“Pride goes with a valiant heart;Honour is my desire.I would not ride with patchwork menWhen a kingdom is on fire.”
“Pride goes with a valiant heart;Honour is my desire.I would not ride with patchwork menWhen a kingdom is on fire.”
“Pride goes with a valiant heart;Honour is my desire.I would not ride with patchwork menWhen a kingdom is on fire.”
“Pride goes with a valiant heart;
Honour is my desire.
I would not ride with patchwork men
When a kingdom is on fire.”
Her fingers leapt suddenly to a crackling and jaunty tune, and she began to sing some ditty that went like a drunken horseman galloping a young horse. It was for Merlin that she sang—Merlin, whose presence she felt away yonder in the near shadows of the fir wood.
From the valley came a roaring of voices shouting the old refrain, and Isoult dashed her own empty ditty aside like a cup of bad wine:
“When Adam delved and Eve span,Where was then the gentleman?”
“When Adam delved and Eve span,Where was then the gentleman?”
“When Adam delved and Eve span,Where was then the gentleman?”
“When Adam delved and Eve span,
Where was then the gentleman?”
“Listen,” and her chin went up scornfully. “Listen to the dogs howling! I have heard it all day.”
Fulk watched the little black figures jerking round the fires.
“Some day they shall discover the why and the wherefore,” he said.
“As for me, has my pride turned against them already? I tell you that one day has been sufficient, with the sweat and the smell of these cattle.”
“So fickle—and so soon!”
“Sometimes one sees the truth very suddenly; these unclean beasts were made for the yoke and the goad.”
His eyes were ironical.
“And yet, Isoult, you were sent to tempt me.”
“It is true. And I was ready to tell you the truth. I—in my turn—have been tempted.”
“By Merlin?”
“Yes, and no. I’ll not tell you my story. No man yet has earned a right to that. But this much I will breathe to you. I was driven like a bird over the sea, and the hate and wrath in my heart were bitter against all those who called themselves of gentle blood, and whose pride was a mere ruffian’s castle. Who succoured and saved me in those evil days? A burner of charcoal, a cook’s boy, and a harlot! They were chivalrous when the great ones were lustful and treacherous. So I swore a feud against all men who carried a device upon their shields, all those who wore gilded spurs. Hence, many adventures and a voice that has sung to the poor.”
In the dusk under the trees her eyes held his, and from her red mouth the words came with the vehemence of a rhapsody. Fulk felt like the strings of her lute swept by the fingers of that dim hand that now rested among the bracken. The pale vehemence of her beauty called to the man in him with the clashing of cymbals and the wailing of flutes.
He thrust his face nearer to hers, almost fiercely.
“Isoult, have a care; I am no mere boy.”
She drew in a deep breath.
“A boy? You, with that fierce mouth and eyes like a hawk’s! The naked soul of a woman calls only to the naked soul of a man. I’m not one to plead and wheedle. What did Merlin desire? That I should debauch you into playing the King.”
He set his jaw at her, and his hands strained at the thongs.
“I guessed it.”
“And I, at first, thought of it as a great adventure, as of two falcons soaring together into the blue. But now I see the shine of your pride, and my pride is bright as yours.”
He felt a strange stirring of his blood.
“Well—what then?”
She thrust out her hands.
“No one will persuade you, not even Isoult of the Rose, nor will she stoop to’t. Therefore, Merlin will grow savage, and Fulk of the Forest will lose his head.”
He smiled at her with a grim and challenging approval.
“You reason well.”
“I may reason better. The hands that helped to spread the net may unfasten it again. Look not like that. I make no bargain; my pride is as good as yours.”
He spoke in a hard whisper.
“And I ask nothing—nothing of you, Isoult. But if you play this game on Merlin, you’ll suffer—where I——”
She moved closer to him, her eyes shining.
“What a stiffnecked boy it is, with a wit as stiff as a sword-blade. Why, the woman in me is three times as wise as the man in you. Merlin—ssst!—I can fool any Merlin!”
His grey face threatened her in the dusk.
“And fool me—also!”
“Easily in some ways, if I would. And yet—I could not.”
They stared at each other a moment, breathless, irreconcilable, wondering—two proud birds hovering breast to breast. Desire played like summer lightning. Each saw the other’s pale face flash out of the darkness of dreams wreathed with a wreath of flame.
Fulk opened his mouth to speak, but no words came. In the wood they heard a sharp crackling of dead twigs, and the harsh voice of a man muttering out prayers.
“Merlin!”
She sprang up, snatched her lute, and slipped away among the trees.
Isoult saw Merlin loitering for her among the fir trees, and she could imagine the smile on his face—that face with its red, libidinous mouth and hungry, restless eyes. He stood there in a little alley of the wood, a figure like a grey monolith marking the spot where some king had fallen.
Isoult’s soul hardened itself against him, and she struck the strings of her lute and murmured the words of a song.
“Trust a priest to cheat at any game.”
He shrugged.
“I walked in the wood to keep fools from straying upon you, and when I came close I said my prayers so that you should hear.”
His head poked forward on its long neck like the head of a vulture, and he seemed to sniff the air.
“What tidings, Isoult; what tidings?”
“The falcon is tamed.”
“What? You have cozened him? May all comely women be praised! I did not believe that the man lived who could say you nay.”
She caught the leer in his voice, and guessed how he would be looking at her and licking his red lips. And from that moment she hated Merlin with all the hot pride of her nature.
“Make no boast of it, for I do not.”
He laughed gloatingly, and she could have struck him in the face with her knife.
“Are you sure of the fool, Isoult?”
“As sure of him as I am of your piety! No meddling between us; I have more songs to sing.”
He said nothing for a moment, but she felt his eyes upon her.
“Isoult, I can teach you no subtlety in singing. You will make sure——?”
Her patience carried her no farther.
“Save your words, and let the night look after its own darkness.”
“I’ll leave youth with youth.”
She heard his beads rattling, and he turned to go.
“Bonds stronger than thongs of leather,” he said. “Fasten them upon him, Isoult, and I will give you my blessing.”
So strong for the moment was the revulsion of her pride that when Merlin had gone she walked to and fro under the trees, raging against the tangle in which she found herself. The fires in the valley were as so many red eyes watching her in the toils of her dilemma. To have to cheat such a man as Merlin, lie to him, make a jest of her own honour in order to blind his eyes! And why? Because that stiffnecked fool down yonder sat like a Simeon Stylites on the pillar of his pride, and would not slacken one fibre of his obstinacy in order to save his precious head.
She saw the past, the present, and the future all tangled up in a strange medley—the ringlets of a river thrown wide across green fields and orchards, the chattering of aspen leaves, the roses in a garden, the grey tumbling sea, the singing woman who sang to men with her knife ready at her girdle, the fierce thrusting back of lustful fools, the mocking flush of the eyes, the wanderings, dreams, and adventures, the wrestling match with the man who now lay yonder most damnably determined to die.
Well, let him throw his raw scorn in Merlin’s face, and suffer for his stiffneckedness. What was it to her? How did it concern her? Men knew that Isoult of the Rose was not to be handled or clutched at with greedy fingers, and that her anger was not a thing to be tempted. And was she to make herself look an outwitted and shameful fool, a soft-hearted ninny tricked by a man’s tongue!
She walked to and fro under the trees, and the tangle made her furious.
“By our Lady, let the fool pay for his pride. Why should I meddle?”
The wind of her passion changed just as quickly, and blew her mood to the other side of the fire. She began to curse like a man, and to snap discords from the strings of her lute.
“By the blood in hell, I’ll do it; I’ll do it!”
She turned and went back towards the edge of the wood like a leaf caught up and blown along by a gust of wind.
Fulk was watching the fires in the valley with the little black figures going to and fro about them. He heard Isoult coming back through the fir wood, and the sound of her footsteps made him harden his heart. He was wrath with himself because he saw everywhere the red mouth, the pale face, and the mysterious eyes.
Isoult sailed down on him over the lip of the dell like a bird with the wind.
“What had Merlin to say?”
“Leave Merlin with the devil!”
She dropped on her knees close to him, tossed the lute aside, and pulled out her girdle knife.
“Hold out your hands.”
She spoke and acted like one in a fever of impatience, who could brook neither argument nor delay.
“Hold out your hands, fool! Don’t sit and stare! Shall I have to push you and your pride out of death’s way? I have lied and played the jade for your sake, and I tell you I am out of temper. I’ll cut you out of these thongs, and say good riddance.”
Her anger was so headlong that he felt driven to breast it as a swimmer breasts a wave.
“You have been putting Merlin off with lies?”
“That’s right—ask every question you can think of! What can we do with such a stubborn fool but tell lies on his account? I said I had persuaded you to play the King. Hold your hands out.”
He did not move.
“Oh—well, I can begin elsewhere.”
She bent forward and cut the thongs that bound his legs and ankles, severing the leather with vicious jerks of the knife.
“Now—the hands. I want the burden of your pride off my conscience, to be rid of your heroics. They put one in a tangle.”
He held out his hands, and she cut them free.
“Done. The falcon will find his wings stiff. Fly ten miles before daybreak. As for me—I may be able to get some sleep.”
She sat back on her heels and began to laugh with a casual inconsequence that had a touch of mockery. Fulk was stretching his arms, and moving his wrists and fingers, and all the while a slow and puzzled anger was gathering in him against Isoult. He could make nothing of her moods and passions, and this laughter of hers mocked the desire for her that seemed to have flashed out of nothingness but an hour ago.
“You can set a man free, but you cannot make him walk.”
She still laughed softly as though her whole nature mocked him.
“Am I to drive you like a pig to market? Take up your bed and walk, my friend, and thank my mouth for deigning to tell a lie.”
He turned on one hand and knee, and stared at her fixedly.
“Have a care how you laugh at me.”
“Threats! Oh, my good comrade, run away and leave me in peace. You know not what manner of trouble I have had to be rid of you and your pride, to get your neck out of Merlin’s grip. Be grateful for having made me laugh a little.”
His hands flashed out and caught her wrists.
“By God’s blood, is it all laughter? What will you say to Merlin to-morrow?”
She did not try to free herself, but threw her head back and looked him in the eyes.
“I shall tell him that you made a fool of me and ran away in the night.”
“Isoult!”
His grip tightened upon her wrists.
“No, by God! I’ll not lend myself to that! Speak the truth. You laugh, that I may not think you too generous, and call me fool—to make it easier for me to go.”
Her eyes glimmered at him.
“Well—go. I can deal with Merlin.”
“Merlin! What right has that rat to gnaw at your lute strings? Let him go to his own damnation. Merlin—a grey rat—to say you yea or nay!”
She freed one hand and laid it over his mouth.
“Ssst, you wild forester. Speak softly. Who knows what the wood holds?”
The fingers of her hand were like a spell set upon his lips. He looked into her eyes and was dumb.
“Now, are you cautious?”
She took her hand away, yet almost with a caress.
“Isoult, what is this hedge priest to you?”
“Nothing—less than nothing.”
“And what are these ditch scrapings and plough-boys?”
“A little more than Merlin.”
“Your pride is as good as mine. I’ll not go, Isoult, unless——”
“Unless?”
“Two falcons soar into the blue.”
She kept him at arm’s length, but her eyes were shining in her dim face.
“Ah, you think well of yourself, Fulk of the Forest. Have you the strength to fly with me? I tell you I am a flame, a storm, a sunset.”
“I have wings as strong as yours.”
“To fly in the face of the sun?”
“Over the moon—if needs be.”
They were like two flames, flaring and leaping against each other. An intoxication seized them, though there was a challenge and a defiance in the rushing together of desire. Their hands gripped hard, yet resisted. Their mouths provoked each other, yet held apart.
“Isoult, I swear troth.”
“Wait—wait, madman!”
“Troth until death; I swear it.”
She swayed towards him, drew back as suddenly, and started up, dragging him with her.
“Ssst, see—there!”
She pointed towards the wood, and Fulk saw vague movement in the darkness, and heard the rustling of bracken and the crackling of dead wood.
They were away, running hand in hand, and even their chance of death had an exultant cry in its throat.
A voice snarled in the darkness behind them:
“Shoot—shoot! No mercy!”
Fulk let go of Isoult’s hand, and swung behind her so as to cover her from the arrows of Merlin’s men, but she hung back and would not suffer him to serve her as shield.
“No, no; I take the same chance as you, my friend. There are oak woods down yonder—they will be our salvation.”
“I will show them a woodland trick or two.”
Arrows went past them, first one, and then three flying together and whistling like wind through the keyhole. A cross-bow bolt struck the turf close to Isoult’s heels, and they heard the harsher twang of the arblast cord.
“That was Merlin’s shot. He has poached many a bird.”
“Let them shoot. It means they will lose in the running.”
They heard Merlin’s voice, furious and strident.
“After them. Bring down both, lording and jade.”
The stiffness went out of Fulk’s legs like wax melting before a fire. He felt monstrously strong, ready to run on air, with never a thought of tiring. Isoult, being a woman of sense, had twitched her skirts up over her girdle, and she ran beside him like a deer.
“My desire, you have good wings.”
She laughed, feeling the mounting pride of his manhood in her.
“An I were naked I would dare any man to catch me—save you, perhaps!”
He glanced back with an exultant lift of the chin.
“They shoot like townsmen, and it is all down hill. Skim, swallow, skim!”
“In the oak woods we’ll make a maze for them.”
“Let me but cut a quarterstaff, and I’ll thank any five of them to come within striking distance. Jump, jump—a ditch!”
They leapt it together, and an arrow struck a thorn bush near them on the farther bank.
“The luck is with us!”
“I could sing, but breath is precious! Ah, Master Fierceheart, my pride flies with yours!”
He swerved close in, so that their shoulders touched.
“Isoult, when did it begin with you?”
“Ah—when! And with you?”
“God knows! Someone lit a torch in me—Hullo!”
Fulk had heard the whir of an arrow shot at a venture, and the sound of its striking home. He felt Isoult’s fingers contract on his, and heard her utter a sharp cry.
“Isoult, ar’t hurt?”
She flagged and faltered, with one hand to her side.
“It’s over with me, Fulk; put your arm under my shoulders.”
“Dear heart, where has it struck you?”
“Here, where God thieved from Adam.”
He heard her breathing through clenched teeth, and she began to weigh heavily upon his arm.
“Fulk, I can go no farther.”
“I’ll carry you.”
“No, no; lay me down, dear madman, and run for it. Our luck is out. I have got my quittance.”
He felt the arrow in her side, and the warmth of her blood upon his arm, and a wondering wrath came over him. Her body seemed to melt, to slip away, to surrender all the thrilling tenseness of its muscles.
“Lay me down, my desire—and go.”
He laid her down very gently, yet the twisting of the barb made her cry out.
“A curse on the pain.”
He knelt by her, but she tried to thrust him away.
“It is my death wound. Up, dear fool; go—I charge you.”
“Not I. Give me your knife.”
She threw out her arms and caught him about the neck.
“Go. You cannot save me. Go. I ask it, with the blood of my death wound on me. Oh, strong heart—once—the last!”
She drew him down and kissed him fiercely with lips that clung, and then thrust him off.
“Take the knife; I shall never need it!”
“Isoult.”
“Now—go!”
“By God—I cannot!”
“My own mad fool, what can you do now? Come back with the sword to-morrow—and take your vengeance.”
He sprang up, her knife in his hand, as a man came out of the darkness. Fulk struck him so fiercely that he went down without a cry. Another rushed at him, and had the knife in his throat; but the rest of the pack were closing in.
Fulk heard Isoult call to him.
“The life is out of me, my desire. Run, cheat Merlin, and I’ll die happy.”
He threw himself down beside her, kissed her mouth, and sprang away from under the feet of Merlin’s men. A flurry of arrows went after him in the darkness, but they flew wild and wide, and before they could shoot again Fulk had reached the woods.
How long or whither he ran Fulk of the Forest never knew. Isoult’s last cry had flung him forward into blind, physical activity that was fanatical and dazed. He blundered through the underwood and between the trunks of trees, hardly feeling the hazel rods stinging his face. Once he crashed into an oak bole, and went on with his head singing. A voice kept crying in him, “Run, run!” and his limbs and his senses were mere brute beasts that served.
Fulk ran for some three miles before the self suddenly awoke in him like a raw wound uncovered to the air. He faltered in his stride, dropped to a walk, and then stood still, staring at the ground in front of him, as though he had been running in his sleep.
“Isoult!”
He thrust out his hands with a fierce cry, and then covered his face with his forearms. Vision had come to him so vividly and with such bitterness that he rocked as he stood and breathed like a man in pain.
Dead! He could not believe it. Her lips were still alive to his, and her hands still thrilled him. Had it all happened, that passionate conspiring of theirs, that rushing together through the darkness, that mad, exultant love flight? He heard again her cry when the arrow struck her, her fierce pleading with him to leave her, and felt her arms holding him and her lips pressing themselves to his. Mother of God, those lips of hers! They had left him on fire, those lips of hers, and she herself was dead.
A savage compassion swept over him, an impotent and furious love rage that struggled against a sense of utter and incredible emptiness.
“Isoult!”
He bit the flesh of his wrist, and cursed himself. She was dead by now for his sake, this incomparable, strange creature, with all her fierce, wayward pride. Why had he run away and left her to Merlin? She was his, though dead; the hands, the lips, the eyes were his. He should have fought it to a finish with that scum of serfdom, and not left her alone in death. It was monstrous, damnable, fit only for the spittle of a superhuman scorn.
What had he lost? And yesterday his eyes were blind! He saw it all now in a flare of tenderness, her desire to save him, and the stiffneckedness of his own pride. What was he that she should have suffered to save him, that she should have stooped to a lie against her honour, and lost her life at the hands of Merlin and these boors?
Merlin!
His passion turned like a wounded boar, seeing something to strike at, something to slay. By the Cross, he would make amends, come by arms and horse, and join himself to those who were ready to trample this stubble of the fields into the mud. And this knife of Isoult’s that he had at his girdle should be kept for Merlin—the grey friar.
The terror was abroad, such terror as had not possessed the land since the days of the Black Death.
Fulk, tramping it, with an oak cudgel over his shoulder and his face set like a stone towards London Town, saw nothing but empty fields and great woods that seemed to smother the land in silence. He kept to the open country, his forest instinct standing him in good stead, and once only did he go down into a village to beg or seize bread for his belly. He found only women, children, and old men there, for all the labourers were on the road to London. The women fell upon him like a crowd of wild cats, and he was forced to clear himself with ungallant sweeps of his cudgel.
“A gentle, a gentle, by the cock of his chin!”
And since his club kept them at a distance they pelted him out of the village with stones and broken potsherds, and Fulk got no bread that morning.
He was sore within, most devilish sore, and full of the wrath of a strong man in pain. He heard Isoult’s voice singing, and the lips that were dead tormented him. His humility towards the thought of her contrasted with his fierce desire to fly at the throat of this Blatant Beast that went bellowing through the countryside.
He was hungry and in need of a horse to carry his wrath more swiftly, and chance served him before the day was out. Coming upon a solitary manor-house, half hidden by woods at the end of a meadow, Fulk adventured thither to find a horse in the stable, food in the larder, but also two hairy men eating and drinking like lords at the high table. The folk had fled to the woods, and the men in the hall were two of the Commons of England, guzzling and laying light fingers on anything that could be stolen.
One was a swineherd, the other a tiler, and being two to one, and Fulk no labourer in looks and dress, they showed a bullying valour, and fell upon him together. All Fulk’s fury took its outlet. He left both of them flat on the floor, helped himself to the wine and food, and was cheered by finding some rusty harness and a sword in an oak chest in the cellar. The horse in the stable would have carried the two boors, so Fulk had no qualms over saving him from such a fate. He saddled and bridled the beast, and rode on till the darkness made him call a halt.
Fulk passed the night in a wood, trying to sleep and making no great success of it. The ground was hard under him, and his heart sore within. Not for a moment could he get the dead woman out of his thoughts. She was in the darkness about him, in the rustling of the leaves, in the stars overhead, in the scent of the fern. He turned from side to side, his brain on fire with a restless and compassionate grieving for Isoult of the Rose.
It was on the morning of the second day that Fulk came within sight of the Thames. At dawn he had started over the great chalk-hills with their beech woods hanging in a glimmer of golden light, and had seen the river country, dim and blue under the northern sky. A skull-faced old priest whom he had met riding on an ass along a sheep-track, had pointed him out the way.
“Cross the river west of London, my son,” he had said, “for they tell me the southern roads that lead to London Bridge are full of the mob. God have pity on the fools! Peace, and a safe passage to you.”
As for peace, it was the very last thing that Fulk desired, but he meant to know how much truth there had been in Merlin’s words, and a wholesome curiosity possessed him. Moreover, the lords and the gentry would be gathering about the King; it was at the White Tower that swords were needed, and men to teach the rabble of the fields that there was rhyme and reason in the pride of the sword.
So about seven of the clock Fulk rode down into the river country where the lush green June mocked the lover in him. His eyes saw blood upon the grass, and the shining meadows all white and gold with flowers. Here was a dream country, a lover’s land fit for idleness and laughter, yet even the splendid summer stillness of the trees filled him with a measure of scorn. Bare woods, a whistling wind, and a flaming sunset, and brown men to be galloped after over leaves and mud! That was his mood, whereas, here, by the river, he saw herons flapping peacefully over the meadows, and the whole land seemed full of succulent green life, with poplars that pricked the blue, and willows trailing their branches in mysterious and secret waters. Reeds and sedges laughed and rustled, and he caught the thunder of weirs and mill-races. It was dewy, languorous, full of slow and glimmering delight, but for such a peaceful picture Fulk had no use at all.
As he rode through Kingston towards the ford, he saw that nearly all the houses had their doors and windows barred and shuttered. The road was deserted save for a few hens pecking at garbage, and sparrows bathing in the dust. Fulk might have ridden naked past the houses, and no one would have taken offence. The morning sun blazed on the thatched roofs, the black beams and white plaster, but gossip seemed dead, and the tongues of the old women silent.
Fulk rode down to the ford, and reined in abruptly, with his horse’s fore feet in the water. Out of a grove of poplars lining the farther road came a jigging of pennons and a glittering of steel, with dust flying like smoke from the hoofs of horses at the trot, and a whirl of colour amid the green. Fulk saw it to be a company of some fifty spears led by a knight on a towering black horse, a knight who rode in full battle harness, save that his head was covered by a red velvet cap. The whole glittering, clangorous, many-coloured mass came to a halt in the roadway, the spears standing straight and close together, the dust still making a mist about them in the sunlight.
Fulk’s heart grew big in him, and his eyes shone. Here was the grim splendour of the sword out on a summer morning, and his nostrils quivered as he pushed forward into the stream.
He was a third of the way across when the knight of the red velvet cap kicked his heels into the flanks of his black horse and came splashing into the shallows. He of the red cap had the face of a great captain—haughty, shrewd, iron about the mouth, with blue eyes that looked straight and far, eyes that could strike like a sword. Fulk felt the man’s eyes on him as they splashed through the water towards each other; moreover, as they drew nearer he saw something like astonishment gather on the other’s face like a dazzle of sunlight on a shield.
They met, and reined in in the midst of the stream, the knight on the black horse bending forward slightly in the saddle. His eyes seemed to wait, and to wonder, and his iron mouth remained shut like a trap.
Fulk saluted him.
“The grace of God to you, sir. I have seen nothing but brown villeins for the last ten days.”
The knight still stared and said nothing, sitting stiffly in the saddle.
Suddenly he opened his mouth as though his astonishment could hold back no longer.
“By the tail of the devil, my friend, who are you?”
Fulk was on the alert.
“The Duke of Lancaster’s Riding Forester, the son of Roger Ferrers.”
Fulk saw the knight’s eyebrows come together.
“Roger Ferrers’ son!”—and he spoke as though talking to prove to himself that he was awake—“Roger Ferrers’ son! Have I eyes in my head or not? Look you, my friend, have you heard the name of Sir Robert Knollys?”
“Surely.”
“I am he. Come close in, your knee to mine.”
Fulk edged his horse closer, and he of the red cap sat and stared at him, and at every part of him from eyebrows to hands. He traced every line, every trick of the body, and the more he looked the more he seemed to marvel.
“Monstrous! You have steady eyes, young man.”
“And an easy conscience!”
“Come, tell me now, Master Ferrers, whither do you ride, and for what purpose?”
“I ride nowhere, and I keep my own counsel.”
“Tsst, no fencing with me. I am to be trusted.”
“To be honest with you, sir, I have had to run for my life from certain people who were for making me dance like a doll on a wire.”
“And how was the doll to be dressed?”
“In a King’s robes, and with a crown on its head.”
He saw Knollys’ eyes flash and harden.
“By the Three Leopards, speak out! How much do you know?”
Fulk told him the tale that Merlin had poured into his ears, and Robert Knollys listened, never moving his eyes from Fulk’s face. Their horses stood shoulder to shoulder, with the water washing under their bellies, while the armed men on the northern bank wondered why their captain tarried so long at the ford.
“The ruffian priest! And the woman saved ye, and lost her own life? That was bravely done. But look you, my friend; the truth’s writ on you in flesh and blood. You are as like the King as one bean is like another, save—this in your ear—you have something the King lacks. I judge a man by his eyes. How old are you?”
“Turned twenty.”
“And old at that. Let me think, let me think.”
He laid his right hand on Fulk’s shoulder, and, leaning forward, looked into his eyes.
“I loved the Black Prince, and I have lain across the door of his tent at night. In the French wars we were brothers in arms, and, by God! you have his eyes, the set of his head, the very turn of his shoulders. It’s damnable, marvellous!”
His grip tightened on Fulk’s shoulder.
“The King is but fifteen, and you some five years older, yet you might pass, before a crowd, for the King. That friar had quick wits! What a devil’s game, with half the country in a panic and the other half foaming like a dog gone mad. Lancaster in Scotland, Woodstock in Wales, half our best knights sailed or sailing for Spain! Fulk Ferrers, has no man ever whispered this tale to you before?”
Fulk had no need to shirk the other’s eyes.
“Never a word. I have lived the forest life.”
“Who knows the truth? She—who——! Damnation, it was her splendour to mate with such a man, and no shame.”
He turned his head, and stared at the water running past, his hand still on Fulk’s shoulder.
“If we had but such a Prince! Bah! what am I saying?”
His eyes flashed up to Fulk’s.
“Come now, what’s in your heart? Out with it. If you are the son of your father you will be gallant and generous.”
“I swear troth to the King. Let men call me a bastard if it pleases them; there is good blood in me.”
“Am I to trust you?”
“As you trusted the Prince.”
“That carries! But, by my honour, we are in the thick of crooked happenings. A boy King, and the rabble rushing to make a Jumping Jack of him, and he none too stiff in his knees! You see—I trust you. We rode out here to see if any of this scum had crossed the river. I see no other way but to take you back with us.”
“I ask nothing better than to follow Robert Knollys.”
They had taken each other’s measure, and they gripped hands.
“I am to trust Robert Knollys, as he trusts in me.”
“Take my oath on it.”
“It is given and taken.”
The elder man thought a moment.
“Lad, no one yet must see your face.”
He turned in the saddle and shouted to a squire who was waiting with his pennon on the northern bank.
“Fitzurse—hey!”
“Sir?”
“Leave my helmet on the grass. Tell my gentlemen to ride back straight to the city. I follow—with a friend.”
He and Fulk waited, sitting their horses in the midst of the river, while the company of spears turned and rode off with a churning of dust into the aspen wood. The thunder of the horses’ hoofs had nearly died away before Knollys stirred.
“Come.”
They splashed through to the northern bank together. A vizored bassinet lay on the grass beside the road, and Knollys pointed to it, and glanced meaningly at Fulk.
“Cover your face, my son. A good hawk will not bate at being hooded.”
As they rode towards the city through the fields and orchards, Knollys desired to hear Fulk’s adventures and all that he could tell him of the temper of the rebels in the south, and he in turn was frank with Fulk, unbarring his thoughts to him as to a comrade in arms.
“No such thing as this would have happened,” said he, “with the sire or the grandsire ruling. There is no master, and the country has lost its wits, every man cowering in a corner and afraid to utter one bold word for fear of a cutthroat.”
“Where are the great lords and their people?”
“Man, I know not! The King can count on no more than five hundred spears in London, and the city scum is said to be with the rebels. The country is besotted with apathy and fear. Never in my life have I seen such poltroonery—the men who should be in the saddle turned to a crowd of old women. I am asking myself whether this can be the England that sent our armies to trample upon France.”
His haughty and scornful seriousness was not to be questioned, and Fulk felt that the case was desperate when such a man looked gloomy.
“What of the King? Is he in peril?”
“It is those who stand between him and the ‘Jacks’ who are likely to be in peril. There are wrongs to be righted—who doubts it?—but the shipmaster must rule the ship. The Jacks in France were very near overturning a kingdom.”
“I thought to find a great host of the lords and gentles in London.”
“A few old pantaloons in the Tower. I promise you I would not stake a groat on half of us having our heads upon our shoulders this time next month.”
They passed a group of the common people standing outside an alehouse, and some of them jeered and put out their tongues like children. One fellow ran about on all fours, howled, and lifted up a leg. Another had a dead cat, which he held up by a thong fastened to its neck. He shouted, and jigged the dead cat up and down: “Ha! John of Gaunt dancing on a rope!” Knollys rode by as though they were dirt in the gutter, but his eyes were the eyes of a leopard.
“Honest mud in the wrong place, friend Fulk. Many of these fellows are good lads when not in the wolf pack.”
He stared into the distance.
“If death could give us back the father for one week! But with this boy, and a few old women round him! Lancaster would be useless, even were he not parleying with the Scots. The people hate him like poison. Never breathe it that you are John of Gaunt’s man, if you are taken.”
“There must be good men somewhere.”
“Faith, what are a few beacons when the whole country is burning? I tell you it needs a comet in the sky to master these mad peasants. Fate lies with the King.”
“If he is the son of his father——”
“If, if! That’s where the devil’s laugh comes in!”
The dust of Knollys’ company of spears drifted eastwards before them, and hung like a haze among the elm trees beside the road. The silver loops of the river came and went, until the towers of Westminster rose from among the orchards, fields, and gardens. A great silence held everywhere, and even as they rode towards Ludgate past the great houses on the river bank and John of Gaunt’s palace of the Savoy, the people who loitered thereabout looked mute, and sullen, and watchful. The purple edge of a thundercloud was looming up over the city, deepening every patch of colour in the streets, and making the vanes and steeples shine like gold. The air was close and ominous, like the spirit of the people.
As they passed the Savoy, Knollys cocked a thumb at it.
“See your duke’s house. I’d not give a penny for it if those wolves cross the river.”
Fulk had a need of silence, for his head was like a skin full of new wine. All was strange, and vast, intricate, and grotesque to him, and the great city itself was like a forest with its spires and towers and gables and narrow winding ways. It was a world of new sights, new sounds, new smells, new colours. He looked at the houses and the people through the bars of the vizor, and felt a strange unrest stirring in him, a yearning to play a mighty part, to strike some blow that should make all these heedless and unfamiliar faces gape and stare. The pride of mastery cried in his blood—the cry of a heritage that yearned in him.
They saw the spears ahead of them winding through Ludgate with the clangour of iron-shod hoofs on the cobbles. A trumpet blared, and people crowded out of courts and alleys to see Knollys’ war-dogs ride past. To Fulk these people were like sheep crowding at gaps in a hedge. The trumpet’s cry wailed for a something that England lacked, a voice like a trumpet’s cry and the mien of a lord.
They came to Knollys’ lodging, and by noon Fulk found himself in a little attic under the tiles, with thunder rumbling overhead. The window looked out over roofs and gables through a sheet of drenching rain that glimmered when the lightning flashed. There was food and wine, and a truckle bed in the room, and the door was barred on the inner side.
Knollys had left him there to the thunderstorm and his own thoughts.
“Let the sword lie hid in the sheath,” he had said; “trust me, good lad. Perhaps I have dreamed a dream!”