CHAPTER II

In Malvern Chase

The porter at the gate of Malvern Priory was a very old man, but he had good eyes, and he knew a pretty thing when he saw it.

"Thou wilt speak with Brother Owyn, wilt thou?" he said to Calote in his toothless voice. "By my troth, I 'll have thee to know, hussy, that this is no household of gadding friars, but a sober and well-conducted priory. Our monks do not come and go at the bidding of wenches."

"Good brother, I come not of myself," said Calote, "I am sent a message of my father."

"And thy father, I make no doubt, is the Father of Lies,--Christ give him sorrow!"

"My father was put to school one while in Malvern Priory," answered Calote. "Brother Owyn was his master and loved him well."

"Sayst thou so?" the porter retorted, yet with something of curiosity awaking within his bright eyes. "Is no lad hath gone in and out this gate in forty year, but hath one day or other tasted my rod for a truant. How do they call thy father?"

"In London men call him Long Will, and Will Langland 's his name."

The porter opened wide his mouth, and, "By Goddes Soul!" quoth he, "Will Langland!--Let me look on thee,"--albeit he had done naught but look on her for ten minutes past. "Yea, 't is true; I 'd know thee by thine eyen, that are gray, and thoughtful, and dark with a something that lies behind the colour of them,--and shining by the light of a lamp lit somewhere within.--So! Will Langland hath got him a wench! 'T is a hard nut to crack. Moreover, eyen may be gray as glass, and yet speak lies. What for a token hast thou that thou 'rt true messenger?"

"I have a poem," she answered.

"Let 's see it."

"Nay, 't is for Brother Owyn."

"And how shall Brother Owyn have it, if not by me?" rejoined the porter testily.

"Wilt thou get me speech of him if I show it thee?" asked Calote.

"Shall a lay-brother of Malvern stoop to play handy-dandy for favours?" said the porter, casting up his chin in a way feebly to imitate his prior; yet his curiosity overcame his pride and he added: "Do thou show me first the poem. After, I 'll think on 't."

Whereupon Calote drew forth the parchment from her breast, and he unrolled it and spread it upon his knee, and "H-m-m, h-m-m!" said he. But he could not read a word, being no scholar.

"Find me a pretty passage," he bade her presently, "and say it me, the while I follow with my finger."

So she began;--and neither one of them knew the place in the parchment:--

"'Right so, if thou be religious run thou never further To Rome, nor to Rochemadour, but as thy rule teacheth, And hold thee under obedience, that highway is to heaven.'"

"Tut chut! Thou 'rt a bold wench! Wilt teach thy grandmother to suck eggs?" cried the porter.

Calote laughed, but began anew:--

"'Grace ne groweth not but amongst the low; Patience and poverty is the place where it groweth, And in loyal-living men, and life-holy, And through the gift of the Holy Ghost as the gospel telleth'"--

"Lord, Lord, enough!" cried the porter. "'T is very true that never none but Will Langland writ such-like twaddle."

"But thou wilt bid Brother Owyn to the gate?" said Calote, rolling up her parchment.

"How may I bid him to the gate when he 's gone forth yonder in the Chase with hook and line and missal to catch fish for supper?"

"Ah! good brother, gramerci," laughed Calote.

"Then kiss me," said he. "Nay, what harm? An old man that might be thy father twice over!"

But she shook her head and sprang swiftly from him.

"I 've a long journey afore me," she said, "and if I kiss every man that doeth me service, there 'll be no kisses left for my True Love."

So she ran away among the trees, and the old man went into the gate-house and sat chuckling.

All about Malvern Priory was forest, and a part of this was the King's Chase. The woodland climbed the hill part way, thinning as it climbed.

"'I was weary with wandering and went me to rest Under a broad bank by a burn's side.'"

hummed Calote as she went upward. "Belike he 's there catching his fish."

The day was mild; Saint Martin's summer was at hand; all around trees were yellowing, leaves were dropping. The little haze that is ever among the Malverns dimmed the vistas betwixt the tree-trunks to faintest blue. The voices of the hunt floated upward from the level stretch of forest in the plain,--bellowing of dogs, a horn, a distant shouting.

"Please God I may not meet the King, nor Stephen," said Calote. "They do say he came hither last night to hunt."

Even as she spoke, a roe fled across her path, and immediately after, two huntsmen came riding.

"Which way went the--Coeur de joie!" cried a boy's voice.

The other huntsman sat dumb upon his horse. Calote, rosy red, her lips a-quiver, stood with her hands crossed on her breast, that frighted but yet steadfast way she had. Then:--

"Light down, Etienne, thou laggard lover! 'T is thy true love hath followed thee from London town these many miles," laughed Richard, and flung himself off his horse.

"Oh, me, harrow, weyl a way!" said Calote, covering up her face. "'T is not true! I am not so unmaidenly; my heart is full of other matter than light love." She turned to Stephen, who was also lighted off his horse, and "Dost thou believe I followed for love of thee?" she cried.

"Alas and alack!--but I would it were so!" answered Stephen.

"Yet thou didst follow," said the King. "Wherefore?"

She turned her eyes away from Stephen and looked on Richard, and as she looked she sank down on her knees before him.

"Thou art the King!" she gasped, "and I knew thee not!"

In very truth, here was not the little lad she had known. The grace of childhood was gone from Richard. Some of the mystery had gone out of his eyes, though they were yet, and would ever be, thoughtful; all of the shyness had gone out of his manner, albeit none of the courtesy. He was well used to being a king; he was already, at thirteen years of age or thereabout, the most of a gentleman in his very foppish and gentleman-like court. Calote had sat still in the window-seat that time he came to the crown by his grandfather's death, but to-day, before she knew wherefore, she was on her knees. Then only were her eyes opened, and she knew that this was the King.

He looked upon her friendly-wise, half-laughing. Kingship and comradeship were ever a-wrestle in Richard's heart to the end of the chapter. He liked to be a king, none better; he kept his state as never king kept it before in England,--as few have kept it since. But also, he loved to be loved, not from afar and awesomely as subjects love, but in the true human fashion that holds betwixt friends, betwixt kindly master and friendly servant.

Now, he put out his hand to Calote and lifted her up, and when they stood face to face, his eyes were a-level with hers, so big was he;--or haply she so small.

"I am grown tall; is 't not so?" he said. "Very soon I shall be tall as Etienne. No wonder thou didst not know me. But now, see thou tell me true wherefore thou art so suddenly come to Malvern, and I 'll forgive thy forgetting. Nay,--not on thy knees again."

"Sire, hast thou forgot that I told thee--of a plot? And whether thou wouldst be King of all the people of England, or only puppet to the nobles?"

"I am not so good at forgetting as thou," he made reply, and she could not but marvel to hear him so froward of speech. She was aware that this was no little child, but a boy that had listened, perforce, a year and more, to the counsels of grown men, some of them wise, all of them shrewd.

"This plot moveth on," she continued, taking up her tale. "There is forming, and shall be formed, a great society of men over all England. I, and others, we go out across the land, one here, one there, north, south, east, and west, to bind the people into brotherhood. And it is my task to tell the people that the King is one of this brotherhood,--if so be 't is true."--She paused, but Richard did not speak, so she went on: "It is my task to tell the people that the King approveth this gathering together of the people. And, when the time cometh, he will stand forth and be their leader,--against those that oppress them. If so be 't is true."

"And the people want?"--

"Freedom, sire! Not to be a part of the land, like stocks and stones and dumb cattle. Not to be villeins any longer, but freed men, with leave to come and go of their own will."

"But noblesse,--villeinage,--these are fixed,--may not be overthrown."

"Not by the King?" asked Calote.

Richard looked on her uncertain, then his face flushed and he struck his long-bow vehement into the earth:--

"The King may do what he will!" he cried; "else wherefore is he King? Tell me, will they aid me to put down mine uncle, John of Gaunt, and all these that tie my hands, and the Council that now is the verray governor of this realm? Will they do all these things for me, if I make them free men?"

"This and more than this, sire!" Calote exclaimed; "For they 'll build up a kingdom whereof the foundation is love, and the law will be not to take away by tax, but to see that every man hath enough."

"Shall it be soon?" asked Richard.

"That I cannot tell. The realm of England is a wide realm, not easy to traverse."

Richard turned hesitating to his squire: "I would it were wise, this that the maid telleth. In vérité, is 't so? What dost say, Etienne? I--I fear mine uncle and Sudbury would laugh."

"I say, 't is a wicked and evil counsel that sendeth forth a young maid to encounter perils. No love ruleth the hearts of them that send her."

"Art thou my true lover, in good sooth?" cried Calote, "and would undo that I have most at heart?"

"Moreover, 't is beside my question," Richard added fretfully. "I would know but only if an uprising, like to this Calote stirreth, is of power to succeed against nobilité?"

"I am no prophet, sire."

"Thou thinkest not of thy King, neither of his kingdom, but of thine own self only," said Richard, in the sulks, driving an arrow spear-fashion into the earth and wrenching it forth with a jerk that snapped the shaft.

"I think of her," Etienne answered him sadly.

"There is more kinds of love than one," Calote protested. "Is there not a love for the whole people that is as worthy as the love for one woman? Yea, and more worthy, for 't is Christ's fashion of loving. What matter if I lose my life, if so be the people is free?"

Richard kindled to her words. "So must the King love!" he cried. "Fie, for shame, Etienne! But only yesternight thou wert persuading me how honourable 't is when a man lose his life for the world's sake and Christ Jesu--as crusaders and such."

"And what is this I preach, but a crusade," demanded Calote, "to free the people?"

"A crusade?" the King questioned. Then his face came all alight. "A crusade!--And when the preaching 's done I 'll be the leader of the crusade.--And I 'll make all England my Holy Land!"--For if Richard had not been a king, he might have been a poet.

"Now praise be to Christ and Mary Mother!" said Calote joyously. "And what for a token dost give me, sire, that the people may know me a true messenger?"

"A token, pardé!" and he looked him up and down hastily. He had on a green jerkin all embroidered over with R's entwined in a pattern of gold threads, and buttoned with little bells of gold. His one leg was scarlet, his other was green. About his neck, at the end of a long jewelled chain, hung a little hunting-horn of silver, with his badge of the white hart graven upon it and set round with pearls.

"Take this!" he said, and flung the chain over her head.

"By God's will, I 'll call the King's ményé to him with this horn," quoth Calote, a-kissing it.

The King laughed merrily then, and went and cast himself upon his squire's neck:--

"Etienne, chéri, mignon,--be not so glum! When Richard is King in the Kingdom of Love, not Dan Cupid's self shall dare to cross thy suit to thy lady. Thou shalt be married to Calote, and I 'll make thee chief counsellor. I 'll take mine Uncle John's land and richesse in forfeit and give them to thee."

"Ah, no, no!" Calote exclaimed.

"But I will if I 'm King?" said Richard.

And then did Stephen laugh.

"Now wherefore so merry?" Richard asked, eyeing him in discontent.

"Beau sire, you bade me be merry," Stephen made answer, and to Calote he said "When dost thou start a-preaching, and whither?"

"When Parliament is departed,--I go about in the villages to the south and west of Gloucester. Meanwhile, I 'll lodge with a kindly forester's wife in Malvern here. But now I must away to find an old monk, my father's schoolmaster. My father was put to school in Malvern Priory."

"Why, 't is very true!" cried the King. "The Vision maketh a beginning in the Malvern Hills."

"I bring the Vision to this monk; and he 's a-fishing hereabout in the Chase, the porter saith. Saw ye a burn as ye came hither?"

"Yea, verily!" Richard answered her. "We crossed it but fifty paces back, and 't was there the dogs went off the scent and back to the pack and the other folk, in the lower chase. Hark to them now! We 've lost the hunt; let us go with the maid, Etienne. If her father's schoolmaster is the same that sat at my side yestere'en and told me tales, he 'll wile an hour right prettily for us. He said Dan Chaucer, our Chaucer, came hither a little lad years agone, afore mine Uncle Lionel died. I 'd rather fish than hunt. Leave Robert de Vere and my brother John Holland to slay the deer."

So they went through the wood leading their jennets; and Calote, with the King's horn about her neck, walked by the King's side.