The three trees of Monkshood Glade.
How fresh the morning air was in the wood! A million yellow spears flashed through the thick leaves and stabbed the undergrowth with gold. A delicious smell of leaves and forest beasts scented the cool breezes, and birds of all colours sang hymns to the sun.
An early summer morning in a great wood! In all life there is nothing so mysteriously delightful. Where the leaves of the oaks and elms and beeches were so thick that they turned the spaces below into fragrant purple dusk, what soft bright-eyed creatures might lie hid! In the hot open glades brilliant little snakes lay shining, and green-bronze lizards, like toy dragons, slept in armour. The fat singing bees that shouldered their way through the bracken wore broad gold bands roundtheir fur, and had thin vibrating wings of pearl. They were like jewels with voices.
Upon a piece of smooth grass sward, nibbled quite short by rabbits, which sloped down to a brook of brown and amber water, sat Lewin, the minter. His fine clear-cut face harmonised with all the beauty around, and he drank in the air as if it had been wine. There was a soft look in his eyes as of a man dreaming of lovely things. His face is worth a little scrutiny. The glorious masses of dark-red hair gave it an aureola, the long straight nose showed enormous force of character, but the curve of the lips was delicate and refined, and seemed to oppose a weakness. There was something dreamy, treacherous, and artistic in his countenance.
For an hour Lewin had come into the wood to forget his scheming and ambitions and to be happy in the sunlight. He plucked blades of grass idly and threw them into the brook. Once he looked up, feeling that something was watching him, and saw mild eyes regarding him from a thicket. It was a young fawn which had come to drink in the brook, andsaw him with gentle surprise. He gave a hunting halloa, and immediately the wood all round was alive with noise and flying forms. Part of a herd of deer had been closing round his resting-place, and were leaping away in wild terror at his shout.
The forest became silent again, until he heard feet crackling on the leaves and twigs, and looking up saw a radiant vision approaching him. A tall, dark girl, lithe as a willow, was coming through the wood.
Lewin sprang up from the little lawn and went down the path to meet her, holding out his hands.
"Ah, Gundruda!" he said, "I have waited your coming. How fair you are this beautiful morning!"
"Go away," she said, with a flash of pearls. "That is what you say to every girl."
"Of course, Gundruda mine. I love all women; my heart is as large as an abbey."
"Then your fine speeches lose all their value, minter. But I have a message."
He dropped his banter at once. "Yes! yes!" he said eagerly.
"My lord goeth after a boar this afternoon with Sir Fulke, and my Lady Alice will be by the well in the orchard when they have gone."
"Good," said he, "there will I be also. Are Richard and Brian goinghunting?"
"No; they will be hard at work with all the theows and men-at-arms fortifying the castle. Oh, Lewin, there is such a to-do! Last night as ever was, came a messenger to say Roger Bigot is coming to Hilgay to kill us all, and Christ help us! that is what I say."
A shrill note of alarm had come into her voice, for she had seen war before, and knew something of the unbridled cruelty that walked with conquerors. At that he put his arm round her waist and drew her close to him. They were a fine pair as they stood side by side in the wood. Lewin captured one pretty hand in his—a little, white, firm hand that curled up comfortably in his clasp. Then he kissed her on her soft cheeks.
"How beautiful you are," he said in a soft, dreamy voice, deep and rich. He strained her to him. "Oh, how strange and beautiful you are, Gundruda. I would that for ever you were in my arms. There is nothing like you in the world, Gundruda. You are worth kingdoms. Oh, you beautiful girl!"
She abandoned herself to his caresses, with closed eyes and quick shuddering breaths of pleasure. Suddenly the mellow notes of a horn inall their proud sweetness came floating through the wood, and this amorous business came to a sudden end.
Geoffroi was starting out to the hunt.
The two people in the wood went back to the castle by devious ways. They found that Lord Geoffroi with a few attendants had already left the castle and entered the forest.
The castle-works were humming with activity. The weapon smiths were forging and fitting arrow heads, and making quarels and bolts. The carpenters were building hoards, or wooden pent houses, which should be run out on the top of the curtains. The crenelets, which grinned between the roof and the machicolade at the top of Outfangthef, were cleared of all obstructions. A trèbuchet for slinging stones—invented in Flanders, and very effective at short range—was being fitted together on the roof of the Barbican. Hammers were tapping, metal rang on metal, the saws groaned, and a great din of preparation pervaded everything.
In one corner of the bailey a man was cutting lead into strips so that it could be more easily made molten and poured upon besiegers. In another a group were hoisting pitch barrels on to the walls with a pulley and tackle.
In and out of the great gateway rough carts were rattling every moment, full of apples and wheat from the farmhouses round.
A row of patient oxen were stabled in a pen, hastily knocked up with beams of fir, in one corner of the bailey. In the field by the castle side, the swine shrieked horribly as a serf killed them relentlessly, and in the kitchens the women boiled, dried, and salted before glowing wood fires.
Long before dawn, scouts on swift horses had been posting along the Norwich road, and messages had been sent to all the villeins proper to fulfil their pledge of service.
Tongues wagged unceasing.
"Come ye here, cripples, and give a hand to this beam."
"Have you gotten your money safe, minter? The bastard son a letcheth after coined monies."
"Aye, and after more things than coined monies. Gundruda, beauty, Roger hath a fat Turkman privy to him, and going always in his train. He will marry you to the black man!"
"By the rood, then, I'd as soon wed him as you!"
"Roger taketh with him always a crucet hûs, my son."
"And what is that, then, Father Anselm?"
"Know you not the crucet hûs? fight lustily, then, or you may know him too well. The crucet hûs, that is a chest which is short and narrow and shallow. Roger putteth men therein, and putteth sharp stones upon him so that all his limbs be brake thereby. My Lord Bigot loveth it. Also he useth the 'Lâŏ and grim.' 'Tis a neck bond, my lad, of which two or three men had enough to bear one! It is so made that it is fastened to a beam. And Roger putteth a sharp iron round about the man's throat and his neck, so that he cannot in any direction sit or lie or sleep, but must bear all that iron."
"God's teeth! Father! you have a merry way of comfort."
"Truth is stern, Huber; fight then lustily, and get you shriven to-morrow."
"That will I, Father."
"And you, John and Denys, and Robert, all you soldiers. Come you to me ere this fight, and pay Holy Church her due fee, and have safety for your souls. An if you die then you will be saved men, and among the merry angels and my Lords the Saints, as good as they in heaven. An yougo not to battle with hearts purged of sin, the divell will have every mother's son of you. Alas, how miserable and rueful a time will be then! And you who are whilom in shining armour-mail, with wine to drink, and girls to court for your pleasure, will lie in a portion of fire but seven foot long."
Thus, Anselm, the hedge priest, passing from group to group in beery exhortation.
Who knows how it affected them?
The heavenly sun still looks into the lowest valleys. The unclean hands of that false priest, unfaithful minister that he was, may have given the mass to a sick soul with great spiritual comfort. The bestial old man may have absolved dark men, penitent of their sins, because they themselves earnestly believed in his power.
As he sat in the chapel during that day, the mysterious powers conferred on him from Saint Peter himself, in unbroken succession, may, indeed, have flowed through him, giving grace.
Lewin lounged about the courtyard listening to his exhortations with amusement, yet not without wonder at the strange psychic force which moved the minds of these rough men. The crafty, sensual sentimentalist, of course, had no illusions about the abstract, yet the idea alwaysfascinated him when it came. It was very grand and sonorous, he thought, this bondage to mystery, this ritual of the unseen. So lonely a man was he, immured in the impregnable fortress of his own brain, for there was no mental equal for him at Hilgay, that for mere mind-food he gave himself over to wild fancies. Our Lord upon the cross was more beautiful to him than to many devout believers, and he would have told you that he could hear the going of God in the wind. Sometimes he half-wondered if it were not true that Christ died.
He went into his mint, deserted now, and sat him down upon a bench in his little room. The sunshine cut its living way through the dust of the silent empty place. A whip lay upon the floor, where it had been thrown by an overseer of the theows who worked in the mint. There were flies upon it. He kicked the thing aside with disgust; it was a reminder of the stern terrible age in which he lived, and in which he felt so out of place. Depression began to flow over him in silent waves, until he remembered that he was to meet Lady Alice in the afternoon. That turnedthe current of his idle, discontented thoughts towards a more palpable thing. His secret wooing of the Norman lady who was so proud and stately was very dear to him, and the romance of it pleased him even more than the mere material joys he hoped some day to gain from it. Proud as she was, womanlike she at least deigned to listen to him, and his crafty brain schemed darkly to take opportunity as it came, and make her his own by treachery. He went out again among the busy workmen, and began to direct some smiths who were rivetting a suit of brass armour, engraved with a curious pattern of beetles and snakes in arabesque, which required delicate handling.
The weapon smiths were grumbling because they were short of hands for the heavier parts of their labour. Five or six of the most reliable serfs could not be found anywhere. Some one had seen them going into the forest, and it was supposed that they were acting as beaters for Geoffroi. Every one grumbled at the Baron. It was thought that this was no time for amusements. A boar would keep, herons would last till the world's end, deer would get them young every year till the world stopped. Every hour Roger Bigot came slowly nearer, and the men ofHilgay wanted the comfort of a master mind to direct and reassure them at a time like this.
The two squires fussed and raved, and stormed till the sweat stood in great drops upon them, but they could not get half the work out of the men that Geoffroi, or even Fulke, were able to. They had no personality and were ineffective, lacking that most potent and most powerful of human things. But every one did his best, nevertheless, and by "noon-meat" work had distinctly advanced, and already the castle began to wear something of an aspect of war.
It is extraordinary how a building or a place can be transformed in our minds by a few outward touches, combined with an attitude of expectation. If one has waited for a wedding in an almost empty church, the coming ceremony has an actual power of destroying the somewhat funereal aspect of the place. A single vase of flowers upon the altar seems swollen to a whole tree of bloom, the footsteps of a melancholy old man unlocking the rusty door, or spreading the priest's robes for him, is magnified into the beating of many feet. A crowd is created, expectant of a bride.
In a country lane on a hot summer afternoon, on Sunday, we say that a"Sabbath peace" is over all the land. The wind in the trees seems whispering litanies, and the soft voices of the wood-pigeons sound like psalms, the woods are at orisons, and the fields at prayer. As evening comes gently on, the feeling becomes intensified, though there is nothing but the chance lin-lan-lone of a distant bell to help it. The evening is not really more peaceful and gracious on the day of rest. The rooks wing home with mellow voices indeed, and the plover calls sweetly down the wind for his mate, but these are ordinary sounds. You may hear them on week days. The peace is in our own hearts, subjective and holy, informed by our own thoughts.
In the very air of the castle there was a tremulous expectation of war. Lady Alice, in her chamber, far away from the tumult, knew it. Little Gertrude, in the orchard, felt in her blood that the day was not ordinary; the very dogs sought wistfully to understand the excitement that pervaded everything.
At noon-meat, the jongleur, who had remained in the castle, blear-eyed and silent, got very drunk indeed. A madness of excitement got hold ofhim, and he sang war songs in a strident unnatural voice. The stern choruses rang out in the sunshine, with a pitiful whining of the crowth. All the afternoon the men hummed fierce catches as they went about their work. The day was cloudless and very hot. About five o'clock, when the sun's rays began to strike the ground slantingly, and the world was full of the curious relative sadness that comes with evening, the toilers knocked off for a rest. The pantler brought out horns of Welsh ale, and they sat round the well discussing the great impending event, the strength of the defences, the number of the enemy, the chances of the fight. The jongleur was lying insensible by the well-side, and a merry fool was bedabbling his shameless old face with pitch from a bucket, when the attention of every one in the castle was suddenly arrested by the distant but quite unmistakable sound of a horn.
A deep silence fell upon them all. Then they heard it again, no hunting mot or tuneful call of peace, but a long, keen, threatening note of alarm!
The thundering of a horse's feet growing ever nearer and nearer throbbed in the air. The sound seemed a great way off. Some one shouted somequick orders. The pins were pulled from the portcullis chains, so that upon releasing a handle it would fall at once. That was all they could do for the moment. They heard that the horseman was coming on at a most furious gallop. The sound came from the great main drive of the forest. Quick conjectures flew about among them all.
"Godis head! surely Roger is ten days away."
"So the scouts have said. He moveth very slowly. Oswald saw it with his own eyën."
"We shall know before one should tell to twenty, listen!"
The news-bringer, whoever he might be, was now close at hand, and with startling effect he sent before him another keen vibratory note of his invisible horn. It seemed to come right up to the very castle gate, and to break in metallic sound at the feet of those standing near.
In a moment more they saw him turn out from among the interlacing forest trees, and come furiously down the turf towards them.
"It's Kenulf, the forester," shouted two or three voices at once."Surely some one rides after him."
The rider was now close upon them, and vainly trying to pull in his horse. The animal was maddened by the goring of his spurs—long single spikes in the fashion of that time—and would not stop. So, with a shrill shout of warning and an incredible echoing and thunder of noise, he galloped over the drawbridge, under the vaulted archway of the gate tower, and only pulled up when he was in the bailey itself, and confronted with the great rock of the keep.
For a moment he could not speak in his exhaustion, but by his white face and haunted eyes they saw that he had some terrible news.
There was a horn of beer propped up against the draw-well, which some one had set down at the distant noises of the forester's coming. Brian de Burgh picked it up and gave it to the gasping fellow. Then he stammered out his news, striking them cold with amazement.
"My Lord Geoffroi is dead, gentlemen," said he. "He has been murdered. I came upon him standing by the three trees in Monkshood. He had an arrow right through his mouth, nailed to a tree was he, and the grass allsprent with him. Gentlemen, I came into the glade half-an-hour after I had seen my lord well and alive. He rode fiercely ahead of us after the boar, towards Monkshood. My lord loves to ride alone, and Sir Fulke followed but slowly, and set a peregryn at a heron on the way. But I pressed on faster, so that an Lord Geoffroi killed the boar, and when he had made the first cuts, I should do the rest. God help us all, and Our Lady too! I did come into the glade half a mile away from where the three trees stand. My eyën go far and they are very keen. There was a man, I could see, standing still, but as I blew a call he went swiftly into the underwood. Then came I to the trees and saw my lord standing dead. Sir Fulke and the train came up soon after, and they are bringing It home. Make you ready. Cwaeth he to me, that you were to make proper mourning, to light the torches and say the Mass, and have many lights upon the holy table. And so my lord shall the quicker find rest. Haste! haste! for soon they will be near, and there is scant of time withouten great haste. Take me to my lady, for I would tell her."
"No," said a girl, who was standing by, very hastily, "I will prepareher first," and with that Gundruda, with a face full of wonder, slipped away to the postern which led to the orchard.
So this was how the first tidings of Hyla's vengeance came to the castle.
Now the killing of Geoffroi de la Bourne happened in this way.
As one might imagine, there was no sleep for the serfs on the night before the attempt. From the time when they had stolen up the hill after the murder of Pierce to the coming of dawn was but short. They spent it round the dead fire among the noises of the night.
A great exultation was born in the heart of each man. Hyla showed them his blood-stained hands, with vulgar merriment at the sight, rejoicing in the deed. They were all animated with the lust of slaughter. Wild hopes began to slide in and out of their minds. One could hardly expect anything fine—in externals—from these rough boorish men. Although their purpose was noble, and the feelings that animated them had much that owed its existence to a love for their fellows, a protest of essential human nature against oppression and foul wrongs, yet theirtalk was coarse and brutal about it all. This must be chronicled in order to present a proper explanation of them, but if it is understood it will be forgiven. No doubt the canons of romance would call for another kind of picture. The men would keep vigil, full of lofty thoughts, high words, and prayers to God. They would have spoken of themselves as Christ's ministers of wrath; the romancer would have prettily compared them to King David with his Heaven-ordered mission of vengeance. And yet King David, for example, mutilated the Philistines in a fearfully brutal way—it is for any one to read—and how much more would not these poor fellows be likely to shock and offend our nice sensibilities. No doubt it was horrible of Hyla to call up a sleeping puppy and make it lick Pierce's blood from his hands, but this story is written to make Hyla explicit, and Hyla was not refined.
Early in the morning the conspirators took a meal together before setting out to play their various parts in this tragedy. Harl was already far away with the women. Gurth was to go down to the river and take the swiftest punt away from the landing-place and hide in the reedsupon the other side. A whistle would summon him when Hyla and Cerdic came down to the water ready for flight. Gurth was to sink the other punts, to make pursuit impossible for a time.
Cerdic, Richard, and a third man called Aescwig were to lie in the wood to turn the boar, as well as they were able, towards the glade of Monkshood. They were lean, wiry men, swift of foot, and knew that they could do this. Cerdic had a swift dog concealed, for it was unlawed, which he used for poaching. It would help them. Hyla himself would lurk in the glade with his knife, waiting in the hope of his enemy.
After the first meal they slunk off to their posts with little outward emotion and but few words of parting. The clear cold light of the morning chilled them, and robbed the occasion of much of its excitement. But for all that went they doggedly towards their work.
For a certain distance Hyla went in company with the three beaters, but at a point they stopped, and he proceeded onwards alone.
When he had got far on upon his way to Monkshood he lay down deep in the fern to rest, and watched the sky between the delicate lace of the leaves.
He saw a tiny wine-coloured spider swinging from branch to branch like a drop of blood on a silver cord, the sunlight so irradiated it. The wild bees were already hard at work filling their bags of ebony and gold with the sweet juices of flowers. The honeysuckle swung its trumpets round the brown pillar of an oak, like censers of amber and ivory, shedding delicate incense on the air. The breezes carried the rich scents to and fro from tree to tree. Hyla felt weary now that the hour was so close at hand. He was not excited, nor did he even feel the slightest tremor of fear. He was simply indifferent and tired. He wanted to sleep for ever in this silent, sunlit place.
He was wearing Pierce's dagger round his waist, and he took it out to see if it was sharp enough. The stains of blood still held to it in films of brown and purple, but its point was needle-like, and the edge bitter keen. He put it down by his side upon a great fern tuft over which countless ants were hurrying. It fell among the ants as a streak of lightning falls among a crowd of men. Then, like some uncouth spirit of the wood, some faun, one might have fancied, he fell into a long, dreamless sleep.
He was awakened suddenly, when the sun was already at its height, by the sweet fanfaronade of distant horns. He glided away towards Monkshood swiftly and silently, a brown thing stealing through the undergrowth upon his malign errand. At last he came to the place he sought.
Monkshood Glade was a long narrow drive, carpeted with fine turf and surrounded with a thick wall of trees. In shape it was like the aisle of a cathedral. At the far end of the place it opened out into a half circle, like a lady chapel, and, to carry out the simile, where the altar should have been three great trees were standing in a triangle. The trunks of the trees grew within a hand's breadth of each other and formed a deep recess, with no entry save the one at the base of the triangle. Inside this place it was quite dark and cool.
Hyla crept into the undergrowth at the side of the glade, about twenty yards from the entrance to this little tree-cave, and lay waiting, crouching on his belly.
For an hour or two—it seemed ages to him—nothing happened whatever. The business of the wood went on all round, but there was no sound ofhuman life. The waiting made him restive and uneasy. He began to remember how many the chances were that Geoffroi would not come that way. He began to see on how slender a possibility his hopes rested, and to wonder at himself and his companions for having trusted so great an issue to such a chance.
Then, quite suddenly, his heart leapt up and began to beat furiously, till the sound of its throbbing seemed to be surely filling all the wood. Peering out of the scrub he saw far down the glade a grey speck moving rapidly in his direction. It grew larger every moment as he watched, and next he saw that it was followed by a second and larger object, which almost immediately resolved itself into a man on horseback riding hard. In two minutes the boar and its pursuer were close upon him. He saw the boar galloping, with blood and foam round its tusks, and heard its harsh grunting. He could see its eyes as bright as live coals. Geoffroi was thundering twenty yards behind. Suddenly he saw the Baron taking aim at his quarry with a short, thick bow. He guided his horse,still in full career, a little to one side, by the pressure of his knees. It was a wonderful piece of horsemanship. He saw a quick movement of Geoffroi's arm, and, though the arrow sped too quickly for him to trace its course, the great boar with a hoarse squeal stumbled upon its fore-legs. It rose, staggered round in a circle, for the great forest beasts die hard, and then with a final squeal rolled over upon its side, with its hoofs stark and stiff in the air.
This took place between Hyla and the trees.
Geoffroi reined in his horse and, throwing his bow upon the ground, dismounted and ran towards the boar. He drew his hunting knife as he went.
As silently as a snake Hyla crept out of the undergrowth. Geoffroi's back was towards him and he was leaning over the boar with his knife. Hyla picked up the bow. The horse, heaving from its exertions, regardedhim with mild eyes devoid of curiosity. Hyla took a barbed hunting shaft from the little quiver at the saddle side. He fitted it carefully to the bow. Suddenly the Baron stood up and was about to turn round when Hyla drew the bow-string to his shoulder, English fashion, and shot the arrow. It struck Geoffroi in the muscles of the left shoulder and went deep into him.
With a horrid yell of agony he spun round towards his unseen foe. Hyla had rapidly fitted another arrow to the bow and stood confronting him. For a moment the two men stood regarding each other. Then very slowly Geoffroi began to retreat backwards towards the trees. Hyla kept the arrow pointed at his heart.
"That was for Elgifu," he said.
Geoffroi reached the three trees, and went backwards into the recess. His eye rolled round desperately. Then he made a last effort. "Put that down," he roared with terrible authority. But the time had gone by when he could make Hyla cower.
"This is for Frija," said Hyla, and an arrow quivered in Geoffroi's mouth and passed through his head, transfixing him to the tree trunk behind.
A sudden impulse flooded the Serf's brain, quick, vivid, and uplifting: the tears started into his eyes though he knew not why.
Once more the bow-string twanged as a third arrow sank silently into thecorpse. "ForFreedom!" he whispered fearfully, wondering at himself.
Hyla stood watching the frightful sight with calm contemplation. The Baron dead and bloody was nothing. He began to feel a positive contempt for the man he had feared so long.
As he stood with a smile distorting his face, a horn rang out down the glade, and he saw that a horseman was riding hard towards him. Making the sign of the cross, he slipped into cover and began to fly swiftly through the wood.
Per varios casus, per tot discrimena rerum, tendimus inLATIUMsedes ubi fata quietas ostendunt.
There is always and forever a haven we can win. In all the chances and turmoils of this life, howeversomuch we are tossed upon the seas of circumstance, somewhere, without doubt, there is peace.
For the intellect distracted and pierced through by every fresh morsel of knowledge, for the brain tired out by the senses, for the body full of the sickness, let us say, of a great town, somewhere the Fates have a quiet resting place. There is peace waiting. Let Alecto, Megaera and Tisiphone shriek and wail ever so loudly, they shall not break it.
Tendimus in Latium—we are all going towards Latium. For some of us it is the blessed peace of the grave, and others are to find it in this life. Somewhere there is peace!
Hyla felt an utter weariness of life and all its appeals as he fled through the forest. The hot wan wine of revenge that had been his blood was now cool and stagnant. That stern old devil-hearted man that he had made into a filthy corpse had passed away out of knowledge as if he had never been. The brain of the serf was all empty of sensation, save for that great weariness. His body was full of the mere instinct of self-preservation. The legs on which he ran, the arms which pushed aside the forest branches, the furtive eyes which sought for foes, all acted independently of his brain. Nature itself working in him bade him fly. For himself, had he thought about it, he would hardly have cared, even though he had been captured. But none the less was his fleeing swift and sure.
He twisted his tortuous way through the thick hazel shoots, which struck him in the face as he buffeted them, and his bare arms and legs were scarred and pricked in a thousand places with thorns from the trailing undergrowth.
When he had beat back to the other end of Monkshood, walking parallel to the glade, he heard voices close to him and the noise of a company ofpeople entering the ride at the far end of the glade. By the three sinister trees, he heard the keen notes of a horn blowing in eager summons. Suddenly a new and terrible fear came to him. The dogs, which were whining all round, would most surely smell him in a moment. He could hear their excited movements on every side. He realised that he should have made a much greater detour, and that he had, in fact, stumbled into the very middle of his enemies.
He could see no way out of his perilous position, and felt that he was certain of immediate discovery. But the Fates, which were providing a short peace for him, willed that his capture was not yet to be. The urgent note of Kenulph's horn, half a mile away, attracted the dogs, and they gave tongue, and, dashing out of the cover, spread up the drive in a long line. Fulke, who was within ten yards of the hidden murderer, cheered them on.
"I can see figures," shouted a huntsman, "one, two horses. They must be my lord and Kenulph, and Sir Boar is dead. Come along, Sir Fulke, we are not very far behind after all!"
With that the whole company pressed out into the ride and thundered away, and Hyla was left solitary. The narrowness of the escapeheartened him into fresh endeavour, and once more he began his swift career through the wood. After another mile of hard going, he sat for a moment. 'Twas then that he heard a low sibilant noise, like the hiss of a snake. He started up, looking round him on every side. He heard the sound again, and it seemed to come from the sky above.
He looked up into the depths of a beech tree above him, and presently there appeared a lean brown leg among the leaves. A body followed, and Cerdic dropped on to the turf.
"Well?" said Cerdic, "God be with you! What have you done?"
"Killed him," said Hyla with a curious pride, though he tried hard to appear unconscious of his great merit. "He's dead, sure enough. I well think he is in hell now—he and Pierce in the same fire."
"The Saints have watched thee with kind eyën that you did it, Hyla. In hell is my lord, and there a will lie, for Saint Peter that hath the key is not so scant of wit as to let him go. Let us thank Our Lady that did strengthen your arm."
"Yes, let us thank her," said Hyla. "I gave him two arrows, 'one forElgifu,' I said, and 'this one for Frija,' I said. That was how I did it. So that he might be sure for what he died, you wist. Yes, that was just how I did it."
He had a curious shame which prevented a reference to the third shaft. He was not sure if Cerdic would have understood that arrow ofFreedom. He hardly realised it himself.
"By Godis rood, you have done well, my friend. But pray, pray that you may be clean, and that Our Lady may wesshe you of blood guilt."
They knelt down, and became straightway enveloped in a mystery that was not of this world. The dead man in the tree-cave could not stir Hyla as this sudden invoking of God's mother, for he was certain that she was close by in the wood, listening.
Cerdic made prayer, because he was a man of quick wit and glib of tongue.
"O Lady of Heaven," said he, "we call upon you in our souls' need, and I will plainly tell you why. And that is this: Hyla has killed our Lord Geoffroi, for he did take his girls. And Lord Geoffroi has sorelyoppressed us and beaten us, and so, dead is he. And we pray you that we be made clean of the killing in Godis sight. And if it may be so, we ask that you will say to the heavenly gateward that he should ne'er let our Lord Geoffroi therein. For Saint Peter knoweth not how bad a man he was. And we would that you wilt say by word that he be cast down with Judas and with all the devils into hell, Amen." And then in a quick aside to Hyla, "'Amen' fool, I did not hear you say it."
With that Hyla said "Amen" very lustily, and they both rose from their knees. "I am gride that I said no 'Amen,'" said Hyla, "but I was listening to the prayer. It was a wonderful good prayer, Cerdic."
"Yes," said the other, "I can pray more than a little when it so comes to me. Had I but some Latin to pray in I doubt nothing that I would get my own bocland back before I die. But come, we are far from safety yet. It gets late, we must go swiftly."
They met with no mishap, and saw no man till they were on the very outskirts of the wood, and not more than a couple of hundred yards from the stoke itself. They were about thirty yards from the main entrance to the wood, a road which was beaten hard with the coming and going of men and horses.
There they stopped for a consultation. Was it better, they asked each other, to gather some kindling wood and go boldly through the village as if upon the ordinary business of the day, or, on the other hand, to make a wide half circle, and reach the river a mile away from the landing-stage?
It was quite certain that as yet no news of the Baron's death had reached the castle. There could be no doubt of that. They might walk openly through the village with no suspicion. Yet, at the same time, they might very probably be met by a man-at-arms or one of the minor officials of the castle, and ordered to some work within its gates. It was a difficult question to decide upon hurriedly, and yet it must be settled soon. Every moment wasted in council meant—so they took it—a chance less for freedom. As they discussed the issue in an agony of indecision they both found that terror was flowing over them in waves. Cerdic's throat contracted and was pulled back again into a dry tightness. He cleared his throat at every sentence, as who should be about the nervous effort of a public speech.
As for Hyla, his stomach became as though it were full of water, and hisbowels were full of an aching which was fearfully exciting and which at the same time, strangely enough, had an acute physical pleasure in it.
Their indecision was stopped by an event which left only one method of flight open to them.
As they tossed the chance back and forward to one another, debated upon it and weighed it, they heard the noise of a horseman passing byventre á terre. As he passed he sounded his horn. They wormed their way to the road as they heard him coming, and saw that it was the forester Kenulph. His face was ashen grey and set rigid with excitement, and then both simultaneously saw that he was bearing the news to the castle.
He passed them like rain blown by the wind, and turning the corner was lost to their sight.
"This makes our way clear algates," said Cerdic. "Sith Kenulph rides to castle hall, we must be bold. It will take while a man might tell hundreds for them to take the news. He will hold all the castle in thrall. They will be forslackt for half-an-hour. He is there by now, all clad with loam and full of his news. Come out into the village and godown to river bank. We go to clear the brook mouth. It's all mucky and begins to kill the fish. Remember, that is what we go to do."
"I obey your heasts, Sir Cerdic," Hyla answered him with a smile. "Come, come upon the way. I think it matters not much one way or the other, but we may win our sanctuary by hardiment. Algates, we are ywrocken."[3]
[3]Revenged.
[3]Revenged.
"Yes, that are we, and revenge is sweet. No more will he ill-use our girls, or burn us on the green. Surely he has a deep debt to pay."
While they had been speaking they had been gathering great armfuls of fallen twigs and branches, and soon they went slowly down the ride with these. The frowning gates of the castle came into their view, but Kenulph had already entered them, and the very guards had left the gates. They passed by to the right, and came on to the green. One or two women were busy washing linen at the doors of the houses, but save for them no one was about.
They passed the long walls of the castle, skirting the moat, by which a smooth path ran, till they came to the fields. There they were stoppedfor a few minutes. One Selred, a serf who tended swine, came out of the field where his charges dwelt. He was a half-witted creature, but little removed from the swine themselves. He carried a spear head, broken off a foot down the shaft, and this had been sharpened on a hone of hard wood for a weapon with which to kill the swine. He pointed to the row of dead animals which lay stark and unclean on one side of the field.
"Nearly fifty," said he, "have I killed this day for siege vittaille, to their very great dreriment. Holy Maid! never did you hear such squealing."
They shook him off after a time, but with difficulty. He was infinitely proud of his achievement. "I do love pig's flesh," he gibbered after them as they fled down the hill.
From the castle there now came the shrill notes of a tucket, and then the castle bell began to toll furiously, and a confused noise of shouting floated down the hill. When they hurried to the landing-stage they found that the boats had been duly scuttled. Here and there a gunwale projected out of the water, and on the stones lay the windac of a cross-bow with which holes had been made in the boats.
Hyla gave a long, low whistle, and waited for Gurth to glide out of thereeds bordering the great fen. There was no reply, and the two fugitives looked at each other in alarm. Then Cerdic whistled rather louder, but still the welcome sight of the boat did not come to them.
"Something has happened to the mome," Cerdic said, "I am sure that he would not forslowe us like this if a were safe."
"What shall we do?" asked Hyla.
"I do not know," said Cerdic, his courage oozing out of him every moment. Their position was certainly sufficiently perilous. There was, as yet, nothing to connect them with the crime, but half-an-hour might alter everything. It was, moreover, quite certain that, in a search, one party at least would be sent down to the river.
They stood there gazing at each other in great alarm.
"I have a great fear that we are lost," Hyla said.
"Indeed, I believe so," answered the other, with strained, terrified eyes.
Both of them felt that they were hard in the very grip of unkind circumstance. They shook like river-side willows when the wind blows.
Now as they stood together communing as to what they should do, and with a great sinking of heart, it chanced that their faces were turned towards the river, away from the castle. They looked most eagerly towards the reeds upon the other side.
The river ran sluggishly like oil, and there was no breaking up of its surface. Here and there some dancing water-flies made a tiny ripple, but that was all.
Suddenly a great fish leapt out of the middle water high into the air. A flash of silver, a glimpse of white belly, and with a loud report it was gone. Sullen circles widened out and broadened towards them. Then they saw at the very place where the bream had disappeared the still surface of the water was violently agitated. They watched in amazement. A great black object heaved slowly up into view, full six feet long. It was the body of Pierce, the man-at-arms, all swollen by water. The face was puffed into an enormous grotesque, and the open eyes seemed cognisant of them.
The faces of the two serfs became ashen white, and they looked at each other in terrible fear.
"Christ, what a visnomie!" said Cerdic.
"God shows us that we are to die. My lord will be ywrocken" said Hyla.
"See how it seems alive."
"Yes, that does it. I can see the hole in's neck. The fishes have been at it."
"Oh, courage, courage! Our Lady never means us to die, whistle for Gurth once more. Perchance he is nearer now, perchance he is nearer, and, not knowing we are here, cometh not."
"I cannot sound a note, my breath is hot and my lips are very dry. Whistle you for me."
Just then a noise of shouting behind their backs made them both wheel round swiftly. Half-way down the hill a group of men-at-arms were running towards them.
Cerdic gave a great wail of despair.
One of the soldiers dropped upon his knee, and a long arrow came past them singing like a great wasp. It ricochetted over the water into the reeds beyond. The soldiers were now a hundred and fifty yards away, shouting fiercely as they came on.
Hyla turned a last hopeless glance to the river. Just as he did so a long nose shot out of the reeds, and the punt they had waited for glided swiftly towards them.
"Hallo, hallo!" Cerdic yelled in an agony of excitement. "Quick, quick, else we die!"
There was a sudden jar as the prow of the punt collided with the masonry. The two serfs leapt into it. Gurth took the long pole and plunged it deep into the water. The muscles grew rigid on his bare back and stood out upon his arms as he bent for one mighty stroke. The soldiers were only twenty yards away. With an incredible slowness, so it seemed to the fugitives, the arms of the punter began to lengthen as the boat moved. In another second the propelling impulse gathered force and speed, and just as the first man arrived upon the landing-stage it glided rapidly over the water. There was a thud as it struck the floating body, and a horrid liquid bubbling, and then in another second they entered the passage and the reeds hid them from view. Gurth sank down, deadly sick, upon the floor of the punt, and the pole, held by one hand only, dragged among the rushes with a sound like a sickle in corn.
The three men crouched in the bottom of the boat, listening to the angryclamour on the opposite shore. An arrow or two passed over their heads, and one fell from a height into the very prow of the boat, but none of them were touched. There was not an ounce of courage among them. They had no strength to go on.
The castle bell away on the hill-top still rang loudly, and the shrill metallic notes of the tuckets called and answered to each other all round.
As they lay in the reeds not thirty yards from their pursuers, these noises of alarm filled them with fear. A voice rang out from the excited babble across the river and flung an echoing and malignant threat at them.
Although they could see nothing, the whole scene was painted for them with noise. They heard the voices sink into a quick murmur of conversation, and then hurried footsteps sped up the hill with messages for the castle.
Still they stayed trembling in the punt and made no effort to escape. All the weight of the terrible traditions that overhung their class was upon them. The great effort they had made, their incredible boldness,now left them with little more spirit, in spite of their good fortune, than whipped dogs. The moment was enough, for the moment they were safe from capture, and the voices of the soldiers—how terribly near!—did not stir them to action.
It was only when their peril became imminent that they were roused from their apathy. Sounds of activity floated over to them. A voice was giving directions, and then there was a shout of "Now," followed by a harsh, grating noise. The serfs realised that the soldiers had been able to drag one of the sunken punts on to the landing-stage. Almost immediately a noise of hammering was heard. They were repairing the boat.
At that shrill, ominous sound Cerdic rose from the bottom of the punt trembling with excitement. "Men," he said in a deep startled voice, "we have been here too long, and death is like to come our way. Oh, faint hearts that we have been, and the Saints with us so long, and the Holy Maid helping us! Come, silent now! take poles and let us get away. I know the fens better than those divells."
So confident was his voice and so burning with excitement, that in one moment it lashed their cowardice away. Hyla sprung towards the sternpole and Gurth lifted the other, then, with hardly a movement save a few tiny splashes, the boat glided slowly away into the heart of the fen. The voices of the soldiers became fainter and more faint till they could hear them no more.
The ringing blows of the hammer pursued them a little further, until in a few minutes those also died away, and they were alone in the fen.
All round them the great reeds rose and whispered, enormous bulrushes with furry heads like young water-rats nodded towards them as they raced for their life down those dark mysterious water-ways. Deeper and deeper into the heart of the great fen sped the boat. Gurth and Hyla worked with the precision of machines. There was a wonderfully stimulating effect in the rhythm of the action. The water became a deep shining black, showing incalculable depths below. In order to propel the boat at all they had to skirt the very fringe of the morass, for there only could the poles find bottom. At each heave and lift, under which the punt kicked forward like some living thing, the poles came up clotted and smeared with stinking black mud, undisturbed before for hundreds ofyears. Sometimes, at a deeper push, the mud was a greyish white and studded with tiny shells, tokens which the great grey sea had left behind to tell that once it had dominion there.
All wild nature fled before their racing approach. A hundred yards ahead, even in those tortuous ways, fat unclean birds of the fen rose heavily and clanged away over the marshes. As the throb of the poles came near them, the fish shouldered each other in flight. Every now and again they rushed over a still, wicked pool teeming with fish, and the rush of their passage made white-bellied fish leap out of the water in terror. Once they saw a great black vole, as large as a rabbit, swimming in the middle of the water. He heard them coming, and turned a wet smooth head to look; then with a twinkle of his eyes he dived and disappeared.
Gradually the speed of the boat slackened as the two men grew tired. The excitement of the day began to tell on them, and they felt in their arms how weary they were. Cerdic, who perhaps by virtue of his years or personal magnetism seemed to be indubitably their leader, saw it in their faces. He saw that not only were they physically worn out, butthat energy was going from their brains also.
"Stop you," said this shrewd person. "We are far from them now. It is time for rest and belly food." Nothing loth, they put down the punt poles, and pushed the nose of the boat into a little bay of reeds, out of the main water.
"Food?" said Hyla, "with all my heart, I did not know you had any. Where is it pight?"
Cerdic gave a little superior grin. He took up a skin wallet which lay by his side and produced the materials for a feast. Six great green eggs, stolen from a sitting duck which had belonged to the ill-fated Pierce, were the staple food. Boiled hard and eaten with black bread and some scraps of cold meat, they were a banquet to the fugitives. For drink they had nothing but marsh water, which they sucked up through a hollow reed. It was blackish and rather stagnant, but it refreshed them mightily.
"And how far have you got now, do you think?" said Gurth.
"Near half way," answered Cerdic, "but it has been easy going, and we shall not get such free water now. It is a back way to Icomb that wehave come by up till now. Whybeare there was a broad passage, a great stretch of water, but that was in King William's time, when boats brought corn from Edmundsbury. Now the monks have corn-land of their own, and corn comes from Norwich also. The passage is all grown with weed and reeds, and no man may go up it in any vessel."
"Where must we go, then?" Hyla asked him.
"Nor'wards for some miles, taking any way we can that is open. Then we shall come to the lake of Wilfrith, and beyond that is the Abbey."
"What is Wilfrith lake, and who was he?" said Hyla. "I have been upon its water, but I do not know why it is called that. Also, it has a bad name, and they say spirits are seen upon it."
Cerdic crossed himself at that.
"Wilfrith was once Prior of Icomb," he said, "a good priest, and much loved by God. Upon a day he was walking by the lake side, when he was seized by lawless men and robbed of his gold cross, and left bound to a tree in the forest, near the monastery. It was evening, and he could seethe robbers getting into their boats to cross the lake. So he prayed to God. 'Lord,' he cried, 'I have not loved Thee enough. Deliver me from my need, and with Thy help I will so correct and frame my life that henceforth I may serve Thee better.' As he prayed, and when the thieves were about half way over the lake, there came a great black hand up out of the water and seized the boat and dragged it into the depths. At the same time his bonds fell from him, and he became free."
"A black hand," said Hyla uneasily, "that would be a fearful thing to meet with."
"We shall not do so," said Cerdic, "for I believe that the Great Ones are helping us to-day. Who knows that they are not with us now? We have killed Lord Geoffroi for his cruelty and sins, for all he was a lord. Do you think Lord Christ would have let him be killed if he had not wished it? Not he. He's no fool. I tell you," he said, cracking the shell of his second egg, and with great sincerity in his voice, "I tell you that like as not Sir Gabriel or Lord Abdiel, or one of the angels is flying over the boat with his sword in's hand and his tucket on his shoulder."
They all looked up to see if the angel was there, but only a little wind rustled the tops of the rushes, though the sky above was beginning to be painted with evening.
They prattled there a little longer, willing that their rest should be complete.
Now, at eventide, all the fishes began to rise at the flies, and the waters became like stained-glass, and peace was over all that wild scene.
The voices of the serfs insensibly dropped, and made low murmurs, no louder than the sounds of the cockchafers and long-mailed water-flies that now boomed and danced over the fen.
The moon was slowly rising when they put out again on the last stage of their journey, punting with less haste, but making good going, nevertheless. They were in excellent spirits.
"Introibo ad altare Dei."
"Surely," said a monk of Bec, "God has made the evening beautiful and full of lights, so that we may think on Him at that time, and as we watch the very gates of heaven in the sky, pray to our Father that we may some day be there also."
It was a holy and wonderful evening-time, as the boat glided on through the vast shining solitudes. The heavenly influence stole into the souls of the three serfs, and purged them of all fear and sorrow. Imagine the enormous change in their lives. A curtain seemed to have fallen over all that they had known. The noise of the horrible castle, the sharp orders, the lash of the whip, the fœtid terrors of the stoke, had all vanished as if they had never been. Before them might lie a wonderful life, possible happiness, freedom. At any rate, for the moment they werefree, and the sky shone like the very pavements of heaven.
All three of them noticed the beautiful sunset with surprise, as if it were a thing that had never been before their eyes till now.
Day by day, as their work at Hilgay was drawing to a close, the sky had been as beautiful as this. The sky had been all gold and red, and copper green and great purple clouds had passed over it like a march of kings. But they had never seen it until now. Freedom had come to them and whispered in their ears. She had passed her hands over their eyes, and they began to know, with a sort of wonder, that the world was beautiful. Nor was this all of the gracious message. Everything was altered. Hyla, it will be remembered, had a face of little outward intelligence. He had, in fact, the face of a serf. But the latent possibilities of it had been made fine realities within the last few hours. What he had done, his own independent action, woke up the God in him, as it were. His voice was not so slipshod. Round his mouth were two fine lines of decision, his lips did not seem so full, his eyes were alert and conscious.
Gurth was a sunny-haired, nut-brown youth, straight as a willow wand, and of a careless, happy disposition. But he had been cowed by the stern and cruel subjection under which he had lived. One could see the change in him also. He flung his arms about as he punted, with the graceful movements of a free man who felt his limbs his own. Little smiles rippled round his lips, he looked like a young man thinking of a girl.
It is obviously most difficult for us to project ourselves with any certainty into the mood of these three men. The whole conditions of our lives are so absolutely different. But we can at any rate imagine for ourselves, with some kindness of spirit, how joyous these tremulous beginnings of freedom must have been! The modern talk of "freedom," the boasting of nations that enjoy it, does not mean very much to us. The thing is a part of our lives, we do not know how much it is. But who shall estimate the mysterious splendour that irradiated the hearts of those three poor outcasts?
The long supple poles went swishing into the water and the boat leapt forward. They rose trailing out of the water, and the drops fell from them in cascades of jewels, green, crimson, and pearl. Every now andagain the turnings of the passage brought them to a stretch of water which went due west. Then they glided up a sheet of pure vivid crimson, and at the end the fiery half-globe of the sun.
Just as the sun was dipping away they rested again for half-an-hour, and when they went on it was dark. At last, when the night was all velvet black and full of mysterious voices, they turned a corner, and suddenly the punt poles could find no bottom, though they went on with the impetus of the last stroke.
A greater silence suddenly enveloped them, they saw no reeds round them, the horizon seemed indefinite.
"This is Wilfrith Lake," said Cerdic, "and we are near home."
Now an unforeseen difficulty presented itself. The lake was far too deep to punt in, and they had no oars. For the next hour their progress would be slow. Cerdic came to the rescue. With his knife he cut a foot of wood from each punt pole, with infinite labour; then he fashioned the tough wood into four stout pegs. Gurth drilled two holes in the gunwales ofthe punt, with the dagger which had been taken from Pierce. Then they hammered the pegs into the holes and made rough rowlocks. There were no seats in the punt, and the thin poles did not catch the water very well, but by standing with their faces towards the bow they were able to make slow but steady progress.
It was a little unnerving. They could not be sure of their direction except in a very general way. It was chilly on this great lake, and very lonely. Hyla, and Gurth also, began to think of the great black hand. Who knew what lay beneath those sombre waters?
Never before in their lives had they spent such an exciting day. Hardy as they were, inured to all the chances and changes of a rough day, they began to be rather afraid, and their nerves throbbed uncomfortably. Indeed, it is little to be wondered at. They were men and not machines of steel. Once a great moth, which had strayed far out over the waters, flapped into Hyla's face with an unpleasant warmness and beating of wings. He gave a little involuntary cry of alarm, which was echoed with a quick gasp from the other two.
"What is that?" said Cerdic.
"Only a buterfleoge," Hyla answered him. "For the moment I was fearful,but it was nothing, and as light as a leaf on a linden tree."
The other two crossed themselves without answering, and strained their eyes out into the dark.
"Hist!" said Gurth suddenly. "Listen! Cannot you hear anything? Wailing voices like spirits in pain!" They shipped the poles and bent out over the boat listening intently.
Something strange was occurring some half a mile away, judging from the sound. A long musical wail came over the water at regular intervals, and it was answered by the sound of many voices.
As they watched and listened in terror, they saw a tiny speck of light on a level with the water, which appeared to be moving towards them. The voices grew louder, and then with a gasp of relief the fugitives heard the tones of men singing.
"They are the fathers from Icomb," said Hyla; "they are looking for us, and have come out in their boats."
In the still night a deep voice chanted a verse of the sixty-ninth psalm. The sonorous words of comfort rolled towards them:
"Deus in adjutiorum meum intende: Domine, ad adjuvandum me festina."
Then came the antiphon in a great volume of sound: "Confundantur et revereantur: qui quaerunt animam meam."
The single voice complained out into the night: "Avertantur retorsum, et erubescant; qui volunt mihi mala."
The many voices replied in thunderous appeal: "Avertantur statim erubescentur: qui dicunt mihi, euge, euge!"
Then the cantor sang with singular and penetrating sweetness: "Exsultent et laetantur in te omnes qui quaerunt te: et dicant semper, magnificetur Dominus, qui diligunt salutare tuum."
And the poor monks answered him of their estate: "Ego vero egenus et pauper sum. Deus adjuva me!"
The boat of the fathers was now quite close to the serfs. The lantern in the bows sent out long wavering streaks of light into the dark, and the many voices were full, and clear, and strong.
"Ahoy! ahoy!" shouted Cerdic in tremulous salutation.
The singing stopped suddenly, save for the cantor, who quavered on for aword or two of theGloria. "What are you?" came over the water.
"Hyla of Hilgay, with Cerdic and Gurth."
There was a full-voiced shout of welcome, and the great boat came alongside with a swirl of oars.
The lantern showed many dark figures, some of them wearing the tonsure, and rows of pale faces gazed at the three serfs with eager interest.
A tall man in the bows of the boat, with a thin, sharp face peered at them. "We expected you," he said simply, "and we prayed that you might come, Benedicite! What news bring you? What is done? Christ be with you! Have you struck the tyrant and avenged the blood of the saints whom he slew?"
"Father," said Hyla, "I did kill the divell, sure enough. With two arrows—'One for Frija,' I said, and 'this for Elgifu.' I have blood guilt upon me."
The man in the bows lifted his right hand and stretched out two fingers and a thumb. They saw he was a priest. Then he said theConfiteor:
"Misereatur tui omnipotens Deus, et dimissis peccatis tuis, perducat te ad vitam aeternam."
And every man in the boat answered "Amen."
Then the priest changed his tone, and became brisk and business-like.
"You have lost your oars, fools," he said. "Or, perhaps, you brought none. Should'st have remembered the lake. Take a stern rope and we'll tow ye home like knights. Now then, brethren, ye have heard the news, God in His mercy hath sent power to these poor men and aided their arm, so that they have slain the burner of His priests and ravisher of poor maids. God has answered our prayers. Sing we to Him then a song of thanksgiving. Sing up every man-jack of you, for God has wonderfully dealt with these poor men."
And then with a sudden crash of sound they began to sing the greatest of all hymns, theTe Deum.
"Te Deum Laudamus: te Dominum confitemur," pulsed and rang through the night in glad appeal. So fervent and joyous was the song, the monks sang it so merrily, and withal it was to such a good and jocund tune, that Hyla was overcome entirely. He knelt in the swiftly-moving punt sobbing like a little child. Once he raised his face to heaven, and behold,there was a bright white moon silvering all the sky!
Very soon they came to the opposite shore of the lake, indeed, before the final "In te Domine."
The shore sloped gradually down to the lake's edge in a smooth sweep of grass sward which met the water without any break. A few yards up the slope high trees fringed a road which led to the Abbey on the hill-top. Icomb was, in fact, a low island about half a mile square. Its highest point was hardly out of the fen mists. Round about in the county, the place was always spoken of as an Abbey, though it was, as a matter of fact, no more than a Priory, and of no great importance at that.
Icomb was a new offshoot from Saint Bernard's famous Abbey of Clairvaux. Very little was as yet known of the Cistercians, and the monks of Icomb were regarded as mysterious and not altogether desirable people by the great religious houses at Ely and Medhampstede.
It was part of the Cistercian rule that the founders of an abbey should choose some lonely, dismal place for their home. The idea was not entirely that of the eremite, for the Cistercians were improvers aswell as colonists.
Icomb was the most lonely place in all the Eastern counties that the monks could have chosen for their retreat from the perils and unrests of this world. The low, tree-crowned island hill, surrounded by vast waters, protected by savage swamps, hidden in the very heart of the fen, was ideal for their purpose.
In that time not even churches were safe from lawless bandits like Geoffroi de la Bourne or Roger Bigot. Although men like these were belted knights of noble family, and still kept up much of the ceremonial of their position, they were little more than robbers, and instances abound of their sacrilege.
But as yet none of them had troubled Icomb. The place was very inaccessible; it was excellently protected by Nature, the defences were very strong, and the garrison a fine one.
The lay-brothers orfratres conversiwere lusty and used to arms. Many of them had borne a pike in battle before entering into the peace of the Church. Then there were a goodly number of serfs and fenmen employed on the daily business of the Priory, who would all fight to the death if it were attacked.
No better sanctuary could be found for fugitives. Richard Espec, the prior of Icomb, was always ready to extend the hand of welcome to the oppressed. The time was so black and evil, such a horrible cloud of violence hung over England, that he felt it his bounden duty to make his house a refuge.
The Priory, like all Cistercian monasteries, was surrounded by a strong wall for defence. The buildings, though large and well built, were of a studied plainness. No glorious tower rose into the sky, but little ornament relieved the bareness of the walls. By the rules of that order only one tower, a centralone, was permitted, and that, so it was ordained, must be very low. All unnecessary pinnacles and turrets were absolutely prohibited. In the chapel the triforium was omitted, and the windows were of plain glass with no colour. The crosses on the altars were of simple wood, and the candlesticks of beaten iron. Lewin would have been absolutely disgusted with Icomb.