Agincourt Part 56

"They spoke together for a few moments in a strange tongue," answered the man-at-arms whom he addressed; "and when we parted them, they still talked from time to time across the room."

"Well," replied the old knight, "it will serve them but little. Have you the papers, Sir William Philip?"

"They are here," said the treasurer; and he placed a roll in the King's hand.

Henry looked at the first paper casually, saying, "This I know;" but regarded the second more attentively, and, after reading it through, turned to Sir John Grey, and inquired, "What is this? I see it refers to the man before us. But how was it obtained?"

"It is referred to, my Liege, in the question, number four, which your Grace permitted me to draw up. You will find them further on. The two following letters I need not explain. The only question is, as to their authenticity, which can be proved."

The King read them all through with care; and then taking a paper from the bottom of the roll, which appeared to contain a long list of interrogatories, numbered separately, and written in a good clerkly hand, he perused it from the beginning to the end. After having read it, he turned to Sir Simeon of Roydon, saying, "You are here charged with grave offences, sir, besides the crime in which you were taken.

It is stated here, that you purchased the arms of Sir Richard of Woodville, when they were sold in Ghent, on his men leaving the service of Burgundy to return to England; and that you took his name while following our army up the Somme, and attacking our straggling parties with a leader of free companions, named Robinet de Bournonville. Is it so, or is it not so?"

"This can be proved, my Liege," said Richard of Woodville; "for Sir Philip Beauchamp here present, saw the arms in which this caitiff was taken; and he can swear that they were a gift from himself to me."

"I acknowledge, Sire, that I did purchase them," replied Simeon of Roydon; "and what my companions may have called me, I know not; but if perchance they called me Woodville, it was in jest; but no man can say that I was seen following your army from Harfleur hither."

"It is enough, it is enough," said the King. "Of this charge, Richard, you are free," he continued, turning to Woodville; and then resuming his interrogatories, he went on to ask, "Did you, or did you not, Sir Simeon of Roydon, intercept a letter from me to this good knight, and counterfeiting his signature, write a reply, refusing to obey my commands?"

Sir Simeon of Roydon started, and turned a fierce look upon Ned Dyram, as if he suspected that he had been betrayed; but the surprise which he saw in the man's face, notwithstanding a strong effort to repress it, convinced him that Henry had other sources of information; but resolute in his course to the last, he replied in a bold tone, "It is false. Who is my accuser?"

The King looked round; and a sweet musical voice replied, "I am!"

"Stand forward, stand forward," said the King. "Ha! who are you? I have seen that fair face before."

"Once, my Liege," said Ella Brune, advancing, dressed in the garments she had worn immediately after her grandsire's death, "and then your Grace did as you always do, rendered justice both to the offender and the offended. I accuse this man of having done the deed that you have mentioned, and many another blacker still. I accuse him of having made use of him who stands beside him, Edward Dyram--pretending to be a servant of Sir Richard of Woodville, long after he had been driven in disgrace from his train--to obtain from the messenger of the Count of Charolois the letter which your Grace had sent. Speak," she continued, turning to Dyram, "Is it not true?"

The man hesitated, and turned red and white, but was silent.

"Speak," reiterated Ella Brune, "it is your last chance. Then read this letter, my Liege," she continued, "from the n.o.ble Count of Charolois, wherein he states, that he has traced out this foul and wicked plot, and----"

"I will confess I _did_," exclaimed Dyram; "I did get the letter. I did aid to forge the answer; but he, he--Richard of Woodville--struck me, and I vowed revenge."

"What more?" demanded the King, sternly. "If you hope for life speak truth. _You_ have not defiled knightly rank; _you_ have not degraded n.o.ble birth; _you_ have not violated all that should keep men honest and true. There is some hope for you."

"Ha, knave!" exclaimed Simeon of Roydon, gazing at him fiercely; but Dyram hesitated and paused without reply; and Ella Brune proceeded, pointing with her fair hand to the papers which the King held open before him, and demanding, while her dark eyes fixed stern on Dyram's face, "And the letter from the prisoner of Montl'herry, to Sir John Grey, did you not erase the words with which it ended--they were, if I remember right, 'touching my ransom,'--and change the Christian name in the superscription?"

"No, no," cried the man vehemently, knowing that the charge might well affect his life. "No, I did not--n.o.body saw me do it; I say I did not."

"Fool!" cried Ella Brune, after giving him a moment to consider; "Your hate has been dangerous to others, your love has been dangerous to yourself--Give me that cup! My Lord the King, may I crave to see the letter I have named?"

Henry took it from the rest, and placed it in her hand; and, dipping her finger in a cup containing a clear white fluid, which the page of Sir John Grey brought forward, she ran it over the line immediately preceding Richard of Woodville's signature. The King gazed earnestly on the parchment as she did so, and, to his surprise, he beheld the words she had mentioned reappear--somewhat faint and indistinct, it is true, but legible enough to show that the meaning of the whole paper had been falsified by their erasure.

"That wretched man," said Ella Brune, pointing to Dyram, "in a foolish fit of tenderness towards my poor self, taught me the art of restoring writings long effaced; and now, by his own skill, I show you his own knavery."

Henry turned round with a generous smile of sincere pleasure towards Richard of Woodville, saying, "I was sure I was not mistaken, Richard;" and he held out his hand.

The young knight took it, and pressed his lips upon it, replying, "You seldom are, Sire; but there is more to come, or I am mistaken."

"Nay, with him I have done," said Ella Brune, looking at Dyram: "unless he thinks, by free confession of the whole, and telling how a greater knave than himself led him on from fault to fault, to merit forgiveness, the matter affecting him is closed."

"It is vain to conceal it," cried Dyram; "not that I hope for grace, for that is past; but there will be some satisfaction in punis.h.i.+ng him who was never grateful for any service rendered him."

"It was yourself you served, villain, and your own pa.s.sions--not me!"

cried Simeon of Roydon, with his eyes flas.h.i.+ng fire.

"And how did you treat me?" cried Dyram. "It is true, my Liege, to gain this girl--devil incarnate as she seems to be!--I would have sacrificed aught on earth; and when, after laying a plot with this man to win her--which, by his knavery, had well nigh ended in her ruin--I confessed my fault to yonder knight, and he spurned me like a dog, I would have done as much to take vengeance upon him. I found a ready aid in good Sir Simeon of Roydon, who loved him as dearly as I did. In turns we planned and executed. He devised the letter touching the ransom; he prompted the Duke of Orleans and the Count of Armagnac: I erased the writing, and changed the superscription. Then, again, I hinted that in the armour he had bought, and under the name of its first owner, he might follow your camp, and clench the suspicion of Sir Richard's treason, by proofs that would seem indubitable; never doubting, indeed, that our enemy would be kept long in Montl'herry, but little caring whether the sword fell on the one knight or the other. To make all sure, however, I was sent to Montl'herry; but I arrived too late to prevent the prisoner's escape; and only discovered by whose a.s.sistance it was effected--by that fair maiden there, now clerk and now demoiselle. My story is told, and I have nought to plead. We are both guilty alike; we both loved, and we both hated: but I would not have willingly injured her, who has now destroyed me. In that, and that only, am I better than this n.o.ble knight."

"Have you aught more to say, fair maiden, concerning Sir Simeon of Roydon?" asked Henry; "if not, I will at once deal with both of them as they merit."

"Nay, I beseech you, Sire," exclaimed Richard of Woodville, "before you act in any way, listen to me for one moment."

"Speak--speak, my good friend," replied Henry; "I am always willing to hear anything in reason--what would you say?"

"I know not whether your Grace would wish it spoken aloud," said Woodville; "it refers to a time before your accession to the throne."

"Oh yes! speak, speak!" cried Henry; "I have not forgotten Hal of Hadnock. What of those days?"

"Why, Sire, you may remember," answered Woodville, "that, as that n.o.ble gentleman you have just named and I rode by the stream near Dunbury, one night in the spring of the year, we found the body of my poor cousin Kate drowned in the water. The man before you thought fit to cast foul doubts on as true and gallant a gentleman as ever lived, Sir Henry Dacre. He now lies at the point of death from wounds received near Agincourt, and if aught on earth can save him, it will be to know that his good name is cleared from all suspicion. If this man could but be brought to speak, and to acknowledge that the charges he insinuated were false, it would be balm to a bruised heart."

"Nay," cried the King, "his falsehood is so evident, his knavery so great, that charges from his mouth are now but empty air. Yet I have heard how Sir Harry Dacre has suffered the bare doubt to prey like a canker upon his peace. Speak, Simeon of Roydon; and, if it be your last word, speak truth. Know you aught of Catherine Beauchamp's death?--and, if you do, whose was the hand that did that horrid deed?"

"Sir Harry Dacre's," answered Roydon, with a malignant smile; for he thought to triumph even in death. "No one doubts it, I believe. Does your Grace?"

"Ay, that I do," answered Henry; "and I have good cause to doubt it.

That man was sent by me to make inquiries," and he pointed to Dyram; "and everything that he discovered, I pray you mark, gentlemen all, tended to show that it was impossible Sir Henry Dacre could have done the deed. I have often fancied, indeed, that the knave had learned more than he divulged to me. Is it so, sir? I remember your ways in times of old, that you would tell part, and keep back part. Did you learn aught else?"

"Oh, no, Sire," replied Dyram, with a laugh, glancing his keen eyes towards Richard of Woodville; "I know nought; but I suppose that Sir Henry Dacre did it."

"My Lord the King," said Ella Brune, who had remained silent, with her dark eyes cast down, while this conversation took place, "I can give your Grace the information that you seek to have."

"Ha!--you!" cried Roydon, gazing at her with glaring eyes. "This is all pure hate. Mark, if she do not say I did it!"

"You did!" answered Ella, fixing her eyes upon him. "Do you remember the night after the Glutton ma.s.s?--I was there! Do you remember hiding beneath the willows on the abbey side of the stream?--I was there! Do you remember the lady coming and asking for the information you had promised to give, and your a.s.sailing her with words of love, and seeking to win her from her promised husband?--I was there!"

"False! false! all false!" cried Sir Simeon of Roydon; but his face as he spoke was deadly pale.

"If you saw all, fair maiden," said the King, "why did you not at once denounce the murderer?"

"I saw all but the last act, my Liege," replied Ella Brune. "Having wandered from Southampton with the poor old man, whom that knight afterwards slew, we found kindly entertainment for our music in a cottage at Abbot's Ann. Wearied with the noise and merriment, I went out and sat beneath the trees; I witnessed what I have said; but then, not to be an eavesdropper, I stole away. When I heard of the murder, however, I well knew who had done it--for the lady answered him scornfully--and I should have told the tale at once, but the old man forbade me, showing that we were poor wandering minstrels, and that my story against the n.o.ble and the great would not be credited; yet I am certain that his hand did it."

"Out upon it!" cried Roydon; "will a King of England listen to such an idle tale? will he not drive from his presence, with contempt, a mountebank singer who, without one witness, brings such a charge in pure hate?"

"Not without one witness," answered Ella Brune. "I have one."

"Call him!" said Henry; "if this man can clear himself from the accusation, he shall have pardon for all the rest."

Ella Brune raised her hand and beckoned to some one standing behind the circle, which had drawn somewhat closer round the spot where this scene was going on. Immediately--while Sir John Grey made way--a lady dressed in the habit of a novice, with her face closely covered, advanced between the King and Simeon of Roydon.