Tekla

Bertrich wasted no further effort on them, but called his crossbow brigade out of the wood to advance and harass those on the walls while the scaling ladders were being put into use. They came out timorously with an eye on the tower rather than on the direction of their bolts. Here, at last, was Surrey's opportunity. His hatred of a crossbow man as a cumberer of the earth lent strength to his aim, and his anger at being baffled by those in armour made the game he was now playing doubly enjoyable. He raised a Saxon yell, heard far and wide over hill and dale.

"Oh, here you are at last!" he cried. "Come along with your ox-bows and hay ricks."

When half-a-dozen had fallen under the whizzing, almost invisible, shafts that so quickly succeeded each other, the ranks of the crossbow men wavered and broke, every man of them getting under cover as speedily as he could.

Those on the western wall under Rodolph's command were now having all they could do. The hill climbers, although somewhat out of breath with their hurried ascent, swarmed in such numbers at the foot of the walls, that for a time their repulse seemed almost hopeless. Each of the attacking soldiers carried, wound round his waist, a rope tied at one end to a piece of timber three or four feet long. This billet of wood they flung over the parapet, dragging instantly on the attached rope. Sometimes the billet came down on them again, but more often it caught and held in the machicolations of the parapet, and then the soldier, setting his feet against the stone wall, climbed nimbly up the rope, usually to get knocked on the head with a battle-axe when he appeared at the top, but while many went thus down again, others obtained a precarious footing and fought fiercely until they fell backwards over the parapet.

Rodolph saw that the moment three or four of the enemy made good their stand at any one part of the wall, their comrades would swarm up at that point and the castle would be taken, for the besiegers were so numerous they might speedily overpower the little garrison. He gave the word to cut the ropes whether the ascending man got foothold or not. The defenders, in the fury of the battle, were paying more attention to the splitting of skulls than the destroying of the means of ascent, often leaving a rope dangling where another than its original owner might come up. After this command the battle-axes clove each rope at its junction with the wooden billet, and so destroyed its usefulness, for there was no time in the mêlée to retie the cord to other billets, even if other billets were to hand. When at last the ladders came, the fight waxed more fierce. Here Rodolph took pattern by the Black Count, and gave command to the defenders to hold catapult stones in readiness and wait till two or three men were following each other up a ladder, then hurl granite on the foremost, who in his fall brought down his comrades with him. In each case when this was accomplished the men on the walls were instructed to rush forward, pull up the ladder and throw it inside the courtyard. In this way most of the ladders had been taken before the attacking force rightly estimated their loss, or indeed noticed it in the exciting conflict which was going forward, and with each capture the danger to the castle grew less. Black Heinrich looked grimly on, taking little part in the defence now that the attack on the gate had been abandoned, but once when, in spite of all efforts of the defenders, four ladders had been placed simultaneously together and half-a-dozen men succeeded in mounting the battlements, the Count sprang forward and grasping one after another of the invaders, flung them, head over heels, through the air in such quick succession, and with such incredible force, that most of them rolled well nigh into the village of Alken before they came to rest on the hillside. The raiders gradually became discouraged, but were buoyed up by the hope that other points of attack might be more favoured by fate than theirs, else the retreat would have sounded from the bugle. But suddenly a riderless horse came galloping round a corner from the gate, and the officers recognised the animal from its trappings. Like wildfire spread the rumour, "Count Bertrich is slain," then all heart departed from the attack, and a wild exultant cheer rose from those in the castle. The retreat down the hill became a panic-stricken flight, which the catapults, now in activity again, accelerated.

"Show your white flag!" roared Heinrich, striding up and down the battlements, intoxicated with his triumph, and waving hands above his head like a madman. "Show your white flag; you surely were not foolish enough to attack without it."

The white flag presently did appear coming up from Alken, and the request was made that they be allowed to bear away their dead and wounded. Then at last the active engines ceased and the tired men sat on beams and parapet, drawing sleeves across their sweating brows.

The foot of the walls presented an appalling spectacle. There was a windrow of dead and wounded, as if the poor wrecked human beings had been some sort of wingless moths who had flung themselves against these adamant walls, and had paid the last penalty of their rashness. Parts of broken ladders lay mingled with the slain, together with the round lumps of stone which had been their undoing.

"Is it true that Count Bertrich has been slain?" asked Rodolph of Heinrich, when the latter had assumed his customary calm.

"I know nothing of it. Here is the archer who was on the tower; he may be able to tell us."

"Indeed," said Surrey, "I fear it is not true, for I had no fair shot at him. It was not my intention to have killed him so early in the game, but he must needs insult me, so I let fly at him."

"How did he insult you?"

"He raved at the cautious crossbow men, telling them that if they did not come out from the wood they were cowards. Now it is not fair to call a man a coward who fears my bow, and that expression I took as an insult. He is a wise man and not a coward who betakes himself to the wood when my arrows are abroad."

"I can bear witness to the truth of that," said the Black Count.

"I therefore loosed arrow at his slanderous mouth, but he turned his face just at the moment, and although I unhorsed him and he lay still enough till they dragged him away, I have my doubts regarding his death."

During all the rest of that stirring day soldiers were busy carrying their dead and wounded comrades down the steep hill to the village, and the white flag flew until darkness blotted it out.

CHAPTER XXVI

AN ILLUMINATED NIGHT ATTACK ON THURON

On the following morning there were no signs of activity in the camp, as the sentries on the castle walls gazed about them in the early dawn.

Heinrich thought that after a defeat so overwhelming the Archbishops would strike tent and hie themselves back to their respective cities, there to resume the religious duties which had been interrupted by the martial bugle blast, but Rodolph laboured under no such delusion. He said the defeat made a prolonged siege inevitable; that the feudal lords could not afford to turn their backs upon a vassal who had thus repulsed them, or their prestige in the land would be gone forever. And it was soon evident that, although there was no activity in the camp, neither was there any sign of departure. It was learned from those who came to make further search for the missing, that Count Bertrich lay grievously ill of his wound, and if he recovered there would be another scar on his already unattractive face, but hope was held that he might live, as he was being tenderly cared for in his own tent next to that of the Archbishop of Treves himself. Rodolph acquainted the archer with the condition of his high-born foe, and Surrey received the news with subdued dejection.

"I had no fair chance," he said, sadly. "A man on a prancing horse is ever a difficult mark, but when he is encased in armour with only his face showing, and then unexpectedly turns his head just as arrow leaves string, death, however merited, can hardly be looked for."

The archer spent most of his time on the tower top, industriously making arrows, and attended assiduously by his menial, who had conceived a strong attachment to him, chiefly through the medium of vigorous kicks and blows which John somewhat lavishly bestowed, hoping thus, as he said, to make a man of him.

"You may have another opportunity of giving Count Bertrich a taste of your skill," said Rodolph, "for I doubt if the siege is yet near its conclusion. Indeed that we still hold the castle is due most of all to you."

"We hold the castle through the mercy of Providence alone," said the archer, gloomily, uninfluenced by his master's praise.

"Through that of course," remarked Rodolph, "but also in a measure through our own hard blows and your accurate marksmanship."

"I am saying nothing against the valour of the garrison, my Lord. What I mean is, that if Providence had led my friend Roger Kent into the camp of the enemy, as I supposed was probable, there would have been little use of our longer holding out, for he could have stood in Alken or even further away and picked us off one by one as pleased him. No man would dare show face above parapet. I would rather undertake to conquer Thuron with Roger Kent alone than with all the army of the Archbishops."

"Let us be thankful therefore that he is elsewhere. You think then he is not with the Archbishop?"

"He has probably forgotten all about my going to Treves," replied the archer, sorrowfully. "Roger is an absent-minded man, and a dreamer. He is likely sitting on the bank of some stream, poetry making and watching the drying of the papyrus he fabricates, for unless hunger overcame him he would never think of accepting service with any, or of drawing bow. It was his hope that some good peasant would take charge of him, and feed him, allowing him to exchange poetry for what provender and lodging he had, but he has never found such, for he wants a hut in a picturesque spot, by a lake or near a waterfall, with hills or mountains round about, where he may make papyrus and poetry."

"What is the nature of this papyrus he manufactures, and what is its purpose?" asked the Emperor.

"He says the Egyptians produced it in ancient times. He macerates certain reeds and grasses together between two stones, in flowing water, and when he has compounded a substance like porridge, he spreads it thinly on a flat stone which lies in the sun. It dries very white, and is of light texture, like cloth, only more easily torn, and will last you a long time if kept dry, but in water it dissolves again. He has thus lost much good poetry, through lying in trenches during heavy rains, the which causes him to dislike campaigns where the tents are few. On his papyrus he indites with a sharp stylus his poems, and for safe keeping places the sheets under his doublet when he sleeps; but he rises, after a rainy night, encased in pulp, which he takes from various parts of his apparel with tender care, attempting to dry the same again in the sun. He tells me that even when successful in drying the substance, the poetry is gone. Thus does he yearn for a warm hut of his own, or any one's for that matter, who will let him use it. But there is small chance of a peasant taking him up; few of them care for poetry, and he never can save the money he earns; he was always a fool in that respect, differing greatly from me; he gives away his money to the first beggar that comes with a pitiful story."

"I like your friend Roger from what you tell me of him, and if I ever come near to him, God granting he has not bow in hand, I shall be pleased to furnish him the hut he craves, if we can find one with stream and waterfall in conjunction."

"What! and thus rob Germany of the finest archer that ever bent yew wood? Indeed, it is my hope that he shall find no such patron, but that we may both take service under one commander, fighting side by side in future battles, or perhaps instructing others in the use of the long bow, and thus raising a company that will be of use in German warfare!"

As day by day passed without motion in the camp, it came to be believed in the castle that no further attack was contemplated until Bertrich had so far recovered as to lead it. He alone knew the conformation of the fortress, as he alone had been inside Thuron, so it was probable that his knowledge was regarded by the Archbishop as necessary to an attacking force.

The nights were now moonless, and although watch was strictly kept, the first intimation the garrison had of renewed hostilities was the resounding crash of the battering ram against the closed gate. The Black Count was instantly on the rampart above the gate with his stone heavers, launching out huge boulders into the darkness, and calling in his stentorian voice for torches, which seemed slow in coming. These lighted brands were flung down on the besiegers, to be trampled out by them at once, while the stone throwers, taking advantage of the momentary gleams of light, thundered down granite on the heads of the enemy. The gate did not yield as speedily as the assaulters expected, and they, not knowing it was barricaded behind by tons of grain in sacks, redoubled their efforts to gain quick entrance, for they were unarmoured, and knew their existence depended on a sudden forcing of the portal.

Rodolph, leaving the defence of the gate entirely to the Black Count, summoned his men to the long west battlement, fearing an attack there with the ladders, for he could not conceal from himself the fact that had the day attack been more intelligently conducted, with a concentration of forces at any one point along the lengthy wall, it would have come perilously near to success. He ordered a lavish supply of unlit torches, which he placed in position along the outer edge of the parapet, for their only hope lay in having plenty of light to deal successfully with an onslaught. To light the torches prematurely would be to lay the defenders open to a flight of bolts from crossbows, were a brigade of bowmen in attendance, as was extremely probable.

Shortly after the first sounds of battering at the gate aroused the citadel, the attack on the west front began. The besiegers apparently had not come up the hill as before, but swarmed round the corner of the castle from the level ground opposite the entrance, and at first Rodolph thought the assault on the gate had been abandoned and the attacking party had come to try their fortunes against the comparatively low wall, which it was his duty to protect, but the blows of oak on oak still resounded, and now he saw he was face to face with a general attack similar to the one they had formerly repulsed in daylight, the enemy doubtless hoping to profit by the darkness, and perhaps thinking to take the garrison by surprise.

In spite of his eagerness and anxiety, the Emperor could not help pausing for a moment to note the unexpected transformation which took place in the valley and on all the hillsides round about. As soon as the cheers from Thuron gave evidence that the attack was known and had been met, a line of fire seemed to encircle the castle far below and up the hills. Thousands of torches were lit, and the cheers of their holders caused Rodolph to expect an instant onslaught by the entire strength of the Archbishops. This, however, was not the intention, for those bearing the torches marched and counter-marched in apparently aimless fashion, weaving a thousand threads of fire into a glowing web that dazzled the eyes of the onlookers, while cheer after cheer rent the air, as if to encourage the actual besiegers.

The amazing illumination had at first the effect intended. It bewildered those who had to face it, while the assailants, with their backs to the scintillating brilliancy, were helped rather than disturbed by the universal glow, which faintly illumined the grey walls before them. Rodolph had his torches lighted as rapidly as possible, for he knew that light was absolutely necessary to a successful defence, and the long train of flaming, smoking torches, which were here and there beaten down by the ends of ladders, suggested an expedient to him. He had ample help, for the whole force of the castle was now aroused, so he ordered up his reserves to carry wood and build two bonfires, one at each end of the stone terrace. With these roaring to the sky, the two great towers of Thuron stood out in crimson relief, seeming to hang in the air, resting on nothing, for their bases were hid in the darkness below. Before the fires blazed out, however, several of the enemy had obtained footing on the terrace, and fierce hand to hand fights were going on, the climbers for the most part getting the worst of it, for even when a man secures his footing on solid stone instead of ladder-round, he is scarcely on equality with his foe who has had to expend no exertion, merely waiting there until a head appears.

When the two fires shot up to the sky the desultory cheering in the valley gave place to one mighty simultaneous shout of triumph, while torches were enthusiastically flung in the air. They were quite palpably under the delusion that the castle had been carried and was already burning. The fierce yell which came from Thuron was an answer they had not expected, and now, as being of no further use, the torches below were extinguished as rapidly as they had been lighted. The great castle was self-illumined and must have presented a spectacle well worth viewing from the plain below, as it stood out against the dark sky like a glowing fortress of molten stone. With the sudden access of light, the attack on the gate had proved no more practicable than on the two previous occasions. The archer on the tower again cut down the unprotected men, and again the attacking party fled panic stricken to the forest or round to the west front, where matters were going little better for their comrades.

The besiegers, with a lively remembrance of their former repulse along the same wall, became disheartened when they found themselves fighting in a light as strong as that of day. They knew if they did not scale the walls before the garrison became fully alive to what was taking place, they would have no further chance after they were discovered. Again they saw their ladders pulled up when those who climbed them had been crushed by stones, shattered with battle-axe, or flung backwards by a lighted torch being thrust in their faces, and now they saw the ladders thrown on the fires to blaze up and illumine their discomfiture.

Yet the fight while it lasted had been fiercer than during the previous attack, and three of Count Heinrich's men had been slain.

In spite of the victory, which wrought up the Black Count to a pitch of frenzy, during which he paraded the long terrace between the two fires, shaking a battle-axe above his head, and roaring defiance to the enemy, Rodolph saw that if these attacks were continued the castle must inevitably fall, for the Archbishops had more than a hundred men to Heinrich's one, and the loss of two or three of the garrison on each occasion would soon leave the castle without defenders. For the greater part of the night the Emperor paced the walls, keeping watch with the regular guard. The fires burned out, and as dawn approached he still walked up and down with his cloak drawn round him, pondering on the extraordinary situation, and wondering how it would end. He felt that he was the Emperor in name only, as indeed many of his predecessors had been without complaining, so long as they had money to spend and good wine to drink. Here was war of the most sanguinary nature raging in the centre of his dominion, his subjects not arrayed against a foreign foe, but mercilessly slaughtering each other, and if the Emperor cried "Stop," not even the most humble of the men-at-arms would heed the command. How to remedy this amazing state of affairs he had not the least idea. If he proclaimed himself to Heinrich that noble would, as like as not, clap him into the deepest dungeon of Castle Thuron, and look about to see what profit might be made of his notable prisoner. Should he approach the Archbishops, a similar fate would probably await him. He would have given much for an hour's conversation with Baron von Brunfels, or even for the opportunity of letting his friend know where he was, but either chance was alike impossible, girt round as he was by hostile troops. The hill tops were lightening with coming dawn when Rodolph sought his room in the south tower, and lay down wrapped in his cloak to a troubled rest, his great problem still unsolved by his night's vigil.

CHAPTER XXVII

THE TWO YEARS' SIEGE BEGINS

What the Emperor feared the Archbishops would do, and what would have been the proper thing to do from a military standpoint, was what the warlike prelates did not do. Both were appalled at the loss of life which had accompanied their efforts to capture Thuron. It is not to be supposed that a man whose ambition it was to link his name with the building of the greatest cathedral the world had yet seen, relished the outlook which promised instead to give him the reputation of a Hannibal or an Alexander, and that, too, without the compensating fame of a great conqueror, for the Archbishop of Cologne saw that even if the castle were captured, the feat would add few laurels to the brow of a commander at the head of a comparatively overwhelming force. He felt he had been tricked by his smooth-spoken colleague, who had persuaded him that the mere appearance of this imposing body of men before the walls of Thuron would in a manner cause them to imitate the walls of Jericho. In this suspicion, however, he wronged his brother of Treves, who had not intentionally misled him, but had actually hoped to prevent bloodshed by employing a force so palpably irresistible that Heinrich would at once come to terms. Arnold von Isenberg had no particular objection to the shedding of blood, and had before now held down his enemies with a strong hand, but results in this instance had been out of all proportion to their cost. He had been led, more than he himself cared to admit, by the impetuosity of his fiery follower, Count Bertrich, who now lay raving with the fever resulting from his wound. As Arnold advanced in years he was more prone to depend on diplomacy for his victories than on actual force, but he liked to have the force in the background even if he did not care to use it.

There was a stormy scene between the two dignitaries on the morning after the failure of the night attack. The dormant suspicions of von Hochstaden were again roused. The assurance that the siege would be a bloodless one had been so quickly belied, that he now saw in Bertrich's first impetuous attack a determination to drag the forces of Cologne into a struggle which Treves shrank from meeting alone, and now the apparently frank answers of the culprit which at the time had satisfied him, seemed but the deeper villainy, as having been probably rehearsed beforehand. Thus the Archbishop of Cologne saw himself the easy dupe of his crafty co-elector, from whose latent methods he had more than once suffered, and whose cunning he had always feared.

"You have deceived me," he cried angrily, when they were in the conference tent alone together, saving only the presence of their two secretaries.

"I do not like your word 'deceived,'" replied von Isenberg, who remained as calm as the other was agitated, "unless you apply it to me as well. I have deceived you, perhaps, but I was myself deceived. If you accuse me of miscalculation, I am willing to admit the truth of the charge."

"You knew the character of this man Heinrich; I did not. You said we had but to sit down before the castle, and it was ours. That was not true."

"I have already admitted that I was mistaken," said Arnold, quietly.

"You can do nothing but admit it," cried von Hochstaden, hotly; "the facts disclaim all denial. What I hold is that you knew this before we came, and have drawn me into a quarrel which is none of mine; that you have forced on the fighting so that we are now apparently committed to a course of which I entirely disapprove."

"I assure you I did not expect to be compelled to fight."

"That I do not believe."

"My Lord, you are too angry now to discuss this question as it should be discussed. You are overwrought, and naturally, at the loss of so many of your men."

"I would not give the life of one Rhine man for all the castles on the Moselle!" exclaimed von Hochstaden, impetuously.