you that?" quoth Bertrand, shaking his head."It is like mead and vinegar, half sweet, half sour. And is there noquestion which you would ask my lady?"

  "Certes there is. I would fain know, fair lady, how all things are atTwynham Castle, and above all how my sweet lady employs herself."

  "To answer this I would fain lay hand upon one whose thoughts turnstrongly to this castle which you have named. Nay, my Lord Loring, it iswhispered to me that there is another here who hath thought more deeplyof it than you."

  "Thought more of mine own home?" cried Sir Nigel. "Lady, I fear that inthis matter at least you are mistaken."

  "Not so, Sir Nigel. Come hither, young man, young English squire withthe gray eyes! Now give me your hand, and place it here across my brow,that I may see that which you have seen. What is this that rises beforeme? Mist, mist, rolling mist with a square bla
ck tower above it. See itshreds out, it thins, it rises, and there lies a castle in green plain,with the sea beneath it, and a great church within a bow-shot. There aretwo rivers which run through the meadows, and between them lie the tentsof the besiegers."

  "The besiegers!" cried Alleyne, Ford, and Sir Nigel, all three in abreath.

  "Yes, truly, and they press hard upon the castle, for they are anexceeding multitude and full of courage. See how they storm and rageagainst the gate, while some rear ladders, and others, line after line,sweep the walls with their arrows. There are many leaders who shout andbeckon, and one, a tall man with a golden beard, who stands before thegate stamping his foot and hallooing them on, as a pricker doth thehounds. But those in the castle fight bravely. There is a woman, twowomen, who stand upon the walls, and give heart to the men-at-arms. Theyshower down arrows, darts and great stones. Ah! they have struck downthe tall leader, and the others give back. The mist thickens and I cansee no more."

  "By Saint Paul!" said Sir Nigel, "I do not think that there can be anysuch doings at Christchurch, and I am very easy of the fortalice so longas my sweet wife hangs the key of the outer bailey at the head of herbed. Yet I will not deny that you have pictured the castle as well as Icould have done myself, and I am full of wonderment at all that I haveheard and seen."

  "I would, Lady Tiphaine," cried the Lady Rochefort, "that you would useyour power to tell me what hath befallen my golden bracelet which I worewhen hawking upon the second Sunday of Advent, and have never set eyesupon since."

  "Nay, lady," said du Guesclin, "it does not befit so great and wondrousa power to pry and search and play the varlet even to the beautifulchatelaine of Villefranche. Ask a worthy question, and, with theblessing of God, you shall have a worthy answer."

  "Then I would fain ask," cried one of the French squires, "as to whichmay hope to conquer in these wars betwixt the English and ourselves."

  "Both will conquer and each will hold its own," answered the LadyTiphaine.

  "Then we shall still hold Gascony and Guienne?" cried Sir Nigel.

  The lady shook her head. "French land, French blood, French speech," sheanswered. "They are French, and France shall have them."

  "But not Bordeaux?" cried Sir Nigel excitedly.

  "Bordeaux also is for France."

  "But Calais?"

  "Calais too."

  "Woe worth me then, and ill hail to these evil words! If Bordeaux andCalais be gone, then what is left for England?"

  "It seems indeed that there are evil times coming upon your country,"said Du Guesclin. "In our fondest hopes we never thought to holdBordeaux. By Saint Ives! this news hath warmed the heart within me. Ourdear country will then be very great in the future, Tiphaine?"

  "Great, and rich, and beautiful," she cried. "Far down the course oftime I can see her still leading the nations, a wayward queen among thepeoples, great in war, but greater in peace, quick in thought, deft inaction, with her people's will for her sole monarch, from the sands ofCalais to the blue seas of the south."

  "Ha!" cried Du Guesclin, with his eyes flashing in triumph, "you hearher, Sir Nigel?--and she never yet said word which was not sooth."

  The English knight shook his head moodily. "What of my own poorcountry?" said he. "I fear, lady, that what you have said bodes butsmall good for her."

  The lady sat with parted lips, and her breath came quick and fast. "MyGod!" she cried, "what is this that is shown me? Whence come they, thesepeoples, these lordly nations, these mighty countries which rise upbefore me? I look beyond, and others rise, and yet others, far andfarther to the shores of the uttermost waters. They crowd! They swarm!The world is given to them, and it resounds with the clang of theirhammers and the ringing of their church bells. They call them manynames, and they rule them this way or that but they are all English,for I can hear the voices of the people. On I go, and onwards over seaswhere man hath never yet sailed, and I see a great land under newstars and a stranger sky, and still the land is England. Where have herchildren not gone? What have they not done? Her banner is planted onice. Her banner is scorched in the sun. She lies athwart the lands, andher shadow is over the seas. Bertrand, Bertrand! we are undone for thebuds of her bud are even as our choicest flower!" Her voice rose intoa wild cry, and throwing up her arms she sank back white and nervelessinto the deep oaken chair.

  "It is over," said Du Guesclin moodily, as he raised her drooping headwith his strong brown hand. "Wine for the lady, squire! The blessed hourof sight hath passed."