THE ELEVENTH CHRONICLE
HOW HE TURNED TO GARDENING AND HIS SWORD RESTED
These were the days that Rodriguez always remembered; and, side by sidewith them, there lodged in his memory, and went down with them into hislatter years, the days and nights when he went through the Pyrenees andwalked when he would have slept but had to walk or freeze: and by somequeer rule that guides us he treasured them both in his memory, thesehappy days in this garden and the frozen nights on the peaks.
For Serafina showed Rodriguez the garden that behind the house rannarrow and long to the wild. There were rocks with heliotrope pouringover them and flowers peeping behind them, and great azaleas all intriumphant bloom, and ropes of flowering creepers coming down fromtrees, and oleanders, and a plant named popularly Joy of the South, andsmall paths went along it edged with shells brought from the far sea.
There was only one street in the village, and you did not go far amongthe great azaleas before you lost sight of the gables; and you did notgo far before the small paths ended with their shells from the distantsea, and there was the mistress of all gardeners facing you, MotherNature nursing her children, the things of the wild. She too hadazaleas and oleanders, but they stood more solitary in their greatergarden than those that grew in the garden of Dona Mirana; and she toohad little paths, only they were without borders and without end. Yetlooking from the long and narrow garden at the back of that house inLowlight to the wider garden that sweeps round the world, and is fencedby Space from the garden in Venus and by Space from the garden in Mars,you scarce saw any difference or noticed where they met: the solitaryazaleas beyond were gathered together by distance, and from Lowlight tothe horizon seemed all one garden in bloom. And afterwards, all hisyears, whenever Rodriguez heard the name of Spain, spoken by loyal men,it was thus that he thought of it, as he saw it now.
And here he used to walk with Serafina when she tended flowers in thecool of the morning or went at evening to water favourite blooms. AndRodriguez would bring with him his mandolin, and sometimes he touchedit lightly or even sang, as they rested on some carved seat at thegarden's end, looking out towards shadowy shrubs on the shining hill,but mostly he heard her speak of the things she loved, of what mothsflew to their garden, and which birds sang, and how the flowers grew.Serafina sat no longer in her balcony but, disguising idleness by othernames, they loitered along those paths that the seashells narrowed; yetthere was a grace in their loitering such as we have not in our dancesnow. And evening stealing in from the wild places, from darkeningazaleas upon distant hills, still found them in the garden, foundRodriguez singing in idleness undisguised, or anxiously helping in sometrivial task, tying up some tendril that had gone awry, helping somemagnolia that the wind had wounded. Almost unnoticed by him thesunlight would disappear, and the coloured blaze of the sunset, andthen the gloaming; till the colours of all the flowers queerly changedand they shone with that curious glow which they wear in the dusk. Theyreturned then to the house, the garden behind them with its dim hushedair of a secret, before them the candlelight like a different land. Andafter the evening meal Alderon and Rodriguez would sit late togetherdiscussing the future of the world, Rodriguez holding that it wasintended that the earth should be ruled by Spain, and Alderon fearingit would all go to the Moors.
Days passed thus.
And then one evening Rodriguez was in the garden with Serafina; theflowers, dim and pale and more mysterious than ever, poured out theirscent towards the coming night, luring huge hawk-moths from the fardusk that was gathering about the garden, to hover before each bloom onmyriad wingbeats too rapid for human eye: another inch and the fairieshad peeped out from behind azaleas, yet both of these late loiterersfelt fairies were surely there: it seemed to be Nature's own mostsecret hour, upon which man trespasses if he venture forth from hishouse: an owl from his hidden haunt flew nearer the garden and uttereda clear call once to remind Rodriguez of this: and Rodriguez did notheed, but walked in silence.
He had played his mandolin. It had uttered to the solemn hush of theunderstanding evening all it was able to tell; and after that cry,grown piteous with so many human longings, for it was an old mandolin,Rodriguez felt there was nothing left for his poor words to say. So hewent dumb and mournful.
Serafina would have heard him had he spoken, for her thoughts vibratedyet with the voice of the mandolin, which had come to her hearing as anambassador from Rodriguez, but he found no words to match with themandolin's high mood. His eyes said, and his sighs told, what themandolin had uttered; but his tongue was silent.
And then Serafina said, as he walked all heavy with silence past acurving slope of dimly glowing azaleas, "You like flowers, senor?"
"Senorita, I adore them," he replied.
"Indeed?" said Dona Serafina.
"Indeed I do," said Rodriguez.
"And yet," asked Dona Serafina, "was it not a somewhat withered oraltogether faded flower that you carried, unless I fancied wrong, whenyou rode past our balcony?"
"It was indeed faded," said Rodriguez, "for the rose was some weeksold."
"One who loved flowers, I thought," said Serafina, "would perhaps caremore for them fresh."
Half-dumb though Rodriguez was his shrewdness did not desert him. Tohave said that he had the rose from Serafina would have been to claimas though proven what was yet no more than a hope.
"Senorita," he said, "I found the flower on holy ground."
"I did not know," she said, "that you had travelled so far."
"I found it here," he said, "under your balcony."
"Perchance I let it fall," said she. "It was idle of me."
"I guard it still," he said, and drew forth that worn brown rose.
"It was idle of me," said Serafina.
But then in that scented garden among the dim lights of late eveningthe ghost of that rose introduced their spirits one to the other, sothat the listening flowers heard Rodriguez telling the story of hisheart, and, bending over the shell-bordered path, heard Serafina'sanswer; and all they seemed to do was but to watch the evening, withleaves uplifted in the hope of rain.
Film after film of dusk dropped down from where twilight had been, likean army of darkness slowly pitching their tents on ground that had beenlost to the children of light. Out of the wild lands all the owls flewnearer: their long, clear cries and the huge hush between them warnedall those lands that this was not man's hour. And neither Rodriguez norSerafina heard them.
In pale blue sky where none had thought to see it one smiling starappeared. It was Venus watching lovers, as men of the crumbledcenturies had besought her to do, when they named her so long ago,kneeling upon their hills with bended heads, and arms stretched out toher sweet eternal scrutiny. Beneath her wandering rays as they danceddown to bless them Rodriguez and Serafina talked low in the sight ofthe goddess, and their voices swayed through the flowers with whispersand winds, not troubling the little wild creatures that steal out shyin the dusk, and Nature forgave them for being abroad in that hour;although, so near that a single azalea seemed to hide it, so nearseemed to beckon and whisper old Nature's eldest secret.
When flowers glimmered and Venus smiled and all things else were dim,they turned on one of those little paths hand in hand homeward.
Dona Mirana glanced once at her daughter's eyes and said nothing. DonAlderon renewed his talk with Rodriguez, giving reasons for hisapprehension of the conquest of the world by the Moors, which he hadthought of since last night; and Rodriguez agreed with all that DonAlderon said, but understood little, being full of dreams that seemedto dance on the further, side of the candlelight to a strange, new,unheard tune that his heart was aware of. He gazed much at Serafina andsaid little.
He drank no wine that night with Don Alderon: what need had he of wine?On wonderful journeys that my pen cannot follow, for all the swiftnessof the wing from which it came; on darting journeys outspeeding thelithe swallow or that great wanderer the white-fronted goose, his youngthoughts raced by a myriad of golden eveni
ngs far down the futureyears. And what of the days he saw? Did he see them truly? Enough thathe saw them in vision. Saw them as some lone shepherd on lifted downssees once go by with music a galleon out of the East, with windy sails,and masts ablaze with pennants, and heroes in strange dress singing newsongs; and the galleon goes nameless by till the singing dies away.What ship was it? Whither bound? Why there? Enough that he has seen it.Thus do we glimpse the glory of rare days as we swing round the sun;and youth is like some high headland from which to see.
On the next day he spoke with Dona Mirano. There was little to say butto observe the courtesies appropriate to this occasion, for Dona Miranaand her daughter had spoken long together already; and of one thing hecould say little, and indeed was dumb when asked of it, and that wasthe question of his home. And then he said that he had a castle; andwhen Dona Mirana asked him where it was he said vaguely it was to theNorth. He trusted the word of the King of Shadow Valley and so he spokeof his castle as a man speaks the truth. And when she asked him of hiscastle again, whether on rock or river or in leafy lands, he began todescribe how its ten towers stood, being builded of a rock that wasslightly pink, and how they glowed across a hundred fields, especiallyat evening; and suddenly he ceased, perceiving all in a moment he wasspeaking unwittingly in the words of Don Alvidar and describing to DonaMirana that rose-pink castle on Ebro. And Dona Mirana knew then thatthere was some mystery about Rodriguez' home.
She spoke kindly to Rodriguez, yet she neither gave her consent nor yetwithheld it, and he knew there was no immediate hope in her words.Graceful as were his bows as he withdrew, he left with scarcely anotherword to say. All day his castle hung over him like a cloud, notnebulous and evanescent only, but brooding darkly, boding storms, suchas the orange blossoms dread.
He walked again in the garden with Serafina, but Dona Mirana was neverfar, and the glamour of the former evening, lit by one star, was drivenfrom the garden by his anxieties about that castle of which he couldnot speak. Serafina asked him of his home. He would not parry herquestion, and yet he could not tell her that all their future hung onthe promise of a man in an old leathern jacket calling himself a king.So the mystery of his habitation deepened, spoiling the glamour of theevening. He spoke, instead, of the forest, hoping she might knowsomething of that strange monarch to whom they dwelt so near; but sheglanced uneasily towards Shadow Valley and told him that none inLowlight went that way. Sorrow grew heavier round Rodriguez' heart atthis: believing in the promise of a man whose eyes he trusted he hadasked Serafina to marry him, and Serafina had said Yes; and now hefound she knew nothing of such a man, which seemed somehow to Rodriguezto weaken his promise, and, worst of all, she feared the place where helived. He welcomed the approach of Dona Mirana, and all three returnedto the house. For the rest of that evening he spoke little; but he hadformed his project.
When the two ladies retired Rodriguez, who had seemed tongue-tied formany hours, turned to Don Alderon. His mother had told Don Alderonnothing yet; for she was troubled by the mystery of Rodriguez' castle,and would give him time to make it clear if he could; for there wassomething about Rodriguez of which with many pages I have tried toacquaint my reader but which was clear when first she saw him to DonaMirana. In fact she liked him at once, as I hope that perhaps by now myreader may. He turned to Don Alderon, who was surprised to see thevehemence with which his guest suddenly spoke after those hours ofsilence, and Rodriguez told him the story of his love and the story ofboth his castles, that which had vanished from the bank of the Ebro andthat which was promised him by the King of Shadow Valley. And often DonAlderon interrupted.
"Oh, Rodriguez," he said, "you are welcome to our ancient, unfortunatehouse": and later he said, "I have met no man that had a prettier waywith the sword."
But Rodriguez held on to the end, telling all he had to tell; andespecially that he was landless and penniless but for that one promise;and as for the sword, he said, he was but as a child playing before thesword of Don Alderon. And this Don Alderon said was in no wise so,though there were a few cunning passes that he had learned, hoping thatthe day might come for him to do God a service thereby by slaying someof the Moors: and heartily he gave his consent and felicitation. Butthis Rodriguez would not have: "Come with me," he said, "to the forestto the place where I met this man, and if we find him not there we willgo to the house in which his bowmen feast and there have news of him,and he shall show us the castle of his promise and, if it be such acastle as you approve, then your consent shall be given, but if not ..."
"Gladly indeed," said Don Alderon. "We will start tomorrow."
And Rodriguez took his words literally, though his host had meant nomore than what we should call "one of these days," but Rodriguez wasbeing consumed with a great impatience. And so they arranged it, andDon Alderon went to bed with a feeling, which is favourable to dreams,that on the next day they went upon an adventure; for neither he noranyone in that village had entered Shadow Valley.
Once more next morning Rodriguez walked with Serafina, with somethingof the romance of the garden gone, for Dona Mirana walked there too;and romance is like one of those sudden, wonderful colours that flashfor a moment out of a drop of dew; a passing shadow obscures them; andask another to see it, and the colour is not the same: move but a yardand the ray of enchantment is gone. Dona Mirana saw the romance of thatgarden, but she saw it from thirty years away; it was all differentwhat she saw, all changed from a certain day (for love was love in theold days): and to Rodriguez and Serafina it seemed that she could notsee romance at all, and somehow that dimmed it. Almost their eyesseemed to search amongst the azaleas for the romance of that otherevening.
And then Rodriguez told Serafina that he was riding away with herbrother to see about the affairs of his castle, and that they wouldreturn in a few days. Scarcely a hint he gave that those affairs mightnot prosper, for he trusted the word of the King of Shadow Valley. Hisconfidence had returned: and soon, with swords at side and cloaksfloating brilliant on light winds of April, Rodriguez and Alderon rodeaway together.
Soon in the distance they saw Shadow Valley. And then Rodriguezbethought him of Morano and of the foul wrong he committed against DonAlderon with his frying-pan, and how he was there in the camp to whichhe was bringing his friend. And so he said: "That vile knave Moranostill lives and insists on serving me."
"If he be near," said Don Alderon, "I pray you to disarm him of hisfrying-pan for the sake of my honour, which does not suffer me to bestricken with culinary weapons, but only with the sword, the lance, oreven bolts of cannon or arquebuss ..." He was thinking of yet moreweapons when Rodriguez put spurs to his horse. "He is near," he said;"I will ride on and disarm him."
So Rodriguez came cantering into the forest while Don Alderon ambled amile or so behind him.
And there he found his old camp and saw Morano, sitting upon the groundby a small fire. Morano sprang up at once with joy in his eyes, hisface wreathed with questions, which he did not put into words for hedid not pry openly into his master's affairs.
"Morano," said Rodriguez, "give me your frying-pan."
"My frying-pan?" said Morano.
"Yes," said Rodriguez. And when he held in his hand that blackened,greasy utensil he told Morano, "That senor you met in Lowlight rideswith me."
The cheerfulness faded out of Morano's face as light fades at sunset."Master," he said, "he will surely slay me now."
"He will not slay you," said Rodriguez.
"Master," Morano said, "he hopes for my fat carcase as much as men hopefor the unicorn, when they wear their bright green coats and hunt himwith dogs in Spring." I know not what legend Morano stored in his mind,nor how much of it was true. "And when he finds me without myfrying-pan he will surely slay me."
"That senor," said Rodriguez emphatically, "must not be hit with thefrying-pan."
"That is a hard rule, master," said Morano.
And Rodriguez was indignant, when he heard that, that anyone shouldthus blaspheme against an obvious law of
chivalry: while Morano's onlythought was upon the injustice of giving up the sweets of life for thesake of a frying-pan. Thus they were at cross-purposes. And for somewhile they stood silent, while Rodriguez hung the reins of his horseover the broken branch of a tree. And then Don Alderon rode into thewood.
All then that was most pathetic in Morano's sense of injustice lookedout of his eyes as he turned them upon his master. But Don Alderonscarcely glanced at all at Morano, even when he handed to him the reinsof his horse as he walked on towards Rodriguez.
And there in that leafy place they rested all through the evening, forthey had not started so early upon their journey as travellers should.Eight days had gone since Rodriguez had left that small camp to ride toLowlight, and to the apex of his life towards which all his days hadascended; and in that time Morano had collected good store of wood and,in little ways unthought of by dwellers in cities, had made the placelike such homes as wanderers find. Don Alderon was charmed with theirroof of towering greenness, and with the choirs of those whichinhabited it and which were now all coming home to sing. And at somemoment in the twilight, neither Rodriguez nor Alderon noticed when,Morano repossessed himself of his frying-pan, unbidden by Rodriguez,but acting on a certain tacit permission that there seemed to be in thetwilight or in the mood of the two young men as they sat by the fire.And soon he was cooking once more, at a fire of his own, with somethingof the air that you see upon a Field Marshal's face who has lost hisbaton and found it again. Have you ever noticed it, reader?
And when the meal was ready Morano served it in silence, movingunobtrusively in the gloom of the wood; for he knew that he wasforgiven, yet not so openly that he wished to insist on his presence oreven to imply his possession of the weapon that fried the bacon. So,like a dryad he moved from tree to tree, and like any fabulous creaturewas gone again. And the two young men supped well, and sat on and on,watching the sparks go up on innumerable journeys from the fire atwhich they sat, to be lost to sight in huge wastes of blackness andstars, lost to sight utterly, lost like the spirit of man to the gazeof our wonder when we try to follow its journey beyond the hearths thatwe know.
All the next day they rode on through the forest, till they came to theblack circle of the old fire of their next camp. And here Rodriguezhalted on account of the attraction that one of his old camps seems tohave for a wanderer. It drew his feet towards it, this blackenedcircle, this hearth that for one night made one spot in the wildernesshome. Don Alderon did not care whether they tarried or hurried; heloved his journey through this leafy land; the cool night-breezeslipping round the tree-trunks was new to him, and new was thecomradeship of the abundant stars; the quest itself was a joy to him;with his fancy he built Rodriguez' mysterious castle no lessmagnificently than did Don Alvidar. Sometimes they talked of thecastle, each of the young men picturing it as he saw it; but in thewarmth of the camp-fire after Morano slept they talked of more thanthese chronicles can tell.
In the morning they pressed on as fast as the forest's low boughs wouldallow them. They passed somewhere near the great cottage in which thebowmen feasted; but they held on, as they had decided after discussionto do, for the last place in which Rodriguez had seen the King ofShadow Valley, which was the place of his promise. And before anydimness came even to the forest, or golden shafts down colonnades whichwere before all cathedrals, they found the old camp that they sought,which still had a clear flavour of magic for Morano on account of themoth-like coming and going of his three horses after he had tied themto that tree. And here they looked for the King of Shadow Valley; andthen Rodriguez called him; and then all three of them called him,shouting "King of Shadow Valley" all together. No answer came: thewoods were without echo: nothing stirred but fallen leaves. But beforethose miles of silence could depress them Rodriguez hit upon a simpleplan, which was that he and Alderon should search all round, far fromthe track, while Morano stayed in the camp and shouted frequently, andthey would not go out of hearing of his voice: for Shadow Valley had areputation of being a bad forest for travellers to find their waythere; indeed, few ever attempted to. So they did as he said, he andAlderon searching in different directions, while Morano remained in thecamp, lifting a large and melancholy voice. And though rumour said itwas hard to find the way when twenty yards from the track in ShadowValley, it did not say it was hard to find the green bowmen: andRodriguez, knowing that they guarded the forest as the shadows of treesguard the coolness, was assured he would meet with some of them eventhough he should miss their master. So he and Alderon searched till theforest darkness came and only birds on high branches still had light;and they never saw the King of Shadow Valley or any trace whatever ofany man. And Alderon first returned to the encampment; but Rodriguezsearched on into the night, searching and calling through the darkness,and feeling, as every minute went by and every faint call of Morano,that his castle was fading away, slipping past oak-tree and thorn-bush,to take its place among the unpitying stars. And when he returned atlast from his useless search he found Morano standing by a good fire,and the sight of it a little cheered Rodriguez, and the sight of thefirelight on Morano's face, and the homely comfort of the camp, foreverything is comparative.
And over their supper Rodriguez and Alderon agreed that they had cometo a part of the forest too remote from the home of the King of ShadowValley, and decided to go the next day to the house of the greenbowmen: and before he slept Rodriguez felt once more that all was wellwith his castle.
Yet when the next day came they searched again, for Rodriguezremembered how it was to this very place that the King of Shadow Valleyhad bidden him come in four weeks, and though this period was not yetaccomplished, he felt, and Alderon fully agreed, they had waited longenough: so they searched all the morning, and then fulfilled theirdecision of overnight by riding for the great cottage Rodriguez knew.All the way they met no one. And Rodriguez' gaiety came back as theyrode, for he and Don Alderon recognised more and more clearly that thebowmen's great cottage was the place they should have gone at first.
In early evening they were just at their journey's end; but barely hadthey left the track that they had ridden the day before, barely takenthe smaller path that led after a few hundred yards to the cottage whenthey found themselves stopped by huge chains that hung from tree totree. High into the trees went the chains above their heads where theysat their horses, and a chain ran every six inches down to the veryground: the road was well blocked.
Rodriguez and Alderon hastily consulted; then, leaving the horses withMorano, they followed the chains through dense forest to find a placewhere they could get the horses through. Finding the chains go on andon and on, and as evening was drawing in, the two friends divided,Alderon going back and Rodriguez on, agreeing to meet again on the pathwhere Morano was.
It was darkening when they met there, Rodriguez having found nothingbut that iron barrier going on from trunk to trunk, and Alderon havingfound a great gateway of iron; but it was shut. Through the silentshadows stealing abroad at evening the three men crashed their way onfoot, leading their horses, towards this gate; but their way was slowand difficult for no path at all led up to it. It was dark when theyreached it and they saw the high gate in the night, a black barrieramong the trees where no one would wish to come, and in forest thatseemed to these three to be nearly impenetrable. And what astonishedRodriguez most of all was that the chains had not been across the pathwhen he had feasted with the green bowmen.
They stood there gazing, all three, at the dark locked gate, and thenthey saw two shields that met in the midst of it, and Rodriguez mountedhis horse and stretched up to feel what device there was on the beateniron; and both the shields were blank.
There they camped as well as men can when darkness has fallen beforethey reach their camping-ground; and Morano lit a great fire before thegate, and the smooth blank shields touching shoulders there up abovethem shone on Rodriguez and Alderon in the firelight. For a while theywondered at that strange gate that stood there dividing the wilderness;and then sl
eep came.
As soon as they woke they called loudly, but no one guarded that gate,no step but theirs stirred in the forest. Then, leaving Morano in thecamp with its great gate that led nowhere, the two young men climbed upby branches and chains, and were soon on the other side of the gate andpressing on through the silence of the forest to find the cottage inwhich Rodriguez had slept. And almost at once the green bowmenappeared, ten of them with their bows, in front of Rodriguez andAlderon. "Stop," said the ten green bowmen. When the bowmen said that,there was nothing else to do.
"What do you seek?" said the bowmen.
"The King of Shadow Valley," answered Rodriguez.
"He is not here," they said.
"Where is he?" asked Rodriguez.
"He is nowhere," said one, "when he does not wish to be seen."
"Then show me the castle that he promised me," said Rodriguez.
"We know nothing of any castle," said one of the bowmen, and they allshook their heads.
"No castle?" said Rodriguez.
"No," they said.
"Has the King of Shadow Valley no castle?" he asked, beginning now todespair.
"We know of none," they said. "He lives in the forest."
Before Rodriguez quite despaired he asked each one if they knew not ofany castle of which their King was possessed; and each of them saidthat there was no castle in all Shadow Valley. The ten still stood infront of them with their bows: and Rodriguez turned away then indeed indespair, and walked slowly back to the camp, and Alderon walked behindhim. In silence they reached their camp by the great gate that lednowhere, and there Rodriguez sat down on a log beside the dwindlingfire, gazing at the grey ashes and thinking of his dead hopes. He hadnot the heart to speak to Alderon, and the silence was unbroken byMorano who, for all his loquacity, knew when his words were notwelcome. Don Alderon tried to break that melancholy silence, sayingthat these ten bowmen did not know the whole world; but he could notcheer Rodriguez. For, sitting there in dejection on his log, thinkingof all the assurance with which he had often spoken of his castle,there was one more thing to trouble him than Don Alderon knew. And thiswas that when the bowmen had appeared he had hung once more round hisneck that golden badge that was worked for him by the King of ShadowValley; and they must have seen it, and they had paid no heed to itwhatever: its magic was wholly departed. And one thing troubled himthat Rodriguez did not know, a very potent factor in human sorrow: hehad left in the morning so eagerly that he had had no breakfast, andthis he entirely forgot and knew not how much of his dejection camefrom this cause, thinking that the loss of his castle was of itselfenough.
So with downcast head he sat empty and hopeless, and the little campwas silent.
In this mournful atmosphere while no one spoke, and no one seemed towatch, stood, when at last Rodriguez raised his head, with folded armsbefore the gate to nowhere, the King of Shadow Valley. His face wassurly, as though the face of a ghost, called from important work amongasteroids needing his care, by the trivial legerdemain of some foolishnovice. Rodriguez, looking into those angry eyes, wholly forgot it washe that had a grievance. The silence continued. And then the King ofShadow Valley spoke.
"When have I broken my word?" he said.
Rodriguez did not know. The man was still looking at him, stillstanding there with folded arms before the great gate, confronting him,demanding some kind of answer: and Rodriguez had nothing to say.
"I came because you promised me the castle," he said at last.
"I did not bid you come here," the man with the folded arms answered.
"I went where you bade me," said Rodriguez, "and you were not there."
"In four weeks, I said," answered the King angrily.
And then Alderon spoke. "Have you any castle for my friend?" he said.
"No," said the King of Shadow Valley.
"You promised him one," said Don Alderon.
The King of Shadow Valley raised with his left hand a horn that hungbelow his elbow by a green cord round his body. He made no answer toDon Alderon, but put the horn against his lips and blew. They watchedhim all three in silence, till the silence was broken by many menmoving swiftly through covert, and the green bowmen appeared.
When seven or eight were there he turned and looked at them. "When haveI broken my word?" he said to his men.
And they all answered him, "Never!"
More broke into sight through the bushes.
"Ask them" he said. And Rodriguez did not speak.
"Ask them," he said again, "when I have broken my word."
Still Rodriguez and Alderon said nothing. And the bowmen answered them."He has never broken his word," every bowman said.
"You promised me a castle," said Rodriguez, seeing that man's fierceeyes upon him still.
"Then do as I bid you," answered the King of Shadow Valley; and heturned round and touched the lock of the gates with some key that hehad. The gates moved open and the King went through.
Don Alderon ran forward after him, and caught up with him as he strodeaway, and spoke to him, and the King answered. Rodriguez did not hearwhat they said, and never afterwards knew. These words he heard only,from the King of Shadow Valley as he and Don Alderon parted: ".... andtherefore, senor, it were better for some holy man to do his blessedwork before we come." And the King of Shadow Valley passed into thedeeps of the wood.
As the great gates were slowly swinging to, Don Alderon came backthoughtfully. The gates clanged, clicked, and were shut again. The Kingof Shadow Valley and all his bowmen were gone.
Don Alderon went to his horse, and Rodriguez and Morano did the same,drawn by the act of the only man of the three that seemed to have madeup his mind. Don Alderon led his horse back toward the path, andRodriguez followed with his. When they came to the path they mounted insilence; and presently Morano followed them, with his blankets rolledup in front of him on his horse and his frying-pan slung behind him.
"Which way?" said Rodriguez.
"Home," said Don Alderon.
"But I cannot go to your home," said Rodriguez.
"Come," said Don Alderon, as one whose plans were made. Rodriguezwithout a home, without plans, without hope, went with Don Alderon asthistledown goes with the warm wind. They rode through the forest tillit grew all so dim that only a faint tinge of greenness lay on the darkleaves: above were patches of bluish sky like broken pieces of steel.And a star or two were out when they left the forest. And cantering onthey came to Lowlight when the Milky Way appeared.
And there were Dona Mirana and Serafina in the hall to greet them asthey entered the door.
"What news?" they asked.
But Rodriguez hung back; he had no news to give. It was Don Alderonthat went forward, speaking cheerily to Serafina, and afterwards to hismother, with whom he spoke long and anxiously, pointing toward theforest sometimes, almost, as Rodriguez thought, in fear.
And a little later, when the ladies had retired, Don Alderon toldRodriguez over the wine, with which he had tried to cheer his forlorncompanion, that it was arranged that he should marry Serafina. And whenRodriguez lamented that this was impossible he replied that the King ofShadow Valley wished it. And when Rodriguez heard this his astonishmentequalled his happiness, for he marvelled that Don Alderon should notonly believe that strange man's unsupported promise, but that he shouldeven obey him as though he held him in awe.
And on the next day Rodriguez spoke with Dona Mirana as they walked inthe glory of the garden. And Dona Mirana gave him her consent as DonAlderon had done: and when Rodriguez spoke humbly of postponement sheglanced uneasily towards Shadow Valley, as though she too feared thestrange man who ruled over the forest which she had never entered.
And so it was that Rodriguez walked with his lady, with the sweetSerafina in that garden again. And walking there they forgot the needof house or land, forgot Shadow Valley with its hopes and its doubts,and all the anxieties of the thoughts that we take for the morrow: andwhen evening came and the birds sang in azaleas, and the shadows
grewsolemn and long, and winds blew cool from the blazing bed of the Sun,into the garden now all strange and still, they forgot our Earth and,beyond the mundane coasts, drifted on dreams of their own into aureateregions of twilight, to wander in lands wherein lovers walk briefly andonly once.
THE TWELFTH CHRONICLE
THE BUILDING OF CASTLE RODRIGUEZ AND THE ENDING OF THESE CHRONICLES
When the King of Shadow Valley met Rodriguez, for the first time in theforest, and gave him his promise and left him by his camp-fire, he wentback some way towards the bowmen's cottage and blew his horn; and hishundred bowmen were about him almost at once. To these he gave theirorders and they went back, whence they had come, into the forest'sdarkness. But he went to the bowmen's cottage and paced before it, adark and lonely figure of the night; and wherever he paced the groundhe marked it with small sticks. And next morning the hundred bowmencame with axes as soon as the earliest light had entered the forest,and each of them chose out one of the giant trees that stood before thecottage, and attacked it. All day they swung their axes against theforest's elders, of which nearly a hundred were fallen when eveningcame. And the stoutest of these, great trunks that were four feetthrough, were dragged by horses to the bowmen's cottage and laid by thelittle sticks that the King of Shadow Valley had put overnight in theground. The bowmen's cottage and the kitchen that was in the woodbehind it, and a few trees that still stood, were now all enclosed byfour lines of fallen trees which made a large rectangle on the groundwith a small square at each of its corners. And craftsmen came, andsmoothed and hollowed the inner sides of the four rows of trees,working far into the night. So was the first day's work accomplishedand so was built the first layer of the walls of Castle Rodriguez.
On the next day the bowmen again felled a hundred trees; the top of thefirst layer was cut flat by carpenters; at evening the second layer washoisted up after their under sides had been flattened to fit the layerbelow them; quantities more were cast in to make the floor when theyhad been gradually smoothed and fitted: at the end of the second day aman could not see over the walls of Castle Rodriguez. And on the thirdday more craftsmen arrived, men from distant villages at the forest'sedge, whence the King of Shadow Valley had summoned them; and theycarved the walls as they grew. And a hundred trees fell that day, andthe castle was another layer higher. And all the while a park wasgrowing in the forest, as they felled the great trees; but the greatesttrees of all the bowmen spared, oaks that had stood there for ages andages of men; they left them to grip the earth for a while longer, for afew more human generations.
On the fourth day the two windows at the back of the bowmen's cottagebegan to darken, and that evening Castle Rodriguez was fifteen feethigh. And still the hundred bowmen hewed at the forest, bringingsunlight bright on to grass that was shadowed by oaks for ages. And atthe end of the fifth day they began to roof the lower rooms and maketheir second floor: and still the castle grew a layer a day, though thesecond storey they built with thinner trees that were only three feetthrough, which were more easily carried to their place by the pulleys.And now they began to heap up rocks in a mass of mortar against thewall on the outside, till a steep slope guarded the whole of the lowerpart of the castle against fire from any attacker if war should comethat way, in any of the centuries that were yet to be: and the deepwindows they guarded with bars of iron.
The shape of the castle showed itself clearly now, rising on each sideof the bowmen's cottage and behind it, with a tower at each of itscorners. To the left of the old cottage the main doorway opened to thegreat hall, in which a pile of a few huge oaks was being transformedinto a massive stair. Three figures of strange men held up this ceilingwith their heads and uplifted hands, when the castle was finished; butas yet the carvers had only begun their work, so that only here andthere an eye peeped out, or a smile flickered, to give any expressionto the curious faces of these fabulous creatures of the wood, whichwere slowly taking their shape out of three trees whose roots werestill in the earth below the floor. In an upper storey one of thesetrees became a tall cupboard; and the shelves and the sides and theback and the top of it were all one piece of oak.
All the interior of the castle was of wood, hollowed into alcoves andpolished, or carved into figures leaning out from the walls. So vastwere the timbers that the walls, at a glance, seemed almost one pieceof wood. And the centuries that were coming to Spain darkened the wallsas they came, through autumnal shades until they were all black, asthough they all mourned in secret for lost generations; but they havenot yet crumbled.
The fireplaces they made with great square red tiles, which they alsoput in the chimneys amongst rude masses of mortar: and these great darkholes remained always mysterious to those that looked for mystery inthe family that whiled away the ages in that castle. And by everyfireplace two queer carved creatures stood upholding the mantlepiece,with mystery in their faces and curious limbs, uniting the hearth withfable and with tales told in the wood. Years after the men that carvedthem were all dust the shadows of these creatures would come out anddance in the room, on wintry nights when all the lamps were gone andflames stole out and flickered above the smouldering logs.
In the second storey one great saloon ran all the length of the castle.In it was a long table with eight legs that had carvings of rosesrambling along its edges: the table and its legs were all of one piecewith the floor. They would never have hollowed the great trunk in timehad they not used fire. The second storey was barely complete on theday that Rodriguez and Don Alderon and Morano came to the chains thatguarded the park. And the King of Shadow Valley would not permit hisgift to be seen in anything less than its full magnificence, and hadcommanded that no man in the world might enter to see the work of hisbowmen and craftsmen until it should frown at all comers a castleformidable as any in Spain.
And then they heaped up the mortar and rock to the top of the secondstorey, but above that they let the timbers show, except where theyfilled in plaster between the curving trunks: and the ages blackenedthe timber in amongst the white plaster; but not a storm that blew inall the years that came, nor the moss of so many Springs, ever rottedaway those beams that the forest had given and on which the bowmen hadlaboured so long ago. But the castle weathered the ages and reached ourdays, worn, battered even, by its journey through the long andsometimes troubled years, but splendid with the traffic that it hadwith history in many gorgeous periods. Here Valdar the Excellent cameonce in his youth. And Charles the Magnificent stayed a night in thiscastle when on a pilgrimage to a holy place of the South.
It was here that Peter the Arrogant in his cups gave Africa, one Springnight, to his sister's son. What grandeurs this castle has seen! Whatchronicles could be writ of it! But not these chronicles, for they drawnear their close, and they have yet to tell how the castle was built.Others shall tell what banners flew from all four of its towers, addinga splendour to the wind, and for what cause they flew. I have yet totell of their building.
The second storey was roofed, and Castle Rodriguez still rose one layerday by day, with a hauling at pulleys and the work of a hundred men:and all the while the park swept farther into the forest.
And the trees that grew up through the building were worked by thecraftsmen in every chamber into which they grew: and a great branch ofthe hugest of them made a little crooked stair in an upper storey. Onthe floors they laid down skins of beasts that the bowmen slew in theforest; and on the walls there hung all manner of leather, tooled anddyed as they had the art to do in that far-away period in Spain.
When the third storey was finished they roofed the castle over, layingupon the huge rafters red tiles that they made of clay. But the towerswere not yet finished.
At this time the King of Shadow Valley sent a runner into Lowlight toshoot a blunt arrow with a message tied to it into Don Alderon'sgarden, near to the door, at evening.
And they went on building the towers above the height of the roof Andnear the top of them they made homes for archers, little turrets thatleaned like
swallows' nests out from each tower, high places where theycould see and shoot and not be seen from below. And little narrowpassages wound away behind perched battlements of stone, by whicharchers could slip from place to place, and shoot from here or fromthere and never be known. So were built in that distant age the towersof Castle Rodriguez.
And one day four weeks from the felling of the first oak, the period ofhis promise being accomplished, the King of Shadow Valley blew hishorn. And standing by what had been the bowmen's cottage, now all shutin by sheer walls of Castle Rodriguez, he gathered his bowmen to him.And when they were all about him he gave them their orders. They wereto go by stealth to the village of Lowlight, and were to be by daylightbefore the house of Don Alderon; and, whether wed or unwed, whether shefled or folk defended the house, to bring Dona Serafina of the Valleyof Dawnlight to be the chatelaine of Castle Rodriguez.
For this purpose he bade them take with them a chariot that he thoughtmagnificent, though the mighty timbers that gave grandeur to CastleRodriguez had a cumbrous look in the heavy vehicle that was to thebowmen's eyes the triumphal car of the forest. So they took their bowsand obeyed, leaving the craftsmen at their work in the castle, whichwas now quite roofed over, towers and all. They went through the forestby little paths that they knew, going swiftly and warily in thebowmen's way: and just before nightfall they were at the forest's edge,though they went no farther from it than its shadows go in the evening.And there they rested under the oak trees for the early part of thenight except those whose art it was to gather news for their king; andthree of those went into Lowlight and mixed with the villagers there.
When white mists moved over the fields near dawn and wavered ghostlyabout Lowlight, the green bowman moved with them. And just out ofhearing of the village, behind wild shrubs that hid them, the bowmenthat were coming from the forest met the three that had spent the nightin taverns of Lowlight. And the three told the hundred of the greatwedding that there was to be in the Church of the Renunciation thatmorning in Lowlight: and of the preparations that were made, and howholy men had come from far on mules, and had slept the night in thevillage, and the Bishop of Toledo himself would bless the bridegroom'ssword. The bowmen therefore retired a little way and, moving throughthe mists, came forward to points whence they could watch the church,well concealed on the wild plain, which here and there gave up a fieldto man but was mostly the playground of wild creatures whose ways werethe bowmen's ways. And here they waited.
This was the wedding of Rodriguez and Serafina, of which gossips oftenspoke at their doors in summer evenings, old women mumbling of fairweddings that each had seen; and they had been children when they sawthis wedding; they were those that threw small handfuls of anemones onthe path before the porch. They told the tale of it till they couldtell no more. It is the account of the last two or three of them, old,old women, that came at last to these chronicles, so that their tonguesmay wag as it were a little longer through these pages although theyhave been for so many centuries dead. And this is all that books areable to do.
First there was bell-ringing and many voices, and then the voiceshushed, and there came the procession of eight divines of Murcia, whosevestments were strange to Lowlight. Then there came a priest from theSouth, near the border of Andalusia, who overnight had sanctified thering. (It was he who had entertained Rodriguez when he first escapedfrom la Garda, and Rodriguez had sent for him now.) Each note of thebells came clear through the hush as they entered the church. And thenwith suitable attendants the bishop strode by and they saw quite closethe blessed cope of Toledo. And the bridegroom followed him in, wearinghis sword, and Don Alderon went with him. And then the voices roseagain in the street: the bells rang on: they all saw Dona Mirana. Thelittle bunches of bright anemones grew sticky in their hands: the bellsseemed louder: cheering rose in the street and came all down it nearer.Then Dona Serafina walked past them with all her maids: and that iswhat the gossips chiefly remembered, telling how she smiled at them,and praising her dress, through those distant summer evenings. Thenthere was music in the church. And afterwards the forest-people hadcome. And the people screamed, for none knew what they would do. Butthey bowed so low to the bride and bridegroom, and showed their greathunting bows so willingly to all who wished to see, that the peoplelost their alarm and only feared lest the Bishop of Toledo should blastthe merry bowmen with one of his curses.
And presently the bride and bridegroom entered the chariot, and thepeople cheered; and there were farewells and the casting of flowers;and the bishop blessed three of their bows; and a fat man sat besidethe driver with folded arms, wearing bright on his face a look offoolish contentment; and the bowmen and bride and bridegroom all wentaway to the forest.
Four huge white horses drew that bridal chariot, the bowmen ran besideit, and soon it was lost to sight of the girls that watched it fromLowlight; but their memories held it close till their eyes could nolonger see to knit and they could only sit by their porches in fineweather and talk of the days that were.
So came Rodriguez and his bride to the forest; he silent, perplexed,wondering always to what home and what future he brought her; sheknowing less than he and trusting more. And on the untended road thatthe bowmen shared with stags and with rare, very venturous travellers,the wheels of the woodland chariot sank so deep in the sandy earth thatthe escort of bowmen needed seldom to run any more; and he who sat bythe driver climbed down and walked silent for once, perhaps awed by theoccasion, though he was none other than Morano. Serafina was delightedwith the forest, but between Rodriguez and its beautiful grandeur hisanxieties crowded thickly. He leaned over once from the chariot andasked one of the bowmen again about that castle; but the bowman onlybowed and answered with a proverb of Spain, not easily carried so farfrom its own soil to thrive in our language, but signifying that themorrow showeth all things. He was silent then, for he knew that therewas no way to a direct answer through those proverbs, and after a whileperhaps there came to him some of Serafina's trustfulness. By eveningthey came to a wide avenue leading to great gates.
Rodriguez did not know the avenue, he knew no paths so wide in ShadowValley; but he knew those gates. They were the gates of iron that lednowhere. But now an avenue went from them upon the other side, andopened widely into a park dotted with clumps of trees. And the twogreat iron shields, they too had changed with the changes that hadbewitched the forest, for their surfaces that had glowed sounmistakably blank, side by side in the firelight, not many nightsbefore, blazoned now the armorial bearings of Rodriguez upon the oneand those of the house of Dawnlight upon the other. Through the openedgates they entered the young park that seemed to wonder at its ownancient trees, where wild deer drifted away from them like shadowsthrough the evening: for the bowmen had driven in deer for milesthrough the forest. They passed a pool where water-lilies lay inlanguid beauty for hundreds of summers, but as yet no flower peepedinto the water, for the pond was all hallowed newly.
A clump of trees stood right ahead of their way; they passed round it;and Castle Rodriguez came all at once into view. Serafina gaspedjoyously. Rodriguez saw its towers, its turrets for archers, itsguarded windows deep in the mass of stone, its solemn row ofbattlements, but he did not believe what he saw. He did not believethat here at last was his castle, that here was his dream fulfilled andhis journey done. He expected to wake suddenly in the cold in somelonely camp, he expected the Ebro to unfold its coils in the North andto come and sweep it away. It was but another strayed hope, he thought,taking the form of dream. But Castle Rodriguez still stood frowningthere, and none of its towers vanished, or changed as things change indreams; but the servants of the King of Shadow Valley opened the greatdoor, and Serafina and Rodriguez entered, and all the hundred bowmendisappeared.
Here we will leave them, and let these Chronicles end. For whoeverwould tell more of Castle Rodriguez must wield one of those ponderouspens that hangs on the study wall in the house of historians. Greatdays in the story of Spain shone on those iron-barred windows, andthing
s were said in its banqueting chamber and planned in its innerrooms that sometimes turned that story this way or that, as rocks turna young river. And as a traveller meets a mighty river at one of itsbends, and passes on his path, while the river sweeps on to its estuaryand the sea, so I leave the triumphs and troubles of that story which Itouched for one moment by the door of Castle Rodriguez.
My concern is but with Rodriguez and Serafina and to tell that theylived here in happiness; and to tell that the humble Morano found hishappiness too. For he became the magnificent steward of CastleRodriguez, the majordomo, and upon august occasions he wore as much redplush as he had ever seen in his dreams, when he saw this very event,sleeping by dying camp-fires. And he slept not upon straw but upon goodheaps of wolf-skins. But pining a little in the second year of hissomewhat lonely splendour, he married one of the maidens of the forest,the child of a bowman that hunted boars with their king. And all thegreen bowmen came and built him a house by the gates of the park,whence he walked solemnly on proper occasions to wait upon his master.Morano, good, faithful man, come forward for but a moment out of theGolden Age and bow across all those centuries to the reader: say onefarewell to him in your Spanish tongue, though the sound of it be nolouder than the sound of shadows moving, and so back to the dimsplendour of the past, for the Senor or Senora shall hear your name nomore.
For years Rodriguez lived a chieftain of the forest, owning theoverlordship of the King of Shadow Valley, whom he and Serafina wouldentertain with all the magnificence of which their castle was capableon such occasions as he appeared before the iron gates. They seldom sawhim. Sometimes they heard his horn as he went by. They heard his bowmenfollow. And all would pass and perhaps they would see none. But uponoccasions he came. He came to the christening of the eldest son ofRodriguez and Serafina, for whom he was godfather. He came again to seethe boy shoot for the first time with a bow. And later he came to givelittle presents, small treasures of the forest, to Rodriguez'daughters; who treated him always, not as sole lord of that forest thattravellers dreaded, but as a friend of their very own that they hadfound for themselves. He had his favourites among them and none quiteknew which they were.
And one day he came in his old age to give Rodriguez a message. And hespoke long and tenderly of the forest as though all its glades weresacred.
And soon after that day he died, and was buried with the mourning ofall his men in the deeps of Shadow Valley, where only Rodriguez and thebowmen knew. And Rodriguez became, as the old king had commanded, theruler of Shadow Valley and all its faithful men. With them he huntedand defended the forest, holding all its ways to be sacred, as the oldking had taught. It is told how Rodriguez ruled the forest well.
And later he made a treaty with the Spanish King acknowledging him soleLord of Spain, including Shadow Valley, saving that certain rightshould pertain to the foresters and should be theirs for ever. Andthese rights are written on parchment and sealed with the seal ofSpain; and none may harm the forest without the bowmen's leave.
Rodriguez was made Duke of Shadow Valley and a Magnifico of the firstdegree; though little he went with other hidalgos to Court, but livedwith his family in Shadow Valley, travelling seldom beyond thesplendour of the forest farther than Lowlight.
Thus he saw the glory of autumn turning the woods to fairyland: andwhen the stags were roaring and winter coming on he would take aboar-spear down from the wall and go hunting through the forest, whosetwigs were black and slender and still against the bright menace ofwinter. Spring found him viewing the fields that his men had sown,along the forest's edge, and finding in the chaunt of the myriad birdsa stirring of memories, a beckoning towards past days. In summer hewould see his boys and girls at play, running through shafts ofsunlight that made leaves and grass like pale emeralds. He gave hisdays to the forest and the four seasons. Thus he dwelt amidstsplendours such as History has never seen in any visit of hers to thecourts of men.
Of him and Serafina it has been written and sung that they livedhappily ever after; and though they are now so many centuries dead, maythey have in the memories of such of my readers as will let them lingerthere, that afterglow of life that remembrance gives, which is all thatthere is on earth for those that walked it once and that walk the pathsof their old haunts no more.
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