Noémi
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Consequently, families were much mixed up with both parties. Unless a seigneur was out on a raid, he would associate on terms of friendliness with the very men whom he would hang on the next occasion. Kinsfolk were in every camp. The seigneurs had allies everywhere; but their kinsfolk were not always their allies – were often their deadliest enemies.
The mother of Noémi was akin to the family of Tarde. Indeed, her aunt was the mother of Jean and Jacques, who were, accordingly, her first cousins. The Tarde family were French; no one in Gageac was English. By interest, by tradition, the place was true to the Lilies.
A little way up the river, on the further side, was Domme, which was held by the English. Noémi passed from the English to the French town, and nothing was thought of it that she was as much at home with her cousins in La Roque Gageac as among her mother's attendants at Domme. Even the young Tardes might have gone to the market in the English town and have returned unmolested.
The bullies of Guillem in like manner swaggered where they listed, penetrated to Gageac, when there was a dance or a drinking bout; and, so long as they came unarmed, were allowed admittance.
No one could say whether there was peace or war. There was a little of one and a little of the other. Whenever a roysterer was weary of doing nothing, he gathered his men together and made a raid; whenever a captain wanted to pay his men, he plundered a village. Otherwise, all went on tolerably quietly. There was no marching across the country of great bodies of armed men, no protracted sieges, no battles in which whole hosts were engaged. But there was incessant fear, there were small violences, there was no certainty of safety. There was no central power to control the wrong-doers, no justice to mete out to them the reward of their deeds. When the lion and the wolf and the bear are hungry, then they raven for food; when glutted, they lie down and sleep. The barons and free captains and little seigneurs were the lions, wolves, and bears that infested Guyenne and Périgord. They were now on the alert and rending, then ensued a period of quietude.
Little passed between Jean del' Peyra and Noémi on the way. She was mounted on a fresh horse, and attended by two serving-men of the Tardes, as Jacques and Jean could not accompany her, having duties connected with the little town to discharge that day which required their presence. Jean del' Peyra was on his fagged steed, and could not keep up with the rest. Jean was not sanguine that the girl would prevail with her father, but he was grateful that she should make the attempt.
On reaching the point at the junction of the Beune with the Vézère where the roads or tracks diverged, the one to the Church of Guillem, the other to the ford at Tayac, Noémi halted till Jean came up.
"I am going to see my father," she said. "I will come on to Ste. Soure when I have his answer – but I trust I shall bring to you your men."
"I thank you," answered the lad.
"Come, Jean," said the girl; "you will not think so ill of me as you have done. Give me your hand."
"I cannot think ill now of one who is doing her best to relieve my father and me in a case of pressing necessity, and of saving seven families from worse than death."
He put out his hand and pressed hers, but without cordiality. The hand he took was that of the daughter of the scourge of the country. He could not forget that; he touched the hand of the child of the man who had brought desolation into the home of the Rossignols.
Noémi left the attendants with her horse at the foot of the steep ascent that led to the Church of Guillem.
The ascent was up a slope of crumbled chalk and flints hardly held together by a little wiry grass, some straggling pinks, and bushes of box and juniper. The incline was as rapid as that of a Gothic house-roof. Of path there was none, for every man who scrambled up mounted his own way, and his footprints sent shale and dust over the footprints of his predecessor. The plateau through which the river has sawn its way is some four hundred feet at the highest point above the bed of the stream; in some places the cliffs are not only perpendicular, they overhang. They rise at once from the river that washes their bases and undermines them, or from the alluvial flats that have been formed by floods. This was not the case at L'Eglise Guillem. The stronghold of Guillem occupied a terrace in the abrupt scarp where it rose out of an immense slope of rubble, very much as at Ste. Soure, a little below it on the further bank. Here, as there, the rubble slope was a protection as great as a precipice. It was not as difficult to climb, but it could not be climbed without those in the stronghold being able to roll down rocks, discharge weapons at such as were laboriously endeavouring to mount. Noémi reached a spring that issued from the side of the cliff in a dribble, was received in a basin, and the overflow nourished a dense growth of maidenhair-fern and moss. It was thence that the occupants of the castle derived their drinking-water. Hard by was the gateway. Here she was challenged, gave her name, and was admitted.
L'Eglise Guillem was oddly constructed. The depth of the caves or concave shelters was not great, not above twelve to fifteen feet, consequently would not admit of chambers and halls in which many men could move about. To gain space, beams had been driven into the natural wall of rock at the back of the caves, and brought forward to project some eight feet over the edge of the cliff. On these projecting rafters walls of timber filled in with stone had been erected, and lean-to roofs added to cover them, socketed into the cliff above the opening mouth of the cave or series of caves. This is still a method of construction in the country, with this exception – that such modern dwellings are not pendulous in mid-air, as were those of the free captains, but are now on solid floors, and consist of rooms, one half of which are caves, and the other half artificial excrescences.
By means of this overhanging portion of the castle, by a ladder a chamber could be reached, cut out in the face of the cliff immediately above the mouth of the natural cavern, a chamber at the present day visible, but absolutely inaccessible, since the wooden excrescence has disappeared by which it was reached. This upper chamber was the treasury of the castle.
To the present day not two miles up the valley of the Beune is a hamlet, a cluster of houses, called Grioteaux, built in a huge cave, but with the fronts somewhat beyond the upper lip of the cave; and in the face of the precipice above is precisely such a treasure-chamber, only to be reached by means of a ladder from the roof of the house below it.
"What – you here!" exclaimed the Great Guillem in surprise, when he saw the girl enter the one room in which were himself and his men, about a table, on which were scattered chalices from churches, women's jewellery, silken dresses, even sabots plucked off the feet of peasants. The captain was dividing spoil.
The Great Guillem was much as Jean del' Peyra had described him – tall, gaunt, with a high head, and baldness from his forehead to the crown, his hair sandy and turning grey, dense bushy red eyebrows, the palest of blue eyes, and a profusion of red hair about his jaws. The mouth was large, with thin lips, and teeth wide apart and pointed, as though they had been filed sharp. Men said he had a double row in his jaw. It was the mouth of a shark.
"Come here, little cat!" shouted the freebooter. "Here are we dogs of war dividing the plunder."
"What plunder, father? Did you get all these silks and trinkets from Ste. Soure?"
"From Ste. Soure indeed! Not that; nothing thence but wine-casks and grain; and a fine matter we have had hauling the barrels up into our kennel. What do you want with us, child?"
The girl looked at the men; there were a dozen, and her father the thirteenth. They were in rough and coarse clothing, each with a red cross on his left arm – a badge of allegiance to the Cross of St. George. Some of the companies wore a white or blue cross when serving no political party, but the Great Guillem was ostensibly in the English service, and as such had been given the commandantship of Domme. The men had been drinking, and were flushed, partly with wine, partly with excitement, as the division of the plunder was made by lot, the lot being a knucklebone in a bassinet. A lawless, insolent company, and one difficult to treat with.
Noémi was puzzled what to do. But she was a bold, spirited girl, and she said: "This is the first time I have been here. I claim largesse."
"Largesse!" laughed one of the men; "I say – the first time anyone enters he pays footing."
"He, yes," said the girl; "but with a woman it is other. I claim largesse."
"What do you mean? A share of the loot?"
"A large share," answered Noémi.
"I have two lots to one; I will surrender one to you," said Guillem.
"Of all the spoil?"
"Of all for which we are raffling."
"And the men – the seven men you took?"
"They are not in the game. We wait till the ransom comes, and that will be divided not by lot but by shares. Money is so divided, not – " Her father tossed over some odds and ends with which the table was cumbered.
"I want the seven men," said Noémi.
A roar of laughter greeted this demand.
"A hundred livres! That is a fine largesse," said one.
"It cannot be," said Guillem. "They belong to us all."
"Little one," shouted one half-drunken fellow, "we only divide among ourselves – merry companions. We take from those who are outside the band."
"But I am the Captain's daughter."
"That matters not; you are not a companion."
"Father, give me a lot."
"I will – my lot."
"And grant me a request."
"If you draw the highest lot, you shall have what you will – save a share in the loot, and to that you can have no right. We have our laws and are bound to abide by them."
"Let us draw, then."
The bassinet was passed round, and each drew. There were fourteen knucklebones in it. Noémi put in her hand first and drew, then each in succession.
"Hands open," shouted Guillem, and each fist was thrust forward on the table and opened flat, exposing the bone. The knuckles were numbered up to fourteen.
"Fourteen!" exclaimed Guillem, as he looked at the rude die in his daughter's palm.
"Best of three," said a man.
"Again!" called the Captain, after the bones had been thrown into the bassinet and shaken.
The same proceeding was gone through. Again each hand was exposed on the table.
"Fourteen again!"
"A woman and the devil have luck!" shouted one of the men. "There is no beating that!"
"Aye! but there is. If next time she draws one," retorted another. "She is a woman; I wish her well."
"Ah! you Roger; always honour the petticoat."
"Again!" thundered the Captain.
Once more hands were plunged into the iron cap, withdrawn, and placed clenched on the table.
"Reveal!" cried Guillem, and immediately the hands were turned up with the knuckle-bones.
"Fourteen!" again he shouted, as he held up the piece his daughter had exposed.
"Was ever luck like this!" stormed one man. "And I – I never draw above five."
"Well; what is your request?" asked Guillem.
"You have sworn to grant it me."
"Yes; if not against rule."
"Then make me one of the Company!"
A pause, then a shout: "The Red Cross! The Red Cross! Vive the new Companion!"
In an instant a piece of crimson silk brocade, an ecclesiastical vestment, was torn to shreds, and the rough hands of the freebooters were fastening two strips crosswise to Noémi's arm.
CHAPTER VIII.
IN THE DEVIL'S CUPS
"A new companion must justify his election," said the sullen man, who had throughout shown ill disposition towards Noémi.
"The new companion shall do so," answered Noémi. A deep colour flushed her olive skin. "For that I ask you to follow me, as well as that other comrade who was as inclined to be civil as you to be insolent. First, send down below and bid the two servants of the Tardes go on to Ste. Soure and tarry there till I go for them."
"You – to Ste. Soure?" said her father.
"Not now. But I do not desire to have the Tardes' men with me. They are not of the Company."
"What do you mean?"
"That I will justify my election," said Noémi. "And for that I take these two mates – and no others."
"It is not well that I go," said the sulky man. "But, if go I must, it is unwillingly."
"And I go with all my heart," said he whose name was Roger.
"What do you intend to do, child?" asked her father, puzzled and uneasy. "This is a farce. Take off the cross."
"No, it is no farce. I will not remove the cross till I have shown that I am worthy to be enrolled in your band."
"Then what will you do?"
"That is my secret."
"And you demand two of the companions?"
"Yes; two of the companions – he named Roger, and – "
"Amanieu?"
"Roger and Amanieu. I ask that they may accompany me and serve me and do my bidding – on my first chevauchée."
"La Pucelle! Another Joan! To the English! To the English! Vive la Pucelle de Domme! We will pit her against the Pucelle de Domrémi." The men shouted, hammered the table, and tossed the knucklebones about. They treated the matter as a joke.
Amanieu, the sulky man, was very angry at being fixed upon to make one of a party that would incur ridicule and expose him to the jeers of his fellows.
Le Gros Guillem now interfered. "If my daughter has said you are to attend, and I consent, you go. Guard her well."
Amanieu murmured no more. There was no insubordination in a Company.
The serving-men of the Tarde brothers were dismissed, and then Noémi prepared to depart along with her new attendants. Her father asked no further questions. The horses were brought from a stable cut in the rocks. They were nimble and sure of footing. Access to the stable was only to be had by a drawbridge let fall over a chasm, and from the further side of the gap a narrow track descended rapidly to the bottom of the valley.
At Noémi's request the men had drawn on jackets that concealed their red crosses, and no one seeing the little party would have conjectured that the girl was attended by some of the greatest ruffians and cut-throats in the country. She knew the character of the men, but was not afraid. The fear of her father entertained by all the band, and the discipline maintained in the Company, would prevent them from doing her harm.
Guillem was a man of few words, but of decision in action. The look of his pale eyes was enough, as he sent the men with Noémi, to take from them any spirit of insolence or rebellion had they entertained it. They knew without more words than the three uttered by Guillem, that if she came to harm through them, by their neglect, in any way, he was the man to put them to death by slow and horrible torture. They had seen that done once on a comrade who had disregarded a half-expressed order. He had been roasted over a slow fire.
The two men asked no questions when Noémi took the road to Sarlat, and along the road she did not speak with them. At Sarlat she bade them hold back while she went on alone and on foot to make an inquiry. Apparently satisfied at what she had learnt, she returned to the men, remounted her horse, and said, "Forward!"
She rode along the way to La Roque, a little ahead of the two men. The day was closing in. It would be dark by the time they reached her home.
Presently they came to a long and tedious ascent. The way had been at one time paved, but had not been repaired for a century. It ran up a hog's back or hill, through coppice that was cut every fourteen years for the making of charcoal, direct to the point where was the Devil's Table.
She halted, and turned to her followers; and they drew rein.
"Listen to me," she said. "You do not know whither I am leading you, for what purpose you follow me, or what is to be gained thereby. But one thing you do know, that you are placed under my command by Le Gros Guillem, and that you disobey at your peril. I will tell you wherefore you are following me; it is for your own advantage. You have carried away seven men from the Del' Peyras, and you have put them to ransom at a hundred livres. That is a large sum. It is to be divided among you into fourteen equal shares. But let me tell you that if this sum be not found – you will get nothing. The seven men will be no gain to you when cast away mutilated. Jean del' Peyra has been this day to Sarlat, he has been to the Bishop, he has been to the Jew Levi, he has been to the Tardes at Gageac, I cannot say where he has not been, to whom he has not applied – but nowhere can he raise the sum. It was too large. But that is no concern of mine. The money must be found, or you get nothing. I can tell you where the sum is to be found, whence it can be taken. But understand this – no more shall be exacted than the hundred livres. I will not have a denier more, nor a denier less. You agree to this?"
"Yes, we shall be glad of the money; we do not want to hurt the men of Ste. Soure, and their wounds are no pay to us."
"Very well. Then we understand each other. You would never receive any ransom but for me. It is I who bring you where it shall be paid."
"And where is that?" asked Amanieu.
"On the Devil's Table," answered Noémi.
The men shrank back. Their superstitious fears were aroused.
"Do not be alarmed. We shall not conjure up the foul fiend; but we shall squeeze one of his servants. Let us ride on and await him at the Table."
Then she turned towards La Roque, and in silence they continued to ascend the hill.
When they had nearly reached the summit she drew up again, and said to the men —
"I will explain it all. The Jew Levi comes this way. He has been gathering in money at La Roque, and my cousins have paid him a large sum. He has been engaged there all day, and he made my cousins, the Tardes, promise to send servants with him to see him safe on his way back to Sarlat. They agreed to send him on his way as far as the Devil's Table; and he named the time at which he would be ready to start. I know, if he has started on his way as he proposed, that he will be approaching now. From the Table onward to Sarlat he would be alone, but alone he could not convey all the money. What he purposes doing I cannot say. We will wait and see. He desired that he might be attended all the way to Sarlat, but that the Tardes would not allow. The distance was too great, the men were needed, they would not be home till too late. He was forced to accept half of what he had asked. Understand, no more is to be taken from the Jew than the ransom money. It were better that a Jew should lose than that seven Christian households should be ruined."
The men laughed. They were easy in their minds now that they understood they were to play a familiar game – only they grudged that they were to half accomplish it. If they caught a Jew let them squeeze and wring him out till not a drop of the golden syrup were left in him.
Noémi had, however, her own ideas in the matter. She justified her act to her conscience as a deed of necessity. It was a marvel that her conscience felt any scruple in the matter, as in the Middle Ages none hesitated to defraud a Jew, none considered that a son of Israel had any right to have meted out to him the like justice as to a Christian. Before the Cathedral gates at Toulouse every Good Friday a Jew had to present himself to have his ears boxed by the Bishop, and to acknowledge in his person on behalf of his race its guilt in having crucified the Messiah.
"Here!" said the girl, "tie up your horses and mine and lie in the scrub."
Before them, on the left hand of the track, rose the Devil's Table; a mound of earth had anciently covered it, but rain had washed away the earth from the capstone and showed the points of those blocks which upheld it. The slab was a singularly uncouth stone, with its flat old bed underneath, the upper surface uneven and dinted with cup-holes.
The routiers had not been long in hiding before the voice of Levi was heard, and the tramp of his ass.
"I thank you, good fellows. It was gracious of your master to lend me your escort, for, Heaven knows! I am too poor to need one. My ass is laden with lentils. You eat them in your fasting times, and when not fasting, eat pig. I cannot touch the unclean meat, and so eat lentils all the year. All my little moneys I carried with me have been expended in lentils for my wife Rachel and me. Ah! this must last us a long time. We are so poor, and lentils are so dear."
"You will give us something to drink your health, Levi," asked one of Tardes' men.
"Oh! certainly. Open both your hands and I will fill them with lentils. When Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were in the palace of King Darius, they refused the meats from the King's table that they might eat lentils. And they grew fat! Oh! Father Abraham, so sleek that their faces shone, and all the young ladies ran after them. Open your hands and I will give you lentils, and all the fair maids of La Roque will admire you."
The men laughed. "Come, come, Jew, keep the pulse for yourself, and give us something more solid – money – and we will drink your health."
"Money!" exclaimed Levi; "as if I had money! Oh, Fathers of the Covenant! poor Levi with money! – that is a comical idea. You are jesting with me, and I like a jest."
Those lying in wait listened to the altercation that ensued – the men murmured, then there ensued an outcry from the Jew and a burst of laughter from the men – they had raised and thrown down on the ground the sack which the ass was carrying.
The Jew shouted and entreated and swore, but to no avail. The two serving-men ran off on their way back to La Roque Gageac, full of glee, rejoicing that they had served the man such a trick, for they well knew that he would hardly be able to replace the sack on his ass.
After Levi had convinced himself that his appeals were in vain, he returned to the fallen sack, and vainly endeavoured to lift it upon the ass. He could raise it at one end, but not bear the entire weight. He became very angry, and grumbled and cursed, and prayed to Heaven for assistance.
Then, as his sole chance, he endeavoured to roll the sack up the sepulchral mound, and so to tilt it on to the Devil's Table. By that means, if he drew up his ass by the mouth of the burial-chamber, where treasure-seekers had grubbed and made a hollow, he hoped to be able to replace the burden on the back that was to bear it.
"Oh, Fathers Abraham, Isaac, and Mother Sarah!" lamented the Jew, "come to me in my necessity and help me."
"We are here!"
Hands were laid on his shoulder. With a scream of fear he sprang back, and saw two male and a female figure before him. Dusk had set in, and he could not distinguish who they were.
"Jew!" said Noémi, "we want a hundred livres."
"A hundred lentils! Let me go! Help me with my sack, and they are yours."
"Jew!" said the girl; "do not delay us and yourself. We will escort you within sight of the lights of the town – when you have paid us the hundred livres."
"Hear her, Father Abraham!" cried the unhappy man. "She thinks that I have money, who have only a few lentils on which to feed my wife and me."
"I know what you have," said Noémi. "You have all the money paid you by the Tardes."
"It is a lie – I have been paid no money; I have been given a sack of lentils instead."
"Levi – I was present when it was paid."
"You – you are a Tarde! and the Tardes are thieves!"
"I am not a Tarde."
"You are a Tarde – and these are Tardes' servants, and you will cheat and rob me. I shall appeal to the Bishop!"
"Strike a light," said the girl. "Let the man see who we are."
With a flint and steel Amanieu produced sparks, and presently held a wisp of dry grass blazing over his head.
"Look here," said Noémi. "Do you know this?" She showed the red cross on her arm. "Look at the shoulders of my mates. Do you know who they are? Do you know me? I am Le Gros Guillem's daughter. Open your sack."
"Oh, pity me! Pity me!" sobbed the terrified Jew.
"One hundred livres – not a denier under, not a denier over," answered the girl. "See, in the Devil's Table are ten saucers; put ten livres into each, and you, Amanieu, and you, Roger, count. Jew, when the last coin is paid, you shall go on with the rest. You do not stir till the sum is paid that I require."