'n.o.ble countess,' he exclaimed, with a long sobbing sigh, that showed how great the effort was to speak words that might close for ever his half-opened prison door, 'against whom am I to defend thee? Am I to fight men who are faithful to their knightly vows, by the side of traitors who have broken troth?'

'My son! my son!' interposed Father Pierre anxiously. The knight's bold words brought home the unvarnished truth of the situation with a startling clearness, which his own dreamy nature had enabled him to shirk facing hitherto.

Emma proved cowardly; she evaded a direct answer, and sheltered herself behind the privileges of her s.e.x.

'Surely thy vow of chivalry binds thee to succour ladies in danger? We are in danger, myself and my ladies. Eadgyth of Norwich,'--she paused and looked in his face. De Sourdeval made a gesture of distress,--'Dame Amicia, whose age and infirmity should nerve the arm of a brave young knight and all our band, need the help of every stalwart friend who can be found. Still further, Sir Aimand, famine is our most dread foe,' she added, half smiling at the inhospitable thought. 'We can ill support idle mouths in Blancheflour.'

'Let me then starve, dear lady,' replied De Sourdeval in a low voice of desperate earnest, and avoiding her too persuasive eyes. 'I cannot lift my hand against my heart's witness to the right.'

'Fight not then, n.o.ble Sir Aimand!' exclaimed the countess, deeply moved. 'Only pa.s.s thy knightly pledge not to betray us to the foe, or to struggle to escape, and thou shalt be free! Nay, if we make a prisoner we will honourably exchange thee!'

'Not even that can I do, n.o.ble countess,' said Sir Aimand with unwavering firmness. 'I cannot pledge myself not to help the right.'

'Nay then, thou art obstinate!' cried Emma, stamping on the stones with one of the gold-embroidered slippers which Father Pierre had observed to be ill suited to dungeon floors, and turning away.

Sir Aimand bowed his head in silence, and made no effort to recall her, as she swept towards the door, though his trembling lips and clenched fingers showed the fierceness of the struggle he was making.

But Emma paused before she reached the door. 'Thou art too proud, Sir Knight,' she said coldly. 'But few can rival the Fitzosberns in that quality, and I also have my pride. I scorn to make conditions with a man circ.u.mstanced as thou art. Abuse my generosity if thou list. Thou art free!'

'Mary Mother in heaven bless thee for thy goodness, n.o.ble countess!'

cried De Sourdeval, raising his head with a start of joy. 'Yet methinks I am scarce free yet!' He lifted his shackled limbs, and made the heavy irons clang upon the floor.

'Ah, good St. Nicholas, no!' cried Emma, with a fresh shock, as she realised what sufferings the prisoner must have undergone. 'But thou shalt be free before the sun is in the sky.'

'n.o.ble countess,' interrupted a harsh voice behind her, 'what means thy presence in this cell at such an hour? By the Rood! thou dost great honour to the would-be murderer of thy husband.'

'Liar!' hissed the prisoner between his set teeth.

Emma turned with a start to face Sir Alain de Gourin, his cheeks purple with pa.s.sion, and his quivering hand on the hilt of his _misericorde_.

The countess thought it politic to ignore his speech, although every word had reached her ears.

'Sir Alain!' she exclaimed, simulating pleasure at his appearance. 'Thy coming is most opportune. I was about to send a messenger to thee. Give orders forthwith that the irons be struck from the limbs of this worthy knight without delay. He hath been shrewdly misunderstood, and my will is that he be set free!'

She looked the mercenary hardily in the face as she gave him her command, and the villain quailed. He saw that he had come too late to prevent her from hearing Sir Aimand's statement of the case.

He accepted the oblivion in which she had buried his first insulting speech, and took an entirely different tone. 'Thy will is law, n.o.ble countess,' he said obsequiously, and with a low bow.

Emma did not retire to rest until she knew that the knight was comfortably lodged in the state apartments of the castle.

The Breton had been completely taken by surprise. He had imposed upon the earl with a story which the latter, in the excitement attendant upon his ambitious enterprise, had neglected to verify, and it had never entered his head that the countess would trouble herself about the matter. He supposed that the earl himself had at least spoken to her of Sir Aimand as a culprit, and that she was entirely ignorant of his presence as a prisoner in the castle; as she had been, until the strange impulse which came to her to have a ma.s.s said for him, caused her to name him to the chaplain.

Even in case of her finding the matter out and wishing to probe it, he had an ingenious story ready, wherewith to put her off the scent.

But the suddenness with which she had taken matters into her own hands, and had visited the prisoner and heard _his_ version of the facts, quite overcame the somewhat clumsy wit of the Breton.

His first impulse, as usual, had been to bl.u.s.ter, but the firmness with which the countess confronted him had fairly cowed him for the moment, as he knew that he would have to justify himself, and to eat a good many of his words before Sir Hoel and the Norman knights of the garrison, to whom he had accounted for De Sourdeval's absence by representing that he had been sent on an emba.s.sy by the earl.

Many were the curses that he inwardly showered on the devoted head of Father Pierre, to whom he attributed the discovery of his schemes, and he also reviled himself for having forgotten him as a possible channel of communication between the prisoner and the countess.

His wits had not been the brighter for the hour at which Emma had happened on her inopportune discovery, for he had been indulging freely in his favourite spiced hippocras during the evening, and therefore it seemed best to his clumsy cunning to offer no further open opposition to the countess, and to carry out her orders himself, thus gaining time to concoct plausible excuses before Sir Hoel should know of the affair.

Emma also kept her own counsel, and did not say a word even to Eadgyth, when the Saxon maiden, who slept in her chamber, came to help her to unrobe.

When Eadgyth ventured a question as to what had detained her to such a late hour, the countess smiled and kissed her.

'Thou shalt know all in good time, dear donzelle,' she answered. 'Ask me not to-night.'

CHAPTER XX.

a OUTRANCE.

The morning came, and with it cares more important than the fate of the poor Knight of Sourdeval.

Before the dew was off the meadows, the shrill trumpets of the besiegers were heard at the barbican, demanding a parley, and calling for admittance in the name of the king.

The countess, holding counsel with Sir Hoel de St. Brice and Sir Alain de Gourin, and other of the knights of the garrison, replied that she would accede to the parley, and receive the messenger in person; and, accordingly, the messenger was blindfolded, admitted within the castle, and conducted to the council-chamber in the great tower.

The knight who bore the message of the king's lieutenants was sheathed in complete armour, and exceedingly stately in his mien and figure, being tall and of great personal strength. He was no other than Robert Malet, whose father, the loved and honoured William Malet, had been in bodily prowess second to none but the Conqueror himself of those who fought on the Norman side at Hastings.

As he entered the room, the rebel knights instinctively straightened themselves, and a.s.sumed such dignity of bearing as they were capable of showing; but none bore comparison with him save Leofric Ealdredsson, the stalwart Anglo-Dane, who had never bent the knee to the Norman Conqueror, and who now stood at the right hand of the countess, with the lightnings of a n.o.ble defiance gleaming in his blue eyes.

Yet Malet himself was to become a rebel before his death. When the silken kerchief with which his eyes had been covered was removed, he gazed proudly round the a.s.sembly, and bowed his tall head to the countess alone.

'In the name of William the Conqueror, King of England and Duke of Normandy,' he said in a commanding voice, 'I call upon Ralph de Guader and Montfort, heretofore Earl of East Anglia, but deprived of his earldom for that he has wrongfully taken arms against his suzerain and liege lord; and I demand that he instantly surrenders this castle, which he holds only as the Constable of the king. I demand that entrance into the said castle be at once given to the troops of his Grace the king, and that he thereby refrain from adding still further to his guilt, by contumaciously retaining it.'

'The Earl of East Anglia hath taken ship from this country, and hath devolved the duties of Castellan upon me, his countess,' replied Emma calmly.

'In that case, n.o.ble lady,--I cannot style thee countess, for thou hast no longer right to the t.i.tle,--I call upon thee, as Castellan of this castle of Blauncheflour, to surrender it to the lieutenants of thy liege and kinsman, William of Normandy,' answered the young knight, fixing his keen blue eyes upon Emma's fair face, whose features, worn by the anxiety she had undergone, were pathetic in their pallor, and moved his heart to pity. 'I may well suppose,' he continued boldly, 'that in so doing thou wilt with pleasure disburden thy slender shoulders of so heavy and unwomanly a burden.'

Emma drew herself up with a slight gesture of disdain for such misbestowed sympathy. The knight responded by adding hastily, 'Moreover, I would appeal to thy gentleness and natural instincts of mercy to prevent the useless shedding of blood which the holding of this castle must cause, by prolonging a struggle which can only end one way.'

Emma's delicate nostrils quivered, and the fine firm lips set fiercely.

'The Countess of East Anglia desires to know the terms on which she is asked to yield up her faithful garrison to the tender mercies of the men who mutilated Stephen le Hareau,' she said, still calmly, but with flashing eyes, and due emphasis on her t.i.tle. 'The race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, and methinks her gentleness and love of mercy are more nearly concerned in preventing her faithful defenders from encountering such a fate as his.'

'To the Castellan of Blauncheflour I reply, that the surrender must be without conditions,' answered the knight.

'In that case,' answered Emma, 'the Countess of East Anglia replies, that her garrison will win their own terms by their swords.'

Leofric Ealdredsson burst out with a loud 'Ahoi!' in the exuberance of his approbation, and clashed his heavy axe upon the floor, his many bracelets jingling like small bells. 'Well said!' exclaimed the venerable Sir Hoel de St. Brice, looking at the young countess with an expression of reverent affection, and from one and all the representatives of the garrison who stood around her chair broke various expressions of approval.

The countess turned to her knights with sparkling eyes. 'I have ye with me, then, in this reply, fair sirs?' she asked, and the tumult of a.s.sent with which they answered hindered Robert Malet, for some moments, from further speech.

In truth the enthusiasm was contagious, and the royal envoy's own eyes flashed. The chivalrous spirit of Fitzosbern's daughter jumped well with his humour. He had been a sorry Norman else; no true heritor of the wild sea-kings. It cost him some effort to resist his impulse to join in the applause, but he controlled himself, and said gravely, 'I pray thee, n.o.ble lady, to consider well before coming to so direful a decision; involving, as it doth, no less an issue than the adding of high treason on thine own part to the heavy guilt of the man thou hast wedded against the express mandate of thy suzerain. The daughter of William Fitzosbern should be slow to draw the sword against William of Normandy.'