A MONK OF FIFE
A Romance of the Days of Jeanne D'Arc - Joan of Arc
by Andrew Lang
CHAPTER II
HOW NORMAN LESLIE MET NOIROUFLE THE CORDELIER,
CALLED
BROTHER THOMAS IN RELIGION: AND OF MIRACLES
WROUGHT BY BROTHER
THOMAS
The ways were rude and long from Bordeaux town to Orleans, whither I
had set my face, not knowing, when I left my own country, that the
city was beleaguered by the English. For who could guess that lords
and knights of the Christian faith, holding captive the gentle Duke
of Orleans, would besiege his own city?--a thing unheard of among
the very Saracens, and a deed that God punished. Yet the news of
this great villainy, namely, the leaguer of Orleans, then newly
begun, reached my ears on my landing at Bordeaux, and made me
greatly fear that I might never meet my brother Robin alive. And
this my doubt proved but too true, for he soon after this time fell,
with many other Scottish gentlemen and archers, deserted shamefully
by the French and by Charles de Bourbon, Comte de Clermont, at the
Battle of the Herrings. But of this I knew nothing--as, indeed, the
battle was not yet fought--and only pushed on for France, thinking
to take service with the Dauphin against the English. My journey
was through a country ruinous enough, for, though the English were
on the further bank of the Loire, the partisans of the Dauphin had
made a ruin round themselves and their holds, and, not being paid,
they lived upon the country.
The further north I held, by ways broken and ruined with rains and
suns, the more bare and rugged grew the whole land. Once, stopping
hard by a hamlet, I had sat down to munch such food as I carried,
and was sharing my meal with a little brown herd-boy, who told me
that he was dinnerless. A few sheep and lean kine plucked at such
scant grasses as grew among rocks, and herbs useless but sweet-
scented, when suddenly a horn was blown from the tower of the little
church. The first note of that blast had not died away, when every
cow and sheep was scampering towards the hamlet and a kind of
"barmkyn" {4} they had builded there for protection, and the boy
after them, running with his bare legs for dear life. For me, I was
too amazed to run in time, so lay skulking in the thick sweet-
smelling herbs, whence I saw certain men-at-arms gallop to the crest
of a cliff hard by, and ride on with curses, for they were not of
strength to take the barmkyn.
Such was the face of France in many counties. The fields lay weedy
and untilled; the starving peasant-folk took to the highway, every
man preying on his neighbour. Woods had grown up, and broken in
upon the roads. Howbeit, though robbers harboured therein, none of
them held to ransom a wandering poor Scots scholar.
Slowly I trudged, being often delayed, and I was now nearing
Poictiers, and thought myself well on my road to Chinon, where, as I
heard, the Dauphin lay, when I came to a place where the road should
have crossed a stream--not wide, but strong, smooth, and very deep.
The stream ran through a glen; and above the road I had long noted
the towers of a castle. But as I drew closer, I saw first that the
walls were black with fire and roofless, and that carrion birds were
hovering over them, some enemy having fallen upon the place: and
next, behold, the bridge was broken, and there was neither ford nor
ferry! All the ruin was fresh, the castle still smouldering, the
kites flocking and yelling above the trees, the planks of the bridge
showing that the destruction was but of yesterday.
This matter of the broken bridge cost me little thought, for I could
swim like an otter. But there was another traveller down by the
stream who seemed more nearly concerned. When I came close to him,
I found him standing up to his waist in the water, taking soundings
with a long and heavy staff. His cordelier's frock was tucked up
into his belt, his long brown legs, with black hairs thick on them,
were naked. He was a huge, dark man, and when he turned and stared
at me, I thought that, among all men of the Church and in religion
whom I had ever beheld, he was the foulest and most fierce to look
upon. He had an ugly, murderous visage, fell eyes and keen, and a
right long nose, hooked like a falcon's. The eyes in his head shone
like swords, and of all eyes of man I ever saw, his were the most
piercing and most terrible. On his back he carried, as I noticed at
the first, what I never saw on a cordelier's back before, or on any
but his since--an arbalest, and he had bolts enough in his bag, the
feathers showing above.
"Pax vobiscum," he cried, in a loud, grating voice, as he saw me,
and scrambled out to shore.
"Et cum anima tua," I answered.
"Nom de Dieu!" he said, "you have bottomed my Latin already, that is
scarce so deep as the river here. My malison on them that broke the
bridge!" Then he looked me over fiercely.
"Burgundy or Armagnac?" he asked.
I thought the question strange, as a traveller would scarce care to
pronounce for Burgundy in that country. But this was a man who
would dare anything, so I deemed it better to answer that I was a
Scot, and, so far, of neither party.
"Tug-mutton, wine-sack!" he said, these being two of many ill names
which the French gave our countrymen; for, of all men, the French
are least grateful to us, who, under Heaven and the Maid, have set
their King on his throne again.
The English knew this, if the French did not; and their great King,
Harry the Fifth, when he fell ill of St. Fiacre's sickness, after
plundering that Scots saint's shrine of certain horse-shoes, silver-
gilt, said well that, "go where he would, he was bearded by Scots,
dead or alive." But the French are not a thankful people.
I had no answer very ready to my tongue, so stepped down silent to
the water-edge, and was about taking off my doublet and hose,
meaning to carry them on my head and swim across. But he barred the
way with his staff, and, for me, I gripped to my whinger, and
watched my chance to run in under his guard. For this cordelier was
not to be respected, I deemed, like others of the Order of St.
Francis, and all men of Holy Church.
"Answer a civil question," he said, "before it comes to worse:
Armagnac or Burgundy?"
"Armagnac," I answered, "or anything else that is not English.
Clear the causeway, mad friar!"
At that he threw down his staff.
"I go north also," he said, "to Orleans, if I may, for the foul
"manants" and peasant dogs of this country have burned the castle of
Alfonse Rodigo, a good knight that held them in right good order
this year past. He was worthy, indeed, to ride with that excellent
captain, Don Rodrigo de Villandradas. King's captain or village
labourer, all was fish that came to his net, and but two days ago I
was his honourable chaplain. But he made the people mad, and a
great carouse that we kept gave them their opportunity. They have
roasted the good knight Alfonse, and would have done as much for me,
his almoner, frock and all, if wine had any mastery over me. But I
gave them the slip. Heaven helps its own! Natheless, I would that
this river were between me and their vengeance, and, for once, I
dread the smell of roast meat that is still in my nostrils--pah!"
And here he spat on the ground.
"But one door closes," he went on, "and another opens, and to
Orleans am I now bound, in the service of my holy calling."
"There is, indeed, cause enough for the shriving of souls of
sinners, Father, in that country, as I hear, and a holy man like you
will be right welcome to many."
"They need little shriving that are opposite my culverin," said this
strange priest. "Though now I carry but an arbalest, the gun is my
mistress, and my patron is the gunner's saint, St. Barbara. And
even with this toy, methinks I have the lives of a score of goddams
in my bolt-pouch."
I knew that in these wild days many clerics were careless as to that
which the Church enjoins concerning the effusion of blood--nay, I
have named John Kirkmichael, Bishop of Orleans, as having himself
broken a spear on the body of the Duke of Clarence. The Abbe of
Cerquenceaux, also, was a valiant man in religion, and a good
captain, and, all over France, clerics were gripping to sword and
spear. But such a priest as this I did not expect to see.
"Your name?" he asked suddenly, the words coming out with a sound
like the first grating of a saw on stone.
"They call me Norman Leslie de Pitcullo," I answered. "And yours?"
"My name," he said, "is Noiroufle"--and I thought that never had I
seen a man so well fitted with a name;--"in religion, Brother
Thomas, a poor brother of the Order of the mad St. Francis of
Assisi."
"Then, Brother Thomas, how do you mean to cross this water which
lies between you and the exercise of your holy calling? Do you
swim?"
"Like a stone cannon-ball, and, for all that I can find, the cursed
water has no bottom. Cross!" he snarled. "Let me see you swim."
I was glad enough to be quit of him so soon, but I noticed that, as
I stripped and packed my clothes to carry in a bundle on my head,
the holy man set his foot in the stirrup of his weapon, and was
winding up his arbalest with a windlass, a bolt in his mouth,
watching at the same time a heron that rose from a marsh on the
further side of the stream. On this bird, I deemed, he meant to try
his skill with the arbalest.
"Adieu, Brother Thomas," I said, as I took the water; and in a few
strokes I was across and running up and down on the bank to get
myself dry. "Back!" came his grating voice--"back! and without your
clothes, you wine-sack of Scotland, or I shoot!" and his arbalest
was levelled on me.
I have often asked myself since what I should have done, and what
was the part of a brave man. Perchance I might have dived, and swum
down-stream under water, but then I had bestowed my bundle of
clothes some little way off, and Brother Thomas commanded it from
his side of the stream. He would have waited there in ambush till I
came shivering back for hose and doublet, and I should be in no
better case than I was now. Meanwhile his weapon was levelled at
me, and I could see the bolt-point set straight for my breast, and
glittering in a pale blink of the sun. The bravest course is ever
the best. I should have thrown myself on the earth, no doubt, and
so crawled to cover, taking my chance of death rather than the shame
of obeying under threat and force. But I was young, and had never
looked death in the face, so, being afraid and astonished, I made
what seemed the best of an ill business, and, though my face reddens
yet at the thought of it, I leaped in and swam back like a dog to
heel.
"Behold me," I said, making as brave a countenance as I might in
face of necessity.
"Well done, Norman Leslie de Pitcullo," he snarled, baring his
yellow teeth. "This is the obedience which the young owe to the
Church. Now, ferry me over; you are my boat."
"You will drown, man," I said. "Not while you swim."
Then, unbuckling his frock, he packed it as he had seen me do, bade
me put it on my head, and so stepped out into the water, holding
forth his arm to put about my neck. I was for teaching him how to
lay it on my shoulder, and was bidding him keep still as a plank of
wood, but he snarled -
"I have sailed on a boat of flesh before to-day."
To do him justice, he kept still as a log of wood, and so, yielding
partly to the stream, I landed him somewhat further down than the
place where my own clothes were lying. To them he walked, and very
quietly picking up my whinger and my raiment that he gathered under
his arm, he concealed himself in a thick bush, albeit it was
leafless, where no man could have been aware of him. This amazed me
not a little, for modesty did not seem any part of his nature.
"Now," says he, "fetch over my arbalest. Lying where I am you have
no advantage to shoot me, as, nom de Dieu! I would have shot you had
you not obeyed. And hark ye, by the way, unwind the arbalest before
you cross; it is ever well to be on the safe side. And be sure you
wet not the string." He pushed his face through the bush, and held
in his mouth my naked whinger, that shone between his shining eyes.
Now again I say it, I have thought over this matter many a time, and
have even laughed aloud and bitterly, when I was alone, at the
figure of me shivering there, on a cold February day, and at my
helpless estate. For a naked man is no match for a man with a
whinger, and he was sitting on my clothes. So this friar, unworthy
as he was of his holy calling, had me at an avail on every side, nor
do I yet see what I could do but obey him, as I did. And when I
landed from this fifth voyage, he laughed and gave me his blessing,
and, what I needed more, some fiery spirits from a water-gourd, in
which Father Thomas carried no water.
"Well done, my son," he said, "and now we are comrades. My life was
not over safe on yonder side, seeing that the "manants" hate me, and
respect not my hood, and two are better company than one, where we
are going."
This encounter was the beginning of many evils, and often now the
picture shines upon my eyes, and I see the grey water, and hear the
cold wind whistle in the dry reeds of the river-bank whereon we sat.
The man was my master, Heaven help me! as surely as Sathanas was
his. And though, at last, I slipped his clutches, as you shall hear
(more readily than, I trow, he will scape his lord in the end, for
he still lives), yet it was an ill day that we met--an ill day for
me and for France. Howbeit we jogged on, he merrily enough singing
a sculdudery song, I something surly, under a grey February sky,
with a keen wind searching out the threadbare places in our raiment.
My comrade, as he called himself, told me what passages he chose in
the history of his life: how he came to be frocked (but 'cucullus
non facit monachum'), and how, in the troubles of these times, he
had discovered in himself a great aptitude for the gunner's trade,
of which he boasted not a little. He had been in one and another of
these armed companies that took service with either side, for hire,
being better warriors and more skilled than the noblesse, but a
curse to France: for, in peace or war, friend or foe, they
plundered all, and held all to ransom. With Rodrigo de
Villandradas, that blood-hound of Spain, he had been high in favour,
but when Rodrigo went to harry south and east, he had tarried at
Ruffec, with another thief of that nation, Alfonse Rodigo. All his
talk, as we went, was of slaying men in fight; whom he slew he cared
not much, but chiefly he hated the English and them of Burgundy. To
him, war was what hunting and shooting game is to others; a cruel
and bloody pastime, when Christians are the quarry!
"John the Lorrainer, and I, there are no others to be named with us
at the culverin," he would brag. "We two against an army, give us
good cover, and powder and leaden balls enough. Hey! Master John
and I must shoot a match yet, against English targets, and of them
there are plenty under Orleans. But if I make not the better speed,
the town will have fallen, or yielded, rescue or no rescue, and of
rescue there is no hope at all. The devil fights for the English,
who will soon be swarming over the Loire, and that King of Bourges
of ours will have to flee, and gnaw horse's fodder, oats and barley,
with your friends in Scotland."
This was one of the many ungenerous taunts which the French made
often against us Scots, that have been their ancient and leal
brethren in arms since the days of King Achaius and Charlemagne.
"The Dauphin," he went on, "for King he is none, and crowned he will
never be, should be in Orleans, leading his men; and lo! he is tied
to the belt of fat La Tremouille, and is dancing of ballets at
Chinon--a murrain on him, and on them that make his music!" Then he
fell to cursing his King, a thing terrible to hear, and so to asking
me questions about myself. I told him that I had fled my own
country for a man-slaying, hoping, may Heaven forgive me! to make
him think the higher of me for the deed.
"So we all begin," said he; "a shrewd blow, or a fair wench; a
death, or a birth unlawful, 'tis all one forth we are driven to the
world and the wars. Yet you have started well,--well enough, and
better than I gave your girl's face credit for. Bar steel and rope,
you may carry some French gold back to stinking Scotland yet."
He gave me so much credit as this for a deed that deserved none, but
rather called for rebuke from him, who, however unworthy, was in
religion, and wore the garb of the Blessed Francis. But very far
from fortifying me in virtuous courses, as was his bounden duty,
there was no wickedness that he did not try to teach me, till partly
I hated him, and partly, I fear, I admired one so skilled in evil.
The truth is, as I said, that this man, for that time, was my
master. He was learned in all the arts by which poor and wandering
folk can keep their bellies full wandering by the way. With women,
ugly and terrible of aspect as he was, he had a great power: a
pious saying for the old; a way with the young which has ever been a
mystery to me, unless, as some of the learned think, all women are
naturally lovers of wickedness, if strength and courage go with it.
What by wheedling, what by bullying, what by tales of pilgrimages to
holy shrines (he was coming from Jerusalem by way of Rome, so he
told all we met), he ever won a welcome.
Other more devilish cantrips he played, one of them at the peasant's
house where we rested on the first night of our common travel. The
Lenten supper which they gave us, with no little kindness, was
ended, and we were sitting in the firelight, Brother Thomas
discoursing largely of his pilgrimages, and of his favour among the
high clergy. Thus, at I know not what convent of the Clarisses, {5}
in Italy, the holy Sisters had pressed on him a relic of Monsieur
St. Aignan, the patron of the good town of Orleans. To see this
relic, the farmer, his wife, and his sons and daughters crowded
eagerly; it was but a little blackened finger bone, yet they were
fain to touch it, as is the custom. But this he would not yet
allow.
"Perchance some of you," he said, "are already corrupt, not knowing
it, with the poisonous breath of that damnable Hussite heresy, which
is blowing from the east like wind of the pestilence, and ye may
have doubts concerning the verity of this most holy and miraculous
relic?"
They all crossed themselves, protesting that no such wicked whisper
of Sathanas had ever come into their minds, nor had they so much as
heard of Huss and his blasphemies.
"Nay," said Brother Thomas, "I could scarcely blame you if it were
partly as I said. For in this latter time of the world, when I have
myself met Jews flocking to Babylon expecting the birth of
Antichrist, there be many false brethren, who carry about feigned
relics, to deceive the simple. We should believe no man, if he be,
as I am, a stranger, unless he shows us a sign, such as now I will
show you. Give me, of your grace, a kerchief, or a napkin." The
goodwife gave him a clean white napkin from her aumbry, and he tore
it up before their eyes, she not daring to stay his hand.
"Now note this holy relic and its wonderful power," he said, holding
the blackened bone high in his left hand, and all our eyes were
fixed on it. "Now mark," he said again, passing it over the napkin;
and lo! there was a clean white napkin in his hands, and of the torn
shreds not a trace!
We were still gaping, and crossing ourselves with blessings on this
happy day and our unworthy eyes that beheld a miracle, when he did a
thing yet more marvellous, if that might be, which I scarce expect
any man will believe. Going to the table, and catching up a glass
vessel on which the goodwife set great store, he threw it against
the wall, and we all plainly heard it shiver into tinkling pieces.
Then, crossing the room into the corner, that was dusky enough, he
faced us, again holding the blessed relic, whereon we stared, in
holy fear. Then he rose, and in his hand was the goodwife's glass
vessel, without crack or flaw! {6}
"Such," he said, "are the properties of this miraculous relic; there
is nothing broken but it will mend, ay, a broken limb, as I can
prove on my own sinful body,"--thrusting out his great brown leg,
whereon, assuredly, were signs of a fracture; "ay, a broken leg, or,
my dear daughters, a broken heart." At this, of course, they were
all eager to touch the blessed relic with their poor rings of base
metal, such as they wear who are not rich. Nay, but first, he said,
they must give their mites for a convent of the Clarisses, that was
building at Castres, by the care of the holy Colette, whom he might
call his patroness, unworthy as he was.
Then he showed us a safe-conduct, signed with that blessed woman's
own hand, such as she was wont to give to the religious of the Order
of St. Francis. By virtue of this, he said (and, by miracle, for
once he said truly, as I had but too good cause to learn), he could
go freely in and out among the camps of French, English, and
Burgundians.
You may conceive how joyous they were in that poor cottage, on a
night so blessed, and how Brother Thomas told us of the holy
Colette, that famous nun and Mother in Christ, as he that had often
been in her company. He had seen her body lifted in the air while
she remained in a pious ecstasy, her mind soaring aloft and her
fleshly body following it some way.
He had often watched that snow-white beast which followed her, such
a creature as is known in no country of the sinful world, but is a
thing of Paradise. And he had tried to caress this wondrous
creature of God, but vainly, for none but the holy sister Colette
may handle it. Concerning her miracles of healing, too, he told us,
all of which we already knew for very truth, and still know on
better warranty than his.
Ye may believe that, late and at last, Brother Thomas had his choice
of the warmest place to sleep in--by the "four," as is the wont of
pilgrims, for in his humility this holy man would not suffer the
farmer's wife and the farmer to give him their bed, as they desired.
I, too, was very kindly entreated by the young lads, but I could
scarcely sleep for marvelling at these miracles done by one so
unworthy; and great, indeed, I deemed, must be the virtue of that
relic which wrought such signs in the hands of an evil man. But I
have since held that he feigned all by art magic and very sorcery,
for, as we wended next morning on our road, he plainly told me,
truly or falsely, that he had picked up the blackened finger-bone
out of the loathly ashes of the dead in the burned castle near
Ruffec.
Wherefore I consider that when Brother Thomas sold the grace of his
relic, by the touching of rings, he dealt in a devilish black
simony, vending to simple Christians no grace but that of his
master, Sathanas. Thus he was not only evil (if I guess aright,
which I submit to the judgment of my ecclesiastical superiors, and
of the Church), but he had even found out a new kind of wickedness,
such as I never read of in any books of theology wherein is much to
be learned. I have spoken with some, however, knights and men of
this world, who deemed that he did but beguile our eyes by craft and
sleight-of-hand.
This other hellish art he had, by direct inspiration, as I hold, of
his master Behemoth, that he could throw his voice whither he would,
so that, in all seeming, it came from above, or from below, or from
a corner of a room, fashioning it to resemble the voice of whom he
would, yet none might see his lips move. With this craft he would
affray the peasants about the fire in the little inns where we
sometimes rested, when he would be telling tales of bogles and
eldritch fantasies, and of fiends that rout and rap, and make the
tables and firkins dance. Such art of speech, I am advised, is
spoken of by St. Jerome, in his comment on the holy prophet the
saint Isaiah, and they that use it he calls "ventriloqui," in the
Latin, or "belly-speakers," and he takes an unfavourable sense of
them and their doings. So much I have from the learned William de
Boyis, Prior of Pluscarden, where now I write; with whom I have
conversed of these matters privately, and he thinks this art a thing
that men may learn by practice, without dealing in nigromancy and
the black magic. This question I am content to leave, as is
fitting, to the judgment of my superiors. And indeed, as at that
time, Brother Thomas spake not in his belly except to make sport and
affray the simple people, soon turning their fears to mirth.
Certainly the country folk never misdoubted him, the women for a
holy man, the men for a good fellow; though all they of his own
cloth shrank from him, and I have seen them cross themselves in his
presence, but to no avail. He would say a word or two in their
ears, and they straightway left the place where he might be. None
the less, with his tales and arts, Brother Thomas commonly so
wrought that we seldom slept "e la belle etoile" in that bitter
spring weather, but we ordinarily had leave to lie by the hearth,
and got a supper and a breakfast. The good peasants would find
their hen-roosts the poorer often, for all that he could snap up was
to him fortune of war.
I loved these manners little, but leave him I could not. His eye
was ever on me; if I stirred in the night he was awake and watching
me, and by day he never let me out of a bolt's flight. To cut the
string of his wicked weapon was a thought often in my mind, but he
was too vigilant. My face was his passport, he said; my face,
indeed, being innocent enough, as was no shame to me, but an endless
cause of mirth and mockery to him. Yet, by reason of the
serviceableness of the man in that perilous country, and my constant
surprise and wonder at what he did and said, and might do next
(which no man could guess beforehand), and a kind of foolish pride
in his very wickedness, so much beyond what I had ever dreamed of,
and for pure fear of him also, I found myself following with him day
by day, ever thinking to escape, and never escaping.
I have since deemed that, just as his wickedness was to a boy (for I
was little more), a kind of charm, made up of a sort of admiring
hate and fear, so my guilelessness (as it seemed to him) also
wrought on him strangely. For in part it made sport for him to see
my open mouth and staring eyes at the spectacle of his devilries,
and in part he really hated me, and hated my very virtue of
simplicity, which it was his desire and delight to surprise and
corrupt.
On these strange terms, then, now drawn each to other, and now
forced apart, we wended by Poictiers towards Chinon, where the
Dauphin and his Court then lay. So we fared northwards, through
Poitou, where we found evil news enough. For, walking into a
village, we saw men, women, and children, all gathered, gaping about
one that stood beside a horse nearly foundered, its legs thrust
wide, its nostrils all foam and blood. The man, who seemed as weary
as his horse, held a paper in his hands, which the priest of that
parish took from him and read aloud to us. The rider was a royal
messenger, one Thomas Scott of Easter Buccleuch, in Rankel Burn,
whom I knew later, and his tidings were evil. The Dauphin bade his
good towns know that, on the 12th of February, Sir John Stewart,
constable of the Scottish forces in France, had fallen in battle at
Rouvray, with very many of his company, and some Frenchmen. They
had beset a convoy under Sir John Fastolf, that was bringing meat to
the English leaguered about Orleans. But Fastolf had wholly routed
them (by treachery, as we later learned of the Comte de Clermont),
and Sir John Stewart, with his brother Sir William, were slain.
Wherefore the Dauphin bade the good towns send him money and men, or
all was lost.
Such were the evil tidings, which put me in sore fear for my brother
Robin, one that, in such an onfall, would go far, as beseemed his
blood. But as touching his fortunes, Thomas Scott could tell me
neither good nor bad, though he knew Robin, and gave him a good name
for a stout man-at-arms. It was of some comfort to me to hear a
Scots tongue; but, for the rest, I travelled on with a heavier
heart, deeming that Orleans must indeed fall ere I could seek my
brother in that town.
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