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Page 12
'To here, d'you mean?' said Una.
'To this very valley. We came in by the Lower Ford under the King's Hill
yonder'--he pointed eastward where the valley widens.
'And was that Saxon Hugh the novice?' Dan asked.
'Yes, and more than that. He had been for three years at the monastery
at Bec by Rouen, where'--Sir Richard chuckled--'the Abbot Herluin would
not suffer me to remain.'
'Why wouldn't he?' said Dan.
'Because I rode my horse into the refectory, when the scholars were at
meat, to show the Saxon boys we Normans were not afraid of an Abbot. It
was that very Saxon Hugh tempted me to do it, and we had not met since
that day. I thought I knew his voice even inside my helmet, and, for all
that our Lords fought, we each rejoiced we had not slain the other. He
walked by my side, and he told me how a Heathen God, as he believed, had
given him his sword, but he said he had never heard it sing before. I
remember I warned him to beware of sorcery and quick enchantments.' Sir
Richard smiled to himself. 'I was very young--very young!
'When we came to his house here we had almost forgotten that we had been
at blows. It was near midnight, and the Great Hall was full of men and
women waiting news. There I first saw his sister, the Lady �lueva, of
whom he had spoken to us in France. She cried out fiercely at me, and
would have had me hanged in that hour, but her brother said that I had
spared his life--he said not how he saved mine from the Saxons--and that
our Duke had won the day; and even while they wrangled over my poor
body, of a sudden he fell down in a swoon from his wounds.
'"This is _thy_ fault," said the Lady �lueva to me, and she kneeled
above him and called for wine and cloths.
'"If I had known," I answered, "he should have ridden and I walked. But
he set me on my horse; he made no complaint; he walked beside me and
spoke merrily throughout. I pray I have done him no harm."
'"Thou hast need to pray," she said, catching up her underlip. "If he
dies, thou shalt hang."
'They bore off Hugh to his chamber; but three tall men of the house
bound me and set me under the beam of the Great Hall with a rope round
my neck. The end of the rope they flung over the beam, and they sat them
down by the fire to wait word whether Hugh lived or died. They cracked
nuts with their knife-hilts the while.'
'And how did you feel?' said Dan.
'Very weary; but I did heartily pray for my schoolmate Hugh his health.
About noon I heard horses in the valley, and the three men loosed my
ropes and fled out, and De Aquila's men rode up. Gilbert de Aquila came
with them, for it was his boast that, like his father, he forgot no man
that served him. He was little, like his father, but terrible, with a
nose like an eagle's nose and yellow eyes like an eagle. He rode tall
warhorses--roans, which he bred himself--and he could never abide to be
helped into the saddle. He saw the rope hanging from the beam and
laughed, and his men laughed, for I was too stiff to rise.
'"This is poor entertainment for a Norman knight," he said, "but, such
as it is, let us be grateful. Show me, boy, to whom thou owest most, and
we will pay them out of hand."'
'What did he mean? To kill 'em?' said Dan.
'Assuredly. But I looked at the Lady �lueva where she stood among her
maids, and her brother beside her. De Aquila's men had driven them all
into the Great Hall.'
'Was she pretty?' said Una.
'In all my long life I have never seen woman fit to strew rushes before
my Lady �lueva,' the knight replied, quite simply and quietly. 'As I
looked at her I thought I might save her and her house by a jest.
'"Seeing that I came somewhat hastily and without warning," said I to De
Aquila, "I have no fault to find with the courtesy that these Saxons
have shown me." But my voice shook. It is--it was not good to jest with
that little man.
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