III
The avenues of the pine forest engulfed the harper and the lady. Themyriad crowded trunks hemmed them with a stubborn and impassive gloom.A faint wind moved in the tree-tops. Dim aisles struck into anever-deepening mystery of shadow, as into the dark mazes of a dream.
The wild was as some primaeval waste, desolate and terrible, a vastflood of sombre green rolling over hill and valley. Its thicketsplunged midnight into the bosom of day. On the hills, the trees stoodlike traceried pinnacles, spears blood-red in the sunset, or splashedwith the glittering magic of the moon. There were dells sunk deepbeneath crags; choked with dense darkness, unsifted by the sun. Windingalleys white with pebbles as with the bones of the dead, wound throughseething seas of gorse. In summer, heather sucked with purple lips atthe tapestries of moss blazoning the ground, bronze, green, and gold.It was a wild region, and mysterious, a shadowland moaned over by thevoice of a distressful wind.
Yeoland held southwards by the gilded vane of the sun. She had turnedback her hood upon her shoulders, and fastened her black hair over herbosom with a brooch of amethysts. The girl was wise in woodlore and thephilosophies of nature. The sounds and sights of the forest were like agorgeous missal to her, blazoned with all manner of magic colours. Sheknew the moods of hawk and hound, had camped often under the steelystare of a winter sky, had watched the many phases of the dawn. Herswas a nature ripe for the hazardous intent of life. It was she who led,not Jaspar. The harper followed her with a martyred reason, having, forall his discontent, some faith in her keen eyes and the delicatedecision of her chin.
There was a steady dejection in the girl's mood--a dejection starred,however, with red wrath like sparks glowing upon tinder. She was noAgnes, no Amorette, mere pillar of luscious beauty. Her eyes were asblue-black shields, flashing with many sheens in the face of day. Theflaming tower, the dead figure in the forest grave, had thrust thegentler part out of her being. She was miserable, mute, yet full of avolcanic courage.
As for the harper, a rheumy dissatisfaction pervaded his temper. Hisblood ran cold as a toad's in winter weather. He blew upon his fingers,dreaming of inglenooks and hot posset, and the casual luxuries theforest did not promise. Yeoland considered not the old man's babblings.Her heart looked towards the dawn, and knew nothing of the twilightunder the dark eaves of age.
They had pressed a mile or more into the waste, and the day was waxingsere and yellow in the west. Before them ran a huge thicket, its floorsplashed with tawny splendours, the sable plumes touched with gold bythe sun. Its deep bosom hung full of purple gloom, dusted with amber,wild and windless.
A sudden "hist" from his lady's lips made the harper start in thesaddle. Her hand had snatched at his bridle. Both horses came to ahalt. The man looked at her as they sat knee to knee; she was alert andvigilant, her eyes bright as the eyes of a hawk.
"Marked you that?" she said to him in a whisper.
Jaspar gave her a vacant stare and shook his head.
"Nothing?"
"Boughs swaying in the wind, no more."
Yeoland enlightened him.
"Tush. There's no wind moving. A glimmer of armour, yonder, up theslope."
"Holy Jude!"
"A flash, it has gone."
They held silent under the drooping boughs, listening, with noiselessbreath. The breeze made mysterious murmurings with a vague unrest; nowand again a twig cracked, or some forest sound floated down like a filmymoth on the quiet air. The trees were dumb and saturnine, as thoughresenting suspicion of their sable aisles.
Jaspar, peering over his shoulder, jerked out a word of warning.Yeoland, catching the monosyllable from his lips, and following hisstare, glanced back into the eternal shadows of the place.
"I see nothing," she said.
Jaspar answered her slowly, his eyes still at gaze.
"A shadow slipping from trunk to trunk."
"Where?"
"I see it no longer. The saints succour us!"
Yeoland's face was dead white under her hair; her mouth gaped like acircle of jet. She listened constantly. Her head moved in statelyfashion on her slim neck, as she shot glances hither and thither intothe glooms, her eyes challenging the world. She felt peril, but was nocraven in the matter--a contrast to Jaspar, who shook as with an ague.
The harper's distress broke forth into petulant declaiming.
"Trapped," he said; "I could have guessed as much, with all thisfooling. These skulkers are like crows round carrion. Shall we losemuch, madame?"
"Gold, Jaspar, if they are content with such. What if they should be ofGambrevault!"
The harper gave a quivering whistle, a shrill breath between his teeth,eloquent of the unpleasant savour of such a chance. It was beyond himfor the moment whether he preferred being held up by a footpad, to beingbullied by some ruffian of a feudatory. He had a mere bodkin of adagger in his belt, and little lust for the letting of blood.
"'Tis a chance, madame," he said, with a certain lame sententiousness,"that had not challenged my attention. Say nothing of Cambremont; oneword would send us to the devil."
"Am I a fool? Since these gentlemen will not declare themselves, let ushold on and tempt their purpose."
Thinking to see the swirl of shadows under the trees, the glimmer ofsteel in the forest's murk, they rode on at a lifeless trot. Nothingechoed to their thoughts. The woods stood impassive, steeped insolitude. There was a strange atmosphere of peace about the place thatfailed to harmonise their fears. Yet like a prophecy of wind therestole in persistently above the muffled tramp of hoofs, a dull,characterless sound, touched with the crackling of rotten wood, thatseemed to hint at movement in the shadows.
The pair pressed on vigilant and silent. Anon they came to a lessmultitudinous region, where the trees thinned, and a columned ridedwindled into infinite gloom. Betwixt the black stems of the treesflashed sudden a streak of scarlet, torchlike in the shadows. An armedrider in a red cloak, mounted on a sable horse, kept vigil silentlybetween the boles of two great firs. He was immobile as rock, his spearset rigid on his thigh, his red plume sweeping the green fringes of thetrees.
This solemn figure stood like a sanguinary challenge to Yeoland and theharper. Here at least was something tangible in the flesh, more than amere shadow. The pair drew rein, questioning each other mutely withtheir eyes, finding no glimmer of hope on either face.
As they debated with their glances over the hazard, a voice came cryingweirdly through the wood.
"Pass on," it said, "pass on. Pay ye the homage of the day."
This forest cry seemed to loosen the dilemma. Certainly it bore wisdomin its counsel, seeing that it advised the inevitable, and orderedaction. Yeoland, bankrupt of resource, took the unseen herald at hisword, and rode on slowly towards the knight on the black horse.
The man abode their coming like a statue, his red cloak shiningsensuously under the sombre green of the boughs. A canopy of golden firearched him in the west. He sat his horse with a certain splendidarrogance, that puzzled not a little the conjectures of Yeoland and theharper. This was neither the mood nor the equipment of a vagabond soul.The fine spirit of the picture hinted briskly at Gambrevault.
The pair came to a halt under the two firs. The man towered above themon his horse, grim and gigantic, a great statue in black and burnishedsteel. His salade with beaver lowered shone ruddy in the sun. Hissaddle was of scarlet leather, bossed with brass and fringed with sablecord. Gules flamed on his shield, devoid of all device, a strong wedgeof colour, bare and brave.
The girl caught the gleam of the man's eyes through the grid of hisvizor. He appeared to be considering her much at his leisure with akeen silence, that was not wholly comforting. Palpably he was in nomood for haste, or for such casual courtesies that might have ebbed fromhis soundless strength.
Full two minutes passed before a deep voice rolled sonorously from thecavern of the casque.
"Madame," it said, "b
e good enough to consider yourself my prisoner.Rest assured that I bring you no peril save the peril of an emptypurse."
There was a certain powerful complacency in the voice, pealing with thedeep clamour of a bell through the silence of the woods. The man seemedless ponderous and sinister, giant that he was. The girl's eyes fencedwith him fearlessly under the trees.
"Presumably," she said to him, "you are a notorious fellow; I have themisfortune to be ignorant of these parts and their possessors. Be socourteous as to unhelm to me."
Her tone did not stir the man from his reserve of gravity. Her wordswere indeed like so many ripples breaking against a rock. The voiceretorted to her calmly from the helmet.
"Madame, leave matters to my discretion."
She smiled in his face despite herself, a smile half of petulance, halfof relish.
"You pretend to wisdom, sir."
"Forethought, madame."
"Am I your prisoner?"
"No new thing, madame; I have possessed you since you ventured intothese shadows."
He made a gesture with his spear, holding it at arm's length above hishead, where it quivered like a reed in his staunch grip. A sound likethe moving of a distant wind arose. The dark alleys of the wood grewsilvered with a circlet of steel. The shafts of the sunset flickered onpike and bassinet, gleaming amid the verdured glooms. Again the man'sspear shook, again the noise as of a wind, and the girdle of steelmelted into the shadows.
"Madame is satisfied?"
She sucked in her breath through her red lips, and was mute.
"Leave matters to my discretion. You there, in the brown smock, fallback twenty paces. Madame, I wait for you. Let us go cheek by jowl."
The man wheeled his horse, shook his spear, hurled a glance backwardover his shoulder into the woods. There was no gainsaying him for themoment. Yeoland, bending to necessity, sent Jaspar loitering, while sheflanked the black destrier with her brown jennet. She debated keenlywithin herself whither this adventure could be leading her, as she rodeon with this unknown rider into the wilds.
The man in the red cloak was wondrous mute at first, an iron pillar ofsilence gleaming under the trees. The girl knew that he was watchingher from behind his salade, for she caught often the white glimmer ofhis stare. He bulked largely in the descending gloom, a big man deep ofchest, with shoulders like the broad ledges of some sea-washed rock. Hewas richly appointed both as to his armour and his trappings; to Yeolandhis shield showed a blank face, and he carried no crest or token in hishelmet.
They had ridden two furlongs or more before the man stepped from hispedestal of silence. He had been studying the girl with the mood of aphilosopher, had seen her stark, strained look, the woe in her eyes, thefirm closure of her lips. The strong pride of grief in her had pleasedhim; moreover he had had good leisure to determine the character of hercourage. His first words were neither very welcome to the girl's earsnor productive of great comfort, so far as her apprehensions wereconcerned. Bluntly came the calm challenge from the casque.
"Daughter of Rual of Cambremont, you have changed little these fiveyears."
Yeoland gave the man a stare. Seeing that his features were screened byhis helmet, the glance won her little satisfaction. She knew that hewas watching her to his own profit, and her discovery, for the reflexlook she had flashed at him, must have told him all he desired, if hehad any claim to being considered observant. There was that also in thetone and tenor of his words that implied that he had ventured no meretentative statement, but had spoken to assure her that her name andperson were not unknown to him. Acting on the impression, she tacitlyconfessed to the justice of his charge.
"Palpably," she said, "my face is known to you."
"Even so, madame."
"How long will you hold me at a disadvantage?"
"Is ignorance burdensome?"
She imagined of a sudden that the man was smiling behind his beaver.Being utterly serious herself, she discovered an illogical lack ofsympathy in the stranger's humour. Moreover she was striving to spellGambrevault from the alphabet of word and gesture, and to come to anunderstanding with the doubts of the moment.
"Messire," she began.
"Madame," he retorted.
"Are you mere stone?"
For answer he lapsed into sudden reflection.
"It is five years ago this Junetide," he said, "since the King and theCourt came to Gilderoy."
"Gilderoy?"
"You know the town, madame?"
She stared back upon a sudden vision of the past, a past gorgeous withthe crimson fires of youth. That Junetide she had worn a new greengown, a silver girdle, a red rose in her hair. There had been joustingin the Gilderoy meadows, much braying of trumpets, much splendour, muchpomp of arms. She remembered the scent and colour of it all; the blazeof tissues of gold and green, purple and azure. She remembered theflickering of a thousand pennons in the wind, the fair women throngingthe galleries like flowers burdening a bowl. The vision came to herundefiled for the moment, a dream-memory, calm as the first pure pageantof spring.
"And you, messire?" she said, with more colour of face and soul.
"Rode in the King's train."
"A noble?"
"Do I bulk for a cook or a falconer?"
"No, no. Yet you remember me?"
"As it were yesterday, walking in the meadows at your father'sside--your father, that Rual who carried the banner when the King's menstormed Gaerlent these forty years ago. Not, madame, that I followedthat war; I was a mass of swaddling-clothes puking in a cradle. So wegrow old."
The girl's face had darkened again on the instant. The man in the redcloak saw her eyes grow big of pupil, her lips straightened into acolourless line. She held her head high, and stared into the purplegloom of the woods. Memories were with her. The present had an ironhand upon her heart.
"Time changes many things," he said, with a discretion that desired tosoften the silence; "we go from cradle to throne in one score years,from life to clay in a moment. Pay no homage to circumstance. The wavecovers the rock, but the granite shows again its glistening poll whenthe water has fallen. A Hercules can strangle Fate. As for me, I knownot whether I have soared in the estimation of heaven; yet I can swearthat I have lost much of the vagabond, sinful soul that straddled myshoulders in the past."
There was a warm ruggedness about the man, a flippant self-knowledge,that touched the girl's fancy. He was either a strong soul, or an uttercharlatan, posing as a Diogenes. She preferred the former picture inher heart, and began to question him again with a species of picturesqueinsolence.
"I presume, messire," she said, "that you have some purpose in life.From my brief dealings with you, I should deem you a very superiorfootpad. I gather that it is your intention to rob me. I confess thatyou seem a gentleman at the business."
The man of the red cloak laughed in his helmet.
"To be frank, madame," he said, "you may dub me a gatherer of taxes."
"Explain."
"Being unfortunates and outcasts from the lawful ways of life, my menand I seek to remedy the injustice of the world by levying toll on folkmore happy than ourselves."
"Then you condemn me as fortunate?"
"Your defence, madame."
The girl smiled with her lips, but her eyes were hard and bright assteel.
"I might convince you otherwise," she said, "but no matter. Why shouldI be frank with a thief, even though he be nobly born?"
"Because, madame, the thief may be of service to the lady."
"I have little silver for your wallet."
"Am I nothing but a money-bag!"
She looked up at him with a straight stare; her voice was level, evenimperious.
"Put up your vizor," she said to him.
The man in the black harness hesitated, then obeyed her. She could seelittle of his face, however, save that it was bronzed, and that the eyeswere very masterful. She ventured further in the argument, being benton fathoming
the baser instincts of the business.
"Knight of the red shield," she said.
"Madame?"
"I ask you an honest question. If you would serve me, speak the truth,and let me know my peril. Are you the Lord Flavian of Gambrevault, orno?"
The man never hesitated an instant. There was no wavering to cast doubtupon his sincerity, or upon his intelligence as a liar.
"No, madame," he answered her, "I am not the Lord of Gambrevault andAvalon, and may I, for the sake of my own neck, never come single-handedwithin his walls. I have an old feud with the lords of Gambrevault, andwhen the chance comes, I shall settle it heavily to my credit. If youhave any ill to say of the gentleman, pray say it, and be happy in mysympathy."
"Ha," she said, with a sudden flash of malice, "I would give my soul forthat fellow's head."
"So," quoth the man, with a keen look, "that would be a most delectablebargain."