Part 4
Roger Bland was a man of the new age, half merchant, half scholar, with some of the pride of a prince. He had caught the spirit of the Italians. Subtlety pleased him; he despised the stupid English bull. And up in Troy Castle he lived magnificently, and kept a quiet eye on the country for leagues around, a hawk ready to pounce on any stir or trouble in the land. And the Forest hated him with an exceeding bitter hatred, for it had suffered grimly at his hands, seeing that it had chosen to wear the Red Rose when the White had proved more fortunate. The Lord of Troy had ridden into it, and left great silences behind him. There were houses empty and ruinous, and no man dared go near them. There were people who had fled across the sea. There were graves in the Forest, shallow holes in the earth into which bodies had been tumbled and left hidden in the green glooms.
As Roger Bland’s black horse lifted him out of the valley a man came down to meet him along the steep road that climbed the hill. It was Noble Vance, the Forest Warden, a thick, coarse stub of a man who dressed to his own red color. The Forest folk feared him, and mocked at his parents who had christened him so sententiously. “Noble, forsooth!” He wore a doublet of scarlet and hose of green. His red hat looked as big as the wheel of a cart, and the face under it was the color of raw meat, and all black about the jowl.
He swept his hat to the Lord of Troy.
“My lord has had good sport,” and he nodded toward the hart lying across the back of a horse.
“Excellent, Master Vance.”
“There is other game, my lord, beyond the purlieus. I have ridden over to speak to you.”
Roger Bland glanced back over either shoulder.
“A good gossip, my friend——”
“As you say, sir, a good gossip——”
“Is best kept for the closet, and a cup of wine. Ride here beside me. Yes, we have made an excellent day of it; we turned that beast out by Darvel’s Holt and ran him three miles. I love a beast with a good heart, Vance, and a man who fights to the death.”
The Forest Warden grinned.
“Such men are growing scarce, my lord, in these parts. A few green youngsters perhaps, and an old badger or two deep down in their earths.”
“Like old Jack Falconer, I shall draw that badger some day.”
Trumpets sounded as they crossed the bridge over the dry moat, for my Lord of Troy had a love of ceremony and spacious, opulent magnificence. The guards at the gate-house presented their pikes. In the main court grooms and servants came hurrying in my lord’s livery of silver and green. A page stood uncovered beside Roger Bland’s horse, with a cup of wine ready on a silver salver.
My lord waved him aside.
“Bring two cups, child, to my closet, and let it be known that I am not to be troubled. Now, Master Vance.”
They entered by a little door in an angle of the courtyard, and a staircase led them to the great solar above and at the end of the hall. From the solar a passage cut in the thickness of the wall linked up my lord’s state chamber with his closet in one of the towers. It was a richly garnished room, its hangings of cloth of gold, its floor covered with skins and velvets. There were books on the table. The open door of a great oak armoire showed ivory chessmen set ready on a board.
My lord chose one of the window-seats. He liked a stately perch, a noble view, and his back to the light. The subtler shades did not matter to Noble Vance; he let fate hang him where it pleased, like a joint of meat in a butcher’s shop.
“It is wondrous hot for May, sir.”
“The blood is hot in the spring, Vance. Here comes the wine.”
The page served them, and had his orders.
“Stay in the gallery, Walter, and see that we are not disturbed.”
The Forest Warden waited for my lord to raise his cup.
“Your good esteem, sir.”
“I think you hold it, Vance. Do things ever happen in the Forest?”
“But little, sir. You have left no man fit to quarrel with you. But I have come upon a little business in Gawdy Town.”
“Such places breed fleas—and adventures. What is it, Vance?”
“Young Gilbert Dale and the girl are there.”
“What—those cubs?”
“They came in the ship Rose. The lad is a grown man, and the girl a fine, black-browed wench. Pimp Odgers spied them out, though they played the part of strollers.”
“You are sure?”
“I have Odgers here, and another fellow who knew the Dales, and could swear to the son.”
Roger Bland turned in his seat and looked out over the Forest. It was as noble a view as a man could desire, a world of green valleys and distant hills blue on the horizon. The lord of Troy Castle smiled as he sat there high up in the tower, a sly, cynical smile of self-congratulation. The Forest lay at his feet; he was its master. Even the thought of the cruel strength he had shown in taming it pleased him, for, like many men who lack brute physical courage, he was cleverly and shrewdly cruel.
“How many years, Vance, is it since that day when we smoked the Dales out of Woodmere?”
“Seven, this June, sir.”
“Old Dale had sent his cubs away. What is the young gadfly doing in Gawdy Town?”
“Playing the viol and singing songs, with bells in his cap. He goes out of nights, I hear, but my men say that it is to Petticoat Lane.”
“Many things are hatched in a brothel, Vance. And the girl?”
“Plays the lute and sings. A haughty young madam, they say, with eyes quick to stab a man.”
“There is no whisper of secret work, no playing for Harry Richmond?”
Vance shook his big head solemnly.
“I keep my nose for that fox,” he said, “but have struck no scent as yet. What is your pleasure, sir?”
The Lord of Troy continued to gaze out over the Forest.
“Saw you ever anything more peaceful, Master Vance, than yon green country? It is I who have taught it to be peaceful, and much labor it gave me. I have cleared it of wolves; I have cowed its broken men. I choose that it shall remain at peace.”
The warden’s eyes glittered.
“The Dales were ever turbulent, hot-blooded folk. That young man might give us trouble.”
“Prevent it, Master Warden. You have a way of contriving these things. A quarrel in some low house, daggers, and a scuffle in the street.”
“My lord, it is as simple as eating pie. My men will manage it. And the girl?”
“Bring her here, Master Vance. We will question her. It is possible to learn things from a woman. Moreover, our good king loves a wildfire jade.”
The Forest Warden finished his wine, and wiped his mouth with his sleeve.
“By the rope that hanged Judas, sir,” he said, “it is a pleasure to serve a great man who knows his own mind!”
_Chapter IX_
Mellis and her brother had left Gawdy Town lying behind them on the blue edge of the sea. The day was very young, and a north wind came over the marshes about the mouth of the Rondel river, bending the reeds in the dykes and rousing ripples in the lengthening grass. Mellis was mounted on a modest nag whose brown coat and sleepy ears were more suited to the russet cloak she wore than to the brighter colors underneath it. Gilbert marched at her side. His eyes looked gray in the morning; the north wind had pinched his courage a little; and he and Mellis were to part for a while.
“Keep your heart up, sweet sister.”
She looked down at him and smiled. Her eyes were steadier than his, and more determined, and she was less touched by the north wind. His nature was more mercurial, more restless, not so patient when life’s adventure dragged.
“I feel near home, Gilbert. I think I could live in the Forest—like a wild thing.”
“Woodmere must be all green, and the lilies white on the water. The house is but a shell, they say.”
Her eyes filled with a great tenderness.
“My heart is there,” she said, sighing.
A flock of sheep passed them, being driven to the river pastures. A great wood-wain came rumbling along, loaded high with brown fagots. Mellis’s nostrils dilated, and her eyes shone.
“What a good ship, and what merchandise! I can smell the Forest.”
He laughed, with a note of recklessness.
“Oh the merry, merry life, with the horn and the hound, and the bed under the greenwood tree. Why did our people wear the wrong color, sister? Our hearts were red, and the color beggared us.”
“My heart is the color of fire,” she answered him, “and I let it burn with the thought of vengeance. When will you begin to tell me your secrets?”
“Very soon, sister. I want no listeners within a mile of us. You see how discreet I am! Gawdy Town is a pest of a place; even the dogs do their spying; and there is always the chance of your getting a knife in your back. That is why I thought it better that you should go.”
“Have you ever found me a coward?”
“Dear heart, you are too brave, and such courage may be dangerous.”
They were leaving the marshes behind them, and the Rondel had taken to itself glimmering green lines of pollard willows. Little farmsteads dotted the long northward slope of the hills. Here and there the Forest showed itself, thrusting a green headland into the cornlands and the meadows.
Gilbert was on the alert. Presently he pointed to an open beech wood that spread down close to the road.
“There is our council chamber, Mellis.”
“It should serve.”
“We can tie up the nag and see how my friend the cook has filled your saddle-bags.”
They turned aside into the beech wood, tethered the horse, and sat down under a tree. They were hidden from the road; the gray trunks hemmed them in.
Gilbert was examining the saddle-bags.
“That cook is a brave creature! Good slices of bread with meat in between. And a bottle of wine. There is enough stuff here to last you for days. Dear Lord, what trouble I was at to explain my buying of that sorry old nag!”
He set one of the bags between them.
“Now for dinner and a gossip. There are two words that you must never utter, Mellis, save when some one challenges you with the question, ‘What of Wales?’”
“And those words?”
“Are ‘Owen Tudor.’ They will win you friends where friends are to be had, but also they might hang you.”
“Of course.”
“Our plans have not gone so badly. Our king across the water is a shrewd gentleman. Our business is to stir up a hornets’ nest in these parts; others will play the same game elsewhere, so that Crooked Dick shall be stung in a hundred places while Lord Harry is crossing the sea. Roger Bland is our arch enemy.”
She drew in a deep breath.
“Do I forget it?”
“Tsst!—not too much fire! He is the very devil for cunning. We have got to hold him in these parts, so worry him that he cannot march and join the Hunchback when spears will be precious to that king. They will find a dozen fires alight in every corner of the kingdom, and if our Harry wins the day, Woodmere will be ours again.”
She uttered a fiercer cry.
“And blood shall pay for blood. Oh, I am no sweet saint, Gilbert. That man dragged our father at his horse’s heels, and then——”
She broke off as though the words were too bitter to be spoken.
Gilbert’s eyes had hardened.
“God forgive me for feeling merry at times. Well, sister, I stay on in Gawdy Town, as you know, to wait for news, and to watch for the men who will come over the sea. Old John Falconer is our watchdog in the Forest. The Blounts and the Ropers are with us; also a dozen more. We ought to muster three hundred men when the day comes. The Flemming is a jewel. His pack mules have smuggled war gear and stores into the Forest. There are three suits of armor, besides bills and salets and jacks hidden in our cellar under the south tower. There is a big beam, too, in the sluice ditch to throw across the gap in the trestle bridge.”
He lay back against the tree, thinking deeply.
“This Father Jude on the Black Moor is a close-mouthed old worthy. He is a man who asks no questions, and there is money to be made by such people; a fellow who can mind his own business is worth his wage. There is not a wilder place in the Forest. You will lodge there in the pilgrim’s house; the Benedictines of Paradise are bound to feed and lodge any traveler who passes that way. Besides, Father Jude is one of us; the man has some bitter grudge against the Lord of Troy.”
She looked at him questioningly.
“And I am a pilgrim.”
“Under a vow.”
“And how shall I serve you, on the top of a moor? It seems foolishness.”
“If a man goes to shrive himself or to pray at a holy place, can folk quarrel with him? That butcher villain of a Vance has his spies everywhere. A bird does not fly straight to its nest when a cat is about.”
“True.”
“And, sister, it would be well if you could steal your way to Woodmere, and see with your own eyes that things are as old Falconer and the Flemming say they are. The cellar trap is hidden under a pile of loose stones; a stout stake through the ring will raise it.”
“I could find my way to Woodmere in the dark.”
“What a wench you are for wandering! You have that money safely? I might have my purse cut in Gawdy. You must play Jew.”
She put her hand to her bosom.
“It is here.”
They talked awhile of all that was in their hearts and of the great adventure that lay before them. Mellis was as serious as he was gay; his flippancy increased as the time slipped by.
“I shall have a tale to spin, oh false woman who passed as my sister! I am a Jack without a Jill.”
Yet his eyes were sad. A gradual melancholy took hold of him.
“Kiss me, child; we must be parting. Keep a brave heart.”
She kissed him with sudden tenderness.
“God guard you, my brother.”
“Oh, I have a cat’s lives!”
He jumped up and went to unfasten her nag.
“Remember, this good priest will ask no questions. He is a kind soul, and will swear to any lie, so they tell me. Up with you, sweetheart.”
He strapped on the saddle-bags, helped her to mount, and led her horse out of the wood. There was not a soul to be seen on the road, and still he seemed loth to leave her.
“I will go with you a little way.”
She looked at him dearly.
“No, I am brave. And there is no one here to see us part, and to gape and wonder concerning us.”
“True, oh queen! And so, farewell.”
He tossed his cap at her, laughed, and went off whistling.
And a sudden strange sadness assailed her. She held her horse in and sat there watching him. He was so gallant, so debonair, this brother of hers.
And she would never set eyes on him again. No prophetic instinct could tell her that.
_Chapter X_
Brother Geraint made his way through the dusk to Widow Greensleeve’s house at Cherry Acre. It was a warm, still night, and the scent of the white thorn blossom in the hedges hung heavy on the air.
He came to the gate and stood listening. There was no sound to be heard save the rush of the river through the sluices of the mill.
Geraint pushed the gate open and peered about under the apple trees.
“Good evening to you, holy sir.”
Some one was laughing close to him in the dusk.
“Who’s there?”
“What, not know my voice?”
“It is you?”
“Come and see. Have you forgotten the seat by the hedge?”
He thrust the apple boughs aside, and saw the white kerchief that covered her shoulders.
“Where is the girl?”
“Saying her prayers somewhere. I have not seen her since noon. She is touched in the head, and goes wandering for hours together.”
Geraint sat down on the bench beside the dame. He was in a sullen mood, and very bitter.
“The fool! Send her back to the moor.”
“She swears she will not go.”
“This Martin Valliant is the devil. She could make nothing of him?”
“Why, my good man, it was he who made a Magdalene of her. She came back crying, ‘He is a saint. There is no man in Paradise fit to lace his shoes!’”
Geraint cursed under his breath.
“A pest take both of them!”
She rapped his shoulder sharply with her knuckles.
“A word of warning, Dom Geraint. If the man is dangerous, the girl may prove more so. I tell you he has worked a miracle with her, and women are strange creatures. She says openly, ‘Some day Martin Valliant will come down from the moor, and make an end of the wickedness in Paradise.’”
“She says that!”
“Aye, and dreams of it. I tell you women are strange creatures when love has its way. She is all for turning anchoress, and praying all day to St. Martin. For half a cup of milk she would go running through the valley, screaming the truth. Be very careful, Dom Geraint.”
He leaned forward, glowering and biting his nails.
“We have made a poor throw, dame. And here is that pestilent pedant of an abbot threatening us with a visitation. We have heard of the storm he raised at Birchhanger; he trampled on the whole priory there, had one of the brothers hanged by the judge on circuit. Privilege of clergy, forsooth! The Church is to be regenerated!”
He rocked to and fro.
“And this Martin Valliant, the very man to play the holy sneak! A pretty pass indeed! A cub we took in and nurtured!”
The woman touched his sleeve.
“Some men are too good for this world. They are so much in love with the next world——”
He laughed discordantly.
“That they should be kicked into it! By my bones, there’s truth in that! It had entered my head, dame. And after all it is but doing a saint a service to help him to a halo.”
“Tsst—you are too noisy! Have a care.”
They drew closer together on the bench till their heads were nearly touching.
“Kate is not about?”
“She’ll come back singing a litany. We shall hear her.”
Yet the girl was nearer than either of them dreamed. She had come wandering silently along the path soon after Geraint had entered the garden, and their voices had warned her. She was standing on the other side of the hedge within two yards of the bench, her hands clenched, her face white and sharp.
She could hear all that they said to each other, and it was sufficient to make her wise as to what was in Geraint’s heart. She realized how his brethren at Paradise hated Martin, and how they wished him out of the way.
Kate heard Geraint stirring at last. There were sounds from the other side of the hedge, sounds that made her wince. She crept away, step by step, till a turn of the path hid her from view.
The gate shut with a clatter. She heard the monk give a great yawn, and then his heavy steps dying away beyond the orchard.
Kate stood very close to the hedge and shivered. Life had so changed for her; she was horrified at things that she had hardly understood before; men seemed contemptible creatures. She was thinking of what she had overheard, and of the treachery that threatened Martin Valliant.
Kate had kept her promise, and the very keeping of it had strengthened her heart; but that night she was persuaded to break it, nor could her conscience find fault with her.
There would be a moon in an hour. She crept around to the stable that stood some way from the house, put a halter on the old gray donkey, and got the beast out with scarcely a sound. He was as stubborn as any ass could be in most people’s hands, but he had a liking for humoring Kate. She led him down the orchard, through the slip gate into the dame’s meadow, and so away over the open country to the bridge at the mill. No one saw her cross the river, though the miller nudged his wife when he heard the donkey’s hoofs on the timber of the bridge.
“Now who would you guess that to be?”
The good wife ran to the window, but saw nothing, since the moon was not up.
“An ass, by the sound.”
“Two of them, more likely. And supposing it were Kate Succory, where would she be going?”
“It is best to mind one’s business, John, when we live at the prior’s mill.”
“Remember it, dame, by all means,” he said, somewhat sullenly, “there is not an honest man among them now that Martin Valliant is away on the moor.”
His wife clapped her hands.
“Maybe that ass travels as far as the moor.”
“Get you to bed. A woman’s tongue stirs up too much mire.”
Kate did not trouble her head as to whether anyone had seen her from the mill. She set the donkey’s nose for the Forest, and helped him with her heels. Luckily, she knew the way, and soon the moon came over the hill to help her.
“A blessing on you, Master Moon,” she said quite solemnly, looking over the donkey’s tail.
The clock at Paradise was striking midnight when Kate saw the Black Moor lying dim and mysterious under the moon. More than once she had been shrewdly frightened in the deeps of the woods; but old Jock was the most stolid of mokes, and the beast’s steadiness had comforted her. She had stretched herself on his back, her arms about his neck, her face close to his flopping ears, and had talked to him.
“Who’s afraid, Jock? I can say a Mater Maria and a Pater. Besides, we are on a good errand, and the saints will watch over us.”
Jock, by his silence, most heartily agreed with her.
“Dom Geraint is a treacherous villain. The lean, black rat! Some day Abbot Hilary will send for Martin Valliant and will make him prior.”
She sat up straight on Jock’s back as the donkey climbed the moor. The place had a magic for her. She could imagine all sorts of miraculous things happening where Martin Valliant lived.
“Assuredly he will be a very great saint,” she said to herself, “and people will come to him to be healed.”
Presently she saw the cross standing out against the sky, and it stirred her almost to passionate tears. She slipped off Jock’s back, fastened him to a stunted thorn, and went on alone.
Everything was very still. In the far south the sea glimmered under the moon. Kate went forward with a strange, exultant awe in her heart. Martin would pardon her for breaking her promise when he knew why she had come.
The buildings were black and solemn, though a faint ray of light shone from the window of the chapel. It was the vigil of St. Florence, and Martin had left two candles burning on the altar while he slept for an hour.
Kate looked into the chapel and found it empty. She knelt on the threshold, put her hands together, and said a prayer.
Martin Valliant was sound asleep in his cell, but he awoke to the sound of some one knocking. He sat up on his pallet, and listened.
“Martin Valliant—Martin Valliant!”
He knew her voice, and for a moment he would not answer her.
“Martin Valliant, be not angry with me. I am not breaking my vow to you; no, not in the spirit. I have come to warn you.”
“Child, what mean you?”
“Beware of Brother Geraint, beware of the monks of Paradise. They go about to do you a great wrong.”
He rose to his knees.
“How should you know?”
“Listen. I speak what is true.”
She told him of the things she had heard Geraint whisper in the garden.
“They are evil men, and mean treachery toward you. I could not rest, Martin Valliant, because you are a good man, and taught me to see the Christ.”
There was silence.
Then she said, “Pray for me, Martin Valliant,” and was gone.
Martin rose up and opened the door of the cell, but she was out of sight over the edge of the moor.
He stood there a long while, rigid, wide-eyed, a young man amazed that older men should be so base.
_Chapter XI_
Mellis Dale had passed the night sleeping under a thorn tree in Bracknell Wood, with a pile of last year’s bracken for a bed. The thorn tree had stood as a green and white pavilion, and there was a forest pool among the birch trees of Bracknell that had served her both as a labrum and a mirror. She broke her fast to the sound of the singing of the woodlarks, and with the sunlight playing through the delicate tracery of the birches. Her brown nag was cropping the wet grass in a little clearing where she had tethered him.
Mellis’s eyes were full of a quiet tenderness that morning. She was a Forest child, and its sounds and scents and colors were very familiar and very dear. She was as forest-wise as any ranger or woodman, and was as much part of its life as the birds or the deer or the mysterious woodland streams and the brown pools where the dead leaves lay buried. A great content possessed her. She had no fear of the wild life or of a bed under the stars.