The Messenger of the Black Prince 24
It was a sight to admire. From where we had halted on the side of the
road, my captor pointed at them with his finger.
“That,” said he, “is what you have come to see.”
His grimness puzzled me.
“Has a war broken out?” I asked.
“Not yet,” was the answer, “—and it will never be called a war. These
men are on their way to crush the Black Prince of England.”
I drew a long breath.
“—the Black Prince!” I exclaimed. “Why, you can’t do that. There is not
a leader alive who can cope with him in the field.”
A slow smile came over his face.
“Within a week, there will be fifteen thousand men on their way down
this valley,” he replied. “The Black Prince is far off towards the west.
He is as ignorant of this preparation as a child.”
“But he’ll learn of it?” I said.
My captor shook his head.
“He’ll be struck with the suddenness of a thunderbolt. We’re going to
cut him off at Poitiers—when he starts back to his headquarters at
Bordeaux.” He snapped his fingers in contempt. “He has seven thousand
men who are half starved, weak from long marches and disease. What can
they do against these?”
He pointed with pride at the men marching past.
“When the Black Prince is a prisoner of the King of France,” he went on,
scowling in my face with a wicked grin, “we shall move against
Normandy——”
“The Norman Barons can defeat any army the French can send against
them!” I cried. “They have proved that more than once.”
He clenched his fingers over my arm till the pain of it shot up through
my shoulder.
“No, they won’t,” he said, gritting his teeth. “They won’t have time to
unite.”
“I see it all now,” I cried again. “That is why De Marsac is so anxious.
He thinks he has a claim on our estates already. He can’t wait——”
A hard __EXPRESSION__ covered his countenance.
“Before the snow flies I shall be toasting my shins before the
fire-place in your house,” my captor boasted. “De Marsac has promised
that I shall be the bailiff when he is master there.”
A long breath like a sob broke from my throat. It was plain to me now
for the first time why I was sent on this errand down the valley of the
Loire.
“Have you ever heard of a youth called ‘Charles of Gramont’?” I
demanded.
“Of course,” came the answer, “he’s the son of the old Count. He was a
prisoner of ours for a while—but escaped——”
“—escaped?” The word jumped from my mouth.
“Yes,” was the reply. “Gone. Like smoke in the air.”
“He has joined the Black Prince!” I exclaimed. “I am glad of that. He
will let him know of the danger he is in.”
My captor threw back his head and uttered a low grunt that was meant for
a laugh.
“A fly couldn’t get out of this valley—or into it—unless we knew it,” he
said. “That lad has either starved to death or is hiding somewhere in
the woods.”
A thrill of joy ran up and down every nerve in my body. For a while I
stood staring at the soldiers passing before us, but with eyes that did
not see. A world of new thoughts was seething in my brain. Then a fresh
notion came to me.
“Just to think how I have wasted my time,” I said slyly to my captor. “I
was sent here to find him. I might as well have remained at home.”
He turned on me with a knowing look.
“You weren’t sent here for any purpose of the kind,” he answered with as
much cunning as he could show. “You came to learn of this army that is
passing down the valley of the Loire. You were to find out the numbers
of it, where it was heading, how soon it would be ready to strike. In
one word you were sent here as a spy!”
If I had had the strength, I would have felled him with a blow. Yet for
all that I now realized that every syllable he uttered was the naked
truth. If I had been told in the beginning that I was to act as a sneak,
(as he said “a spy”) I would have refused boldly and I was sent in
blindness to follow a false trail. I was duped into a position that was
contrary to my ideas of manliness and honor.
I had information that the Black Prince would give half a kingdom to
know. The cruelties of De Marsac and the men whom he had set on my heels
were as humiliating as ever I had suffered. His trickery and deceit were
of the kind that no man of self-respect would practice. It was his aim
to drive my brother and me from the home which our family had enjoyed
for generations. All these things galled me and drove me to a kind of
desperation. The thought came slowly to me to be sure, but while I stood
gazing on the soldiers whose mission was to destroy the only friend that
Normandy had at this time—the Black Prince—I resolved that I would go no
further with my captor than force compelled me. I would watch every
opportunity. I would play the fox to the last degree. When the time came
I would try once more to escape. If I could get through that circle of
men who guarded the Valley of the Loire I would risk my very life to
inform the Black Prince of the plans that were ripening against him, for
I knew that if I did, I would be saving my home in Normandy.
CHAPTER XVIII
ESCAPE!
My chance came three days later. During this time we had traveled a long
way. When the sun was up we plodded along footsore and weary. At night
we lay down wherever we were able to find a soft place in the grass or
under the protection of a tree. The inns were crowded, not only with
soldiers but with all the riff-raff of humanity. Wandering jugglers and
mountebanks, sleight-of-hand artists, men with bears on ropes, quack
doctors of medicine who sold simples made of the roots of marvelous
trees,—all these and more lined the highway. Their booths were set up
alongside the inns. They barked and called to the passers-by. They were
the followers of an army who sapped the soldiers of their hard earned
pay.
As for myself I was almost sick of life. My companion was in the sourest
of moods. He growled at his ill luck and laid the blame for it at my
door. He took every occasion to make me miserable, now by threats, again
by actual brutality. He gave me only the coarsest fare which he could
purchase in the inns. And to make me the more miserable he chose the
daintiest morsels for himself and taunted me while he shoved them down
his throat.
By the third day we were come almost to the boundaries of the Kingdom of
France. To the west of us lay a stretch of country which was as wild as
a desert. It was only sparsely inhabited. The inhabitants owed no
allegiance to any ruler alive. They were neither on the side of the
Black Prince nor the King, for the country was half way between the two.
In one word, it was the stamping ground for war and whoever had the
upper hand was for the time its lord.
It was about noon when we left the highway, for here it took a sharp
turn towards the south, and continued our journey over a narrow path
through the woods. There was a winding path that was beaten bare—used by
many feet. My captor seemed well acquainted with the lay of the land for
he went ahead with all the confidence in the world and indeed with more
buoyancy than he had shown on the entire journey.
At length we came to the banks of the stream, at a place with a long
shelving landing made of smooth stones, paved clear down to the water’s
edge. A rusted length of chain and a long boat-hook lay in the grass. To
my observation it was a landing for a ferry.
My companion bade me halt.
“Where’s the boat?” he asked, gazing around. “They told me that the boat
would be here to take us across.”
He picked up the chain and threw it down again. He walked to and fro
several times as though he was turning a question over in his mind. Then
he came to a stop before me.
“Can you swim?” he demanded.
“Yes,” I answered.
He sat down on a rock and began to remove his shoes. To throw him off
his guard I did the same. When we had stripped ourselves he bade me tie
my clothes into a firm bundle and fasten them around my neck. We went
into the water a little at a time. The current was fairly swift, for it
gathered here to broaden out into a wide sweep far beyond. I cast my
eyes carefully down the river and saw that in the middle of this
broadening lay an island, not very big to be sure, but covered with tall
trees that grew so thick that the branches were woven into one another.
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