XVIIThe Lady Duessa stood in the chapel of water-girded Avalon, with Fra Balthasar the Dominican beside her. She had slipped in without his noticing her, and had watched him awhile in silence at his work. The jingling of her chatelaine had brought him at last to a consciousness of her presence. Now they stood together before the high altar and looked at the Madonna seated on her throne of gold, amid choirs of angel women.The Lady Duessa's intelligence had waxed critical on the subject."You have altered the Virgin's face," she said.Balthasar stared at his handiwork and nodded."The former has been erased, the latter throned in her stead."The words had more significance for the lady than the friar had perhaps intended. A better woman would have snubbed him for his pains. As it was, he saw her go red, saw the tense stare of her dark eyes, the tightening of the muscles of her jaw. She had a wondrous strong jaw, had the Lady Duessa. She was no mere puppet, no bright-eyed, fineried piece of plasticity. Fra Balthasar guessed the hot, passionate power of her soul; she was the very woman for the rough handling of a cause, such as the Lord Flavian her husband had roused against her."I suppose," she said, "this alteration was a matter of art, Balthasar?""A matter of heart, madame.""So?""My Lord Flavian commanded it.""And yonder face is taken from life?""Madame, I leave the inference to your charity."She laughed a deep, cynical laugh, and went wandering round the chapel, looking at the frescoes, and swinging a little poniard by the chain that linked it to her girdle. Balthasar made a pretence of mixing colours on his palette. Worldly rogue that he was, he knew women, especially women of the Lady Duessa mould. He had a most shrewd notion as to what was passing in her mind. Morally, he was her abettor, being a person who could always take a woman's part, provided she were pretty. He believed women had no business with religion. To Balthasar, like fine glass, their frailty was their most enhancing characteristic. It gave such infinite scope to a discreet confessor.The Lady Duessa strolled back again, and stood by the altar rails."Am I such a plain woman?" she asked."Madame!""You have never painted me.""There are people above the artist's brush.""But you paint the Madonna.""Madame, the Madonna is anybody's property.""Am I?""God forbid that a poet should speak lightly of beauty."She laughed again, and touching her hair with her fingers, scanned herself in a little mirror that she carried at her girdle."Tell me frankly, am I worth painting?""Madame, that purple hair, those splendid eyes, the superb colour of those cheeks, would blaze out of a golden background as out of heaven."She gave a musical little titter."Heaven, heaven, ha--ha.""I should be grateful for so transcendent a chance.""And you would do me justice?""Where inspiration burns, there art soars.""You would be true?""To the chiselling of a coral ear.""And discreet?""To the curve of a lip.""And considerate?""My hands are subtle.""And your heart?""Is ingenuous as a little child's."She laughed again, and held out her hands. Balthasar kissed the white fingers, crowded with their gems. His eyes were warm as water in the sun; the colours and the glimmering richness of the chapel burnt into his brain."You shall paint me," she said."Here, madame, here?""No, my own bower is pleasanter. You can reach it by my Lord Flavian's stair in the turret. Here is the key; he never uses it now. Avalon has not seen him these six days.""Madame, I will paint you as man never painted woman before."Dame Duessa's bower was a broad chamber on the western walls, joining the south-western tower. A great oriel, jewelled with heraldic glass, looked over the mere with its dreaming lilies, over the green meadows to the solemn silence of the woods.Calypso's grotto! The bower of a luxurious lady in a luxurious age! The snuff of Ind and Araby tingled in Balthasar's nostrils. The silks of China and Bagdad, the cloths of Italy, bloomed there; flowers crowded the window, the couches, every nook. Blood-red hangings warmed the walls.The Lady Duessa sat to Balthasar in the oriel, with her lute upon her bosom. She was in azure and violet, with neck and bosom showing under a maze of gossamer gold. Her arms were bare to the shoulder, white, gleaming arms, subtle, sinuous, voluptuous. Her hair had been powdered with gold. Her lips were wondrous red, her eyes dark as wells. Musk and lavender breathed from her samites; her girdle glowed with precious stones.Fra Balthasar sat on a stool inlaid with mother-of-pearl and ivory. An embroidery frame served him as an easel. The man was living under the many-constellationed vault of beauty. All the scent and floweriness of the room played on his brain; all the wealth of it pandered to his art; all the woman's splendour made molten wax of his being.As he painted she sang to him, an old lay of Arthurian love, so that he might catch the music in her eyes, and watch the deep notes gathering in her throat. He saw her bosom sway beneath her lace, saw the inimitable roundness of her arms. Often his brush lingered. He might gaze upon the woman as he would, drink her beauty like so much violet wine, open his soul to the opulent summer of her power. His heart was in a sunset mood; he lived the life of a poet."And the green spring grew subtle," sang the dame,"With song of birds and laughter, and the woodsWere white for maying. So fair GuinivereLoosed her long hair like rivulets of goldThat stream from the broad casement of the dawn.And her sweet mouth was like one lovely rose,And her white bosom like a bowl of flowers;So wandered she with Launcelot, while the windBlew her long tresses to him, and her eyesWere as the tender azure of the night."Of such things sang Duessa, while the friar spread his colours.And then she questioned him."Love you the old legends, Balthasar?""Madame, as I love life.""Ah! they could love in those old days.""Madame, men can love even now."She put her lute aside, and knelt upon the couch before the window, with her elbows on the cushioned sill. Her silks swept close upon her shapely back, her shoulders gleamed under her purple hair. In the west the world grew red; the crimson kisses of the sunset poured upon the ecstasied green woods. The mere was flaked with a myriad amber scales. The meadows broidered their broad laps with cowslips, as with dust of gold."Balthasar.""Madame?""Look yonder at the sunset. You must be tired of gazing on my face."He rose up like one dazed--intoxicated by colours, sounds, and odours. Duessa's hand beckoned him. He went and knelt on the couch at her side, and looked out over the flaming woods."And the other woman?" she said."The other woman?""This Madonna of my lord's chapel.""Yes?""She amuses me; I am not jealous; what is jealousy to me? Tell me about her, Balthasar; no doubt it is a pretty tale, and you know the whole.""I, madame?""I, Duessa.""But----""You are my Lord Flavian's friend; he was ever a man to be garrulous: he has been garrulous to you. Tell me the whole tale.""Duessa!""Better, better, my friend."She put her hands upon his shoulders, and stared straight into his eyes. Her lips overhung his like ripe red fruit. Her arms were fragrant of myrrh and violet; her bosom was white as snow under the moon."Can you refuse me this?""God, madame, I can refuse you nothing."XVIIIThe girl Yeoland saw nothing of the leper for a season. For several days she did not venture far into the pine forest, and the nameless grave heard not the sound of her lute. The third night after the incident, as she lay in her room under her canopy of purple cloth, she heard distinctly the silver clangour of a bell floating up through the midnight silence. She lay as still as a mouse, and scarcely drew breath, for fear the man in grey should venture up the stairway. The casement was open, with a soft June air blowing in like peace. The bell continued to tinkle, but less noisily, till it vanished into silence.Other folk from the cliff had seen the leper, and Yeoland could not claim to have monopolised the gentleman. One of Fulviac's fellows had seen him one morning near the cliff, gliding like a grey ghost among the pines. Another had marked him creeping swiftly away through the twilight. It was a superstitious age and a superstitious region. The figure in grey seemed to haunt the place, with the occasional and mournful sounding of its bell. Men began to gossip, as the ignorant always will. Fulviac himself grew uneasy for more material reasons, and contemplated the test of a clothyard shaft or a bolt upon the leper's body. The man might be a spy, and if the bolt missed its mark it would at least serve as a sinister hint to this troublesome apparition.It was then that Yeoland took alarm into her woman's heart. There was great likelihood of the man ending his days under the tree with a shaft sticking fast between his shoulders. Though he was something of a madman, she did not relish such a prospect. The day after she had heard the bell at midnight near the stair she haunted the forest like a pixie, keeping constant watch between the cliff and the forest grave. Fulviac had ridden out on a plundering venture, and she was free of him for the day.It was not till evening that she heard the faint signal of the bell, creeping down through the gold-webbed boughs like the sound of a distant angelus. The sound flew from the north, and beckoned her towards the forest grave. Fearful of being caught, she followed it as fast as her feet could carry her, while the deepening clamour led her on. Presently she called the man by name as she ran. His grey frock and cowl came dimly through the trees."At last you are merciful," was his greeting.She stood still and twisted her gown restlessly between her two hands. Anarchy showed in her face; fear, reason, and desire were calling to her heart. The intangible touch of the man's soul threw her being into chaos. She feared greatly for him, stood still, and could say nothing. Flavian put his cowl back, and stood aloof from her, looking in her face."Seemingly we are both embarrassed," he said.She made a petulant little gesture. He forestalled her in speech."It is best to be frank when life runs deep. I will speak the truth to you, and you may treat me as you will."Yeoland leant against a tree, and began to pull away the brittle scales of the bark."If you stay here longer, messire----" she began."Well, madame, what then?""You will be shot like a dog; you are suspected; they are going to try your leper's gown with a crossbow bolt."The man smiled optimistically."And you came to tell me this?""Yes.""I thank you."The wind moved through the trees; a fir-cone came pattering through the branches and fell at their feet. On the cliff a horn blared; its throaty cry came echoing faintly through the trees.Flavian looked towards the gold of the west. His mood was calm and deliberate; he had his enthusiasms in leash for the moment, for there were more mundane matters in his mind--matters that were not savoury, however crimson shone the ideal years."I have thrown down the glove," he said, "for good or evil, honour or dishonour. I will tell you the whole truth."Yeoland, watching his face, felt her impatient dreads goad her to the quick."Will you talk for ever?" she said to him."Take the core then. I am going to rend my bonds as I would rend flax. I have appealed to the Church; I have poured out gold.""To the point, messire.""I shall divorce my wife."He threw his head back, and challenged the world in her one person. Her good favour was more to him than the patronage of Pope or King. It was in his mind that she should believe the worst of him from the beginning, so that in some later season he might not emulate Lucifer, toppled out of the heaven of her heart. She should have the truth from the first, and build her opinion of him on no fanciful basis. Even in this justice to the more sinister side of his surroundings, he was an idealist, thorough and enthusiastic."So you must understand, madame, that I am not without blemishes, not without things that I myself would rather see otherwise. With me it is a question of going to hell for a woman, or getting rid of her. Being an egotist, I choose the latter alternative."Yeoland still evaded his eyes."And the woman loves you?""Not an atom; she only cares to be called the Lady of Gambrevault, Signoress of Avalon, the first dame in the south.""Why do you tell me this?""Madame, have I need of more words? It is for this: that you might not picture me as I am not, or form any false conception of me. I have bared my moral skeleton to you. Perhaps you will never know what it costs a man at times to make his mind as glass to the woman he honours above the whole world.""Well?""It is because I honour you that I have goaded myself to tell you the whole truth."Her verdict was more sudden and more human than he might have expected."Messire, you are a brave man," she said; "I believe I am beginning to trust you."The sky flamed into sunset; the tracery of the trees seemed webbed with gold into shimmering domes and fans of quivering light. In the distance, the great cliff stood out darkly from the scarlet caverns of the west. The pine tops rose like the black spires of some vast city. Above, floated clouds, effulgent mounts of fire, hurled from the abysmal furnace of the sun.Flavian came two steps nearer to the woman, leaning against the tree."Give me my due," he said; "I have uncovered the difficult workings of my heart, I have shown you the inner man in his meaner mould. Suffer me to speak of my manhood in godlier words. I have shown you Winter; let me utter forth Spring."Yeoland turned and faced him at last."You have risked your life and my honour long enough," she said, "I am going back to the cliff.""And I with you, as far as the stairway.""To the threshold of death.""What care I if I tread it at your side?"She turned homewards with obstinate intent, and the mild hauteur of a good woman. The man followed her, went with her step for step, looking in her face."Hear my confession," he said; "you shall have it before you leave me. For the sake of your honour, I hold my soul by the collar. But--but, I shall win liberty, liberty. When I am free, ah, girl, girl, I shall flash golden wings in the face of the sun. I shall soar to you that I may look into your eyes, that I may touch your hands, and breathe the warm summer of your soul. I want God, I want purity, I want the Eternal peace, I want your heart. I have said the whole; think of me what you will."Twilight had gathered; all the violet calmness of the night came down upon the world. Under the shadows of the tall trees, the girl was deeply stirred beyond her own compassion. She halted, hesitated, went suddenly near the man with her face turned heavenwards like a new-spread flower. Her eyes were very wistful, and she spoke almost in a whisper."You have told me the whole truth, you have shown me your whole soul?""As I serve you, madame, I have kept nothing back.""Ah, messire, I will speak to you the truth in turn. God be merciful to me, but you have come strangely near my heart. These are bitter words for my soul. Ah, messire, if you have any honour for me, trust me that I aspire to heaven. I cannot suffer you to come deeper into my life."The man held out his hands."Why, why?""Because in following me, you go innocently to your death."He lifted up his arms, and leapt into heroics like an Apollo leaping into a blood-red sky."What care I; you speak in riddles; can I fear death?""Messire, messire, it is the woman who fears. I tell you this, because, because--God help me----"She fled away, but that night he did not follow her.XIXAs a wind sweeps clamorous into a wood, so Modred and his fellows, household knights, streamed into the great hall of Avalon, where the Lord Flavian sat at supper. Bearers of angry steel, fulminators of vengeance, vociferous, strong, they poured in through the screens like a mill race, bearing a tossed and impotent figure in their midst. Their swords yelped and flashed over this bruised fragment of humanity.A gauntlet of steel was dashed often into the white face. Hands clawed his collar, clutched his body. Dragged, jerked onwards, buffeted, beaten to his knees, he sank down before the Lord Flavian's chair, blood streaming from his mouth and nostrils, specking his white habit, drabbling the floor. Then only did the flashing, growling circle recede like waves from a fallen rock.Modred, a black man, burly, a bigot to honour, stood out a giant before his fellows. His great sword quivered to the roof; his deep voice shook the rafters."Blood, sire, blood."The man in the white habit quailed, and held up his hands."Let me smite him as he kneels.""Sirs, give me the courtesy of silence."Flavian started from his chair and looked at the man, who knelt, huddled into himself, at his feet. It was a scene replete with the grim cynicism of life. Here was a man of mind and genius, cowering, quivering before the strong wrath of a dozen muscular illiterates. Here was the promulgator of bold truths, an utter dastard when the physical part of him was threatened with dissolution. Not that this event was any proof against the moral power of pagan self-reliance. Not that there was any cause for the bleating of sanctimonious platitudes, or the pointing of a proverb. A true churchman might have carved a fine moral fable out of the reality. It would have been a fallacy. Fra Balthasar was a coward. He had none of the splendid mental anatomy of a Socrates. He would have played the coward even under the eye of Christ.Silence had fallen. Far away, choked by the long throats of gallery and stair, rose the wild, passionate screaming of a woman. It had the rebellious, blasphemous agony of one flung into eternal fire. Without modulation, abatement, or increase, malevolent, impotent, ferocious, piteous, it pealed out in long, tempestuous bursts that swept into the ears like some unutterable discord out of hell.The kneeling man heard it, and seemed to contract, to shrink into himself. His white habit was rent to the middle; his ashy face splashed over with blood. He tottered and shook, his hands clasped over the nape of his neck, for fear of the sword. His tongue clave to his palate; his eyes were furtively fixed on the upreared yard of steel.Torches and cressets flared. Servants stared and shouldered and gaped in the screens; all the castle underlings seemed to have smelt out the business like the rats they were. Modred's knights put them out with rough words and the flat of the sword. The doors were barred. Only Flavian, the priest, and Modred and his men took part in that tribunal in the hall of Avalon.Flavian stood and gazed on Balthasar, the man of tones and colours. The Lord of Gambrevault was calm, unhurried, and dispassionate, yet not unpleased. The man's infinite abasement and terror seemed to arrest him like some superb precept from the lips of a philosopher. He had the air of a man who calculates, the look of a diplomat whose scheme has worked out well. From Balthasar he looked to Modred the Strong, the torchlight lurid on his armour, his great sword quivering like a falcon to leap down upon its prey. The distant screaming, somewhat fainter and less resolute, still throbbed in his ears. He thought of Dante, and thebolgiasof that superhuman singer.Going close to the Dominican, he spoke to him in strong, yet not unpitying tones. Balthasar dared not look above the Lord Flavian's knees."Ha, my friend, where is all your fine philosophy?"The man cringed like a beggar."Where are all your sonorous phrases, your pert blasphemies, your subtleties, your fine tinsel of intellect and vanity?"Balthasar had no word."Where is your godliness, my friend, where your glowing and superhuman soul? Have we found you out, O Satanas; have we shocked your pagan heroism? Be a man. Stand up and face us. You could hold forth roundly on occasions. Even that Saul of Tarsus was not afraid of a sword."Balthasar cowered, and hid his face behind his hands. He began to whimper, to rock to and fro, to sob. The grim men round him laughed, deep-chested, iron, scoffing laughter. Modred pricked the priest's neck with the point of his sword. It was then that Balthasar fell forward upon his face, senseless from sheer terror.Flavian abandoned philosophic irony, and addressed himself to Modred and his knights."Put up your swords, sirs; this man shall go free.""Sire, sire!" came the massed cry."Trust my discretion. The fellow has done me the greatest service of my life.""Sire!""He has given me liberty. He has gnawed the shackles from my soul. You are all my witnesses in this, and may count upon my gratitude. But this man here, he has danced to my whim like a doll plucked by a string. For my liberty has he sinned; out of Avalon shall he go scatheless."The men still murmured. Modred shot home his sword into its scabbard with a vicious snap. Flavian read their humour."Do not imagine, gentlemen," he said, "that your vigilance and your loyalty to my honour can go unrewarded. Modred, your lands are heavily mortgaged, I free you at a word, with this my signet. To you, Bertrand, I give the Manor of Riesole to keep and hold for you and yours. To all you, good friends, I give a hundred golden angels, man and man. And now, sirs, as to madame, my wife."They gathered round him in curious conclave, Balthasar lying in their midst."Sir Modred, you will order out my state litter, set the Lady Duessa therein, and have her borne with all courtesy to Gilderoy, to her father's house. Then you will take these gentlemen who are my true friends and witnesses, and you will ride to Lauretia, to make solemn declaration before Bishop Hilary. He has already received my earlier embassage. After this affair, we have no need of ethical subtleties and clerical conveniences. You will obtain a dispensation at his hands.Ex vinculo matrimonii. Nothing less than that."They bowed to him and his commands, like the loyal gentlemen they were. Modred pointed to the prostrate Balthasar, who was already squirming back to consciousness, with his fingers feeling at his throat, as though to discover whether it was still sound or no."And this fellow, sire?""Pick him up."Balthasar had found his tongue at last. He was jerked to his feet, and held up by force, with the handle of a poniard rammed into his mouth to stem his garrulity.Flavian read him an extemporary lecture. There was something like a smile hovering about his lips."Go back to your missal, man, and forswear women. They are like strong wine, too much for your flimsy brain. I have more pity for you than censure. Say to yourself, when you patter your prayers, 'Flavian of Gambrevault saved me from the devil once.' And yet, my good saint, I have a shrewd notion that you will be just as great a fool two months hence."The man gave a scream of delight, and attempted to throw himself at Flavian's feet. His superlative joy was almost ludicrous. Half a dozen hands dragged him back."Take him away--who cares for such gratitude!"As they marched him off, he broke like an imbecile into hysterical laughter. Tears streamed from his eyes. He mopped his face with the corner of his habit, laughed and snivelled, and sang snatches of tavern ditties. So, with many a grim jest, they cuffed Fra Balthasar out of Avalon.At the end of the drama, Flavian called for tapers, and marched in state to the chapel. He knelt before the altar and prayed to the Madonna, whose face was the face of the girl Yeoland.XX"Fulviac, I cannot fasten all these buckles."The man waited at the door of her room, and looked at her with a half-roguish smile in his eyes.She stood by the window in Gothic armour of a grandly simple type, no Maximilian flutings, no Damascening, the simple Gothic at its grandest, nothing more. Her breast-plate, with salient ridge, was blazoned over with golden fleur-de-lis. The pauldrons were slightly ridged; vam-brace and rere-brace were beautifully jointed with most quaint elbow-pieces. She wore a great brayette, a short skirt of mail, but no tassets. In place of cuishes, jambs, and solerets, she had a kirtle of white cloth, and laced leather shoes. It was light work and superbly wrought; Fulviac had paid many crowns for it from an armourer at Geraint.Her beauty, mailed and cased in steel, seemed to shine upon the man with a new glory. When he had played the armourer, she stood and looked at him with a most conscious modesty, a warm colour in her cheeks, eyes full of tremulous light, her masses of dark hair rolling down over her blazoned cuirass. A hand and a half sword in a gilded scabbard, a rich baldric, and a light bassinet lay on the oak table. Fulviac took the sword, and belted it to her, and slung the baldric over her shoulder. His hands moved through her dark hair. For a moment, her eyes trembled up at him under their long lashes. He gave the helmet into her hands, but she did not wear it.A sudden gust of youth seized the man, an old strain of chivalry woke in his heart. Grizzled and gaunt, he went on his knees in front of her and held up his hands as in prayer. There was a warm light in his eyes."The Mother Virgin keep you, little woman. May all peril be far from your heart, all trouble far from your soul. May my arm ever ward you, my sword guard your womanhood. All the saints watch over you; may the Spirit of God abide with you in my heart."It was a true prayer, though Fulviac stumbled up from his knees, looking much like an awkward boy. He was blushing under his tanned skin, blushing, scarred and battered worldling that he was, for his heart still showed gold to the knife of Time. Yeoland thought more of him that moment than she had done these four months. A shadow passed over her face, and she touched her forehead with her hand.Fulviac, a far-away look in his eyes, was furling her great scarlet banner upon its staff. Yeoland spoke to him over her shoulder."I am in your hands," she said.Fulviac smoothed out a crease."What is your will, you have not yet enlightened me?"He looked at her gravely for a moment."You are ours," he said, "a woman given to us by heaven," he hesitated, as over a lie; "you are to shine out a star, a pillar of fire before the host; every man who follows you will know your story; every man who follows you will worship you in his heart. You will inspire us as no mere man could inspire; your blood-red banner will wave on heroes, patriots. You will play the comet with an army for your tail."Some sudden emotion seemed to sweep over her. She stood motionless with clasped hands, looking at her crucifix. There was a strange sadness upon her face, a tragic sanctity, as on the face of a woman who renounces the world, and more. For a long while she was silent, as though suffering some lustre light out of heaven to stream into her heart. Presently she answered Fulviac."God help me to be strong," she said, "God help me to bear the burden He has put upon my soul.""Amen, little woman.""And now?""Prosper is preaching to all our men upon the cliff. He is telling them your story. I take you now to set you before them all, that they may look upon a living Saint. I leave the rest to your soul. God will tell you how to bear yourself in the cause of the people. Come, let us pray a moment."They knelt down side by side before the crucifix, like effigies on a tomb. Fulviac's face was in shadow; Yeoland's turned heavenward to the Cross. It was her renunciation. Then they arose; Fulviac took up the scarlet banner, and they passed out together from the room.Traversing parlour and guard-room, finding them empty and silent as a church, they came by the winding stairway in the rock to the hollow opening upon the platform above. Two sentinels stood by the rough door. Above and around, great stones had been piled up so as to form a species of natural battlement. Fulviac, bearing the banner, climbed the rocks, and signed to Yeoland to follow. They were still within a kind of rude tower, walled in by heaped blocks of stone on every side. They were alone save for the two sentinels. Above, they saw Prosper the Preacher standing on a great square mass of rock, his tall figure outlined against the sky.They could see that the man was borne along by the strong spirit of the preacher. His arms tossed to the sky as he bent forward and preached to those invisible to Fulviac and the girl. His oratory was of a fervid, strenuous type, like fire leaping in a wind, fierce, mobile, passionate. They could see him stride to and fro on his platform, gesticulate, point to heaven, smite his bosom, strike attitudes of ecstasy. His voice rang out the while, full of subtle modulations, the pathetic abandonments, the supreme outbursts of the orator. Much that he said fell deep into the girl's heart. The man had that strange power, that magnetic influence that exists in the individual, defying analysis, yet real as the stirring witchery of great music, or as the voice of the sea.Anon they saw him fall upon his knees, and lift his hands to the heavens. He had cast a quick glance backward over his shoulder. Prosper had soared to his zenith; he had his men listening as for the climax of some great epic. Fulviac thrust Yeoland forward up the slope. She understood the dramatic pause in an instant. Prosper's words had been like the orisons of birds preluding the dawn. She climbed the rocks, and stepped out at the kneeling monk's side.The scene below dazed her for the moment. Many hundred faces were turned to her from the slopes at her feet. Innumerable eyes seemed fixed upon her with a mesmeric stare. She saw the whole cliff below her packed with men, every rock crowned with humanity, even the pine trees had their living burden. She saw swords waving like innumerable streaks of light; she had a confused vision of fanaticism, exultation, power. Deep seemed calling unto deep; a noise like the noise of breakers was in her ears.Then the whole grew clear on the instant. The sky seemed strangely luminous; every outline in the landscape took marvellous and intelligent meaning. Strange Promethean fire flashed down into her brain. She felt her heart leaping, her blood bounding through her body, yet her mind shone clear as a crystal grael.Below her, she had humanity, plastic, inflammable, tinder to her touch. An infinite realisation of power seemed to leap in her as at the beck of some spirit wand. She felt all the dim heroism of dreams glowing in her like wine given of the gods.Holy fire burnt on her forehead and her tongue was loosed. She stood out on the great rock, her armour flashing in the sun, her face bright as the moon in her strength. Her voice, clear and silvery, carried far over cliff and wood, for the day was temperate and without a wind."Look upon me well. I tell you the truth. I am she to whom the Madonna appeared from heaven."Great silence answered her, the silence of awe, not of disbelief or disapprobation. Her voice rang solitary as the voice of a wood-fay in the wilderness. The huddled men below were silent as children whose solemn eyes watch a priest before the altar. She spoke on."I am she whose tale you have heard. God has given me to the cause of the poor. To your babes and to your womenfolk I lift my hands; from the Mother of Jesus I hold my command. Men of the land, will you believe and follow my banner?"A thousand hands leapt to the sun, yet hardly a voice broke the silence, the calm as of supreme revelation. All the simple mediæval faith shone in the rough faces; all the quaint reverence, the unflinching fidelity, of the unlettered of the age shone in their hearts. They were warm earth to the seed of faith."Men of the land, I hear great noise of violence and wrong, of hunger and despair. Your lords crush you; your priests go in jewels and fine linen, and preach not the Cross. Your babes are slaves even before they see the light. Your children, like brute beasts, are bound to the soil. Men of the land, give me your strength, give me your strength for the cause of God."She drew her sword from its sheath, pressed the blade to her lips, held it up to heaven. Her voice rang over rock and tree."Justice and liberty!"Her shrill hail seemed to lift the silence from a thousand throats. The human sea below gave up its soul to her with thundering surges and vast sound of faith. As roar followed roar, she stood a bright, silvery pinnacle above the black fanaticism beneath, transcendent Hope holding her sword to the eternal sun.Behind her, Fulviac unwrapped the great scarlet banner she had wrought. Its cross of gold gleamed out as he lifted the staff with both hands. Prosper, erect and exultant, stood pointing to its device. Then, in sight of all men, he bowed down before the girl and kissed her feet, as though she had been some rare messenger out of heaven.XXIThe day had done gloriously till noon, but the sky's mood changed as evening advanced. Clouds were huddled up in grey masses by a gathering and gusty wind, and the June calm took flight like a girl in a new gown when rain threatens.By nightfall, a storm held orgy over the cliff. Billow upon billow of wind came roaring over the myriad trees. The pines were sweeping a murky sky with their black brooms, creaking and moaning in chorus. Rain rattled heavily, and over the cliff the storm thundered and cried with the long wail of the wind over rock and tree.In Yeoland's chamber the lamp flared and smoked, and the postern clattered. Rain splashed upon the shivering casement; the carpet breathed restlessly with the draught under the door. It was late, yet the girl was still at her devotions. Her thoughts were dishevelled and full of discords, while between her fingers the beads of her rosary moved listlessly, and her prayers were broken by the anathemas of the storm.The dual distractions of life had come in her to grappling point again. She could boast no omnipotence in her own heart, and could but give countenance to one of the two factions that clamoured for her favour. As her mood changed like the mood of a fickle despot none too sure of his throne, so tumult and despair were let loose time after time into the echoing courts and alleys of her soul. She had neither the courage nor the force of will for the moment to compel herself either to satisfy her womanhood or sacrifice her instincts to a religious conviction. Man and God held each a half of her being. The man's face outstared God's face; God's law overshadowed the man's.She had been carried into the palpitating azure of religious exaltation. The world had rolled at her feet. She had bathed her forehead in the infinite forethought of eternity; she had heard the stupendous sounding of the spheres. Then some mischievous sprite had plucked the wings from her shoulders, and she had fallen far into an abyss. After spiritual exaltation comes physical depression. Neither is a normal state; neither strictly sane to the intellect. Peter-like, she had trod the waves; faith had played her false; the waters had gone over her soul.As she knelt brooding before her crucifix, under the wavering lamp, she was smitten into listening immobility, her rosary idle in her hand. A cry had come to her amid the multitudinous voices of the storm, a cry like a hail from a ship over a tumbling sea at night.She waited and wondered. Again the cry rose above the babel of the wind. Was it from Fulviac's room; or a sentinel's shout from the cliff, seized upon and carried by the wind with distorting vehemence? Midnight covered the world, and the girl was in an impressionable mood. She took the lamp from its bracket and, opening the door, peered down the gallery that led to Fulviac's room.A sudden sinister sound made her start back into the room, the lamp flashing tremulous beams upon the walls, and striking confusion into the shadows. A hand was beating heavily upon the postern.She set the lamp in its bracket, crept to the door, put her ear to the lock and listened. The knocking had ceased, and in a momentary lulling of the wind she even fancied she could hear the sound of deep breathing. Her heart was hurrying, but suspense emboldened her."Who's there?"A sudden gust made such a bluster that her voice died almost unheard in the night. There was a vague clangour without, as of arms, and the knocking re-echoed sullenly through the room. A lull came again."Who knocks?"This time an answer came back to her."I--Flavian."She caught her breath and shivered."What do you want at midnight, and in such a storm?""Let me in. Open to me.""No--no.""Open to me.""Are you still mad?"Silence held a moment. Then the voice rose again, with the hoarse moan of the wind for an underchant."Liberty, liberty, I am free, I am free."She shrank aside against the wall."The night gave me my chance; I have men in the wood. Let me in.""Ah, messire.""I plead for love and my own soul. I come to give you life, sword, all. I cannot leave you; I am in outer darkness; you are in heaven. Let me in."She stood swaying like a reed in a breeze. Her brain glowed like some rich scheme of colour, some sun-ravished garden. The massed moan of a hundred viols seemed to sweep over her soul. God, for the courage to be weak!"Yeoland! Yeoland! have you no word for me?"Her hand trembled to the door; her fingers closed upon the key. She hesitated and her dangling rosary caught her glance; sudden revulsions of purpose flooded back; she stumbled away from the door like one about to faint."I cannot, I cannot," she said."I will break down the door."The threat inspired her."No, no, not thus can you win me.""I will break in.""Attempt it, and I will call the guard. You will lose hope of me for ever. I swear it."Her voice rang true and strong as a sword. With her judgment, silence fell again, and ages seemed to crawl over the world. When the man spoke again, his voice was less masterful, more pathetic."Have you no hope for me?" it said."I have given you life.""What is life without love?"She sighed very bitterly."Messire, you do not understand," she said."No, you are a riddle to me.""A riddle that you may read anon; time will show you the truth. I tell you I am given to God. Only in one way can you win me.""Are you solemn over this?""Solemn as death.""Tell me that only way.""Only by breaking the bonds about my soul, by liberating me from myself, by battle and through perils that you cannot tell.""War and the sword!""Yet not to-night. You would need ten thousand men to take me from this cliff. I advise you for your good. Only by great power and the sword can you win your desire.""By God, then, let it be war."An utter sense of loneliness flooded over her. She sobbed in her throat, leant against the door, listened, waited. The wind roared without, the rain beat upon the quaking casement, and she heard the multitudinous moaning of the pines. No voice companioned her, and the night was void.A sudden access of passion prompted her. She twisted at the key, tore the bolts aside, flung the door open. The stairway was empty. Rain whirled in her face, as she stood out in the wind, and called the man many times by name. It was vain and to no purpose.Presently she re-entered the room, very slowly, and barred the door. Her rosary rolled under her feet. She picked it up suddenly and dashed it away into a corner. The face on the crucifix seemed to leer at her from the wall.
XVII
The Lady Duessa stood in the chapel of water-girded Avalon, with Fra Balthasar the Dominican beside her. She had slipped in without his noticing her, and had watched him awhile in silence at his work. The jingling of her chatelaine had brought him at last to a consciousness of her presence. Now they stood together before the high altar and looked at the Madonna seated on her throne of gold, amid choirs of angel women.
The Lady Duessa's intelligence had waxed critical on the subject.
"You have altered the Virgin's face," she said.
Balthasar stared at his handiwork and nodded.
"The former has been erased, the latter throned in her stead."
The words had more significance for the lady than the friar had perhaps intended. A better woman would have snubbed him for his pains. As it was, he saw her go red, saw the tense stare of her dark eyes, the tightening of the muscles of her jaw. She had a wondrous strong jaw, had the Lady Duessa. She was no mere puppet, no bright-eyed, fineried piece of plasticity. Fra Balthasar guessed the hot, passionate power of her soul; she was the very woman for the rough handling of a cause, such as the Lord Flavian her husband had roused against her.
"I suppose," she said, "this alteration was a matter of art, Balthasar?"
"A matter of heart, madame."
"So?"
"My Lord Flavian commanded it."
"And yonder face is taken from life?"
"Madame, I leave the inference to your charity."
She laughed a deep, cynical laugh, and went wandering round the chapel, looking at the frescoes, and swinging a little poniard by the chain that linked it to her girdle. Balthasar made a pretence of mixing colours on his palette. Worldly rogue that he was, he knew women, especially women of the Lady Duessa mould. He had a most shrewd notion as to what was passing in her mind. Morally, he was her abettor, being a person who could always take a woman's part, provided she were pretty. He believed women had no business with religion. To Balthasar, like fine glass, their frailty was their most enhancing characteristic. It gave such infinite scope to a discreet confessor.
The Lady Duessa strolled back again, and stood by the altar rails.
"Am I such a plain woman?" she asked.
"Madame!"
"You have never painted me."
"There are people above the artist's brush."
"But you paint the Madonna."
"Madame, the Madonna is anybody's property."
"Am I?"
"God forbid that a poet should speak lightly of beauty."
She laughed again, and touching her hair with her fingers, scanned herself in a little mirror that she carried at her girdle.
"Tell me frankly, am I worth painting?"
"Madame, that purple hair, those splendid eyes, the superb colour of those cheeks, would blaze out of a golden background as out of heaven."
She gave a musical little titter.
"Heaven, heaven, ha--ha."
"I should be grateful for so transcendent a chance."
"And you would do me justice?"
"Where inspiration burns, there art soars."
"You would be true?"
"To the chiselling of a coral ear."
"And discreet?"
"To the curve of a lip."
"And considerate?"
"My hands are subtle."
"And your heart?"
"Is ingenuous as a little child's."
She laughed again, and held out her hands. Balthasar kissed the white fingers, crowded with their gems. His eyes were warm as water in the sun; the colours and the glimmering richness of the chapel burnt into his brain.
"You shall paint me," she said.
"Here, madame, here?"
"No, my own bower is pleasanter. You can reach it by my Lord Flavian's stair in the turret. Here is the key; he never uses it now. Avalon has not seen him these six days."
"Madame, I will paint you as man never painted woman before."
Dame Duessa's bower was a broad chamber on the western walls, joining the south-western tower. A great oriel, jewelled with heraldic glass, looked over the mere with its dreaming lilies, over the green meadows to the solemn silence of the woods.
Calypso's grotto! The bower of a luxurious lady in a luxurious age! The snuff of Ind and Araby tingled in Balthasar's nostrils. The silks of China and Bagdad, the cloths of Italy, bloomed there; flowers crowded the window, the couches, every nook. Blood-red hangings warmed the walls.
The Lady Duessa sat to Balthasar in the oriel, with her lute upon her bosom. She was in azure and violet, with neck and bosom showing under a maze of gossamer gold. Her arms were bare to the shoulder, white, gleaming arms, subtle, sinuous, voluptuous. Her hair had been powdered with gold. Her lips were wondrous red, her eyes dark as wells. Musk and lavender breathed from her samites; her girdle glowed with precious stones.
Fra Balthasar sat on a stool inlaid with mother-of-pearl and ivory. An embroidery frame served him as an easel. The man was living under the many-constellationed vault of beauty. All the scent and floweriness of the room played on his brain; all the wealth of it pandered to his art; all the woman's splendour made molten wax of his being.
As he painted she sang to him, an old lay of Arthurian love, so that he might catch the music in her eyes, and watch the deep notes gathering in her throat. He saw her bosom sway beneath her lace, saw the inimitable roundness of her arms. Often his brush lingered. He might gaze upon the woman as he would, drink her beauty like so much violet wine, open his soul to the opulent summer of her power. His heart was in a sunset mood; he lived the life of a poet.
"And the green spring grew subtle," sang the dame,"With song of birds and laughter, and the woodsWere white for maying. So fair GuinivereLoosed her long hair like rivulets of goldThat stream from the broad casement of the dawn.And her sweet mouth was like one lovely rose,And her white bosom like a bowl of flowers;So wandered she with Launcelot, while the windBlew her long tresses to him, and her eyesWere as the tender azure of the night."
"And the green spring grew subtle," sang the dame,"With song of birds and laughter, and the woodsWere white for maying. So fair GuinivereLoosed her long hair like rivulets of goldThat stream from the broad casement of the dawn.And her sweet mouth was like one lovely rose,And her white bosom like a bowl of flowers;So wandered she with Launcelot, while the windBlew her long tresses to him, and her eyesWere as the tender azure of the night."
"And the green spring grew subtle," sang the dame,
"With song of birds and laughter, and the woods
Were white for maying. So fair Guinivere
Loosed her long hair like rivulets of gold
That stream from the broad casement of the dawn.
And her sweet mouth was like one lovely rose,
And her white bosom like a bowl of flowers;
So wandered she with Launcelot, while the wind
Blew her long tresses to him, and her eyes
Were as the tender azure of the night."
Of such things sang Duessa, while the friar spread his colours.
And then she questioned him.
"Love you the old legends, Balthasar?"
"Madame, as I love life."
"Ah! they could love in those old days."
"Madame, men can love even now."
She put her lute aside, and knelt upon the couch before the window, with her elbows on the cushioned sill. Her silks swept close upon her shapely back, her shoulders gleamed under her purple hair. In the west the world grew red; the crimson kisses of the sunset poured upon the ecstasied green woods. The mere was flaked with a myriad amber scales. The meadows broidered their broad laps with cowslips, as with dust of gold.
"Balthasar."
"Madame?"
"Look yonder at the sunset. You must be tired of gazing on my face."
He rose up like one dazed--intoxicated by colours, sounds, and odours. Duessa's hand beckoned him. He went and knelt on the couch at her side, and looked out over the flaming woods.
"And the other woman?" she said.
"The other woman?"
"This Madonna of my lord's chapel."
"Yes?"
"She amuses me; I am not jealous; what is jealousy to me? Tell me about her, Balthasar; no doubt it is a pretty tale, and you know the whole."
"I, madame?"
"I, Duessa."
"But----"
"You are my Lord Flavian's friend; he was ever a man to be garrulous: he has been garrulous to you. Tell me the whole tale."
"Duessa!"
"Better, better, my friend."
She put her hands upon his shoulders, and stared straight into his eyes. Her lips overhung his like ripe red fruit. Her arms were fragrant of myrrh and violet; her bosom was white as snow under the moon.
"Can you refuse me this?"
"God, madame, I can refuse you nothing."
XVIII
The girl Yeoland saw nothing of the leper for a season. For several days she did not venture far into the pine forest, and the nameless grave heard not the sound of her lute. The third night after the incident, as she lay in her room under her canopy of purple cloth, she heard distinctly the silver clangour of a bell floating up through the midnight silence. She lay as still as a mouse, and scarcely drew breath, for fear the man in grey should venture up the stairway. The casement was open, with a soft June air blowing in like peace. The bell continued to tinkle, but less noisily, till it vanished into silence.
Other folk from the cliff had seen the leper, and Yeoland could not claim to have monopolised the gentleman. One of Fulviac's fellows had seen him one morning near the cliff, gliding like a grey ghost among the pines. Another had marked him creeping swiftly away through the twilight. It was a superstitious age and a superstitious region. The figure in grey seemed to haunt the place, with the occasional and mournful sounding of its bell. Men began to gossip, as the ignorant always will. Fulviac himself grew uneasy for more material reasons, and contemplated the test of a clothyard shaft or a bolt upon the leper's body. The man might be a spy, and if the bolt missed its mark it would at least serve as a sinister hint to this troublesome apparition.
It was then that Yeoland took alarm into her woman's heart. There was great likelihood of the man ending his days under the tree with a shaft sticking fast between his shoulders. Though he was something of a madman, she did not relish such a prospect. The day after she had heard the bell at midnight near the stair she haunted the forest like a pixie, keeping constant watch between the cliff and the forest grave. Fulviac had ridden out on a plundering venture, and she was free of him for the day.
It was not till evening that she heard the faint signal of the bell, creeping down through the gold-webbed boughs like the sound of a distant angelus. The sound flew from the north, and beckoned her towards the forest grave. Fearful of being caught, she followed it as fast as her feet could carry her, while the deepening clamour led her on. Presently she called the man by name as she ran. His grey frock and cowl came dimly through the trees.
"At last you are merciful," was his greeting.
She stood still and twisted her gown restlessly between her two hands. Anarchy showed in her face; fear, reason, and desire were calling to her heart. The intangible touch of the man's soul threw her being into chaos. She feared greatly for him, stood still, and could say nothing. Flavian put his cowl back, and stood aloof from her, looking in her face.
"Seemingly we are both embarrassed," he said.
She made a petulant little gesture. He forestalled her in speech.
"It is best to be frank when life runs deep. I will speak the truth to you, and you may treat me as you will."
Yeoland leant against a tree, and began to pull away the brittle scales of the bark.
"If you stay here longer, messire----" she began.
"Well, madame, what then?"
"You will be shot like a dog; you are suspected; they are going to try your leper's gown with a crossbow bolt."
The man smiled optimistically.
"And you came to tell me this?"
"Yes."
"I thank you."
The wind moved through the trees; a fir-cone came pattering through the branches and fell at their feet. On the cliff a horn blared; its throaty cry came echoing faintly through the trees.
Flavian looked towards the gold of the west. His mood was calm and deliberate; he had his enthusiasms in leash for the moment, for there were more mundane matters in his mind--matters that were not savoury, however crimson shone the ideal years.
"I have thrown down the glove," he said, "for good or evil, honour or dishonour. I will tell you the whole truth."
Yeoland, watching his face, felt her impatient dreads goad her to the quick.
"Will you talk for ever?" she said to him.
"Take the core then. I am going to rend my bonds as I would rend flax. I have appealed to the Church; I have poured out gold."
"To the point, messire."
"I shall divorce my wife."
He threw his head back, and challenged the world in her one person. Her good favour was more to him than the patronage of Pope or King. It was in his mind that she should believe the worst of him from the beginning, so that in some later season he might not emulate Lucifer, toppled out of the heaven of her heart. She should have the truth from the first, and build her opinion of him on no fanciful basis. Even in this justice to the more sinister side of his surroundings, he was an idealist, thorough and enthusiastic.
"So you must understand, madame, that I am not without blemishes, not without things that I myself would rather see otherwise. With me it is a question of going to hell for a woman, or getting rid of her. Being an egotist, I choose the latter alternative."
Yeoland still evaded his eyes.
"And the woman loves you?"
"Not an atom; she only cares to be called the Lady of Gambrevault, Signoress of Avalon, the first dame in the south."
"Why do you tell me this?"
"Madame, have I need of more words? It is for this: that you might not picture me as I am not, or form any false conception of me. I have bared my moral skeleton to you. Perhaps you will never know what it costs a man at times to make his mind as glass to the woman he honours above the whole world."
"Well?"
"It is because I honour you that I have goaded myself to tell you the whole truth."
Her verdict was more sudden and more human than he might have expected.
"Messire, you are a brave man," she said; "I believe I am beginning to trust you."
The sky flamed into sunset; the tracery of the trees seemed webbed with gold into shimmering domes and fans of quivering light. In the distance, the great cliff stood out darkly from the scarlet caverns of the west. The pine tops rose like the black spires of some vast city. Above, floated clouds, effulgent mounts of fire, hurled from the abysmal furnace of the sun.
Flavian came two steps nearer to the woman, leaning against the tree.
"Give me my due," he said; "I have uncovered the difficult workings of my heart, I have shown you the inner man in his meaner mould. Suffer me to speak of my manhood in godlier words. I have shown you Winter; let me utter forth Spring."
Yeoland turned and faced him at last.
"You have risked your life and my honour long enough," she said, "I am going back to the cliff."
"And I with you, as far as the stairway."
"To the threshold of death."
"What care I if I tread it at your side?"
She turned homewards with obstinate intent, and the mild hauteur of a good woman. The man followed her, went with her step for step, looking in her face.
"Hear my confession," he said; "you shall have it before you leave me. For the sake of your honour, I hold my soul by the collar. But--but, I shall win liberty, liberty. When I am free, ah, girl, girl, I shall flash golden wings in the face of the sun. I shall soar to you that I may look into your eyes, that I may touch your hands, and breathe the warm summer of your soul. I want God, I want purity, I want the Eternal peace, I want your heart. I have said the whole; think of me what you will."
Twilight had gathered; all the violet calmness of the night came down upon the world. Under the shadows of the tall trees, the girl was deeply stirred beyond her own compassion. She halted, hesitated, went suddenly near the man with her face turned heavenwards like a new-spread flower. Her eyes were very wistful, and she spoke almost in a whisper.
"You have told me the whole truth, you have shown me your whole soul?"
"As I serve you, madame, I have kept nothing back."
"Ah, messire, I will speak to you the truth in turn. God be merciful to me, but you have come strangely near my heart. These are bitter words for my soul. Ah, messire, if you have any honour for me, trust me that I aspire to heaven. I cannot suffer you to come deeper into my life."
The man held out his hands.
"Why, why?"
"Because in following me, you go innocently to your death."
He lifted up his arms, and leapt into heroics like an Apollo leaping into a blood-red sky.
"What care I; you speak in riddles; can I fear death?"
"Messire, messire, it is the woman who fears. I tell you this, because, because--God help me----"
She fled away, but that night he did not follow her.
XIX
As a wind sweeps clamorous into a wood, so Modred and his fellows, household knights, streamed into the great hall of Avalon, where the Lord Flavian sat at supper. Bearers of angry steel, fulminators of vengeance, vociferous, strong, they poured in through the screens like a mill race, bearing a tossed and impotent figure in their midst. Their swords yelped and flashed over this bruised fragment of humanity.
A gauntlet of steel was dashed often into the white face. Hands clawed his collar, clutched his body. Dragged, jerked onwards, buffeted, beaten to his knees, he sank down before the Lord Flavian's chair, blood streaming from his mouth and nostrils, specking his white habit, drabbling the floor. Then only did the flashing, growling circle recede like waves from a fallen rock.
Modred, a black man, burly, a bigot to honour, stood out a giant before his fellows. His great sword quivered to the roof; his deep voice shook the rafters.
"Blood, sire, blood."
The man in the white habit quailed, and held up his hands.
"Let me smite him as he kneels."
"Sirs, give me the courtesy of silence."
Flavian started from his chair and looked at the man, who knelt, huddled into himself, at his feet. It was a scene replete with the grim cynicism of life. Here was a man of mind and genius, cowering, quivering before the strong wrath of a dozen muscular illiterates. Here was the promulgator of bold truths, an utter dastard when the physical part of him was threatened with dissolution. Not that this event was any proof against the moral power of pagan self-reliance. Not that there was any cause for the bleating of sanctimonious platitudes, or the pointing of a proverb. A true churchman might have carved a fine moral fable out of the reality. It would have been a fallacy. Fra Balthasar was a coward. He had none of the splendid mental anatomy of a Socrates. He would have played the coward even under the eye of Christ.
Silence had fallen. Far away, choked by the long throats of gallery and stair, rose the wild, passionate screaming of a woman. It had the rebellious, blasphemous agony of one flung into eternal fire. Without modulation, abatement, or increase, malevolent, impotent, ferocious, piteous, it pealed out in long, tempestuous bursts that swept into the ears like some unutterable discord out of hell.
The kneeling man heard it, and seemed to contract, to shrink into himself. His white habit was rent to the middle; his ashy face splashed over with blood. He tottered and shook, his hands clasped over the nape of his neck, for fear of the sword. His tongue clave to his palate; his eyes were furtively fixed on the upreared yard of steel.
Torches and cressets flared. Servants stared and shouldered and gaped in the screens; all the castle underlings seemed to have smelt out the business like the rats they were. Modred's knights put them out with rough words and the flat of the sword. The doors were barred. Only Flavian, the priest, and Modred and his men took part in that tribunal in the hall of Avalon.
Flavian stood and gazed on Balthasar, the man of tones and colours. The Lord of Gambrevault was calm, unhurried, and dispassionate, yet not unpleased. The man's infinite abasement and terror seemed to arrest him like some superb precept from the lips of a philosopher. He had the air of a man who calculates, the look of a diplomat whose scheme has worked out well. From Balthasar he looked to Modred the Strong, the torchlight lurid on his armour, his great sword quivering like a falcon to leap down upon its prey. The distant screaming, somewhat fainter and less resolute, still throbbed in his ears. He thought of Dante, and thebolgiasof that superhuman singer.
Going close to the Dominican, he spoke to him in strong, yet not unpitying tones. Balthasar dared not look above the Lord Flavian's knees.
"Ha, my friend, where is all your fine philosophy?"
The man cringed like a beggar.
"Where are all your sonorous phrases, your pert blasphemies, your subtleties, your fine tinsel of intellect and vanity?"
Balthasar had no word.
"Where is your godliness, my friend, where your glowing and superhuman soul? Have we found you out, O Satanas; have we shocked your pagan heroism? Be a man. Stand up and face us. You could hold forth roundly on occasions. Even that Saul of Tarsus was not afraid of a sword."
Balthasar cowered, and hid his face behind his hands. He began to whimper, to rock to and fro, to sob. The grim men round him laughed, deep-chested, iron, scoffing laughter. Modred pricked the priest's neck with the point of his sword. It was then that Balthasar fell forward upon his face, senseless from sheer terror.
Flavian abandoned philosophic irony, and addressed himself to Modred and his knights.
"Put up your swords, sirs; this man shall go free."
"Sire, sire!" came the massed cry.
"Trust my discretion. The fellow has done me the greatest service of my life."
"Sire!"
"He has given me liberty. He has gnawed the shackles from my soul. You are all my witnesses in this, and may count upon my gratitude. But this man here, he has danced to my whim like a doll plucked by a string. For my liberty has he sinned; out of Avalon shall he go scatheless."
The men still murmured. Modred shot home his sword into its scabbard with a vicious snap. Flavian read their humour.
"Do not imagine, gentlemen," he said, "that your vigilance and your loyalty to my honour can go unrewarded. Modred, your lands are heavily mortgaged, I free you at a word, with this my signet. To you, Bertrand, I give the Manor of Riesole to keep and hold for you and yours. To all you, good friends, I give a hundred golden angels, man and man. And now, sirs, as to madame, my wife."
They gathered round him in curious conclave, Balthasar lying in their midst.
"Sir Modred, you will order out my state litter, set the Lady Duessa therein, and have her borne with all courtesy to Gilderoy, to her father's house. Then you will take these gentlemen who are my true friends and witnesses, and you will ride to Lauretia, to make solemn declaration before Bishop Hilary. He has already received my earlier embassage. After this affair, we have no need of ethical subtleties and clerical conveniences. You will obtain a dispensation at his hands.Ex vinculo matrimonii. Nothing less than that."
They bowed to him and his commands, like the loyal gentlemen they were. Modred pointed to the prostrate Balthasar, who was already squirming back to consciousness, with his fingers feeling at his throat, as though to discover whether it was still sound or no.
"And this fellow, sire?"
"Pick him up."
Balthasar had found his tongue at last. He was jerked to his feet, and held up by force, with the handle of a poniard rammed into his mouth to stem his garrulity.
Flavian read him an extemporary lecture. There was something like a smile hovering about his lips.
"Go back to your missal, man, and forswear women. They are like strong wine, too much for your flimsy brain. I have more pity for you than censure. Say to yourself, when you patter your prayers, 'Flavian of Gambrevault saved me from the devil once.' And yet, my good saint, I have a shrewd notion that you will be just as great a fool two months hence."
The man gave a scream of delight, and attempted to throw himself at Flavian's feet. His superlative joy was almost ludicrous. Half a dozen hands dragged him back.
"Take him away--who cares for such gratitude!"
As they marched him off, he broke like an imbecile into hysterical laughter. Tears streamed from his eyes. He mopped his face with the corner of his habit, laughed and snivelled, and sang snatches of tavern ditties. So, with many a grim jest, they cuffed Fra Balthasar out of Avalon.
At the end of the drama, Flavian called for tapers, and marched in state to the chapel. He knelt before the altar and prayed to the Madonna, whose face was the face of the girl Yeoland.
XX
"Fulviac, I cannot fasten all these buckles."
The man waited at the door of her room, and looked at her with a half-roguish smile in his eyes.
She stood by the window in Gothic armour of a grandly simple type, no Maximilian flutings, no Damascening, the simple Gothic at its grandest, nothing more. Her breast-plate, with salient ridge, was blazoned over with golden fleur-de-lis. The pauldrons were slightly ridged; vam-brace and rere-brace were beautifully jointed with most quaint elbow-pieces. She wore a great brayette, a short skirt of mail, but no tassets. In place of cuishes, jambs, and solerets, she had a kirtle of white cloth, and laced leather shoes. It was light work and superbly wrought; Fulviac had paid many crowns for it from an armourer at Geraint.
Her beauty, mailed and cased in steel, seemed to shine upon the man with a new glory. When he had played the armourer, she stood and looked at him with a most conscious modesty, a warm colour in her cheeks, eyes full of tremulous light, her masses of dark hair rolling down over her blazoned cuirass. A hand and a half sword in a gilded scabbard, a rich baldric, and a light bassinet lay on the oak table. Fulviac took the sword, and belted it to her, and slung the baldric over her shoulder. His hands moved through her dark hair. For a moment, her eyes trembled up at him under their long lashes. He gave the helmet into her hands, but she did not wear it.
A sudden gust of youth seized the man, an old strain of chivalry woke in his heart. Grizzled and gaunt, he went on his knees in front of her and held up his hands as in prayer. There was a warm light in his eyes.
"The Mother Virgin keep you, little woman. May all peril be far from your heart, all trouble far from your soul. May my arm ever ward you, my sword guard your womanhood. All the saints watch over you; may the Spirit of God abide with you in my heart."
It was a true prayer, though Fulviac stumbled up from his knees, looking much like an awkward boy. He was blushing under his tanned skin, blushing, scarred and battered worldling that he was, for his heart still showed gold to the knife of Time. Yeoland thought more of him that moment than she had done these four months. A shadow passed over her face, and she touched her forehead with her hand.
Fulviac, a far-away look in his eyes, was furling her great scarlet banner upon its staff. Yeoland spoke to him over her shoulder.
"I am in your hands," she said.
Fulviac smoothed out a crease.
"What is your will, you have not yet enlightened me?"
He looked at her gravely for a moment.
"You are ours," he said, "a woman given to us by heaven," he hesitated, as over a lie; "you are to shine out a star, a pillar of fire before the host; every man who follows you will know your story; every man who follows you will worship you in his heart. You will inspire us as no mere man could inspire; your blood-red banner will wave on heroes, patriots. You will play the comet with an army for your tail."
Some sudden emotion seemed to sweep over her. She stood motionless with clasped hands, looking at her crucifix. There was a strange sadness upon her face, a tragic sanctity, as on the face of a woman who renounces the world, and more. For a long while she was silent, as though suffering some lustre light out of heaven to stream into her heart. Presently she answered Fulviac.
"God help me to be strong," she said, "God help me to bear the burden He has put upon my soul."
"Amen, little woman."
"And now?"
"Prosper is preaching to all our men upon the cliff. He is telling them your story. I take you now to set you before them all, that they may look upon a living Saint. I leave the rest to your soul. God will tell you how to bear yourself in the cause of the people. Come, let us pray a moment."
They knelt down side by side before the crucifix, like effigies on a tomb. Fulviac's face was in shadow; Yeoland's turned heavenward to the Cross. It was her renunciation. Then they arose; Fulviac took up the scarlet banner, and they passed out together from the room.
Traversing parlour and guard-room, finding them empty and silent as a church, they came by the winding stairway in the rock to the hollow opening upon the platform above. Two sentinels stood by the rough door. Above and around, great stones had been piled up so as to form a species of natural battlement. Fulviac, bearing the banner, climbed the rocks, and signed to Yeoland to follow. They were still within a kind of rude tower, walled in by heaped blocks of stone on every side. They were alone save for the two sentinels. Above, they saw Prosper the Preacher standing on a great square mass of rock, his tall figure outlined against the sky.
They could see that the man was borne along by the strong spirit of the preacher. His arms tossed to the sky as he bent forward and preached to those invisible to Fulviac and the girl. His oratory was of a fervid, strenuous type, like fire leaping in a wind, fierce, mobile, passionate. They could see him stride to and fro on his platform, gesticulate, point to heaven, smite his bosom, strike attitudes of ecstasy. His voice rang out the while, full of subtle modulations, the pathetic abandonments, the supreme outbursts of the orator. Much that he said fell deep into the girl's heart. The man had that strange power, that magnetic influence that exists in the individual, defying analysis, yet real as the stirring witchery of great music, or as the voice of the sea.
Anon they saw him fall upon his knees, and lift his hands to the heavens. He had cast a quick glance backward over his shoulder. Prosper had soared to his zenith; he had his men listening as for the climax of some great epic. Fulviac thrust Yeoland forward up the slope. She understood the dramatic pause in an instant. Prosper's words had been like the orisons of birds preluding the dawn. She climbed the rocks, and stepped out at the kneeling monk's side.
The scene below dazed her for the moment. Many hundred faces were turned to her from the slopes at her feet. Innumerable eyes seemed fixed upon her with a mesmeric stare. She saw the whole cliff below her packed with men, every rock crowned with humanity, even the pine trees had their living burden. She saw swords waving like innumerable streaks of light; she had a confused vision of fanaticism, exultation, power. Deep seemed calling unto deep; a noise like the noise of breakers was in her ears.
Then the whole grew clear on the instant. The sky seemed strangely luminous; every outline in the landscape took marvellous and intelligent meaning. Strange Promethean fire flashed down into her brain. She felt her heart leaping, her blood bounding through her body, yet her mind shone clear as a crystal grael.
Below her, she had humanity, plastic, inflammable, tinder to her touch. An infinite realisation of power seemed to leap in her as at the beck of some spirit wand. She felt all the dim heroism of dreams glowing in her like wine given of the gods.
Holy fire burnt on her forehead and her tongue was loosed. She stood out on the great rock, her armour flashing in the sun, her face bright as the moon in her strength. Her voice, clear and silvery, carried far over cliff and wood, for the day was temperate and without a wind.
"Look upon me well. I tell you the truth. I am she to whom the Madonna appeared from heaven."
Great silence answered her, the silence of awe, not of disbelief or disapprobation. Her voice rang solitary as the voice of a wood-fay in the wilderness. The huddled men below were silent as children whose solemn eyes watch a priest before the altar. She spoke on.
"I am she whose tale you have heard. God has given me to the cause of the poor. To your babes and to your womenfolk I lift my hands; from the Mother of Jesus I hold my command. Men of the land, will you believe and follow my banner?"
A thousand hands leapt to the sun, yet hardly a voice broke the silence, the calm as of supreme revelation. All the simple mediæval faith shone in the rough faces; all the quaint reverence, the unflinching fidelity, of the unlettered of the age shone in their hearts. They were warm earth to the seed of faith.
"Men of the land, I hear great noise of violence and wrong, of hunger and despair. Your lords crush you; your priests go in jewels and fine linen, and preach not the Cross. Your babes are slaves even before they see the light. Your children, like brute beasts, are bound to the soil. Men of the land, give me your strength, give me your strength for the cause of God."
She drew her sword from its sheath, pressed the blade to her lips, held it up to heaven. Her voice rang over rock and tree.
"Justice and liberty!"
Her shrill hail seemed to lift the silence from a thousand throats. The human sea below gave up its soul to her with thundering surges and vast sound of faith. As roar followed roar, she stood a bright, silvery pinnacle above the black fanaticism beneath, transcendent Hope holding her sword to the eternal sun.
Behind her, Fulviac unwrapped the great scarlet banner she had wrought. Its cross of gold gleamed out as he lifted the staff with both hands. Prosper, erect and exultant, stood pointing to its device. Then, in sight of all men, he bowed down before the girl and kissed her feet, as though she had been some rare messenger out of heaven.
XXI
The day had done gloriously till noon, but the sky's mood changed as evening advanced. Clouds were huddled up in grey masses by a gathering and gusty wind, and the June calm took flight like a girl in a new gown when rain threatens.
By nightfall, a storm held orgy over the cliff. Billow upon billow of wind came roaring over the myriad trees. The pines were sweeping a murky sky with their black brooms, creaking and moaning in chorus. Rain rattled heavily, and over the cliff the storm thundered and cried with the long wail of the wind over rock and tree.
In Yeoland's chamber the lamp flared and smoked, and the postern clattered. Rain splashed upon the shivering casement; the carpet breathed restlessly with the draught under the door. It was late, yet the girl was still at her devotions. Her thoughts were dishevelled and full of discords, while between her fingers the beads of her rosary moved listlessly, and her prayers were broken by the anathemas of the storm.
The dual distractions of life had come in her to grappling point again. She could boast no omnipotence in her own heart, and could but give countenance to one of the two factions that clamoured for her favour. As her mood changed like the mood of a fickle despot none too sure of his throne, so tumult and despair were let loose time after time into the echoing courts and alleys of her soul. She had neither the courage nor the force of will for the moment to compel herself either to satisfy her womanhood or sacrifice her instincts to a religious conviction. Man and God held each a half of her being. The man's face outstared God's face; God's law overshadowed the man's.
She had been carried into the palpitating azure of religious exaltation. The world had rolled at her feet. She had bathed her forehead in the infinite forethought of eternity; she had heard the stupendous sounding of the spheres. Then some mischievous sprite had plucked the wings from her shoulders, and she had fallen far into an abyss. After spiritual exaltation comes physical depression. Neither is a normal state; neither strictly sane to the intellect. Peter-like, she had trod the waves; faith had played her false; the waters had gone over her soul.
As she knelt brooding before her crucifix, under the wavering lamp, she was smitten into listening immobility, her rosary idle in her hand. A cry had come to her amid the multitudinous voices of the storm, a cry like a hail from a ship over a tumbling sea at night.
She waited and wondered. Again the cry rose above the babel of the wind. Was it from Fulviac's room; or a sentinel's shout from the cliff, seized upon and carried by the wind with distorting vehemence? Midnight covered the world, and the girl was in an impressionable mood. She took the lamp from its bracket and, opening the door, peered down the gallery that led to Fulviac's room.
A sudden sinister sound made her start back into the room, the lamp flashing tremulous beams upon the walls, and striking confusion into the shadows. A hand was beating heavily upon the postern.
She set the lamp in its bracket, crept to the door, put her ear to the lock and listened. The knocking had ceased, and in a momentary lulling of the wind she even fancied she could hear the sound of deep breathing. Her heart was hurrying, but suspense emboldened her.
"Who's there?"
A sudden gust made such a bluster that her voice died almost unheard in the night. There was a vague clangour without, as of arms, and the knocking re-echoed sullenly through the room. A lull came again.
"Who knocks?"
This time an answer came back to her.
"I--Flavian."
She caught her breath and shivered.
"What do you want at midnight, and in such a storm?"
"Let me in. Open to me."
"No--no."
"Open to me."
"Are you still mad?"
Silence held a moment. Then the voice rose again, with the hoarse moan of the wind for an underchant.
"Liberty, liberty, I am free, I am free."
She shrank aside against the wall.
"The night gave me my chance; I have men in the wood. Let me in."
"Ah, messire."
"I plead for love and my own soul. I come to give you life, sword, all. I cannot leave you; I am in outer darkness; you are in heaven. Let me in."
She stood swaying like a reed in a breeze. Her brain glowed like some rich scheme of colour, some sun-ravished garden. The massed moan of a hundred viols seemed to sweep over her soul. God, for the courage to be weak!
"Yeoland! Yeoland! have you no word for me?"
Her hand trembled to the door; her fingers closed upon the key. She hesitated and her dangling rosary caught her glance; sudden revulsions of purpose flooded back; she stumbled away from the door like one about to faint.
"I cannot, I cannot," she said.
"I will break down the door."
The threat inspired her.
"No, no, not thus can you win me."
"I will break in."
"Attempt it, and I will call the guard. You will lose hope of me for ever. I swear it."
Her voice rang true and strong as a sword. With her judgment, silence fell again, and ages seemed to crawl over the world. When the man spoke again, his voice was less masterful, more pathetic.
"Have you no hope for me?" it said.
"I have given you life."
"What is life without love?"
She sighed very bitterly.
"Messire, you do not understand," she said.
"No, you are a riddle to me."
"A riddle that you may read anon; time will show you the truth. I tell you I am given to God. Only in one way can you win me."
"Are you solemn over this?"
"Solemn as death."
"Tell me that only way."
"Only by breaking the bonds about my soul, by liberating me from myself, by battle and through perils that you cannot tell."
"War and the sword!"
"Yet not to-night. You would need ten thousand men to take me from this cliff. I advise you for your good. Only by great power and the sword can you win your desire."
"By God, then, let it be war."
An utter sense of loneliness flooded over her. She sobbed in her throat, leant against the door, listened, waited. The wind roared without, the rain beat upon the quaking casement, and she heard the multitudinous moaning of the pines. No voice companioned her, and the night was void.
A sudden access of passion prompted her. She twisted at the key, tore the bolts aside, flung the door open. The stairway was empty. Rain whirled in her face, as she stood out in the wind, and called the man many times by name. It was vain and to no purpose.
Presently she re-entered the room, very slowly, and barred the door. Her rosary rolled under her feet. She picked it up suddenly and dashed it away into a corner. The face on the crucifix seemed to leer at her from the wall.