Kitabı oku: «The Abbatial Crosier; or, Bonaik and Septimine. A Tale of a Medieval Abbess», sayfa 5

CHAPTER IV.
IN SIGHT OF THE ABBEY

Upon leaving the convent of St. Saturnine, Berthoald took with his men the road to the abbey of Meriadek. The march of the troop was delayed by the condition in which they found two of the bridges on their route; the roads, moreover, were in such a state that the carts containing the booty of the warriors, together with the Arabian and Gallic women whom they had captured in the environs of Narbonne, frequently sank to the axles of the wheels in the mud.

Two days after Broute-Saule had been delivered to the claws and beak of the sparrow-hawk, Berthoald and his men arrived near Nantes. The sun was going down, night was near. The young chief on horseback rode a few paces ahead of his companions, among whom were several fresh recruits raised by Charles from the other side of the Rhine – men as savage and fierce as the first soldiers of Clovis, and, like them, dressed in skins and wearing their hair tied at the top of their heads – just as, more than two centuries before, Neroweg, one of the leudes of the Frankish king, had worn his. The other warriors were casqued and cuirassed. Berthoald was reserved, almost haughty towards the men of his band. They grumbled at his coolness and general bearing towards them. But the ascendency of his courage, his redoubtable physical strength, his rare dexterity in arms, the promptitude of his war expedients, finally, the high favor that he enjoyed with Charles held the savage men of war in control. Accordingly, Berthoald rode alone at the head of his troop. Often, since his departure from the abbey of St. Saturnine, he had dropped into a reverie at the thought of the charming Septimine. He was thinking of the young girl when Richulf, one of his men, rode up to his chief and said to him:

"According to the information that we gathered on the way, our abbey must lie hereabouts. If you will, let us interrogate the slaves that we see on the fields."

Awakening from his reverie, Berthoald made an affirmative sign with his head, and the two hastened the pace of their horses.

"As for me," said Richulf, a sort of German giant of an enormous girth, "I am enjoying in advance the face that our abbot will make when we shall tell him: 'We are here by the grace of Charles Martel. Vacate the place, priest of Satan, and give us the key of the cellar and pantry for us to eat and drink our fill!'"

Being now near the slaves towards whom they had ridden, Berthoald asked one of them where the abbey of Meriadek was.

"Not far from here, seigneur; the crossroad that you see there down below, bordered with poplars, leads straight to the abbey."

"Is an abbot or an abbess at the head of the abbey of Meriadek?"

"It is our holy abbess Meroflede."

"An abbess!" repeated Berthoald in surprise. And laughing he asked again: "Is she young and handsome, this abbess Meroflede?"

"Seigneur, I could not answer your question, never having seen her but from a distance and enveloped in her veils."

"If she envelops herself in her veils she must be ugly," put in Richulf, shaking his head doubtfully. "Are the lands of the abbey fertile? Has it many herds of swine? Does it gather in good wine?"

"The lands of the abbey are very fertile, seigneur … the herds of swine and sheep are very large. Two days ago we carried our rent to the abbey and the colonists their money. It was with difficulty that the large shed of the monastery could contain all the cattle and provisions taken there."

"Berthoald," said Richulf, "Charles Martel has dealt generously by us. But we arrive two days too late. The rents are paid, perhaps also consumed by the abbess and her nuns. We will find neither pork nor wine left."

The young chief did not seem to share the apprehensions of his companion, and said to the slave: "Well, my poor fellow, that road lined with poplars, there ahead of us, leads to the abbey of Meriadek?"

"Yes, seigneur; you can reach the place in half an hour."

"Thank you for the information."

Berthoald and Richulf were about to turn their horses' heads and rejoin their troop when the latter, breaking out into a loud guffaw, observed: "By my beard, I have never seen anyone so kind and civil towards these dogs as you, Berthoald."

"It pleases me to be so – "

"And that makes you an odd man in everything that concerns these slaves. One would think that it hurts you to see them… We have about twenty female slaves in the carts that we are dragging after us as part of the booty. Some of them are very beautiful. You never as much as had the curiosity of looking at them … yet they belong to you as much as to the rest of us."

"I have told you that I lay no claim whatever to my share of human flesh," impatiently answered Berthoald. "The sight of those poor creatures is painful to me. You refused to give them their freedom… Have your way… But do not mention them again to me."

"Well, it is no loss to us. After having amused ourselves with them on the road we can sell them for at least from fifteen to twenty gold sous each, according to what a Jew, who looked at them, said to us."

"Enough!.. I have heard enough about the Jew and the slaves!" and wishing to put an end to a conversation that was painful to him, he touched the flanks of his horse with his spurs to join his Frankish companions whom he hailed from afar. "Friends, good news! Our abbey is rich, well stocked with cattle, and fertile; and we are to succeed an abbess; whether she be young or old, handsome or ugly, I do not yet know. We shall see her within an hour and shall be able to judge."

"Long live Charles Martel!" cried one of the warriors. "There's no abbess without nuns… We shall have a good laugh with the nuns!"

"I would have preferred to have dispossessed some fighting abbot. But I console myself with the thought that we are to be masters of numerous herds of swine."

"Richulf, you can think of nothing but loins of beef and ham!"

Thus gaily conversing, the warriors followed the avenue bordered with poplars. The abbey was presently descried from the distance, rising in the center of a sort of peninsula, and reached from this side by a narrow road that was built between two ponds.

"Hurrah for Charles Martel!"

"What a magnificent building! Look at it, Berthoald!"

"Vast domains! And that grand forest in the horizon – it surely all belongs to our abbey. We shall be able to hunt at our ease."

"It must be full of game. We shall hunt deer, bucks and wild boars… Long live Charles Martel!"

"And the ponds that extend down there on either side of the road, they must be full of fish… We shall fish carp, tench and pike that I like so well!.. Long live Charles!"

"Do you not find, comrades, that this abbey has a certain martial aspect, with its high battlements, its counter forts, its ramparts, its few and narrow windows and its ponds that surround it like a natural defence?"

"So much the better! Within its walls we shall be entrenched as within a fortress; and should it please the successors of our good Charles, or the phantom kings, to dispossess us in turn, as we are about to dispossess this abbess, we shall be able to prove that we wear hose and not skirts."

"Our tapers are lances, our benedictions sabre cuts."

"Let us hasten our horses; it will soon be night and I am hungry… Upon the word of Richulf, two whole hams, four pikes and a whole mountain of cabbage will barely suffice to appease my hunger."

"Sharpen your teeth, glutton! As to me, I propose to invite the abbess and her nuns. The feast will then be complete."

"I shall invite the young and handsome ones to share our lodgings at the abbey. What say you, comrades?"

"What! Invite them, Sigewald!.. They must, by my beard! They shall be forced to remain with us… The good Charles will laugh at the move. If the Bishop of Nantes should raise a howl, we shall tell him to come and take his sheep from the wolves."

"The devil take the Bishop of Nantes! The day of these tonsured people has gone by, that of the soldier has come!.. We are masters in our house!"

While his companions were delivering themselves of these gross jokes, Berthoald preceded them silent and pensive. Charles had invested him with the high dignity of count; he dragged a rich booty behind him in his carts; the donation of the abbey insured to him the possession of a large income; all notwithstanding, the young chief seemed troubled in mind; at times a bitter and painful smile curled his lips. The Frankish riders were presently on the narrow road at either side of which an immense pond extended as far as the eye could reach. Richulf presently said to the young chief: "I do not know whether it is the dusk that impedes my sight, but it looks to me as if this road is cut off by a mound of earth a little distance ahead of us."

"Let us look at that a little closer," said Berthoald, putting his horse to a gallop. Richulf and Sigewald followed him. Soon the three found their advance intercepted by a deep and wide moat cut into the road and filled with water that flowed into it from two ponds. On the other side of the moat rose a kind of breastwork of earth protected with enormous piles. The obstacle was serious. Night drew near, and on either side the ponds extended as far as the eye could reach. Berthoald turned around to his companions who were no less surprised than himself: "The breastwork, like the abbey, has a decidedly martial mien."

"This ground has been recently thrown up. The bark of the piles is still fresh, as also the leaves of the hedge that crowns the parapet… What the devil can these precautions of defence mean?"

"By the hammer of Charles!" said Berthoald. "Here we have an abbess who is well up in the art of entrenchment! But there must be some other route to reach the abbey and – " Berthoald did not finish the sentence. A volley of stones thrown by slingers hid behind the hedge that crowned the parapet, reached the three warriors. Their casques and cuirasses broke the shock, but the young chief was rudely struck in the shoulder, while the horse of Richulf, that was near the edge of the road and was hit in the head, reared so violently that it fell over upon its rider and both rolled into the pond, which was so deep at that spot that horse and rider disappeared completely. The Frank soon rose back to the surface and managed with great difficulty to clamber up the bank, while his horse swam away frightened towards the center of the pond, where, finally exhausted, it rolled over and sank.

"Treason!" cried Berthoald.

The deep moat filled with water was thirty feet wide. In order to cross it, according to the art of war, it would have been necessary to fetch lumber from a great distance and commence a regular siege. Night, moreover, was on. While the young chief consulted with his companions upon the unexpected occurrence, a voice from behind the hedge called out: "This first volley of stones is but a shower of roses to what is in store for you if you attempt to force a passage."

"Whoever you be, you shall pay dearly for this assault," cried Berthoald. "We are come by orders of Charles, chief of the Franks, who made a gift of the abbey of Meriadek to me and my men. I command here. It is for you to obey."

"And I," replied the voice, "make you a gift, preparatory to something better, of that volley of stones that you just got."

"We can not to-night force a passage; but we shall encamp on this road. To-morrow, at break of day, we shall storm your entrenchment. So, I warn you, the abbess of this convent and her nuns will be treated like women of conquered towns. The young ones will be distributed among us, the old ones will be whipped, and the men will be slaughtered."

"Our holy abbess, Dame Meroflede, minds not such threats," answered the voice. "The abbess consents to admit the chief of those bandits, but alone, into the convent… His companions will camp for the night on the causeway. To-morrow at break of day he shall rejoin his troop. And when he shall have reported to them what he saw in the monastery, and in what style preparations are making to receive them, they will realize that the very best thing for them to do will be to return and fight near Charles, the heathen who dares to dispose of the goods of the Church! By the horns of Satan, we shall know how to chase you hence!"

"I shall punish your insolence!"

"My horse is drowned," added Richulf in a rage; "the water streams from my armor; I am chilled through; my stomach is empty; and yet we are condemned to spend the night in the open!"

"Enough words! Decide!" replied the voice. "From the top of this breastwork a long plank will be lowered over to you. However unsteady of foot your chief may be, he will be able to cross the moat in safety. I shall take him to the abbey; to-morrow he shall rejoin his companions, and may the devil, who brought you here, lead you back to hell!"

During this debate the other Franks of Berthoald's troop and presently also the carts and baggages, all of which entered without mistrust upon the narrow causeway, had come up to where the young chief stood. He explained what had happened, and showed them the moat and the opposite breastwork, which, under the circumstances, could neither be cleared nor taken. The straggling beneficiaries of the abbey, no less nonplussed and no less furious than Berthoald himself, broke out into threats and imprecations against the abbess. Nevertheless, night having now fallen, there was no choice but to camp upon the road. It was also decided that Berthoald should proceed alone to the abbey, and that early the next morning they were to consider what to do, according to his report; but whatever their decision might be upon Berthoald's report, it was determined that if Berthoald should fall a victim to treason and not return in the morning, force would be immediately resorted to. As to himself, wholly disregarding any danger that might threaten, Berthoald insisted upon accepting the offer of admitting him to the monastery. The young chief yielded in this as much to the spirit of adventure as to an overpowering curiosity to see the fighting abbess. Agreeable to the tender made by Ricarik, who guarded the breastwork, a plank was pushed out horizontally from within the parapet, it swayed to the right and left for a moment and then dropped so that one end rested on the side of the ditch where Berthoald stood and the other remained firmly fastened to the parapet. Berthoald left his horse in charge of one of his companions, and with a firm and light step walked over the plank, quickly reaching the parapet, into which the plank was immediately drawn back.

CHAPTER V.
ASYLUM

Berthoald was received by the intendant, whom, controlling his own anger, he followed to a near spot where two horses stood saddled. Ricarik left about a dozen slaves and colonists behind to watch the trench under the starry sky, and motioning Berthoald to one of the horses, leaped upon the other and galloped ahead. The young chief rode in the wake of his guide, rage alternating in his breast with curiosity concerning the fighting abbess who gave such unsatisfactory tokens of resignation to the decree that dispossessed her of her benefice. In the course of the ride towards the abbey, Berthoald encountered two other protected ditches, like the first, but crossable by means of drawbridges that were let down to allow him and his guide to pass. A short while after crossing the second of these two ditches, Berthoald stood near the outer enclosure of the abbey. The enclosure consisted of thick joists well fastened together and planted from bank to bank of the two ponds that lay on both sides. The buildings of the abbey rose upon a vast peninsular field, accessible only from the side of the causeway that had just been put in a state of defence. Behind the monastery, a tongue of land connected with the forest, whose crest bordered the horizon, thus offering another passage. Berthoald noticed many lights inside of the enclosure, projected, no doubt, by torches. The intendant took a copper horn that hung from the pommel of his saddle and blew a call. An iron-barbed door facing the jetty opened slowly. Preceded by his guide, Berthoald entered the first courtyard of the abbey, and found himself face to face with the abbess on horseback, surrounded by several torch-bearing slaves. Meroflede had lowered the cape of her scarlet cloak half over her forehead. At her side hung a gold-handled hunting knife in a steel sheath. Berthoald was seized with astonishment at the sight of the woman as she sat in the light of the torches. Her costume, at once monastic and martial, set off the supple and easy frame of the abbess. The young chief found her handsome as far as he could judge across the shadow projected upon her face by her half-drawn cowl.

"I know that you are Berthoald," said Meroflede in a vibrating and sonorous voice; "and so you have come to take possession of my abbey?"

"This abbey has been given me and my companions of war by Charles, the chief of the Franks. Yes, I have come to take possession."

Meroflede indulged in a laugh of disdain, and despite the shadow that veiled her face, her laughter exposed to the eyes of Berthoald two rows of pearly white teeth. The abbess gave her horse a slight touch of her heel and bade the young man follow.

At the moment when Meroflede's horse was put on the march, Broute-Saule – now healed of the peckings of the sparrow-hawk, and no longer clad in rags, but wearing on the contrary an elegant green jacket, buck-skin hose, neat leather shoes and a rich fur cap – placed himself at the horse's head with his hands on the reins. Thus walking between the abbess and Berthoald, the young hawk thief watched attentively the slightest motion of Meroflede and covered her with ardent and jealous eyes. From time to time he cast an uneasy glance at the young chief. The torch-bearing slaves followed close behind the abbess and Berthoald to the inner courtyard. Meroflede entered with Berthoald and indicated to him fifty colonists in martial order and armed with bows and slings.

"Do you think these premises are sufficiently protected, my valiant captain?" asked Meroflede.

"For me and my men, a slinger or an archer is no more dangerous than a dog that barks at a distance. We let the arrows whiz, the stones fly and get within our sword's length. To-morrow at break of day you will know what you have to expect, dame abbess … should you insist upon defending the abbey."

Meroflede again laughed and said: "If you love a fight at close quarters your taste will be suited to-morrow."

"Not to-morrow!" cried Broute-Saule, casting upon Berthoald a look of concentrated hatred and mistrust; "if you wish to fight, fight on the spot … right here in this yard, by the light of the torches and under the eyes of our holy abbess; although I have neither casque nor cuirass, I am your man!"

Meroflede playfully struck Broute-Saule's cap with her whip and said smiling: "Hold your tongue, slave!"

Berthoald made no answer to the challenge of the hot-headed lad, and silently followed the abbess, who, riding out of this second yard, moved towards a spacious building from which confused cries were heard to proceed. She leaned over her horse, and said a few words in the ear of Broute-Saule. The latter seemed to hesitate before obeying. Seeing this, she added imperiously:

"Did you hear me?"

"Holy dame – "

"Will you obey!" cried Meroflede impetuously, striking Broute-Saule with her whip. "Do as you are told, slave!"

The face of Broute-Saule became livid and his furious eyes fell not upon Meroflede but upon Berthoald. But the lad made a violent effort to control himself; he obeyed, and ran forward to execute his mistress' orders. Immediately after, about a hundred men of sinister and determined mien and dressed in rags came out of the building, drew up in line and brandished their lances, swords and axes, shouting: "Long live our holy abbess, Meroflede!" Several women who were among the men cried no less noisily: "Long live our abbess! Long live our holy dame!"

"Do you, who have come to take possession of this monastery," said Meroflede to the young chief with a caustic smile, "know what the right of asylum imports?"

"A criminal who takes refuge in a church is protected from the justice of men."

"You are a treasure of science, worthy of carrying the crosier and the mitre! Well, these good folks that you see there are the flower of the bandits of this region; the least guilty of them has committed one or two murders. Apprised of your approach, I offered them to leave the asylum of the basilica of Nantes by night, and promised them asylum in the chapel of the abbey, and the indulgence of the good old times. If they leave this place the gibbet awaits them. That will give you an idea of the fury with which they will defend the monastery against your men, who would not be Christian enough to extend to them a similar protection. It is easy enough to accept the gift of an abbey, it is more difficult to take possession of it. You now know what forces I have at my command. Let us enter the monastery. After so long a journey, you must feel tired. I extend hospitality to you. You shall sup with me… To-morrow, at daybreak, you shall rejoin your companions. You surely are a prudent councilor. You will induce your band to look for some other abbey, and you will lead them in the search."

"I see with pleasure, holy abbess, that solitude and the austerities of the cloister have not impaired the joviality of your temper."

"Ah! You think I am jovial?"

"You suggest with an amusing seriousness that I and my men who have been fighting the Arabs, Frisians and Saxons since the battle of Poitiers, shall now turn tail to this handful of murderers and robbers, reinforced by poor colonists who have left the plow for the lance, and the hoe for the sling!"

"You braggart!" cried Broute-Saule, who had returned to his place at the head of Meroflede's horse. "Will you have us two take an axe? We shall strip to the waist, and you will find out whether the men of this place are cowards!"

"You look to me to be a brave lad," answered Berthoald smiling. "If you would like to remain with us at the abbey, you will find a place in the ranks of my companions."

"We must have a truce from now till to-morrow… You are surely tired. You shall be taken to a bath. That will refresh you. After that we shall sup. I can not treat you to a feast such as St. Agnes and St. Radegonde treated their favorite poet, Bishop Fortunat, to at their abbey of Poitiers, in short skirts. But you will not starve." Meroflede then turned to Ricarik: "You have my orders, obey them!"

While speaking, Meroflede had drawn near the interior door of the abbey. With a light leap she alighted from her horse and disappeared within the cloister, after throwing the bridle to Broute-Saule. The lad followed the fascinating woman with looks of despair, and he then slowly returned to the stables, after shaking his fist at Berthoald. The latter, who was more and more struck by the oddities of the abbess, did not notice Broute-Saule's threatening gesture but was steeped in thought when Ricarik recalled him to his surroundings, saying: "Alight; the slaves will conduct you to the bath; they will help you take off your armor, and as your baggage is not here they will furnish you with proper vestments – they are a new hose and coat that I never used. You may put them on should you prefer them to your iron shell. I shall later come for you to sup with our holy dame."