XIVDame Duessa had come to Avalon, having heard certain whisperings of Gilderoy, and of a golden-haired Astarte who kept house there. Dame Duessa was a proud woman and a passionate, headstrong as a reformer, jealous as a parish priest. She boasted a great ancestry and a great name, and desires and convictions in keeping. She was a woman who loved her robe cupboard, her jewel-case, and her bed. Moreover, she pretended some affection for the Lord Flavian her husband, perhaps arrogance of ownership, seeing that Dame Duessa was very determined to keep him in bonded compact with herself. She suspected that the man did not consider her a saint, or worship her as such. Yet, termagant that she was, Dame Duessa could suffer some trampling of empty sentiment, provided Fate did not rob her of her share in the broad demesne and rent-roll of Gambrevault.Avalon was a castle of ten towers, linked by a strong curtain wall, and built about a large central court and garden. A great moat circled the whole, a moat broad and silvery as a lake, with water-lilies growing thick in the shallows. Beyond the moat, sleek meadows tufted with green rushes swept to the gnarled piers of the old oaks that vanguarded the forest. The black towers slumbered in a mist of green, girded with sheeny water, tented by the azure of a southern sky.Dame Duessa, being a lady of silks and tissues, did not love the place with all her soul. Avalon of the Orchards was dull, and smacked of Arcady; it was far removed from that island of fair sin, Lauretia, the King's city. Moreover, the Lord Flavian and his ungallant gentlemen held rigorously to the northern turrets, leaving her to lodge ascetically in her rich chamber in a southern tower.Her husband contrived to exile himself as far as Castle Avalon could suffer him. If the pair went to mass, they went separately, with the frigid hauteur of an Athanasius handing an Aryus over to hell. When they hunted they rode towards opposite stars. No children had chastened them, pledges of heaven-given life. The Lady Duessa detested ought that hinted at caudle, swaddling-clothes, and cradles. Moreover, all Avalon seemed in league with the Lord Flavian. Knights, esquires, scullions, horse-boys swore by him as though he were a Bayard. Dame Duessa could rely solely on a prig of a page, and a lady-in-waiting who wore a wig, and perhaps on Fra Balthasar, the Dominican.Meanwhile, the Lord of Avalon had been putting forth his penitence in stone and timber, and an army of craftsmen from Geraint. The glade in Cambremont wood rang to the swing of axes and the hoarse groaning of the saw. The tower had been purged of its ashes, its rooms retimbered, its casements filled with glass. A chapel was springing into life under the trees; the cleverest masons of the south were at work upon its pillars and its arches. Fra Balthasar, the Dominican, held sway over the whole, subtle in colour and the carving of stone. Flavian could have found no better pander to his penitence. Rose nobles had been squandered. Frescoes, jewel bright, were to blaze out upon the walls. The vaulted roof was to be constellated with glimmering gold stars, shining from skies of purple and azure.To turn to Fulviac's great cliff hid in the dark depths of the forest of pines. The disloyal chaff of the kingdom was wafted thither day by day, borne on the conspiring breeze. The forest engulfed all comers and delivered them like ghosts into Fulviac's caverns. An army might have melted into the wilds, and the countryside have been none the wiser. Amid the pines and rocks of the cliffs there were marchings and countermarchings, much shouldering of pikes and ordering of companies. Veterans who had fought the infidels under Wenceslaus, drilled the raw levies, and inculcated with hoarse bellowings the rudiments of military reason. They were rough gentlemen, and Fulviac stroked them with a gauntlet of iron. They were to attempt liberty together, and he demonstrated to them that such freedom could be won solely by discipline and soldierly concord. The rogues grumbled and swore behind his back, but were glad in their hearts to have a man for master.To speak again of the girl Yeoland. That March night she had met Fulviac over the wreckage of the broken gate, and had made a profession of the truth, so far, she said, as she could conjecture it. She had been long in the forest, had returned to the cliff to find the guards slain, and the Lord Flavian gone. By some device he had escaped from his shackles, slain the men, and fled by the northern postern. The woman made a goodly pretence of vexation of spirit over the escape of this reprobate. She even taunted Fulviac with foolhardiness, and lack of foresight in so bungling her vengeance.The man's escape from the cliff roused Fulviac's energies to full flood. The aristocrat of Avalon was ignorant of the volcano bubbling under his feet, yet any retaliatory meddling on his part might prove disastrous at so critical an hour. Fulviac thrust forward the wheels of war with a heavy hand. The torrents of sedition and discontent were converging to a river of revolt, that threatened to crush tyranny as an avalanche crushes a forest.The Virgin with her moon-white face still inspired Yeoland with the visionary behest given in the ruined chapel. The girl's fingers toiled at the scarlet banner; she spent half her days upon her knees, devout as any Helena. She knew Fulviac's schemes as surely as she did the beads on her rosary. The rough rangers of the forest held her to be a saint, and knelt to touch her dress as she passed by.Yet what are dreams but snowflakes drifting from the heavens, now white, now red, as God or man carries the lamp of love? The girl's ecstasy of faith was but a potion to her, dazing her from a yet more subtle dream. A faint voice summoned her from the unknown. She would hear it often in the silence of the night, or at full noon as she faltered in her prayers. The rosary would hang idle on her wrist, the crucifix melt from her vision. She would find her heart glowing like a rose at the touch of the sun. Anon, frightened, she would shake the human half of herself, and run back penitent to her prayers.It was springtide and the year's youth, when memories are garlanded with green, and romance scatters wind-flowers over the world. Many voices awoke, like the chanting of birds, in Yeoland's heart. She desired, even as a swallow, to see the old haunts again, to go a pilgrim to the place where the dear dead slept. Was it yearning grief, or a joy more subtle, the cry of the wild and the voice of desire? Mayhap white flowers shone on the tree of life, prophetic of fruit in the mellow year. Jaspar the harper heard her plea; 'twas wilful and eager, but what of that! Fulviac, good man, had ridden to Gilderoy. The girl had liberty enough and to spare. She took it and Jaspar, and rode out from the cliff.Threading the sables of the woods, they came one noon to the open moor. It was golden with the western sun, solitary as the sea. The shadows were long upon the sward when Cambremont wood billowed out in its valley. There was no hope of their reaching the tower before dusk, so they piled dead bracken under a cedar, where the shelving eaves swept to the ground.They were astir early upon the morrow, a sun-chastened wind inspiring the woodlands, and sculpturing grand friezes from the marbles of the sky. The forest was full of the glory of Spring, starred with anemones and dusted with the azure campaniles of the hyacinth horde. Primroses lurked on the lush green slopes. In the glades, the forest peristyles, green gorse blazed with its constellations of gold.To the dolt and the hag the world is nothing but a fat larder; only the unregenerate are blind of soul. Beauty, Diana-like, shows not her naked loveliness to all. The girl Yeoland's eyes were full of a strange lustre that May morning. Many familiar landmarks did she pass upon the way, notched deep on the cross of memory. There stood the great beech tree where Bertrand had carved his name, and the smooth bark still bore the scars where the knife had wantoned. She forded the stream where Roland's pony had once pitched him into the mire. Her eyes grew dim as she rode through the sun-steeped woods.The day had drawn towards noon when they neared the glade in the midst of Cambremont wood. Heavy wain wheels had scarred the smooth green of the ride, and the newly-sawn pedestals of fallen oaks showed where woodmen had been felling timber. To Jaspar the harper these signs were more eloquent of peril than of peace. He began to snuff the air like an old hound, and to jerk restless glances at the girl at his side."See where wheels have been," he began."And axes, my friend.""What means it?""Some one rebuilds the tower."The harper wagged his head and half turned his horse from the grass ride."Have a care," he said."Hide in the woods if you will."She rode on with a triumphant wilfulness and he followed her.As they neared the glade, the noise of axe and hammer floated on the wind, and they saw the scene flicker towards them betwixt the great boles of the trees. The tower stood with battlements of fresh white stone; its windows had been reset, the blasting touch of fire effaced from the walls. The glade was strewn with blocks of stone and lengths of timber; the walls of a chapel were rising from the grass. Men were digging trenches for the foundations of the priest's cell. Soldiers idled about gossiping with the masons.There was a smile in the girl's eyes and a deeper tint upon her cheeks as she stared betwixt the trees at the regarnished tower. Those grey eyes had promised the truth in Fulviac's cavern. She was glad in her heart of the man's honour, glad with a magic that made her colour. As for the harper, he stroked his grey beard and was mute. He lacked imagination, and was no longer young.On a stump of an oak tree at the edge of the wood sat a man in a black mantle and a habit of white cloth. He had a panel upon his knee, and a small wooden chest beside him on the grass. His eyes were turned often to the rolling woods, as his plump hand flourished a brush with nervous and graceful gestures.Seeing the man's tonsure, and his dress that marked him a Dominican, Yeoland rode out from the trees, casting her horse's shadow athwart his work. The man looked up with puckered brow, his keen eye framing the girl's figure at a glance. It was his destiny to see the romantic and the beautiful in all things.The priest and the girl on the horse eyed each other a moment in silence. Each was instinctively examining the other. The churchman, with an approving glint of the eye, was the first to break the woodland silence."Peace be with you, madame."His tone hinted at a question, and the girl adopted therewith an ingenuous duplicity."My man and I were of a hunting party," she said; "we went astray in the wood. You, Father, will guide us?""Madame has not discovered to me her desire.""We wish for Gilderoy."Balthasar rose and pointed with his brush towards the ride by which they had come. He mapped the road for them with sundry jaunty flourishes, and much showing of his white teeth. Yeoland thanked him, but was still curious."Ah, Father, whither have we wandered?""Men call it Cambremont wood, madame.""And these buildings? A retreat, doubtless, for holy men."Balthasar corrected her with much unction."The Lord Flavian of Avalon builds here," he said, "but not for monks. I, madame, am his architect, his pedagogue in painting."Yeoland pretended interest. She craned forward over her horse's neck and looked at the priest's panel. The act decided him. Since she was young and comely, Balthasar seized the chance of a chivalrous service. The girl had fine eyes, and a neck worthy of a Venus."Madame has taste. She would see our work?"Madame appeared very ready to grant the favour. Balthasar put his brushes aside, held the girl's stirrup, and, unconscious of the irony of the act, expatiated to Yeoland on the beauties of her own home. At the end of their pilgrimage, being not a little bewitched by such eyes and such a face, he begged of her the liberty of painting her there and then. 'Twas for the enriching of religious art, as he very properly put it.Dead Rual's grave was not ten paces distant, and Jaspar was standing by it as in prayer. Thus, Yeoland sat to Fra Balthasar, oblivious of him indeed as his fingers brought her fair face into being, her shapely throat and raven hair. His picture perfected, he blessed her with the unction of a bishop, and stood watching her as she vanished down the southern ride, graceful and immaculate as a young Dian.XVHardly had an hour passed, and Fra Balthasar was still touching the study he had made of Yeoland's face, when a company of spears flashed out by the northern ride into the clearing. At their head rode a knight in harness of burnished steel, a splendid figure flashing chivalry in the eyes of the sun. On his shield he bore "a castle, argent, with ports voided of the field, on a field vert," the arms of the house of Gambrevault. His surcoat was diapered azure and green with three gold suns blazoned thereon. His baldric, a splendid streak of scarlet silk, slashed his surcoat as with blood. His troop, men in half armour, rode under the Pavon Vert of the demesne of Avalon.They thundered into the open stretch of grass with a clangorous rattle of steel. Flavian, bare-headed, for his salade hung at his saddle-bow and he wore no camail, scanned the glade with a keen stare. Seeing Fra Balthasar seated under a tree, he turned his horse towards him, and smiled as the churchman put his tools aside and gave him a benediction. The man made a fine figure; judged by the flesh, Balthasar might have stood for an Ambrose or a Leo."Herald of heaven, how goes the work?""Sire, we emulate Pericles.""What have you there, a woman's head, some rare Madonna?"Balthasar showed his white teeth."A pretty pastoral, messire. The study of a lady who had lost her way hunting, and craved my guidance this morning. A woman with the face and figure of a Dian.""Ha, rogue of the brush, let us see it."Balthasar passed the parchment into the other's hand. Flavian stared at it, flushed to the temples, rapped out an ejaculation in ecclesiastic Latin. His eyes devoured the sketch with the insatiable enthusiasm of a lover; words came hot off his tongue."Quick, man, quick, is this true to life?""As ruby to ruby.""None of your idealisations?""Messire, but an hour ago that girl was sitting her horse where your destrier now stands.""And you sketched this at her desire?""At my own, sire; it was courtesy for courtesy: I had shown her our handiwork here.""You showed her this tower and chapel?""Certainly, sire.""She seemed sad?""Nay, merry.""This is romance!" He lifted the little picture at arm's length to the sun, kissed it, and put it in his bosom. His face was radiant; he laughed as though some golden joy rang and resounded in his heart."A hundred golden angels for this face!"Fra Balthasar was in great measure mystified. The Lord of Avalon seemed an inflammable gentleman."Messire, you are ever generous.""Man, man, you have caught the one woman in the world.""Sire----""The Madonna of the Pine Forest, the Madonna of Mercy; she whose kinsfolk were put to the sword by my men; even the daughter of Rual whose tower stands yonder."The priest comprehended the whole in a moment. The dramatic quaintness of the adventure had made him echo Flavian's humour. He laughed and shrugged his shoulders."Romance, romance! By all the lovers who ever loved, by Tristan and the dark Iseult, by Launcelot and Guinivere, follow that picture.""Which way went she?""By the southern ride, towards Gilderoy."The man was in heroic humour; his sword flashed out and shook in the sun."By God, I'll see her face again, and yet again, though I burn in hell for it. Roland, Godamar, come, men, come, throw away your spears. Ride, ride, we chase the sunset. Life and desire!"He sprang away on his great bay horse, a shimmering shaft of youth--youth that flashed forth chivalry into the burgeoning green of Spring. The sunlight webbed his hair with gold; his face glowed like a martyr's. Balthasar watched him with much poetic zest, as he swept away with his thundering knights into the woods.The friar settled to his work again, but it was fated that he was to have no lasting peace that morning. He was painting in a background, a landscape, to a small Crucifixion. His hand was out of touch, however; the subject was not congenial. A pale face and a pair of dusky eyes had deepened a different stream of thought in the man. Themes hypersensuous held his allegiance; from prim catholic ethics, he reverted to his glorious paganism with an ever-broadening sense of satisfaction.He was interrupted once more, and not unpleasantly, by a lady, with two armed servants at her back, riding in from the forest by the northern ride. The woman was clad in a cloak of damask red, and a jupon of dark green, broidered with azure scroll work. Her hood, fallen back, showed her purple black hair bound up in a net of gold. Her large dark eyes flashed and smouldered under their long lashes. She had high cheek-bones, a big nose, lips full as an over-ripe rose. She was big of body, voluptuous to look upon, as an Eastern odalisque, a woman of great passions, great appetites.Fra Balthasar tumbled his brushes and paints aside, and went to meet her as she rode over the grass. There was a smile on the man's lips, a flush upon his sleek face, as he walked with a courtly and debonair vanity. The woman caught sight of him and wheeled her horse in his direction. The autumn splendour of her cheeks told of hard riding, and her horse dropped foam from his black muzzle.Fra Balthasar crossed himself with much meekness."Good greeting, Madame Duessa," were his words, as he kept his eyes on the ground.The woman scanned the glade with the strenuous spirit of a Boadicea."My Lord Flavian?""Madame?""He has been here.""But is here no longer.""These buildings?""Are the Lord Flavian's.""And you?""I am his architect.""Morally, messire monk?""Madame, I do not edificate souls."The woman stared him over with a critical comprehensiveness."Balthasar."The man half glanced at her."Look me in the face."He gave a sigh, made a gesture with his hands, looked melancholy and over-ecstasied to the point of despair."Madame, there are thoughts beyond one's liberty.""Well?""There are women, a woman, one dares not look upon. There are eyes, well--well, that are too bright. Pardon me, I would serve you."She took a deep breath, held out her hand to him, a big, warm hand, soft and white. The man's lips burnt upon it. She touched his cheek and saw him colour."Well?""My Lord Flavian is not here.""But has been. Where now?""Away hunting.""Ha, what?""Madame, what do men hunt and burn for?""Sometimes a stag, a hare, a standard, a woman.""Sometimes--a woman."Balthasar, looking slantwise under half-closed lids, saw her eyes flash and her lips tighten."Which way?""The southern ride, towards Gilderoy."Duessa shook her bridle, and threw one look into Balthasar's eyes."Remember," she said, "remember, a woman loves a friend, a true friend, who can tell a lie, or keep a secret."Balthasar watched her ride away. He stood and smiled to himself, while his long fingers played with the folds of his mantle. Red wine was bounding in his blood, and his imagination revelled. He was a poetic person, and a poet's soul is often like tinder, safe enough till the spark falls."Gloria," he said to himself with a smirk, "here's hunting with a vengeance. Two women and a man! The devil is loose. Soul of Masaccio, that woman has fine eyes."That day, when the sky was growing red over the woods, Flavian and his troop drew close on the heels of Yeoland and the harper. The man, for all his heat, had kept his horse-flesh well in hand. Once out of Cambremont wood, they had met a charcoal-burner, who had seen Yeoland and her follower pass towards the west. They had hunted fast over fell and moor. While not two miles behind came Duessa of the Black Hair, biting her lips and giving her brute lash and spur with a woman's viciousness.Yeoland, halting on a slope above the pine woods, looked back and saw something that made her crane her neck and wax vigilant. Out of the wine-red east and the twilight gloom came the lightning of harness, the galloping gleam of armed men. Jaspar's blear eyes were unequal to the girl's. The men below were riding hard, half under the lea of the midnight pines, whose tops touched the sunset. A half-moon of steel, their crescent closed wood and moor. They had the lead in the west; they were mounting the slope behind.Jaspar saw them at last. He was for galloping. Yeoland held him in."Fool, we are caught. Sit still. We shall gain nothing by bolting."A knight was coming up the slope at a canter. Yeoland saw his shield, read it and his name. She went red under her hood, felt her heart beating, wondered at its noise.Youth, aglitter in arms, splendid, triumphant! A face bare to the west, eyes radiant and tender, a great horse reined in on its haunches, a mailed hand that made the sign of the cross!"Madame, your pardon."He drew Balthasar's picture from his bosom and held it before her eyes."My torch," he said, "that led me to see your face again."The girl was silent. Her head was thrown back, her slim throat showing, her face turned heavenwards like the face of a woman who is kissed upon the lips."You have seen your home?""Yes, messire.""God pardon me your sorrow. You see I am no hypocrite. I keep my vows.""Yes, messire.""Madame, let me be forgiven; you have trusted one man, trust another."She turned her horse suddenly and began to ride towards the black maw of the forest. Her lips were tightly closed, and she looked neither to the right nor the left. Flavian, a tower of steel, was at her side. Armed men ranged in a circle about them. They opened ranks at a sign from their lord, and gave the woman passage."Madame----""Messire----""Am I to be forgiven?"She was mute a moment, as in thought. Then she spoke quietly enough."Yes, for a vow.""Tell it me.""If you will never see my face again."He looked at her with a great smile, drew his sword, and held the point towards her."Then give me hate.""Messire!""Hate, not forgiveness, hate, utter and divine, that I may fight and travail, labour and despair.""Messire!""Hate me, hate me, with all the unreason of your heart. Hate me a hundred times, that I may but leap a hundred times into your life. Bar me out that I may storm your battlements again and again.""Are you a fool?""A glorious, mad, inspired fool."They were quite near the trees. Their black masses threw a great shadow over the pair. Higher still the sky burnt."Madame, whither do you go?""Where you may not venture, messire.""God, I know no such region."She flashed round on him with sudden bitterness."Go back to your wife. Go back to your wife, messire; remember her honour."It was a home-thrust, but it did not shame or weaken him. He sheathed his sword, and looked at her sadly out of his grey eyes."What a world is this," he said, "when heaven comes at last, hell yawns across the path. When summer burns, winter lifts its head. Even as a man would grow strong and pure, his own cursed shackles cumber him. To-night I say no more to you. Go, madame, pray for me. You shall see my face again."He let life vanish under the pines, and rode back with the sunset on his armour, his face staring into the rising night. His men came round him, silent statues of steel. He rode slowly, and met his wife.Her eyes were turbulent, her lips red streaks of scorn."Ha, sire, I have found you.""Madame, I trust you are well?"They looked at each other askance like angry dogs, as they rode side by side, and the night came down. The men left them to themselves, and went on ahead. A wind grew gusty over the moor.[image]"THEY LOOKED AT EACH OTHER ASKANCE LIKE ANGRY DOGS.""Messire, I have borne enough from you.""Madame, is it fault of mine?"His whole soul revolted from her with an immensity of hate. She cumbered, clogged, crushed him. Mad brutality leapt in his heart towards her. He could have smitten the woman through with his sword."Five years ago----" she said."You did the wooing. Damnation, we have been marvellously happy."She bit her lip and was white as the moon."Have a care, messire, have a care.""Threats, threats.""Have a care----""Look at my shield. Have I quartered your arms with mine? God's blood, there is nothing to erase.""Ha!""We have no children.""Go on.""I shall send gold and an embassage to the Pope."She clenched her hands and could not speak for the moment."You dare do this?""I dare ten thousand greater things than this.""By God, messire.""By God, woman, am I going down to hell because you are my wife!"She grew quiet very suddenly, a dangerous move in a woman."Very well," she said, "try it, dear lord. I am no fool. Try it, I am as strong as you."And so they rode on towards Avalon together.XVIIt is impossible for two persons of marked individuality to be much together without becoming more or less faceted one towards the other. We appeal by sympathy, and inspire by contrast. What greater glory falls to a man's lot than to be chastened by the warm May of some girl's pure heart! Yeoland had felt the force of Fulviac's manhood; the more eternal and holier instincts were being stirred in him by a woman's face.The man's life had been a transmigration. In his younger days the world had banqueted him; new poignancies had bubbled against his lips in the cup of pleasure. Later had come that inevitable weariness, that distaste of pomp, the mood that discovers vanity in all things. Finally he had set his heart upon a woman, a broken reed indeed, and had discovered her a hypocrite, according to the measure of her passions. There had been one brief burst of blasphemy. He had used his dagger and had disappeared. There had been much stir at the time. A ruby had fallen from the King's crown. Some spoke of Palestine, others of a monastery, others of a cubit of keen steel.Fulviac had begun life over again. He had fallen back upon elemental interests--had gone hungry, fought for his supper, slept many a storm out under a tree. The breath of the wilderness had winnowed out luxury; rain had scourged him into philosophic hardihood. He had learnt in measure that nothing pleases and endures like simplicity. Even his ambition was simple in its audacious grandeur.Now the eyes of the daughter of Rual were like the eyes of a Madonna, and she stood in a circle of white lilies like the spirit of purity. Fulviac had begun to believe in her a little, to love her a little. She stood above all other women he had known. The ladies of the court were superb and comely, and marvellously kind, but they loved colour and contemned the robe of white. They were like a rich posy for a man to choose from, scarlet and gold, azure, damask or purple. You could love their bodies, but you could not trust their souls.As for the girl Yeoland, she was very devout, very enthusiastic, but no Agnes. Her rosary had little rest, and with the suspicions of one not utterly sure of herself, she had striven to make religion and its results satisfy her soul. In some measure she had succeeded. Yet there is ever that psychic echo, that one mysterious being, subtle as the stars, that may come before Christ in the heart. Transcendent spirit of idolatry! And yet it is often heaven-sent, seeing that it leads many a soul to God.It had become Yeoland's custom to walk daily in the pine wood at the foot of the stairway leading from the northern room. She had discovered a quaint nook, a mile or more from the cliff, a nook where trees stood gathered in a dense circle about a grassy mound capped by a square of mouldering stone. It was a grave, nameless and without legend. Perhaps a hermit had crumbled away there under the sods, or the bones of some old warrior slept within rusty harness. None knew, none cared greatly. Fulviac's men had hinted at treasure, yet even they were kept from desecrating the place by a crude and superstitious veneration for the dead.She had wandered here one day and had settled herself on the grassy slope of the grave. The ribbon of her lute lay over her shoulder. A breeze sang fitfully through the branches, and a golden haze shimmered down as from the clerestory windows of a cathedral. Her lute seemed sad when it made answer to her fingers. Thought was plaintive and not devotional, if one might judge by the mood of the music, and the notes were wayward and pathetically void of discipline.It was while the girl thrummed idly at the strings that a vague sound floated down to her with the momentary emphasis born of a fickle wind. It was foreign to the forest, or it would not have roused her as it did. As she listened the sound came again from the west. It was neither the distant bay of a hound nor a horn's solitary note. There was something metallic about it, something musical. When it disappeared, she listened for its recurrence; when she heard it again, she puzzled over its nature.The sound grew clearer at gradual intervals, and then ceased utterly. The girl listened for a long while to no purpose, and then prepared to forget the incident. The decision was premature. She was startled anon by the sound breaking out at no great distance. There was no doubt as to its nature: it was the clanging of a bell.Yeoland wondered who could be carrying such a thing in such a place. Possibly some of Fulviac's men were coming home with stolen cattle, and an old bell-wether from some wild moorland with them.The sound of the bell came very near; it seemed close amid the circling ranks of pines. Twigs were cracking too, and she heard the beat of approaching footsteps. Then her glance caught something visible, a streak of white in the shadows, moving like a ghost. The thing went amid the trees with the bell mute. The girl's doubts were soon set at rest as to whether she had been seen or no. The figure in grey slipped between the pines, and came out into the grass circle about the grave, cowled, masked, bell at girdle, a leper.The girl stared at it with a cold flutter at her heart. The thing stood under the boughs motionless as stone. The bell gave never a tinkle; a white chin poked forward from under the hood; the masked face was in shadow. Then the bell jangled, and a gruff voice came from the cowl."Unclean, unclean!" it said; "avoid the white death, and give alms."Yeoland obeyed readily enough, put a portion of the grave betwixt herself and the leper, fumbled in her pouch and threw the man a piece of silver. He came forward suddenly into the light, fell on his knees, put his hood back, plucked off the mask.It was the face of the Lord Flavian of Gambrevault.The girl stood and stared at him with unstinted astonishment."You," she said, "you?""Madame, I said that you should see my face again."She conceived a sudden impetuous desire to turn and leave him on his knees, but some inner potency of instinct restrained her. She looked down at the man, with no kindling kindness upon her face. She did not know what to say to him, how to tune her mood. The first thought that rushed into her mind was seized upon and pressed into service, discretion or no discretion."Madman, they will kill you if they find you here.""No woman ever loved a coward.""For Heaven's sake, go away."He rose from his knees and lifted up his frock. The girl saw harness and a sword beneath it. This young leopard of the southern shores had fettle enough, and spirit. He was a mixture of imperturbable determination and sanguine Quixotism, as he faced her under the trees."This dress is privileged; my bell warns folk away; who would fall foul of a miserable leper? If this frock fails me, I have my sword."She looked at him with the solemnity of a child, hand folded in hand."I cannot understand you," she said."Not yet.""Are you the man whose life I saved? That breath of death on your brow, messire, should have made you thoughtful of your soul.""Let me plead a moment.""For what?""My honour.""Why your honour?""Because I want you to believe that I have a soul."He was vastly earnest, and his eyes followed her, as though she were some being out of heaven. She had never seen such a look in a man's eyes before; it troubled her. She questioned her own heart, laughed emptily, and gave in to him."We are both mad," she said, "but go on. I will listen for one minute. Keep watch lest any one should come upon us suddenly."She sat down on the grass bank, while he stood before her, holding his lazar bell by the clapper."Look at this dress," he said."Yes?""It is how I feel in soul when I look at you."She frowned visibly."If you wax personal, messire, I shall leave you.""No, no, I will keep to my own carcase, and play the egotist. Well, I will be brief. Look at me, I am the first lord in the south, master of an army, one of the twelve knights of the Order of the Rose.""Go on.""When I was twenty years old, certain clever people found me a wife, a woman five years my senior in time, twenty years my superior in knowledge of the world. Well, six months had not passed before I hated her, hated her with my whole soul. My God, what a thing for a boy to begin life with a woman who made him half the bounden vassal of the devil!""You seem generous. The faults were all on her side.""Madame, I say nothing against the woman, only that she had no soul. We were incompatible as day and night, fire and water. The thing crushed the youth out of me, made me desperate, and worse, made me old beyond my years. I have done my best. I have groped along like a man in the dark, knowing nothing, understanding nothing, save that I had a warm heart in me, and that life seemed one grim jest. The future had no fire for me; I drank the wine of the present, strove to please my senses, plunged into the abysses of the world. Sometimes I tried to pray. Sometimes I played the cynic. The eternal beacon of love had gone out of my life. I had no sun, no inspiration for my soul."She sprang up suddenly, breathing fast like one who is near tears."Why do you speak to me of this?""God knows."His voice was utterly lonely."What am I to you? You have hardly seen me three hours in your life. Why do you speak to me of this?"He put a hand to his throat, and did not look at her."Madame, there are people who come near our hearts in one short hour, people who are winter to us to eternity. Do not ask me to explain this truth; as Christ's death, I know it to be true. I trust you. All the logicians of the world could not tell me why. I do not know that I could bring forward one single reason out of my own soul, save that you showed me great mercy once. And now--and now----"He broke down suddenly, and could not speak. Yeoland appealed to him out of the quickness of her fear."Messire, messire, your promise.""Let me speak, or I stifle.""Go, for God's sake, go!"He flung his hands towards her with a great outburst of passion."Heaven and God's throne, you shall hear me to the end. Woman, woman, my soul flows to you as the sea ebbs to the moon; deep in the sky a new sun burns; the stars are dust, dust blown from the coffins of the dead who loved. Life leaps in me like another chaos. All my heart glows like an autumn orchard, and I burn. The world is red with a myriad roses. God's in the heaven, Christ bleeds on quaking Calvary."She ran to him suddenly and seized his wrist."GO----!""I cannot.""Men are coming, I hear them in the woods, they will kill you!""I hear them too.""Go, go, for my sake and for God's."He kissed her sleeve, pulled his cowl down, and fled away into the woods.
XIV
Dame Duessa had come to Avalon, having heard certain whisperings of Gilderoy, and of a golden-haired Astarte who kept house there. Dame Duessa was a proud woman and a passionate, headstrong as a reformer, jealous as a parish priest. She boasted a great ancestry and a great name, and desires and convictions in keeping. She was a woman who loved her robe cupboard, her jewel-case, and her bed. Moreover, she pretended some affection for the Lord Flavian her husband, perhaps arrogance of ownership, seeing that Dame Duessa was very determined to keep him in bonded compact with herself. She suspected that the man did not consider her a saint, or worship her as such. Yet, termagant that she was, Dame Duessa could suffer some trampling of empty sentiment, provided Fate did not rob her of her share in the broad demesne and rent-roll of Gambrevault.
Avalon was a castle of ten towers, linked by a strong curtain wall, and built about a large central court and garden. A great moat circled the whole, a moat broad and silvery as a lake, with water-lilies growing thick in the shallows. Beyond the moat, sleek meadows tufted with green rushes swept to the gnarled piers of the old oaks that vanguarded the forest. The black towers slumbered in a mist of green, girded with sheeny water, tented by the azure of a southern sky.
Dame Duessa, being a lady of silks and tissues, did not love the place with all her soul. Avalon of the Orchards was dull, and smacked of Arcady; it was far removed from that island of fair sin, Lauretia, the King's city. Moreover, the Lord Flavian and his ungallant gentlemen held rigorously to the northern turrets, leaving her to lodge ascetically in her rich chamber in a southern tower.
Her husband contrived to exile himself as far as Castle Avalon could suffer him. If the pair went to mass, they went separately, with the frigid hauteur of an Athanasius handing an Aryus over to hell. When they hunted they rode towards opposite stars. No children had chastened them, pledges of heaven-given life. The Lady Duessa detested ought that hinted at caudle, swaddling-clothes, and cradles. Moreover, all Avalon seemed in league with the Lord Flavian. Knights, esquires, scullions, horse-boys swore by him as though he were a Bayard. Dame Duessa could rely solely on a prig of a page, and a lady-in-waiting who wore a wig, and perhaps on Fra Balthasar, the Dominican.
Meanwhile, the Lord of Avalon had been putting forth his penitence in stone and timber, and an army of craftsmen from Geraint. The glade in Cambremont wood rang to the swing of axes and the hoarse groaning of the saw. The tower had been purged of its ashes, its rooms retimbered, its casements filled with glass. A chapel was springing into life under the trees; the cleverest masons of the south were at work upon its pillars and its arches. Fra Balthasar, the Dominican, held sway over the whole, subtle in colour and the carving of stone. Flavian could have found no better pander to his penitence. Rose nobles had been squandered. Frescoes, jewel bright, were to blaze out upon the walls. The vaulted roof was to be constellated with glimmering gold stars, shining from skies of purple and azure.
To turn to Fulviac's great cliff hid in the dark depths of the forest of pines. The disloyal chaff of the kingdom was wafted thither day by day, borne on the conspiring breeze. The forest engulfed all comers and delivered them like ghosts into Fulviac's caverns. An army might have melted into the wilds, and the countryside have been none the wiser. Amid the pines and rocks of the cliffs there were marchings and countermarchings, much shouldering of pikes and ordering of companies. Veterans who had fought the infidels under Wenceslaus, drilled the raw levies, and inculcated with hoarse bellowings the rudiments of military reason. They were rough gentlemen, and Fulviac stroked them with a gauntlet of iron. They were to attempt liberty together, and he demonstrated to them that such freedom could be won solely by discipline and soldierly concord. The rogues grumbled and swore behind his back, but were glad in their hearts to have a man for master.
To speak again of the girl Yeoland. That March night she had met Fulviac over the wreckage of the broken gate, and had made a profession of the truth, so far, she said, as she could conjecture it. She had been long in the forest, had returned to the cliff to find the guards slain, and the Lord Flavian gone. By some device he had escaped from his shackles, slain the men, and fled by the northern postern. The woman made a goodly pretence of vexation of spirit over the escape of this reprobate. She even taunted Fulviac with foolhardiness, and lack of foresight in so bungling her vengeance.
The man's escape from the cliff roused Fulviac's energies to full flood. The aristocrat of Avalon was ignorant of the volcano bubbling under his feet, yet any retaliatory meddling on his part might prove disastrous at so critical an hour. Fulviac thrust forward the wheels of war with a heavy hand. The torrents of sedition and discontent were converging to a river of revolt, that threatened to crush tyranny as an avalanche crushes a forest.
The Virgin with her moon-white face still inspired Yeoland with the visionary behest given in the ruined chapel. The girl's fingers toiled at the scarlet banner; she spent half her days upon her knees, devout as any Helena. She knew Fulviac's schemes as surely as she did the beads on her rosary. The rough rangers of the forest held her to be a saint, and knelt to touch her dress as she passed by.
Yet what are dreams but snowflakes drifting from the heavens, now white, now red, as God or man carries the lamp of love? The girl's ecstasy of faith was but a potion to her, dazing her from a yet more subtle dream. A faint voice summoned her from the unknown. She would hear it often in the silence of the night, or at full noon as she faltered in her prayers. The rosary would hang idle on her wrist, the crucifix melt from her vision. She would find her heart glowing like a rose at the touch of the sun. Anon, frightened, she would shake the human half of herself, and run back penitent to her prayers.
It was springtide and the year's youth, when memories are garlanded with green, and romance scatters wind-flowers over the world. Many voices awoke, like the chanting of birds, in Yeoland's heart. She desired, even as a swallow, to see the old haunts again, to go a pilgrim to the place where the dear dead slept. Was it yearning grief, or a joy more subtle, the cry of the wild and the voice of desire? Mayhap white flowers shone on the tree of life, prophetic of fruit in the mellow year. Jaspar the harper heard her plea; 'twas wilful and eager, but what of that! Fulviac, good man, had ridden to Gilderoy. The girl had liberty enough and to spare. She took it and Jaspar, and rode out from the cliff.
Threading the sables of the woods, they came one noon to the open moor. It was golden with the western sun, solitary as the sea. The shadows were long upon the sward when Cambremont wood billowed out in its valley. There was no hope of their reaching the tower before dusk, so they piled dead bracken under a cedar, where the shelving eaves swept to the ground.
They were astir early upon the morrow, a sun-chastened wind inspiring the woodlands, and sculpturing grand friezes from the marbles of the sky. The forest was full of the glory of Spring, starred with anemones and dusted with the azure campaniles of the hyacinth horde. Primroses lurked on the lush green slopes. In the glades, the forest peristyles, green gorse blazed with its constellations of gold.
To the dolt and the hag the world is nothing but a fat larder; only the unregenerate are blind of soul. Beauty, Diana-like, shows not her naked loveliness to all. The girl Yeoland's eyes were full of a strange lustre that May morning. Many familiar landmarks did she pass upon the way, notched deep on the cross of memory. There stood the great beech tree where Bertrand had carved his name, and the smooth bark still bore the scars where the knife had wantoned. She forded the stream where Roland's pony had once pitched him into the mire. Her eyes grew dim as she rode through the sun-steeped woods.
The day had drawn towards noon when they neared the glade in the midst of Cambremont wood. Heavy wain wheels had scarred the smooth green of the ride, and the newly-sawn pedestals of fallen oaks showed where woodmen had been felling timber. To Jaspar the harper these signs were more eloquent of peril than of peace. He began to snuff the air like an old hound, and to jerk restless glances at the girl at his side.
"See where wheels have been," he began.
"And axes, my friend."
"What means it?"
"Some one rebuilds the tower."
The harper wagged his head and half turned his horse from the grass ride.
"Have a care," he said.
"Hide in the woods if you will."
She rode on with a triumphant wilfulness and he followed her.
As they neared the glade, the noise of axe and hammer floated on the wind, and they saw the scene flicker towards them betwixt the great boles of the trees. The tower stood with battlements of fresh white stone; its windows had been reset, the blasting touch of fire effaced from the walls. The glade was strewn with blocks of stone and lengths of timber; the walls of a chapel were rising from the grass. Men were digging trenches for the foundations of the priest's cell. Soldiers idled about gossiping with the masons.
There was a smile in the girl's eyes and a deeper tint upon her cheeks as she stared betwixt the trees at the regarnished tower. Those grey eyes had promised the truth in Fulviac's cavern. She was glad in her heart of the man's honour, glad with a magic that made her colour. As for the harper, he stroked his grey beard and was mute. He lacked imagination, and was no longer young.
On a stump of an oak tree at the edge of the wood sat a man in a black mantle and a habit of white cloth. He had a panel upon his knee, and a small wooden chest beside him on the grass. His eyes were turned often to the rolling woods, as his plump hand flourished a brush with nervous and graceful gestures.
Seeing the man's tonsure, and his dress that marked him a Dominican, Yeoland rode out from the trees, casting her horse's shadow athwart his work. The man looked up with puckered brow, his keen eye framing the girl's figure at a glance. It was his destiny to see the romantic and the beautiful in all things.
The priest and the girl on the horse eyed each other a moment in silence. Each was instinctively examining the other. The churchman, with an approving glint of the eye, was the first to break the woodland silence.
"Peace be with you, madame."
His tone hinted at a question, and the girl adopted therewith an ingenuous duplicity.
"My man and I were of a hunting party," she said; "we went astray in the wood. You, Father, will guide us?"
"Madame has not discovered to me her desire."
"We wish for Gilderoy."
Balthasar rose and pointed with his brush towards the ride by which they had come. He mapped the road for them with sundry jaunty flourishes, and much showing of his white teeth. Yeoland thanked him, but was still curious.
"Ah, Father, whither have we wandered?"
"Men call it Cambremont wood, madame."
"And these buildings? A retreat, doubtless, for holy men."
Balthasar corrected her with much unction.
"The Lord Flavian of Avalon builds here," he said, "but not for monks. I, madame, am his architect, his pedagogue in painting."
Yeoland pretended interest. She craned forward over her horse's neck and looked at the priest's panel. The act decided him. Since she was young and comely, Balthasar seized the chance of a chivalrous service. The girl had fine eyes, and a neck worthy of a Venus.
"Madame has taste. She would see our work?"
Madame appeared very ready to grant the favour. Balthasar put his brushes aside, held the girl's stirrup, and, unconscious of the irony of the act, expatiated to Yeoland on the beauties of her own home. At the end of their pilgrimage, being not a little bewitched by such eyes and such a face, he begged of her the liberty of painting her there and then. 'Twas for the enriching of religious art, as he very properly put it.
Dead Rual's grave was not ten paces distant, and Jaspar was standing by it as in prayer. Thus, Yeoland sat to Fra Balthasar, oblivious of him indeed as his fingers brought her fair face into being, her shapely throat and raven hair. His picture perfected, he blessed her with the unction of a bishop, and stood watching her as she vanished down the southern ride, graceful and immaculate as a young Dian.
XV
Hardly had an hour passed, and Fra Balthasar was still touching the study he had made of Yeoland's face, when a company of spears flashed out by the northern ride into the clearing. At their head rode a knight in harness of burnished steel, a splendid figure flashing chivalry in the eyes of the sun. On his shield he bore "a castle, argent, with ports voided of the field, on a field vert," the arms of the house of Gambrevault. His surcoat was diapered azure and green with three gold suns blazoned thereon. His baldric, a splendid streak of scarlet silk, slashed his surcoat as with blood. His troop, men in half armour, rode under the Pavon Vert of the demesne of Avalon.
They thundered into the open stretch of grass with a clangorous rattle of steel. Flavian, bare-headed, for his salade hung at his saddle-bow and he wore no camail, scanned the glade with a keen stare. Seeing Fra Balthasar seated under a tree, he turned his horse towards him, and smiled as the churchman put his tools aside and gave him a benediction. The man made a fine figure; judged by the flesh, Balthasar might have stood for an Ambrose or a Leo.
"Herald of heaven, how goes the work?"
"Sire, we emulate Pericles."
"What have you there, a woman's head, some rare Madonna?"
Balthasar showed his white teeth.
"A pretty pastoral, messire. The study of a lady who had lost her way hunting, and craved my guidance this morning. A woman with the face and figure of a Dian."
"Ha, rogue of the brush, let us see it."
Balthasar passed the parchment into the other's hand. Flavian stared at it, flushed to the temples, rapped out an ejaculation in ecclesiastic Latin. His eyes devoured the sketch with the insatiable enthusiasm of a lover; words came hot off his tongue.
"Quick, man, quick, is this true to life?"
"As ruby to ruby."
"None of your idealisations?"
"Messire, but an hour ago that girl was sitting her horse where your destrier now stands."
"And you sketched this at her desire?"
"At my own, sire; it was courtesy for courtesy: I had shown her our handiwork here."
"You showed her this tower and chapel?"
"Certainly, sire."
"She seemed sad?"
"Nay, merry."
"This is romance!" He lifted the little picture at arm's length to the sun, kissed it, and put it in his bosom. His face was radiant; he laughed as though some golden joy rang and resounded in his heart.
"A hundred golden angels for this face!"
Fra Balthasar was in great measure mystified. The Lord of Avalon seemed an inflammable gentleman.
"Messire, you are ever generous."
"Man, man, you have caught the one woman in the world."
"Sire----"
"The Madonna of the Pine Forest, the Madonna of Mercy; she whose kinsfolk were put to the sword by my men; even the daughter of Rual whose tower stands yonder."
The priest comprehended the whole in a moment. The dramatic quaintness of the adventure had made him echo Flavian's humour. He laughed and shrugged his shoulders.
"Romance, romance! By all the lovers who ever loved, by Tristan and the dark Iseult, by Launcelot and Guinivere, follow that picture."
"Which way went she?"
"By the southern ride, towards Gilderoy."
The man was in heroic humour; his sword flashed out and shook in the sun.
"By God, I'll see her face again, and yet again, though I burn in hell for it. Roland, Godamar, come, men, come, throw away your spears. Ride, ride, we chase the sunset. Life and desire!"
He sprang away on his great bay horse, a shimmering shaft of youth--youth that flashed forth chivalry into the burgeoning green of Spring. The sunlight webbed his hair with gold; his face glowed like a martyr's. Balthasar watched him with much poetic zest, as he swept away with his thundering knights into the woods.
The friar settled to his work again, but it was fated that he was to have no lasting peace that morning. He was painting in a background, a landscape, to a small Crucifixion. His hand was out of touch, however; the subject was not congenial. A pale face and a pair of dusky eyes had deepened a different stream of thought in the man. Themes hypersensuous held his allegiance; from prim catholic ethics, he reverted to his glorious paganism with an ever-broadening sense of satisfaction.
He was interrupted once more, and not unpleasantly, by a lady, with two armed servants at her back, riding in from the forest by the northern ride. The woman was clad in a cloak of damask red, and a jupon of dark green, broidered with azure scroll work. Her hood, fallen back, showed her purple black hair bound up in a net of gold. Her large dark eyes flashed and smouldered under their long lashes. She had high cheek-bones, a big nose, lips full as an over-ripe rose. She was big of body, voluptuous to look upon, as an Eastern odalisque, a woman of great passions, great appetites.
Fra Balthasar tumbled his brushes and paints aside, and went to meet her as she rode over the grass. There was a smile on the man's lips, a flush upon his sleek face, as he walked with a courtly and debonair vanity. The woman caught sight of him and wheeled her horse in his direction. The autumn splendour of her cheeks told of hard riding, and her horse dropped foam from his black muzzle.
Fra Balthasar crossed himself with much meekness.
"Good greeting, Madame Duessa," were his words, as he kept his eyes on the ground.
The woman scanned the glade with the strenuous spirit of a Boadicea.
"My Lord Flavian?"
"Madame?"
"He has been here."
"But is here no longer."
"These buildings?"
"Are the Lord Flavian's."
"And you?"
"I am his architect."
"Morally, messire monk?"
"Madame, I do not edificate souls."
The woman stared him over with a critical comprehensiveness.
"Balthasar."
The man half glanced at her.
"Look me in the face."
He gave a sigh, made a gesture with his hands, looked melancholy and over-ecstasied to the point of despair.
"Madame, there are thoughts beyond one's liberty."
"Well?"
"There are women, a woman, one dares not look upon. There are eyes, well--well, that are too bright. Pardon me, I would serve you."
She took a deep breath, held out her hand to him, a big, warm hand, soft and white. The man's lips burnt upon it. She touched his cheek and saw him colour.
"Well?"
"My Lord Flavian is not here."
"But has been. Where now?"
"Away hunting."
"Ha, what?"
"Madame, what do men hunt and burn for?"
"Sometimes a stag, a hare, a standard, a woman."
"Sometimes--a woman."
Balthasar, looking slantwise under half-closed lids, saw her eyes flash and her lips tighten.
"Which way?"
"The southern ride, towards Gilderoy."
Duessa shook her bridle, and threw one look into Balthasar's eyes.
"Remember," she said, "remember, a woman loves a friend, a true friend, who can tell a lie, or keep a secret."
Balthasar watched her ride away. He stood and smiled to himself, while his long fingers played with the folds of his mantle. Red wine was bounding in his blood, and his imagination revelled. He was a poetic person, and a poet's soul is often like tinder, safe enough till the spark falls.
"Gloria," he said to himself with a smirk, "here's hunting with a vengeance. Two women and a man! The devil is loose. Soul of Masaccio, that woman has fine eyes."
That day, when the sky was growing red over the woods, Flavian and his troop drew close on the heels of Yeoland and the harper. The man, for all his heat, had kept his horse-flesh well in hand. Once out of Cambremont wood, they had met a charcoal-burner, who had seen Yeoland and her follower pass towards the west. They had hunted fast over fell and moor. While not two miles behind came Duessa of the Black Hair, biting her lips and giving her brute lash and spur with a woman's viciousness.
Yeoland, halting on a slope above the pine woods, looked back and saw something that made her crane her neck and wax vigilant. Out of the wine-red east and the twilight gloom came the lightning of harness, the galloping gleam of armed men. Jaspar's blear eyes were unequal to the girl's. The men below were riding hard, half under the lea of the midnight pines, whose tops touched the sunset. A half-moon of steel, their crescent closed wood and moor. They had the lead in the west; they were mounting the slope behind.
Jaspar saw them at last. He was for galloping. Yeoland held him in.
"Fool, we are caught. Sit still. We shall gain nothing by bolting."
A knight was coming up the slope at a canter. Yeoland saw his shield, read it and his name. She went red under her hood, felt her heart beating, wondered at its noise.
Youth, aglitter in arms, splendid, triumphant! A face bare to the west, eyes radiant and tender, a great horse reined in on its haunches, a mailed hand that made the sign of the cross!
"Madame, your pardon."
He drew Balthasar's picture from his bosom and held it before her eyes.
"My torch," he said, "that led me to see your face again."
The girl was silent. Her head was thrown back, her slim throat showing, her face turned heavenwards like the face of a woman who is kissed upon the lips.
"You have seen your home?"
"Yes, messire."
"God pardon me your sorrow. You see I am no hypocrite. I keep my vows."
"Yes, messire."
"Madame, let me be forgiven; you have trusted one man, trust another."
She turned her horse suddenly and began to ride towards the black maw of the forest. Her lips were tightly closed, and she looked neither to the right nor the left. Flavian, a tower of steel, was at her side. Armed men ranged in a circle about them. They opened ranks at a sign from their lord, and gave the woman passage.
"Madame----"
"Messire----"
"Am I to be forgiven?"
She was mute a moment, as in thought. Then she spoke quietly enough.
"Yes, for a vow."
"Tell it me."
"If you will never see my face again."
He looked at her with a great smile, drew his sword, and held the point towards her.
"Then give me hate."
"Messire!"
"Hate, not forgiveness, hate, utter and divine, that I may fight and travail, labour and despair."
"Messire!"
"Hate me, hate me, with all the unreason of your heart. Hate me a hundred times, that I may but leap a hundred times into your life. Bar me out that I may storm your battlements again and again."
"Are you a fool?"
"A glorious, mad, inspired fool."
They were quite near the trees. Their black masses threw a great shadow over the pair. Higher still the sky burnt.
"Madame, whither do you go?"
"Where you may not venture, messire."
"God, I know no such region."
She flashed round on him with sudden bitterness.
"Go back to your wife. Go back to your wife, messire; remember her honour."
It was a home-thrust, but it did not shame or weaken him. He sheathed his sword, and looked at her sadly out of his grey eyes.
"What a world is this," he said, "when heaven comes at last, hell yawns across the path. When summer burns, winter lifts its head. Even as a man would grow strong and pure, his own cursed shackles cumber him. To-night I say no more to you. Go, madame, pray for me. You shall see my face again."
He let life vanish under the pines, and rode back with the sunset on his armour, his face staring into the rising night. His men came round him, silent statues of steel. He rode slowly, and met his wife.
Her eyes were turbulent, her lips red streaks of scorn.
"Ha, sire, I have found you."
"Madame, I trust you are well?"
They looked at each other askance like angry dogs, as they rode side by side, and the night came down. The men left them to themselves, and went on ahead. A wind grew gusty over the moor.
[image]"THEY LOOKED AT EACH OTHER ASKANCE LIKE ANGRY DOGS."
[image]
[image]
"THEY LOOKED AT EACH OTHER ASKANCE LIKE ANGRY DOGS."
"Messire, I have borne enough from you."
"Madame, is it fault of mine?"
His whole soul revolted from her with an immensity of hate. She cumbered, clogged, crushed him. Mad brutality leapt in his heart towards her. He could have smitten the woman through with his sword.
"Five years ago----" she said.
"You did the wooing. Damnation, we have been marvellously happy."
She bit her lip and was white as the moon.
"Have a care, messire, have a care."
"Threats, threats."
"Have a care----"
"Look at my shield. Have I quartered your arms with mine? God's blood, there is nothing to erase."
"Ha!"
"We have no children."
"Go on."
"I shall send gold and an embassage to the Pope."
She clenched her hands and could not speak for the moment.
"You dare do this?"
"I dare ten thousand greater things than this."
"By God, messire."
"By God, woman, am I going down to hell because you are my wife!"
She grew quiet very suddenly, a dangerous move in a woman.
"Very well," she said, "try it, dear lord. I am no fool. Try it, I am as strong as you."
And so they rode on towards Avalon together.
XVI
It is impossible for two persons of marked individuality to be much together without becoming more or less faceted one towards the other. We appeal by sympathy, and inspire by contrast. What greater glory falls to a man's lot than to be chastened by the warm May of some girl's pure heart! Yeoland had felt the force of Fulviac's manhood; the more eternal and holier instincts were being stirred in him by a woman's face.
The man's life had been a transmigration. In his younger days the world had banqueted him; new poignancies had bubbled against his lips in the cup of pleasure. Later had come that inevitable weariness, that distaste of pomp, the mood that discovers vanity in all things. Finally he had set his heart upon a woman, a broken reed indeed, and had discovered her a hypocrite, according to the measure of her passions. There had been one brief burst of blasphemy. He had used his dagger and had disappeared. There had been much stir at the time. A ruby had fallen from the King's crown. Some spoke of Palestine, others of a monastery, others of a cubit of keen steel.
Fulviac had begun life over again. He had fallen back upon elemental interests--had gone hungry, fought for his supper, slept many a storm out under a tree. The breath of the wilderness had winnowed out luxury; rain had scourged him into philosophic hardihood. He had learnt in measure that nothing pleases and endures like simplicity. Even his ambition was simple in its audacious grandeur.
Now the eyes of the daughter of Rual were like the eyes of a Madonna, and she stood in a circle of white lilies like the spirit of purity. Fulviac had begun to believe in her a little, to love her a little. She stood above all other women he had known. The ladies of the court were superb and comely, and marvellously kind, but they loved colour and contemned the robe of white. They were like a rich posy for a man to choose from, scarlet and gold, azure, damask or purple. You could love their bodies, but you could not trust their souls.
As for the girl Yeoland, she was very devout, very enthusiastic, but no Agnes. Her rosary had little rest, and with the suspicions of one not utterly sure of herself, she had striven to make religion and its results satisfy her soul. In some measure she had succeeded. Yet there is ever that psychic echo, that one mysterious being, subtle as the stars, that may come before Christ in the heart. Transcendent spirit of idolatry! And yet it is often heaven-sent, seeing that it leads many a soul to God.
It had become Yeoland's custom to walk daily in the pine wood at the foot of the stairway leading from the northern room. She had discovered a quaint nook, a mile or more from the cliff, a nook where trees stood gathered in a dense circle about a grassy mound capped by a square of mouldering stone. It was a grave, nameless and without legend. Perhaps a hermit had crumbled away there under the sods, or the bones of some old warrior slept within rusty harness. None knew, none cared greatly. Fulviac's men had hinted at treasure, yet even they were kept from desecrating the place by a crude and superstitious veneration for the dead.
She had wandered here one day and had settled herself on the grassy slope of the grave. The ribbon of her lute lay over her shoulder. A breeze sang fitfully through the branches, and a golden haze shimmered down as from the clerestory windows of a cathedral. Her lute seemed sad when it made answer to her fingers. Thought was plaintive and not devotional, if one might judge by the mood of the music, and the notes were wayward and pathetically void of discipline.
It was while the girl thrummed idly at the strings that a vague sound floated down to her with the momentary emphasis born of a fickle wind. It was foreign to the forest, or it would not have roused her as it did. As she listened the sound came again from the west. It was neither the distant bay of a hound nor a horn's solitary note. There was something metallic about it, something musical. When it disappeared, she listened for its recurrence; when she heard it again, she puzzled over its nature.
The sound grew clearer at gradual intervals, and then ceased utterly. The girl listened for a long while to no purpose, and then prepared to forget the incident. The decision was premature. She was startled anon by the sound breaking out at no great distance. There was no doubt as to its nature: it was the clanging of a bell.
Yeoland wondered who could be carrying such a thing in such a place. Possibly some of Fulviac's men were coming home with stolen cattle, and an old bell-wether from some wild moorland with them.
The sound of the bell came very near; it seemed close amid the circling ranks of pines. Twigs were cracking too, and she heard the beat of approaching footsteps. Then her glance caught something visible, a streak of white in the shadows, moving like a ghost. The thing went amid the trees with the bell mute. The girl's doubts were soon set at rest as to whether she had been seen or no. The figure in grey slipped between the pines, and came out into the grass circle about the grave, cowled, masked, bell at girdle, a leper.
The girl stared at it with a cold flutter at her heart. The thing stood under the boughs motionless as stone. The bell gave never a tinkle; a white chin poked forward from under the hood; the masked face was in shadow. Then the bell jangled, and a gruff voice came from the cowl.
"Unclean, unclean!" it said; "avoid the white death, and give alms."
Yeoland obeyed readily enough, put a portion of the grave betwixt herself and the leper, fumbled in her pouch and threw the man a piece of silver. He came forward suddenly into the light, fell on his knees, put his hood back, plucked off the mask.
It was the face of the Lord Flavian of Gambrevault.
The girl stood and stared at him with unstinted astonishment.
"You," she said, "you?"
"Madame, I said that you should see my face again."
She conceived a sudden impetuous desire to turn and leave him on his knees, but some inner potency of instinct restrained her. She looked down at the man, with no kindling kindness upon her face. She did not know what to say to him, how to tune her mood. The first thought that rushed into her mind was seized upon and pressed into service, discretion or no discretion.
"Madman, they will kill you if they find you here."
"No woman ever loved a coward."
"For Heaven's sake, go away."
He rose from his knees and lifted up his frock. The girl saw harness and a sword beneath it. This young leopard of the southern shores had fettle enough, and spirit. He was a mixture of imperturbable determination and sanguine Quixotism, as he faced her under the trees.
"This dress is privileged; my bell warns folk away; who would fall foul of a miserable leper? If this frock fails me, I have my sword."
She looked at him with the solemnity of a child, hand folded in hand.
"I cannot understand you," she said.
"Not yet."
"Are you the man whose life I saved? That breath of death on your brow, messire, should have made you thoughtful of your soul."
"Let me plead a moment."
"For what?"
"My honour."
"Why your honour?"
"Because I want you to believe that I have a soul."
He was vastly earnest, and his eyes followed her, as though she were some being out of heaven. She had never seen such a look in a man's eyes before; it troubled her. She questioned her own heart, laughed emptily, and gave in to him.
"We are both mad," she said, "but go on. I will listen for one minute. Keep watch lest any one should come upon us suddenly."
She sat down on the grass bank, while he stood before her, holding his lazar bell by the clapper.
"Look at this dress," he said.
"Yes?"
"It is how I feel in soul when I look at you."
She frowned visibly.
"If you wax personal, messire, I shall leave you."
"No, no, I will keep to my own carcase, and play the egotist. Well, I will be brief. Look at me, I am the first lord in the south, master of an army, one of the twelve knights of the Order of the Rose."
"Go on."
"When I was twenty years old, certain clever people found me a wife, a woman five years my senior in time, twenty years my superior in knowledge of the world. Well, six months had not passed before I hated her, hated her with my whole soul. My God, what a thing for a boy to begin life with a woman who made him half the bounden vassal of the devil!"
"You seem generous. The faults were all on her side."
"Madame, I say nothing against the woman, only that she had no soul. We were incompatible as day and night, fire and water. The thing crushed the youth out of me, made me desperate, and worse, made me old beyond my years. I have done my best. I have groped along like a man in the dark, knowing nothing, understanding nothing, save that I had a warm heart in me, and that life seemed one grim jest. The future had no fire for me; I drank the wine of the present, strove to please my senses, plunged into the abysses of the world. Sometimes I tried to pray. Sometimes I played the cynic. The eternal beacon of love had gone out of my life. I had no sun, no inspiration for my soul."
She sprang up suddenly, breathing fast like one who is near tears.
"Why do you speak to me of this?"
"God knows."
His voice was utterly lonely.
"What am I to you? You have hardly seen me three hours in your life. Why do you speak to me of this?"
He put a hand to his throat, and did not look at her.
"Madame, there are people who come near our hearts in one short hour, people who are winter to us to eternity. Do not ask me to explain this truth; as Christ's death, I know it to be true. I trust you. All the logicians of the world could not tell me why. I do not know that I could bring forward one single reason out of my own soul, save that you showed me great mercy once. And now--and now----"
He broke down suddenly, and could not speak. Yeoland appealed to him out of the quickness of her fear.
"Messire, messire, your promise."
"Let me speak, or I stifle."
"Go, for God's sake, go!"
He flung his hands towards her with a great outburst of passion.
"Heaven and God's throne, you shall hear me to the end. Woman, woman, my soul flows to you as the sea ebbs to the moon; deep in the sky a new sun burns; the stars are dust, dust blown from the coffins of the dead who loved. Life leaps in me like another chaos. All my heart glows like an autumn orchard, and I burn. The world is red with a myriad roses. God's in the heaven, Christ bleeds on quaking Calvary."
She ran to him suddenly and seized his wrist.
"GO----!"
"I cannot."
"Men are coming, I hear them in the woods, they will kill you!"
"I hear them too."
"Go, go, for my sake and for God's."
He kissed her sleeve, pulled his cowl down, and fled away into the woods.