The dawn was as pink as a peach, and through the pellucid air the city of Athens looked her fairest. The Parthenon, topping her holy hill, glowed like amber in the young sunlight, showing the same fine lines of perfect symmetry to the nobles of France that it had shown to the Roman soldiers of Mummius and to the Athenians of the great war. Within the sanctuary the gold and ivory image of Athena, fashioned by Phidias, had given way to the pale face of Our Lady, Mother of the Holy Child, and the grandiloquent Latin of the mass rolled its volume through the hall that once had echoed to the sonorous Greek of the Palladian hymns. The gods had gone, great Pan was dead, Christ had arisen, and still the Parthenon in almost unaltered beauty crowned the Acropolis. But the chivalry of France paid little heed to the Parthenon or the past of Athens as they rode briskly out on that radiant morning to annihilate the Catalan Grand Company. Their thoughts were with the vivid present, with the pleasure of coming battle, with the pride of certain victory, with the promise of the swift return, flushed with triumph, to find praise and welcome smiling in their ladies' eyes. It was but the second day since the night of the ruined nuptials, but Baldwin was brisk on war business, and his chivalry and his fighting-men were quick to move. The foot-soldiers had taken the field for the march to Thebes on the previous day, and this day, this glorious day of peach-colored dawn, the duke and his knights were to ride to the undoing of the Catalan Grand Company.
The Catalan Grand Company had confirmed the menace of Ximenes, and justified Duke Baldwin's doubts by going over as one man to the cause of the Duchess of Thebes. But their defection did not trouble the bluff duke. On the contrary, it furnished him with a full-blooded excuse for exterminating the mutinous mercenaries and wiping out his debt to them with a wet sword. So he and his chivalry rode to their assured victory, and made their march a gala-day.
Simon had never seen a braver menace of war. The sunlight gleamed on coats of many-tinted silk, on armor rich with gilding, on shields whose gayly painted spaces were so many brave pages from the armorial of France. Iris was outvied. Cloth of gold and cloth of silver glittered; stuffs of flame color, sea color, corn color, blood color dazzled the day; even the Athenian eyes, inured to vivid pigments seen in full sunlight, ached in the play of hue. All the knights were clad as for a tournament, save that they did not carry on their helmets the huge and grotesque crests which made the mimic fight fantastic, for these, though skilfully fashioned of light wicker-work and painted leather, would have proved too cumbrous and too bulky in the hour of actual combat.
Duke Baldwin rode at the head of his knights, with his visor exalted, and his companions, the Knight of the Fish, the Knight of the Lizard, the Knight of the Griffin, knights of all conceivable creatures that blazoners and crest-builders had taken into their whimsical kingdom, rode in Duke Baldwin's train and cried their war-cries into the ears of a delighted audience. The Athenians, then as ever eager for new things, and rejoicing in show, lined the streets and applauded lustily as the pageant of war passed by. The knights rode to the fight as to a feast, full of mirth. On every side jest challenged laughter and laughter answered jest. Sir Guy, Sir Jaufre, Sir Ambrose, Sir Gaston, Sir Raymond made merry one with another, and blew kisses to such girls as had fair faces among the gazing throng. It was true that some lords were missing from Duke Baldwin's following. Andronicus Palæologus, pompous exile, had asserted that the quarrel was none for him to meddle with and had taken shipping for Nauplia; Demetrius of Epirus had stolen away by night to Thebes to lend such dignity as his name could give to the Catalan rally. But no one seemed to remember or to regret the fugitive or the traitor, and no one seemed to think any but mirthful thoughts or to speak other than mirthful words.
Simon marvelled somewhat at the knightly mirth. There was nothing so wonderful in the crushing of such an uproar as that of the Catalan Grand Company. Yet Simon's own spirits were high, and he found snatches of old songs bubbling from his lips as he rode close at hand to his master. Rainouart seemed once again what he had been before the fatal coming of Esclaramonde. Thanks to the herb of healing, thanks to his native health, he had wellnigh recovered from the wound that the ill-directed stroke of a woman had dealt him. What was of far more moment, he had wholly escaped from the spell of Esclaramonde's magic, and rode with clear eyes and clean spirit. If he were not now as blithe as his fellows, he had never displayed a noisy humor of mirth. But while the others carolled and babbled, he rode quietly with a bright smile on his face, for he thought of the girl in the greenwood, and all the world was fragrant with the perfume of the noble rose. His carriage cheered Duke Baldwin greatly, wherefore he rode lively enough at the head of his knights, and did not trouble himself much about the amorous folly of his son so long as that son rode in arms like a gallant gentleman against the enemy.
The peach tint of the dawn flushed into rose and glowed into gold as the morning grew, and soon the sky was all of the liveliest blue above the heads of Baldwin and his companions. They knew some hours of blithe riding through a blithe country, now open as they traversed the Attic plain, now enclosed as they came to the hilly places and fringed the forest--and here Simon looked wistfully at the wood, but Rainouart rode steadily with his gaze fixed straight ahead--and then again open as they began to enter the Theban plain. Here Duke Baldwin found his foot-soldiers encamped, and here he heard that the opposing forces had marched out of Thebes and taken up their position in an encampment on the plain to await the Athenian invaders. Here the knights made a halt for rest and repose, for the morning was still very young, with the air exceedingly cool and sweet. The horses were fed and tended, the knights ate and drank, but sparingly, as befits those about to give battle, and their brief leisure was as mirthful as their march. When all were refreshed, man and beast, the march was resumed, and a little time brought Duke Baldwin and his friends in full view of the enemy and of the destined battle-field.
Simon looked curiously at the stirring scene before him. A great space of land lay between the Athenian forces and their enemies--a space vividly green with young corn that flourished on the plain of Thebes as on all the plains of Greece. On the other side of that spreading area of soft shoots the men of the Catalan Grand Company were drawn up in open array of battle, with the gaudy banner of the Duchess of Thebes floating over their ranks side by side with their own flag and the treasonable pennon of Epirus. Simon marvelled on looking to see them waiting there so composedly for the formidable onslaught of the Frankish chivalry. The bowmen were resting by their strung bows as unconcernedly as if a holiday were toward, and the armored leaders moved hither and thither leisurely among the ranks. It seemed as if the following of Baldwin had but to spur only a few yards across the soft, bright corn to brush these foemen out of existence. Nine hundred of the finest knights in Greece, swathed in steel, rode with the Duke of Athens and filled the summer air with their war-cries, eager to sweep over the field and chastise the insolence of their contemptible enemies. Behind them now tramped a well-equipped army on foot, strongly armed, admirably marshalled, inured to war, and eager for the engagement.
Simon was puzzled if no one else was. The odds against the Catalan Grand Company showed tremendous, even when such reinforcements as were afforded by the adherents of the Duchess of Thebes were taken into account, while Demetrius of Epirus brought no more than his small personal following and the cheap dishonor of his name. It looked as if none might survive the skirmish to mount the gibbets which Duke Baldwin so uncompromisingly promised to the rebels. Suddenly an idea came into Simon's head, and he slapped his leg with satisfaction. That is it, he said to himself, convinced that he had found an answer to the problem that perplexed him. The dogs knew that they must die, one way or another, by sword or by rope, and they meant to make a good end of it, soldier-wise, and at bay. Something of pity stirred in his heart for the stout fellows so soon to be butchered and waiting so soldierly for the end. They were truculent ruffians, those Catalans, but at least they knew how to play a losing game with courage and dignity. Another little hour and how many of those bearded faces would show any hot blood in the cheeks? The fortune of war, Simon reflected, composedly, and settled himself in the saddle for the obliterating charge which he guessed must soon be made, for Duke Baldwin had reined in his horse, and with him the army halted, a splendid patch of steel and color upon the plain. Duke Baldwin turned in his saddle and smiled upon his chivalry, while he pointed to the Catalan Grand Company and the forces of the lady of Thebes.
"There lie the rebels," he shouted, his great voice rolling like a drum-call over his host, "and here ride we that shall wipe them out of the field. It is but poor sport I offer you, gentle friends, to slay the jacks of a jade, but it will soon be over, and we shall scour the land of Greece clean of these cozeners."
As he spoke he swung his sword forth from his scabbard, and held it stretched in menace against the enemy, while the knights behind him thundered cheer after cheer, and settled themselves firmly in their saddles for the charge across the shining plain. Baldwin lifted his great blade to heaven.
"Saint Denis for Athens!" he cried, and stuck his spurs into the sides of his mighty charger.
"Saint Denis for Athens!" echoed his chivalry at his heels, and in another moment the splendid mass of men-at-arms was in motion. Simon's spirits were at the top as he gave his horse the rein and felt the morning air stronger against his face. But he kept a watchful eye on the young prince who rode beside him, and it gladdened him to see that Rainouart sat so stiffly in his saddle and held his lance so well. "A plague upon love and lovers," he grumbled in his heart; "what have they to do with a gentleman-at-arms?" and then he had time to think no more for the swift exhilaration of the charge. On the knights came, Baldwin leading, the young Prince of Athens close behind him, and Simon by his side, the rest thundering in open order with levelled spears. A few minutes more now and the Catalan Grand Company would be very decisively disbanded. But even as Simon charged his horse caught a hoof in a hole, and, coming heavily on to its knees, shot Simon out of his stirrup, and Simon landed sprawling on the ground. Now Simon was a heavy man, and Simon, as befitted the knight of Florency, was in full armor, and Simon, though he tried his best, found it as hard to rise as if he were a capsized turtle. But Rainouart riding ahead saw his mishap, and, reining in his black horse, came back to Simon.
"Nay," cried Simon, "ride to victory, and leave me to shift."
But Rainouart would not have it so. He might be out of the first bright wave of battle, but he could not leave his brother-in-arms in distressful plight. And there was, indeed, but brief delay. Rainouart dismounting soon got Simon to his feet, and Simon mounted his horse, which was little the worse for its stumble, and together they spurred to catch up with the charging cavalry. But the time, short though it was, had allowed a great gap of green field to grow between the riding knights and their two pursuers, and it took some strenuous seconds to bring their horses' noses to the tails of their predecessors.
Even as they who had been in the vaward now at length joined themselves to the rear, suddenly Simon saw Duke Baldwin's great charger stagger and reel and plunge unaccountably, and the next moment Simon found that his own horse was striving to make its way through ground as muddy and pulpy as a swamp. Water was squelching and oozing and bubbling over his horse's fetlocks; the young prince's horse was in the like stress; and, looking rapidly to left and right, Simon could see that all the extending line of knights had found the same difficulty in the way of their progress. It is some ditch, Simon thought, which can soon be passed, and he urged his steed with a spur to a progress that became momentarily more difficult. Duke Baldwin was floundering and struggling in the ever-increasing bog, and Simon could hear him cursing furiously as he strove to advance. Simon's own horse and the horse of the prince were now knee-deep in the horrible morass in which by this time all the knights were floundering. They could, indeed, advance a little still, but every step was harder than the last, and every inch of way seemed to find no firmer earth, while black splashes of water spurted from the puddled soil at every pace, and little pools sucked and gurgled ominously round the legs of the frightened horses.
There must be dry land somewhere, Simon thought, too much bewildered by this singular obstacle to wonder how such a ditch as this could have remained unknown to the Athenian leader. Across the green corn he could see the Catalans still composedly standing at gaze, while on all sides of him now the heavily armed knights and the heavy horses were sinking deeper and deeper in the treacherous marsh. Duke Baldwin ahead was up to his horse's middle now in the clinging mud, and was vainly essaying with oaths and curses to urge the beast a little farther. Like flies glued in honey seemed all the chivalry of Athens, plunging and struggling to extricate themselves from the fatal fen, and then Simon saw how some of the men of the Catalan Grand Company began to move. First, the bowmen lifted their bows and drew arrow to ear, and then a cloud of shafts came over the entangled knights, who could neither advance nor retreat, but were limed helplessly in the imprisoning slime. Then swift Spanish soldiers came running nimbly towards them, picking their way easily over the sump in which the Athenians wallowed an inextricable mass of men and horses, and as the Spaniards ran the sunlight glittered on the long knives they carried in their hands.
In an instant of agony Simon realized that all was lost, that the flower of the Athenian army was snared in that mysterious marish, and that there was little chance for any man among them to come out alive. Already the Spanish knife-men were thick and busy among their victims, paddling easily where horse and armor sank, and dealing death wherever they came with their terrible knives. Already Duke Baldwin was down with twenty men upon him. Hardly a dozen yards away Simon saw the girlish face of Guy de Hainault for the first time writhen with rage. He had lifted his visor to see more clearly what had happened, and he wielded his sword in vain against his unreachable assailants, and then a dozen men were on him from behind, and a dozen knives met in his body, and he went down and Simon saw him no more. The black slush was everywhere reddening with blood, as knight after knight perished ingloriously, helpless to evade the stings that slew them, and unable to strike a good stroke in defence of his life and of Athens.
It all happened so quickly, so unexpectedly, that Simon caught himself staring at the bloody work about him in a kind of unconsciousness, a kind of indifference, such as a man might wear who came unexpectedly upon a puppet-show in a village square. Above him the sky, to which his eyes travelled unawares, shone as brightly blue as it had shone in the hours of their merry march, since the peach color of the dawn had faded. The bright Greek world was the same, and yet the bright Greek world was all different, a mud-stained, blood-stained slaughter-spot, where brave knights were being murdered. Then, in the midst of the butchery all about him, Simon thought suddenly of the greenwood and a girl with a face like a god, and of a noble youth who rode at his side and strove to force his way over the morass. Instantly a great resolve came into Simon's mind that he would save the boy Rainouart for the girl Argathona.
Long afterwards, happily settled in Rouen, Simon, when he thought over the events of that whirling hour, used to remind himself that then, for the first time in his life, he devoutly gave God thanks for having made him so strong. In those after days in peaceful Rouen, he knew the cause of the catastrophe. The subtle genius of Fernand Ximenes had prepared an amazing trap for the Athenian army. He had turned aside the current of the river Cephissus into the cornfields of the Theban plain, and so flooded them, the quagmire thus created being completely concealed by the green standing corn. It was into this swamp that Duke Baldwin had ridden to his death, and it was in this swamp that Simon was now to struggle for his life and for the life of his lord.
Now when in an age-long instant Simon saw how things stood, and how certain were the Athenian chivalry to perish before the eyes of their enemies in that slough and snare, he caught at the bridle of Rainouart's horse, so that though the beast trampled and stumbled sinking in the mud, it could at least go no farther.
"In God's name," Rainouart cried at him, "why do you hold me back? Ride on. Athens, Athens!"
He strove hotly to urge his struggling horse farther into the field of carnage, but Simon would not have it so.
"My lord," he shouted--for the din was so great with the neighing of frightened horses and the cries of dying men that it was hard for a voice to prevail above it even in a neighbor's ear--"my lord, all is lost; we are all trapped rabbits; turn your rein and we may escape."
Rainouart turned on him in a red rage of despair.
"You are mad," he screamed. "We can ride and die with our fellows," and he gave a heavy groan.
"You can do nothing," Simon answered. "Come with me if you would ever see the greenwood again and the face of your girl."
"A coward's call," Rainouart shouted. "Good-bye, love. Athens, Athens!" and again he strove to urge his horse a little farther in the sucking sludge. But the horse could scarce stir for all his plunging, and though Simon's hand was still on the bridle, it was not Simon's hand that stayed advance.
"Few men have called me coward with comfort to themselves," Simon grumbled, inwardly. "Yet I will take it from this man for the maid's sake, and save him if I may. This quarrel is none of mine, and I care not a rap for Athens, and it argues me no dastard to fly from a hopeless fight."
Nimbly the thoughts skipped through his brainpan, but now Rainouart, seeing Simon's hand still on his bridle, menaced him with his sword, and shrieked at him through the din that he would kill him if he did not let go his hold. Simon's thoughts were still furiously busy, furiously swift, and they ran to this intent: "Since you think it a coward's part to fly, then you were a coward in flight. But if I, that feel no shame in escaping from such a shambles, pluck you hence willy-nilly, all is well."
By now Rainouart, beside himself with wrath at sight of such a massacre, had lifted up his sword to strike at Simon, but Simon did not give him time to strike. Swift as an arrow Simon's right arm straightened, and heavy as a blacksmith's hammer Simon's right hand, a huge and cruel fist in steel, delivered the young prince a giant's blow upon his helmed head. Under that mighty stroke Rainouart's head rattled in its iron case as a kernel rattles in a nut. Courage and consciousness alike were silenced, and Simon caught in his arms a senseless man as Rainouart reeled helpless from his saddle.
"It was high time to be making up our minds," Simon grunted, as he addressed himself to the terrible attempt to extricate his companion and himself from their desperate peril.
He leaped off his horse on to the squashy earth, and, though his great weight drew him deep over ankles into the loathsome slush, he was nearer to the edge of the terror than the main of the cavalry, and better able to move and act. With carnage raging ahead of him, Simon, as coolly as if he had been in a tent at a tournament, stripped most of the mail from the body of his unresisting lord, taking care to leave him his sword girded about his middle. Then, with a like composure and a like rapidity, he ripped the armor from his own limbs, and, picking up Rainouart from the slough where he lay senseless, flung him on to his shoulder as easily as he might have lifted a woman. Even in that moment, however, he showed his campaigning spirit. Knight or no knight, Simon had a fine appreciation for the merits of a ripe old wine, and, as fighting was ever hungry work, he had not thought it beneath his new dignity to make a filled wallet and a leather bottle of red wine part of his equipment. Now he snatched both from his saddle-bow and hooked them to his belt before beginning on his desperate enterprise of escape from the mouth of the pit.
The mouth of the pit was like the mouth of hell. There were little lanes of oozy earth running in all directions behind him, green with trampled corn and red with Frankish blood. In front of him the bog he had crossed spluttered and gurgled, and across its treacherous surface he essayed, at all adventure, to reach some firmer soil. Up to this time Simon's doings had passed unchallenged. All around him the morning was made hideous by the screams of the dying and the shrieks of the triumphant Catalans as they drove home their pitiless knives, and knight after knight of those that had been the glories of Duke Baldwin's court went unprepared on the path to paradise. If any of the enemy noticed Simon at his work they may, seeing one man stripping the armor from another, have taken him heedlessly for one of themselves, who, having slain, was prompt to plunder. But now some five or six of the Catalan stabbing rabble, having worked ahead of their fellows, and seeing a man with another man on his shoulders wading through blood and mud towards the dry land, where the main strength of the Athenian army was still standing, came rapidly to head him off, running quickly and securely on the ridges familiar to them that divided the different fields of wheat and barley, or wading through the bog itself with ease in their nearly naked condition.
They chose their prey unwisely, for Simon had his great sword bare in his hand, and, as the rascals came at him, Simon, wielding his terrible weapon, struck off head after head of his assailants till none were left to face him, and then made use of their bodies as convenient stepping-stones to help him a little farther to his desired haven, while such others as were tempted to join in the chase, seeing the havoc he wrought upon their comrades, turned with alacrity to less-resisting victims.
Little by little, inch by inch, through what seemed an eternity of effort, Simon struggled with his burden, every muscle of his great body strained, every vein in his great body throbbing as he strove inch by inch to gain a firmer foothold. At last, with the shrieks of the dying and the cries of the triumphant well behind him, he felt his heels tread upon a firmer foothold. A little more, and, with the sweat raining off him like a deluge, he staggered to sound earth, and stood dripping and stained and aching, but free. He paused for a moment to draw breath and to see what lay before and behind him. The view either way was disastrous for the future of Athens. Behind him, as it seemed, every man of the gorgeous company that had ridden with Duke Baldwin from Athens that morning had fallen a victim to the cunning and the fury of the Catalans. Before him the bulk of the Athenian army was by now in ignoble flight towards the city. Dismayed by what it saw, puffed by a panic terror and spurred by a conviction that the Catalans must be irresistible, the war-used army of Duke Baldwin fell asunder like a pack of frightened children. The road to Athens was free for the Catalans to march on; the city itself was free for the Catalans to deal with as they pleased.
Not far from where Simon now stood, a great war-charger wandered quietly and bit unconcernedly at the sweet grass. Doubtless it had unhorsed its rider in the first struggle in the concealed wash, and had made its way back again instinctively to the firm soil it had just quitted. Simon, still carrying his unconscious load, advanced towards the horse, holding out his hand, and trying to speak to it caressingly, and it startled him as he did so to find what a thin thread of a voice came from between his burning lips.
The horse did not start or shy, but went on cropping the grass unconcernedly until Simon was close beside it, and then, with no show of fear, it allowed Simon to seize its bridle. In another moment Simon was astride the saddle with the young prince lying limp on the saddle-bow. In yet another he had turned the great horse's head to the west, and was making at the best speed he could compel for the woodlands.
