“You are the Red Ferret?” said he.
“So my enemies call me,” said the Frenchman, with a smile. “I rejoice, sir, that I have fallen to so valiant and honourable a gentleman.”
“I thank you, fair sir,” said Nigel feebly. “I also rejoice that I have encountered so debonair a person, and I shall ever bear in mind the pleasure which I have had from our meeting.”
So saying, he laid his bleeding head upon his enemy’s brazen front and sank into a dead faint.
XV
How the Red Ferret Came to Cosford
The old chronicler in his Gestes du Sieur Nigel has bewailed his broken narrative, which rose from the fact that out of thirty-one years of warfare no less than seven were spent by his hero at one time or another in the recovery from his wounds or from those illnesses which arose from privation and fatigue. Here at the very threshold of his career, on the eve of a great enterprise, this very fate befell him.
Stretched upon a couch in a low-roofed and ill-furnished chamber, which looks down from under the machicolated corner turret upon the inner court of the Castle of Calais, he lay half-unconscious and impotent, while great deeds were doing under his window. Wounded in three places, and with his head splintered by the sharp pommel of the Ferret’s mace, he hovered between life and death, his shattered body drawing him downward, his youthful spirit plucking him up.
As in some strange dream he was aware of that deed of arms within the courtyard below. Dimly it came back to his memory afterwards, the sudden startled shout, the crash of metal, the slamming of great gates, the roar of many voices, the clang, clang, clang, as of fifty lusty smiths upon their anvils, and then at last the dwindling of the hubbub, the low groans and sudden shrill cries to the saints, the measured murmur of many voices, the heavy clanking of armoured feet.
Sometime in that fell struggle he must have drawn his weakened body as far as the narrow window, and hanging to the iron bars have looked down on the wild scene beneath him. In the red glare of torches held from windows and from roof he saw the rush and swirl of men below, the ruddy light shining back from glowing brass and gleaming steel. As a wild vision it came to him afterwards, the beauty and the splendour, the flying lambrequins, the jeweled crests, the blazonry and richness of surcoat and of shield, where sable and gules, argent and vair, in every pattern of saltire, bend or chevron, glowed beneath him like a drift of many-coloured blossoms, tossing, sinking, stooping into shadow, springing into light. There glared the bloodred gules of Chandos, and he saw the tall figure of his master, a thunderbolt of war, raging in the van. There too were the three black chevrons on the golden shield which marked the noble Manny. That strong swordsman must surely be the royal Edward himself, since only he and the black-armoured swift-footed youth at his side were marked by no symbol of heraldry.
“Manny! Manny! George for England!” rose the deep-throated bay, and ever the gallant counter-cry: “À Chargny! À Chargny! Saint Denis for France!” thundered amid the clash and thudding of the battle.
Such was the vague whirling memory still lingering in Nigel’s mind when at last the mists cleared away from it and he found himself weak but clear on the low couch in the corner turret. Beside him, crushing lavender between his rough fingers and strewing it over floor and sheets, was Aylward the archer. His longbow leaned at the foot of the bed, and his steel cap was balanced on the top of it, while he himself, sitting in his shirtsleeves, fanned off the flies and scattered the fragrant herbs over his helpless master.
“By my hilt!” he cried with a sudden shout, every tooth in his head gleaming with joy, “I thank the Virgin and all the saints for this blessed sight! I had not dared to go back to Tilford had I lost you. Three weeks have you lain there and babbled like a babe, but now I see in your eyes that you are your own man again.”
“I have indeed had some small hurt,” said Nigel feebly; “but it is shame and sorrow that I should lie here if there is work for my hands. Whither go you, archer?”
“To tell the good Sir John that you are mending.”
“Nay, bide with me a little longer, Aylward. I can call to mind all that has passed. There was a bickering of small boats, was there not, and I chanced upon a most worthy person and exchanged handstrokes with him? He was my prisoner, was he not?”
“He was, fair sir.”
“And where is he now?”
“Below in the castle.”
A smile stole over Nigel’s pale face. “I know what I will do with him,” said he.
“I pray you to rest, fair sir,” said Aylward anxiously. “The King’s own leech saw you this morning, and he said that if the bandage was torn from your head you would surely die.”
“Nay, good archer, I will not move. But tell me what befell upon the boat?”
“There is little to tell, fair sir. Had this Ferret not been his own squire and taken so long a time to don his harness it is likely that they would have had the better of us. He did not reach the battle till his comrades were on their backs. Him we took to the Marie Rose, because he was your man. The others were of no worth, so we threw them into the sea.”
“The quick and the dead?”
“Every man of them.”
“It was an evil deed.”
Aylward shrugged his
