Turbulent Tales

By Raphael Sabatini

Rafael Sabatini’s 'Turbulent Tales' is a masterful catalogue of extraordinary stories of bravery, honour, intrigue and adventure. With all the vitality of their colourful backdrops, they are stories to thrill and excite any lover of historical fiction.

• Language: English
• Publisher: House of Stratus
• Release date: Nov 30, 2014
• ISBN: 9780755153046

Raphael Sabatini

Rafael Sabatini, creator of some of the world’s best-loved heroes, was born in Italy in 1875 to an English mother and Italian father, both well-known opera singers. He was educated in Portugal and Switzerland, but at seventeen moved to England, where, after a brief stint in the business world, he started to write. Fluent in a total of five languages, he nonetheless chose to write in English, claiming that ‘all the best stories are written in [that language]’. His writing career was launched with a collection of short stories, followed by several novels. Fame, however, came with ‘Scaramouche’, the much-loved story of the French Revolution, which became an international bestseller. ‘Captain Blood’ followed soon after, which resulted in a renewed enthusiasm for his earlier work which were rushed into reprint. For many years a prolific writer, he was forced to abandon writing in the 1940’s through illness and eventually died in 1950. Sabatini is best remembered for his heroic characters and high-spirited novels, many of which have been adapted into classic films, including Scaramouche, Captain Blood and The Sea Hawk. They appeal to both a male and female audience with drama, romance and action, all placed in historical settings. It was once stated in the ‘Daily Telegraph’ that ‘one wonders if there is another storyteller so adroit at filling his pages with intrigue and counter-intrigue, with danger threaded with romance, with a background of lavish colour, of silks and velvets, of swords and jewels.’

Book preview

By Ancient Custom

The Sire Tristan de Beloeil standing upon the threshold of Eternity considered perhaps for the first time since his birth, twenty-five years earlier, how much there was in life which could not be heft without regret.

Well-born and well-dowered in fortune as in body, the world’s best gifts had lain within his easy reach and there had been on his part no reluctance in making them his own, or niggardliness in using them.

The priest who had been sent to shrive him, and who had just departed, might be correctly informed in the matter of the Hereafter, which he had described in such alluring terms. But it seemed to the Sire Tristan that the priest took a good deal for granted; and for his own part he was content enough with the world of men, and would prefer to continue in it, postponing until much later the enjoyment of the delights of Paradise to which the hangman was to despatch him in the morning.

He leaned on the stone sill of the solidly barred window of his prison in the Gravensteen of Ghent, and contemplated the sunset. He was not likely to contemplate another, since only the powers of Joshua could postpone the doom which its circling would bring him in the next twelve hours. He took his head in his hands, thrusting his fingers deep into his golden mane, and so far forgot the admirable stoicism which had hitherto supported him as to permit himself a sob. Never had life seemed so sweet and desirable as now that by the justice of the great Duke of Burgundy he was to be deprived of it. This justice, he held, had been too harshly administered by the Ducal Lieutenant. He was prepared to admit that a certain severity may be expedient in legislating for a subject people, especially when they are as stubborn and turbulent as those of Ghent who had given the Duke trouble almost from the very hour of his accession. But even a Ducal Lieutenant should not disregard the claims which the laws of honour make upon a gentleman of birth; and tolerance should be shown whenever these laws are in conflict with no less arbitrary ducal enactments. It was true that the Sire Tristan had grievously wounded a man, and equally true that deeds of blood were of all offences those which Ducal Lieutenants, operating so briskly with sack and cord throughout the Duke’s wide dominions, were instructed to punish most rigorously. But, after all, this had been no act of brigandage or scoundrel violence. He had fought honourably with Conrad van der Schuylen, and it was monstrous that he should be required to pay for it by dying a felon’s death.

Yet if the Ducal Lieutenant of Ghent – the wooden-faced Sire de Vauvenargues – had confined himself in his judgment to the naked fact and taken no account of its clothing circumstances, the fault was largely the Sire Tristan’s own. He had stubbornly refused to inform the court of the grounds of the quarrel, arrogantly claiming that he was within his rights to engage in single combat whenever honour should demand it.

How, the Ducal Lieutenant had asked him, not unreasonably, are we to judge that honour demanded it in this instance unless you disclose the grounds upon which you quarrelled?

The Sire Tristan, however, would not yield the point. It is a gentleman’s right to quarrel upon any grounds he pleases. The present grounds are such as I cannot publish without committing a disloyalty. It is in your knowledge that I did not fall upon Messire van der Schuylen unawares, like an assassin; therefore you cannot deal with me as with a common murderer.

But the court showed him that it could. If he would not defend himself in what the court accounted proper terms, the court must assume that he had no proper defence. Van der Schuylen’s turn would come later when and if he recovered sufficiently to stand his trial. Perhaps he would be less obstinate. Perhaps he would have less cause so to be. Thus the Ducal Lieutenant, who thereupon proceeded calmly to pass sentence of death upon the Sire Tristan de Beloeil as an example to all men who might be disposed to practise turbulence within the ducal dominions.

The Sire Tristan was sprung from a family of much consequence, and this family exerted itself vigorously, urging its ancient blood as a last plea why execution should be stayed until appeal could be made to the Duke’s Highness in person. But the Ducal Lieutenant met this plea with that monstrous falsehood of all time that in the eyes of the law all men are equal, and that, therefore, no appeal to the Duke could avail. Thereafter, an advocate had arisen in the grey justice chamber of the Gravensteen to offer on behalf of some person or persons unnamed to ransom the prisoner by the payment of any reasonable fine which the Ducal Lieutenant might see fit to impose as an alternative.

He was curtly informed that the justice of Burgundy was not for sale, and the Sire Tristan was conducted back to his prison, there to prepare himself for his end. He was not even to have the satisfaction of knowing what generous friend had sent that advocate before the court with his mysterious offer. For although the Sire Tristan possessed many friends, yet he could think of none whose love for him would have gone to quite such lengths. The failure of that attempt had closed the last door on hope, and nothing now remained but to prepare himself for tomorrow’s grim journey with the best courage he could command.

They kept him waiting next day until noon, thereby subjecting him to a torment of hope. He perceived the reason when at last they brought him forth from the palace-fortress which once had been the castle of the Counts of Flanders, and conducted him through the mean alleys of the Oudeburg to the great square where the scaffold was erected in the shadow of that Belfry regarded by the burghers as the monument of their power and wealth. The Ducal Lieutenant had chosen the hour when the noon bell summoned the forty thousand weavers of Ghent from their looms to the midday meal. They were a turbulent, stubbornly independent class, these weavers, ever ready in defence of liberty to exchange the shuttle for the club or the pike. Their numbers and cohesion made them formidable, wherefore the Sire de Vauvenargues deemed it well to miss no opportunity of intimidating them by a display of the iron hand of Burgundy. The hour of deserted looms was deliberately chosen so that all Ghent might be free to witness this operation of Burgundian justice upon a well-born disturber of the peace.

Under a strong guard of archers, upon the breasts of whose white surcoats was displayed the Burgundian badge of the St Andrew’s Cross, came the Sire Tristan de Beloeil marching briskly to his doom. He carried himself erect, his face composed, if pale, and he had dressed himself in his best as if for a bridal, accounting that his birth and blood demanded that he should make as brave a show as possible on this his last appearance.

His pourpoint was of red velvet, tapering gracefully to the waist, laced in gold across the wedge of snowy undergarment showing at the breast; his hose was parti-coloured, red and white, his long boots of fine red Spanish leather turned over at the tops.

Beholding him so young and so comely, so elegant and so intrepid, the crowd was moved to general compassion, whilst here and there the feeling became allied with indignation that he should suffer a felon’s death for a deed which no equitable justice would have regarded as felonious.

The Sire Tristan was bareheaded, and the abundant hair which hung to the nape of his neck was so lustrously golden that an aureole of light seemed to glow about it as it reflected the sunlight of that fair April noon. This was observed by some and pointed out as a portent, a sign of heavenly grace, a prognostic of beatitude to be earned him by his approaching martyrdom. A woman was the first to voice it.

There is a nimbus about his head! she cried. It is a sign!

Another took up the cry and amplified it: There is a throne awaiting him in Heaven, the dear young saint.

Why, this assurance growing amongst them, they should have desired to prevent the Sire Tristan, for whom there was certainly no throne on earth, from at once fulfilling so splendid a celestial destiny, is not immediately apparent. But crowds are moved by emotion; and emotion is rarely the friend of logic. The people began to mutter, to protest against this hanging, and, at last, to jostle and hinder the archers of the guard, so that these were forced to employ their staves in order to thrust back the press and open a way to the gallows.

The Sire de Vauvenargues, looking on from a balcony of the Stadhuis, began to ask himself if, after all, he had been wise in deliberately choosing an hour when the streets were thronged. If a riot were to ensue his harsh master, the Duke, would ask a stern account of him for the event and the dispositions which had made it possible. There was, however, no riot. Before the uncompromising attitude of the Burgundian archers and the resolute wielding of their staves, the crowd permitted prudence to override compassion. Had the Sire Tristan been a Ghenter it might have fallen out differently. But he was comparatively a stranger there, a gentleman of Hainault, and, after all, there was no reason why men of Ghent should get their heads broken on behalf of a Hainaulter, however young, comely and deserving of sympathy. They left him, therefore, to the protection of a Heaven which had already placed about his golden head that startling mark of favour. Heaven, however, showed no sign of intervening to prolong the young man’s earthly life, for with his monkish companion he reached the foot of the scaffold and mounted its wooden steps. The Ducal Lieutenant, looking on from his balcony, was relieved.

Under the shadow of the cross-beam, from which the noosed rope of yellow hemp was dangling ominously, the Sire Tristan stood to address the people, as was the right of every man in his extremity. His face was grey; the brave smile on his lips was stiff, frozen and lifeless. Neither could his mind conceive nor his lips articulate any valedictory words for the people upon whom a hush of piteous attention had now fallen. But before the perception of his plight had time to arise, the general silence was broken by a cry, followed by a rapidly swelling and spreading hubbub.

It began at a corner of the square to the left of the Stadhuis, which the doomed man was facing, and appeared to have its source about a lady on a richly caparisoned white horse, for whom a number of grooms were labouring to open a way through the crowd, a way which opened of itself rapidly enough and almost joyously once her identity became known and her object – or at least some part of it – suspected.

She was the Lady Margaret of Saint-Gilles, the daughter of an opulent nobleman of Waes, and she shared the esteem and affection in which her father was held throughout Flanders, adding to it even by her own natural endowments. She was unknown to the Sire de Vauvenargues, who was a Burgundian lately brought from Dijon by the Duke and as yet unacquainted either with the persons or the customs of those to whom he dispensed justice in the Duke’s name. But there was in her commanding beauty a passport to the favour of any man who was not withered to the marrow. And the Sire de Vauvenargues for all his cold austerity of manner and lean gravity of countenance, was still on the young side of fifty and far from destitute of gallantry. Disturbed though he might be again by these growing murmurs, yet the greater part of his attention at the moment was for this splendid figure in a trailing riding-dress of mulberry velvet, mounted on that richly caparisoned horse, for which the grooms were opening a way in his direction. She carried her head proudly, he observed, and as she neared the low balcony he occupied, he was almost dazzled by the effulgence of the dark blue eyes glowing in a face as pale as ivory. Her head was crowned by the tall steeple-shaped herrin, from which floated a misty veil of blue, and a jewel of price gleamed in the black frontlet across her brow, as if to proclaim her rank.

When first the eyes of the Sire Tristan had beheld her, a tremor had run through his limbs, a tinge of colour had crept into his pallid cheeks and life had returned to his lack-lustre gaze. It was as if the very sight of her had power to conquer his fear of death; as if all his consciousness were suddenly focused in his eyes, and seeing her, he saw nothing else, knew of nothing else.

The Captain of the Archers, standing behind him on the scaffold, had touched his shoulder and bidden him say his say, so that they might conclude the business and go home to dinner. The hangman and his valet had been growing impatient too. But now the attention of captain, of hangman and even of priest, like that of the multitude, was transferred from the doomed man to the lady on the white palfrey. The Sire Tristan had suddenly ceased to be the chief actor in this grim scene.

She had drawn rein immediately under that low balcony occupied by the Ducal Lieutenant, who, in his furred gown and chain of office, was attended by the Burgomaster van Genck and a group of officers. She lifted up her voice, a voice rich, sonorous and musical to match her splendid person.

A boon, my Lord Lieutenant! I ask as a boon what by our ancient Flemish customs I have the right to claim; that I may be married to this man whom the Duke’s justice is about to hang.

It occurred then to Tristan de Beloeil, who had missed no word of it, that all this was not real; that it was not happening at all; that he was still in his prison asleep and dreaming the incredible. The Sire de Vauvenargues, ignorant of those Flemish customs to which she appealed, may have had some similar thought. He flushed and scowled. It seemed to him that this request made a mock of his authority and of the justice of the Duke his master which should be executed with due solemnity of forms. He looked to right and to left, at the fat Burgomaster, grinning like an idol, at the frowning Burgundian captains and at the laughing, applauding people below. He turned to the lady with a curt contemptuous dismissal. But her beauty withered it on his lips. He contented himself with a cold announcement that what she asked was impossible.

Her answer by taking him too literally seemed further to exploit the mockery.

Not so, my lord. There is a priest on the scaffold there to make it possible at once. Pale she might be; but she was singularly firm.

There was no tremor in her rich young voice, no faltering in the steady gaze of her deep blue eyes.

The Lieutenant’s voice came harsher now and more impatient. The request is unexampled, an effrontery! You delay the Duke’s justice frivolously, Madame. It is outrageous! Impulsively he raised his hand to signal to the Captain of the Archers, but found his arm caught in the grasp of the Burgomaster. Mynheer van Genck no longer grinned. His face was very grave, his eyes almost scared.

The laughter and applause below had suddenly changed to angry murmurs, which grew as they rippled through the ranks of the multitude. Clear above the inarticulate mutter of indignation came the shouted words:

It is an honoured Flemish custom, Lord Lieutenant!

The Duke of Burgundy would not trample on our rights and privileges!

You are false to your trust, Lord Lieutenant, if you deny this lady!

Despotic, cold and arrogant, the Sire de Vauvenargues might be; but he was not a fool; indeed, he was a man of some acuteness, else he would not have been raised by Charles of Burgundy to the eminence he occupied. He perceived himself confronted by something which he did not understand. He raised his hand for silence and patience, and was almost surprised by the readiness with which the signal was obeyed.

He turned for guidance to the Burgomaster.

What is this, sir, of a custom, a right, a privilege?

It is as they tell you, my lord. It is an old Flemish custom which gives any woman the right to marry a doomed man on the scaffold, provided that he is marriageable.

The Lieutenant’s lip curled. A gruesome custom, faith! And a stupid one. What satisfaction lies in it?

The Burgomaster shrugged and spread his podgy hands. "Can Your Excellency conceive of no case in which it would yield