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They went out into the thick mist. Ulenspiegel saw the rustic bring them a lantern, which they took with them.
The light of the lantern being often intercepted by a black shape, he took it that they were walking one behind the other.
He primed his arquebus and fired at the black shape. He then saw the lantern lowered and raised several times, and judged that, one of the two being down, the other was endeavouring to see the nature of his wound. He primed his arquebus again. Then the lantern going forward alone, swiftly and swinging and in the direction of the camp, he fired once more. The lantern staggered about, then fell, and there was darkness.
Running towards the camp, he saw the provost coming out with a crowd of soldiers awakened by the noise of the shots. Ulenspiegel, accosting them, said:
“I am the hunter, go and pick up the game.”
“Jolly Fleming,” said the provost, “you speak otherwise than with your tongue.”
“Tongue talk, ’tis wind,” replied Ulenspiegel. “Lead talk remains in the bodies of the traitors. But follow me.”
He brought them, furnished with their lanterns, to the place where the two were fallen. And they beheld them indeed, stretched out on the earth, one dead, the other in the death rattle and holding his hand on his breast, where there was a letter crushed and crumpled in the last effort of his life.
They carried away the bodies, which they recognized by their garments as bodies of nobles, and thus came with their lanterns to the prince, interrupted at council with Frederic of Hollenhausen, the Markgrave of Hesse, and other lords.
Followed by landsknechts, reiters, green jackets and yellow jackets, they came before the tent of the Silent, shouting requests that he would receive them.
He came from the tent. Then, taking the word from the provost who was coughing and preparing to accuse him, Ulenspiegel said:
“Monseigneur, I have killed two traitor nobles of your train, instead of ravens.”
Then he recounted what he had seen, heard, and done.
The Silent said not a word. The two bodies were searched, there being present himself, William of Orange, the Silent, Frederic de Hollenhausen, the Markgrave of Hesse, Dieterich de Schooenbergh, Count Albert of Nassau, the Count de Hoogstraeten, Antoine de Lalaing, the Governor of Malines; the troopers, and Lamme Goedzak trembling in his great paunch. Sealed letters from Granvelle and Noircarmes were found upon the gentlemen, enjoining upon them to sow dissension in the prince’s train, in order to diminish his strength by so much, to force him to yield, and to deliver him to the duke to be beheaded in accordance with his deserts. “It was essential,” said the letters, “to proceed subtly and by veiled speech, so that the people in the army might believe that the Silent had already, for his own personal profit, come to a private agreement with the duke. His captains and soldiers, being angry, would make him a prisoner. For reward a draft on the Függers of Antwerp for five hundred ducats had been sent to each; they should have a thousand as soon as the four hundred thousand ducats that were expected should have arrived in Zealand from Spain.”
This plot being discovered and laid open, the prince, without a word, turned towards the nobles, lords, and soldiers, among whom were a great many that held him in suspicion; he showed the two corpses without a word, intending thereby to reproach them for their mistrust of him. All shouted with a great tumultuous noise:
“Long life to Orange! Orange is faithful to the countries!”
They would, for contumely, fain have flung the bodies to the dogs, but the Silent:
“It is not bodies that must be thrown to the dogs, but feeblemindedness that bringeth about doubts of singleminded and good intents.”
And lords and soldiers shouted:
“Long live the prince! Long live Orange, the friend to the countries!”
And their voices were as a thunder threatening injustice.
And the prince, pointing to the bodies:
“Give them Christian interment,” said he.
“And I,” said Ulenspiegel, “what is to be done with my faithful carcase? If I have done ill let them give me blows; if I have done well let them accord me reward.”
Then the Silent One spake and said:
“This musketeer shall have fifty blows with green wood in my presence for having, without orders, slain two nobles, to the great disparagement of all discipline. He shall receive as well thirty florins for having seen well and heard well.”
“Monseigneur,” replied Ulenspiegel, “if they gave me the thirty florins first, I would endure the blows from the green wood with patience.”
“Aye, aye,” groaned Lamme Goedzak, “give him first of all the thirty florins; he will endure the rest with patience.”
“And then,” said Ulenspiegel, “having my soul free of guilt, I have no need to be washed with oak or rinsed with cornel.”
“Aye,” groaned Lamme Goedzak as before, “Ulenspiegel hath no need of washing or of rinsing. He hath a clean soul. Do not wash him, Messires, do not wash him.”
Ulenspiegel having received the thirty florins, the stock-meester was ordered by the provost to seize him.
“See, Messires,” said Lamme, “how piteous he looks. He hath no love for the wood, my friend Ulenspiegel.”
“I love,” replied Ulenspiegel, “to see a lovely ash all leafy, growing in the sunshine in all it’s native verdure; but I hate to the death those ugly sticks of wood still bleeding their sap, stripped of branches, without leaves or twigs, of fierce aspect and harsh of acquaintance.”
“Art thou ready?” asked the provost.
“Ready,” repeated Ulenspiegel, “ready for what? To be beaten. No, I am not, and have no desire to be, master stock-meester. Your beard is red and you have a formidable air; but I am fully persuaded that you have a kind heart and do not love to maltreat a poor fellow like me. I must tell it you, I love not to do it or see it; for a Christian man’s back is a sacred temple which, even as his breast, encloseth the lungs wherewith we breathe the air of the good God. With what poignant remorse would you be gnawed if a brutal stroke of the stick were to break me in pieces.”
“Make haste,” said the stock-meester.
“Monseigneur,” said Ulenspiegel, speaking to the Prince, “nothing presses, believe me; first should this stick be dried and seasoned, for they say that green wood entering living flesh imparts to it a deadly venom. Would Your Highness wish to see me die of this foul death? Monseigneur, I hold my faithful back at Your Highness’ service; have it beaten with rods, lashed with the whip; but, if you would not see me dead, spare me, if it please you, the green wood.”
“Prince, give him grace,” said Messire de Hoogstraeten and Dieterich de Schooenbergh. The others smiled pityingly.
Lamme also said:
“Monseigneur, Monseigneur, show grace; green wood it is pure poison.”
The Prince then said: “I pardon him.”
Ulenspiegel, leaping several times high in air, struck on Lamme’s belly and forced him to dance, saying:
“Praise Monseigneur with me, who saved me from the green wood.”
And Lamme tried to dance, but could not, because of his belly.
And Ulenspiegel treated him to both eating and drinking.
XII
Not wishing to give battle, the duke without truce or respite harried the Silent as he wandered about the flat land between Juliers and the Meuse, everywhere sounding the river at Hondt, Mechelen, Elsen, Meersen, and everywhere finding it filled with traps and caltrops to wound men and horses that sought to pass over by fording.
At Stockem, the sounders found none of these engines. The prince gave orders for crossing. The reiters went over the Meuse and held themselves in battle order on the other bank, so as to protect the crossing on the side of the bishopric of Liége; then there formed up in line from one bank to the other, in this way breaking the current of the river, ten ranks of archers and musketeers, among whom was Ulenspiegel.
He had water up to his thighs, and often some treacherous wave would lift him up, himself and his horse.
He saw the foot soldiers cross, carrying a powder bag upon their headgear and holding their muskets high in air: then came the wagons, the hackbuts, linstocks, culverins, double culverins, falcons, falconets, serpentines, demi-serpentines, double serpentines, mortars, double mortars, cannon, demi-cannon, double cannon, sacres, little field pieces mounted on carriages drawn by two horses, able to manœuvre at the gallop and in every way like those that were nicknamed the Emperor’s Pistols; behind them, protecting the rear, landsknechts and reiters from Flanders.
Ulenspiegel looked about to find some warming drink. The archer Riesencraft, a High German, a lean, cruel, gigantic fellow, was snoring on his charger beside him, and as he breathed he spread abroad the perfume of brandy. Ulenspiegel, spying for a flask on his horse’s crupper, found it hung behind on a cord like a baldric, which he cut, and he took the flask, and drank rejoicing. The archer companions said to him:
“Give us some.”
He did so. The brandy being drunk, he knotted the cord that held the flask, and would have put it back about the soldier’s breast. As he lifted his arm to pass it round, Riesencraft awoke. Taking the flask, he would have milked his cow as usual. Finding that it gave no more milk, he fell into mighty anger.
“Robber,” said he, “what have you done with my brandy?”
Ulenspiegel replied:
“Drunk it. Among soaking horsemen, one man’s brandy is everybody’s brandy. Evil is the scurvy stingy one.”
“To-morrow I will carve your carcase in the lists,” replied Riesencraft.
“We will carve each other,” answered Ulenspiegel, “heads, arms, legs, and all. But are you not constipated, that you have such a sour face?”
“I am,” said Riesencraft.
“You want a purge, then,” replied Ulenspiegel, “and not a duel.”
It was agreed between them that they should meet next day, mounted and accoutred each as he pleased, and should cut up each other’s bacon with a short stiff sword.
Ulenspiegel asked that for himself the sword might be replaced by a cudgel, which was granted him.
In the meanwhile, all the soldiers having crossed the river and falling into order at the voice of the colonels and the captains, the ten ranks of archers also crossed over.
And the Silent said:
“Let us march on Liége!”
Ulenspiegel was glad of this, and with all the Flemings, shouted out:
“Long life to Orange, let us march on Liége!”
But the foreigners, and notably the High Germans, said they were too much washed and rinsed to march. Vainly did the prince assure them that they were going to a certain victory, to a friendly city; they would listen to nothing, but lit great fires and warmed themselves in front of them, with their horses unharnessed.
The attack on the city was put off till next day when Alba, greatly astonished at the bold crossing, learned through his spies that the Silent One’s soldiers were not yet ready for the assault.
Thereupon, he threatened Liége and all the country round about to put them to fire and sword, if the prince’s friends made any movement there. Gerard de Groesbeke, the bishop’s catchpoll, armed his troopers against the prince, who arrived too late, through the fault of the High Germans, who were afraid of a little water in their stockings.
XIII
Ulenspiegel and Riesencraft having taken seconds, the latter said that the two soldiers were to fight on foot to the death, if the conqueror wished, for such were Riesencraft’s conditions.
The scene of the conflict was a little heath.
Early in the morning, Riesencraft donned his archer’s array. He put on his salade with the throat piece, without visor, and a mail shirt with no sleeves. His other shirt being fallen into pieces, he put it in his salade to make lint of it if need was. He armed himself with an arbalest of good Ardennes wood, a sheaf of thirty quarrels, with a long dagger, but not with a two-handed sword, which is the archer’s sword. And he came to the field of battle mounted upon his charger, carrying his war saddle and the plumed chamfron, and all barded with iron.
Ulenspiegel made up for himself an armament for a nobleman; his charger was a donkey; his saddle was the petticoat of a gay wench, his plumed chamfron was of osier, adorned above with goodly fluttering shavings. His barde was bacon, for, said he, iron costs too much, steel is beyond price, and as for brass in these later days, they have made so many cannon out of it that there is not enough left to arm a rabbit for battle. He donned for headgear a fine salade that had not yet been devoured by the snails; this salade was surmounted by a swan’s feather, to make him sing if he was killed.
His sword, stiff and light, was a good long, stout cudgel of pinewood, at the end of which there was a besom of branches of the same tree. On the left hand of his saddle hung his knife, which was of wood likewise; on the right swung his good mace, which was of elderwood, surmounted with a turnip. His cuirass was all holes and flaws.
When he arrived in this array, at the field of the duel, Riesencraft’s seconds burst out laughing, but he himself remained unbending from his sour face.
Ulenspiegel’s seconds then demanded of Riesencraft’s that the German should lay aside his armour of mail and iron, seeing that Ulenspiegel was armed only in rags and pieces. To which Riesencraft gave consent. Riesencraft’s seconds then asked Ulenspiegel’s how it came that Ulenspiegel was armed with a besom.
“You granted me the stick, but you did not forbid me to enliven it with foliage.”
“Do as you think fit,” said the four seconds.
Riesencraft said never a word and cropped down with little strokes of his sword the thin stalks of the heather.
The seconds requested him to replace his sword with a besom, the same as Ulenspiegel.
He replied:
“If this rascal of his own accord chose a weapon so out of the way, it is because he imagines he can defend his life with it.”
Ulenspiegel saying again that he would use his besom, the four seconds agreed that everything was in order.
They were set facing each other, Riesencraft on his horse barded with iron, Ulenspiegel on his donkey barded with bacon.
Ulenspiegel came forward into the middle of the field of combat. There, holding his besom like a lance:
“I deem,” said he, “fouler and more stinking than plague, leprosy, and death, this vermin brood of ill fellows who, in a camp of old soldiers and boon companions, have no other thought than to carry round everywhere their scowling faces and their mouths foaming with anger. Wherever they may be, laughter dares not show itself, and songs are silent. They must be forever growling and fighting, introducing thus alongside of legitimate combat for the fatherland single combat which is the ruin of an army and the delight of the enemy. Riesencraft here present hath slain for mere innocent words one and twenty men, without ever performing in battle or skirmish any act of distinguished bravery or deserved the least reward by his courage. Now it is my pleasure to-day to brush the bare hide of this crabbed dog the wrong way.”
Riesencraft replied:
“This drunkard has had tall dreams of the abuse of single combats: it will be my pleasure to-day to split his head, to show everybody that he has nothing but hay in his brain-box.”
The seconds made them get down from their mounts. In so doing Ulenspiegel dropped from his head the salad which the ass ate quietly and slyly; but the donkey was interrupted in this job by a kick from one of the seconds to make him get out of the duelling enclosure. The same treatment fell to the lot of the horse. And they went off elsewhere to graze in company.
Then the seconds, carrying broom – these were Ulenspiegel’s pair, and the others, carrying sword – they were Riesencraft’s, gave the signal for the fray with a whistle.
And Riesencraft and Ulenspiegel fell to fighting furiously, Riesencraft smiting with his sword, Ulenspiegel parrying with his besom; Riesencraft swearing by all devils, Ulenspiegel fleeing before him, wandering through the heather obliquely and circling, zigzagging, thrusting out his tongue, making a thousand other faces at Riesencraft, who was losing his breath and beating the air with his sword like a mad trooper. Ulenspiegel felt him close, turned sharp and sudden, and gave him a great whack under the nose with his besom. Riesencraft fell down with arms and legs stretched out like a dying frog.
Ulenspiegel flung himself upon him, besomed his face up and down and every way, pitilessly, saying:
“Cry for mercy or I make you swallow my besom!”
And he rubbed and scrubbed him without ceasing, to the great pleasure and joy of the spectators, and still said:
“Cry for mercy or I make you eat it!”
But Riesencraft could not cry, for he was dead of black rage.
“God have thy soul, poor madman!” said Ulenspiegel.
And he went away, plunged in melancholy.
