Men of Iron

E >> Ernie Howard Pyle >> Men of Iron


With the administration of the final oath and the examination of the
weapons, the preliminary ceremonies came to an end, and presently Myles
heard the criers calling to clear the lists. As those around him moved
to withdraw, the young knight drew off his mailed gauntlet, and gave
Gascoyne's hand one last final clasp, strong, earnest, and intense with
the close friendship of young manhood, and poor Gascoyne looked up at
him with a face ghastly white.

Then all were gone; the gates of the principal list and that of the
false list were closed clashing, and Myles was alone, face to face, with
his mortal enemy.



CHAPTER 33

There was a little while of restless, rustling silence, during which the
Constable took his place in the seat appointed for him directly in
front of and below the King's throne. A moment or two when even the
restlessness and the rustling were quieted, and then the King leaned
forward and spoke to the Constable, who immediately called out, in a
loud, clear voice.

"Let them go!" Then again, "Let them go!" Then, for the third and last
time, "Let them go and do their endeavor, in God's name!"

At this third command the combatants, each of whom had till that moment
been sitting as motionless as a statue of iron, tightened rein, and rode
slowly and deliberately forward without haste, yet without hesitation,
until they met in the very middle of the lists.

In the battle which followed, Myles fought with the long sword, the Earl
with the hand-gisarm for which he had asked. The moment they met, the
combat was opened, and for a time nothing was heard but the thunderous
clashing and clamor of blows, now and then beating intermittently, now
and then pausing. Occasionally, as the combatants spurred together,
checked, wheeled, and recovered, they would be hidden for a moment in
a misty veil of dust, which, again drifting down the wind, perhaps
revealed them drawn a little apart, resting their panting horses. Then,
again, they would spur together, striking as they passed, wheeling and
striking again.

Upon the scaffolding all was still, only now and then for the buzz of
muffled exclamations or applause of those who looked on. Mostly the
applause was from Myles's friends, for from the very first he showed and
steadily maintained his advantage over the older man. "Hah! well struck!
well recovered!" "Look ye! the sword bit that time!" "Nay, look, saw ye
him pass the point of the gisarm?" Then, "Falworth! Falworth!" as some
more than usually skilful stroke or parry occurred.

Meantime Myles's father sat straining his sightless eyeballs, as though
to pierce his body's darkness with one ray of light that would show him
how his boy held his own in the fight, and Lord Mackworth, leaning with
his lips close to the blind man's ear, told him point by point how the
battle stood.

"Fear not, Gilbert," said he at each pause in the fight. "He holdeth his
own right well." Then, after a while: "God is with us, Gilbert. Alban
is twice wounded and his horse faileth. One little while longer and the
victory is ours!"

A longer and more continuous interval of combat followed this
last assurance, during which Myles drove the assault fiercely and
unrelentingly as though to overbear his enemy by the very power
and violence of the blows he delivered. The Earl defended himself
desperately, but was borne back, back, back, farther and farther. Every
nerve of those who looked on was stretched to breathless tensity, when,
almost as his enemy was against the barriers, Myles paused and rested.

"Out upon it!" exclaimed the Earl of Mackworth, almost shrilly in his
excitement, as the sudden lull followed the crashing of blows. "Why doth
the boy spare him? That is thrice he hath given him grace to recover;
an he had pushed the battle that time he had driven him back against the
barriers."

It was as the Earl had said; Myles had three times given his enemy grace
when victory was almost in his very grasp. He had three times spared
him, in spite of all he and those dear to him must suffer should his
cruel and merciless enemy gain the victory. It was a false and foolish
generosity, partly the fault of his impulsive youth--more largely of
his romantic training in the artificial code of French chivalry. He felt
that the battle was his, and so he gave his enemy these three chances to
recover, as some chevalier or knight-errant of romance might have
done, instead of pushing the combat to a mercifully speedy end--and his
foolish generosity cost him dear.

In the momentary pause that had thus stirred the Earl of Mackworth to
a sudden outbreak, the Earl of Alban sat upon his panting, sweating
war-horse, facing his powerful young enemy at about twelve paces
distant. He sat as still as a rock, holding his gisarm poised in front
of him. He had, as the Earl of Mackworth had said, been wounded twice,
and each time with the point of the sword, so much more dangerous than a
direct cut with the weapon. One wound was beneath his armor, and no one
but he knew how serious it might be; the other was under the overlapping
of the epauhere, and from it a finger's-breadth of blood ran straight
down his side and over the housings of his horse. From without, the
still motionless iron figure appeared calm and expressionless; within,
who knows what consuming blasts of hate, rage, and despair swept his
heart as with a fiery whirlwind.

As Myles looked at the motionless, bleeding figure, his breast swelled
with pity. "My Lord," said he, "thou art sore wounded and the fight is
against thee; wilt thou not yield thee?"

No one but that other heard the speech, and no one but Myles heard the
answer that came back, hollow, cavernous, "Never, thou dog! Never!"

Then in an instant, as quick as a flash, his enemy spurred straight upon
Myles, and as he spurred he struck a last desperate, swinging blow, in
which he threw in one final effort all the strength of hate, of fury,
and of despair. Myles whirled his horse backward, warding the blow with
his shield as he did so. The blade glanced from the smooth face of the
shield, and, whether by mistake or not, fell straight and true, and with
almost undiminished force, upon the neck of Myles's war-horse, and just
behind the ears. The animal staggered forward, and then fell upon its
knees, and at the same instant the other, as though by the impetus of
the rush, dashed full upon it with all the momentum lent by the weight
of iron it carried. The shock was irresistible, and the stunned and
wounded horse was flung upon the ground, rolling over and over. As his
horse fell, Myles wrenched one of his feet out of the stirrup; the other
caught for an instant, and he was flung headlong with stunning violence,
his armor crashing as he fell. In the cloud of dust that arose no
one could see just what happened, but that what was done was done
deliberately no one doubted. The earl, at once checking and spurring
his foaming charger, drove the iron-shod war-horse directly over Myles's
prostrate body. Then, checking him fiercely with the curb, reined him
back, the hoofs clashing and crashing, over the figure beneath. So
he had ridden over the father at York, and so he rode over the son at
Smithfield.

Myles, as he lay prostrate and half stunned by his fall, had seen his
enemy thus driving his rearing horse down upon him, but was not able to
defend himself. A fallen knight in full armor was utterly powerless to
rise without assistance; Myles lay helpless in the clutch of the very
iron that was his defence. He closed his eyes involuntarily, and then
horse and rider were upon him. There was a deafening, sparkling crash,
a glimmering faintness, then another crash as the horse was reined
furiously back again, and then a humming stillness.

In a moment, upon the scaffolding all was a tumult of uproar and
confusion, shouting and gesticulation; only the King sat calm, sullen,
impassive. The Earl wheeled his horse and sat for a moment or two as
though to make quite sure that he knew the King's mind. The blow that
had been given was foul, unknightly, but the King gave no sign either of
acquiescence or rebuke; he had willed that Myles was to die.

Then the Earl turned again, and rode deliberately up to his prostrate
enemy.

When Myles opened his eyes after that moment of stunning silence, it was
to see the other looming above him on his war-horse, swinging his gisarm
for one last mortal blow--pitiless, merciless.

The sight of that looming peril brought back Myles's wandering senses
like a flash of lightning. He flung up his shield, and met the blow even
as it descended, turning it aside. It only protracted the end.

Once more the Earl of Alban raised the gisarm, swinging it twice around
his head before he struck. This time, though the shield glanced it, the
blow fell upon the shoulder-piece, biting through the steel plate and
leathern jack beneath even to the bone. Then Myles covered his head with
his shield as a last protecting chance for life.

For the third time the Earl swung the blade flashing, and then it fell,
straight and true, upon the defenceless body, just below the left arm,
biting deep through the armor plates. For an instant the blade stuck
fast, and that instant was Myles's salvation. Under the agony of the
blow he gave a muffled cry, and almost instinctively grasped the shaft
of the weapon with both hands. Had the Earl let go his end of the
weapon, he would have won the battle at his leisure and most easily; as
it was, he struggled violently to wrench the gisarm away from Myles. In
that short, fierce struggle Myles was dragged to his knees, and then,
still holding the weapon with one hand, he clutched the trappings of the
Earl's horse with the other. The next moment he was upon his feet. The
other struggled to thrust him away, but Myles, letting go the gisarm,
which he held with his left hand, clutched him tightly by the sword-belt
in the intense, vise-like grip of despair. In vain the Earl strove to
beat him loose with the shaft of the gisarm, in vain he spurred and
reared his horse to shake him off; Myles held him tight, in spite of all
his struggles.

He felt neither the streaming blood nor the throbbing agony of his
wounds; every faculty of soul, mind, body, every power of life, was
centered in one intense, burning effort. He neither felt, thought, nor
reasoned, but clutching, with the blindness of instinct, the heavy,
spiked, iron-headed mace that hung at the Earl's saddle-bow, he gave it
one tremendous wrench that snapped the plaited leathern thongs that held
it as though they were skeins of thread. Then, grinding his teeth as
with a spasm, he struck as he had never struck before--once, twice,
thrice full upon the front of the helmet. Crash! crash! And then, even
as the Earl toppled sidelong, crash! And the iron plates split and
crackled under the third blow. Myles had one flashing glimpse of an
awful face, and then the saddle was empty.

Then, as he held tight to the horse, panting, dizzy, sick to death, he
felt the hot blood gushing from his side, filling his body armor, and
staining the ground upon which he stood. Still he held tightly to the
saddle-bow of the fallen man's horse until, through his glimmering
sight, he saw the Marshal, the Lieutenant, and the attendants gather
around him. He heard the Marshal ask him, in a voice that sounded faint
and distant, if he was dangerously wounded. He did not answer, and one
of the attendants, leaping from his horse, opened the umbril of his
helmet, disclosing the dull, hollow eyes, the ashy, colorless lips, and
the waxy forehead, upon which stood great beads of sweat.

"Water! water!" he cried, hoarsely; "give me to drink!" Then, quitting
his hold upon the horse, he started blindly across the lists towards the
gate of the barrier. A shadow that chilled his heart seemed to fall upon
him. "It is death," he muttered; then he stopped, then swayed for an
instant, and then toppled headlong, crashing as he fell.



CONCLUSION

But Myles was not dead. Those who had seen his face when the umbril of
the helmet was raised, and then saw him fall as he tottered across the
lists, had at first thought so. But his faintness was more from loss
of blood and the sudden unstringing of nerve and sense from the intense
furious strain of the last few moments of battle than from the vital
nature of the wound. Indeed, after Myles had been carried out of the
lists and laid upon the ground in the shade between the barriers,
Master Thomas, the Prince's barber-surgeon, having examined the wounds,
declared that he might be even carried on a covered litter to Scotland
Yard without serious danger. The Prince was extremely desirous of having
him under his care, and so the venture was tried. Myles was carried to
Scotland Yard, and perhaps was none the worse therefore. The Prince, the
Earl of Mackworth, and two or three others stood silently watching as
the worthy shaver and leecher, assisted by his apprentice and Gascoyne,
washed and bathed the great gaping wound in the side, and bound it with
linen bandages. Myles lay with closed eyelids, still, pallid, weak as
a little child. Presently he opened his eyes and turned them, dull and
languid, to the Prince.

"What hath happed my father, my Lord?" said he, in a faint, whispering
voice.

"Thou hath saved his life and honor, Myles," the Prince answered. "He
is here now, and thy mother hath been sent for, and cometh anon with the
priest who was with them this morn."

Myles dropped his eyelids again; his lips moved, but he made no sound,
and then two bright tears trickled across his white cheek.

"He maketh a woman of me," the Prince muttered through his teeth, and
then, swinging on his heel, he stood for a long time looking out of the
window into the garden beneath.

"May I see my father?" said Myles, presently, without opening his eyes.

The Prince turned around and looked inquiringly at the surgeon.

The good man shook his head. "Not to-day," said he; "haply to-morrow he
may see him and his mother. The bleeding is but new stanched, and such
matters as seeing his father and mother may make the heart to swell, and
so maybe the wound burst afresh and he die. An he would hope to live, he
must rest quiet until to-morrow day."

But though Myles's wound was not mortal, it was very serious. The fever
which followed lingered longer than common--perhaps because of the hot
weather--and the days stretched to weeks, and the weeks to months, and
still he lay there, nursed by his mother and Gascoyne and Prior Edward,
and now and again by Sir James Lee.

One day, a little before the good priest returned to Saint Mary's
Priory, as he sat by Myles's bedside, his hands folded, and his sight
turned inward, the young man suddenly said, "Tell me, holy father, is it
always wrong for man to slay man?"

The good priest sat silent for so long a time that Myles began to think
he had not heard the question. But by-and-by he answered, almost with a
sigh, "It is a hard question, my son, but I must in truth say, meseems
it is not always wrong."

"Sir," said Myles, "I have been in battle when men were slain, but never
did I think thereon as I have upon this matter. Did I sin in so slaying
my father's enemy?"

"Nay," said Prior Edward, quietly, "thou didst not sin. It was for
others thou didst fight, my son, and for others it is pardonable to do
battle. Had it been thine own quarrel, it might haply have been more
hard to have answered thee."

Who can gainsay, even in these days of light, the truth of this that the
good priest said to the sick lad so far away in the past?


One day the Earl of Mackworth came to visit Myles. At that time the
young knight was mending, and was sitting propped up with pillows, and
was wrapped in Sir James Lee's cloak, for the day was chilly. After a
little time of talk, a pause of silence fell.

"My Lord," said Myles, suddenly, "dost thou remember one part of a
matter we spoke of when I first came from France?"

The Earl made no pretence of ignorance. "I remember," said he, quietly,
looking straight into the young man's thin white face.

"And have I yet won the right to ask for the Lady Alice de Mowbray to
wife?" said Myles, the red rising faintly to his cheeks.

"Thou hast won it," said the Earl, with a smile.

Myles's eyes shone and his lips trembled with the pang of sudden joy
and triumph, for he was still very weak. "My Lord," said he, presently
"belike thou camest here to see me for this very matter?"

The Earl smiled again without answering, and Myles knew that he had
guessed aright. He reached out one of his weak, pallid hands from
beneath the cloak. The Earl of Mackworth took it with a firm pressure,
then instantly quitting it again, rose, as if ashamed of his emotion,
stamped his feet, as though in pretence of being chilled, and then
crossed the room to where the fire crackled brightly in the great stone
fireplace.


Little else remains to be told; only a few loose strands to tie, and the
story is complete.

Though Lord Falworth was saved from death at the block, though his honor
was cleansed from stain, he was yet as poor and needy as ever. The
King, in spite of all the pressure brought to bear upon him, refused to
restore the estates of Falworth and Easterbridge--the latter of which
had again reverted to the crown upon the death of the Earl of Alban
without issue--upon the grounds that they had been forfeited not because
of the attaint of treason, but because of Lord Falworth having refused
to respond to the citation of the courts. So the business dragged along
for month after month, until in January the King died suddenly in the
Jerusalem Chamber at Westminster. Then matters went smoothly enough, and
Falworth and Mackworth swam upon the flood-tide of fortune.


So Myles was married, for how else should the story end? And one day
he brought his beautiful young wife home to Falworth Castle, which his
father had given him for his own, and at the gateway of which he was met
by Sir James Lee and by the newly-knighted Sir Francis Gascoyne.

One day, soon after this home-coming, as he stood with her at an open
window into which came blowing the pleasant May-time breeze, he suddenly
said, "What didst thou think of me when I first fell almost into thy
lap, like an apple from heaven?"

"I thought thou wert a great, good-hearted boy, as I think thou art
now," said she, twisting his strong, sinewy fingers in and out.

"If thou thoughtst me so then, what a very fool I must have looked to
thee when I so clumsily besought thee for thy favor for my jousting at
Devlen. Did I not so?"

"Thou didst look to me the most noble, handsome young knight that did
ever live; thou didst look to me Sir Galahad, as they did call thee,
withouten taint or stain."

Myles did not even smile in answer, but looked at his wife with such a
look that she blushed a rosy red. Then, laughing, she slipped from his
hold, and before he could catch her again was gone.

I am glad that he was to be rich and happy and honored and beloved after
all his hard and noble fighting.