“Long past midnight,” the page answered, groping unsteadily for the open cask. “The whole castle is asleep, save for the watchmen. But I heard a clatter of hoofs through the wind and rain; methinks ’tis Sir Godfrey returning.”
“Let him return and be damned!” shouted Giles, slapping Marge’s fat haunch resoundingly. “He may be lord of the keep, but at present we are keepers of the cellar! More ale! Agnes, you little slut, another song!”
“Nay, more tales!” clamored Marge. “Our mistress’s brother, Sir Guiscard de Chastillon, has told grand tales of Holy Land and the infidels, but by Saint Dunstan, Giles’ lies outshine the knight’s truths!”
“Slander not a – hic! – holy man as has been on pilgrimage and Crusade,” hiccuped Peter. “Sir Guiscard has seen Jerusalem, and foughten beside the King of Palestine – how many years?”
“Ten year come May Day, since he sailed to Holy Land,” said Agnes. “Lady Eleanor had not seen him in all that time, till he rode up to the gate yesterday morn. Her husband, Sir Godfrey, never has seen him.”
“And wouldn’t know him?” mused Giles; “nor Sir Guiscard him?”
He blinked, raking a broad hand through his sandy mop. He was drunker than even he realized. The world spun like a top and his head seemed to be dancing dizzily on his shoulders. Out of the fumes of ale and a vagrant spirit, a madcap idea was born.
A roar of laughter burst gustily from Giles’ lips. He reeled upright, spilling his jack in Marge’s lap and bringing a burst of rare profanity from her. He smote a barrelhead with his open hand, strangling with mirth.
“Good lack!” squawked Agnes. “Are you daft, man?”
“A jest!” The roof reverberated to his bull’s bellow. “Oh, Saint Withold, a jest! Sir Guiscard knows not his brother-in-law, and Sir Godfrey is now at the gate. Hark ye!”
Four heads, bobbing erratically, inclined toward him as he whispered as if the rude walls might hear. An instant’s bleary silence was followed by boisterous guffaws. They were in the mood to follow the maddest course suggested to them. Only Guillaume felt some misgivings, but he was swept away by the alcoholic fervor of his companions.
“Oh, a devil’s own jest!” cried Marge, planting a loud, moist kiss on Giles’ ruddy cheek. “On, rogues, to the sport!”
The castles of the Twelfth Century, fortresses rather than mere dwellings, were built for defense, not comfort.
The hall through which the drunken band was hallooing was broad, lofty, windy, strewn with rushes, now but faintly lighted by the dying embers in a great ill-ventilated fireplace. Rude, sail-like hangings along the walls rippled in the wind that found its way through. Hounds, sleeping under the great table, woke yelping as they were trodden on by blundering feet, and added their clamor to the din.
This din roused Sir Guiscard de Chastillon from dreams of Acre and the sun-drenched plains of Palestine. He bounded up, sword in hand, supposing himself to be beset by Saracen raiders, then realized where he was. But events seemed to be afoot. A medley of shouts and shrieks clamored outside his door, and on the stout oak panels boomed a rain of blows that bade fair to burst the portal inward. The knight heard his name called loudly and urgently.
Putting aside his trembling squire, he ran to the door and cast it open. Sir Guiscard was a tall gaunt man, with a great beak of a nose and cold grey eyes. Even in his shirt he was a formidable figure. He blinked ferociously at the group limned dimly in the glow from the coals at the other end of the hall. There seemed to be women, children, a fat man with a sword.
This fat man was bawling: “Succor, Sir Guiscard, succor! The castle is forced, and we are all dead men! The robbers of Horsham Wood are within the hall itself!”
Sir Guiscard heard the unmistakable tramp of mailed feet, saw vague figures coming into the hall – figures on whose steel the faint light gleamed redly. Still mazed by slumber, but ferocious, he went into furious action.
Sir Godfrey de Courtenay, returning to his keep after many hours of riding through foul weather, anticipated only rest and ease in his own castle. Having vented his irritation by roundly cursing the sleepy grooms who shambled up to attend his horses, and were too bemused to tell him of his guest, he dismissed his men-at-arms and strode into the donjon, followed by his squires and the gentlemen of his retinue. Scarcely had he entered when the devil’s own bedlam burst loose in the hall. He heard a wild stampede of feet, crash of overturned benches, baying of dogs, and an uproar of strident voices, over which one bull-like bellow triumphed.
Swearing amazedly, he ran up the hall, followed by his knights, when a ravening maniac, naked but for a shirt, burst on him, sword in hand, howling like a werewolf.
Sparks flew from Sir Godfrey’s basinet beneath the madman’s furious strokes, and the lord of the castle almost succumbed to the ferocity of that onslaught before he could draw his own sword. He fell back, bellowing for his men-at-arms. But the madman was yelling louder than he, and from all sides swarmed other lunatics in shirts who assailed Sir Godfrey’s dumfounded gentlemen with howling frenzy.
The castle was in an uproar – lights flashing up, dogs howling, women screaming, men cursing, and over all the clash of steel and the stamp of mailed feet.
The conspirators, sobered by what they had raised, scattered in all directions, seeking hiding-places – all except Giles Hobson. His state of intoxication was too magnificent to be perturbed by any such trivial scene. He admired his handiwork for a space; then, finding swords flashing too close to his head for comfort, withdrew, and following some instinct, departed for a hiding-place known to him of old. There he found with gentle satisfaction that he had all the time retained a cobwebbed bottle in his hand. This he emptied, and its contents, coupled with what had already found its way down his gullet, plunged him into extinction for an amazing period. Tranquilly he snored under the straw, while events took place above and around him, and matters moved not slowly.
There in the straw Friar Ambrose found him just as dusk was falling after a harassed and harrying day. The friar, ruddy and well paunched, shook the unpenitent one into bleary wakefulness.
“The saints defend us!” said Ambrose. “Up to your old tricks again! I thought to find you here. They have been searching the castle all day for you; they searched these stables, too. Well that you were hidden beneath a very mountain of hay.”
“They do me too much honor,” yawned Giles. “Why should they search for me?”
The friar lifted his hands in pious horror.
“Saint Denis is my refuge against Sathanas and his works! Is it not known how you were the ringleader in that madcap prank last night that pitted poor Sir Guiscard against his sister’s husband?”
“Saint Dunstan!” quoth Giles, expectorating dryly. “How I thirst! Were any slain?”
“No, by the providence of God. But there is many a broken crown and bruised rib this day. Sir Godfrey nigh fell at the first onset, for Sir Guiscard is a woundy swordsman. But our lord being in full armor, he presently dealt Sir Guiscard a shrewd cut over the pate, whereby blood did flow in streams, and Sir Guiscard blasphemed in a manner shocking to hear. What had then chanced, God only knows, but Lady Eleanor, awakened by the noise, ran forth in her shift, and seeing her husband and her brother at swords’ points, she ran between them and bespoke them in words not to be repeated. Verily, a flailing tongue hath our mistress when her wrath is stirred.
“So understanding was reached, and a leech was fetched for Sir Guiscard and such of the henchmen as had suffered scathe. Then followed much discussion, and Sir Guiscard had recognized you as one of those who banged on his door. Then Guillaume was discovered hiding, as from a guilty conscience, and he confessed all, putting the blame on you. Ah me, such a day as it has been!
“Poor Peter in the stocks since dawn, and all the villeins and serving-wenches and villagers gathered to clod him – they but just now left off, and a sorry sight he is, with nose a-bleeding, face skinned, an eye closed, and broken eggs in his hair and dripping over his features. Poor Peter!
“And as for Agnes, Marge and Guillaume, they have had whipping enough to content them all a lifetime. It would be hard to say which of them has the sorest posterior. But it is you, Giles, the masters wish. Sir Guiscard swears that only your life will anyways content him.”
“Hmmmm,” ruminated Giles. He rose unsteadily, brushed the straw from his garments, hitched up his belt and stuck his disreputable bonnet on his head at a cocky angle.
The friar watched him gloomily. “Peter stocked, Guillaume birched, Marge and Agnes whipped – what should be your punishment?”