Ivanhoe - Walter Scott (e ink ebook reader txt) 📗
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strange reply of Bois-Guilbert, gave Rebecca leisure to examine
and instantly to destroy the scroll unobserved. When the whisper
had ceased, the Grand Master spoke.
“Rebecca, thou canst derive no benefit from the evidence of this
unhappy knight, for whom, as we well perceive, the Enemy is yet
too powerful. Hast thou aught else to say?”
“There is yet one chance of life left to me,” said Rebecca, “even
by your own fierce laws. Life has been miserable---miserable, at
least, of late---but I will not cast away the gift of God, while
he affords me the means of defending it. I deny this charge---I
maintain my innocence, and I declare the falsehood of this
accusation---I challenge the privilege of trial by combat, and
will appear by my champion.”
“And who, Rebecca,” replied the Grand Master, “will lay lance in
rest for a sorceress? who will be the champion of a Jewess?”
“God will raise me up a champion,” said Rebecca---“It cannot be
that in merry England---the hospitable, the generous, the free,
where so many are ready to peril their lives for honour, there
will not be found one to fight for justice. But it is enough
that I challenge the trial by combat---there lies my gage.”
She took her embroidered glove from her hand, and flung it down
before the Grand Master with an air of mingled simplicity and
dignity, which excited universal surprise and admiration.
CHAPTER XXXVIII
------There I throw my gage,
To prove it on thee to the extremest point
Of martial daring.
Richard II
Even Lucas Beaumanoir himself was affected by the mien and
appearance of Rebecca. He was not originally a cruel or even a
severe man; but with passions by nature cold, and with a high,
though mistaken, sense of duty, his heart had been gradually
hardened by the ascetic life which he pursued, the supreme power
which he enjoyed, and the supposed necessity of subduing
infidelity and eradicating heresy, which he conceived peculiarly
incumbent on him. His features relaxed in their usual severity
as he gazed upon the beautiful creature before him, alone,
unfriended, and defending herself with so much spirit and
courage. He crossed himself twice, as doubting whence arose the
unwonted softening of a heart, which on such occasions used to
resemble in hardness the steel of his sword. At length he spoke.
“Damsel,” he said, “if the pity I feel for thee arise from any
practice thine evil arts have made on me, great is thy guilt.
But I rather judge it the kinder feelings of nature, which
grieves that so goodly a form should be a vessel of perdition.
Repent, my daughter---confess thy witchcrafts---turn thee from
thine evil faith---embrace this holy emblem, and all shall yet be
well with thee here and hereafter. In some sisterhood of the
strictest order, shalt thou have time for prayer and fitting
penance, and that repentance not to be repented of. This do and
live---what has the law of Moses done for thee that thou
shouldest die for it?”
“It was the law of my fathers,” said Rebecca; “it was delivered
in thunders and in storms upon the mountain of Sinai, in cloud
and in fire. This, if ye are Christians, ye believe---it is, you
say, recalled; but so my teachers have not taught me.”
“Let our chaplain,” said Beaumanoir, “stand forth, and tell this
obstinate infidel---”
“Forgive the interruption,” said Rebecca, meekly; “I am a maiden,
unskilled to dispute for my religion, but I can die for it, if it
be God’s will.---Let me pray your answer to my demand of a
champion.”
“Give me her glove,” said Beaumanoir. “This is indeed,” he
continued, as he looked at the flimsy texture and slender
fingers, “a slight and frail gage for a purpose so deadly!
---Seest thou, Rebecca, as this thin and light glove of thine is
to one of our heavy steel gauntlets, so is thy cause to that of
the Temple, for it is our Order which thou hast defied.”
“Cast my innocence into the scale,” answered Rebecca, “and the
glove of silk shall outweigh the glove of iron.”
“Then thou dost persist in thy refusal to confess thy guilt, and
in that bold challenge which thou hast made?”
“I do persist, noble sir,” answered Rebecca.
“So be it then, in the name of Heaven,” said the Grand Master;
“and may God show the right!”
“Amen,” replied the Preceptors around him, and the word was
deeply echoed by the whole assembly.
“Brethren,” said Beaumanoir, “you are aware that we might well
have refused to this woman the benefit of the trial by combat
---but though a Jewess and an unbeliever, she is also a stranger
and defenceless, and God forbid that she should ask the benefit
of our mild laws, and that it should be refused to her.
Moreover, we are knights and soldiers as well as men of religion,
and shame it were to us upon any pretence, to refuse proffered
combat. Thus, therefore, stands the case. Rebecca, the daughter
of Isaac of York, is, by many frequent and suspicious
circumstances, defamed of sorcery practised on the person of a
noble knight of our holy Order, and hath challenged the combat in
proof of her innocence. To whom, reverend brethren, is it your
opinion that we should deliver the gage of battle, naming him, at
the same time, to be our champion on the field?”
“To Brian de Bois-Guilbert, whom it chiefly concerns,” said the
Preceptor of Goodalricke, “and who, moreover, best knows how the
truth stands in this matter.”
“But if,” said the Grand Master, “our brother Brian be under the
influence of a charm or a spell---we speak but for the sake of
precaution, for to the arm of none of our holy Order would we
more willingly confide this or a more weighty cause.”
“Reverend father,” answered the Preceptor of Goodalricke, “no
spell can effect the champion who comes forward to fight for the
judgment of God.”
“Thou sayest right, brother,” said the Grand Master. “Albert
Malvoisin, give this gage of battle to Brian de Bois-Guilbert.
---It is our charge to thee, brother,” he continued, addressing
himself to Bois-Guilbert, “that thou do thy battle manfully,
nothing doubting that the good cause shall triumph.---And do
thou, Rebecca, attend, that we assign thee the third day from the
present to find a champion.”
“That is but brief space,” answered Rebecca, “for a stranger, who
is also of another faith, to find one who will do battle,
wagering life and honour for her cause, against a knight who is
called an approved soldier.”
“We may not extend it,” answered the Grand Master; “the field
must be foughten in our own presence, and divers weighty causes
call us on the fourth day from hence.”
“God’s will be done!” said Rebecca; “I put my trust in Him, to
whom an instant is as effectual to save as a whole age.”
“Thou hast spoken well, damsel,” said the Grand Master; “but well
know we who can array himself like an angel of light. It remains
but to name a fitting place of combat, and, if it so hap, also of
execution.---Where is the Preceptor of this house?”
Albert Malvoisin, still holding Rebecca’s glove in his hand, was
speaking to Bois-Guilbert very earnestly, but in a low voice.
“How!” said the Grand Master, “will he not receive the gage?”
“He will---he doth, most Reverend Father,” said Malvoisin,
slipping the glove under his own mantle. “And for the place of
combat, I hold the fittest to be the lists of Saint George
belonging to this Preceptory, and used by us for military
exercise.”
“It is well,” said the Grand Master.---“Rebecca, in those lists
shalt thou produce thy champion; and if thou failest to do so, or
if thy champion shall be discomfited by the judgment of God, thou
shalt then die the death of a sorceress, according to doom.---Let
this our judgment be recorded, and the record read aloud, that no
one may pretend ignorance.”
One of the chaplains, who acted as clerks to the chapter,
immediately engrossed the order in a huge volume, which contained
the proceedings of the Templar Knights when solemnly assembled on
such occasions; and when he had finished writing, the other read
aloud the sentence of the Grand Master, which, when translated
from the Norman-French in which it was couched, was expressed as
follows.---
“Rebecca, a Jewess, daughter of Isaac of York, being attainted of
sorcery, seduction, and other damnable practices, practised on a
Knight of the most Holy Order of the Temple of Zion, doth deny
the same; and saith, that the testimony delivered against her
this day is false, wicked, and disloyal; and that by lawful
‘essoine’*
“Essoine” signifies excuse, and here relates to the appellant’s privilege of appearing by her champion, in excuse of her own person on account of her sex.of her body as being unable to combat in her own behalf, she doth
offer, by a champion instead thereof, to avouch her case, he
performing his loyal ‘devoir’ in all knightly sort, with such
arms as to gage of battle do fully appertain, and that at her
peril and cost. And therewith she proffered her gage. And the
gage having been delivered to the noble Lord and Knight, Brian de
Bois-Guilbert, of the Holy Order of the Temple of Zion, he was
appointed to do this battle, in behalf of his Order and himself,
as injured and impaired by the practices of the appellant.
Wherefore the most reverend Father and puissant Lord, Lucas
Marquis of Beaumanoir, did allow of the said challenge, and of
the said ‘essoine’ of the appellant’s body, and assigned the
third day for the said combat, the place being the enclosure
called the lists of Saint George, near to the Preceptory of
Templestowe. And the Grand Master appoints the appellant to
appear there by her champion, on pain of doom, as a person
convicted of sorcery or seduction; and also the defendant so to
appear, under the penalty of being held and adjudged recreant in
case of default; and the noble Lord and most reverend Father
aforesaid appointed the battle to be done in his own presence,
and according to all that is commendable and profitable in such a
case. And may God aid the just cause!”
“Amen!” said the Grand Master; and the word was echoed by all
around. Rebecca spoke not, but she looked up to heaven, and,
folding her hands, remained for a minute without change of
attitude. She then modestly reminded the Grand Master, that she
ought to be permitted some opportunity of free communication with
her friends, for the purpose of making her condition known to
them, and procuring, if possible, some champion to fight in her
behalf.
“It is just and lawful,” said the Grand Master; “choose what
messenger thou shalt trust, and he shall have free communication
with thee in thy prison-chamber.”
“Is there,” said Rebecca, “any one here, who, either for love of
a good cause, or for ample hire, will do the errand of a
distressed being?”
All were silent; for none thought it safe, in the presence of the
Grand Master, to avow any interest in the calumniated prisoner,
lest he should be suspected of leaning towards Judaism. Not even
the prospect of reward, far less any feelings of compassion
alone, could surmount this apprehension.
Rebecca stood for a few moments in indescribable anxiety, and
then exclaimed, “Is it really thus?---And, in English land, am I
to be deprived of the poor chance of safety which remains to me,
for want of an act of charity which would not be refused to the
worst criminal?”
Higg, the son of Snell, at length replied, “I am but a maimed
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