PART IIIXXIIAurelius, physician of Gilderoy, flourished on the fatness of a fortunate reputation. He was a rubicund soul, clean and pleasant, with a neatly-trimmed beard, and a brow that seemed to dome a very various and abundant wisdom. He combined a sprightly humour and an enlivening presence with the reverent solemnity necessary to his profession.As for the ladies of Gilderoy, they reverenced Master Aurelius with a loyalty that became perhaps less remarkable the more one considered the character of the worthy charlatan. Aurelius was an Æsculap in court clothing. He was ignorant, but as no one realised the fact, the soul of Hippocrates would have been wasted in his body. Discretion was his crowning virtue. He was so sage, so intelligent, so full of a simple understanding for the ways of women, that the frail creatures could not love him enough. The confidences granted to a priest were nothing compared to the truths that were unmasked to his tactful ken. The physician is the priest of the body, a privileged person, suffered to enter the bed-chamber before the solemn rites of the toilet have been performed. He sees many strange truths, beholds fine and wonderful transfigurations, presides over the confessional of the flesh. And Aurelius never whispered of these mysteries; never displayed astonishment; always discovered extraordinary justification for the quaintest inconsistencies, the most romantic failings. He carried a sweet and sympathetic air of propriety about with him, like a perfume that exhaled a most comfortable odour of religion. His salves were delectable to a degree, his unguents and cosmetics remarkable productions. Dames took his potions in lieu of Malmsey, his powders in place of sweetmeats. Never did a more pleasant, a more tactful old hypocrite pander to the failings of an unregenerate world.Aurelius stood in his laboratory one June morning, balancing a money-bag in his chubby pink palm. He seemed tickled by some subtlety of thought, and wonderfully well pleased with his own good-humour. He smiled, locked the money-bag in a drawer that stood in a confidential cupboard, and, taking his cap and walking-staff, repaired to the street. Pacing the narrow pavement like a veritable potentate, pretentious as any peacock, yet mightily amiable from the superb self-satisfaction that roared in him like a furnace, he acknowledged the greetings of passers-by with the elevation of a hand, a solemn movement of the head. It was well to seem unutterably serious when under the eyes of the mob. Only educated folk can properly understand levity in a sage.In the Erminois, a stately highway that ran northwards from the cathedral, he halted before a mansion whose windows were rich with scutcheons and proud blazonry. Aurelius prospered with the rich. The atmosphere of the mean quarters was like a miasma to him; he loved sunlight and high places where he might bask like a lizard. He passed by a great gateway into the inner court, and was admitted into the house with that ready deference that speaks of familiarity and respect.Aurelius climbed the broad stairway, and sailed like a stately carrack into my lady's chamber. A dame in blue and silver greeted him from an oriel. The compounder of cosmetics bowed, disposed his staff and velvet cap upon a table, and appropriated the chair the lady had assigned to him."Superb weather, madame.""Too sultry, though I am a warm-souled person.""True, madame, true, Gilderoy would be fresher if there were no mean folk to stifle up the streets like weeds. The alleys send up such an unpleasant stench upon the breeze, that it makes the cultured sense revolt from poverty."The Lady Duessa's lips curled approvingly,"Poverty, poverty, my dear Aurelius, is like a carcase, fit only for quicklime. If I had the rule of the place, I would make poverty a crime, and cram all our human sweepings into lazar quarters."The man of physic nodded for sympathy."Exactly so, madame, but one would have to deal with the inevitable religious instinct.""That would be simple enough," she simpered. "I should confine religion to shadows and twinkling tapers, lights streaming in through enamelled casements upon solemn colours bowing before dreamy music; pardons and absolutions bought with a purse of gold. It is sad, Aurelius, but who doubts but that religion makes scavengers of us all? Away with your smug widows, your frouzy burgher saints, your yellow-skinned priest-hunters! I would rather have picturesque sin than vulgar piety."The man of herbs sighed like an organ pipe."Everything can be pardoned before coarseness," he said; "give me a dirty heart before a dirty face, provided the sinner be pretty. I trust that madame was satisfied with my endeavours, that the perfumes were such as she desired, the oil of Arabia pleasant and fragrant?""Magical, my Æsculap. The oil makes the skin like velvet, and the drugs are paradisic and full of languors. Ah, woman, set the tray beside Master Aurelius' chair."The man's eyes glistened over the salver and the cup. He bowed to his hostess, sniffed, and pursed his lips over the wine."Madame knows how to warm the heart.""Truth to you. Who have you been renovating of late? What carcase have you been painting, you useful rogue?""Madame, my profession is discreet.""I see your work everywhere. There is the little brown-faced thing who is to marry John of Brissac. Well, she needed art severely. Now the lady has a complexion like apple-blossom."The old man's eyes twinkled."Madame is pleased to jest," he said, "and to think her fancies--realities. Were all ladies as fresh as Madame Duessa, what, think you, would become of my delectable art, my science of beauty? I should be a poor bankrupt old man, ruined by too much comeliness."Aurelius always had the wit to say the pleasantest thing possible, and to press the uttermost drop of honey from the comb of flattery. A surly tongue will break a man, a glib intelligence ensure him a fortune. Aurelius earned many a fee by a pretty speech, or a tactful suggestion. Then of course he was never hindered by sincerity."Holy Dominic," laughed the lady, "I have proved a good patron to you in many ways.""And I trust I shall always deserve madame's trust.""A discreet tongue and a comfortable obedience are sweet things to a woman, Aurelius.""Madame's voice recalls Delphi.""Ah, the Greeks were poets; they knew how to fit their religion to their pleasures. 'Tis only we, poor fools, who measure sin by a priest's pardon. Give me a torch before an aspergill."The man of physic sipped his wine, cogitating over it with Jovian wisdom."The chief aim in life, madame," he said, "should be the perfecting of one's own comfort. 'Tis my contention that a fat bishop is a finer Christian than a lean friar. The truism is obvious. Is not my soul the more mellifluous and benign if its shell is gilded and its vest of velvet?"Duessa chuckled, and flipped her chin."Give me a warm bed," she laughed, "and I will pity creation. The world's saints are plump and comely; the true goddess has a supple knee. Am I the worse for being buxom!""Madame," said the sage with great unction, "only beggars denounce gold, and heaven is the dream of diseased souls. The cult of pleasure is the seal of health. Discontent is the seed of religion."The door opened a few inches, and there was the sound of voices in muffled debate in the gallery. The Lady Duessa listened, rose from her chair, appeared restless. The man of physic comprehended the situation, and with that tact that characterised him, declared that he had patronage elsewhere to assuage. The lady did not detain him, but dismissed him with a smile--a smile that on such a face as hers often took the place of words. So Master Aurelius took his departure.Five minutes later Sforza, Gonfaloniere of Gilderoy, occupied the vacant chair in the oriel.There are many ways to fame. By the broad, embattled gate where the Cerberus of War crouches; by the glistening stair of glass where all the beauty of the world gleams as in a thousand mirrors; by the cloaca of diplomacy and cunning, that tunnels under truth and honour. Sforza of Gilderoy was a man who never took his finger off a guinea till he had seen ten dropped into the other palm. He was a narrow-faced, long-whiskered rat, ever nibbling, ever poking his keen snout into prospective prosperity. He had no real reverence for anything under the sun. To speak metaphorically, he would as soon steal the sacrificial wafer from the altar as the cheese from a burgher's larder. When he lived in earnest, he lived in moral nebulosity, that is to say, he had no light save his own lantern. Publicly, he appeared a sleek, dignified person, quick with his figures, apt at oratory, a man who could quote scripture by the ell and swear by every saint in the calendar.Sforza, Gonfaloniere of Gilderoy, sat and faced Dame Duessa over a little table that held wine and a bowl of roses. His large hands rested on the carved arms of the chair. He had a debonair smirk on his face, a mask of complacency that suffered him to be vigilant in a polite and courteous fashion."Madame has considered my proposition?"The woman leant back in her chair and worked her full lower lip against her teeth."I recognise your infallibility, Gonfaloniere.""Only to the level of human foresight, madame.""You have a longer nose than most men.""I take the insinuation as a compliment."He contemplated her awhile in silence."How am I to know that you are sincere?" he said."Need you disbelieve me?""It is my custom to disbelieve in everybody.""Till they have satisfied you?""Exactly."Duessa looked out of the window, and played with her chatelaine."You know women?""I would never lay claim to such an arrogance of cunning.""Nevertheless you are no fool.""I am no fool.""And you imagine my protestations are not sincere, even after what I have suffered?"He smiled at her most cunningly."You want proof?""I do not like unsigned documents."She started forward in her chair with a strangely strenuous look on her face."Fanatic fools have often made some show of fortitude," she said, "by thrusting a hand into the fire, or the like. See now if I am a liar or a coward."Before he could stay her she drew a small stiletto from her belt, spread her left hand on the table, and then smote the steel through the thick of the palm, and held it there without flinching as the blood flowed."My signature," she said, with her cheeks a shade paler."Madame, you have spirit.""Do you believe in me?""I may say so.""You will include me in your schemes?""I will.""You remember our mutual bargain?""I remember it."She withdrew the stiletto and wrapped her bleeding hand in her robe."You will initiate me--at once.""To-morrow, madame, you shall go with me to the council."XXIIICastle Gambrevault stood out on a great cliff above the sea, like a huge white crown on the country's brow. It was as fine a mass of masonry as the south could show, perched on its great outjutting of the land, precipiced on every side, save on the north. Hoary, sullen, stupendously strong, it sentinelled the sea that rolled its blue to the black bastions of the cliffs. Landwards, green downs swept with long undulations to the valleys and the woods.That Junetide Gambrevault rang with the clangour of arms. The Lord Flavian's riders had spurred north, east, and west to manor and hamlet, grange and lone moorland tower. There had been a great burnishing of arms, a bending of bows through all the broad demesne. Steel had trickled over the downs towards the tall towers of Gambrevault. Knights, with esquires, men-at-arms, and yeomen, had ridden in to keep feudal faith. The Lord Flavian had swept the country for a hundred miles for mercenary troops and free-lances. His coffers poured gold. He had pitched a camp in the Gambrevault meadows; some fifteen hundred horse and two thousand foot were gathered under his banner.From the hills cattle were herded in, and heavy wains laden with flour creaked up to the castle. There was much victualling, much blaring of trumpets, much blowing of pennons, much martial stir in the meadows. It seemed as though the Lord Flavian had a strenuous campaign in view, and there was much conjecture on the wind. The strange part of it was, that none save Sir Modred had any knowledge for what or against whom they were to fight. It might be John of Brissac, Gambrevault's mortal enemy; it might develop into a demonstration against the magistracy of Gilderoy. Blood was to be spilt, so ran the current conviction. For the rest, Flavian's feudatories were loyal, and left the managing of the business to their lord.The men had been camped a week, and yet there was no striking of tents, no plucking up of pennons. Sir Modred had ridden out to bring in a body of five hundred mercenaries from Geraint. The Lord Flavian himself, with a troop of twenty spears, was lodged for a few days in Gilderoy, in the great Benedictine monastery, where his uncle held rule as abbot. He was negotiating for arms, fifty bassinets, two hundred gisarmes, a hundred ranseurs, fifty glaives, and a number of two-handed swords. He had found the Armourer's Guild peculiarly insolent, and disinclined to serve him. He had little suspicion that Gilderoy was seething under the surface like so much lava.Thus, while the Lord Flavian was preparing for his march into the great pine forest, Fulviac had completed his web of revolt. He had heard of the gathering at Gambrevault, and had hurried on his schemes in consequence. Five thousand men were ready at his back. He would gain ten thousand men from Gilderoy; seven thousand from Geraint. These outlaw levies, free-lances, and train-bands would give him the nucleus of the vast host that was to spring like corn from every quarter of the land. Malgo was to head the rising in the west, and to concentrate at Conan, a little town in the mountains. In the east, Godamar was to gather a great camp in Thorney Isle amid the morasses of the fens. Fulviac would himself overthrow the lords of the south. Then they were to converge and to gather strength for the march upon Lauretia, proud city of the King.It would be a great war and a bitter, full of fanatical fierceness and revenge. Fulviac had given word to take, pillage, and burn all strong places. Destiny stood with wild hands to the heavens, a bosom of scarlet, and hair aghast. If the horde conquered, the seats of the mighty would reek amid flame; there would be death, and a great silence over proud cities.XXIVIn an antechamber in the palace of Sforza of Gilderoy stood the Lady Duessa, watching the day die in the west over a black chaos of spires and gables. Before her, under the casement, lay the palace garden, a pool of perfume, banked with tall cypresses, red with the fire of a myriad roses. As night to the sunset, so seemed this antechamber to the garden, panelled with black oak, a dark square of gloom red-windowed to the west. The place had a sullen, iron-mouthed look, as though its walls had developed through the years a sour and world-wise silence.The Lady Duessa was not a woman who could trail tamely in anterooms. A restless temper chafed her pride that evening, and kept her footing the polished floor like a love-lorn nun treading a cloister. The casements were open to the garden, and the multitudinous sounds of the city flooded in--the thunder of the tumbrils in the narrow streets, the distant blare of trumpets from the castle, the clangour of the cathedral bells. A solitary figure companioned the Lady Duessa in the anteroom, cloaked and masked as was the dame herself. It was Balthasar the Dominican, who followed her now in secular habit, having forsworn his black mantle and taken refuge in her service. From time to time the two spoke together in whispering undertones; more than once their lips touched.The Lady Duessa turned and stood by a casement with her large white hands on the sill. She appeared to grow more restive as the minutes passed, as though the antique clock on the mantle clicked its tongue at her each gibing second."This is insolence," she said anon, "holding us idling here like ragged clients."Balthasar joined her, soft-footed and debonair, his black eyes shining behind his mask."Peter kept Paul before the gate of heaven," quoth he, with a curl of the lip. "Sforza is a meddler in many matters, a god-busied Mercury. As for me, I am content."Their hands touched, and intertwined with a quick straining of the fingers."Pah," said the woman with a shiver, "this room is like a funeral litter; it chills my marrow."Balthasar sniggered."See, the sky burns," he said; "yon garden is packed with colour. We could play a love chase amid those dark hedges of yew."She pressed her flank to his; her eyes glittered like amethysts; her breath hastened."My mouth, man."She pouted out her full red lips to his; suffered his arms to possess her; they kissed often, and were out of breath. A door creaked. The two started asunder in the shadows with an impatient stare into each other's eyes.Sforza the Gonfaloniere stood on the threshold, clad plainly in a suit of black velvet, with a sword buckled at his side. He bowed over Duessa's hand, kissed her finger tips, excusing himself the while for the delay. He was very suave, very facile, as was his wont. The Lady Duessa took his excuses with good grace, remembering their compact, and the common purpose of their ambitions."Gonfaloniere, we wait our initiation."Sforza's eyes were fixed on Balthasar with a keen and ironical glitter."Very good, madame.""Remember; Lord Flavian's head, that is to be my guerdon.""Madame, we will remember it. And this gentleman?""Is the friend of whom I spoke.""A most loyal friend, methinks?""True."The Gonfaloniere coughed behind his fingers, and spoke in his half-husky tenor."You are ready to risk everything?"Duessa reassured him."Expect no blood and thunder ceremonial," he said to them; "we are grim folk, but very simple. Your presence will incriminate you both. Be convinced of that."He led them by a little closet into the state-room of the palace, a rich chamber lit by many tapers, its doorway held by a guard of armed men. Statues in the antique gleamed in the alcoves. The panelling shone with gem-brilliant colouring. Armoires and carved cabinets stood against the walls. The ceiling was of purple, with the signs of the Zodiac in gold thereon.In the centre of the room, before a slightly raised dais, stood a round table inlaid with diverse-coloured stones. Scrolls, quills, and inkhorns covered it. Some twoscore men were gathered round the table, staring with masked faces at a map spread before them--a map showing all the provinces of the south, with towns and castles marked in vermilion ink thereon. A big man in a red cloak stood conning the parchment, pointing out with a long forefinger certain marches to the masked folk about him.Sforza pointed Duessa and Balthasar to a carved bench by the wall."Have the patience to listen for an hour," he said, turning to join the men about the table.A silver bell tinkled, and a priest came forward to patter a few prayers in Latin. At the end thereof, the masked Samson in the red cloak stood forward on the dais with uplifted fist. Instant silence held throughout the room. The man in red began to speak in deep, full-throated tones that seemed to vibrate from his sonorous chest.His theme was the revolt, his arguments, the grim bleak facts that bulked large in the brain of a leader of men. He dealt with realism, with iron detail, and the strong suggestions of success. Revolt, in the flesh, bubbled like lava at a crater's brim, seething to overflow and scorch the land. It was plain that the speaker had great schemes, and a will of adamant. His ardour ran down like a cataract, smiting into foam the duller courage of the multitude.When he had ended his heroic challenge to the world, he took by the hand a girl who stood unmasked at his side. She was clad all in white with a cross of gold over her bosom, and her face shone nigh as pallid as her mantle. The men around the table craned forward to get the better view of her. Nor was it her temporal beauty alone that set the fanatical chins straining towards her figure. There was a radiance as of other worlds upon her forehead, a glamour of sanctity as though some sacred lamp shed a divine lustre through all her flesh.At the moment that the man in the red mask had drawn the girl forward beside him on the dais, Balthasar, with a stifled cry, had plucked the Lady Duessa by the sleeve. She had started, and stared in the friar's face as he spoke to her in a whisper, a scintillant malice gathering in her eyes. Balthasar held her close to him by the wrist. They were observed of none save by Fulviac, whose care it was to watch all men.As Balthasar muttered to her, Duessa's frame seemed to straighten, to dilate, to stiffen. She did not glance at the friar, but sat staring at the girl in white upon the dais. The Madonna of the chapel of Avalon had risen before her as by magic; her dispossessor stood before her in the flesh. Balthasar's tongue bore witness to the truth. In the packed passion of a moment, Duessa remembered her shame, her dishonour, her hunger for revenge.The girl upon the dais had been speaking to the men assembled round her with the simple calm of one whose soul is assured of faith. For all her fierce distraction each word had fallen into Duessa's brain like pebbles into a well. A mocking, riotous scorn chuckled and leapt in her like the laughter of some lewd faun. She heard not the zealous mutterings that eddied through the room. Her eyes were fixed on the man in the red cloak, as he bent to kiss the girl's slim hand.She saw Fulviac turn and point to a roll of parchment on the table."We swim, sirs, or sink together," were his words; "there can be no traitors to the cause. In three days we hoist our banner. In three days Gilderoy shall rise. Sign, gentlemen, sign, in the name of God and of our Lady."The leaders of Gilderoy crowded about the table where Prosper the Preacher waited with quill and testament, Sforza standing with drawn sword beside him. Fulviac had headed those who took the oath, and had drawn back from the press on to the dais. Meanwhile Duessa, with Balthasar muttering discretions in her ear, had skirted the black knot of conspirators and come close upon Fulviac. While Sforza and the rest were intent upon the scroll, she plucked the man in red by the sleeve, and spoke to him in an undertone."A word with you in an alcove."Fulviac stared, but drew aside from the group none the less and followed her. She had moved to an oriel and sat down on the cushioned seat, her black robe sweeping the crimson cloth. Fulviac stood and faced her, thus closing her escape from the oriel. Midway between them and the table, Balthasar stood biting his nails in sullen vexation, ignorant of where the woman's headstrong passions might be bearing them.Duessa soon had Fulviac at the tongue's point."You are the first man in this assemblage?" she had asked him."Madame, that is so.""I have a truth to make known.""Unmask to me."She hesitated, then obeyed him."Possibly I am known to you," she said.Fulviac stood back a step, and looked at her as a man might look at an old love. A knot of wrinkles showed on his forehead."Duessa of the Black Hair.""Ah, in the old days.""What would you now, madame?""Let me see your face.""No.""You hold me at a disadvantage.""That is well. Tell me this tale of yours."His voice was cold as a frost, and there was an inclement look about him that should have warned the woman had she been less blinded by her own malice. She had lost her cunning in her fuming passion, and denounced when she should have suggested, blurted the whole when a hint would have sufficed her."I was the Lord Flavian of Gambrevault's wife," she said."That man!""That devil!"Fulviac drew a deep breath."Well?" he said."The fellow has divorced me; I will tell you why. You are the man they call Fulviac. It was you who took the Lord Flavian in an ambuscade, to kill him, for the sake of Yeoland of Cambremont, who stands yonder. The whole tale is mine. It was that girl who let the Lord Flavian escape out of your hands. A fine fool she is making of you, my friend. A saint, forsooth! Flavian of Avalon might sing you a strange song."Duessa took breath. She had prophesied passion, a volcanic outburst. Fulviac leant against the wainscotting with folded arms, his masked face impenetrable, and calm as stone. He stirred never a muscle. Duessa had ventured forth into the deeps.The man thrust a question at her suddenly."You can prove the truth of this?"Duessa pointed him to Fra Balthasar."The priest can bear out my tale. I will beckon him.""Wait.""Ah!""Does Sforza know of this?""None know it, save I and yonder priest.""Then I uncover to you."He jerked his mask away, and stood half stooping towards her with a peculiar lustre in his eyes. Duessa stared at him as at one risen from the dead. Her face blanched and stiffened into a bleak, gaping terror, and she could not speak."Your tale dies with you."He smote her suddenly in the bosom with his poniard, smote her so heavily that the blow dragged her to her knees. She screamed like a trapped hare, pressed her hands over her bosom, blood oozing over them. A last malevolence leapt into her eyes; she panted and strove to speak."Listen, sirs, hear me----"Fulviac, standing over her like a Titan, smote her again to silence, and for ever. With arms thrust upwards, she fell forward along the floor, her white face hidden by her hood. A red ringlet curled away over the polished oak. Fulviac had sprung away with jaw clenched, his face as stone. He drew his sword, plucked Balthasar by the throat, hurled him back against the wainscotting."A spy, poniard him."The great room rushed into uproar; the guards came running from the door. Fulviac had passed his sword through Balthasar's body. The friar rolled upon the floor, yelping, and clutching at the swords that stabbed him. It was soon over; not a moan, not a whimper. Sforza, white as a corpse, gripped Fulviac by the shoulder."Know you whom you have killed?""Well enough, Gonfaloniere.""What means it?""That I am a brave man."Sforza quailed from him and ran to the oriel, where several men had lifted the woman in their arms. Her lustrous hair fell down from under her hood; her hands, stained with her own blood, trailed limply on the floor. She was a pathetic figure with her pale, fair face and drooping lids. The men murmured as they held her, like some poor bird, still warm and plastic, with the life but half flown from her body.Fulviac stood and looked down into her face. His sword still smoked with Balthasar's blood."Sirs," he said, and his strong voice shook, "hear me, I will tell you the truth. Once I loved that woman, but she was evil, evil to the core. To-night she came bringing discord and treachery amongst us. I have done murder before God for the sake of the cause. Cover her face; it was ever too fair to look upon. Heaven rest her soul!"XXVTwo days had passed since the secret assembly in the house of Sforza, Gonfaloniere of Gilderoy. They had buried Duessa and Balthasar by night in the rose garden, by the light of a single lantern, with the fallen petals for a pall. It was the evening before the day when the land should rise in arms to overthrow feudal injustice and oppression. On the morrow the great cliff would be desolate, its garrison marching through the black pine woods on Avalon and Geraint.Towards eve, when the sky was clear as a single sapphire, Fulviac came from his parlour seeking Yeoland, to find her little chamber empty. A strange smile played upon his face as he looked round the room with crucifix, embroidery frame, and prayer-desk, with rosary hung thereon. He picked up her lute, thrummed the strings, and broke broodingly into the sway of some southern song:"Ah, woman of love,With the stars in the night,I see thee aboveIn a circlet of light.On the west's scarlet scutcheonI mark thy device;And the shade of the forestMakes gloom of thine eyes,God's twilightTo me."He ended the stanza, kissed the riband, and set the lute down with a certain quaint reverence. The postern stood open and admonished him. He passed out down the cliff stairway to the forest.An indescribable peace pervaded the woods, a supreme silence such as the shepherd on the hills knows when the stars beckon to his soul. Fulviac walked slowly and thought the more. He felt the altitude of the forest stillness as of miles of luminous, windless æther; he felt the anguishing pathos of a woman's face; he felt the strangeness of the new philosophy that appealed to his heart. Nothing is more fascinating than watching a spiritual upheaval in one's own soul; watching some great power breaking up the crust of custom and habit; pondering the while on the eternal mysteries that baffle reason.He found Yeoland amid the pines. She had been to the forest grave and was returning towards the cliff when the man met her. She seemed whiter than was her wont, her dark eyes looking solemn and shadowy under their sweeping lashes. She seemed marvellously fair, marvellously pure and fragile, as she came towards him under the trees.Something in Fulviac's look startled her. Women are like the sea to the cloudy moods of men, in that they catch every sun-ray and shadow. An indefinite something in the man's manner made her restless and apprehensive. She went near to him with questioning eyes and laid her hand upon his arm."You have had bad news?""Nothing.""Something has troubled you?""Perhaps."She looked at him pensively, a suspicion of reproach, pity, and understanding in her eyes."Is it remorse, your conscience?""My conscience? Have I had one!""You have a strong conscience.""Deo gratias. Then you have unearthed it, madame."A vein of infinite bitterness and melancholy seemed to glimmer in his mood. It was a moment of self-speculation. The girl still looked up into his face."Why did you kill that woman?""Why?""Her dead face haunts me, I see it everywhere; there is some strange shadow over my soul. O that I could get her last cry from my ears!"Fulviac, with a sudden burst of cynicism, broke into grim laughter, a sound like the rattling of dry bones in a closet. The girl shrank away with her lips twitching."Why cannot you trust me with the truth?""Truth is not always beneficent. It was a matter of policy, of diplomacy.""Why?""Discords are bad at the eleventh hour. That woman could have half-wrecked our cause. It was policy to silence her and the man. I made sure of it by killing them."Yeoland's face had a shadow of repugnance upon it; her eyes darkened. The man seemed in a callous, scoffing humour; it was mere glittering steel over the bitterness within."You will tell me her name?""What is it to you?""She haunts me.""Forget her.""I cannot.""Have the truth if you will. She was the wife of the Lord Flavian of Gambrevault."The girl stood motionless for a moment; then swayed away several steps from Fulviac under the trees. One hand was at her throat; her voice came in a whisper."What did she tell you?""Many things.""Quick, do they touch me?"Fulviac choked an oath, and played with his sword."Then there was some truth in her?" he said.The girl grew imperious."I command you to tell me all.""Madame, the woman declared you were a traitress, and that this lordling, this Flavian of Gambrevault, loved you.""And you killed her----""For your sake and the cause. She might have cast our Saint out of heaven."Yeoland went back from him and leant against a tree, with her hands over her eyes. Sunlight splashed down upon her dress; she shivered as in a cold wind, and could not speak. Fulviac's voice, level and passionless, questioned her as she stood and hid her face."You let the Lord Flavian escape?""I did.""Have you seen him since?""I have.""Thanks for the truth."Her responses had come like chords smitten from the strings of a lute. She started away from the tree and began to walk up and down, wringing her hands. Her face was like the face of one in torture, and she seemed to struggle for breath."Fulviac, I could not kill the man."The words came like a wail."He was young, and he besought me when your men were breaking down the gate. What could I do, what could I do? He was young, and I let him go by the postern and told you a lie. God help me, I told you a lie."The man watched her with arms folded. There was a look of deep melancholy upon his face, as of one wounded by the truth. His voice was sad but resolute."And the rest?"She rallied suddenly and came to him with truth in her eyes; they were wonderfully piteous and appealing."God knows I have been loyal to you. The man tempted me, but I withstood him; I kept my loyalty.""And you told him----?""Nothing, nothing; he is as innocent as a child."Fulviac looked down at her with a great light in his eyes. He spoke slowly and with a deeper intonation in his voice."I have dealt with many bad women," he said, "but I believe you are speaking the truth.""It is the truth.""I take it as such; you have been too much a woman.""Ah, if you could only forgive."He stepped forward suddenly, took her hands, and looked down at her with a vast tenderness."Little woman, if I told you I loved you, would you still swear that you have spoken the truth?""God judge me, Fulviac, I have been loyal."A strange light played upon his face."And I, ye heavens, have I learnt my lesson in these later days? Girl, you are above me as the stars; I may but kiss your hands, no more. You are not for worldly ways, or for me. Battered, war-worn veteran, I have come again by the heart of a boy. Fear me not, little woman, there is no anger in a great love, only deep grieving and unalterable honour."
PART III
XXII
Aurelius, physician of Gilderoy, flourished on the fatness of a fortunate reputation. He was a rubicund soul, clean and pleasant, with a neatly-trimmed beard, and a brow that seemed to dome a very various and abundant wisdom. He combined a sprightly humour and an enlivening presence with the reverent solemnity necessary to his profession.
As for the ladies of Gilderoy, they reverenced Master Aurelius with a loyalty that became perhaps less remarkable the more one considered the character of the worthy charlatan. Aurelius was an Æsculap in court clothing. He was ignorant, but as no one realised the fact, the soul of Hippocrates would have been wasted in his body. Discretion was his crowning virtue. He was so sage, so intelligent, so full of a simple understanding for the ways of women, that the frail creatures could not love him enough. The confidences granted to a priest were nothing compared to the truths that were unmasked to his tactful ken. The physician is the priest of the body, a privileged person, suffered to enter the bed-chamber before the solemn rites of the toilet have been performed. He sees many strange truths, beholds fine and wonderful transfigurations, presides over the confessional of the flesh. And Aurelius never whispered of these mysteries; never displayed astonishment; always discovered extraordinary justification for the quaintest inconsistencies, the most romantic failings. He carried a sweet and sympathetic air of propriety about with him, like a perfume that exhaled a most comfortable odour of religion. His salves were delectable to a degree, his unguents and cosmetics remarkable productions. Dames took his potions in lieu of Malmsey, his powders in place of sweetmeats. Never did a more pleasant, a more tactful old hypocrite pander to the failings of an unregenerate world.
Aurelius stood in his laboratory one June morning, balancing a money-bag in his chubby pink palm. He seemed tickled by some subtlety of thought, and wonderfully well pleased with his own good-humour. He smiled, locked the money-bag in a drawer that stood in a confidential cupboard, and, taking his cap and walking-staff, repaired to the street. Pacing the narrow pavement like a veritable potentate, pretentious as any peacock, yet mightily amiable from the superb self-satisfaction that roared in him like a furnace, he acknowledged the greetings of passers-by with the elevation of a hand, a solemn movement of the head. It was well to seem unutterably serious when under the eyes of the mob. Only educated folk can properly understand levity in a sage.
In the Erminois, a stately highway that ran northwards from the cathedral, he halted before a mansion whose windows were rich with scutcheons and proud blazonry. Aurelius prospered with the rich. The atmosphere of the mean quarters was like a miasma to him; he loved sunlight and high places where he might bask like a lizard. He passed by a great gateway into the inner court, and was admitted into the house with that ready deference that speaks of familiarity and respect.
Aurelius climbed the broad stairway, and sailed like a stately carrack into my lady's chamber. A dame in blue and silver greeted him from an oriel. The compounder of cosmetics bowed, disposed his staff and velvet cap upon a table, and appropriated the chair the lady had assigned to him.
"Superb weather, madame."
"Too sultry, though I am a warm-souled person."
"True, madame, true, Gilderoy would be fresher if there were no mean folk to stifle up the streets like weeds. The alleys send up such an unpleasant stench upon the breeze, that it makes the cultured sense revolt from poverty."
The Lady Duessa's lips curled approvingly,
"Poverty, poverty, my dear Aurelius, is like a carcase, fit only for quicklime. If I had the rule of the place, I would make poverty a crime, and cram all our human sweepings into lazar quarters."
The man of physic nodded for sympathy.
"Exactly so, madame, but one would have to deal with the inevitable religious instinct."
"That would be simple enough," she simpered. "I should confine religion to shadows and twinkling tapers, lights streaming in through enamelled casements upon solemn colours bowing before dreamy music; pardons and absolutions bought with a purse of gold. It is sad, Aurelius, but who doubts but that religion makes scavengers of us all? Away with your smug widows, your frouzy burgher saints, your yellow-skinned priest-hunters! I would rather have picturesque sin than vulgar piety."
The man of herbs sighed like an organ pipe.
"Everything can be pardoned before coarseness," he said; "give me a dirty heart before a dirty face, provided the sinner be pretty. I trust that madame was satisfied with my endeavours, that the perfumes were such as she desired, the oil of Arabia pleasant and fragrant?"
"Magical, my Æsculap. The oil makes the skin like velvet, and the drugs are paradisic and full of languors. Ah, woman, set the tray beside Master Aurelius' chair."
The man's eyes glistened over the salver and the cup. He bowed to his hostess, sniffed, and pursed his lips over the wine.
"Madame knows how to warm the heart."
"Truth to you. Who have you been renovating of late? What carcase have you been painting, you useful rogue?"
"Madame, my profession is discreet."
"I see your work everywhere. There is the little brown-faced thing who is to marry John of Brissac. Well, she needed art severely. Now the lady has a complexion like apple-blossom."
The old man's eyes twinkled.
"Madame is pleased to jest," he said, "and to think her fancies--realities. Were all ladies as fresh as Madame Duessa, what, think you, would become of my delectable art, my science of beauty? I should be a poor bankrupt old man, ruined by too much comeliness."
Aurelius always had the wit to say the pleasantest thing possible, and to press the uttermost drop of honey from the comb of flattery. A surly tongue will break a man, a glib intelligence ensure him a fortune. Aurelius earned many a fee by a pretty speech, or a tactful suggestion. Then of course he was never hindered by sincerity.
"Holy Dominic," laughed the lady, "I have proved a good patron to you in many ways."
"And I trust I shall always deserve madame's trust."
"A discreet tongue and a comfortable obedience are sweet things to a woman, Aurelius."
"Madame's voice recalls Delphi."
"Ah, the Greeks were poets; they knew how to fit their religion to their pleasures. 'Tis only we, poor fools, who measure sin by a priest's pardon. Give me a torch before an aspergill."
The man of physic sipped his wine, cogitating over it with Jovian wisdom.
"The chief aim in life, madame," he said, "should be the perfecting of one's own comfort. 'Tis my contention that a fat bishop is a finer Christian than a lean friar. The truism is obvious. Is not my soul the more mellifluous and benign if its shell is gilded and its vest of velvet?"
Duessa chuckled, and flipped her chin.
"Give me a warm bed," she laughed, "and I will pity creation. The world's saints are plump and comely; the true goddess has a supple knee. Am I the worse for being buxom!"
"Madame," said the sage with great unction, "only beggars denounce gold, and heaven is the dream of diseased souls. The cult of pleasure is the seal of health. Discontent is the seed of religion."
The door opened a few inches, and there was the sound of voices in muffled debate in the gallery. The Lady Duessa listened, rose from her chair, appeared restless. The man of physic comprehended the situation, and with that tact that characterised him, declared that he had patronage elsewhere to assuage. The lady did not detain him, but dismissed him with a smile--a smile that on such a face as hers often took the place of words. So Master Aurelius took his departure.
Five minutes later Sforza, Gonfaloniere of Gilderoy, occupied the vacant chair in the oriel.
There are many ways to fame. By the broad, embattled gate where the Cerberus of War crouches; by the glistening stair of glass where all the beauty of the world gleams as in a thousand mirrors; by the cloaca of diplomacy and cunning, that tunnels under truth and honour. Sforza of Gilderoy was a man who never took his finger off a guinea till he had seen ten dropped into the other palm. He was a narrow-faced, long-whiskered rat, ever nibbling, ever poking his keen snout into prospective prosperity. He had no real reverence for anything under the sun. To speak metaphorically, he would as soon steal the sacrificial wafer from the altar as the cheese from a burgher's larder. When he lived in earnest, he lived in moral nebulosity, that is to say, he had no light save his own lantern. Publicly, he appeared a sleek, dignified person, quick with his figures, apt at oratory, a man who could quote scripture by the ell and swear by every saint in the calendar.
Sforza, Gonfaloniere of Gilderoy, sat and faced Dame Duessa over a little table that held wine and a bowl of roses. His large hands rested on the carved arms of the chair. He had a debonair smirk on his face, a mask of complacency that suffered him to be vigilant in a polite and courteous fashion.
"Madame has considered my proposition?"
The woman leant back in her chair and worked her full lower lip against her teeth.
"I recognise your infallibility, Gonfaloniere."
"Only to the level of human foresight, madame."
"You have a longer nose than most men."
"I take the insinuation as a compliment."
He contemplated her awhile in silence.
"How am I to know that you are sincere?" he said.
"Need you disbelieve me?"
"It is my custom to disbelieve in everybody."
"Till they have satisfied you?"
"Exactly."
Duessa looked out of the window, and played with her chatelaine.
"You know women?"
"I would never lay claim to such an arrogance of cunning."
"Nevertheless you are no fool."
"I am no fool."
"And you imagine my protestations are not sincere, even after what I have suffered?"
He smiled at her most cunningly.
"You want proof?"
"I do not like unsigned documents."
She started forward in her chair with a strangely strenuous look on her face.
"Fanatic fools have often made some show of fortitude," she said, "by thrusting a hand into the fire, or the like. See now if I am a liar or a coward."
Before he could stay her she drew a small stiletto from her belt, spread her left hand on the table, and then smote the steel through the thick of the palm, and held it there without flinching as the blood flowed.
"My signature," she said, with her cheeks a shade paler.
"Madame, you have spirit."
"Do you believe in me?"
"I may say so."
"You will include me in your schemes?"
"I will."
"You remember our mutual bargain?"
"I remember it."
She withdrew the stiletto and wrapped her bleeding hand in her robe.
"You will initiate me--at once."
"To-morrow, madame, you shall go with me to the council."
XXIII
Castle Gambrevault stood out on a great cliff above the sea, like a huge white crown on the country's brow. It was as fine a mass of masonry as the south could show, perched on its great outjutting of the land, precipiced on every side, save on the north. Hoary, sullen, stupendously strong, it sentinelled the sea that rolled its blue to the black bastions of the cliffs. Landwards, green downs swept with long undulations to the valleys and the woods.
That Junetide Gambrevault rang with the clangour of arms. The Lord Flavian's riders had spurred north, east, and west to manor and hamlet, grange and lone moorland tower. There had been a great burnishing of arms, a bending of bows through all the broad demesne. Steel had trickled over the downs towards the tall towers of Gambrevault. Knights, with esquires, men-at-arms, and yeomen, had ridden in to keep feudal faith. The Lord Flavian had swept the country for a hundred miles for mercenary troops and free-lances. His coffers poured gold. He had pitched a camp in the Gambrevault meadows; some fifteen hundred horse and two thousand foot were gathered under his banner.
From the hills cattle were herded in, and heavy wains laden with flour creaked up to the castle. There was much victualling, much blaring of trumpets, much blowing of pennons, much martial stir in the meadows. It seemed as though the Lord Flavian had a strenuous campaign in view, and there was much conjecture on the wind. The strange part of it was, that none save Sir Modred had any knowledge for what or against whom they were to fight. It might be John of Brissac, Gambrevault's mortal enemy; it might develop into a demonstration against the magistracy of Gilderoy. Blood was to be spilt, so ran the current conviction. For the rest, Flavian's feudatories were loyal, and left the managing of the business to their lord.
The men had been camped a week, and yet there was no striking of tents, no plucking up of pennons. Sir Modred had ridden out to bring in a body of five hundred mercenaries from Geraint. The Lord Flavian himself, with a troop of twenty spears, was lodged for a few days in Gilderoy, in the great Benedictine monastery, where his uncle held rule as abbot. He was negotiating for arms, fifty bassinets, two hundred gisarmes, a hundred ranseurs, fifty glaives, and a number of two-handed swords. He had found the Armourer's Guild peculiarly insolent, and disinclined to serve him. He had little suspicion that Gilderoy was seething under the surface like so much lava.
Thus, while the Lord Flavian was preparing for his march into the great pine forest, Fulviac had completed his web of revolt. He had heard of the gathering at Gambrevault, and had hurried on his schemes in consequence. Five thousand men were ready at his back. He would gain ten thousand men from Gilderoy; seven thousand from Geraint. These outlaw levies, free-lances, and train-bands would give him the nucleus of the vast host that was to spring like corn from every quarter of the land. Malgo was to head the rising in the west, and to concentrate at Conan, a little town in the mountains. In the east, Godamar was to gather a great camp in Thorney Isle amid the morasses of the fens. Fulviac would himself overthrow the lords of the south. Then they were to converge and to gather strength for the march upon Lauretia, proud city of the King.
It would be a great war and a bitter, full of fanatical fierceness and revenge. Fulviac had given word to take, pillage, and burn all strong places. Destiny stood with wild hands to the heavens, a bosom of scarlet, and hair aghast. If the horde conquered, the seats of the mighty would reek amid flame; there would be death, and a great silence over proud cities.
XXIV
In an antechamber in the palace of Sforza of Gilderoy stood the Lady Duessa, watching the day die in the west over a black chaos of spires and gables. Before her, under the casement, lay the palace garden, a pool of perfume, banked with tall cypresses, red with the fire of a myriad roses. As night to the sunset, so seemed this antechamber to the garden, panelled with black oak, a dark square of gloom red-windowed to the west. The place had a sullen, iron-mouthed look, as though its walls had developed through the years a sour and world-wise silence.
The Lady Duessa was not a woman who could trail tamely in anterooms. A restless temper chafed her pride that evening, and kept her footing the polished floor like a love-lorn nun treading a cloister. The casements were open to the garden, and the multitudinous sounds of the city flooded in--the thunder of the tumbrils in the narrow streets, the distant blare of trumpets from the castle, the clangour of the cathedral bells. A solitary figure companioned the Lady Duessa in the anteroom, cloaked and masked as was the dame herself. It was Balthasar the Dominican, who followed her now in secular habit, having forsworn his black mantle and taken refuge in her service. From time to time the two spoke together in whispering undertones; more than once their lips touched.
The Lady Duessa turned and stood by a casement with her large white hands on the sill. She appeared to grow more restive as the minutes passed, as though the antique clock on the mantle clicked its tongue at her each gibing second.
"This is insolence," she said anon, "holding us idling here like ragged clients."
Balthasar joined her, soft-footed and debonair, his black eyes shining behind his mask.
"Peter kept Paul before the gate of heaven," quoth he, with a curl of the lip. "Sforza is a meddler in many matters, a god-busied Mercury. As for me, I am content."
Their hands touched, and intertwined with a quick straining of the fingers.
"Pah," said the woman with a shiver, "this room is like a funeral litter; it chills my marrow."
Balthasar sniggered.
"See, the sky burns," he said; "yon garden is packed with colour. We could play a love chase amid those dark hedges of yew."
She pressed her flank to his; her eyes glittered like amethysts; her breath hastened.
"My mouth, man."
She pouted out her full red lips to his; suffered his arms to possess her; they kissed often, and were out of breath. A door creaked. The two started asunder in the shadows with an impatient stare into each other's eyes.
Sforza the Gonfaloniere stood on the threshold, clad plainly in a suit of black velvet, with a sword buckled at his side. He bowed over Duessa's hand, kissed her finger tips, excusing himself the while for the delay. He was very suave, very facile, as was his wont. The Lady Duessa took his excuses with good grace, remembering their compact, and the common purpose of their ambitions.
"Gonfaloniere, we wait our initiation."
Sforza's eyes were fixed on Balthasar with a keen and ironical glitter.
"Very good, madame."
"Remember; Lord Flavian's head, that is to be my guerdon."
"Madame, we will remember it. And this gentleman?"
"Is the friend of whom I spoke."
"A most loyal friend, methinks?"
"True."
The Gonfaloniere coughed behind his fingers, and spoke in his half-husky tenor.
"You are ready to risk everything?"
Duessa reassured him.
"Expect no blood and thunder ceremonial," he said to them; "we are grim folk, but very simple. Your presence will incriminate you both. Be convinced of that."
He led them by a little closet into the state-room of the palace, a rich chamber lit by many tapers, its doorway held by a guard of armed men. Statues in the antique gleamed in the alcoves. The panelling shone with gem-brilliant colouring. Armoires and carved cabinets stood against the walls. The ceiling was of purple, with the signs of the Zodiac in gold thereon.
In the centre of the room, before a slightly raised dais, stood a round table inlaid with diverse-coloured stones. Scrolls, quills, and inkhorns covered it. Some twoscore men were gathered round the table, staring with masked faces at a map spread before them--a map showing all the provinces of the south, with towns and castles marked in vermilion ink thereon. A big man in a red cloak stood conning the parchment, pointing out with a long forefinger certain marches to the masked folk about him.
Sforza pointed Duessa and Balthasar to a carved bench by the wall.
"Have the patience to listen for an hour," he said, turning to join the men about the table.
A silver bell tinkled, and a priest came forward to patter a few prayers in Latin. At the end thereof, the masked Samson in the red cloak stood forward on the dais with uplifted fist. Instant silence held throughout the room. The man in red began to speak in deep, full-throated tones that seemed to vibrate from his sonorous chest.
His theme was the revolt, his arguments, the grim bleak facts that bulked large in the brain of a leader of men. He dealt with realism, with iron detail, and the strong suggestions of success. Revolt, in the flesh, bubbled like lava at a crater's brim, seething to overflow and scorch the land. It was plain that the speaker had great schemes, and a will of adamant. His ardour ran down like a cataract, smiting into foam the duller courage of the multitude.
When he had ended his heroic challenge to the world, he took by the hand a girl who stood unmasked at his side. She was clad all in white with a cross of gold over her bosom, and her face shone nigh as pallid as her mantle. The men around the table craned forward to get the better view of her. Nor was it her temporal beauty alone that set the fanatical chins straining towards her figure. There was a radiance as of other worlds upon her forehead, a glamour of sanctity as though some sacred lamp shed a divine lustre through all her flesh.
At the moment that the man in the red mask had drawn the girl forward beside him on the dais, Balthasar, with a stifled cry, had plucked the Lady Duessa by the sleeve. She had started, and stared in the friar's face as he spoke to her in a whisper, a scintillant malice gathering in her eyes. Balthasar held her close to him by the wrist. They were observed of none save by Fulviac, whose care it was to watch all men.
As Balthasar muttered to her, Duessa's frame seemed to straighten, to dilate, to stiffen. She did not glance at the friar, but sat staring at the girl in white upon the dais. The Madonna of the chapel of Avalon had risen before her as by magic; her dispossessor stood before her in the flesh. Balthasar's tongue bore witness to the truth. In the packed passion of a moment, Duessa remembered her shame, her dishonour, her hunger for revenge.
The girl upon the dais had been speaking to the men assembled round her with the simple calm of one whose soul is assured of faith. For all her fierce distraction each word had fallen into Duessa's brain like pebbles into a well. A mocking, riotous scorn chuckled and leapt in her like the laughter of some lewd faun. She heard not the zealous mutterings that eddied through the room. Her eyes were fixed on the man in the red cloak, as he bent to kiss the girl's slim hand.
She saw Fulviac turn and point to a roll of parchment on the table.
"We swim, sirs, or sink together," were his words; "there can be no traitors to the cause. In three days we hoist our banner. In three days Gilderoy shall rise. Sign, gentlemen, sign, in the name of God and of our Lady."
The leaders of Gilderoy crowded about the table where Prosper the Preacher waited with quill and testament, Sforza standing with drawn sword beside him. Fulviac had headed those who took the oath, and had drawn back from the press on to the dais. Meanwhile Duessa, with Balthasar muttering discretions in her ear, had skirted the black knot of conspirators and come close upon Fulviac. While Sforza and the rest were intent upon the scroll, she plucked the man in red by the sleeve, and spoke to him in an undertone.
"A word with you in an alcove."
Fulviac stared, but drew aside from the group none the less and followed her. She had moved to an oriel and sat down on the cushioned seat, her black robe sweeping the crimson cloth. Fulviac stood and faced her, thus closing her escape from the oriel. Midway between them and the table, Balthasar stood biting his nails in sullen vexation, ignorant of where the woman's headstrong passions might be bearing them.
Duessa soon had Fulviac at the tongue's point.
"You are the first man in this assemblage?" she had asked him.
"Madame, that is so."
"I have a truth to make known."
"Unmask to me."
She hesitated, then obeyed him.
"Possibly I am known to you," she said.
Fulviac stood back a step, and looked at her as a man might look at an old love. A knot of wrinkles showed on his forehead.
"Duessa of the Black Hair."
"Ah, in the old days."
"What would you now, madame?"
"Let me see your face."
"No."
"You hold me at a disadvantage."
"That is well. Tell me this tale of yours."
His voice was cold as a frost, and there was an inclement look about him that should have warned the woman had she been less blinded by her own malice. She had lost her cunning in her fuming passion, and denounced when she should have suggested, blurted the whole when a hint would have sufficed her.
"I was the Lord Flavian of Gambrevault's wife," she said.
"That man!"
"That devil!"
Fulviac drew a deep breath.
"Well?" he said.
"The fellow has divorced me; I will tell you why. You are the man they call Fulviac. It was you who took the Lord Flavian in an ambuscade, to kill him, for the sake of Yeoland of Cambremont, who stands yonder. The whole tale is mine. It was that girl who let the Lord Flavian escape out of your hands. A fine fool she is making of you, my friend. A saint, forsooth! Flavian of Avalon might sing you a strange song."
Duessa took breath. She had prophesied passion, a volcanic outburst. Fulviac leant against the wainscotting with folded arms, his masked face impenetrable, and calm as stone. He stirred never a muscle. Duessa had ventured forth into the deeps.
The man thrust a question at her suddenly.
"You can prove the truth of this?"
Duessa pointed him to Fra Balthasar.
"The priest can bear out my tale. I will beckon him."
"Wait."
"Ah!"
"Does Sforza know of this?"
"None know it, save I and yonder priest."
"Then I uncover to you."
He jerked his mask away, and stood half stooping towards her with a peculiar lustre in his eyes. Duessa stared at him as at one risen from the dead. Her face blanched and stiffened into a bleak, gaping terror, and she could not speak.
"Your tale dies with you."
He smote her suddenly in the bosom with his poniard, smote her so heavily that the blow dragged her to her knees. She screamed like a trapped hare, pressed her hands over her bosom, blood oozing over them. A last malevolence leapt into her eyes; she panted and strove to speak.
"Listen, sirs, hear me----"
Fulviac, standing over her like a Titan, smote her again to silence, and for ever. With arms thrust upwards, she fell forward along the floor, her white face hidden by her hood. A red ringlet curled away over the polished oak. Fulviac had sprung away with jaw clenched, his face as stone. He drew his sword, plucked Balthasar by the throat, hurled him back against the wainscotting.
"A spy, poniard him."
The great room rushed into uproar; the guards came running from the door. Fulviac had passed his sword through Balthasar's body. The friar rolled upon the floor, yelping, and clutching at the swords that stabbed him. It was soon over; not a moan, not a whimper. Sforza, white as a corpse, gripped Fulviac by the shoulder.
"Know you whom you have killed?"
"Well enough, Gonfaloniere."
"What means it?"
"That I am a brave man."
Sforza quailed from him and ran to the oriel, where several men had lifted the woman in their arms. Her lustrous hair fell down from under her hood; her hands, stained with her own blood, trailed limply on the floor. She was a pathetic figure with her pale, fair face and drooping lids. The men murmured as they held her, like some poor bird, still warm and plastic, with the life but half flown from her body.
Fulviac stood and looked down into her face. His sword still smoked with Balthasar's blood.
"Sirs," he said, and his strong voice shook, "hear me, I will tell you the truth. Once I loved that woman, but she was evil, evil to the core. To-night she came bringing discord and treachery amongst us. I have done murder before God for the sake of the cause. Cover her face; it was ever too fair to look upon. Heaven rest her soul!"
XXV
Two days had passed since the secret assembly in the house of Sforza, Gonfaloniere of Gilderoy. They had buried Duessa and Balthasar by night in the rose garden, by the light of a single lantern, with the fallen petals for a pall. It was the evening before the day when the land should rise in arms to overthrow feudal injustice and oppression. On the morrow the great cliff would be desolate, its garrison marching through the black pine woods on Avalon and Geraint.
Towards eve, when the sky was clear as a single sapphire, Fulviac came from his parlour seeking Yeoland, to find her little chamber empty. A strange smile played upon his face as he looked round the room with crucifix, embroidery frame, and prayer-desk, with rosary hung thereon. He picked up her lute, thrummed the strings, and broke broodingly into the sway of some southern song:
"Ah, woman of love,With the stars in the night,I see thee aboveIn a circlet of light.On the west's scarlet scutcheonI mark thy device;And the shade of the forestMakes gloom of thine eyes,God's twilightTo me."
"Ah, woman of love,With the stars in the night,I see thee aboveIn a circlet of light.On the west's scarlet scutcheonI mark thy device;And the shade of the forestMakes gloom of thine eyes,God's twilightTo me."
"Ah, woman of love,
With the stars in the night,
I see thee above
In a circlet of light.
On the west's scarlet scutcheon
I mark thy device;
And the shade of the forest
Makes gloom of thine eyes,
God's twilight
To me."
To me."
He ended the stanza, kissed the riband, and set the lute down with a certain quaint reverence. The postern stood open and admonished him. He passed out down the cliff stairway to the forest.
An indescribable peace pervaded the woods, a supreme silence such as the shepherd on the hills knows when the stars beckon to his soul. Fulviac walked slowly and thought the more. He felt the altitude of the forest stillness as of miles of luminous, windless æther; he felt the anguishing pathos of a woman's face; he felt the strangeness of the new philosophy that appealed to his heart. Nothing is more fascinating than watching a spiritual upheaval in one's own soul; watching some great power breaking up the crust of custom and habit; pondering the while on the eternal mysteries that baffle reason.
He found Yeoland amid the pines. She had been to the forest grave and was returning towards the cliff when the man met her. She seemed whiter than was her wont, her dark eyes looking solemn and shadowy under their sweeping lashes. She seemed marvellously fair, marvellously pure and fragile, as she came towards him under the trees.
Something in Fulviac's look startled her. Women are like the sea to the cloudy moods of men, in that they catch every sun-ray and shadow. An indefinite something in the man's manner made her restless and apprehensive. She went near to him with questioning eyes and laid her hand upon his arm.
"You have had bad news?"
"Nothing."
"Something has troubled you?"
"Perhaps."
She looked at him pensively, a suspicion of reproach, pity, and understanding in her eyes.
"Is it remorse, your conscience?"
"My conscience? Have I had one!"
"You have a strong conscience."
"Deo gratias. Then you have unearthed it, madame."
A vein of infinite bitterness and melancholy seemed to glimmer in his mood. It was a moment of self-speculation. The girl still looked up into his face.
"Why did you kill that woman?"
"Why?"
"Her dead face haunts me, I see it everywhere; there is some strange shadow over my soul. O that I could get her last cry from my ears!"
Fulviac, with a sudden burst of cynicism, broke into grim laughter, a sound like the rattling of dry bones in a closet. The girl shrank away with her lips twitching.
"Why cannot you trust me with the truth?"
"Truth is not always beneficent. It was a matter of policy, of diplomacy."
"Why?"
"Discords are bad at the eleventh hour. That woman could have half-wrecked our cause. It was policy to silence her and the man. I made sure of it by killing them."
Yeoland's face had a shadow of repugnance upon it; her eyes darkened. The man seemed in a callous, scoffing humour; it was mere glittering steel over the bitterness within.
"You will tell me her name?"
"What is it to you?"
"She haunts me."
"Forget her."
"I cannot."
"Have the truth if you will. She was the wife of the Lord Flavian of Gambrevault."
The girl stood motionless for a moment; then swayed away several steps from Fulviac under the trees. One hand was at her throat; her voice came in a whisper.
"What did she tell you?"
"Many things."
"Quick, do they touch me?"
Fulviac choked an oath, and played with his sword.
"Then there was some truth in her?" he said.
The girl grew imperious.
"I command you to tell me all."
"Madame, the woman declared you were a traitress, and that this lordling, this Flavian of Gambrevault, loved you."
"And you killed her----"
"For your sake and the cause. She might have cast our Saint out of heaven."
Yeoland went back from him and leant against a tree, with her hands over her eyes. Sunlight splashed down upon her dress; she shivered as in a cold wind, and could not speak. Fulviac's voice, level and passionless, questioned her as she stood and hid her face.
"You let the Lord Flavian escape?"
"I did."
"Have you seen him since?"
"I have."
"Thanks for the truth."
Her responses had come like chords smitten from the strings of a lute. She started away from the tree and began to walk up and down, wringing her hands. Her face was like the face of one in torture, and she seemed to struggle for breath.
"Fulviac, I could not kill the man."
The words came like a wail.
"He was young, and he besought me when your men were breaking down the gate. What could I do, what could I do? He was young, and I let him go by the postern and told you a lie. God help me, I told you a lie."
The man watched her with arms folded. There was a look of deep melancholy upon his face, as of one wounded by the truth. His voice was sad but resolute.
"And the rest?"
She rallied suddenly and came to him with truth in her eyes; they were wonderfully piteous and appealing.
"God knows I have been loyal to you. The man tempted me, but I withstood him; I kept my loyalty."
"And you told him----?"
"Nothing, nothing; he is as innocent as a child."
Fulviac looked down at her with a great light in his eyes. He spoke slowly and with a deeper intonation in his voice.
"I have dealt with many bad women," he said, "but I believe you are speaking the truth."
"It is the truth."
"I take it as such; you have been too much a woman."
"Ah, if you could only forgive."
He stepped forward suddenly, took her hands, and looked down at her with a vast tenderness.
"Little woman, if I told you I loved you, would you still swear that you have spoken the truth?"
"God judge me, Fulviac, I have been loyal."
A strange light played upon his face.
"And I, ye heavens, have I learnt my lesson in these later days? Girl, you are above me as the stars; I may but kiss your hands, no more. You are not for worldly ways, or for me. Battered, war-worn veteran, I have come again by the heart of a boy. Fear me not, little woman, there is no anger in a great love, only deep grieving and unalterable honour."