Tekla

"I was about to add that I, too, am deeply grieved that your men have fallen, and also that so many of my own have been killed. I think it right then that we postpone further discussion until we can approach this grave situation with minds free from the emotions which now make reasoning difficult. Are you willing that we leave decision until to-morrow?"

"With all my heart. Our talk cannot bring back to life the meanest of our following. To-morrow you will be unembarrassed by any suggestions from me."

"Why, my Lord?"

"Because the moment I leave this tent I shall give orders to my captains to gather my men, when we shall together journey to Cologne."

"Do you hold such determination to be fair to me?"

"Have you been fair to me? You have deceived me from the first."

"Twice you have said that, my Lord, and for the second time I give you my earnest assurance that such is not the case. I counsel you as a friend not to make the charge the third time."

"Do you threaten me?"

"Have you not threatened me with your desertion? If you say you do not intend to withdraw, then we will lay plans together at a future time."

"I am determined to return to Cologne."

"To begin your cathedral?"

"'Tis of more avail than dashing out the brains of my soldiers against a Moselle rock."

"Let me give you good advice in the rearing of it. Build your cathedral like a fortress. You will need a stronghold presently in Cologne, whether you need a church or not."

"From threatening my person you threaten my city."

"Frankly, I do," replied the Archbishop of Treves, without raising his voice. "You have hitherto been in some measure the ally of Mayence. I cannot remember the time when I feared you combined, but it suited me to separate you. I have done so. I learn that our brother of Mayence is both enraged and trembling. If you leave Thuron I shall instantly propose alliance with him, who now thoroughly distrusts you, and he will gladly join me, for I have never pretended to be his friend, and he has ever feared me as an enemy. Why did I propose alliance with you?"

"For your own purposes, as I now know too well."

"Surely. But what suggested the thought that such an alliance might be accepted by you? You cannot guess? Well, I will inform you. Because your ally of Mayence sent secret emissaries to me proposing an alliance with him. I saw there were differences between you, and instantly resolved to make an ally of the stronger. Therefore my envoys went to you, while his were dealing with me in Treves. When my men returned with your consent I told the envoys from Mayence, with much regret, you had made the first proposal to me, and that although I had sent to you begging to be released from our compact, you had refused."

"Which was a lie."

"Say rather a whole series of them, my Lord, or call it diplomacy if you wish to speak politely; but meanwhile do not neglect my advice to build your cathedral in the form of a fortress, and make it a strong one."

"How can you expect me to trust you after such a cynical confession?"

"I do not expect you to trust me. I have dealt with strict honesty towards you from the moment we joined together, yet you have displayed distrust since the first day. I do not in the least object to that. But as I cannot have the advantage of confidence I shall turn to the advantage of perfect frankness. I shall keep to the letter the bargain I have made with you. You shall keep to the letter the bargain you have made with me."

"You mean, then, to attempt to stop my withdrawal?"

"No. You may withdraw to-morrow if you wish to do so, and my men will form line and salute you as you pass. Then I shall divide my forces into groups and attack Thuron night and day until there is not a man left to defend it. That will not take many days, and it will give time for my brother of Mayence to meet my victorious army at the junction of the Rhine and the Moselle, when we will journey amicably together to make some inquiries regarding the progress of your cathedral at Cologne."

Konrad von Hochstaden walked the length of the tent several times with knit brows, turning in his mind the problem that confronted him. Arnold sat on the bench beside the long table which divided them, his face impassive and inscrutable. Never during their colloquy had he raised his voice to a higher key than was necessary to make it distinctly heard. The two monks sat apart, downcast and silent, helpless spectators of a quarrel which might have the most momentous consequences.

At last von Hochstaden stopped in his walk, and stood regarding his ally with bewildered indecision stamped on his countenance. He had spoken heretofore in tones alternately tremulous with deep emotion and quavering with the anger he had tried in vain to suppress.

"I cannot stand here," he said, "and see my men uselessly slaughtered."

"With your humanity I am in complete sympathy. It is no pleasure to me to have soldiers killed, although sometimes the killing is necessary. Were I alone I would, as I have said, throw force after force against Castle Thuron until it succumbed, but I am acting with you and eager to come to an understanding that will be satisfactory to you; but you have made no proposal, only a threat of withdrawal. Now if it is your wish to take the castle without risking the life of another of your followers, I stand ready to make such arrangement."

"Can such arrangement be made?"

"Without doubt. We have come so suddenly on Count Heinrich that he has had no opportunity of provisioning his stronghold. The peasants tell my men that he has taken in nothing that will enable him to withstand a prolonged siege. We can therefore environ him so closely that in a comparatively short time hunger will compel him to sue for terms. This may consume days, but not the lives of men. I stand ready to agree to such a proposal willingly; in truth I will agree to anything you suggest, short of your own desertion, or of requiring me to retire defeated before the Black Man of Thuron."

"How long, think you, will the siege last?"

"There is the castle; there are our men. You can answer your question as well as I. How many men has Heinrich within his fortress? I do not know. What I do know is, that if no more grain enters the castle, the supply therein will, in time, be consumed, and then grim famine allies itself with the two Archbishops – a foe that cannot be fought with bow or battle-axe. If we resolve to starve him out, then I shall proclaim to my men that I will hang any who shortens the life of one of his. There will thus be no more bloodshed, for he dare not sally forth to attack us, and we will keep bow-shot distance from him. The conditions of the game are all before us; you can form a conclusion as well as I, and if you prove in the wrong, I shall not accuse you of cozening me."

The Archbishop of Cologne stood with clouded brow, arms folded across his breast, ruminating on what had been said by the other, who watched him keenly from under his shaggy eyebrows. At last von Hochstaden spoke, with the sigh of a man out-generalled.

"I do not wish to spend the remainder of my days sitting before Thuron."

"Nor do I. The plan of starving them out is yours, not mine. At least it is my proposal as an alternative that may please you. With your co-operation, I would fling force after force against Thuron, and so reduce it."

"No, no!" cried the Lord of Cologne, "no more bloodshed. We have had enough of that."

"Very well; therefore I modify my desires to meet yours. You may withdraw as many of your men as are not necessary, retire yourself to Cologne, and set them, with suitable prayers, to the building of your cathedral. I will send an equal number of mine to Treves, and with what remains of our united forces we will surround that thieving scoundrel with an impregnable band of iron. All that I insist on is that the flags of Cologne and Treves continue to fly together on this tent, and that we encircle the castle with our allied troops."

"Have it as you wish," cried Konrad, sorrowfully. "I defer to your opinion."

"Not so, my Lord," said von Isenberg. "It is I who give way to you. But from this moment the plan is mine as well as yours, and I shall loyally adhere to our agreement, come good or ill out of it."

Thus began the celebrated investure of Thuron Castle, which lasted two years, until famine did indeed spread its black wings over the fortress, while during that time, historians tell us, the besiegers merrily drank one thousand gallons of good Moselle wine each day.

CHAPTER XXVIII

THE SECOND ARCHER ANNOUNCES HIMSELF

The first problem which the Archbishops set themselves to solve was the estimating of the exact number of men required to surround the castle effectually, and keep watch night and day, with proper reliefs. The cordon was drawn closer round the castle. The axe-men hewed an avenue through the forest in straight lines, so that no point should be out of sight of two or more men who constantly paraded these woodland lanes. The village itself was completely cut off from Thuron, and the living line extended between the castle and the brook Thaurand, so as to make the getting of water impossible, the besiegers not knowing the castle itself possessed an inexhaustible well, and that all within were thus free from the dreadful danger of thirst. A group of tents was placed at the river end of the stoned-in passage that descended from the castle to the Moselle. The besieging line of men ran up the deep valley of the Thaurand, and so across the steep hill through the forest, and down again into the valley of the river, where the links of the living chain joined the line that extended south from the village. The guards were a few yards apart, and the orders concerning their watch were as strict as skilled officers could make them, for the Archbishop of Treves had commanded that a net with meshes so minute that not the smallest fish could penetrate, should be drawn round the doomed castle, and each officer knew that neglect would be punished with ruthless severity. The tents instead of being grouped together were placed along the outside of this line, so that no guardsman need have far to travel to his rest, nor any excuse to loiter in coming to his watch. A circle of fires surrounded the castle at night, serving the double purpose of giving light for seeing and heat for cooking.

Those in the castle witnessed the tightening of the line around them, and at first thought a new attack was meditated, but as time went on and no attack was delivered, the true state of affairs began to dawn upon them. The Emperor was amazed to find so little military skill or pluck in the opposition camp, but he welcomed the change from activity to quiescence. He supposed the Archbishops must know how well provisioned the castle was, for it had been filled in the eye of all the country, and he had heard Heinrich's order to the peasantry to save themselves by giving any information they chose to the invaders; he was also cognizant of the fact that the Black Count had ruled his district with a hand by no means of the gentlest, so it never occurred to him that the besiegers had got little news from the people.

The archer, perhaps, would have rested more contented had he been permitted to try his skill at long distance bowmanship on the environing soldiery, but the Emperor thought it best to let sleeping dogs lie, and bestowed positive instructions upon John Surrey to wing no shaft unless he saw a determined advance on the part of the enemy. The archer was most anxious to show how much superior his light instrument was to the cumbrous catapult, which admittedly could not carry so far as the ring around the castle, and he pleaded with Rodolph to be allowed to dispatch, say, half a dozen shafts a day, by way of preventing the coming of weariness upon the opposing camp. Nothing, he held, was so demoralising to an army as a feeling of absolute security; and if there was to be no sallying out against the Archbishops, those within the castle owed it to the foe, if only from the dictates of common humanity, to allow a few arrows to descend from tower to tent each day. Rodolph, however, was proof against all arguments the archer could bring to bear upon him, and John frequently sighed, and even murmured to himself a wish that he had taken service with the irascible Heinrich rather than with so peaceably minded a man as Rodolph.

He consoled himself by sitting in the sun on the top of the southern tower, with his back against the parapet, busily employed in the making of arrows, the huge pile beside him bearing witness to his tireless industry, while many more were stored in his room below, and to the safe custody of this apartment he took down his day's manufacture each evening, where they might become seasoned, free from the dampness of the outside night air. In his occupation he was obsequiously waited upon by his German dependent, who in despite of the archer's rough treatment of him, looked up to his master with slavish admiration. Usually Conrad, now rapidly recovering from his wounds, lay at full length on the warm roof, saying little but thinking much of the absent Hilda.

The archer disdained all armour with the exception of a steel cap, which he wore to ward off battle-axe strokes, should he come into close quarters with the wielders of that formidable weapon, and this helmet he kept brightly polished till it shone like silver. It was somewhat hot to wear in mid-summer, but the head was defended from the warmth of the sun's rays by a lining of cloth which also made the cap more comfortable, because more soft, in the wearing. The archer sat thus with his pile of arrows by his side and the material for their making in front of him, while his slave crouched near, ready to anticipate his wants by promptly handing to him knife or scraping flint, or length of wood, or feather, as the case might require. Surrey's steel cap projected above the parapet and glistened like a mirror in the sun. He was droning to himself a Saxon song, and was as well contented with the world as a warrior may be who is not allowed, at the moment, to scatter wounds and death among his fellow creatures.

Suddenly he was startled by a blow on his steel helmet, which for an instant caused him to think some one had struck him sharply, forgetting that his position made such an act impossible, but this thought had barely time to flash through his mind when he saw an arrow quivering against the flag pole in front of him. He looked at it for a moment with dropped jaw like a man dazed, then as Conrad and the other made motion to rise he cried gruffly:

"Lie down!" as though he spoke to a pair of dogs. The two, however, promptly obeyed.

"There seems to be an expert archer in the camp as well as in the castle," said Conrad. John Surrey sat without moving and without replying, gazing on the arrow which had come to rest in the flag pole. At last he said to his dependent:

"Gottlieb, rise cautiously and peer over the battlements, taking care to show as little of your head as possible, and tell me if you see any one in the camp who looks as if he had sped a shaft."

"I see a tall man," began Gottlieb.

"Yes!" cried the archer.

"Who stands with his hand shading his eyes, looking up at this tower."

"Yes, yes."

"In the fist by his side I think he holds a bow like yours; but the distance is too great for me to make sure what it is."

"He has no cross-bow at least."

"No, it is not a cross-bow."

"I thought so. No cross-bow could have sent shaft like that. I doubt also if archer living, save Roger Kent, could have – "

"He seems to be placing another arrow on the string."

"Then down, down with you. If he has caught sight of your head you are doomed."

An instant later another arrow struck the helmet, glanced over the tower, and disappeared in the forest beyond.

"Now come and sit beside me, Gottlieb," said Surrey, as he lifted the helmet gently and moved away his head from beneath it, not shifting the cap except slightly upwards from its position. "Get under this, and sit steadily so that the target may not be displaced."

Having thus crowned his dependent, Surrey crawled to his bow and selected a well-finished arrow.

"You are surely not going to use your weapon," said Conrad. "The Lord Rodolph has forbidden it."

"He has forbidden it unless I am attacked, and there is the arrow in the pole to prove attack. Besides, I shoot not to kill."

With much care Surrey, exposing himself as little as might be, drew bow and let fly. The tall archer was seen to spring aside, then pause regardless of his danger, stoop and pick up something which lay at his feet, examining the object minutely. Surrey also, unthinking of danger, stood up and watched the other, who, when his examination had been concluded to his satisfaction, dropped the arrow, which was undoubtedly what he had picked up, although the distance was too great for the archer to be sure of that, and, doffing his cap, waved it wildly in the air. Surrey himself gave utterance to a shout that might have aroused even the Archbishops on the height, and danced round like one gone mad, throwing his arms about as if he were an animated windmill.

"It is Roger! It is Roger!" he cried.

The Emperor, hearing the tumult, came hurriedly up the stairs, expecting that an assault was in preparation, and, although relieved to find that no onslaught was intended, seemed to think the archer's ecstacy more vociferous than the occasion demanded. John pointed excitedly at his far-off friend, and said he wished permission to visit him at once, to learn what had befallen him since last they met.

"That is impossible," replied Rodolph. "You would be taken prisoner, and I have no wish to lose so good an archer merely because the opposition camp has, according to your account, a better one."

This obvious comment on his proposal dampened the enthusiasm of the archer, who stood in deep thought regarding wistfully the distant form of his friend. At last he said:

"Would it not be possible then for Roger to visit me here in the castle?"

"I do not see how that may be accomplished. He cannot come here as our friend, and he must not come as a spy. If he refused to give information to his officers when they discovered he had been within the castle, they would imprison him. If he asked their consent before coming, permission would be given only because they expected to learn something from him on his return. We could not receive him even as a deserter, for if starvation be their game, we have enough mouths to feed as it is. And I do not suppose he would desert, if he has taken service with the Archbishop."

"Alas, no," said Surrey, sadly; "he would no more think of deserting than would I myself, having once taken fee for the campaign. It is a blessing that he is a modest man and not given to vaunting his own skill, in the which he differs somewhat from myself perhaps, and thus his commander is little likely to learn his usefulness providing Roger is left to the making of papyrus and poetry, for he alone might subdue this strong castle. If he were set to it there would be no possibility of keeping watch or guard, for he could easily kill any man who showed head above parapet. Not finding me in the ranks of the Archbishop's men, he must have surmised I was here, for fate has always enlisted us on opposite sides, and he perhaps recognised the gleam of my helmet in the sun, and only sent his arrow the more surely to discover my presence, for there are guards on the battlements below whom he might readily have slaughtered had there been deadly motive in his aiming."

"He is about to shoot again," cried Conrad, in alarm.

All looked towards the archer, and it was evident he was preparing another shaft. Surrey waved at him and shouted a warning, but the distance was too great for his voice to carry effectually. Roger Kent on this occasion held the bow above his head and let fly at the arch of heaven. No one on the tower could mark the flight of the arrow, but they saw the sender of it stand and gaze upward after it.

"It is a message of some sort," said Surrey. "Conrad and Gottlieb, get you down to the room below, as you are unarmoured. It will not hurt my Lord, who is in a suit of mail, and I wear my steel cap."

The two obeyed the command with notable alacrity.

"But it may strike you on the shoulder," protested Rodolph.

"I shall watch for it," replied Surrey, "and will be elsewhere when it falls. Do not look upward, I beg of you, my Lord, for thus was our Saxon King, Harold, slain by a like shaft from one of Roger's ancestors. Stand where you are, looking downward, or, better, retire below."

Rodolph laughed.

"I am surely as nimble as you are," he said, "and may thus escape like you the falling shaft."

As the Emperor spoke the arrow came in sight and swiftly descended, speeding down alongside the flag pole so close as almost to touch it on its way. The arrow shattered itself by impact on the stone, and thus loosened a scroll that had been wrapped tightly round it, fastened at each end. Surrey pounced upon this and found the message to be in several sections, one being a letter, while on the others were verse, regarding which the writer, in his communication, begged perusal and criticism. The missive thus launched into the air had evidently been prepared for some time in readiness to be sent when opportunity offered. Surrey gave utterance to several impatient exclamations as he, with considerable difficulty, conned the meaning of the script, and at last he said:

"Roger tells me nothing about how he came to be in the Archbishop's army, nor does he give tidings of anything that should be of interest to a reasonable being. It is all upon his poetry and the lessons to be learned from a perusal of the same, which I think had been better put in the poetry itself, for if it convey so little to the reader that it needs must be explained 'twere as well not written."

"That shows you to be no true poet, nor critic either," said the Emperor. "But now that old friends are in correspondence with each other, I shall leave them to the furtherance of it, merely reminding you that if a message is sent similar to the one received, you will observe like caution in not mentioning anything that relates to the castle or its occupants."

When the Emperor left him the archer laboured hard to transcribe his thoughts on the back of a sheet containing one of the poems. He told Roger he was not permitted to leave the castle, but that he had orders to go on guard upon the western battlements at midnight to take up his watch until daybreak, and if Roger could quit the camp at that hour and climb the hill, keeping the north tower against the sky as his guide, the writer would endeavour to meet him half-way, when they could talk over their mutual adventures since parting. In case there was a companion at his watch that night, and it was thus impossible for him to desert the castle, the up-comer was to approach the wall under the northern tower, giving the customary cry of the water-fowl, when the friend on the wall and the one at the foot of it might have some whispered communication between them. He added, however, that there was little danger of a second man being on the battlements unless a new alarm of some kind intervened. The leaf containing these instructions he deftly fastened to the shaft of an arrow and so sped it to the feet of his friend, who was himself on guard.

When Roger had read what was sent he waved his hand in apparent token that the arrangement suited him, and Surrey, so understanding the signal, went to the room below and threw himself on his pallet of straw to get the rest he needed before his watch began. Like all great warriors he was instantly asleep, and knew no more until he felt Gottlieb's hand on his shoulder announcing to him the beginning of his vigil. Once on the ramparts, he relieved the man who had been there during the earlier part of the night, and was pleased to note that nothing had occurred to put an extra guard on the promenade. The camp fires had gone out, and the valley lay in blackness. Surrey paced up and down the battlements for a while to let the sleepy man he had relieved get to his bed, then he looked about him for means of reaching the foot of the wall outside. There was as yet no cry of the night bird, and he began to fear that his friend had probably gone so soundly asleep that daylight alone would awaken him. Surrey examined the wall with some care. He might jump over without running great risk of injuring himself, but he could not jump back again. At the remote end of the battlements under the north tower, his foot struck an obstacle, and, stooping to examine the obstruction, he found it one of the wooden missiles with a rope attached to it which the besiegers had flung over the machicolated parapet to enable them to climb the wall. The rope hung down outside, and Surrey wondered that it had remained there all this time unnoticed, certainly a grave menace to the safety of the garrison, for a whole troop might have climbed up in the darkness with little chance of being seen by the one sentinel on top, whose watch, now that all fear of attack had left those in the castle, had become somewhat perfunctory. However, this was just the thing the archer needed, and he marvelled why he had not thought of such a plan before, for numbers of these ropes and billets lay in the courtyard of the fortress. He slipped down the cord and made his way cautiously through the vineyard towards the village, pausing now and then to give the signal. About half-way down the hill, he heard the breaking of twigs, and knew that his friend was coming up. He crouched under the vines and waited; then as the other came opposite him, he sprang up and gave him a vigorous slap on the shoulder. Instantly the stranger grappled him, pinioning his arms at his side, and the next thing the archer knew he had stumbled backwards and fallen, with the assailant's knee on his breast and a strong grip at his throat, shutting off the breath and making outcry impossible, even if it had been politic.