Ivanhoe - Walter Scott (e ink ebook reader txt) 📗
- Author: Walter Scott
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himself in the lists, either from weakness, weariness, or both,
seemed scarce able to support himself in the saddle.
To the summons of the herald, who demanded his rank, his name,
and purpose, the stranger knight answered readily and boldly, “I
am a good knight and noble, come hither to sustain with lance and
sword the just and lawful quarrel of this damsel, Rebecca,
daughter of Isaac of York; to uphold the doom pronounced against
her to be false and truthless, and to defy Sir Brian de
Bois-Guilbert, as a traitor, murderer, and liar; as I will prove
in this field with my body against his, by the aid of God, of Our
Lady, and of Monseigneur Saint George, the good knight.”
“The stranger must first show,” said Malvoisin, “that he is good
knight, and of honourable lineage. The Temple sendeth not forth
her champions against nameless men.”
“My name,” said the Knight, raising his helmet, “is better known,
my lineage more pure, Malvoisin, than thine own. I am Wilfred
of Ivanhoe.”
“I will not fight with thee at present,” said the Templar, in a
changed and hollow voice. “Get thy wounds healed, purvey thee a
better horse, and it may be I will hold it worth my while to
scourge out of thee this boyish spirit of bravado.”
“Ha! proud Templar,” said Ivanhoe, “hast thou forgotten that
twice didst thou fall before this lance? Remember the lists at
Acre---remember the Passage of Arms at Ashby---remember thy proud
vaunt in the halls of Rotherwood, and the gage of your gold chain
against my reliquary, that thou wouldst do battle with Wilfred of
Ivanhoe, and recover the honour thou hadst lost! By that
reliquary and the holy relic it contains, I will proclaim thee,
Templar, a coward in every court in Europe---in every Preceptory
of thine Order—unless thou do battle without farther delay.”
Bois-Guilbert turned his countenance irresolutely towards
Rebecca, and then exclaimed, looking fiercely at Ivanhoe, “Dog of
a Saxon! take thy lance, and prepare for the death thou hast
drawn upon thee!”
“Does the Grand Master allow me the combat?” said Ivanhoe.
“I may not deny what thou hast challenged,” said the Grand
Master, “provided the maiden accepts thee as her champion. Yet I
would thou wert in better plight to do battle. An enemy of our
Order hast thou ever been, yet would I have thee honourably met
with.”
“Thus---thus as I am, and not otherwise,” said Ivanhoe; “it is
the judgment of God---to his keeping I commend myself.
---Rebecca,” said he, riding up to the fatal chair, “dost thou
accept of me for thy champion?”
“I do,” she said---“I do,” fluttered by an emotion which the fear
of death had been unable to produce, “I do accept thee as the
champion whom Heaven hath sent me. Yet, no---no---thy wounds are
uncured---Meet not that proud man---why shouldst thou perish
also?”
But Ivanhoe was already at his post, and had closed his visor,
and assumed his lance. Bois-Guilbert did the same; and his
esquire remarked, as he clasped his visor, that his face, which
had, notwithstanding the variety of emotions by which he had been
agitated, continued during the whole morning of an ashy paleness,
was now become suddenly very much flushed.
The herald, then, seeing each champion in his place, uplifted his
voice, repeating thrice---“Faites vos devoirs, preux chevaliers!”
After the third cry, he withdrew to one side of the lists, and
again proclaimed, that none, on peril of instant death, should
dare, by word, cry, or action, to interfere with or disturb this
fair field of combat. The Grand Master, who held in his hand the
gage of battle, Rebecca’s glove, now threw it into the lists, and
pronounced the fatal signal words, “Laissez aller”.
The trumpets sounded, and the knights charged each other in full
career. The wearied horse of Ivanhoe, and its no less exhausted
rider, went down, as all had expected, before the well-aimed
lance and vigorous steed of the Templar. This issue of the
combat all had foreseen; but although the spear of Ivanhoe did
but, in comparison, touch the shield of Bois-Guilbert, that
champion, to the astonishment of all who beheld it reeled in his
saddle, lost his stirrups, and fell in the lists.
Ivanhoe, extricating himself from his fallen horse, was soon on
foot, hastening to mend his fortune with his sword; but his
antagonist arose not. Wilfred, placing his foot on his breast,
and the sword’s point to his throat, commanded him to yield him,
or die on the spot. Bois-Guilbert returned no answer.
“Slay him not, Sir Knight,” cried the Grand Master, “unshriven
and unabsolved---kill not body and soul! We allow him
vanquished.”
He descended into the lists, and commanded them to unhelm the
conquered champion. His eyes were closed---the dark red flush
was still on his brow. As they looked on him in astonishment,
the eyes opened---but they were fixed and glazed. The flush
passed from his brow, and gave way to the pallid hue of death.
Unscathed by the lance of his enemy, he had died a victim to the
violence of his own contending passions.
“This is indeed the judgment of God,” said the Grand Master,
looking upwards---“‘Fiat voluntas tua!’”
CHAPTER XLIV
So! now ‘tis ended, like an old wife’s story.
Webster
When the first moments of surprise were over, Wilfred of Ivanhoe
demanded of the Grand Master, as judge of the field, if he had
manfully and rightfully done his duty in the combat? “Manfully
and rightfully hath it been done,” said the Grand Master. “I
pronounce the maiden free and guiltless---The arms and the body
of the deceased knight are at the will of the victor.”
“I will not despoil him of his weapons,” said the Knight of
Ivanhoe, “nor condemn his corpse to shame---he hath fought for
Christendom---God’s arm, no human hand, hath this day struck him
down. But let his obsequies be private, as becomes those of a
man who died in an unjust quarrel.---And for the maiden---”
He was interrupted by a clattering of horses’ feet, advancing in
such numbers, and so rapidly, as to shake the ground before them;
and the Black Knight galloped into the lists. He was followed by
a numerous band of men-at-arms, and several knights in complete
armour.
“I am too late,” he said, looking around him. “I had doomed
Bois-Guilbert for mine own property.---Ivanhoe, was this well,
to take on thee such a venture, and thou scarce able to keep thy
saddle?”
“Heaven, my Liege,” answered Ivanhoe, “hath taken this proud man
for its victim. He was not to be honoured in dying as your will
had designed.”
“Peace be with him,” said Richard, looking steadfastly on the
corpse, “if it may be so---he was a gallant knight, and has died
in his steel harness full knightly. But we must waste no time
---Bohun, do thine office!”
A Knight stepped forward from the King’s attendants, and, laying
his hand on the shoulder of Albert de Malvoisin, said, “I arrest
thee of High Treason.”
The Grand Master had hitherto stood astonished at the appearance
of so many warriors.---He now spoke.
“Who dares to arrest a Knight of the Temple of Zion, within the
girth of his own Preceptory, and in the presence of the Grand
Master? and by whose authority is this bold outrage offered?”
“I make the arrest,” replied the Knight---“I, Henry Bohun, Earl
of Essex, Lord High Constable of England.”
“And he arrests Malvoisin,” said the King, raising his visor, “by
the order of Richard Plantagenet, here present.---Conrade
Mont-Fitchet, it is well for thee thou art born no subject of
mine.---But for thee, Malvoisin, thou diest with thy brother
Philip, ere the world be a week older.”
“I will resist thy doom,” said the Grand Master.
“Proud Templar,” said the King, “thou canst not---look up, and
behold the Royal Standard of England floats over thy towers
instead of thy Temple banner!---Be wise, Beaumanoir, and make no
bootless opposition---Thy hand is in the lion’s mouth.”
“I will appeal to Rome against thee,” said the Grand Master, “for
usurpation on the immunities and privileges of our Order.”
“Be it so,” said the King; “but for thine own sake tax me not
with usurpation now. Dissolve thy Chapter, and depart with thy
followers to thy next Preceptory, (if thou canst find one), which
has not been made the scene of treasonable conspiracy against the
King of England---Or, if thou wilt, remain, to share our
hospitality, and behold our justice.”
“To be a guest in the house where I should command?” said the
Templar; “never!---Chaplains, raise the Psalm, ‘Quare fremuerunt
Gentes?’---Knights, squires, and followers of the Holy Temple,
prepare to follow the banner of ‘Beau-seant!’”
The Grand Master spoke with a dignity which confronted even that
of England’s king himself, and inspired courage into his
surprised and dismayed followers. They gathered around him like
the sheep around the watch-dog, when they hear the baying of the
wolf. But they evinced not the timidity of the scared flock
---there were dark brows of defiance, and looks which menaced the
hostility they dared not to proffer in words. They drew together
in a dark line of spears, from which the white cloaks of the
knights were visible among the dusky garments of their retainers,
like the lighter-coloured edges of a sable cloud. The multitude,
who had raised a clamorous shout of reprobation, paused and gazed
in silence on the formidable and experienced body to which they
had unwarily bade defiance, and shrunk back from their front.
The Earl of Essex, when he beheld them pause in their assembled
force, dashed the rowels into his charger’s sides, and galloped
backwards and forwards to array his followers, in opposition to a
band so formidable. Richard alone, as if he loved the danger his
presence had provoked, rode slowly along the front of the
Templars, calling aloud, “What, sirs! Among so many gallant
knights, will none dare splinter a spear with Richard?---Sirs of
the Temple! your ladies are but sun-burned, if they are not worth
the shiver of a broken lance?”
“The Brethren of the Temple,” said the Grand Master, riding
forward in advance of their body, “fight not on such idle and
profane quarrel---and not with thee, Richard of England, shall a
Templar cross lance in my presence. The Pope and Princes of
Europe shall judge our quarrel, and whether a Christian prince
has done well in bucklering the cause which thou hast to-day
adopted. If unassailed, we depart assailing no one. To thine
honour we refer the armour and household goods of the Order which
we leave behind us, and on thy conscience we lay the scandal and
offence thou hast this day given to Christendom.”
With these words, and without waiting a reply, the Grand Master
gave the signal of departure. Their trumpets sounded a wild
march, of an Oriental character, which formed the usual signal
for the Templars to advance. They changed their array from a
line to a column of march, and moved off as slowly as their
horses could step, as if to show it was only the will of their
Grand Master, and no fear of the opposing and superior force,
which compelled them to withdraw.
“By the splendour of Our Lady’s brow!” said King Richard, “it is
pity of their lives that these Templars are not so trusty as they
are disciplined and valiant.”
The multitude, like a timid cur which waits to bark till the
object of its challenge has turned his back, raised a feeble
shout as the rear of the squadron left the ground.
During the tumult which attended the retreat of the Templars,
Rebecca saw and heard nothing---she was locked in the arms of her
aged father, giddy, and
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