The Forest Lovers

M >> Maurice Hewlett >> The Forest Lovers

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About a week after the adventure of the bed-chamber, as she was
waiting in the hall with the crowd of lacqueys and retainers, some one
caught her by the arm. She turned and saw Vincent.

He was hot, excited, and dusty, but very much her servant, poor lad.

"Dame Maulfry is here," he whispered her.

"Where?"

"You will see her soon. She is tricked in the figure of a dancing
woman, an Egyptian. She will come telling fortunes and shameful tales.
And she means mischief, but not to you."

"Ah! How do you know that, Vincent?"

"She talked very often to herself when we were in the forest. We have
been to many places--Wanmeeting, Waisford. There is no doubt at all.
`Kill the buck and you have the doe': she said it over and over again.
We have seen the sick man. He is quite well now, and very strong. She
is to kill your lord and take you alive. She seems to hate him. I
can't tell you why. Which is your lord of all those on the dais?"

"Hush. There he sits on the right hand of the Countess. He is talking
to her now. Look, she is laughing."

"Oh, he is tall. He looks light and fierce, like a leopard. How high
he carries his head! As if we were of another world."

"So we are," said Isoult.

Vincent sighed and went on with his story. "I have run away from
Maulfry. She left me to wait for her at the end of the avenue, with
three horses, just as I was at Gracedieu--do you remember? But I could
never do that again. Now I must hide somewhere."

"Come with me. I will hide you."

She took him to the buttery and gave him over to the cook-maids. She
told Melot that this was a fellow of hers who must be tended at all
costs. Melot made haste to obey, sighing like a gale of wind. Isoult
had rather asked any other, but time pressed. She hurried back to the
hall to take her proper place at table, and going thither, made sure
that her dagger slid easily in and out. She was highly excited, but
not with fear--elated rather.

Supper passed safely over. The Countess withdrew to the gallery, and
Prosper followed her as his duty bound him. He was still thoughtful
and subdued, but with a passing flash now and again of his old
authority, which served to make a blacker sky for the love-sick lady.
The sounds of music came gratefully to Isoult; for once she was glad
to be rid of him. She sped back to Vincent, enormously relieved that
the field of battle was to be narrowed. Maulfry would have been
awkward in the open; she knew she could hold her in the passages.
There were two things to be prevented, observe. The knife must not
discover Prosper, nor Maulfry Isoult. The latter was almost as
important on Prosper's account as the former. Isoult knew that. She
knew also that it must be risked of the two; but in the passages she
could deal with it.

Vincent was sitting by the fire between Melot and Jocosa, another of
the maids. Melot bit her lip, and edged away from him as Isoult came
in.

"Girls," said the redoubtable Roy, with scant ceremony, "I have to
speak to my mate."

Melot bounced out of the room. Jocosa loitered about, hoping for a
frolic. A chance look at Master Roy seemed to convince her that she
too had better go.

As soon as they were alone Isoult made haste to eat and drink. Between
the mouthfuls she said--

"She has not come yet."

"No," said Vincent, "but she will come soon. There is time enough for
what she has to do. She had to wait till it was dark. She never works
in daylight."

"We are safe now," Isoult said.

"How is that--safe?"

"She will never see my lord except through me. The doorward will bring
her to me, or me to her. Then I shall be sent to my lord."

"And will you go, Isoult?"

"Never."

"What will you do?"

Isoult looked down at her belt, whither Vincent's eyes followed hers.

"Ah," he said, "will you dare do that?"

"There is nothing I would not dare for him."

Thereupon Vincent pulls out his dagger as bravely as you please.

"Isoult," says he, "this is man's work. You leave her to me."

"Man's work, Vincent?" But she could not bear to finish the sentence,
so changed it. "Man's work to stab a woman?"

"Man's work, Isoult, to shield the lady one loves--honours I should
say."

"Yes, that is better."

"No, it is worse. Oh! Isoult, may I not love you?"

"Certainly not."

"But how can I help it? I do love you. What can prevent me?"

Isoult coloured.

"Love itself can prevent you, Vincent."

"Oh! you are right, you are wise, you are very holy. I have never
thought of such things as that. And is that true love?"

"Love should kill love, if need were."

"Love shall," said Vincent in a whisper. Whereupon Isoult smiled on
him.

They fell to chatting again, discussing possibilities, or facts, which
were safer ground. Isoult heard the stroke of ten. Presently after,
the page-in-waiting sang out a challenge. A shuffling step stopped, a
cracked voice asked for Messire Prosper le Gai.

"Maulfry!" said Vincent with a shiver.

"Hush!"

"It is late to see Messire," said the page.

"He will see me none the less, young gentleman."

"Wait where you stand. I will fetch his squire."

Isoult got up. Vincent was already on his feet.

"Shall we go?" asked the boy.

"Wait," said the girl. "We must get rid of Balthasar."

Balthasar came in with his message to Roy. Isoult affected to know all
about it. She sent Balthasar off to find a sealed package, which did
not exist, in a turret room where it could not have been. Balthasar
went. He was a dull boy.

"Now," said Isoult, and led the way into the passage.

It was pretty dark there and draughty. A flickering cresset threw a
flare of light one minute, and was shrivelled to a blue spark the
next. It sufficed them to see a tall beribboned shape, a thing of
brown skin and loose black hair--a tall woman standing at a distance.
Side by side Isoult and Vincent went down towards her. Half-way Isoult
suddenly stopped and beckoned Maulfry forward with her hand. The fact
was that she had seen how near the woman stood to the guard-room door;
she wished to do her business undisturbed. Vincent, however, who knew
nothing of the guard-room, had a theory that Isoult was frightened.

Maulfry came bowing forward. Isoult turned and walked slowly away from
her, Vincent in company and on the watch; Maulfry followed, gaining.
By the buttery door Isoult suddenly stopped and faced round. Maulfry
was before her.

"Maulfry," said the girl quietly, "what do you want with my lord?"

Maulfry's eyes shifted like lightning from one to the other. She felt
her rage rising, but swallowed it down.

"You little fool," she said, "you little fool, his life is in danger."

"I have warned him, Maulfry. It was in danger."

"Warned him! I can do better than that. Why, your own is as shaky as
his. You have brought it about by your own folly, and now you are like
to let him be killed. Take me to him, child, for his sake and yours."

"You will never see him, Maulfry."

Maulfry hesitated for a second or two. She was very angry at this
trouble.

"You are a great fool for such a little body, Isoult," she said; "more
than I had believed. Come now, let me pass." She made to go on:
Isoult, to get ready, stepped back a step, but Vincent slipped in
between them. He was shaking all over.

"Stay where you are, dame," he said.

Maulfry gave a jump.

"Bastard!" She spat at him, and whipped a knife into his heart.
Vincent sobbed, and fell with a thud. In a trice Isoult had struck
with her dagger at Maulfry's shoulder. Steel struck steel: the blade
broke short off at the haft.

A guard came out with a torch, saw the trouble, and turned shouting to
his mates. Half-a-dozen of them came tumbling into the passage with
torches and pikes. There was a great smoke, some blinding patches of
light, everywhere else a sooty darkness. By the time they were up to
the buttery there was nothing to be seen but a boy sitting on the
flags with a dead boy on his knees. Maulfry had gone. As for Vincent,
Love had killed love sure as fate.

When Prosper heard of it all he was very angry. "Is this how you serve
me, child? To fight battles for me? I suppose I should return the
compliment by darning your stockings. I had things to say to this
woman, many things to learn. You have bungled my plans and vexed me."

Isoult humbled herself to the dust, but he would not be appeased.

"Who was this boy?" he asked her. "What on earth had he to do in my
affair?"

"Lord," she said meekly, "he died to save me from death, and once
before he risked his life to let me escape from Tortsentier."

Prosper felt the rebuke and got more angry.

"A fool meets with a fool's death. Boys and girls have no business
with steel. They should be in the nursery."

"I was in prison, lord."

He remembered then that she might have stayed in prison for all his
help. He began to be ashamed of himself.

"Child," he said more gently, "I did wrong to be angry; but you must
never thwart my plans. The boy loved you?"

"Few have loved me," said she, "but he loved me."

"Ah! Did he tell you so?"

"Yes, lord."

"And what did you say to that, Isoult?"

"I told him how love should be."

"So, so. And how do you think that love should be?"

"Thus, lord," said Isoult, looking to Vincent's heart.

Prosper turned pale. There were deeps, then, of which he had never
dreamed.

"Isoult," he said, "did you love this boy who so loved you?"

She shook her head rather pitifully. "Ah, no!"

"But yet you told him how he should love you?"

"Nay, lord, but I told him how I should love."

"You must have studied much in this science, my child."

"I am Isoult la Desirous, lord."

Prosper turned away. There was much here that he did not understand,
and that night before he went to sleep at her door he kissed her
forehead--it would have been her hand if his dignity had dared--and
then they prayed together as once in the forest.

Afterwards he was glad enough to remember this.

CHAPTER XIX

LADY'S LOVE

For, notwithstanding all that Isoult could urge (which was very little
indeed), Prosper started next morning with a dozen men to scour the
district for Maulfry. He refused point blank to take the girl with
him, and after her rebuke and abasement of the night before, still
more after the reconciliation on knees, she dared not plead overmuch.
He was a man and a great lord; she could not suppose that she knew all
his designs--any of them, if it came to that. He must go his way--
which was man's way--and she must stop at High March nursing her
heart--which was woman's way--even if High March proved a second
Gracedieu and Isabel a more inexorable Maulfry. No act of her own, she
resolved, should henceforward lead her to disobey him. Ah! she
remembered with a hot flush of pain--ah! her disobedience at Gracedieu
had brought all the mischief, Vincent's death all the anguish. Of
course it had not; of course Maulfry had tricked her; but she was not
the girl to spare herself reproaches. Her loyalty to Prosper took her
easily the length of stultification.

So Prosper went; and it may be some consolation to reflect that his
going pleased fourteen people at least. First it pleased the men he
took with him; for Prosper, that born fighter, was never so humorous
as when at long odds with death. Fighting seemed a frolic with him for
captain; a frolic, at that, where the only danger was that in being
killed outright you would lose a taste of the certain win for your
side. For among the High March men there was already a tradition--God
knows how these things grow--that Prosper le Gai and the hooded hawk
could not be beaten. He was so cheerful, victory so light a thing.
Then his cry--_Bide the time_--could anything be more heartening?
Rung out in his shrill tones over the open field, during a night
attack, say, or called down the darkening alleys of the forest, when
the skirmishers were out of each other's sight and every man faced a
dim circle of possible hidden foes? Pest! it tied man to man, front to
rear. It tied the whole troop to the brain of a young demon, who was
never so cool as when the swords were flying, and most wary when
seeming mad. Blood was a drink, death your toast, at such a banquet.
And that accounts for twelve out of fourteen.

The thirteenth was Countess of Hauterive, Chatelaine of High March,
Lady of Morgraunt, etc. A very few days inhabitancy where Master Roy
was of the party, had assured this lady that the page must be ridded.
She wished him no ill: you do not wish ill to the earwig which you
brush out of the window. Certainly if a boy had needs be stabbed by an
Egyptian (who incontinent disappears and must be hunted) it were
simpler Roy had fallen than the other. But she had no thought of
amending the mistakes of Providence. Great ladies who are really great
do not go to work to have inconvenient lacqueys stabbed. This at least
was not the Countess of Hauterive's way. If Fulk de Breaute had not
been her lover as well as her husband, if he had been (for instance)
only her husband, she would have despised Earl Roger fully as much for
the affair on Spurnt Heath. No. But she meant Roy to go, and here was
her chance.

The fourteenth was Melot, a maid of the kitchen. This young woman,
whose love affairs were at least as important in her own eyes as could
possibly be those of the Countess her mistress (whom she had hardly
ever seen), or of Prosper (whom she conceived as a sexless
abstraction, built for the purposes of eating and wearing steel), or
of Roy (who, she assumed, had none)--this young woman, I say, was best
pleased of them all. She was perhaps pretty; she had a certain
exuberant charm, I suppose--round red cheeks, round black eyes, even
teeth, and a figure--and was probably apt to give it the fullest
credit. Roy's indifference, or reticence, or timidity (whichever it
was) provoked her. There was either innocence, or backwardness, or
_ennui_ to overcome: in any case, victory would be a triumph over
a kitchenful of adepts, and here was a chance of victory. So far she
owned to failure in all the essays she had made. She had tried
comradeship, a bite of her apple--declined. She had put her head on
his shoulder more than once--endured once, checked effectively by
sudden removal of the shoulder and upsetting of the lady a final time.
She leaned over him to see what he was reading--he ceased reading.
Comradeship was a mockery; let her next try mischief. For happy
mischief the passionist must fume: he had looked at her till she felt
a fool. She had tried innuendo--he did not understand it; languishing
--he gladly left her to languish; coquetry elsewhere--he asked nothing
better. She thought she must be more direct; and she was.

Isoult was in the pantry alone the second day of Prosper's quest. She
stood at gaze out of the window, seeing nothing but dun-colour and
drab where the sunlight made all the trees golden-green. Melot came in
with a great stir over nothing at all, hemmed, coughed, sighed,
heighoed. The block of a fellow stood fast, rooted at his window--
gaping. Melot was stung. She came to close quarters.

"Oh, Roy," she sighed, "never was such a laggard lad with me before.
Where hast thou been to school?"

Thereupon she puts hands upon the dunce, kisses him close, grows
sudden red, stammers, holds off, has the wit to make sure--and bundles
out, blazing with her news.

In twenty minutes it was all over the castle; Prosper's flag was
higher, and Isoult's in the mire. In thirty it had come to my lady's
dresser. Isoult, in the meantime, purely unconscious of anything but a
sick heart, had wandered up into the ante-chamber, and was poring over
a Book of Hours of the Blessed Virgin, leaning on her elbows at a
table.

The dresser, having assimilated the news, was only too happy to impart
to the Countess. This she did, and with more detail than the truth
would warrant. Half hints became whole, backstairs whispers shouted in
the corridors; and all went to swell the feast of sound in the lady's
chamber. It would be idle to say that the Countess was furious, and
moreover untrue, for that implies a scarlet face; the Countess grew as
grey as a dead fire. She was, in truth, more shocked than angry,
shocked at such a flagrant insult to her mere hospitality. But
gradually, as the whole truth seemed to shape itself--the figure she
made, standing bare as her love had left her before this satyr of a
man; the figure of Prosper, tongue in the cheek, leering at her; the
figure of Isoult, a loose-limbed wanton sleepy with vice--before this
hideous trinity, when she had shuddered and cringed, she rose up
trembling, possessed with a really imperial rage. And if ever a
grievously flouted lady had excuse for rage, it was this lady.

Her rages were never storms, always frosts. These are the more deadly,
because they give the enraged more time. So she said very little to
her dresser. It came to this--"Ah! And where is the woman now?"

The dresser replied that when she had passed by the woman was in the
ante-chamber.

"Very well," said the Countess, "you may leave her there. Go." She
pointed to a door which led another way. The dresser felt baulked of
her just reward. But that was to come.

The Countess, still trembling from head to foot, took two or three
swift turns across the room. The few gentle lines about her face were
more like furrows; the skin was very tight over the lips and cheek-
bones. She opened the door softly. Isoult was still in the ante-
chamber, leaning over the Book of Hours, wherein she had found treated
of the 'Seven Sorrowful Mysteries.' Her short hair fell curling over
her cheeks; but she was boyish enough, to sight. The Countess went
quickly behind her, and before the girl could turn about was satisfied
of the amazing truth.

Isoult, blushing to the roots of her hair, stood up. Her troubled eyes
tried at first to meet her accuser's stony pair. They failed
miserably; almost any plight but this a girl can face. She hung her
head, waiting for the storm.

"Why are you here, woman?" came sharp as sleet.

"I came to warn my lord, madam."

"What are you to him?"

Now for it;--no, never! "I am his servant, madam."

"His servant? You would say his--" The Countess spared nothing. Isoult
began to rock. She covered her face with her hands and sobbed dry.

"Answer me, if you please," continued the Countess. "What are you to
this man?"

Isoult had no voice.

"If you do not answer me I shall treat you for what I know you are.
You know the penalty. I give you three minutes."

There was no more then from the Countess for three minutes by the
glass. The great lady stood erect, cold and white, seemingly frozen by
the frost which burns you. The only sound in the room was the sobbing
of the cowed girl, who also stood with hidden face and drooping knees,
broken with sobs, but tearless. Ah, what under heaven could she do but
as she did? Married to Prosper? How, when he had not declared it; had
received her as his servant, and treated her as a servant? How, when
she knew that the marriage of such as he to such as she was a
disablement far more serious than the relationship thrown at her by
the Countess? How, above all, when he had married her for charity,
without love and without worship, could she bring scorn upon him who
had dragged her out of scorn? Never, never! She must set her teeth
hard, bow her head, and endure. The time was up.

"Your answer, woman," said the Countess. There was none--could be
none. Only the victim raised a white twitching face to a white stony
face, and with desperate eyes searched it for a ray of pity. Again
there was none--could be none.

The Countess went quickly up and struck her on the mouth with her open
hand. The victim shivered, but stood.

"Go, strumpet!" said the lady. She threw open the door, and thrust
Isoult into the crowd of men and maids waiting in the corridor.

Master Jasper Porges, the seneschal, was the man of all the world who
loved to have things orderly done. The hall was at his disposition; he
arranged his tribunal, the victim in the midst, accuser and witnesses
in a body about his stool, spectators to form a handsome ring--to set
off, as it were, his jewel.

"Her ladyship gives me a free hand in this affair," he said in a short
speech. "You could not have a better man; leave it to me therefore.
There must be a judge. By office, by years, by weariness, by
experience of all (or most) ways of evil-doing, I am the judge for
you. Good; I sit in the seat of judgment. There must be next a jury of
matrons, since this is a free and great country where no man or woman
(whichever this prisoner may be) can be so much as suspected of sex
without a judgment. And since we have not matrons enough, we will make
a shift with the maids. A dozen of you to the benches on the table, I
beg. So far, good. We need next an accused person. He, or she, is
there. Put the person well forward, if you please. Good. Now we are
ready for our advocates; we need an _Advocatus Dei_, or accuser,
and an _Advocatus Diaboli_, or common enemy, to be defender.
Melot, my chicken, you are advocate for God Almighty, and the office
is high enough for you, I hope. _Diaboli Advocatus_ we have
naturally none, since this is a Christian land. Believe me, we are
better without such cattle. I proceed, therefore, by the rules of
logic which are well known to be irresistible, so much so that had
there been a devil's advocate present I must have declined to admit
him lest our Christian profession be made a mock. Hence it follows
that there is no defence. One might almost foretell the event; but
that would be prejudice. We proceed then to interpolate the accused,
saying--'Person, you (being a man) are strangely accused of being a
woman. The court invites you to declare yourself, adding this plain
rider and doom, that if you declare yourself a man, you are condemned
in the person of your familiar, the devil, who deceiveth those that
say you are a woman; and that if you prove to be a woman, you are
condemned by those who dealt with you as a man. Therefore, declare.'"

Master Porges waited, but waited in vain. He was pained. "What,
silence?" he whispered awfully. "What, contumacy? Stubborn refusal?
Sinking in sin? Can I believe my ears? Very good, prisoner, very good.
Melot, my bird of paradise, give your evidence."

This had effect. "I confess," said the accused (speaking for the first
time), "I am not a man."

"There now, there now," cried Master Porges in an ecstasy, "the
sleeper awakened! The conscience astir! Oh, infallible fount of
justice! Oh, crown of the generation of Adam too weighty for the
generation of Eve! Observe now, my loving friends, how beautiful the
rills of logic flowing from this stricken wretch. Let me deduce them
for you. As thus. A woman seeketh naturally a man: but this is a
woman; therefore she sought naturally a man. My friends, that is just
what she did. For she sought Messire Prosper le Gai, a lord, the
friend of ladies. Again. A man should cleave unto his wife: but
Messire le Gai is a man, therefore Messire should cleave unto his
wife. 'La, la!' one will say, 'but he hath no wife, owl!' and think to
lay me flat. Oh, wise fool, I reply, take another syllogism conceived
in this manner and double-tongued. It is not good for man to live
alone; neither is it good for a lady to live alone, who hath a great
estate and the cares of it: but Messire Prosper is that man, and her
ladyship is that lady; therefore they should marry; therefore Messire
Prosper should cleave unto her ladyship, and what the devil hath this
woman to do between a man and his wife now? Aha, I have you clean in a
fork. I have purposely omitted a few steps in my ladder of inference
to bring it home. Then, look, cometh crawling this accursed. _O
tempora, O Mores! O Pudor! O Saecula Saeculorum!_ What incontinency,
you will say; and I say, What, indeed! Then cometh fairly your turn.
Seneschal, you go on threatening me, this is a Christian castle under
a Christian lady, the laws whereof are fixed and stable so that no
man may blink them. I say, Aye. You go on to plead, noble seneschal
(say you), give us our laws lest we perish. I see the tears; I say, Aye.
The penalty of incontinency is well known to you; I say, Aye. It is just.
I bow my head. I say, Take your incontinent incontinently, and deal!"

Master Porges got off the table, and, ceasing to be a justice, became
a creature of his day. Now, his day was a wild one as his dwelling a
barbarous, where the remedy for most offences was a drubbing.

Isoult bowed her head, set her teeth hard, and bent to the storm. The
storm burst over her, shrilled, whistled, and swept her down. In her
unformulate creed Love was, sure enough, a lord of terrible aspect,
gluttonous of blood, in whose service nevertheless the blood-letter
should take delight. No flagellant scored his back more deeply nor
with braver heart than she her smitten side. It would appear that she
was a better Christian than she suspected, since she laid down her
life for her friend, and found therein her reward. And her reward was
this, that Prosper le Gai, the gallant fighter, remained for Melot and
her kind a demi-god in steel, while she, his wife, was adjudged to the
black ram. To the black ram she was strapped, face to the tail, and so
ran the gauntlet of the yelling host in the courtyard, and of the
Countess of Hauterive's chill gaze from the parvise. By this time she
had become a mere doll, poor wretch; and as there is no pleasure in a
love of justice which is not quickened by a sense of judgment, the
pursuers tired after the first mad bout. Some, indeed, found that they
had hurt themselves severely by excess of zeal. This was looked upon
as clear evidence of the devil's possession of a tail, in spite of the
Realists. For if he had not a tail, how could he injure those who
drove him out? This is unanswerable.

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