Chapter 20

HOW PROSPER HELD A REVIEW

Messire Prosper le Gai with his dozen men had scoured the forest country from March on the east to Wanmeeting on the west, and from March-Gilbert among the hills of the north to Gracedieu in Mid-Morgraunt, without any sign of the Egyptian. But at Wanmeeting there had been news of a golden knight, who, unattended, rode into the market-place at sunset asking the whereabouts of Galors de Born and his force. Having learned that they had taken the Goltres road the knight had posted off at a gallop, hot foot. Now Prosper knew what sort of a force Galors might have there, and guessed (from what intelligence Isoult had added to his own) that the golden knight would make at least two brains in it. To follow, to get his dozen men killed, were nothing; but could he be certain Galors would be dropped and Maulfry secured for the appointed branding before the last of them fell? As for his own life, we know that he considered that arranged for. He habitually left it out of the reckoning. On the whole, however, he decided that he could not successfully attack. He must return for reinforcements, taking with him a report which, he relied, would secure them. Waisford had been raided, the fields about it laid waste. There were evidences of burnings and slaughterings on all hands. He put what heart he could into the scared burgesses before he left, and what common-sense. But Galors had gone through like a hot wind.

So Prosper and his men returned to High March. On the morning in which Isoult stirred to open her loaded eyes, and began to moan a little, he and they went by within some forty yards of her--the troopers first, then himself riding alone behind them. He heard the moaning sound and looked up; indeed, he saw the black ram standing, alone as he thought, with drooped head. Prosper was full of affairs. "Some ewe but lately yeaned," he thought as he rode on. The glaze swam again over Isoult's eyes, and the moaning grew faint and near its death. The ram fell to licking her cheek. In this pass she was presently found by a charcoal-burner, who had delivered his loads, and was now journeying back with his asses into the heart of the forest. He also heard the moaning; he too saw the ram. Perhaps he knew more of the habits of ewes or had them readier in mind. He may have had no affairs. The beast, at any rate, was a ram for him, and the licked cheek that of a murdered boy who lay with the other cheek on the sward. The blood about his eyes and hair, the blood on the grass, was dry blood; nevertheless the man turned him over, felt his bones, listened at his heart, and made up his mind that he was not dead. A little wine to his lips brought him to. The charcoal-burner looked into the wounds and washed them, produced black bread, goat's-milk cheese, with a little more wine, finally helped the beaten lad to his feet and to one of his asses. He assumed it was a fight and not a failure to murder: that was safer for him. With the same view he asked no questions. It was a pity to leave the ram, he thought. Butcher's meat was scarce. He killed it then and there, having plenty of asses to hand. In that category, with little doubt, must be placed the ram in question, who, had he had a proper abhorrence of persons who rode him face to the tail, would have kept his skin and lived to found a family.

The charcoal-burner, when all was made fast, set his team in motion. Man, woman, and asses, they ambled off down the green alley towards the middle holds of Morgraunt.

Prosper and his men, lords of those parts, went on their way home to High March. The men disposed in their lodging, Prosper himself rode under the gateway of the castle, crossed the drawbridge, and entered the courtyard amid the mock salutes of the grinning servants. Full of thought as he was, vexed at his check, curiously desiring to see Isoult again (who had such believing eyes!), he took no heed of all this, but dismounting, called for his page. At this there was a hush, as when the play is to begin. Then Master Porges, the seneschal, solemnly awaiting him, solemnly blinked at him, and cleared his throat for a speech.

"Messire," he said, "Messire, to call for a page is an easy matter, but to answer for a page is a difficult matter." He loved periphrasis, the good Porges.

"What do you mean by that, my dear friend?" said Prosper blandly, defying periphrasis.

"Messire," went on Master Porges, hard put to it, "to answer you were to defile the tongue God hath given me for her ladyship's service. To obey is better than sacrifice. Her present obedience is that I should request your presence in the ante-chamber the instant of your appearing before these halls."

"You will do me the honour, seneschal," said Prosper, growing polite, "to answer my question first."

"I will send for the girl Melot, Messire," answered Master Porges.

"You shall send for whom you please, my friend, but you shall answer my question before you move from that step."

The seneschal did not move from the step. He sent a loiterer to fetch Melot from the kitchen, while Prosper waited, the centre of an entranced crowd.

"Ah, the suffering maid!" cried the seneschal as he saw Melot near at hand. "My maid, you must speak to Messire in answer to a question he put me but a few minutes since. Messire, my girl, asked for his page."

Melot's heart began to thump. The steel demigod was before her, she unprepared. The fire was laid, but wanted kindling. Prosper kindled it for his own consuming.

"Pray what has this woman to do here?" he asked.

"Woman indeed!" rounded Melot, breathing again. "Woman! do you call me names, Messire? Keep them for the baggage you fetched in!"

Prosper saw the whole thing in a flash. He grew still more polite.

"Seneschal," he said, "have the goodness to inform your mistress of my coming. Pray that I may wait upon her immediately.... I think," he added after a pause, "I think that you had better go at once."

The seneschal agreed that he had. He went.

Prosper waited in silence, in a crowd equally silent.

The seneschal shortly returned.

"Her ladyship will see Messire at once. I beg Messire to follow me."

He entered the Countess's chamber, and, lifting his head, looked at a white lady on a throne. He had never seen her so before. She was dressed in pure white, with a face near as dead as her clothes. All that was dark about it haunted her masked eyes. She sat with her chin in her hand, looking and waiting for him; when he came, and the seneschal was dismissed with a curt nod, she still sat in the same dead fashion, watchful of her guest, unwinking, pondering. Prosper, for his part, bided the time. He guessed what was coming, but a word from him might have put him in the wrong.

In the end the Countess broke the long silence. He thought he had never heard her voice; it sounded like that of a tired old woman.

"I had thought to find in you, my lord, the son of an old friend, like in spirit as in blood to him whom at first I sought to honour in you. I find I have been mistaken, but for your father's sake I will not tell you how much nor by what degrees. Rather I will beg you go at once from my house."

Said Prosper--

"Madam, for my father's sake, if not for mine, you will tell much more than this to his son. Have your words any hint of reference to the Lady Isoult? Speak of her, madam, as you would speak of my mother, for she is my wife."

The Countess shrank back in her throne as if to avoid a whip. She cowered there. Her eyes dilated, though she seemed incapable of seeing anything at all; her mouth opened gradually--Prosper expected her to scream--till it formed a round O, a pale ring circling black. Prosper, having delivered his blow, waited in his turn; though his breath whistled through his nostrils his lips were shut, his head still very high. The blow was a shrewd one for the lady. You might have counted twenty before she began to talk to herself in a whisper. Prosper thought she was mad.

"I should have known--I should have known--I should have known," she whispered, very fast, as people whisper on a death-bed.

"Madam," he broke in, "certainly you should have known had it seemed possible to tell you. Even now I can tell you no more than the bare fact, which is as I have stated it. And so it must be for the moment, until I have completed an adventure begun. But so much as I tell you now I might have told you before. It is shame to me that I did not. Marriage to me is a new thing, love still a strange thing. Had I thought then as I now do, be sure you would never have seen me here without my wife, whom now, madam, I will pray leave to present to you, the Lady Isoult le Gai."

During this narration the Countess had risen slowly to her feet. She was labouring under some stress which Prosper could not fathom. For a little she stood, working her torture before him. Then she suddenly smote herself on the breast and cried at him--"You have done more misery than you can dream." And again she struck herself, and then, coming down from her throne like a wild thing, she shrieked at him as if possessed--"You fool, you fool! Look at me!"

He could not help himself; look he must. She came creeping up to him. She caught at his two hands and peered into his face with her blind eyes.

"Do you love Isoult, Prosper?"

He could hardly hear her. But he raised his head.

"By God and His Christ, I believe that I do," said he.

The Countess took a dagger from her girdle, unsheathed it, and put it in his hand. She knelt down before him as a woman kneels to a saint in a church. With a sudden frenzy she tore open the front of her gown so that all her bosom was bare, and then as suddenly whipt her hands behind her back.

"Now kill me, Prosper," she whined; "for I love thee, and I have killed thy love Isoult."

So she bowed her head and waited.

But Prosper gave a terrible cry, and turned and left her kneeling. He ran down the corridor blindly, not knowing how or whither he fared. At the end of it was a door which gave on to the Minstrel Gallery over the great hall. Into this trap he ran and fetched up against the parapet. Below him in the hall were countless faces--as it seemed, a sea of white faces, mouthing, jeering, and cursing. He stood glaring blankly at them, fetching his breath. Words flew about--horrible! Out of all he caught here and there a scrap, each tainted with hate and unspeakable disgrace.

"Come down, thou polluter." Again, "Serve him like his wench."--"Trounce him with his woman."--"Send the pair to hell!"

The dawning attention he began to pay sobered his panic, quenched it. What he learned by listening struck him cold. He took pains; he could hear every word now, surely. He was really very attentive. The chartered rascals packed in the hall took this for irresolution, and howled at him to their hearts' content. Once more Prosper held to his motto--bided the time. The time came with the coming of Master Porges--that smug and solemn man--into the assembly. The seneschal looked round him with a benignant air, as who should say, "My children all!" The listening man in the gallery watched all this.

Suddenly his sword flashed out. Prosper vaulted over the gallery, dropped down into the thick of them, and began to kill. Kill indeed he