The Forest Lovers

M >> Maurice Hewlett >> The Forest Lovers

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21

Prosper got up in an awkward pause. He looked at the man as if he were
possessed of the devil. Then he laughed, saying, "Are you merry, old
rogue?"

"Nay, sir," said the ancient, "it is no jest. If she mate not this
night--and it's marriage for choice with this holy man--come sunrise
she'll be hanged on the Abbot's new gallows. For, she is suspected of
witchcraft and many abominations."

"Is she your daughter, you dog, and do you speak thus of your
daughter?" cried Prosper in a fury.

"Sir," said the man, "who would own himself father to a witch?
Nevertheless she is my daughter indeed."

"What is the meaning of all this? Would you have me marry a witch, old
fool?" Prosper shouted at him. The man shrugged.

"Nay, sir, but I said it was marriage for choice--seeing the friar was
to hand. We know their way, to marry as soon as look at you. But it's
as you will, so you get a title to her, to take her out of the
country."

Prosper turned to look at Isoult. He saw her standing before the
board, her head hung and her two hands clasped together. Her breathing
was troubled--that also he saw. "God's grace!" thought he to himself,
"is she so fair without and within so rotten? Who has been ill-
ordering the world to this pass?" He watched her thoughtfully for some
time; then he turned to her father.

"See now, old scamp," he said, "I have sworn an oath to high God to
succour the weak, to right wrong, and to serve ladies. Nine times
under the moon I sware it, watching my arms before the cross on
Starning Waste. Judge you, therefore, whether I intend to keep it or
not. As for your daughter, she can tell you whether some part of it I
have not kept even now. But understand me, that I do not marry on
compulsion or where love is not. For that were a sin done toward God,
and me, and a maid."

The old rascal blinked his eyes, jerking his head many times at the
shameful girl. Then he said, "Love is there fast and sure. She is all
for loving. They call her Isoult la Desirous, you must know."

"Yes," said Prosper, "I do know it, for she has told me so already.'

"And to-morrow she will desire no more, since she will be hanged,"
said Matt-o'-the-Moor.

Prosper started and flushed, and--

"That is a true gospel, brother," put in the friar. "The Abbot means
to air his gallows at her expense; but there is worse than a gallows
to it. What did I tell you of the Black Monks when you called 'em
White? There is a coal-black among them who'll have her if the gallows
have her not. It is Galors or gallows, fast and sure."

Prosper rubbed his chin, looked at the friar, looked at Matt, looked
at Isoult. She neither lifted her head nor eyes, though the others had
met him sturdily enough. She stood like a saint on a church porch; he
thought her a desperate Magdalen.

"Isoult, come here," said he. She came as obediently as you please,
and stood before him; but she would not look up until he said again,
"Isoult, look me in the face." Then she did as she was told, and her
eyes were unwinking and very wide open, full of dark. She parted her
lips and sighed a little, shivering somewhat. It seemed to him as if
she had been with the dead already and seen their kingdom. Prosper
said, "Isoult is this true that thou wilt be hanged to-morrow?"

"Yes, lord," said Isoult in a whisper.

"Or worse?"

"Yes, lord," she said again, quivering.

"Save only thy lot be a marriage this night?"

"Yes, lord," she said a third time. So he asked,

"Art thou verily what this old man thy father hath testified against
thee--a witch, a worker of iniquity and black things, and of
abominations with the devil?"

Isoult said in a very still voice--"Men say that I am all this, my
lord."

But Prosper with a cry called out, "Isoult, Isoult, now tell me the
truth. Dost thou deserve this death?"

She sighed, and smiled rather pitifully as she said--

"I cannot tell, lord; but I desire it."

"Dost thou desire death, child?" cried he, "and is this why thou art
called La Desirous?"

"I desire to be what I am not, my lord, and to have that which I have
never had," she answered, and her lip trembled.

"And what is that which you are not, Isoult?"

She answered him "Clean."

"And what is that which you have never had, my child?"

"Peace," said Isoult, and wept bitterly.

Then Prosper crossed himself very devoutly, and covered his face while
he prayed to his saint. When he had done he said, "Cease crying,
Isoult, and tell me the truth, by God and His Christ, and Saint Mary,
and by the face of the sky. Art thou such a one as I would wed if love
were to grow between me and thee, or art thou other?"

She ceased her crying at this and looked him full in the face, deadly
pale. "What is the truth to you concerning me?" she said.

He answered her, "The truth is everything, for without it nothing can
have good beginning or good ending."

This made her meek again and her eyes misty. She held out a hand to
him, saying, "Come into the night, and I will tell my lord."

He took it. Hand-in-hand they went out of the cottage, and hand-in-
hand stood together alone under the sky. It was still black and heavy
weather, but without rain. Isoult dropped his hand and stood before
him. She shut her arms over her breast so that her two wrists crossed
at her throat. Looking full at him from under her brows she said--

"By God and His Christ, and Saint Mary, and by the face of the sky, I
will tell you the truth, lord. If the witch's wax be not as abominable
as the witch, or the vessel not foul that hath held a foul liquor,
then thou couldst never point scorn at me."

"Speak openly to me, my child," said Prosper, "and fear nothing."

So she said, "I will speak openly. I am no witch, albeit I have seen
witchcraft and the revelry of witches on Deerleap. And though I have
seen evil also I am a maiden, my lord, and such as you would have your
own sister to be before she were wed."

But Prosper put her from him at an arm's-length. He was not yet
satisfied.

"What was thy meaning then," he asked, "to say that thou wouldst be
that which thou wert not?" He could not bring himself to use the word
which she had used; but she used it again.

"Ah, clean!" she said with a weary gesture. "Lord, how shall I be
clean in this place? Or how shall I be clean when all say that I am
unclean, and so use towards me?" She began to cry again, quite
silently. Prosper could hear the drips fall from her cheeks to her
breast, but no other sound. She began to moan in her trouble--"Ah, no,
no, no!" she whispered, "I would not wed with thee, I dare not wed
with thee."

"Why not?" said Prosper.

"I dare not, I dare not!" she answered through her teeth, and he felt
her trembling under his hand. He thought before he spoke again. Then
he said--

"I have vowed a vow to my saint that I will save you, soul and body;
and if it can be done only by a wedding, then we will be married, you
and I, Isoult. But if by battle I can serve your case as well, and rid
the suspicion and save your neck, why, I will do battle."

"Nay, lord," said the girl, "I must be hanged, for so the Lord Abbot
has decreed." And then she told him all that Galors had given her to
understand when he had her in the quarry.

Prosper heard her to the end: it was clear that she spoke as she
believed.

"Well, child," said he, "I see that all this is likely enough, though
for the life of me I cannot bottom it. But how then," he cried, after
a little more thinking, "shall I let you be hanged, and your neck so
fine and smooth!"

"Lord," she said, "let be for that; for since I was born I have heard
of my low condition, and if my neck be slim 'tis the sooner broke. Let
me go then, but only grant me this grace, to stand beside me at the
tree and not leave me till I am dead. For there may be a worse thing
than death preparing for me." Again she cried out at her own thoughts
"Ah, no, no, no, I dare not let thee wed me!" He heard the wringing of
her hands, and guessed her beside herself.

He stood, therefore, reasoning it all out something after this
fashion. "Look now, Prosper," thought he, "this child says truer than
she knows. It is an ill thing to be hanged, but a worse to deserve a
hanging, and worst of all for her, it seems, to escape a hanging. And
it is good to find death sweet when he comes (since come he must), but
better to prove life also a pleasant thing. And life is here urgent,
though in fetters, in this child's breast; but death is not yet here.
Yet if I leave her she gains death, or life (which is worse), and if I
take her with me it can only be one way. What then! a man can lay down
his life in many ways, giving it for the life that needeth, whether by
jumping a red grave or by means slower but not less sure. And if by
any deed of mine I pluck this child out of the mire, put clear light
into her eyes (which now are all dark), and set the flush on her grey
cheeks which she was assuredly designed to carry there; and if she
breathe sweet air and grow in the grace of God and sight of men--why
then I have done well, however else I do."

He thought no more, but took the girl's hand again in both of his.
"Well, Isoult," he said cheerfully, "thou shalt not be hanged yet
awhile, nor shall that worse thing befall thee. I will wed thee as
soon as I may. At cock-crow we two will seek a priest."

"Lord," she said, "a priest is here in this place."

"Why, yes! Brother Bonaccord. Well," said Prosper, "let us go in."

But Isoult was troubled afresh, and put her hand against his chest to
stay him; breathing very short.

"Lord," she said, "thou wilt wed me to save my soul from hell and my
body from hanging; but thou hast no love for me in thy heart, as I
know very well."

Here was a bother indeed. The girl was fair enough in her peaked elfin
way; but the fact was that he did not love her--nor anybody. He had
nothing to say therefore. She waited a little, and then, with her
voice sunk to a low murmur, she said--

"We two will never come together except in love. Shall it not be so?"

Prosper bowed, saying--

"It shall be so."

The girl knelt suddenly down and kissed his foot. Then she rose and
stood near him.

"Let us go in," she said.

Looking up, they saw the field of heaven strewn thick with stars, the
clouds driven off, the wind dropt. And then they went into the hovel
hand-in-hand, as they had gone out.

As soon as he saw them come in together the old man fell to chuckling
and rubbing his hands.

"Wife Mald, wife Mald, look up!" cried he; "there will be a wedding
this night. See, they are hand-fasted already."

Mald the witch rose up from the hearth at last and faced the
betrothed. She was terrible to view in her witless old age; her face
drawn into furrows and dull as lead, her bleared eyes empty of sight
or conscience, and her thin hair scattered before them. It was
despair, not sorrow, that Prosper read on such a face. Now she peered
upon the hand-locked couple, now she parted the hair from her eyes,
now slowly pointed a finger at them. Her hand shook with palsy, but
she raised it up to bless them. To Prosper she said--

"Thou who art as pitiful as death, shalt have thy reward. And it shall
be more than thou knowest."

To the girl she gave no promises, but with her crutch hobbled over the
floor to where she stood. She put her hand into her daughter's bosom
and felt there; she seemed contented, for she said to her very
earnestly--

"Keep thou what thou hast there till the hour of thy greatest peril.
Then it shall not fail thee to whomsoever thou shalt show it."

Then she withdrew her hand and crawled back to crouch over the ashes
of the fire; nor did she open her lips again that night, nor take any
part or lot in what followed.

"Call the priest, old man," said Prosper, "for the night is spending,
and to-morrow we should be up before the sun."

The old thief went to a little door and opened it, whispering,

"Come, father;" and there came out Brother Bonaccord of Lucca, very
solemn, vested in a frayed vestment.

"Young sir," he said, wagging a portentous finger, "you are of the
simple folk our good Father Francis loved. No harm should come of
this. And I pray our Lady that I never may play a worse trick on a
maid than this which I shall play now."

"We have no ring," said Prosper to all this prelude.

"Content you, my master," replied Matt-o'-the-Moor; "here is what you
need."

And he gave him a silver ring made of three thin wires curiously
knotted in an endless plait.

"The ring will serve the purpose," Prosper said. "Now, brother, at
your disposition."

Brother Bonaccord had no book, but seemed none the worse for that. He
took the ring, blessed it, gave it to Prosper, and saw that he put it
in its proper place; he said all the words, blessed the kneeling
couple, and gave them a brisk little homily, which I spare the reader.
There they were wedded.

Matt-o'-the-Moor at the end of the ceremony gave Prosper a nudge in
the ribs. He pointed to a heap of leaves and litter.

"The marriage-bed," he said waggishly, and blew out the light.

Isoult lay down on the bed; Prosper took off his body-armour and lay
beside her, and his naked sword lay between them.

CHAPTER VII

GALORS ABJURES

Dom Galors knew a woman in East Morgraunt whose name was Maulfry. She
lived in Tortsentier, a lonely tower hidden deep in the woods, and had
an unwholesome reputation. She was held to be a courtesan. Many
gentlemen adventurous in the forest, it was said, had found
dishonourable ease and shameful death at her hands. She would make
them great cheer at first with hunting parties, dancing in the grass-
rides, and love everywhere: so much had been seen, the rest was
surmise. It was supposed that, being tired, or changing for caprice,
she had them drugged, rifled them at leisure, slew them one way or
another, and set her nets for the next newcomer. This, I say, was
surmise, and so it remained. Tortsentier was hard to come at,
Morgraunt wide, death as easy as lying. Men in it had other uses for
their eyes than to spy at their neighbours, and found their weapons
too often needed in their own quarrels to spare them for others. To
see a man once did not set you looking for him to come again. You
might wander for a month in Morgraunt before you got out. True, the
odds were against your doing either; but whose business was that?

Galors probably knew the truth of it, for he was very often at
Tortsentier. He knew, for instance, of Maulfry's taste for armour. The
place was full of it, and had a frieze of shields, which Maulfry
herself polished every day, as brave with blazonry as on the day they
first went out before their masters. Maulfry was very fond of
heraldry. It was a great delight of hers to go through her collection
with such a man as Galors, who thoroughly understood the science,
conning over the quarterings, the legends, the badges and differences,
and capping each with its appropriate story, its little touch of
romance, its personal reference to each owner in turn. There was no
harm in all this, and for Galors' part he would be able to testify
that there was no luxurious company there when he came, and no dark
hints of violence, treachery, or mischief for the most suspicious eye
to catch at. Tortsentier was not so far from the Abbey liberties that
one might not fetch at it in a six hours' ride, provided one knew the
road. Galors was a great rider and knew the road by heart. He was a
frequent visitor of Maulfry's, therefore, and would have seen what
there was to see. If the cavillers had known that it would have
quieted many a whisper over the fire. They might have been told,
further, that Maulfry and he were very old friends, and from a time
long before his entry into religion at Holy Thorn. If there had been
love between them, it had left no scar. Love with Galors was a
pastime: he might make a woman his mistress, but he could never allow
her to be his master. And whatever there had been in this sort, any
love now left in Maulfry for the monk was largely tempered with
respect. They were excellent friends.

It was to Tortsentier and to Maulfry that Dom Galors rode through the
rain when he had finished biting his nails in the quarry. Very late
that night he knocked at her door. Maulfry, who slept by day, opened
at once, and when she saw who it was made him very welcome. She sent
her page up with dry clothes, heaped logs on the fire, and set a table
against his return, with venison, and white bread, and sweet wine.
Galors, who was ravenous by now, needed no pressing: he sat down and
ate without speaking, nor did she urge him for a message or for news,
but kept her place by the fire, smiling into it until he had done. She
was a tall, dark woman, very handsome and finely shaped, having the
neck, arms, and bosom of Juno, or of that lady whom Nicholas the Pisan
sculptor fashioned on her model to be Queen of Heaven and Earth. And
Maulfry suffered no one to be in doubt as to the abundance and glory
of her treasure.

When Galors was well fed she beckoned him with a nod to his place on
the settle. He came and sat by the side of her, blinking into the fire
for some minutes without a word.

"Well, friend," said Maulfry at last, "and what do you want with your
servant at such an hour? For though I am not unused to have guests, it
is seldom that you are of the party in these days."

Galors, who never made prefaces, told her everything, except the real
rank and condition of Isoult. As to that, he said that the lady in
question was undoubtedly an heiress, as she was undeniably a beauty,
but he was careful to make it plain that her inheritance, and not her
person, tempted him. This I believe to have been the truth by now. He
then related what had passed in the quarry, and what he intended to do
next. He added--

"Whether I succeed or not--and as to that much depends upon you--I am
resolved to abjure my frock and my vows, and to aim henceforward for a
temporal crown."

"I think the frock is all that need concern you," said Maulfry.

"You are right, pretty lady," he replied "and that shall concern me no
more. You shall furnish me with a suit of mail out of your store, with
a shield, a good spear and a sword. I have already a horse, which I
owe to the vicarious bounty of the Lord Abbot, exercised through me,
his right-hand man. This then will be all I shall ask of you on my
account, so far as I can see at present. With what I know to back them
they may win me an earldom and a pretty partner. At least they will
enable me to pay Master Red-Feather my little score."

The pupils of Maulfry's eyes narrowed to a pair of pin points.

"What is this?" she said quickly. "Red feathers? A surcoat white and
green? A gold baldrick? Did he bear a _fesse dancettee_ upon his
shield, a hooded falcon for his crest?" Her questions chimed with her
panting.

"By baldrick and shield I know him for a Gai of Starning," said
Galors. "So much is certain, but which of them in particular I cannot
tell certainly. There were half-a-dozen at one time. Not Malise, I
think. He is too thin-lipped for such work as that. He can do sums in
his head, is a ready reckoner. This lad was quick enough to act, but
not quick enough to refrain from acting. Malise would not have acted.
He can see too far ahead. Nor is it Osric. He would have made speeches
and let vapours. This lad was quiet."

"Quiet as God," said Maulfry with a stare.

"But," Galors went on, "you need not think for him, who or what he
was. I shall meet him to-morrow, and if things go as they should you
shall see me again very soon. You shall come to a wedding. A wedding
in Tortsentier will not be amiss, dame. Moreover, it will be new. If I
fail--well, then also you shall see me, and serve me other ways. Will
you do this?"

Maulfry frowned a little as she thought. Then she laughed.

"You know very well I will do more for you than this. And how much
will you do for me, Galors?"

"Ask and see," said Galors.

"I too may have accounts to settle."

"You will find me a good bailiff, Maulfry. Punctual at the audit."

Maulfry laughed again as she looked up at her armour. Galors' look
followed hers.

"Choose, Galors," she said; "choose, my champion. Choose, Sir Galors
de Born!"

Galors took a long and deliberate survey.

"I will go in black," said he, "and for the rest, since I am no man of
race, the coat is indifferent to me." So he began to read and comment
upon his texts. "_Je tiendray_--why, so I shall, but it savours
of forecast, brags a little."

"None the worse for my knight," said Maulfry.

"No, no," he laughed, "but let me get something of which to brag
first. Hum. _Dieu m'en garde_--we will leave God out of the
reckoning, I think. _Designando_--I will do more than point out,
by the Rood! _Jesus, Amor, Ma Dame_--I know none of these.
_Entra per me_--Oh brave, brave! 'Tis your latest, dame?"

Maulfry's eyes grew hard and bright. "Choose it, choose, my Galors!"
she cried. "And if with that you beat down the red feather, and blind
the hooded hawk, you will serve me more than you dream. Oh, choose,
choose!"

"_Entra per me_ pleases me, I confess. But what are the arms?
Wickets?"

"Three white wicket-gates on a sable field. It was the coat of Salomon
de Montguichet."

"Salomon?" said Galors all in a whisper. "Never Salomon? Do you not
remember?"

Maulfry laughed. "I should remember, I think. But there is no
monopoly. What we choose others can choose. The name is free to the
world, and a great name."

Galors, visibly uneasy; thought hard about it. Then he swore. "And I
go for great deeds, by Heaven! Give it me, Dame. I will have it.
_Entra per me_! And shut the wickets when I am in!"

He kissed Maulfry then and there, and they went to bed.

CHAPTER VIII

THE SALLY AT DAWN

On the morning after his strange wedding Prosper rose up early, quite
himself. He left Isoult asleep in the bed, but could see neither old
man, old woman, nor friar; so far as he could tell, he and his wife
were alone in the cottage. Now he must think what to do. He admitted
freely enough to himself that he had not been in a condition for this
overnight; the girl's mood had exalted him; he had acted, and rightly
acted (he was clear about this); now he must think what to do. The
first duty was plain: he went out into the air and bathed in a pool;
he took a quick run and set his blood galloping; then he groomed and
fed his horse; put on his armour, and said his prayers. In the course
of this last exercise he again remembered his wife, on whose account
he had determined to make up his mind. He rose from his knees at once
and walked about the heath, thinking it out.

"It is clear enough," he said to himself, "that neither my wife nor I
desired marriage. We are not of the same condition; we have not--I
speak for myself and by implication for her also--we have not those
desires which draw men and women towards each other. Love, no doubt,
is a strange and terrible thing: it may lead a man to the writing of
verses and a most fatiguing search for words, but it will not allow
him to be happy in anything except its own satisfaction; and in that
it seems absurd to be happy. Marriage is in the same plight: it may be
a good or a bad thing; without love it is a ridiculous thing.
Nevertheless my wife and I are of agreement in this, that we think
marriage better than being hanged. I do not understand the
alternatives, but I accept them, and am married. My wife will not be
hanged. For the rest, I shall take her to Gracedieu. The devout ladies
there will no doubt make a nun of her; she will be out of harm's way,
and all will be well."

He said another prayer, and rose up much comforted. And then as he got
up Isoult came out of the cottage.

She ran towards him quickly, knelt down before he could prevent her,
took his hand and kissed it. She was very shy of him, and when he
raised her up and kissed her forehead, suffered the caress with
lowered eyes and a face all rosy. Prosper found her very different
from the tattered bride of over-night. She had changed her rags for a
cotton gown of dark blue, her clouds of hair were now drawn back over
her ears into a knot and covered with a silk hood of Indian work. On
her feet, then bare, he now saw sandals, round her waist a leather
belt with a thin dagger attached to it in a silver sheath. She looked
very timidly, even humbly up at him whenever he spoke to her--with the
long faithfulness of a dog shining in her big eyes: but she looked
like a girl who was to be respected, and even Prosper could not but
perceive what a dark beauty she was. Pale she was, no doubt, except
when she blushed; but this she did as freely as hill-side clouds in
March.

"Where is your wedding-ring, my child?" he asked her, when he had
noticed that it was not where he had put it.

"Lord, it is here," said she, blushing again. She drew from her neck a
fine gold chain whereon were the ring and another trinket which beamed
like glass.

Is that where you would have it, Isoult?"

"Yes, lord," she answered. "For this present it must be there."

"As you will," said Prosper. "Let us break our fast and make ready,
for we must be on our journey before we see the sun." Isoult went into
the cottage as Brother Bonaccord came out with good-morning all over
his puckered face.

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21