CHAPTER L
THE ALTAR OF IRON
And now what of Master Laurence, lately clerk in the Abbey of DulceCor, presently in service with the great Lord of Retz, Messire Gillesde Laval, Marshal and Chamberlain of the King of France?
Laurence had been a month at Machecoul and had not yet worn out hiswelcome. He was sunning himself with certain young clerks andchoristers of the marshal's privy chapel of the Holy Innocents.Suddenly Clerk Henriet appeared under the arches at the upper end ofthe pretty cloisters, in the aisles of which the youths were seated.Henriet regarded them silently for a moment, looking with specialapproval upon the blonde curls and pink cheeks of the young Scottishlad.
Machecoul was a vast feudal castle with one great central square towerand many smaller ones about it. The circuit of its walls enclosedgardens and pleasaunces, and included within its limits the new andbeautiful chapel which has been recently finished by that goodCatholic and ardent religionary, the Marshal de Retz.
As yet, Laurence had been able to learn nothing of the maids, not evenwhether they were alive or dead, whether at Machecoul or elsewhere. Atthe first mention of maidens being brought from Scotland to thecastle, or seen about its courts, a dead silence fell upon thecompany of priests and singers in the marshal's chapel. It was thesame when Laurence spoke of the business privately to any of his newacquaintances.
No matter how briskly the conversation had been prospering hitherto,if, at Holy Mass or jovial supper board, Laurence so much as breatheda question concerning the subject next his heart, an instant blightpassed over the gaiety of his companions. Fear momently wiped everyother expression from their faces, and they answered with lameevasion, or more often not at all.
The shadow of the Lord of Machecoul lay heavy upon them.
Clerk Henriet stood awhile watching the lads and listening to theirtalk behind the carved lattice of Caen stone, with its lace-liketracery of buds and flowers, through which the natural roses pushedtheir way, and over which the clematis tangled its twining stems.
"Stand up and prove on my body that I am a rank Irelander," Laurencewas saying defiantly to the world at large, with his fists up and hishead thrown back. "Saint Christopher, but I will take the lot of youwith one hand tied behind me. Stand up and I will teach you how tosing 'Miserable sinners are we all!' to a new and unkenned tune."
"'Tis easy for you to boast, Irelander," retorted Blaise Renouf, theson of the lay choir-master, who had been brought specially from Rometo teach the choir-boys of the marshal's chapel the latest fashions inholy song. "We will either fight you with swords or not at all. We donot fight with our bare knuckles, being civilised. And that indeedproves that you are no true lover of the French, but an English dog ofunknightly birth."
This retort still further irritated the hot-headed son of Malise.
"I will fight you or any galley slave of a French frog with the sword,or spit you upon the rapier. I will cleave you with the axe, transfixyou with the arrow, or blow you to the pit with the devil's sulphur. Iwill fight any of you or all of you with any weapons from abattering-ram to a toothpick--and God assist the better man. And thereyou have Laurence O'Halloran, at your service!"
"You are a loud-crowing young cock for a newcomer," said Henriet, theconfidential clerk of the marshal, suddenly appearing in the doorway;"you are desired to follow me to my lord's chamber immediately. Therewe will see if you will flap your wings so boldly."
Laurence could not help noticing the blank alarm which thisannouncement caused among the youth with whom he had been playing theancient game of brag.
It was Blaise Renouf who first recovered. He looked across the littlerose-grown space of the cloister to see that Henriet had turned hisback, and then came quickly up to Laurence MacKim.
"Listen to me," he said; "you are a game lad enough, but you do notknow where you are going, nor yet what may happen to you there. Wewill fight you if you come back safe, but meantime you are one ofourselves, and we of the choir have sworn to stand by one another. Canyou keep a pea in your mouth without swallowing it?"
"Why, of course I can," said Laurence, wondering what was to comenext. "I can keep a dozen and shoot them through a bore of alder treeat a penny without missing once, which I wot is more than anyFrenchman ever--"
"Well, then," whispered the lad Renouf, breaking in on his boast witha white countenance, "hearken well to me. When you enter the chamberof the marshal, put this in your mouth. And if nothing happens keep itthere, but be careful neither to swallow it nor yet to bite upon it.But if it should chance that either Henriet or Poitou or Gilles deSille seize hold of your arms, bite hard upon the pellet till you feela bitter taste and then swallow. That is all. You are indeed a cockwhose comb wants cutting, and if all be well, we will incise it foryour soul's good. But in the meanwhile you are of our company andfellowship. So for God's sake and your own do as you are bid. Fare youwell."
As he followed Clerk Henriet, Laurence looked at the round pellet inhis hand. It was white, soft like ripe fruit, of an elasticconsistency, and of the largeness of a pea.
As Laurence ascended the stairs, he heard the practice of the choirbeginning in the chapel. Precentor Renouf, the father of Blaise, hadsummoned the youths from the cloisters with a long mellow whistle uponhis Italian pitch-pipe, running up and down the scale and ending witha flourished "A-a-men."
The open windows and the pierced stone railing of the great staircaseof Machecoul brought up the sound of that sweet singing from thechapel to the ear of the adventurous Scot as through a funnel. Theywere beginning the practice for the Christmas services, though thetime was not yet near.
"_Unto God be the glory In the Highest; Peace be on the earth, On the earth, Unto men who have good-will._"
So they chanted in their white robes in the Chapel of the HolyInnocents in the Castle of Machecoul near by the Atlantic shore.
The chamber of Gilles de Retz testified to the extraordinaryadvancement of that great man in knowledge which has been claimed aspeculiar to much later centuries. The window casements were soarranged that in a moment the place could either be made as dark asmidnight or flooded with bright light. The walls were always freshlywhitewashed, and the lime was constantly renewed. The stone floor wasstained a deep brick red, and that, too, would often be appliedfreshly during the night. At a time when the very word "sanitation"was unknown, Gilles had properly constructed conduits leading from anadjoining apartment to the castle ditch. The chimney was wide as apeasant's whole house, and the vast fireplace could hold on its irondogs an entire waggon-load of faggots. Indeed, that amount wasregularly consumed every day when the marshal deigned to abide atMachecoul for his health and in pursuance of his wonderful studiesinto the deep things of the universe.
"Bide here a moment," said Clerk Henriet, bending his body in awrithing contortion to listen to what might be going on inside thechamber; "I dare not take you in till I see whether my lord be in goodcase to receive you."
So at the stair-head, by a window lattice which looked towards thechapel, Laurence stood and waited. At first he kept quite still andlistened with pleasure to the distant singing of the boys. He couldeven hear Precentor Renouf occasionally stop and rebuke them forinattention or singing out of tune.
"_My soul is like a watered garden, And I shall not sorrow any more at all!_"
So he hummed as he listened, and beat the time on the ledge with hisfingers. He felt singularly content. Now he was on the eve ofpenetrating the mystery. At last he would discover where the missingmaidens were concealed.
But soon he began to look about him, growing, like the boy he was,quickly weary of inaction. His eye fell upon a strange door withcurious marks burnt upon its panels apparently by hot irons. Therewere circles complete and circles that stopped half-way, together withletters of some unknown language arranged mostly in triangles.
This door fixed the lad's attention with a certain curiousfascination. He longed to touch it and see whether
it opened, but forthe moment he was too much afraid of his guide's return to summon himinto the presence of the marshal.
He listened intently. Surely he heard a low sound, like the wind in adistant keyhole--or, as it might be (and it seemed more like it), themoaning of a child in pain, it knows not why.
The heart of the youth gave a sudden leap. It came to him that he hadhit upon the hiding-place of Margaret Douglas, the heiress of thegreat province of Galloway. His fortune was made.
With a trembling hand he moved a step towards the door of white woodwith the curious burned marks upon it. He stood a moment listening,half for the returning footsteps of Clerk Henriet, and half to thelow, persistent whimper behind the panels. Suddenly he felt his rightfoot wet, for, as was the fashion, he wore only a velvet shoe pointedat the toe. He looked down, and lo! from under the door trickled athin stream of red.
Laurence drew his foot away, with a quick catching sob of the breath.But his hand was already on the door, and at a touch it appeared toopen almost of its own accord. He found himself looking from the duskof the outer whitewashed passage into a high, vaulted chapel, whereinmany dim lights glimmered. At the end there was a great altar of ironstanding square and solemn upon the platform on which it was set up,and behind it, cut indistinctly against a greenish glow of light, andimagined rather than clearly defined, the vast statue of a man with acuriously high shaped head. Laurence could not distinguish anyfeatures, so deep was the gloom, but the whole figure seemed to bebending slightly forward, as if gloating upon that which was laid uponthe altar. But what struck Laurence with a sense of awe and terror wasthe fact that as the greenish light behind waxed and waned, he couldsee shadowy horns which projected from either side of the forehead,and lower, short ears, pricked and shaggy like those of a he-goat.
Nearer the door, where he stood in the densest gloom, something movedto and fro, and as his eyes grew accustomed to the darkness Laurencecould see that it was the bent figure of a woman. He could notdistinguish her face, but it was certainly a woman of great age andbodily weakness, whose tangled hair hung down her back, and who haltedcuriously upon one foot as she walked. She was bending over a lowcouch, whereon lay a little shrouded figure, from which proceeded thelow whimpering sound which he had heard from without. But even at thatmoment, as he waited trembling at the door, the moaning ceased, andthere ensued a long silence, in which Laurence could clearlydistinguish the beating of his own heart. It sounded loud in his earsas a drum that beats the alarm in the streets of a city.
The figure of the woman bent low to the couch, and, after a pause,with a satisfied air she threw a white cloth over the shrouded formwhich lay upon it. Then, without looking towards the door whereLaurence stood, she went to the great iron altar at the upper end ofthe weird chapel and threw something on the red embers which glowedupon it.
"_Barran--most mighty Barran-Sathanas, accept this offering, andreveal thyself to my master!_" she said in a voice like a chant.
A greenish smoke of stifling odour rose and filled all the place, andthrough it the huge horned figure above the altar seemed to turn itshead and look at the boy.
Laurence could scarcely repress a cry of terror. He set his hand tothe door, and lo! as it had opened, so it appeared to shut of itself.He sank almost fainting against the cold iron bars of the window whichlooked out upon the courtyard below. The wind blew in upon him sweetand cool, and with it there came again the sound of the singing of thechoir. They were practising the song of the Holy Innocents, which, bycommand of the marshal himself, Precentor Renouf had set to excellentand accordant music of his own invention.
"_A voice was heard in Ramah, In Ramah, Lamentations and bitter weeping, Rachel weeping for her children, Refused to be comforted: For her children, Because they were not._"
Obviously there was some mistake or lack of attention on the part ofthe choir, for the last line had to be repeated three times.
"_Because they were not._"