Chapter 15

HOW NORMAN LESLIE WAS ABSOLVED BY BROTHER THOMAS

Certain Scots that found me, weak and bleeding, by the riverside, were sent by the Maid, in hopes that I had saved Glasdale, whereas it was the accursed cordelier I had won from the water. What they did with him I knew not then, but me they laid on a litter, and so bore me to a boat, wherein they were ferrying our wounded men across to Orleans. The Maid herself, as she had foretold, returned by way of the bridge, that was all bright with moving torches, as our groaning company were rowed across the black water to a quay. Thence I was carried in a litter to our lodgings, and so got to bed, a physician doing what he might for me. A noisy night we passed, for I verily believe that no man slept, but all, after service held in the Church of St. Aignan, went revelling and drinking from house to house, and singing through the streets, as folk saved from utter destruction.

With daybreak fell a short silence; short or long, it seemed brief to me, who was now asleep at last, and I was rueful enough when a sound aroused me, and I found the Maid herself standing by my bedside, with one in the shadow behind her. The chamber was all darkling, lit only by a thread of light that came through the closed shutters of wood, and fell on her pale face. She was clad in a light jaseran of mail, because of her wound, and was plainly eager to be gone and about her business, that is, to meet the English in open field.

"Leslie, my friend," she said, in her sweet voice, "there were many brave men in the fight yesterday, but, in God's name, none did a braver deed than thou! Nay, speak not," she said, as I opened my lips to thank her, "for the leech that tended thee last night forbids it, on peril of thy very life. So I have brought thee here a sheet of fair paper, and a pen and horn of ink, that thou, being a clerk, mayst write what thou hast to say. Alas! such converse is not for me, who know not A from his brother B. But the saints who helped thee have rewarded thee beyond all expectation. Thou didst not save that unhappy Glacidas, whom God in His mercy forgive! but thou hast taken a goodlier prize--this holy man, that had been prisoner in the hands of the English."

Here she stood a little aside, and the thread of light shone on the fell face of Brother Thomas, lowering beneath his hood.

Then I would have spoken, leech or no leech, to denounce him, for the Maid had no memory of his face, and knew him not for the false friar taken at St. Loup. But she laid her mailed finger gently on my lips.

"Silence! Thou art my man-at-arms and must obey thy captain. This worthy friar hath been long in the holy company of the blessed Colette, and hath promised to bring me acquainted with that daughter of God. Ay, and he hath given to me, unworthy as I am, a kerchief which has touched her wonder-working hands. Almost I believe that it will