The Messenger of the Black Prince 12

The Messenger of the Black Prince 12

“Do you know this?” he cried, holding it before us.

 

“It is the tail of a leopard made into a plume,” said André.

 

“It will be enough, then,” he said shortly, “to say to the Abbot of

Chalonnes that you have seen this.”

 

He made to go.

 

“One word more,” called André after him. “Is it too much for us to know

your name?”

 

The stranger stopped on the fringe of the woods. He turned and looked

back.

 

“My father sits upon the English throne,” he said. “I am known as the

Black Prince!”

 

 

Slowly and sadly, with the body of the old Lord of Gramont borne

tenderly among us, we wended our way towards our home. We had much to

talk about, but in our grief we held our tongues. We passed each other

with bowed heads and sorrowful faces. There was a gloom about the place

like the coldness of death.

 

We laid the old warrior away in the tomb of his fathers. In the evening

we sat alone together—André and I—in the light of the candles. The early

September day had been unusually warm and the casements were flung wide.

The servants had long since gone to bed. There was scarcely a sound

except our own breathing.

 

“I must go, Henri, to the Abbot of Chalonnes,” said my brother, breaking

the silence. “There must be no more delay.”

 

“If you go,” I answered, “De Marsac will appear again. There will be no

one left to defend the estate.”

 

André bit his lips but did not answer. He walked across the room and

stood at the side of the great oaken table in the centre of the room. I

arose, too, and stood opposite him.

 

“Let us toss for it, André,” said I taking a newly-minted groat from my

pocket. “If it fall heads, you go, shields, I go.”

 

I flung the piece in the air. It fell, but fell on its edge and rolled

down from the table across the room. I was about to go after it when an

arrow came floating through the open window. It struck with a click and

fastened its point in the hard wood. Upon the shaft, wound with a tight

cord, was tied a small piece of parchment.

 

André drew back.

 

“Another enemy!” he cried. “Will there never be an end?”

 

“No,” said I. “You are wrong. This time it is a friend.”

 

With feverish fingers I drew the arrow from the wood and unrolled the

parchment. With a kind of inward triumph I spread it open before my

brother’s eyes. At the bottom there was drawn the figure of a leopard,

very roughly to be sure, but still as plain as day. Above it in a scrawl

so crude that it could hardly be deciphered were these words:

 

“Send the lad!”

 

“There, André!” said I. “Will this decide it?”

 

My brother waved his hand in the air like a man who yields to the will

of Fate and moved across the room.

 

“I stay,” he said, and sank into the nearest chair.

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER VIII

THE SILVER-HAFTED DAGGER

 

 

That night I slept but little. The excitement of the day had been too

much for me. The old Count’s death, the treachery of De Marsac, and the

appearance in our parts of so great and widely known a man as the Black

Prince—all this set my brain in a swirl and kindled in it a kind of

fire. Besides, too, there was the prospect of the long journey that lay

before me, visions of the strange characters I would meet, the odds and

ends of places through which I should surely pass, and by no means least

of all, the snares and pitfalls that were certain to be a menace to my

unwary feet.

 

At the first grey of dawn I was up from my bed. As quickly as I was able

I dressed myself in the same clothes that I had worn on the day of the

boar-hunt—a jerkin of strong sewed leather, a doublet that would keep

out both wind and rain, breeches of soft deer-hide, knitted stockings of

our home-spun wool, a pair of shoes that were oiled and worked until

they were as pliant as the skin upon my hand—plain clothes, but strong

and lasting, clothes that would draw no comment either for their

richness or their meanness. And as a last touch I set a little cap with

a feather in it upon my head.

 

I breakfasted on a cold meat-pie that was left over from the night

before. All was quiet about the house. I thought that as yet there was

no one stirring. But when I walked into the open to my surprise there

was André coming from the stables, leading a horse on either hand—his

own and the one I was accustomed to call mine.

 

“I will ride with you as far as the brow of the hill,” he said, and that

in a voice that was almost at a breaking point.

 

I would have answered but a lump as big as an apple rose to my throat,

so that without a word I took the reins that he offered me and swung

into the saddle.

 

We started down the road at a slow canter. The freshness of the morning

air sent the blood tingling through my veins. The brightness of the sun

shone on every dewy leaf. The easy motion of the horse had a charm of

its own. But with all this I could not scatter the cloud of seriousness

that had come between us.

 

Presently we fell into an easy talk, but it was a talk that hid rather

than revealed what lay deepest in our bosoms. Not a word was spoken of

the happenings of the past week nor of the mission I was on until after

more than an hour’s ride. We came to the crest of the hill that rises

southward from our home. Here we slowly gathered in the reins. We halted

our horses and sat side by side for a moment in silence. Then André drew

a long breath and extended his hand.

 

“Good-by, Henri,” he said, and added in a faltering voice, “You will

come safe home to me, I know.”

 

That was all. I took his hand in mine. Our eyes met. But I had to turn

mine quickly aside again.

 

“I shall do my best,” I replied. It wasn’t much of an answer, but it was

as brave a speech as I was able to bring over my lips. The truth is my

tongue failed me. When I looked up again a little wistful smile lay in

the corners of my brother’s mouth and he was drawing in the reins to

turn about.

 

We parted. I urged the roan forward and started off down the other side

of the hill. Now and then the impulse rose within me to turn and wave a

last farewell, but ever as it did, new strength came to me and I set my

face resolutely forward.

 

The horse broke into a loose trot. Faster and faster I went over the

uneven road. More than once I thought I would be pitched headlong from

my mount. I entered a sharp bend in the hills. As I turned the horse’s

head the tall trees stood between me and my home like a great black

wall. Within an hour or two I realized that I was treading on new

ground. Yet the further I went, the freer I felt. I was like a bird

loosed from long confinement in a cage. The joy of exploration was

lending me fresh thoughts and my dependence on those at home was shaken

gradually from me like the last threads of an old garment.

 

The highway was like a country in itself. It had its inhabitants and its

customs, its laws and traditions. Its population, too, began to strike

me as singularly fanciful. Traveler after traveler passed me, the one on

the heels of the other. But all of them of interest. Indeed so different

were they from one another that I was soon set speculating and wondering

what manner of life they led and above all where in the world could they

be going.

 

The first person worth mentioning whom I came across was a scrivener.

That is to say, one of those wandering scholars—a man skilled in the art

of writing. He was sitting on a stone near a little brook that ran

bubbling from the cool of the trees. He was munching at some bread and

cheese as contentedly as you could wish. Alongside of him in the grass

lay a long round bundle wrapped in a dirty cloth. Beside this lay a

handful of quills and a horn in which he carried his ink. His appearance

was nothing to boast of. His forehead and hands were streaked and

smeared black and a full week’s growth of beard covered his face. And

the worst thing about him was his clothes—an ill-fitting suit of velvet

of dark blue, spotted and ragged, which some one had given him.

 

At the first sight of me his jaw fell agape. The bread which he had just

stuffed into his mouth fell in crumbs over his knees. His eyes glared at

me as though they would start from their sockets. I thought a kind of

fright had overtaken him, but in the next second he jumped to his feet

with the lightness of a hare and laid his hand over his heart in a way

that reminded me strongly of De Marsac. Then he swept the ground with his soiled cap and bowed.