At the order, six men, dressed as common drudges, marched solemnly into the room, each bearing a huge bundle upon his head. They formed in military line, while the soldier stood in front of them with stern eyes, checking off their several packages.
“Number one – a French feather-bed with the two counterpanes of white sendal,” said he.
“Here, worthy sir,” answered the first of the bearers, laying a great package down in the corner.
“Number two – seven ells of red Turkey cloth and nine ells of cloth of gold. Put it down by the other. Good dame, I prythee give each of these men a bottrine of wine or a jack of ale. Three – a full piece of white Genoan velvet with twelve ellssend of purple silk. Thou rascal, there is dirt on the hem! Thou hast brushed it against some wall, coquin[51]!”
“Not I, most worthy sir,” cried the carrier, shrinking away from the fierce eyes of the bowman.
“I say yes, dog! By the three kings! I have seen a man gasp out his last breath for less. Had you gone through the pain and unease that I have done to earn these things you would be at more care. I swear by my ten fingerbones that there is not one of them that hath not cost its weight in French blood! Four – an incense-boat, an ewer of silver, a gold buckle and a cope worked in pearls. I found them, camarades, at the Church of St. Denis in the harrying of Narbonne, and I took them away with me lest they fall into the hands of the wicked. Five – a cloak of fur turned up with minever, a gold goblet with stand and cover, and a box of rose-coloured sugar. See that you lay them together. Six – a box of monies, three pounds of Limousine[52] gold-work, a pair of boots, silver-tagged, and, lastly, a store of naping linen. So, the tally is complete! Here is a groat apiece and you may go.”
“Go whither, worthy sir?” asked one of the carriers.
“Whither? To the devil if ye will. What is it to me? Now, ma belle, to supper. A pair of cold capons, a mortress of brawn, or what you will, with a flask or two of the right Gascony. I have crowns in my pouch, my sweet, and I mean to spend them. Bring in wine while the food is dressing. Buvons[53], my brave lads! you shall each empty a stoup with me.”
Here was an offer which the company in an English inn at that or any other date are slow to refuse. The flagons were regathered, and came back with the white foam dripping over their edges. Two of the woodmen and three of the labourers drank their portions off hurriedly and trooped off together, for their homes were distant and the hour late. The others, however, drew closer, leaving the place of honour to the right of the gleeman to the free-handed new-comer. He had thrown off his steel cap and his brigandine, and had placed them with his sword, his quiver and his painted long-bow, on the top of his varied heap of plunder in the corner. Now, with his thick and somewhat bowed legs stretched in front of the blaze, his green jerkin thrown open, and a great quart pot held in his corded fist, he looked the picture of comfort and of good-fellowship. His hard-set face had softened, and the thick crop of crisp brown curls which had been hidden by his helmet grew low upon his massive neck. He might have been forty years of age, though hard toil and harder pleasure had left their grim marks upon his features. Alleyne had ceased painting his pied merlin, and sat, brush in hand, staring with open eyes at a type of man so strange and so unlike any whom he had met. Men had been good or had been bad in his catalogue, but here was a man who was fierce one instant and gentle the next, with a curse on his lips and a smile in his eye. What was to be made of such a man as that?
It chanced that the soldier looked up and saw the questioning glance which the young clerk threw upon him. He raised his flagon and drank to him, with a merry flash of his white teeth.
“À toi, mon garçon![54]” he cried. “Hast surely never seen a man-at-arms, that thou shouldst stare so?”
“I never have,” said Alleyne frankly, “though I have oft heard talk of their deeds.”
“By my hilt!” cried the other, “if you were to cross the narrow sea you would find them as thick as bees at a tee-hole. Couldst not shoot a bolt down any street of Bordeaux, I warrant, but you would pink archer, squire or knight. There are more breastplates than gaberdines to be seen, I promise you.”
“And where got you all those pretty things?” asked Hordle John, pointing at the heap in the corner.
“Where there is as much more waiting for any brave lad to pick it up. Where a good man can always earn a good wage, and where he need look upon no man as his paymaster, but just reach his hand out and help himself. Aye, it is a goodly and a proper life. And here I drink to mine old comrades, and the saints be with them! A rouse all together, mes enfants[55], under pain of my displeasure! To Sir Claude Latour and the White Company!”
“Sir Claude Latour and the White Company!” shouted the travellers, draining off their goblets.
“Well quaffed, mes braves[56]! It is for me to fill your cups again, since you have drained them to my dear lads of the white jerkin. Holà! mon ange[57], bring wine and ale.
How runs the old stave? —
He roared out the catch in a harsh unmusical voice, and ended with a shout of laughter. “I trust that I am a better bowman than a minstrel,” said he.
“Methinks I have some remembrance of the lilt,” remarked the gleeman, running his fingers over the strings. “Hoping that it will give thee no offence, most holy sir” – with a vicious snap at Alleyne – “and with the kind permit of the company, I will even venture upon it.”
At the time he was lost in admiration at the deft way in which the jongleur disguised the loss of his two missing strings, and the lusty, hearty fashion in which he trolled out his little ballad of the outland bowmen, which ran in some such fashion as this:
“Well sung, by my hilt!” shouted the archer in high delight. “Many a night have I heard that song, both in the old war-time and after, in the days of the White Company, when Black Simon of Norwich would lead the stave, and four hundred of the best bowmen that ever drew string would come roaring in upon the chorus. I have seen old John Hawkwood, the same who has led half the Company into Italy, stand laughing in his beard as he heard it, until his plates rattled again. But to get the full smack of it ye must yourselves be English bowmen, and be far off upon an outland soil.”
Whilst the song had been singing Dame Eliza and the maid had placed a board across two trestles, and had laid upon it the knife, the spoon, the salt, the tranchoir of bread[58], and finally the smoking dish which held the savoury supper. The archer settled himself to it like one who had known what it was to find good food scarce; but his tongue still went as merrily as his teeth.