The Poniard's Hilt; Or, Karadeucq and Ronan. A Tale of Bagauders and Vagres

"And was it your brother's instinct that led you to accompany us?"

"I did not suspect you of being my brother until I noticed the degree to which you were moved by the chant of Hena. When you told me she was one of your ancestresses, I no longer entertained any doubt but that we were either brothers or close relatives. The account of your life proved to me that we were brothers."

"But why, then, did you follow us in Vagrery?"

"Did you not hear my answer to Bishop Cautin: 'It is not the well but the sick who stand in need of the physician?' "

"Would you blame me for being a Vagre, and would you blame our father for having been a Bagauder?"

"No less than you, Ronan, do I hold slavery and conquest in horror, seeing that Gaul, formerly powerful and teeming with happiness, is covered with ruins and brambles since the Frankish invasion. Proprietors, colonists, husbandmen have all fled before the barbarians who reduce them to slavery, or cause them to die of hunger by reason of the frightful floods of famine that have followed in the wake of the invading army. Driven by despair large numbers of those unhappy people run the Vagrery like yourself. Only slaves are seen here and there cultivating the lands of the Church and of the seigneurs, and the poor wretches bend under the weight of toil; not infrequently die of hunger or of maltreatment. The cities, once so rich, so flourishing by their commerce, are to-day ruined, almost depopulated, but being at least defended by their walls, they offer some measure of security to their inhabitants; and yet, the ceaseless civil wars between the sons of Clovis at times deliver even these places to the torch of the incendiary, to pillage and to massacre. During the fitful lulls of these feuds, the inhabitants hardly dare to leave their walls; the roads, infested with armed bands, render communication and traffic impossible. But too often the horrors of famine have decimated the population of whole cities. Alas! Such is the sad plight of our country."

"Aye, that is what the Frankish conquest has done for Gaul. She can no longer be free – let her disappear from the world burying the conquerors and the conquered alike under her ruins!"

"Brother, is not this Gaul that you lay waste with as much inveterateness as the conquerors themselves, is she not our dearly beloved country, our mother? Is it for us, her children, to join hands with the barbarians in whelming her with sorrows and trials? Like yourself, I wish to labor for the overthrow of barbarism; like yourself I wish to put an end to the craven besottedness of the oppressed; but I wish to destroy barbarism with civilization, ignorance with enlightenment, poverty with labor, slavery with the sense of national worth – a sense, alas! now almost wholly uprooted, and yet once so powerful, in the days of our fathers, when our venerated druids aroused the peoples to arms against the Romans. Holy insurrections!"

"Tracked by the bishops, our last druids have died upon the scaffold!"

"But the druid faith is not dead! No – no! The forms of religions pass, but their divine principle remains for all time. Revived, stimulated and regenerated by the gentle morality of Jesus, the druid faith is born anew in our breasts. It has preserved its belief in the immortality of the soul of men, in their successive re-incarnation in the starry world, to the end that by fresh trials and sufferings the wicked may become good, and the just still more perfect. Aye, humanity, whether visible or invisible, must rise from sphere to sphere in its eternal effort, in its continuous progress, towards infinite perfection. Such is our faith, the faith of us Christian druids, who practice the evangelical doctrine in all that it contains of tenderness, mercifulness, and the love of freedom – "

At this point Loysik was suddenly interrupted by a voice that proceeded from a bush near the oak tree, shouting:

"Relapsed! Sacrilegious wretch! Worshiper of Mammon! Hermit of the devil! Prop of Beelzebub! You shall be burned for a heretic!"

It was the voice of Bishop Cautin. And almost at the same instant, from afar, from the side where the Vagres were finishing their night of wassail, these other cries were heard through the stillness of the approaching dawn:

"On guard! On guard! The leudes of Count Neroweg are approaching! The count himself is at their head!"

"On guard! The leudes of Count Neroweg are approaching! To arms! To arms!"

Awakened from her restful sleep by the tumult and hearing the cries of the Vagres, little Odille screamed with terror as she threw herself on the neck of Ronan:

"Count Neroweg! Save me!"

"Fear not, poor child!"

And addressing Loysik, Ronan added:

"Brother, fate sends to us a descendant of that family of Neroweg, whom our ancestor Schanvoch fought two centuries ago on the borders of the Rhine. I wish to kill that barbarian, rid Gaul of him, and protect our own family from the peril of his descendants – "

"Kill me!" murmured Odille, falling on her knees before the Vagre and clasping her hands. "I prefer to die at your hands rather than to fall back into the hands of the count – "

Touched by the girl's despair and of course unable to foresee the issue of the pending combat, Ronan remained pensive for a moment. He looked around. His eyes fell upon a spreading branch of the oak tree near which they stood. He leaped up, seized it, and bending it down said to his brother:

"Loysik, sit Odille on this branch; when it straightens up again it will carry the poor child up; she will then be able to reach the thicker foliage, and keep herself concealed until the end of the combat. I shall forthwith assemble the Vagres. Courage, little Odille, I shall return after the battle – "

And he ran towards his companions, while the slave, whom Loysik had placed upon the branch, disappeared in the midst of the thick foliage waving her hands at Ronan.

Dawn was lighting the forest. The tops of the trees were crimsoned with the first fires of the orb of day. The Vagres, who just announced the approach of Count Neroweg and his leudes, had taken a path across the thicket that was impracticable for the horses of the Franks, a good deal shorter than the road that these were obliged to take in order to arrive at the clearing where the Vagres had halted for the night. The larger number of the Vagres being in their cups and exhausted with singing and dancing, were asleep on the lawn. Awakened with a start by the cries of the outposts, they rushed to their arms. The slaves, the colonists, the women, the ruined proprietors, who joined the Vagres on the previous day were differently affected at the tidings of the approach of the leudes. Some trembled from head to foot; others fled into the thickest of the forest; still others, a goodly number, preserved their courage, and hastily sought for means of the defense. In default of better weapons they supplied themselves with heavy knotted staves that they cut from the trees. The Vagres themselves numbered about a dozen excellent archers, others were armed with axes, iron maces, pikes, swords and scythes with the blades turned outward. At the first cry of alarm, the brave fellows gathered around Ronan and the hermit. Should battle be engaged with the leudes? Was it better to flee before them and await a better opportunity for an offensive stroke? Only few were for flight; the majority favored immediate battle.

While the council of war was being held two other pickets rushed to the clearing. They had concealed themselves in the underwood, and had been able to count with approximate accuracy the number of leudes whom the count led. There were barely a score on horseback; they were well armed; but fully a hundred foot soldiers followed these and were armed with pikes and clubs. Some were Franks, others were from the city of Clermont, whom the count requisitioned in the name of the King for the pursuit of the Vagres. Several of Bishop Cautin's slaves, who, out of fear of hell fire, did not wish to run the Vagrery after the burning of the episcopal villa, swelled the foot soldiers of Count Neroweg. Ronan's troop numbered at most a score of men.

The council of war decided to engage in a general battle.

CHAPTER X

THE MIRACLE OF ST. CAUTIN

It is half an hour since the approach of Count Neroweg and his leudes was announced by the pickets. The Vagres have disappeared. There remains in the clearing where they feasted during the night naught but the remains and evidences of their sumptuous banquet on the lawn – empty wine pouches, gold and silver goblets strewn over the grassy and trampled ground; not far away stand the wagons that were brought from the episcopal villa, and further off the carcasses of the oxen lying near the still smouldering bake-oven. The silence in the forest is profound. Presently, one of the slaves of the villa, one of the pious guides of the leudes, emerges from the thicket that surrounds the clearing. He steps forward diffidently, listens and looks around as if apprehensive of an ambuscade. At the sight of the evidences of the feast that lie strewn about, he seems astonished and quickly turns around. Doubtlessly his first impulse is to return to the troop which he precedes, but as his eyes fall that instant upon the gold and silver vases that lie upon the grass, he stops, turns back, runs to the booty, snatches up a gold chalice and as quickly hides it under his rags. He thereupon lifts up his voice and calls to the leudes.

A distant and steadily approaching noise is heard in the woods. The bushes break down before the chests and under the iron hoofs of the horses. Voices call and answer. Finally Count Neroweg breaks through the thicket. He is on horseback and closely followed by several leudes. Most of his troop, as well as the footmen, being less impetuous than himself, follow at safer distance through the hedges on the way to join their master. Neroweg had expected to fall unperceived upon the Vagres. There was, however, not a soul in sight except the slave who now ran towards him crying:

"Seigneur, the impious Vagres who sacked the villa of our holy bishop have fled into the forest."

Neroweg raised his long sword and with one blow cut off the slave's head:

"Dog! You deceived me! You were in conspiracy with the Vagres!"

The slave's lifeless body sank to the ground, and the hidden gold chalice rolled over the grass.

"That gold vase is mine!" cried the count pointing at the chalice with his sword to one of his men who followed him on foot. "Karl, put that into your bag – "

These thieves always had close to their heels several men with bags ready for booty. But just as Karl was about to follow his master's orders, the latter's eyes fell upon the other articles of gold and silver that were taken from the episcopal villa and which now glistened attractively in the filtering rays of the rising sun. Neroweg put the spurs to his horse, and bounding forward cried:

"Those treasures are mine! Fill up your bag, Karl. Call Rigomer and have him fill his bag with all that it can contain!"

"The booty is not all for you alone, we have our share!" cried the leudes who now entered upon the clearing. "All these treasures must be divided alike – we are your equals!"

"We are equals in battle – equals also in the dividing of the booty – it is but fair – "

"Do you forget that at the pillage of Soissons even the great Clovis himself did not dare to dispute a gold vase with one of his warriors?"

"These treasures are ours as much as yours – we shall divide on the spot – "

The count did not dare resist the demands of his leudes. Although these warriors ever recognized him as their chief, they likewise ever treated him as their equal. Several of the plunderers now alighted from their horses and cast covetous glances at the chalices, their covers and other articles of the Church, together with the goblets, dishes, bowls and many other gold and silver utensils. Carried away by their greed, the leudes precipitated themselves upon the treasures, pushing and shoving one another, and were in the act of reaching out their hands to snatch up the precious goods, when a loud voice, that seemed to descend from the heavens above, thundered down upon them:

"Hands off, sacrilegious men! God hears you! God sees you! If you dare to reach out impious hands at the goods of the Church you will be damned forever!"

At the sound of the voice that seemed to come from heaven Neroweg grew pale, trembled at every limb, dropped from his horse and fell upon his knees. Several of the leudes followed his example and humbly prostrated themselves. They were terror-stricken!

"All on your knees, pagans that you are!" proceeded the voice in still more threatening accents. "All down on your knees! Accursed pillagers of the Church!"

The last of the leudes who still remained on their feet dropped distractedly on their knees, and with them the rest of the troop that followed on foot and were now upon the scene. The affrighted crowd bowed their heads to earth and smote their chests murmuring:

"A miracle! A miracle! It is the voice of the Lord!"

"And now, ye miserable sinners," the voice from above proceeded to thunder in tones increasingly wrathful, "now that you have bowed down to earth before the eye of the Lord and have attested your fear of His wrath, rise and hasten to help His servant who – "

The voice suddenly stopped short; the branches of a tall oak, near which Neroweg and his leudes lay upon their knees, bent and cracked under the weight of a heavy body that was rolling down, and thus broke its fall as it landed upon the ground, but so near to the count that the latter narrowly escaped being crushed by it. This additional phenomenon added to the terror of Neroweg and his leudes; the whole troop threw themselves down flat upon their faces and murmured in their fright:

"Oh Lord! Oh Lord! Have mercy upon us! Oh Lord, turn Your wrath from us!"

And what was it that actually tumbled down from the tree? It was Bishop Cautin, and his was the voice that had sounded from on high. Just before the arrival of the Franks, Ronan had pricked the holy man with the point of his sword, and forced him to clamber up the tree before him and keep himself there like a fat dormouse. Ronan accompanied the holy man up the tree, and with the point of his sword drove him to speak in the name of the Lord. Ronan's purpose was served so long as the holy man limited himself to throwing Neroweg and his leudes into consternation, but as soon as the bishop evinced an inclination to call them to his aid, the Vagre seized him. The sudden move choked off Cautin's sentence before he finished, the rotund and heavy bishop slipped, and tumbling down from branch to branch fell almost upon the back of the count. But the man of God was a wily customer. Although dazed for a moment by his fall, he quickly profited by the terror in which the Franks and the slaves were thrown as they lay face down, flat upon the earth. He steadied himself upon his legs, and rubbed his sore limbs, and puffing his cheeks he shouted:

"Miserable sinners! Adore your holy bishop who redescends from heaven upon the wings of the Lord's archangels!"

"A miracle!" again cried the crowd with even intenser unction, and smiting their chests with redoubled fervor. "A miracle!"

"Holy Bishop Cautin, who descends from heaven – protect us!"

"Is it your voice I hear, holy father?" queried Neroweg in a subdued voice without daring to raise his face from the ground or looking up. "Is it your own voice, holy bishop, or is it a snare that Satan spreads for us?"

"It is myself – your bishop – to doubt it is sacrilege!"

"Whence come you, good father?"

"I descend from heaven. After the sack of the episcopal villa, and seeing me carried away a captive by the Vagres – be they forever accursed! – the Lord sent His exterminating angels to my aid. They were clad in armor of hyacinthe, and armed with flaming swords. They snatched me from the hands of the Philistines, took me on their azure wings, and carried me to heaven – "

"A miracle!" cried the entranced crowd in chorus. "A miracle!"

"Our holy bishop has seen the face of the Lord! Hosanna!"

"St. Cautin," cried up Neroweg, "you will protect me, dear patron saint, my dear father in Christ! Will you not bless your son?"

"Yes, I will bless you – provided always you prostrate yourself before the bishop of the Lord, and you enrich the Church!"

"I shall have a chapel built in your honor on this very spot, holy bishop, in order to glorify this miracle – "

"That is far from enough – no, that is not enough. Listen, count, listen attentively:

"Neroweg and his leudes fled like cowards from the episcopal villa when it was attacked by the Vagres.

"I order that the count relinquish one quarter of his goods to me, the bishop of Clermont; I order that he rebuild the episcopal villa, which he allowed the Vagres to set on fire, and that he richly ornament it.

"I furthermore order that Count Neroweg pursue the Vagres without let, that he capture and put them to death – all of them, but especially their chief and a relapsed hermit, a renegade, an idolater who accompanies the accursed men.

"Finally, I order that the count burn to death, over a slow fire, a certain Moabite woman, a witch, an infernal wench, who once was bound to me by the bonds of holy matrimony.

"Let Count Neroweg carry out these, my orders; only at that price shall his sins be remitted, and on the day of his death I shall admit him into paradise.

"That is the message that the Lord entrusted me to bear to you. Amen!"

Neroweg and a few of the leudes rose upon their knees open-mouthed. As they did so they perceived two bearded Vagres with their bows between their teeth crawling like serpents along a large branch in order to reach a spot from which, skilful archers that they were, they could take deliberate aim at their foes and nail them to the sod.

"Treason!" cried the count jumping to his feet and pointing to the tree. "Treason! The Vagres are there, hidden in the tree branches!"

Hardly had the count said these words when a volley of arrows flew from the tree-top and riddled his troop. Finding themselves discovered, the daring Vagres hesitated not one instant to engage in battle. So accurate was the aim of the archers that every arrow found its quiver in the flesh of a foe.

"This is for you, Neroweg!" cried Ronan from the branch on which he was perched. "This is for you, the descendant of the Terrible Eagle! There goes the Vagre's arrow!"

Unfortunately the arrow's head was flattened out against the iron casque of the count. The other Vagres who, until now had remained hidden in the bushes, rushed forward with loud yells and intrepidly attacked the troop of Neroweg. The combat became general.

Who were the vanquishers in that combat? The Vagres or the Franks?

Malediction! After a stubborn struggle, almost all the Vagres were slain. A few who escaped the sword and others who were too severely wounded to flee remained prisoners in the hands of Neroweg. Ronan, the Vagre, was among the latter. The superiority of arms prevailed over mere courage.

And Loysik? And little Odille? And the bishopess?

All prisoners – yes, they were all taken to the burg of the Frankish count, while Bishop Cautin, carrying with him his gold and silver vases, regained Clermont followed by a pious crowd of slaves who cried on his passage:

"Glory to our holy bishop! Glory to the blessed Cautin! Hosanna!"

PART III

THE BURG OF NEROWEG

CHAPTER I

LEUDES AT HOME

The burg of Count Neroweg is situated in the center of a space once occupied by a fortified Roman camp. The structure is reared on a highland plateau that dominates a vast forest at its feet. Between the forest and the burg lies a wide expanse of meadow lands, watered by a swift-running river. Beyond the forest, far away, the horizon is bounded by the volcanic mountain peaks of Auvergne. The seigniorial residence that shelters the count and his leudes is built after the Germanic fashion: in lieu of walls stout beams carefully planed and fastened together, rest upon a broad stone foundation. At intervals, and with the view of steadying the one-foot thick beams, buttresses of masonry rise from the stone foundation up to the roof, which, in turn, is constructed of oaken shingles and boards, one foot square, laid over each other. The roofing is both light and proof against the rain. The building is a long square, a wide wooden portico ornaments its front entrance, and it is supported on either wing by other structures similarly put together. These are thatched and are devoted to the purposes of kitchen, storerooms, washhouses, weaving and spinning, shoe-making, tailoring, and all the other needs of a household. In these wings are also situated the kennels, the stables, the perches for the falcons, the pig-sty, the cattle-sheds, the wine-presses, the brewery, and large outhouses filled with fodder for horses and cattle. In the main, or seigniorial building are also the women's apartments reserved for Godegisele, the fifth wife of the count, whose second and third wives still live. There Godegisele spends her days in sadness; she rarely leaves her apartments and plies her distaff in the midst of her female slaves, who attend to the several duties of the needle and the spindle or loom. A frame chapel, in which a clerk, a messmate at the burg, officiates, is connected with the women's apartment, the latter being essentially a lupanar, to which no man save the count himself is admitted. There, under the very eyes of his wife, every evening after drinking, the count picks out his bed-fellow for the night. The leudes distribute themselves promiscuously among the outside female slaves.

These vast structures, together with a garden and a spacious tree-girt yard intended for the military exercises of the leudes and of the foot soldiers, all of whom were freemen and Franks, are surrounded by a fosse and earthworks, the ancient vestiges of the Roman camp which dates from the conquest of Julius Caesar. The parapets are considerably impaired by the centuries, but they still present a good line of defense. Only one of the four entrances of the fortified enclosure – facing, as was the custom, north, south, east and west – has been preserved. It is the one facing south. On that side, a draw-bridge built of rough logs spans the fosse during the day, in order to afford a passage to man, wagons and horses. But, as a means of precaution – the count is diffident and suspicious – the bridge is drawn at night by its keeper. The deep fosse, boggy by reason of the waters that it has drained from time immemorial and that stagnated in its bed, has so thick a layer of mud at its bottom, that any one who should attempt to cross the slough would be completely engulfed. At a little distance from the yard and far removed from the main building, but still within the fortified space, stands an ergastula, built, like all Roman structures, of imperishable bricks. The ergastula is a sort of deep cave, intended during the Roman conquest as a lock-up for the slaves who were employed in field labor and in the building of roads. Ronan, Loysik the hermit-laborer, the handsome bishopess, little Odille and several other Vagres, all who had not died of their wounds since their capture, have for the last month been imprisoned in the ergastula, the jail of the burg, being thrown there immediately after the combat in the passage of Allange, where most of the Vagres lost their lives. The rest fled into the woods.

Certainly the position of the burg, the noble Frank's den, was well chosen. The old Roman fortifications place the residence above the danger of a sudden attack. On the other hand, is the seigneur count minded to hunt wild animals, the forest lies so near the burg that during the first nights of autumn the loving stags and does can be heard belling for one another's company; is he minded to hunt birds on the wing, the meadows that surround his home offer to the falcons any number of flocks of partridges, while further away large ponds serve as a retreat to the herons who, often in their aerial contests with the falcons, transfix the latter with their long sharp beaks; finally, is the seigneur count minded to fish, his numerous ponds teem with pike, carp and lampreys, while azure-backed trout and purple-finned perches furrow the limpid streams.