So Adhelmar was half-forgot, and the Sieur d’Arques turned his mind to other matters. He was still a bachelor, for Reinault considered the burden of the times in ill-accord with the chinking of marriage-bells. They were grim times for Frenchmen: right and left the English pillaged and killed and sacked and guzzled and drank, as if they would never have done; and Edward of England began, to subscribe himself Rex Franciae with some show of excuse.
In Normandy men acted according to their natures. Reinault swore lustily and looked to his defences; Hugues, seeing the English everywhere triumphant, drew a long face and doubted, when the will of God was made thus apparent, were it the part of a Christian to withstand it? Then he began to write letters, but to whom no man at either Arques or Puysange knew, saving One-eyed Peire, who carried them.
III
Treats of Huckstering
It was in the dusk of a rain-sodden October day that Adhelmar rode to the gates of Puysange, with some score men-at-arms behind him. They came from Poictiers, where again the English had conquered, and Adhelmar rode with difficulty, for in that disastrous business in the field of Maupertuis he had been run through the chest, and his wound was scarce healed. Nevertheless, he came to finish his debate with the Sieur d’Arques, wound or no wound.
But at Puysange he heard a strange tale of Hugues. Reinault, whom Adhelmar found in a fine rage, told the story as they sat over their supper.
It had happened, somehow, (Reinault said), that the Marshal Arnold d’Andreghen—newly escaped from prison and with his disposition unameliorated by Lord Audley’s gaolership—had heard of these letters that Hugues wrote so constantly; and the Marshal, being no scholar, had frowned at such doings, and waited presently, with a company of horse, on the road to Arques. Into their midst, on the day before Adhelmar came, rode Peire, the one-eyed messenger; and it was not an unconscionable while before Peire was bound hand and foot, and d’Andreghen was reading the letter they had found in Peire’s jerkin. “Hang the carrier on that oak,” said d’Andreghen, when he had ended, “but leave that largest branch yonder for the writer. For by the Blood of Christ, our common salvation! I will hang him there on Monday!”
So Peire swung in the air ere long and stuck out a black tongue at the crows, who cawed and waited for supper; and presently they feasted while d’Andreghen rode to Arques, carrying a rope for Hugues.
For the Marshal, you must understand, was a man of sudden action. Only two months ago, he had taken the Comte de Harcourt with other gentlemen from the Dauphin’s own table to behead them that afternoon in a field behind Rouen. It was true they had planned to resist the gabelle, the King’s immemorial right to impose a tax on salt; but Harcourt was Hugues’ cousin, and the Sieur d’Arques, being somewhat of an epicurean disposition, esteemed the dessert accorded his kinsman unpalatable.
There was no cause for great surprise to d’Andreghen, then, to find that the letter Hugues had written was meant for Edward, the Black Prince of England, now at Bordeaux, where he held the French King, whom the Prince had captured at Poictiers, as a prisoner; for this prince, though he had no particular love for a rogue, yet knew how to make use of one when kingcraft demanded it—and, as he afterward made use of Pedro the Castilian, he was now prepared to make use of Hugues, who hung like a ripe pear ready to drop into Prince Edward’s mouth. “For,” as the Sieur d’Arques pointed out in his letter, “I am by nature inclined to favor you brave English, and so, beyond doubt, is the good God. And I will deliver Arques to you; and thus and thus you may take Normandy and the major portion of France; and thus and thus will I do, and thus and thus must you reward me.”
Said d’Andreghen, “I will hang him at dawn; and thus and thus may the devil do with his soul!”
Then with his company d’Andreghen rode to Arques. A herald declared to the men of that place how the matter stood, and bade Hugues come forth and dance upon nothing. The Sieur d’Arques spat curses, like a cat driven into a corner, and wished to fight, but the greater part of his garrison were not willing to do so in such a cause: and so d’Andreghen took him and carried him off.
In anger having sworn by the Blood of Christ to hang Hugues d’Arques to a certain tree, d’Andreghen had no choice in calm but to abide by his oath. This day being the Sabbath, he deferred the matter; but the Marshal promised to see to it that when morning broke the Sieur d’Arques should dangle side by side with his messenger.
Thus far the Vicomte de Puysange. He concluded his narrative with a dry chuckle. “And I think we are very well rid of him, Adhelmar. Holy Maclou! that I should have taken the traitor for a true man, though! He would sell France, you observe—chaffered, they tell me, like a peddler over the price of Normandy. Heh, the huckster, the triple-damned Jew!”
“And Mélite?” asked Adhelmar, after a little.
Again Reinault shrugged. “In the White Turret,” he said; then, with a short laugh: “Oy Dieus, yes! The girl has been caterwauling for this shabby rogue all day. She would have me—me, the King’s man, look you!—save Hugues at the peril of my seignory! And I protest to you, by the most high and pious Saint Nicolas the Confessor,” Reinault swore, “that sooner than see this huckster go unpunished, I would lock Hell’s gate on him with my own hands!”
For a moment Adhelmar stood with his jaws
