Now when the Young Lovell came to the stair-foot where there was a square space, there there was standing the Knight Bertram of Lyonesse. And so he stood before the Young Lovell that that lord could not pass him or get to the street. And hot rage was already in that lording's heart, for never had he talked so painfully as he had done to that Lady Margaret, and it seemed as if his breast must burst its armour. Up to him stepped that Cornish knight and spoke in gentle tones, bending his particoloured leg courteously, in the then fashion of London town."Gentle lording," he said, "you called me even now the friend of Henry Percy, Earl of Northumberland. Let me say presently that by my office I stand above that lord, though far below him in my person. So I am no friend of his, though not his foe."The Young Lovell held his brows down and gazed upon this man beneath them, breathing heavily in his chest."Go on," he said."Then I will tell you this," the Cornish knight went on. "I have heard you twice say ye were beneath a ban. Now that may well be and I think it is along of a White Lady."The Young Lovell loosened his dagger within its sheath."My silken knight," he said, "ye were never so near your death.""Gentle lording," that knight answered, "if I die another will take my place and no one will lament me. But it is my function and devoir to talk and so I take it." He paused for a moment, and then he went on: "God forbid that I should say word against Holy Church; I am not one that does it. Yet I will say this: If Holy Church will not raise the ban from you, yet I, Sir Bertram of Lyonesse, who have some skill at inquiries, will so put this matter to the King and dread lord that, without more words said, that judgment of the Warden's Court against you shall be revised, and if those false Knights shall withhold your Castle from you you shall have instant licence to take it again and do justice upon them as you will. And the fines due of you under that judgment shall be remitted to you. For I acknowledge that therein the Percy hath overstepped himself; for firstly he can give no judgment and foul no bill upon a suit of sorcery. And secondly, I am convinced that here was no sorcery. For, touching that White Lady....""Sir Knight," the Young Lovell said, "I bid you stand aside from that door and see a thing...." Then Sir Bertram stepped down into the roadway.The Young Lovell took out his dagger and raised it above his shoulder. It was of the length of his forearm. The door that stood against the wall, being open, was of thick oak, studded with large bosses of iron. The Young Lovell brought forward that dagger over his head and it sank into that door up to the hilt, and sank in and passed through the door, and so into the mortar between two stories and the door was nailed there."Sir," the Young Lovell said, "seek to withdraw that dagger.""Nay, that I cannot do," Sir Bertram said."Neither can I nor any man," the Young Lovell said. "And I am glad of it. For if you had spoken more upon that theme, that dagger should have gone through your throat. And this I tell you: there is no knight in all the North parts that could have done that, and I think none in all Christendom. How it may be in Heathenesse I do not know, for I hear that the Soldan has some very good knights. And that I did to show you that I am no braggart if you will hear me further.""Very willingly will I hear you further, ah, gentle lording," the Cornish knight answered, and again he bent his knee where he stood in the street."Then," the Young Lovell said, "it is because I can do such deeds as that you have seen that all the men of the North parts will willingly follow me upon any journey. So it would be well if the Percy let me be. For—an he will not I will come to Alnwick and to Warkworth with twice four thousand men for this Percy is little beloved. And so, with scaling hooks and hurdles and faggots and the rest I will smoke him out of Northumberland and hang him upon the first tree in this County Palatine. And that you may tell your King.""Ah, gentle lording," Sir Bertram said, "I tell you that judgment is already reversed.""Of that I know nothing," the Young Lovell said. "But so it is as I have told you. If your King will dwell at peace with us of the North parts he may for me, and I ask nothing better. And so much more I will say, that he has good servants; for no man ever went nearer his death than you when you spoke to me now. And I think you know it well, yet you gave no ground and spoke on. I do not like your kind, for I have seen some of them about the courts of princes, here and elsewhere and you are the caterpillars upon the silken tree of chivalry that shall yet destroy it. Yet that was as brave a feat as ever I saw, and your King is happy if he have more such as you."VIIIIn the meanwhile that monk Francis sat writing in the Bishop's room and the Bishop walked up and down behind his back. Once or twice the Bishop paused in his walking as if he wished to speak to the monk, but again he walked on and the monk Francis continued to write rapidly, pausing now and then and looking upwards as he sought to remember the words of the decree beginning: "Jejunandi," or the Decretal: "Nullam res est...."So at last the Bishop stood for a long time near the door, looking down at the nails of his fingers, and then suddenly:"Touching the matter of sorcery, my brother in God...." he said.The monk swung quickly round upon his stool:"There was no sorcery," he said determinedly. "Those three of Castle Lovell were perjured.""So I gathered," the Bishop said softly; "I considered that; it appeared so from what was said to me by the lawyer, Magister Stone."The monk looked with the greater respect at the Bishop."Father in God," he said, "will you tell me how you came upon that thought?"The Bishop smiled a little faint smile of pleased vanity. For he liked to be considered that he was a subtle reader of the hearts of men. In that he thought that he was the superior of this monk."When a man comes to me," he said, "with two tales, to each of which he will swear to find many witnesses, I am apt to think that one is false. So it was with this our friend called Stone.""May I hear more?" the monk asked."It was in this way," the Bishop said, "and now you will see why I was troubled in my conscience when you found me. This lawyer Stone took it for postulated that I thirsted for the lands of this Young Lovell. He would have it no other way. Though once or twice I said I loved justice better than land he would have it no other way, but took my protestings for the solemn fooleries of a priest. He is, I think, a very evil man, with the face of an ape, stiff gestures, and the voice of a door hinge.""I know the man very well," the monk Francis said. "He has twice proposed to me the spoliation of widows with false charters for the benefit of our monastery.""So," the Bishop said, "he would have it that I was greedy of gold and lands for my see. And indeed I am if I may have them with decency. So he saith to me under his breath that, in two ways I might have Castle Lovell. One tale was that this Young Lovell had capered with naked witches and others round a Baal fire. For that he had as witnesses himself and another gossip called Meg of the Foul Tyke and that bastard called the Decies.""It is because of that false witnessing that the Decies shall be broken on the wheel," the monk Francis said."Well, it was false witnessing," the Bishop said. "And so I divined. For, afterwards, this lawyer, brings along another story. And it was easy to see that this lawyer considered this the better story of the two and would be mightily relieved of doubt if I would adopt it. And it was this."The monk Francis looked now very eagerly upon the Bishop, who stood straight and still in his furred gown, lifting one hand stiffly:"There is in the village of Castle Lovell," he said, "a fair lovechild called Elizabeth. Some will have it that the father is the Young Lovell, some that it is of the Young Lovell's father. How that may be I do not know, but it is certain that that child is of the Lovell kin and Harrison is its name. Now, as May comes in, that child, as children will, goeth afield seeking herbs for a coney that the mother had a-fattening. So the child Elizabeth goeth further and further amongst these hills of sand where green stuff is rare. For, that she might not pluck herbs in the bondsmen's fields, that are laid down to hay, that child very well knew. So, looking up suddenly, that child perceived upon a high sand-hill, and sitting upon a brown horse that she well knew, a knight that very well she knew too, being the Young Lovell. For this lording was accustomed to bring the child Elizabeth pieces of sugar and figs and to give her fair words and money to the mother."So that child had no fear of the Young Lovell, but ran up to him crying out for sugar and figs. But he paid no heed to her, only sat there upon his horse. So the child looked further and perceived, upon a white horse, a lady in a scarlet gown, in a green hood, who smiled very kindly at her. So that child was afraid, as children are, and ran home. That was in the midst of May...."Now came fell poverty into the hut where dwelled that woman and her child. The last pence were gone, the fatted coneys eaten; they must go batten upon roots, and when that mother sought relief of the Ladies Douce and Isopel in the Castle they jeered and spat upon her. And ever the mother cried that if the Young Lovell would come they would find relief. Then at last that child took courage and said that she knew where the Young Lovell was and would lead her there."So she leads her mother through these hills of sand—and it was then close to July, the 29th of June as it might be. There upon the hills of sand that mother perceives the Young Lovell. He sat upon his brown horse, in his cloak of scarlet, with his parti-coloured hose of scarlet and green. He wore his cap of scarlet set about with large pearls....""These pearls," the monk Francis said, "I have as a gage in my aumbrey of Belford.""His long hair fell down upon his shoulders and he looked away. Then wearily that mother climbed the sand-hill crying out to the Young Lovell for gold. He never looked upon her but gazed always away; nevertheless he fingered his girdle and found his poke and cast down to her a French mark of gold.""I thank God he did that charity," the monk Francis said, "even if he did not know it; and I think he did not.""Why let us thank God," the Bishop said. And he asked: "Then this is a true tale?""I think it is," the monk Francis answered. "But, of your charity, tell me more.""Then," the Bishop said, "that poor woman fell upon that piece of gold in the sand and kissed it. And, as she looked up over it to kiss too the Young Lovell's hand, so she saw a fair, kind woman. Red hair she had and was clothed in white with a jewel of rubies in a white hat. Such a kind, fair lady that woman had never seen, and the Young Lovell gazed upon her and she into his eyes. Then tears blinded that woman and grief and pain at the heart. So she came back to her hut, she knew not how; and, indeed, she knew no more until there came the lawyer Stone holding a cordial to her lips."For, you must know that that child, taking that piece of gold from her mother's fingers and being all innocent, went away into the village to buy food for her mother. So the first man she came to, seeing her with it, took her to the house of the lawyer Stone to have the right of it. Then the lawyer having beaten her, she told him that the Young Lovell had that day given it to her mother."So the lawyer, avid of news of the Young Lovell, jumped like an ape to that poor hut. But it was two days before that woman could speak, though he nursed her and fed cordials to her never so. Then that lawyer got men-at-arms and scoured the country according to her directions. But upon the Young Lovell he never came.""By that day," the monk Francis said, "he was in my cell commending himself to God."The Bishop looked apprehensively upon the monk Francis."Then this you take for a true tale," he said. "Woe is me."They were both silent for a while, and then the monk said—for they were looking with faces of great weariness upon the tiles:"Father in God, tell me truly, I do pray, all that you know from this lawyer.""Brother," the Bishop said, "God help us, this lawyer was insistent that the tale of sorcery against this lording should be let to lapse or changed for another, such as that he consorted with old fairies and worse.""How then," the monk Francis said, "would he put aside his former perjuries?""He would say," the Bishop said, "that his eyes deceived him, magic being in the air, and that on that morning the Young Lovell rode furiously past him going as if he knew not whither.""Why so he did!" the monk Francis said, "but that shall not save the lawyer. His former oaths are written down.""Brother," the Bishop said, "it is that lawyer's plan to begin another suit in the courts ecclesiastical and there not to swear at all, but ignoring the bill before the Wardens, to bring many witnesses about this fairy lady.""What other witnesses has he?" the monk Francis asked. He spoke like a man without hope."You must know," the Bishop said, "that this lawyer during these months was enquiring of the Young Lovell in the past. So in Newcastle he found a master-tailor to whom the Young Lovell for long owed four pounds. And one day in February this tailor, needing money, went out from Newcastle towards Castle Lovell, riding upon an ass. And so, upon the way, he saw a lady that had a white horse and was little and dark. He was in tribulation for his money and pondered much upon the Young Lovell whether he was a lording that would pay him or one that would have him beaten at the gate."And, as he thought that, this lady looked upon him as if she would ask the way to where the Young Lovell dwelt. She was little and swart and had a green undercoat."And again in February there was a ship boy that went from Sunderland with a white falcon his ship had brought from Hamboro', for the Young Lovell. Now, upon this voyage, this ship boy had conceived a great love for that falcon even as boys will that upon ships are beaten by all and conceive loves for dumb beasts. So that ship boy went pondering with the white hawk and wondering and almost weeping to think that that lording might be a cruel master to the falcon. For he loved that falcon very well. So he was aware of a kind, fair lady with a white horse that looked upon him as much as to say that the Young Lovell would be a gentle and kind lord to that fowl. She was a great fair woman in a German hood of black velvet—such a one as that ship boy had seen and, as boys will, had conceived an ardent love for, in Hamboro'."The monk Francis said: "Ah," and then he brought out the words: "Father in God, I too have seen her—and twice. When I thought of the Young Lovell."Then the Bishop groaned lamentably; three times and very swiftly he walked from end to end of the cell, holding his hands above his head. Then he ran upon a shelf and with a furious haste pulled out a large book bound in white skin. He threw it open upon his bed and bade the monk come look at a picture.This picture was all in fair blues and reds and greens, going across the two pages of the book."I had this book in Rome," the Bishop said, "of a Greek called Josephus. Look upon this picture."The picture showed a mountain with trees upon it. And round the mountain went a colonnade of marble pillars. In between the central columns, where it was higher, sat a grey-bearded and frowning man. Naked he was to the waist and he was upon a throne of gold. At his left hand was an eagle; in his right the forked lightning of a thunderbolt. Beside him stood a proud woman in purple with a diadem of gold. In the next temple was a helmed woman that leaned upon a great spear; next her, a man all furious, that held up a great round shield and a pointed sword. Over against him reclined a great man with a lion's hide who leant upon a club; beyond him a man all white with the sun in his hair and beyond that a youth with wings upon his feet, upon his cap and upon a rod, twined with snakes that he held. All these were in the temple, and many more, such as a woman in a chariot drawn by oxen, and an old crowned man rising from the blue waves of the sea.Then the Bishop laid his trembling imperious fingers upon a place higher up the mountain, above the temple."Look upon this," he said. There, amongst olive trees, the monk perceived a pink, naked woman. In one hand she held a mirror into which, lasciviously, she smiled. Her other hand held out behind her a wealth of shining hair like gold. Above her, clouds upon the blue sky turned over and let down a rain of pink roseleaves."I do not know who these be," the monk Francis said. "I was never in Rome."Then the Bishop said harshly:"Was the woman you saw like this woman?""Not so," the monk answered, "she had dark hair divided down the middle and parted lips. She was like the cousin that I slew and so she smiled."The Bishop groaned. And so he wrung his hands and cried out:"As God is good to me, I saw that naked woman stand so and smile so, in my vestiary, this morning after I had said mass. Six times I made the sign of the cross and she went not away. I was pondering upon the case of the Young Lovell.... She went not away.... Pondering.... God help me, a sinful man.... The eremites of the Libyan desert.... But no, it was not so.... No temptation...."The waves of terror shook that Bishop with the thin features. His hands were so knitted and squeezed together in a paroxysm that it seemed the blood must spurt from his finger nails. And even as he stood, so he groaned with a hollow and continuous sound. Then the monk Francis cried out:"Those are the fairies! Those women are the fairies! God help you, Lord Bishop, you cannot condemn my friend because he has seen them, if you cannot keep them out of your own vestiary.... For all about this world they are.... They peer in upon us. Thro' the windows they peer in! Looking! Looking! You cannot condemn my friend.... Like beasts of pray in the night they peer into the narrow rooms.... Hungering! ... Hungering!" His voice was like heavy, fierce sobs and it sounded against the Bishop's moans."God forgive me," he cried out, "it was upon these that I thought when I comforted my friend with talks of angels and saints.... I lied and thought I was lying.... Angels! These are the little people! The little angels, as the country people say, that were once the angels of God. But they would not aid Him against Lucifer, doubting the issue of the combat.... They it is, have brought this fine weather we enjoy. A great host of them, like fair women, is descended upon this country. They cannot live without fine weather...."Both these churchmen were weakened with fasting and prayers when they might have slept. The monk Francis had great fears, their minds leapt from place to place. That long, bare room seemed surrounded with hosts of fair, evil fiends. He imagined devils with twisted snouts and long claws scraping and scratching at the leads of the painted glass and at the stones of the mortar.Then the Bishop cried out upon him with a fearful voice, calling him ignorant, a fool rustic monk, a low, religious filled with barbarous superstitions. He came close to the monk Francis and cried into his very face:"God help me, thou fool, bleating of fairies.... All those women were one woman! ... And again God help me! When I heard thee bleat ignorantly of the prowess of that young knight I did not believe thee.... But now I do believe he is the most precious defender we have in this place.... I will asperge his shining armour with holy oils.... I will bless his sword.... God help him.... How shall he fight against a goddess with a sword of steel.... Yet she is vulnerable! All writings say she is vulnerable...."He began a pitiful babble that the monk could not well understand, of Italy where he had lived many years as the King's Friend. So he spoke of cypress groves and the ruined corners of old temples, and fireflies and nights of love. He spoke of earth crumbling away in pits and great white statues with sightless eyes rising out of the graves on hill-sides, tall columns that no one could overset, and the gods of the hearth. Of all these things the monk Francis knew nothing. The Bishop spoke of crafty Italians with whom he had spoken, and of subtle Greeks of the fallen Eastern Empire; and of how this subtle creature, as the credible legends said, dwelt now, since the fall of Byzantium, upon a mountainside in Almain, and of an almond staff that flowered....Then that Bishop cast himself upon his bed, face downwards, and so he lay still.That monk sat there many hours upon the little stool, and whether the Bishop slept or thought he could not tell, for the Bishop never moved. Then that monk considered that that Bishop had many and strange knowledges, having passed so long a time in foreign parts. And there was fear in that monk's heart, for he thought he was with a sorcerer that aimed to make himself pope by sorceries. And afterwards he fell to considering of how this Bishop should deal with his friend the Young Lovell, for that Bishop was master and lord.And so, being the harder man of the two, he went over in his mind the necessity that that see had for a champion in those parts and how there could be none so good as the Young Lovell, even though that knight were, as he feared, a man accursed and certain of a pitiful end. Yet he might as well do what he could for the Church before that end came. And the monk thought of the evil King and the subtle Sir Bertram and the grim coward that the Percy was and the discontent of the common sort and how that might be used. And he thought of all these things for a long time, as if they were counters he moved upon a chess-board. And he cried to himself: "Ah, if I were Bishop I would control these things."And then he remembered that it was long since he had prayed for the soul of his cousin that he had slain. So he set himself upon his knees and sought to make up for lost time in prayer. Those windows faced towards the west, being high over the river that rushes below. And from where one knelt he could see the tower of St. Margaret's Church through the open casement of stained glass. And at last, towards its setting, the sun shone blood red through all those windows of colours, ruby, purple, vermeil, grass green and the blue of lapis lazuli. All those colours fell upon the tiles of the floor that were hewn with a lily pattern in yellow of the potter. Twenty colours fell upon the figure of the Bishop, lying all in black upon his bed and as many upon the form of the monk where he knelt and prayed. Scarlet irradiated his forehead, purple his chin and shoulder, and to the waist he was bluish.The voices of the pigeons on the roofs lamented the passing of the day with bubbling sounds, the great bell of the cathedral and many other bells called for evening prayer in the fields; it was late, for that was the season of hay-making. Then that praying monk perceived, through the small window, a great red globe hastening down behind the tower of St. Margaret's Church and, with a sudden deepening, twilight and shadows filled that long room because of the opaque and coloured windows.And ever as the monk prayed there, he was pervaded by the image of his cousin's face—Passerose of Widdrington she had been called, for she was held to exceed the rose in beauty. In that darkness where he knelt he was pervaded by the thought of her face with the hair divided in the middle, the smooth brow, the so kind eyes and the parted lips. He knew she must be in purgatory for that space, for he had killed her with an arrow in the woodlands, unassoiled, and he could not consider that his prayers yet had sufficed to save her so little as five hundred years of that dread place. Yet, tho' he knew her to be in purgatory, in those dark shadows he had a sense that she was near him so that he could hear the rustle of her weed moving around him. She had loved green that is very dark in shadowy places. A great longing seized upon him to stretch out his arms and so to touch her. Then he remembered that it was that face that had looked kindly in upon him in his cell, and he groaned and cried upon our Saviour and His Mother to save him from such carnal longings. He had much loved his kind cousin whilst he had been a rough knight of this world. Many had loved her, but he alone remembered, and he considered how she that had been most beautiful was now no more than a horrible and grinning skull, God so willing it with all beauty that is of this world and made of the red blood that courses through the veins.At the sound that he then gave forth he heard another sound which was that of the Bishop where he stirred upon his bed. And, in the deep shadows, he was aware that that Bishop sat up and looked upon him. And at last John Sherwood, Bishop Palatine spoke, his voice being harsh and first."Brother in God," he said, "I have determined that this Young Lovell shall have my absolution and blessing upon his arms and the sacrament of knighthood and all the things of this world that you desired for him. Touching the things that are not of this world I will not say much, but only such matters as shall suffice for your guidance. For of these matters I know somewhat and you nothing at all."The Bishop paused and the monk said humbly:"Father in God and my lord, I thank you.""I lately rebuked you," the Bishop said, "for meddling brutishly in things of which you knew nothing. For you cried out to me ignorant and rustic superstitions, such as it is not fitting for a religious to meditate upon. And so I rebuke you again and I command you that you ask of your confessor such a penance as he shall think fitting for one that has miserably blasphemed, and in a manner of doctrine.... Now this I tell you for your guidance.... This apparition that you have seen and I, appeareth with many faces and bodies, being the spirit that most snareth men to carnal desires. So doth she show herself to each man in the image that should snare him to sin, with a face, kind, virtuous and alluring after each man's tastes. That is the nature of such false gods. For this is a false god, such as I have discerned you never, in your black ignorance, to have heard of. But Holy Writ, which I have much studied and you very little, after the fashion of certain monks, enjoins upon us to believe in the existence of false gods. So there are ever strange and cold creatures, looking upon this world with steadfast eyes. For Lucretius says, that was a writer, pagan yet half inspired: 'The universe is very large and in it there is room for a multitude of gods.' So I rede you, believe of false gods.""Father in God, I will," the monk said, "I perceive it to be my duty. For now I remember me the Church enjoins upon us to be constant in fighting against such, therefore they must exist.""Then this too I command you as a duty," the Bishop said from the thick darkness, "that for the duration of his life you quit never this knight but be ever with him, seeking how you may win him from the perception of this evil being. For signing of the cross shall not do it, neither shall sprinklings with holy water such as avail with the spirits of men deceased or with Satan and such imps. For this is even a god and the only way you may prevail against it is by keeping the mind of your penitent upon the things of this world of God. If you shall perceive this form of a woman here or there you shall speak to him quickly of setting up an oratory, or charity to the poor, or riding, in the name of God, against the false Scots. This shall avail little, but somewhat it may. Do you mark me?""Father in God," the monk said, "you put me in much better heart than I was before. For if I may, I will tell you how once I have done."So the monk, from the darkness, told the Bishop how for the second time he had seen that lady. This was upon the road below Eshot Hill, going to Morpeth, near the farmhouse called Helm. Here, as he rode with the Young Lovell, a little before his men, he had seen that lady come out of a little wood and mount upon a white horse with a great company of damsels upon horses about her. And so all that many, brightly clad, rode down to a little hillock and watched that lording pass them, all smiling together. So that monk for the first time had been afraid that this was no St. Katharine and no angel of God.But the Young Lovell had gone drooping in the hot sun and thirsting within himself and had not seen that lady. And at first that monk had wished to pull out his breviary and bid the Young Lovell read a prayer in it. But in his haste he could not come upon it amongst his robes for he was riding upon a mule. So, in that same haste, he had made certain lines with his finger nail upon the saddle before him and commanded the Young Lovell to look upon them saying it was a plan of Castle Lovell that he scratched, and the White Tower. And to have money, he told the Young Lovell, that lord must go with a boat to below the White Tower where it stood in the sea. And so Richard Raket should lower him gold in baskets at the end of a rope.And the Young Lovell had looked down upon these markings attentively and said it was a good plan and never looked up at that lady and her company who sat there, all smiling, until they were passed."Well, she can bide her time," the Bishop said; then he said: "Brother in God, I have never seen this Young Lovell, but I perceive that he must be fair in his body.""He is the fairest man of his body that ever I saw," the monk answered, "And as I have heard said by servants that went to meet him and his father, to Venice, he was esteemed the fairest man that those parts, as all the world, ever saw. But how that may be I know not.""You may say he is the fairest knight of Christendom," the Bishop said. "That is very certain. I know it that have never seen this lord.... But so it is that I see you are not so great a fool as I had thought. And it is ever in such ways that you shall deal with this Young Lovell as you did then.""I will very well do that, if I may," the monk said. "And if I may do nothing more I will spit upon that foul demon who without doubt beneath a fair exterior beareth a beak or snout, claws, and filthy scales....""Nay do not do that," the Bishop said, "for if God who is the ancient of days permitteth these false gods to walk upon this godly earth that is His, shall we not think that they are in some sort His guests? Or so I think, for I do not know."So by that hour both these churchmen were very hungry and weary too. For that reason the fury was gone out of them, and it was ten at night. So the Bishop called for torches in the gallery and went into a little refectory that he had in that part of the Castle. Whilst these two ate heartily together, the Bishop sent messengers to the higher officers of the monastery to rouse them from their beds and to say that shortly after midnight, as soon as they might, the Prince Bishop begged them to rise from their sleep and sing aTe Deumin the cathedral, upon a very special occasion.In the black cathedral, near the steps that pass into the choir, the Young Lovell knelt. Beside him, since he was so great a lord, stood the esquire Cressingham supporting his banner and his shield and having in his arm the helmet of state. There were lay brothers up before the altar, moving into place a great statue of Our Lady that ran upon wheels. This they were bringing from near the North door to stand before the high altar. This statue was twelve foot high of brass gilt and, the better to see, these lay brothers had placed a candle upon Our Lady's crown. That was all the light there was in the great space that smelt of incense and was sooty black.As near as she might to the black line in the floor—beyond this no woman may go in the cathedral of Durham and even Queen Eleanor of Aquitaine had been beaten with rods by the monks when she passed it to join King Edward—beyond this line knelt the Lady Margaret of Glororem in the darkness, and behind a pillar was the lawyer Stone who would fain speak some words with the Young Lovell. For he wished to have sold the people of Castle Lovell to him if the Young Lovell would pay him a small price.The lawyer had waited all that night from seven or earlier.Then a little noise began to be heard in the great cathedral, and two little boys came in and lit candles by the North door and then came a page bearing a great sword. He leant it against a vast pillar and began to laugh with the little boys that had lit the candles. Then there came in the Bishop with his chaplain and the monk Francis.So the Bishop went and stood before the Young Lovell and said he had permission of them of the monastery to hear that lord confess himself there where he knelt. So the esquire Cressingham removed himself to a distance and drove away the little boys when they would have approached. And so the Bishop absolved the Young Lovell and bade him rise from his knees and go with him to where the Lady Margaret of Glororem knelt in darkness.Her too he bade rise from her knees, and so walked up and down between them, saying comfortable things and exhorting them, when the Pope should have given them licence, to marry one another and live faithful each to each and to be charitable and piteous to the poor and be good children of Holy Church. And so by twos and threes monks began to come in, and, going behind the high altar, they sang a mass with aTe Deum, for it was just past midnight.Then the Prior of that monastery placed between the lips of the Young Lovell the flesh of our Lord. The Prior wished to do this that he might do honour to that young lord, and that great boon of giving him the sacrament. And, afterwards, with the sword that page had brought, sitting in his stall the Bishop made a Knight of that lord.In that way the Young Lovell had his knighthood and his pardon.PART IIIIOn the fourteenth day of July in the year of our Lord, 1486, in the dark of the night between two o'clock and four, the Young Lovell took the Tower of Cullerford, setting fires all round it and beneath it and driving out all its inhabitants. On the seventeenth, a little before six in the morning, he stood on the height of the White Tower and looked down into Castle Lovell. This was a very still dawn, the sun being already risen, for it was near midsummer. The sea was a clear blue, and in a sky as clear that sun hung, round and pale gold. To the eastward, towards the seas called The Lowlands, were several monstrous grey shapes, going up into the heavens like tall columns in a church and twisting in a writhing manner as if they had been pallid serpents in an agony. They advanced towards one another as if they had been dancers. Separated again and so ran before the pale sun, that they appeared to be sentient beings. But, waterspouts such as these, far out to sea, were no very unfamiliar sight in those parts during hot weather and no man heeded them very much.The better to have a sight of this Castle of his—for the great courtyard was occupied with many hovels, so that even from on high it was difficult to see who there was moving—the Young Lovell mounted upon the parapet of the battlements and stood looking down. He was all in his light armour, for it would fall to him to be very active that day, so that he had steel only upon his chest, his arms, and the forepart of his thighs, shins, and feet. In such accoutrement he could spring very easily over a wall five foot in height, and his round helmet was a very light one of black iron surmounted by a small lion's head.This Castle that he now looked down upon was a very fair great Castle. The battlements which were a circle of nearly a quarter of a mile, had in them three square towers of three stories each and two round ones of two, the peaked roofs of all these towers being of slate. In the centre of the space enclosed by the battlements rose up the keep, a building of four stories, four round towers being at each corner that spread out at the top with places for pouring down lead, Greek fire, or large stone bullets upon any that should assault those towers. But, in between the keep and the battlements, there had gradually grown up a congeries of hovels like a dirty thatched town. The Young Lovell had never liked this in his father's day, but then he had been the son and had had no say in these matters.This state of things had arisen, although the tenure of the lands appertaining to the Lovells was as follows: that is to say, that in time of war each of the outer towers should be manned by able-bodied fellows from the one hundred and twenty-seven hamlets, villages, townships, and parishes that the Lovells owned. Thus, giving on the average five capable tenants to each of these, there should have been six hundred men to hold the outer walls, being forty men to each of the towers in the walls and two hundred and eighty for the battlements between. The inner keep should in such a case be held by the best men-at-arms and the knights and the squires that a Lord Lovell should have about him. And the tenure of the six hundred bondsmen from those hamlets and parishes was such that, by giving their services for indefinite periods during times of war for the defence of that Castle, they were excused all further services, or service in any other parts. For it was held, that the defence of that Castle was very necessary for the protection of the realm from the false Scots if they should take Berwick and so come down into England by that way.That had been the original tenure, but by little and little, when the Percies had had those lands of the Vescis by the treachery of Bishop Anthony Bek, they had begun to make changes in these tenures, desiring to have men to accompany them upon journeys whether against the Kings of England or Scotland, as suited their humour. So that in many townships and parishes the Percies bargained with their bondsmen for so many days' service in the year and rent-hens and other things. And this the bondsmen had agreed to readily enough. For, on account of the perpetual takings and re-takings of the town of Berwick by the Scots and the English, there was never any knowing when they might not be called in to defend that Castle for a year's space at a time, and so their farmings would go to rack and ruin, and their towers, barnekyns and very parish churches lie undefended at the mercy of the false Scots. And when the Lovells had bought these lands of the Percies they had changed the tenure still more, not so much because they desired to ride upon journeys, for by comparison with the Percies, they were stay-at-homes, but because, as a family, the Lovells were greedy of money and desired rather the payments of rents and the service of men in their own fields than much military doings.So they had had to hire men-at-arms by the year or for life. Thus, in that Castle, which had been meant to be defended by six hundred men upon varying services, sleeping on the floors of the towers, or here and there as they could, the Lovells would have a certain number of men-at-arms, but seldom more than two hundred and fifty that dwelt there in the Castle. And because these men-at-arms would have wives and children and kith and kin, or they would not stay there, they could not sleep to the number of many families in these towers, whether round or square, that went along the battlements. Some of them, it is true, took these towers for homes, making great disorder, keeping them very foul and filthy, shutting up the meurtrières, or slits for arrows, in order to keep out draughts, and much unfitting that Castle for defence when sieges came. For there, in those towers which should be places of defence, there would be warrens of children crying out and shrieking women. And other men-at-arms had built them hovels between the battlements and the keep, building with mud and roofing with rushes, so that all that space was like a disorderly town with little streets and sties for pigs and middens and filthy water that ran never away.Thus this place had become a source of manifest danger, but the Young Lovell's father would not clear out all these places, because to him they were a source of much profit, for he employed the women and children and the hangers on and rabble to work in his fields all the year round, and so he had much money by that means. But because he recognized that his Castle was thus in some danger—for any enemy that won on to the battlements might, by casting down a few torches, set all these roofs on fire, and so the inner keep would stand in the midst of a furnace and all those people within the battlements be burned and slain like rats in a well—the old Lord Lovell had determined to make a safe place for himself and for the money that he and his father had hoarded up, being a very vast sum. So he had hired to come to him out of France an esquire called La Rougerie, being the son of the man that the King Louis XI of France used to build all his fortresses. So this La Rougerie had considered very well the situation and extent of this Castle that upon three faces was thundered upon by the seas at high tide. Then that La Rougerie perceived at about ten yards from the North-east end of the Castle, a crag of rock well in the sea even at high tide, in shape like a dog's tooth and nothing useful except to gannets, and not even to them of much use, for they would not build their nests so near the Castle. So this La Rougerie had advised that Lord Lovell that he should build upon that rock a great slender but very high tower, with walls of stone six yards in thickness. For the first eighty feet of its height there should be no openings at all, not so much as slits for the firing of arrows. And in the windowless chambers there the Lord Lovell should keep his treasure walled up. And above these there should be rooms for the guards with arrow holes in the form of crosses, and above these fairer rooms with somewhat larger windows, where the Lord Lovell and his family might retire, if so be his Castle should be taken, and above these dwelling rooms should be attics and granaries where gunpowder and ammunition should be stored and arrows and the quarrels of cross-bows, and there the sakers should be kept so that they should not rust upon the battlements in time of peace. And there were pulleys for hauling up these cannons on to the battlements above. Seven of these sakers there were that could cast a bullet weighing thirty pounds of stone or fifty of iron, in full flight into the furthest part of that Castle upon which those battlements looked down as a church steeple looks into the graveyard. For this tower was intended solely for the protection of that lord and his people in case any enemy should take the Castle itself. They would retreat there by a little narrow drawbridge giving into a very little door at the foot of the tower, being thirty feet long, and over a piece of sea that by nature of the currents, and by reason that the Frenchman hollowed out the rocks, ran there almost tempestuously if there were any wind at all, which happened on most days in these parts. And once there, the Lord Lovell could thunder upon his Castle thus taken by enemies with cannon balls of stone and iron, with arrows and with iron bolts shot by arbalists. There could not any inch of that Castle go unsearched, for the battlements were one hundred feet above the keep itself.This then was the White Tower upon which the Young Lovell stood. Up to the seaward side of this tower he had come from a boat, just before sunrise, climbing up iron spikes that were inserted in the mortar for that purpose, and coming to a very small door in the guard room. This tower had been held for him by Richard Bek, Robert Bulman, and Bertram Bullock, who had been its captains, and dwelt there in his father's day, being much trusted by the old Lord Lovell. These esquires, with ten men, had held this tower very stoutly against them of the Castle that could in no wise come to them. To them had resorted ten or fifteen other stout fellows, that had slipped in over the drawbridge or came there by climbing up the spikes of the seaward wall. They victualled themselves how they could from the sea; but indeed they had food enough within the tower of the old lord's storing, except that at first they lacked of fresh meat, which in the summer time was a grievous thing.What the Young Lovell could not tell was how many men they of the Castle had, for some reported that they had as few as a hundred and eighty, and others as many as three hundred. How that might be it was very difficult to say, for there was a constant coming and going between Castle Lovell and Cullerford and Haltwhistle, as well as Wallhouses, where the evil knight, Henry Vesey, had his men. In short, if they had withdrawn all their men into Castle Lovell they might have three hundred well armed between them. And this the Young Lovell thought might be the case, for when he had taken the tower of Cullerford there had been very few men there, or none at all. So he judged that Sir Simonde Vesey would have been forced by agreement to withdraw all his men from Haltwhistle to the defence of that Castle if Sir Walter Limousin had agreed to leave Cullerford defenceless. And without doubt, too, the Vesey of Wallhouses would have his men there as well. Thus there might be as many as three hundred stout fellows there, and that might make the adventure a difficult one, for the Young Lovell had not gathered any more men himself, though what he had were mostly very proved fighting men, there being five knights that were his friends, twenty-seven esquires, one hundred and twenty of his own men, and those the best, and one hundred and seventy that were the picked men of his friends and of the Lady Margaret of Glororem.So he had gone up to the battlements to see how many men he could observe in that Castle. But because he could not very well see between the openings in the battlements, he seized his chance and sprang on to the very top of the stones. He had observed the watchman on the keep below him. This man walked regularly from side to side, keeping his watch, and at each turn he would be gone regularly for as long as you could count ninety-eight. So, in the absence of that watchman, he stood there and looked down.But until he stood there many things had gone before; there were so many people active about his affairs. There were the Bishop Palatine, Sir Bertram of Lyonesse, the old Princess of Croy, the Lady Margaret, the Earl of Northumberland, the bondsman Hugh Raket, and the people in the Castle themselves. And all these ran up and down that county of Northumberland upon the Young Lovell's affairs.Let us consider them in that order.First there was the Bishop Palatine, John Sherwood. He did not stir himself much. Nevertheless he sent a messenger to the people of the Castle—the Knights of Cullerford, Haltwhistle, and Wallhouses, as well as the Decies. He warned them that he had given his full absolution to the Young Lovell, and had accepted his homage as a tenant-in-chief of the See of Durham. He commanded them, therefore, on pain of absolution, to evacuate the Castle and lands of that lord. Those in the Castle replied with an assurance of their ready and prompt obedience to the Prince Bishop. They said that they would immediately set the Young Lovell in possession of all such lands and emoluments as he held as tenant-in-chief of the Palatine see. They would do it immediately upon his producing to them the title deeds and charters of such lands of his. For, as matters were, they did not know which of his lands and townships he held of the Prince Bishop and which of the King, their most dread lord. As for his holdings from the King, those they could not, nay, they dare not, surrender; for these had been adjudged to them by a writ fouled in the court of the Warden of the Eastern Marches. That might be a small matter in itself, but, in addition to the assigning of the lands to themselves, there went certain huge fines to the King, as was fit and proper. At that moment they were very ready to surrender their own holding of the Castle, but they could not themselves pay the fine to the King, for they had not so much money amongst them. Supposing, therefore, that the Young Lovell held that Castle of the King, they would be guilty of high treason if they surrendered it without paying those fines, and they could not pay themselves, neither could they have any security that the Young Lovell would do so.So they said they would very willingly surrender all the lands that that lord held of the Palatine see as the Young Lovell should produce to them his charters and show which was which.This was a very cunning answer, for by professing to be so ready to surrender at the command of the Bishop that prelate was precluded from proceeding to their instant excommunication which he would have done. That would have caused at least half of their men, if not a greater proportion, to fall away from them, for there was a sufficiency of piety left in the North parts. Moreover, as against that answer, the Bishop was advised that he could not, as he would willingly have done, send his own forces with the Young Lovell against the Castle. For it was true enough that, until the Young Lovell could appeal against that judgment of the Lord Percy's, those false knights held a certain part of his lands in the interests of the King, so that the Prince Bishop could not well war upon them.As for the Young Lovell's deeds and charters they were hidden up by the Knight of Haltwhistle in his tower at that place, so that, for the moment, he could by no means come at them and it was difficult for the Bishop's advisers to say how he might have them again. For they had not even any certain evidence that those muniments were at Haltwhistle. The Young Lovell had the news of Elizabeth Campstones, his old nurse, and she was a prisoner in the Castle. It was true that the lawyer Stone had by that time come round to the side of the Young Lovell, and he was assured that those charters and deeds had been removed to the tower at Haltwhistle. Still he had not seen this done, for they had gone at dead of night.Therefore the Bishop wrote another letter to them of the Castle, saying he was assured that they and no others held all those deeds and summoning them immediately to surrender. To this the Decies answered that he had not those deeds and papers: that they were very certainly not in that fortress as far as he commanded it: that he would very willingly surrender them, but he did not know where they were. He imagined that they might be in the White Tower over which he had no control.The lawyer Stone said that that might very well be the truth that was in the Decies' mind. For that ignorant fool was mostly heavy with wine. The evil Knight of Wallhouses had counselled the others that they should make the Decies commander in name of that Castle at the very first, so that if any penalties should fall on any heads for the seizure it should be on the Decies'. Moreover, they had removed the muniments without telling the Decies, so that they might the more easily be rid of him when it served their turn.Thus the Bishop's advisers said that here was a very difficult and lengthy matter to deal with. For if the Bishop should write to any one of those cunning people for those deeds he would immediately, or beforehand, pass them on to the other and say he could not surrender them since he had them not. If on the other hand he wrote to them all at once they would give the deeds to their wives or to some safe person and so make the same answer. So they must issue writs against all the county at the same moment.So far the Bishop had got in those fourteen days. In the meantime it was the turn of the Knight of Lyonesse.This Sir Bertram rode well attended to the Castle of Warkworth to talk with the Earl of Northumberland and to lay before him all the truth of that matter, and how the King did not wish that the North parts should be enraged against him. And at first the Earl treated this Cornish knight with little courtesy. But very soon that Sir Bertram showed to the Earl a paper that he had of the King to empower Sir Bertram to remove the Earl from the wardenship of the Eastern Marches if the Earl would not do all that Sir Bertram bade him. And Sir Bertram proved to the Earl how necessary it was, the King's purse being at that time in no good condition, to win the goodwill of the great lords of the North. He said that the Earl might take all that he could get from the poorer people, but the nobles he must keep his claws from.Then the Earl agreed with Sir Bertram upon that matter and they set their heads together to see what they might do. And here again it was no easy matter to act by course of law. For there was no doubt that the Earl had given his judgment against the Young Lovell, and there was no process that he knew of by which he could reverse a judgment that he had once given. The Young Lovell must make an appeal to the King in Council and that was a long process. The Earl was willing—though not over-willing—to call out his own ban and arrière ban and to take Castle Lovell by due course of siege. But, if he did that, he must kill utterly the Decies, the two other knights, Sir Henry Vesey of Wallhouses, and the two sisters of the Young Lovell. Moreover, to do as much, the Earl must draw off a great number of his men, and he did not trust some of his neighbours over much. Also, if any one of those persons escaped he or she would have cause to begin endless lawsuits against the Percy for slaying the others or even for taking the Castle from them. For they had his own writ for holding it. Moreover, the Young Lovell would by no means hear of the Percy's laying siege to his Castle. For all that Sir Bertram could say, he declared that if the Percy did this he would fall upon the Percy's forces with his own men. He said that, in the first place it would be black shame to him; in the second, the Percy must needs bang Castle Lovell about more than he himself would care to see, before ever he came in; and finally the Young Lovell shrewdly doubted whether the Percy would ever come out again once he was in.In the same way the Young Lovell would have no men of the Percy to help him in the attack on his Castle, for he would not trust the Earl of Northumberland. Thus the Knight of Lyonesse did very little of what he was most minded to do. For he wished not only to help the Young Lovell and so make him a friend to the King, but he desired to reconcile him with the Earl of Northumberland that there might be peace in the North parts. However, Sir Bertram achieved this much, that the Young Lovell would let the Lord of Alnwick be in peace if the Lord of Alnwick would let him be, and that was something gained, for at first the Young Lovell had declared that he would try it out with the Percy as soon as he had achieved his first enterprise. But the Percy sent him a very courteous apology, saying that he had delivered his judgment against the Young Lovell only because he must do so as a justice according to the law as the lawyers advised him and that now he was very sorry that he had done it.For now the raider Gib Elliott was boasting in all the market towns that he had access to, saying that he had held the Young Armstrong prisoner for three months and had ransomed him in Edinburgh. This Elizabeth Campstones, his foster-cousin, had got him to do, sending him word by a little boy and the promise of fifty French crowns. And indeed he was very glad to do it, since it might not only cause strong fellows to resort to him for the renown of it, but it might gain him the friendship of the Young Lovell, which would be a good thing for his widow when he came to be hanged at Carlisle.And everybody was very glad of that rumour—the Bishop Palatine because it was more to the credit of the Young Lovell whom he supported; the Earl of Northumberland and Sir Bertram of Lyonesse, because it afforded them an excuse for writing broad letters to the King and his Council, asking that the former judgment given by the Earl might be reversed because of the perjury by which it was obtained. The Young Lovell was glad of it too. He thought that it was better for his bondsmen that they should not believe that their lord had spent three months gazing on a fairy woman. For that otherwise they would believe and that it was some make of sorcery, for all that the Bishop had given him absolution. The Young Lovell considered that it is not always good for the lower orders, set in their places by God, to know truths apart from the truths of Holy Church. For the lower orders have weak brains wherein too much truth is like new wine in feeble bottles.But the Knight of Lyonesse, who had been bidden by King Henry, if he could, to establish himself in the North parts with lands and worship, and to do it, if possible, without calling upon the King to pay for it, went upon another enterprise before June was fourteen days old. For on all hands he heard that the Lady Rohtraut of Castle Lovell was the richest dowager for lands in all Northumberland, and by the disposition of his mind he was not desirous of marrying a young girl that might make a mock of him or worse. Moreover, he heard that the Lady Rohtraut was a fair enough woman of forty-three, with a good temper if she were well-used and not dishonoured, and that he thought he could do well enough. So he was doubly anxious to be of service to the Young Lovell, for, the more he heard of it, the more he was certain that this lady would make a good match for him, and that so he would please King Henry.For her lands were broad and mostly fertile for the North; her Castle at Cramlin would be a very strong Castle after the Young Lovell had finished the repairs to it at his own expense and it stood very handy at the entrance into Northumberland, so that with help in men from the King, he might very easily work against troubles in that part, whether they came from the North or the South.So, being in that mind, he went after ten days to pay his devoirs to the old Princess of Croy, for, after he had dwelt with her for one day, he had considered that she desired to charge him too much for his lodging and that he could do better for himself at an inn, where he could send out for his meat and have it cooked by his own man at the common fire. He had enquired of the prices of meat in that town and found that that was so.But now he wished that he had not done that, since he might have gained more of the old Princess's favour by paying her exorbitant prices. However, he found that that was not the case, for that Princess had so great a respect for money that she esteemed a man the more for being careful of his purse strings, even though it hurt her own pocket. So she greeted him with pleasure and said that she wished her son, Lord Dacre, had been another such.Sir Bertram had observed a great white mule—the largest he had ever seen—to stand before her door, and she told him that she was just about to set out upon a journey. For, said she, and her face bore every sign of fury, the Young Lovell, as Sir Bertram had heard, had treated her with lewd disrespect and she was minded to read him a lesson. "Madam and my Granddam and gentle Princess," he had said to her—and she mimicked his tones with so much anger that she spat on each side of her, "my mother has languished in prison during half a year and all that time you have done nothing for her."And now, the old woman said, she was going to do something for her daughter that the Young Lovell would never dare to do. For upon a pillion on that mule, behind her old steward, she was about to ride to Castle Lovell. No guards she would take and no bowman, and there was no other Christian in the City of Durham that dare do as much in those dangerous lands. And being come to Castle Lovell, she would release her daughter with her own hands and all alone, and what make of a boasting fool would that Young Lovell appear then!The Knight of Cornwall, when he heard those words, bent one knee on the ground and begged that that Princess would take him with her, for he would gladly do so much for that fair lady as well as witness the Princess doing these things. The Princess looked at him sideways in a queer glance and said that he might do if he would bring no men-at-arms to spoil the fame of her feat. He answered that he had the courage for that, but he said gravely that it might be for the comfort of the Lady Rohtraut, who had not the courage of her mother and would fear to travel alone, if his men-at-arms to the number of forty followed behind them, and so, meeting them at Belford or somewhere in that neighbourhood, guarded them on the homeward road. The Princess said that he might do that.So they rode out and in four days' time they came to Castle Lovell. The Princess was on the white mule behind her steward and Sir Bertram was on a little horse. For, although he would have presented a more splendid appearance to the Lady Rohtraut upon a charger, he did not wish to be at the charges for horsefeed for such a great animal, whereas the galloway could subsist off the grass and herbs that it found by the roadway, though all green things were by that time much withered by the drought. Such weather had never been known in the North parts.They met with no robbers; only, as they went near the sea to avoid the town of Morpeth so that the Young Lovell should not hear of this adventure, he being at Cramlin all this time—near High Clibburn and just north of Widdrington Castle there met with them Adam Swinburn, a broken gentleman with ten fellows and would have robbed them. But when he heard how they were going to rescue the Lady Rohtraut that all the world was talking of he burst into an immoderate fit of laughter. For he had never had such cause for amusement as to see this fat old woman holding on behind a lean old servingman, with a man all in silks and colours with a great brown beard upon a little horse beside her, his feet brushing the ground. And these three were going to storm a mighty Castle that no forces before ever had sufficed to take. So, when he had done laughing, he rode with them a great piece of the way, even as far as Lesbury and past Warkworth. For he said that if the Earl of Northumberland saw them he would certainly rob them and so deprive that countryside of a great jest. Sir Bertram found this Adam—who was red-headed like all the Swinburns—very pleasant company, and when they parted Sir Bertram swore that when it came to hanging that Adam he would pray the King, if he could not save his life, at least to let it be done with a silken rope.So, on the fourteenth day of June, at eleven in the morning—and that was seven hours after the Young Lovell took and burned the tower of Cullerford—the mule being very tired and the galloway none too fresh, that company of five, men and beasts, climbed wearily up the hill to Castle Lovell. The captain of the tower called Wanshot where the gate was, let them pass, for he could not see any danger from this old woman and the man in silks. At the door of the keep the Princess slid down from her mule, and pushing the guards there in the chest with her crutch, she went past them into the great hall and the guards let Sir Bertram follow her. In the hall, and crossing it, they found Sir Henry Vesey devising beside a pillar with his sister-in-law Douce that was a little woman. The Princess with a furious voice bade this Lady Douce fall upon her knees, for this was her granddam. That the Lady Douce did, for she could think of no reason to excuse her from it.Then the Princess Rohtraut began to call out for the keys of her daughter's room, and various men came running in as well as the Lady Isopel, that was the other grand-daughter. There was a great noise, and so Sir Bertram of Lyonesse drew Sir Henry Vesey behind a pillar, and in a low voice strongly enjoined on him to let the Lady Rohtraut go. For he said that he was the King's commissioner and that all that were in that Castle were in a very evil case, for very likely it would soon be taken and all the men there hanged. And he said that Sir Henry was in a different case from the other leaders and that he, Sir Bertram, promised to save his life and gain favour for him with the King if he would let the Lady Rohtraut go. Moreover, he whispered that, Sir Symonde his brother being dead, Sir Henry might have his lands and be free to love his sister-in-law as he listed. For the rumour went that this evil knight was over-fond of the Lady Douce, and it was in that way Elizabeth Campstones saved her life. For, when there was talk of hanging her for having talked to the Young Lovell, she told the Lady Douce that she would inform against her to her husband—which well she could do. So the Lady Douce begged her life of the others.And after Sir Bertram had talked for a time to Sir Henry Vesey, making him those fair promises, Sir Henry sent a boy for the keys of Wanshot Tower. When he had them he begged that Princess very courteously to follow him, saying that he would take her to her daughter and so set her free. Then began a great clamour between the Ladies Douce and Isopel. The Lady Isopel said that Sir Henry should not do this, the Lady Douce that he should, for she was in all things the slave of Sir Henry, and that the Lady Isopel told her very loudly. But the Knights of Cullerford and Haltwhistle had ridden out to see if they could have news of the Young Lovell, for they knew that he was gathering his forces to come against them.So Sir Henry did not at all heed the clamour of the Lady Isopel, but walked very grandly before the Princess Rohtraut to Wanshot Tower, and sparks of triumph came from that hobbling old woman's eyes. So when he was come to the door on the inner side of the wall Sir Henry gave into the hands of the Princess the two keys, one of that door and one of the room where the Lady Rohtraut was. Then the Princess went into that tower, and after a space down she came again, and with her were the Lady Rohtraut and Elizabeth Campstones. The Lady Rohtraut took nothing away with her but the clothes she had on her back. Only in her great sleeves she had her little lapdog called Butterfly.They went as fast as they could up the Belford road, for they were afraid of meeting with Cullerfurd or Haltwhistle. But they had only been gone a little way—the Lady Rohtraut and Elizabeth Campstones riding on Sir Bertram's galloway—when they came upon Sir Bertram's men that were riding over the lea to find him.That was the first sight Sir Bertram had of that lady whom afterwards, to the scandal of all the North parts, he married. For he was accounted a man of very mean birth and she a very noble lady. But he made her a very good husband, doing her proper honour and very ably conducting her lawsuits, so that she had never a word to say against him.
Now when the Young Lovell came to the stair-foot where there was a square space, there there was standing the Knight Bertram of Lyonesse. And so he stood before the Young Lovell that that lord could not pass him or get to the street. And hot rage was already in that lording's heart, for never had he talked so painfully as he had done to that Lady Margaret, and it seemed as if his breast must burst its armour. Up to him stepped that Cornish knight and spoke in gentle tones, bending his particoloured leg courteously, in the then fashion of London town.
"Gentle lording," he said, "you called me even now the friend of Henry Percy, Earl of Northumberland. Let me say presently that by my office I stand above that lord, though far below him in my person. So I am no friend of his, though not his foe."
The Young Lovell held his brows down and gazed upon this man beneath them, breathing heavily in his chest.
"Go on," he said.
"Then I will tell you this," the Cornish knight went on. "I have heard you twice say ye were beneath a ban. Now that may well be and I think it is along of a White Lady."
The Young Lovell loosened his dagger within its sheath.
"My silken knight," he said, "ye were never so near your death."
"Gentle lording," that knight answered, "if I die another will take my place and no one will lament me. But it is my function and devoir to talk and so I take it." He paused for a moment, and then he went on: "God forbid that I should say word against Holy Church; I am not one that does it. Yet I will say this: If Holy Church will not raise the ban from you, yet I, Sir Bertram of Lyonesse, who have some skill at inquiries, will so put this matter to the King and dread lord that, without more words said, that judgment of the Warden's Court against you shall be revised, and if those false Knights shall withhold your Castle from you you shall have instant licence to take it again and do justice upon them as you will. And the fines due of you under that judgment shall be remitted to you. For I acknowledge that therein the Percy hath overstepped himself; for firstly he can give no judgment and foul no bill upon a suit of sorcery. And secondly, I am convinced that here was no sorcery. For, touching that White Lady...."
"Sir Knight," the Young Lovell said, "I bid you stand aside from that door and see a thing...." Then Sir Bertram stepped down into the roadway.
The Young Lovell took out his dagger and raised it above his shoulder. It was of the length of his forearm. The door that stood against the wall, being open, was of thick oak, studded with large bosses of iron. The Young Lovell brought forward that dagger over his head and it sank into that door up to the hilt, and sank in and passed through the door, and so into the mortar between two stories and the door was nailed there.
"Sir," the Young Lovell said, "seek to withdraw that dagger."
"Nay, that I cannot do," Sir Bertram said.
"Neither can I nor any man," the Young Lovell said. "And I am glad of it. For if you had spoken more upon that theme, that dagger should have gone through your throat. And this I tell you: there is no knight in all the North parts that could have done that, and I think none in all Christendom. How it may be in Heathenesse I do not know, for I hear that the Soldan has some very good knights. And that I did to show you that I am no braggart if you will hear me further."
"Very willingly will I hear you further, ah, gentle lording," the Cornish knight answered, and again he bent his knee where he stood in the street.
"Then," the Young Lovell said, "it is because I can do such deeds as that you have seen that all the men of the North parts will willingly follow me upon any journey. So it would be well if the Percy let me be. For—an he will not I will come to Alnwick and to Warkworth with twice four thousand men for this Percy is little beloved. And so, with scaling hooks and hurdles and faggots and the rest I will smoke him out of Northumberland and hang him upon the first tree in this County Palatine. And that you may tell your King."
"Ah, gentle lording," Sir Bertram said, "I tell you that judgment is already reversed."
"Of that I know nothing," the Young Lovell said. "But so it is as I have told you. If your King will dwell at peace with us of the North parts he may for me, and I ask nothing better. And so much more I will say, that he has good servants; for no man ever went nearer his death than you when you spoke to me now. And I think you know it well, yet you gave no ground and spoke on. I do not like your kind, for I have seen some of them about the courts of princes, here and elsewhere and you are the caterpillars upon the silken tree of chivalry that shall yet destroy it. Yet that was as brave a feat as ever I saw, and your King is happy if he have more such as you."
VIII
In the meanwhile that monk Francis sat writing in the Bishop's room and the Bishop walked up and down behind his back. Once or twice the Bishop paused in his walking as if he wished to speak to the monk, but again he walked on and the monk Francis continued to write rapidly, pausing now and then and looking upwards as he sought to remember the words of the decree beginning: "Jejunandi," or the Decretal: "Nullam res est...."
So at last the Bishop stood for a long time near the door, looking down at the nails of his fingers, and then suddenly:
"Touching the matter of sorcery, my brother in God...." he said.
The monk swung quickly round upon his stool:
"There was no sorcery," he said determinedly. "Those three of Castle Lovell were perjured."
"So I gathered," the Bishop said softly; "I considered that; it appeared so from what was said to me by the lawyer, Magister Stone."
The monk looked with the greater respect at the Bishop.
"Father in God," he said, "will you tell me how you came upon that thought?"
The Bishop smiled a little faint smile of pleased vanity. For he liked to be considered that he was a subtle reader of the hearts of men. In that he thought that he was the superior of this monk.
"When a man comes to me," he said, "with two tales, to each of which he will swear to find many witnesses, I am apt to think that one is false. So it was with this our friend called Stone."
"May I hear more?" the monk asked.
"It was in this way," the Bishop said, "and now you will see why I was troubled in my conscience when you found me. This lawyer Stone took it for postulated that I thirsted for the lands of this Young Lovell. He would have it no other way. Though once or twice I said I loved justice better than land he would have it no other way, but took my protestings for the solemn fooleries of a priest. He is, I think, a very evil man, with the face of an ape, stiff gestures, and the voice of a door hinge."
"I know the man very well," the monk Francis said. "He has twice proposed to me the spoliation of widows with false charters for the benefit of our monastery."
"So," the Bishop said, "he would have it that I was greedy of gold and lands for my see. And indeed I am if I may have them with decency. So he saith to me under his breath that, in two ways I might have Castle Lovell. One tale was that this Young Lovell had capered with naked witches and others round a Baal fire. For that he had as witnesses himself and another gossip called Meg of the Foul Tyke and that bastard called the Decies."
"It is because of that false witnessing that the Decies shall be broken on the wheel," the monk Francis said.
"Well, it was false witnessing," the Bishop said. "And so I divined. For, afterwards, this lawyer, brings along another story. And it was easy to see that this lawyer considered this the better story of the two and would be mightily relieved of doubt if I would adopt it. And it was this."
The monk Francis looked now very eagerly upon the Bishop, who stood straight and still in his furred gown, lifting one hand stiffly:
"There is in the village of Castle Lovell," he said, "a fair lovechild called Elizabeth. Some will have it that the father is the Young Lovell, some that it is of the Young Lovell's father. How that may be I do not know, but it is certain that that child is of the Lovell kin and Harrison is its name. Now, as May comes in, that child, as children will, goeth afield seeking herbs for a coney that the mother had a-fattening. So the child Elizabeth goeth further and further amongst these hills of sand where green stuff is rare. For, that she might not pluck herbs in the bondsmen's fields, that are laid down to hay, that child very well knew. So, looking up suddenly, that child perceived upon a high sand-hill, and sitting upon a brown horse that she well knew, a knight that very well she knew too, being the Young Lovell. For this lording was accustomed to bring the child Elizabeth pieces of sugar and figs and to give her fair words and money to the mother.
"So that child had no fear of the Young Lovell, but ran up to him crying out for sugar and figs. But he paid no heed to her, only sat there upon his horse. So the child looked further and perceived, upon a white horse, a lady in a scarlet gown, in a green hood, who smiled very kindly at her. So that child was afraid, as children are, and ran home. That was in the midst of May....
"Now came fell poverty into the hut where dwelled that woman and her child. The last pence were gone, the fatted coneys eaten; they must go batten upon roots, and when that mother sought relief of the Ladies Douce and Isopel in the Castle they jeered and spat upon her. And ever the mother cried that if the Young Lovell would come they would find relief. Then at last that child took courage and said that she knew where the Young Lovell was and would lead her there.
"So she leads her mother through these hills of sand—and it was then close to July, the 29th of June as it might be. There upon the hills of sand that mother perceives the Young Lovell. He sat upon his brown horse, in his cloak of scarlet, with his parti-coloured hose of scarlet and green. He wore his cap of scarlet set about with large pearls...."
"These pearls," the monk Francis said, "I have as a gage in my aumbrey of Belford."
"His long hair fell down upon his shoulders and he looked away. Then wearily that mother climbed the sand-hill crying out to the Young Lovell for gold. He never looked upon her but gazed always away; nevertheless he fingered his girdle and found his poke and cast down to her a French mark of gold."
"I thank God he did that charity," the monk Francis said, "even if he did not know it; and I think he did not."
"Why let us thank God," the Bishop said. And he asked: "Then this is a true tale?"
"I think it is," the monk Francis answered. "But, of your charity, tell me more."
"Then," the Bishop said, "that poor woman fell upon that piece of gold in the sand and kissed it. And, as she looked up over it to kiss too the Young Lovell's hand, so she saw a fair, kind woman. Red hair she had and was clothed in white with a jewel of rubies in a white hat. Such a kind, fair lady that woman had never seen, and the Young Lovell gazed upon her and she into his eyes. Then tears blinded that woman and grief and pain at the heart. So she came back to her hut, she knew not how; and, indeed, she knew no more until there came the lawyer Stone holding a cordial to her lips.
"For, you must know that that child, taking that piece of gold from her mother's fingers and being all innocent, went away into the village to buy food for her mother. So the first man she came to, seeing her with it, took her to the house of the lawyer Stone to have the right of it. Then the lawyer having beaten her, she told him that the Young Lovell had that day given it to her mother.
"So the lawyer, avid of news of the Young Lovell, jumped like an ape to that poor hut. But it was two days before that woman could speak, though he nursed her and fed cordials to her never so. Then that lawyer got men-at-arms and scoured the country according to her directions. But upon the Young Lovell he never came."
"By that day," the monk Francis said, "he was in my cell commending himself to God."
The Bishop looked apprehensively upon the monk Francis.
"Then this you take for a true tale," he said. "Woe is me."
They were both silent for a while, and then the monk said—for they were looking with faces of great weariness upon the tiles:
"Father in God, tell me truly, I do pray, all that you know from this lawyer."
"Brother," the Bishop said, "God help us, this lawyer was insistent that the tale of sorcery against this lording should be let to lapse or changed for another, such as that he consorted with old fairies and worse."
"How then," the monk Francis said, "would he put aside his former perjuries?"
"He would say," the Bishop said, "that his eyes deceived him, magic being in the air, and that on that morning the Young Lovell rode furiously past him going as if he knew not whither."
"Why so he did!" the monk Francis said, "but that shall not save the lawyer. His former oaths are written down."
"Brother," the Bishop said, "it is that lawyer's plan to begin another suit in the courts ecclesiastical and there not to swear at all, but ignoring the bill before the Wardens, to bring many witnesses about this fairy lady."
"What other witnesses has he?" the monk Francis asked. He spoke like a man without hope.
"You must know," the Bishop said, "that this lawyer during these months was enquiring of the Young Lovell in the past. So in Newcastle he found a master-tailor to whom the Young Lovell for long owed four pounds. And one day in February this tailor, needing money, went out from Newcastle towards Castle Lovell, riding upon an ass. And so, upon the way, he saw a lady that had a white horse and was little and dark. He was in tribulation for his money and pondered much upon the Young Lovell whether he was a lording that would pay him or one that would have him beaten at the gate.
"And, as he thought that, this lady looked upon him as if she would ask the way to where the Young Lovell dwelt. She was little and swart and had a green undercoat.
"And again in February there was a ship boy that went from Sunderland with a white falcon his ship had brought from Hamboro', for the Young Lovell. Now, upon this voyage, this ship boy had conceived a great love for that falcon even as boys will that upon ships are beaten by all and conceive loves for dumb beasts. So that ship boy went pondering with the white hawk and wondering and almost weeping to think that that lording might be a cruel master to the falcon. For he loved that falcon very well. So he was aware of a kind, fair lady with a white horse that looked upon him as much as to say that the Young Lovell would be a gentle and kind lord to that fowl. She was a great fair woman in a German hood of black velvet—such a one as that ship boy had seen and, as boys will, had conceived an ardent love for, in Hamboro'."
The monk Francis said: "Ah," and then he brought out the words: "Father in God, I too have seen her—and twice. When I thought of the Young Lovell."
Then the Bishop groaned lamentably; three times and very swiftly he walked from end to end of the cell, holding his hands above his head. Then he ran upon a shelf and with a furious haste pulled out a large book bound in white skin. He threw it open upon his bed and bade the monk come look at a picture.
This picture was all in fair blues and reds and greens, going across the two pages of the book.
"I had this book in Rome," the Bishop said, "of a Greek called Josephus. Look upon this picture."
The picture showed a mountain with trees upon it. And round the mountain went a colonnade of marble pillars. In between the central columns, where it was higher, sat a grey-bearded and frowning man. Naked he was to the waist and he was upon a throne of gold. At his left hand was an eagle; in his right the forked lightning of a thunderbolt. Beside him stood a proud woman in purple with a diadem of gold. In the next temple was a helmed woman that leaned upon a great spear; next her, a man all furious, that held up a great round shield and a pointed sword. Over against him reclined a great man with a lion's hide who leant upon a club; beyond him a man all white with the sun in his hair and beyond that a youth with wings upon his feet, upon his cap and upon a rod, twined with snakes that he held. All these were in the temple, and many more, such as a woman in a chariot drawn by oxen, and an old crowned man rising from the blue waves of the sea.
Then the Bishop laid his trembling imperious fingers upon a place higher up the mountain, above the temple.
"Look upon this," he said. There, amongst olive trees, the monk perceived a pink, naked woman. In one hand she held a mirror into which, lasciviously, she smiled. Her other hand held out behind her a wealth of shining hair like gold. Above her, clouds upon the blue sky turned over and let down a rain of pink roseleaves.
"I do not know who these be," the monk Francis said. "I was never in Rome."
Then the Bishop said harshly:
"Was the woman you saw like this woman?"
"Not so," the monk answered, "she had dark hair divided down the middle and parted lips. She was like the cousin that I slew and so she smiled."
The Bishop groaned. And so he wrung his hands and cried out:
"As God is good to me, I saw that naked woman stand so and smile so, in my vestiary, this morning after I had said mass. Six times I made the sign of the cross and she went not away. I was pondering upon the case of the Young Lovell.... She went not away.... Pondering.... God help me, a sinful man.... The eremites of the Libyan desert.... But no, it was not so.... No temptation...."
The waves of terror shook that Bishop with the thin features. His hands were so knitted and squeezed together in a paroxysm that it seemed the blood must spurt from his finger nails. And even as he stood, so he groaned with a hollow and continuous sound. Then the monk Francis cried out:
"Those are the fairies! Those women are the fairies! God help you, Lord Bishop, you cannot condemn my friend because he has seen them, if you cannot keep them out of your own vestiary.... For all about this world they are.... They peer in upon us. Thro' the windows they peer in! Looking! Looking! You cannot condemn my friend.... Like beasts of pray in the night they peer into the narrow rooms.... Hungering! ... Hungering!" His voice was like heavy, fierce sobs and it sounded against the Bishop's moans.
"God forgive me," he cried out, "it was upon these that I thought when I comforted my friend with talks of angels and saints.... I lied and thought I was lying.... Angels! These are the little people! The little angels, as the country people say, that were once the angels of God. But they would not aid Him against Lucifer, doubting the issue of the combat.... They it is, have brought this fine weather we enjoy. A great host of them, like fair women, is descended upon this country. They cannot live without fine weather...."
Both these churchmen were weakened with fasting and prayers when they might have slept. The monk Francis had great fears, their minds leapt from place to place. That long, bare room seemed surrounded with hosts of fair, evil fiends. He imagined devils with twisted snouts and long claws scraping and scratching at the leads of the painted glass and at the stones of the mortar.
Then the Bishop cried out upon him with a fearful voice, calling him ignorant, a fool rustic monk, a low, religious filled with barbarous superstitions. He came close to the monk Francis and cried into his very face:
"God help me, thou fool, bleating of fairies.... All those women were one woman! ... And again God help me! When I heard thee bleat ignorantly of the prowess of that young knight I did not believe thee.... But now I do believe he is the most precious defender we have in this place.... I will asperge his shining armour with holy oils.... I will bless his sword.... God help him.... How shall he fight against a goddess with a sword of steel.... Yet she is vulnerable! All writings say she is vulnerable...."
He began a pitiful babble that the monk could not well understand, of Italy where he had lived many years as the King's Friend. So he spoke of cypress groves and the ruined corners of old temples, and fireflies and nights of love. He spoke of earth crumbling away in pits and great white statues with sightless eyes rising out of the graves on hill-sides, tall columns that no one could overset, and the gods of the hearth. Of all these things the monk Francis knew nothing. The Bishop spoke of crafty Italians with whom he had spoken, and of subtle Greeks of the fallen Eastern Empire; and of how this subtle creature, as the credible legends said, dwelt now, since the fall of Byzantium, upon a mountainside in Almain, and of an almond staff that flowered....
Then that Bishop cast himself upon his bed, face downwards, and so he lay still.
That monk sat there many hours upon the little stool, and whether the Bishop slept or thought he could not tell, for the Bishop never moved. Then that monk considered that that Bishop had many and strange knowledges, having passed so long a time in foreign parts. And there was fear in that monk's heart, for he thought he was with a sorcerer that aimed to make himself pope by sorceries. And afterwards he fell to considering of how this Bishop should deal with his friend the Young Lovell, for that Bishop was master and lord.
And so, being the harder man of the two, he went over in his mind the necessity that that see had for a champion in those parts and how there could be none so good as the Young Lovell, even though that knight were, as he feared, a man accursed and certain of a pitiful end. Yet he might as well do what he could for the Church before that end came. And the monk thought of the evil King and the subtle Sir Bertram and the grim coward that the Percy was and the discontent of the common sort and how that might be used. And he thought of all these things for a long time, as if they were counters he moved upon a chess-board. And he cried to himself: "Ah, if I were Bishop I would control these things."
And then he remembered that it was long since he had prayed for the soul of his cousin that he had slain. So he set himself upon his knees and sought to make up for lost time in prayer. Those windows faced towards the west, being high over the river that rushes below. And from where one knelt he could see the tower of St. Margaret's Church through the open casement of stained glass. And at last, towards its setting, the sun shone blood red through all those windows of colours, ruby, purple, vermeil, grass green and the blue of lapis lazuli. All those colours fell upon the tiles of the floor that were hewn with a lily pattern in yellow of the potter. Twenty colours fell upon the figure of the Bishop, lying all in black upon his bed and as many upon the form of the monk where he knelt and prayed. Scarlet irradiated his forehead, purple his chin and shoulder, and to the waist he was bluish.
The voices of the pigeons on the roofs lamented the passing of the day with bubbling sounds, the great bell of the cathedral and many other bells called for evening prayer in the fields; it was late, for that was the season of hay-making. Then that praying monk perceived, through the small window, a great red globe hastening down behind the tower of St. Margaret's Church and, with a sudden deepening, twilight and shadows filled that long room because of the opaque and coloured windows.
And ever as the monk prayed there, he was pervaded by the image of his cousin's face—Passerose of Widdrington she had been called, for she was held to exceed the rose in beauty. In that darkness where he knelt he was pervaded by the thought of her face with the hair divided in the middle, the smooth brow, the so kind eyes and the parted lips. He knew she must be in purgatory for that space, for he had killed her with an arrow in the woodlands, unassoiled, and he could not consider that his prayers yet had sufficed to save her so little as five hundred years of that dread place. Yet, tho' he knew her to be in purgatory, in those dark shadows he had a sense that she was near him so that he could hear the rustle of her weed moving around him. She had loved green that is very dark in shadowy places. A great longing seized upon him to stretch out his arms and so to touch her. Then he remembered that it was that face that had looked kindly in upon him in his cell, and he groaned and cried upon our Saviour and His Mother to save him from such carnal longings. He had much loved his kind cousin whilst he had been a rough knight of this world. Many had loved her, but he alone remembered, and he considered how she that had been most beautiful was now no more than a horrible and grinning skull, God so willing it with all beauty that is of this world and made of the red blood that courses through the veins.
At the sound that he then gave forth he heard another sound which was that of the Bishop where he stirred upon his bed. And, in the deep shadows, he was aware that that Bishop sat up and looked upon him. And at last John Sherwood, Bishop Palatine spoke, his voice being harsh and first.
"Brother in God," he said, "I have determined that this Young Lovell shall have my absolution and blessing upon his arms and the sacrament of knighthood and all the things of this world that you desired for him. Touching the things that are not of this world I will not say much, but only such matters as shall suffice for your guidance. For of these matters I know somewhat and you nothing at all."
The Bishop paused and the monk said humbly:
"Father in God and my lord, I thank you."
"I lately rebuked you," the Bishop said, "for meddling brutishly in things of which you knew nothing. For you cried out to me ignorant and rustic superstitions, such as it is not fitting for a religious to meditate upon. And so I rebuke you again and I command you that you ask of your confessor such a penance as he shall think fitting for one that has miserably blasphemed, and in a manner of doctrine.... Now this I tell you for your guidance.... This apparition that you have seen and I, appeareth with many faces and bodies, being the spirit that most snareth men to carnal desires. So doth she show herself to each man in the image that should snare him to sin, with a face, kind, virtuous and alluring after each man's tastes. That is the nature of such false gods. For this is a false god, such as I have discerned you never, in your black ignorance, to have heard of. But Holy Writ, which I have much studied and you very little, after the fashion of certain monks, enjoins upon us to believe in the existence of false gods. So there are ever strange and cold creatures, looking upon this world with steadfast eyes. For Lucretius says, that was a writer, pagan yet half inspired: 'The universe is very large and in it there is room for a multitude of gods.' So I rede you, believe of false gods."
"Father in God, I will," the monk said, "I perceive it to be my duty. For now I remember me the Church enjoins upon us to be constant in fighting against such, therefore they must exist."
"Then this too I command you as a duty," the Bishop said from the thick darkness, "that for the duration of his life you quit never this knight but be ever with him, seeking how you may win him from the perception of this evil being. For signing of the cross shall not do it, neither shall sprinklings with holy water such as avail with the spirits of men deceased or with Satan and such imps. For this is even a god and the only way you may prevail against it is by keeping the mind of your penitent upon the things of this world of God. If you shall perceive this form of a woman here or there you shall speak to him quickly of setting up an oratory, or charity to the poor, or riding, in the name of God, against the false Scots. This shall avail little, but somewhat it may. Do you mark me?"
"Father in God," the monk said, "you put me in much better heart than I was before. For if I may, I will tell you how once I have done."
So the monk, from the darkness, told the Bishop how for the second time he had seen that lady. This was upon the road below Eshot Hill, going to Morpeth, near the farmhouse called Helm. Here, as he rode with the Young Lovell, a little before his men, he had seen that lady come out of a little wood and mount upon a white horse with a great company of damsels upon horses about her. And so all that many, brightly clad, rode down to a little hillock and watched that lording pass them, all smiling together. So that monk for the first time had been afraid that this was no St. Katharine and no angel of God.
But the Young Lovell had gone drooping in the hot sun and thirsting within himself and had not seen that lady. And at first that monk had wished to pull out his breviary and bid the Young Lovell read a prayer in it. But in his haste he could not come upon it amongst his robes for he was riding upon a mule. So, in that same haste, he had made certain lines with his finger nail upon the saddle before him and commanded the Young Lovell to look upon them saying it was a plan of Castle Lovell that he scratched, and the White Tower. And to have money, he told the Young Lovell, that lord must go with a boat to below the White Tower where it stood in the sea. And so Richard Raket should lower him gold in baskets at the end of a rope.
And the Young Lovell had looked down upon these markings attentively and said it was a good plan and never looked up at that lady and her company who sat there, all smiling, until they were passed.
"Well, she can bide her time," the Bishop said; then he said: "Brother in God, I have never seen this Young Lovell, but I perceive that he must be fair in his body."
"He is the fairest man of his body that ever I saw," the monk answered, "And as I have heard said by servants that went to meet him and his father, to Venice, he was esteemed the fairest man that those parts, as all the world, ever saw. But how that may be I know not."
"You may say he is the fairest knight of Christendom," the Bishop said. "That is very certain. I know it that have never seen this lord.... But so it is that I see you are not so great a fool as I had thought. And it is ever in such ways that you shall deal with this Young Lovell as you did then."
"I will very well do that, if I may," the monk said. "And if I may do nothing more I will spit upon that foul demon who without doubt beneath a fair exterior beareth a beak or snout, claws, and filthy scales...."
"Nay do not do that," the Bishop said, "for if God who is the ancient of days permitteth these false gods to walk upon this godly earth that is His, shall we not think that they are in some sort His guests? Or so I think, for I do not know."
So by that hour both these churchmen were very hungry and weary too. For that reason the fury was gone out of them, and it was ten at night. So the Bishop called for torches in the gallery and went into a little refectory that he had in that part of the Castle. Whilst these two ate heartily together, the Bishop sent messengers to the higher officers of the monastery to rouse them from their beds and to say that shortly after midnight, as soon as they might, the Prince Bishop begged them to rise from their sleep and sing aTe Deumin the cathedral, upon a very special occasion.
In the black cathedral, near the steps that pass into the choir, the Young Lovell knelt. Beside him, since he was so great a lord, stood the esquire Cressingham supporting his banner and his shield and having in his arm the helmet of state. There were lay brothers up before the altar, moving into place a great statue of Our Lady that ran upon wheels. This they were bringing from near the North door to stand before the high altar. This statue was twelve foot high of brass gilt and, the better to see, these lay brothers had placed a candle upon Our Lady's crown. That was all the light there was in the great space that smelt of incense and was sooty black.
As near as she might to the black line in the floor—beyond this no woman may go in the cathedral of Durham and even Queen Eleanor of Aquitaine had been beaten with rods by the monks when she passed it to join King Edward—beyond this line knelt the Lady Margaret of Glororem in the darkness, and behind a pillar was the lawyer Stone who would fain speak some words with the Young Lovell. For he wished to have sold the people of Castle Lovell to him if the Young Lovell would pay him a small price.
The lawyer had waited all that night from seven or earlier.
Then a little noise began to be heard in the great cathedral, and two little boys came in and lit candles by the North door and then came a page bearing a great sword. He leant it against a vast pillar and began to laugh with the little boys that had lit the candles. Then there came in the Bishop with his chaplain and the monk Francis.
So the Bishop went and stood before the Young Lovell and said he had permission of them of the monastery to hear that lord confess himself there where he knelt. So the esquire Cressingham removed himself to a distance and drove away the little boys when they would have approached. And so the Bishop absolved the Young Lovell and bade him rise from his knees and go with him to where the Lady Margaret of Glororem knelt in darkness.
Her too he bade rise from her knees, and so walked up and down between them, saying comfortable things and exhorting them, when the Pope should have given them licence, to marry one another and live faithful each to each and to be charitable and piteous to the poor and be good children of Holy Church. And so by twos and threes monks began to come in, and, going behind the high altar, they sang a mass with aTe Deum, for it was just past midnight.
Then the Prior of that monastery placed between the lips of the Young Lovell the flesh of our Lord. The Prior wished to do this that he might do honour to that young lord, and that great boon of giving him the sacrament. And, afterwards, with the sword that page had brought, sitting in his stall the Bishop made a Knight of that lord.
In that way the Young Lovell had his knighthood and his pardon.
PART III
I
On the fourteenth day of July in the year of our Lord, 1486, in the dark of the night between two o'clock and four, the Young Lovell took the Tower of Cullerford, setting fires all round it and beneath it and driving out all its inhabitants. On the seventeenth, a little before six in the morning, he stood on the height of the White Tower and looked down into Castle Lovell. This was a very still dawn, the sun being already risen, for it was near midsummer. The sea was a clear blue, and in a sky as clear that sun hung, round and pale gold. To the eastward, towards the seas called The Lowlands, were several monstrous grey shapes, going up into the heavens like tall columns in a church and twisting in a writhing manner as if they had been pallid serpents in an agony. They advanced towards one another as if they had been dancers. Separated again and so ran before the pale sun, that they appeared to be sentient beings. But, waterspouts such as these, far out to sea, were no very unfamiliar sight in those parts during hot weather and no man heeded them very much.
The better to have a sight of this Castle of his—for the great courtyard was occupied with many hovels, so that even from on high it was difficult to see who there was moving—the Young Lovell mounted upon the parapet of the battlements and stood looking down. He was all in his light armour, for it would fall to him to be very active that day, so that he had steel only upon his chest, his arms, and the forepart of his thighs, shins, and feet. In such accoutrement he could spring very easily over a wall five foot in height, and his round helmet was a very light one of black iron surmounted by a small lion's head.
This Castle that he now looked down upon was a very fair great Castle. The battlements which were a circle of nearly a quarter of a mile, had in them three square towers of three stories each and two round ones of two, the peaked roofs of all these towers being of slate. In the centre of the space enclosed by the battlements rose up the keep, a building of four stories, four round towers being at each corner that spread out at the top with places for pouring down lead, Greek fire, or large stone bullets upon any that should assault those towers. But, in between the keep and the battlements, there had gradually grown up a congeries of hovels like a dirty thatched town. The Young Lovell had never liked this in his father's day, but then he had been the son and had had no say in these matters.
This state of things had arisen, although the tenure of the lands appertaining to the Lovells was as follows: that is to say, that in time of war each of the outer towers should be manned by able-bodied fellows from the one hundred and twenty-seven hamlets, villages, townships, and parishes that the Lovells owned. Thus, giving on the average five capable tenants to each of these, there should have been six hundred men to hold the outer walls, being forty men to each of the towers in the walls and two hundred and eighty for the battlements between. The inner keep should in such a case be held by the best men-at-arms and the knights and the squires that a Lord Lovell should have about him. And the tenure of the six hundred bondsmen from those hamlets and parishes was such that, by giving their services for indefinite periods during times of war for the defence of that Castle, they were excused all further services, or service in any other parts. For it was held, that the defence of that Castle was very necessary for the protection of the realm from the false Scots if they should take Berwick and so come down into England by that way.
That had been the original tenure, but by little and little, when the Percies had had those lands of the Vescis by the treachery of Bishop Anthony Bek, they had begun to make changes in these tenures, desiring to have men to accompany them upon journeys whether against the Kings of England or Scotland, as suited their humour. So that in many townships and parishes the Percies bargained with their bondsmen for so many days' service in the year and rent-hens and other things. And this the bondsmen had agreed to readily enough. For, on account of the perpetual takings and re-takings of the town of Berwick by the Scots and the English, there was never any knowing when they might not be called in to defend that Castle for a year's space at a time, and so their farmings would go to rack and ruin, and their towers, barnekyns and very parish churches lie undefended at the mercy of the false Scots. And when the Lovells had bought these lands of the Percies they had changed the tenure still more, not so much because they desired to ride upon journeys, for by comparison with the Percies, they were stay-at-homes, but because, as a family, the Lovells were greedy of money and desired rather the payments of rents and the service of men in their own fields than much military doings.
So they had had to hire men-at-arms by the year or for life. Thus, in that Castle, which had been meant to be defended by six hundred men upon varying services, sleeping on the floors of the towers, or here and there as they could, the Lovells would have a certain number of men-at-arms, but seldom more than two hundred and fifty that dwelt there in the Castle. And because these men-at-arms would have wives and children and kith and kin, or they would not stay there, they could not sleep to the number of many families in these towers, whether round or square, that went along the battlements. Some of them, it is true, took these towers for homes, making great disorder, keeping them very foul and filthy, shutting up the meurtrières, or slits for arrows, in order to keep out draughts, and much unfitting that Castle for defence when sieges came. For there, in those towers which should be places of defence, there would be warrens of children crying out and shrieking women. And other men-at-arms had built them hovels between the battlements and the keep, building with mud and roofing with rushes, so that all that space was like a disorderly town with little streets and sties for pigs and middens and filthy water that ran never away.
Thus this place had become a source of manifest danger, but the Young Lovell's father would not clear out all these places, because to him they were a source of much profit, for he employed the women and children and the hangers on and rabble to work in his fields all the year round, and so he had much money by that means. But because he recognized that his Castle was thus in some danger—for any enemy that won on to the battlements might, by casting down a few torches, set all these roofs on fire, and so the inner keep would stand in the midst of a furnace and all those people within the battlements be burned and slain like rats in a well—the old Lord Lovell had determined to make a safe place for himself and for the money that he and his father had hoarded up, being a very vast sum. So he had hired to come to him out of France an esquire called La Rougerie, being the son of the man that the King Louis XI of France used to build all his fortresses. So this La Rougerie had considered very well the situation and extent of this Castle that upon three faces was thundered upon by the seas at high tide. Then that La Rougerie perceived at about ten yards from the North-east end of the Castle, a crag of rock well in the sea even at high tide, in shape like a dog's tooth and nothing useful except to gannets, and not even to them of much use, for they would not build their nests so near the Castle. So this La Rougerie had advised that Lord Lovell that he should build upon that rock a great slender but very high tower, with walls of stone six yards in thickness. For the first eighty feet of its height there should be no openings at all, not so much as slits for the firing of arrows. And in the windowless chambers there the Lord Lovell should keep his treasure walled up. And above these there should be rooms for the guards with arrow holes in the form of crosses, and above these fairer rooms with somewhat larger windows, where the Lord Lovell and his family might retire, if so be his Castle should be taken, and above these dwelling rooms should be attics and granaries where gunpowder and ammunition should be stored and arrows and the quarrels of cross-bows, and there the sakers should be kept so that they should not rust upon the battlements in time of peace. And there were pulleys for hauling up these cannons on to the battlements above. Seven of these sakers there were that could cast a bullet weighing thirty pounds of stone or fifty of iron, in full flight into the furthest part of that Castle upon which those battlements looked down as a church steeple looks into the graveyard. For this tower was intended solely for the protection of that lord and his people in case any enemy should take the Castle itself. They would retreat there by a little narrow drawbridge giving into a very little door at the foot of the tower, being thirty feet long, and over a piece of sea that by nature of the currents, and by reason that the Frenchman hollowed out the rocks, ran there almost tempestuously if there were any wind at all, which happened on most days in these parts. And once there, the Lord Lovell could thunder upon his Castle thus taken by enemies with cannon balls of stone and iron, with arrows and with iron bolts shot by arbalists. There could not any inch of that Castle go unsearched, for the battlements were one hundred feet above the keep itself.
This then was the White Tower upon which the Young Lovell stood. Up to the seaward side of this tower he had come from a boat, just before sunrise, climbing up iron spikes that were inserted in the mortar for that purpose, and coming to a very small door in the guard room. This tower had been held for him by Richard Bek, Robert Bulman, and Bertram Bullock, who had been its captains, and dwelt there in his father's day, being much trusted by the old Lord Lovell. These esquires, with ten men, had held this tower very stoutly against them of the Castle that could in no wise come to them. To them had resorted ten or fifteen other stout fellows, that had slipped in over the drawbridge or came there by climbing up the spikes of the seaward wall. They victualled themselves how they could from the sea; but indeed they had food enough within the tower of the old lord's storing, except that at first they lacked of fresh meat, which in the summer time was a grievous thing.
What the Young Lovell could not tell was how many men they of the Castle had, for some reported that they had as few as a hundred and eighty, and others as many as three hundred. How that might be it was very difficult to say, for there was a constant coming and going between Castle Lovell and Cullerford and Haltwhistle, as well as Wallhouses, where the evil knight, Henry Vesey, had his men. In short, if they had withdrawn all their men into Castle Lovell they might have three hundred well armed between them. And this the Young Lovell thought might be the case, for when he had taken the tower of Cullerford there had been very few men there, or none at all. So he judged that Sir Simonde Vesey would have been forced by agreement to withdraw all his men from Haltwhistle to the defence of that Castle if Sir Walter Limousin had agreed to leave Cullerford defenceless. And without doubt, too, the Vesey of Wallhouses would have his men there as well. Thus there might be as many as three hundred stout fellows there, and that might make the adventure a difficult one, for the Young Lovell had not gathered any more men himself, though what he had were mostly very proved fighting men, there being five knights that were his friends, twenty-seven esquires, one hundred and twenty of his own men, and those the best, and one hundred and seventy that were the picked men of his friends and of the Lady Margaret of Glororem.
So he had gone up to the battlements to see how many men he could observe in that Castle. But because he could not very well see between the openings in the battlements, he seized his chance and sprang on to the very top of the stones. He had observed the watchman on the keep below him. This man walked regularly from side to side, keeping his watch, and at each turn he would be gone regularly for as long as you could count ninety-eight. So, in the absence of that watchman, he stood there and looked down.
But until he stood there many things had gone before; there were so many people active about his affairs. There were the Bishop Palatine, Sir Bertram of Lyonesse, the old Princess of Croy, the Lady Margaret, the Earl of Northumberland, the bondsman Hugh Raket, and the people in the Castle themselves. And all these ran up and down that county of Northumberland upon the Young Lovell's affairs.
Let us consider them in that order.
First there was the Bishop Palatine, John Sherwood. He did not stir himself much. Nevertheless he sent a messenger to the people of the Castle—the Knights of Cullerford, Haltwhistle, and Wallhouses, as well as the Decies. He warned them that he had given his full absolution to the Young Lovell, and had accepted his homage as a tenant-in-chief of the See of Durham. He commanded them, therefore, on pain of absolution, to evacuate the Castle and lands of that lord. Those in the Castle replied with an assurance of their ready and prompt obedience to the Prince Bishop. They said that they would immediately set the Young Lovell in possession of all such lands and emoluments as he held as tenant-in-chief of the Palatine see. They would do it immediately upon his producing to them the title deeds and charters of such lands of his. For, as matters were, they did not know which of his lands and townships he held of the Prince Bishop and which of the King, their most dread lord. As for his holdings from the King, those they could not, nay, they dare not, surrender; for these had been adjudged to them by a writ fouled in the court of the Warden of the Eastern Marches. That might be a small matter in itself, but, in addition to the assigning of the lands to themselves, there went certain huge fines to the King, as was fit and proper. At that moment they were very ready to surrender their own holding of the Castle, but they could not themselves pay the fine to the King, for they had not so much money amongst them. Supposing, therefore, that the Young Lovell held that Castle of the King, they would be guilty of high treason if they surrendered it without paying those fines, and they could not pay themselves, neither could they have any security that the Young Lovell would do so.
So they said they would very willingly surrender all the lands that that lord held of the Palatine see as the Young Lovell should produce to them his charters and show which was which.
This was a very cunning answer, for by professing to be so ready to surrender at the command of the Bishop that prelate was precluded from proceeding to their instant excommunication which he would have done. That would have caused at least half of their men, if not a greater proportion, to fall away from them, for there was a sufficiency of piety left in the North parts. Moreover, as against that answer, the Bishop was advised that he could not, as he would willingly have done, send his own forces with the Young Lovell against the Castle. For it was true enough that, until the Young Lovell could appeal against that judgment of the Lord Percy's, those false knights held a certain part of his lands in the interests of the King, so that the Prince Bishop could not well war upon them.
As for the Young Lovell's deeds and charters they were hidden up by the Knight of Haltwhistle in his tower at that place, so that, for the moment, he could by no means come at them and it was difficult for the Bishop's advisers to say how he might have them again. For they had not even any certain evidence that those muniments were at Haltwhistle. The Young Lovell had the news of Elizabeth Campstones, his old nurse, and she was a prisoner in the Castle. It was true that the lawyer Stone had by that time come round to the side of the Young Lovell, and he was assured that those charters and deeds had been removed to the tower at Haltwhistle. Still he had not seen this done, for they had gone at dead of night.
Therefore the Bishop wrote another letter to them of the Castle, saying he was assured that they and no others held all those deeds and summoning them immediately to surrender. To this the Decies answered that he had not those deeds and papers: that they were very certainly not in that fortress as far as he commanded it: that he would very willingly surrender them, but he did not know where they were. He imagined that they might be in the White Tower over which he had no control.
The lawyer Stone said that that might very well be the truth that was in the Decies' mind. For that ignorant fool was mostly heavy with wine. The evil Knight of Wallhouses had counselled the others that they should make the Decies commander in name of that Castle at the very first, so that if any penalties should fall on any heads for the seizure it should be on the Decies'. Moreover, they had removed the muniments without telling the Decies, so that they might the more easily be rid of him when it served their turn.
Thus the Bishop's advisers said that here was a very difficult and lengthy matter to deal with. For if the Bishop should write to any one of those cunning people for those deeds he would immediately, or beforehand, pass them on to the other and say he could not surrender them since he had them not. If on the other hand he wrote to them all at once they would give the deeds to their wives or to some safe person and so make the same answer. So they must issue writs against all the county at the same moment.
So far the Bishop had got in those fourteen days. In the meantime it was the turn of the Knight of Lyonesse.
This Sir Bertram rode well attended to the Castle of Warkworth to talk with the Earl of Northumberland and to lay before him all the truth of that matter, and how the King did not wish that the North parts should be enraged against him. And at first the Earl treated this Cornish knight with little courtesy. But very soon that Sir Bertram showed to the Earl a paper that he had of the King to empower Sir Bertram to remove the Earl from the wardenship of the Eastern Marches if the Earl would not do all that Sir Bertram bade him. And Sir Bertram proved to the Earl how necessary it was, the King's purse being at that time in no good condition, to win the goodwill of the great lords of the North. He said that the Earl might take all that he could get from the poorer people, but the nobles he must keep his claws from.
Then the Earl agreed with Sir Bertram upon that matter and they set their heads together to see what they might do. And here again it was no easy matter to act by course of law. For there was no doubt that the Earl had given his judgment against the Young Lovell, and there was no process that he knew of by which he could reverse a judgment that he had once given. The Young Lovell must make an appeal to the King in Council and that was a long process. The Earl was willing—though not over-willing—to call out his own ban and arrière ban and to take Castle Lovell by due course of siege. But, if he did that, he must kill utterly the Decies, the two other knights, Sir Henry Vesey of Wallhouses, and the two sisters of the Young Lovell. Moreover, to do as much, the Earl must draw off a great number of his men, and he did not trust some of his neighbours over much. Also, if any one of those persons escaped he or she would have cause to begin endless lawsuits against the Percy for slaying the others or even for taking the Castle from them. For they had his own writ for holding it. Moreover, the Young Lovell would by no means hear of the Percy's laying siege to his Castle. For all that Sir Bertram could say, he declared that if the Percy did this he would fall upon the Percy's forces with his own men. He said that, in the first place it would be black shame to him; in the second, the Percy must needs bang Castle Lovell about more than he himself would care to see, before ever he came in; and finally the Young Lovell shrewdly doubted whether the Percy would ever come out again once he was in.
In the same way the Young Lovell would have no men of the Percy to help him in the attack on his Castle, for he would not trust the Earl of Northumberland. Thus the Knight of Lyonesse did very little of what he was most minded to do. For he wished not only to help the Young Lovell and so make him a friend to the King, but he desired to reconcile him with the Earl of Northumberland that there might be peace in the North parts. However, Sir Bertram achieved this much, that the Young Lovell would let the Lord of Alnwick be in peace if the Lord of Alnwick would let him be, and that was something gained, for at first the Young Lovell had declared that he would try it out with the Percy as soon as he had achieved his first enterprise. But the Percy sent him a very courteous apology, saying that he had delivered his judgment against the Young Lovell only because he must do so as a justice according to the law as the lawyers advised him and that now he was very sorry that he had done it.
For now the raider Gib Elliott was boasting in all the market towns that he had access to, saying that he had held the Young Armstrong prisoner for three months and had ransomed him in Edinburgh. This Elizabeth Campstones, his foster-cousin, had got him to do, sending him word by a little boy and the promise of fifty French crowns. And indeed he was very glad to do it, since it might not only cause strong fellows to resort to him for the renown of it, but it might gain him the friendship of the Young Lovell, which would be a good thing for his widow when he came to be hanged at Carlisle.
And everybody was very glad of that rumour—the Bishop Palatine because it was more to the credit of the Young Lovell whom he supported; the Earl of Northumberland and Sir Bertram of Lyonesse, because it afforded them an excuse for writing broad letters to the King and his Council, asking that the former judgment given by the Earl might be reversed because of the perjury by which it was obtained. The Young Lovell was glad of it too. He thought that it was better for his bondsmen that they should not believe that their lord had spent three months gazing on a fairy woman. For that otherwise they would believe and that it was some make of sorcery, for all that the Bishop had given him absolution. The Young Lovell considered that it is not always good for the lower orders, set in their places by God, to know truths apart from the truths of Holy Church. For the lower orders have weak brains wherein too much truth is like new wine in feeble bottles.
But the Knight of Lyonesse, who had been bidden by King Henry, if he could, to establish himself in the North parts with lands and worship, and to do it, if possible, without calling upon the King to pay for it, went upon another enterprise before June was fourteen days old. For on all hands he heard that the Lady Rohtraut of Castle Lovell was the richest dowager for lands in all Northumberland, and by the disposition of his mind he was not desirous of marrying a young girl that might make a mock of him or worse. Moreover, he heard that the Lady Rohtraut was a fair enough woman of forty-three, with a good temper if she were well-used and not dishonoured, and that he thought he could do well enough. So he was doubly anxious to be of service to the Young Lovell, for, the more he heard of it, the more he was certain that this lady would make a good match for him, and that so he would please King Henry.
For her lands were broad and mostly fertile for the North; her Castle at Cramlin would be a very strong Castle after the Young Lovell had finished the repairs to it at his own expense and it stood very handy at the entrance into Northumberland, so that with help in men from the King, he might very easily work against troubles in that part, whether they came from the North or the South.
So, being in that mind, he went after ten days to pay his devoirs to the old Princess of Croy, for, after he had dwelt with her for one day, he had considered that she desired to charge him too much for his lodging and that he could do better for himself at an inn, where he could send out for his meat and have it cooked by his own man at the common fire. He had enquired of the prices of meat in that town and found that that was so.
But now he wished that he had not done that, since he might have gained more of the old Princess's favour by paying her exorbitant prices. However, he found that that was not the case, for that Princess had so great a respect for money that she esteemed a man the more for being careful of his purse strings, even though it hurt her own pocket. So she greeted him with pleasure and said that she wished her son, Lord Dacre, had been another such.
Sir Bertram had observed a great white mule—the largest he had ever seen—to stand before her door, and she told him that she was just about to set out upon a journey. For, said she, and her face bore every sign of fury, the Young Lovell, as Sir Bertram had heard, had treated her with lewd disrespect and she was minded to read him a lesson. "Madam and my Granddam and gentle Princess," he had said to her—and she mimicked his tones with so much anger that she spat on each side of her, "my mother has languished in prison during half a year and all that time you have done nothing for her."
And now, the old woman said, she was going to do something for her daughter that the Young Lovell would never dare to do. For upon a pillion on that mule, behind her old steward, she was about to ride to Castle Lovell. No guards she would take and no bowman, and there was no other Christian in the City of Durham that dare do as much in those dangerous lands. And being come to Castle Lovell, she would release her daughter with her own hands and all alone, and what make of a boasting fool would that Young Lovell appear then!
The Knight of Cornwall, when he heard those words, bent one knee on the ground and begged that that Princess would take him with her, for he would gladly do so much for that fair lady as well as witness the Princess doing these things. The Princess looked at him sideways in a queer glance and said that he might do if he would bring no men-at-arms to spoil the fame of her feat. He answered that he had the courage for that, but he said gravely that it might be for the comfort of the Lady Rohtraut, who had not the courage of her mother and would fear to travel alone, if his men-at-arms to the number of forty followed behind them, and so, meeting them at Belford or somewhere in that neighbourhood, guarded them on the homeward road. The Princess said that he might do that.
So they rode out and in four days' time they came to Castle Lovell. The Princess was on the white mule behind her steward and Sir Bertram was on a little horse. For, although he would have presented a more splendid appearance to the Lady Rohtraut upon a charger, he did not wish to be at the charges for horsefeed for such a great animal, whereas the galloway could subsist off the grass and herbs that it found by the roadway, though all green things were by that time much withered by the drought. Such weather had never been known in the North parts.
They met with no robbers; only, as they went near the sea to avoid the town of Morpeth so that the Young Lovell should not hear of this adventure, he being at Cramlin all this time—near High Clibburn and just north of Widdrington Castle there met with them Adam Swinburn, a broken gentleman with ten fellows and would have robbed them. But when he heard how they were going to rescue the Lady Rohtraut that all the world was talking of he burst into an immoderate fit of laughter. For he had never had such cause for amusement as to see this fat old woman holding on behind a lean old servingman, with a man all in silks and colours with a great brown beard upon a little horse beside her, his feet brushing the ground. And these three were going to storm a mighty Castle that no forces before ever had sufficed to take. So, when he had done laughing, he rode with them a great piece of the way, even as far as Lesbury and past Warkworth. For he said that if the Earl of Northumberland saw them he would certainly rob them and so deprive that countryside of a great jest. Sir Bertram found this Adam—who was red-headed like all the Swinburns—very pleasant company, and when they parted Sir Bertram swore that when it came to hanging that Adam he would pray the King, if he could not save his life, at least to let it be done with a silken rope.
So, on the fourteenth day of June, at eleven in the morning—and that was seven hours after the Young Lovell took and burned the tower of Cullerford—the mule being very tired and the galloway none too fresh, that company of five, men and beasts, climbed wearily up the hill to Castle Lovell. The captain of the tower called Wanshot where the gate was, let them pass, for he could not see any danger from this old woman and the man in silks. At the door of the keep the Princess slid down from her mule, and pushing the guards there in the chest with her crutch, she went past them into the great hall and the guards let Sir Bertram follow her. In the hall, and crossing it, they found Sir Henry Vesey devising beside a pillar with his sister-in-law Douce that was a little woman. The Princess with a furious voice bade this Lady Douce fall upon her knees, for this was her granddam. That the Lady Douce did, for she could think of no reason to excuse her from it.
Then the Princess Rohtraut began to call out for the keys of her daughter's room, and various men came running in as well as the Lady Isopel, that was the other grand-daughter. There was a great noise, and so Sir Bertram of Lyonesse drew Sir Henry Vesey behind a pillar, and in a low voice strongly enjoined on him to let the Lady Rohtraut go. For he said that he was the King's commissioner and that all that were in that Castle were in a very evil case, for very likely it would soon be taken and all the men there hanged. And he said that Sir Henry was in a different case from the other leaders and that he, Sir Bertram, promised to save his life and gain favour for him with the King if he would let the Lady Rohtraut go. Moreover, he whispered that, Sir Symonde his brother being dead, Sir Henry might have his lands and be free to love his sister-in-law as he listed. For the rumour went that this evil knight was over-fond of the Lady Douce, and it was in that way Elizabeth Campstones saved her life. For, when there was talk of hanging her for having talked to the Young Lovell, she told the Lady Douce that she would inform against her to her husband—which well she could do. So the Lady Douce begged her life of the others.
And after Sir Bertram had talked for a time to Sir Henry Vesey, making him those fair promises, Sir Henry sent a boy for the keys of Wanshot Tower. When he had them he begged that Princess very courteously to follow him, saying that he would take her to her daughter and so set her free. Then began a great clamour between the Ladies Douce and Isopel. The Lady Isopel said that Sir Henry should not do this, the Lady Douce that he should, for she was in all things the slave of Sir Henry, and that the Lady Isopel told her very loudly. But the Knights of Cullerford and Haltwhistle had ridden out to see if they could have news of the Young Lovell, for they knew that he was gathering his forces to come against them.
So Sir Henry did not at all heed the clamour of the Lady Isopel, but walked very grandly before the Princess Rohtraut to Wanshot Tower, and sparks of triumph came from that hobbling old woman's eyes. So when he was come to the door on the inner side of the wall Sir Henry gave into the hands of the Princess the two keys, one of that door and one of the room where the Lady Rohtraut was. Then the Princess went into that tower, and after a space down she came again, and with her were the Lady Rohtraut and Elizabeth Campstones. The Lady Rohtraut took nothing away with her but the clothes she had on her back. Only in her great sleeves she had her little lapdog called Butterfly.
They went as fast as they could up the Belford road, for they were afraid of meeting with Cullerfurd or Haltwhistle. But they had only been gone a little way—the Lady Rohtraut and Elizabeth Campstones riding on Sir Bertram's galloway—when they came upon Sir Bertram's men that were riding over the lea to find him.
That was the first sight Sir Bertram had of that lady whom afterwards, to the scandal of all the North parts, he married. For he was accounted a man of very mean birth and she a very noble lady. But he made her a very good husband, doing her proper honour and very ably conducting her lawsuits, so that she had never a word to say against him.