CHAPTER LII
THE JESTING OF LA MEFFRAYE
It was in the White Tower of Machecoul that the Scottish maidens wereheld at the mercy of the Lord of Retz. At their first arrival in thecountry they had been taken to the quiet Chateau of Pouzauges, thebirthplace of Poitou, the marshal's most cruel and remorselessconfidant. Here, as the marshal had very truly informed the LadySybilla, they had been under the care of--or, rather, fellow-prisonerswith--the neglected wife of Gilles de Retz, and at Pouzauges they hadspent some days of comparative peace and security in the society ofher daughter.
But at the first breath of the coming of the three strangers to thedistrict they had been seized and securely conveyed to Machecoulitself--there to be interned behind the vast walls and triple bastionsof that fortress prison.
"I wonder, Maudie," said Margaret Douglas, as they sat on the flatroof of the White Tower of Machecoul and looked over the battlementsupon the green pine glades and wide seaward Landes, "I wonder whetherwe shall ever again see the water of Dee and our mother--and SholtoMacKim."
It is to be feared that the last part of the problem exceeded ininterest all others in the eyes of Maud Lindesay.
"It seems as if we never could again behold any one we loved or wishedto see--here in this horrible place," sighed Maud Lindesay. "If ever Iget back to the dear land and see Solway side, I will be a differentgirl."
"But, Maud," said the little maid, reproachfully, "you were alwaysgood and kind. It is not well done of you to speak against yourself inthat fashion."
Maud Lindesay shook her pretty head mournfully.
"Ah, Margaret, you will know some day," she said. "I have beenwicked,--not in things one has to confess to Father Gawain,but,--well, in making people like me, and give me things, and come tosee me, and then afterwards flouting them for it and sending themaway."
It was not a lucid description, but it sufficed.
"Ah, but," said Margaret Douglas, "I think not these things to bewicked. I hope that some day I shall do just the same, though, ofcourse, I shall not be as beautiful as you, Maudie; no, never! I askedSholto MacKim if I would, and he said, 'Of course not!' in a deepvoice. It was not pretty of him, was it, Maud?"
"I think it was very prettily said of him," answered Maud Lindesay,with the first flicker of a smile on her face. Her conscience wasquite at ease about Sholto. He was different. Whatever pain she hadcaused him, she meant to make up to him with usury thereto. The othersshe had exercised no more for her own amusement than for their ownsouls' good.
"My brother William must indeed be very angry with us, that he hathnever sent to find us and bring us home," went on the little girl. "Itis three months since we met that horrible old woman in the woodsabove Thrieve Island, and believed her when she told us that the Earlhad instant need of us--and that Sholto MacKim was with him."
"None saw us taken away. Margaret," said the elder, "and perhaps, whoknows, they may never have found any of the pieces of flower garlandsI threw down before they put us in the boats from the beach ofCassencary."
But the eyes of the little Maid of Galloway were now fixed uponsomething in the green courtyard below.
"Maud, Maud, come hither quickly!" she whispered; "if yonder be notLaurence MacKim talking to the singing lads and dressed likethem--why, then, I do not know Laurie MacKim!"
Maud came quickly now. Her face and neck blushed suddenly crimson withthe springing of hope in her heart.
She looked down, and there, far below them indeed, but yet distinctenough, they saw Laurence daring Blaise Renouf to single combat andvaunting his Irish prowess, as we have already seen him do. MaudLindesay caught her companion's hand as she looked.
"They have found us," she whispered; "at least, they are seeking forus. If Laurence is here, I warrant Sholto cannot be very far away. Oh,Margaret, am I looking very ill? Will he think I am as--(she pausedfor a word)--as comely as he thought me before in Scotland? Or have Igrown old and ugly with being shut up so long?"
But the Maid of Galloway heard her not. She was pondering on themeaning of Laurence's presence in the Castle of Machecoul.
"Perhaps William hath sent Laurence to spy us out, and is even nowcoming from his French duchy with an army. He is a far greater manthan the marshal, and will make him give us up as soon as he finds outwhere we are. Shall I call down to Laurie to let him know that we arehere?"
Maud put her hand hastily over her companion's mouth.
"Hush!" she said, "we must not appear to know him, or they will surelykill him--and perhaps the others, too. If Laurence is here, I wot wellthat help is not far away. Let us be patient and abide. Come back fromthe wall and sit by me as if nothing, had happened."
But all the same she kept her own place in a spot where she couldcommand the pleasaunce below, and looked longingly yet fearfully tosee Sholto follow his brother across the green sward.
* * * * *
"Sweet and fair is the air of the evening," purred behind them a lowvoice--that of the woman who was called La Meffraye. "It brings thecolour to the cheeks of the young. But I am old and wise, and I wouldadvise that two maids so fair should not look down on the sports ofthe youths, lest they hear and see more than is fitting for suchinnocent eyes."
The girls turned away without looking at their custodian, who stoodleaning upon her little hand crutch and smiling upon them her terriblesoft smile.
"Ah," she said, "proud, are you? 'Tis an ill place to bring pride to,this Castle of Machecoul. You will not deign to speak a word to a poorold woman now. But the day is not far distant when I shall have mypretty spitfire clinging about these old trembling knees, andbeseeching me whom you despise, as a woman either to save you or killyou--you will not care which. _As a woman!_ Ha! ha! How long is itsince La Meffraye was a woman? Was she ever rocked in a cradle? Didshe play about any cottage door and fashion daisy chains, as I haveseen you do, my pretties, long ere you came to Machecoul or even heardof the Sieur de Retz? Hath La Meffraye ever lain in any man'sbosom--save as the tigress crouches upon her prey?"
She paused and smiled still more bitterly and malevolently than beforeupon the two maidens.
"Did you chance to be awake yester-even?" she went on. "Aye, I knowwell that you were awake. La Meffraye saw right carefully to that. Andyou heard the crying that rang out of yonder high window, from whichthe light streamed all through the night. Wait, wait, my pretties,till it is your turn to be sent for up thither, when the shining knifeis sharpened and the red fire kindled. You will not despise LaMeffraye when that day comes. You will grovel and weep, and then willLa Meffraye spurn you with her foot, till the noise of your crying beborne out over the forest, and for very gladness the wolves howl inthe darkness."
The little Maid of Galloway was moved to answer, and her lipsquivered. But Maud Lindesay sat pale and motionless, looking towardsthe north, from which she hoped for help to come.
"Our brother, the Earl of Douglas, will bring an army from his dukedomof Touraine, and sweep you and your castle from the face of the earth,if your master dares to lay so much as a finger upon us."
La Meffraye laughed a low, cackling laugh, and in the act showed thefour long eye-teeth which were the sole remaining dental equipment ofher mouth.
"Oh, Great Barran--" she chuckled, "listen to the pretty fool! Ourbrother will do this--our brother will do that. _Our_ brother willlick the country of Retz as clean as a dog licks a platter. Know younot, silly fool, that both your brothers are long since dead and undersod in the castle of your city of Edinburgh. I tell you my master sethis little finger upon them and crushed them like flies on a summerchamber wall!"
Maud Lindesay rose to her feet as La Meffraye spoke these words.
"It is not true," she cried; "you lie to us as you have done from thefirst. The Earl of Douglas is not dead!"
It was now little Margaret who showed the spirit of her race, and putout her hand to clasp that of her elder comrade.
"Do not let her even know that she has power to
hurt us with herwords," she whispered low to Maud Lindesay. Then she spoke aloud:
"If that which you say be true and my brothers are dead--there are yetDouglases. Our cousins will deliver us."
"Your cousins have entered into your possessions," jeered the hag; "itis indeed a likely thing that they will desire your return to Scotlandin order to rob them of that which is their own."
"We are not afraid," said the little maid, stoutly; "there are many inthe land of the Scots who would gladly die to help us."
"Aye, that is it. They shall die--all die. Three of them diedyester-even, torn to pieces by my lord's wolves. Fine, swift,four-footed guardians of the Castle of Machecoul--La Meffraye'sfriends! And one young cock below there of the same gang hath goneeven now to my lord's chamber. He hath mounted the stairs he willnever descend."
"Well," said the Maid of Galloway, "even so--we are not afraid. We candie, as died our friends."
"Die--die!" cried the hag, sharply, angered at the child'spersistence. "'Tis easy to talk. To snuff a candle out is to die.Poof, 'tis done! But the young and beautiful like you, my dearies, donot so die at Machecoul. No; rather as a dying candle flickersout--falls low, and rises again, so they die. As wine oozes drop bydrop from the needle-punctured wine-skin--so shall you die, weeping,beseeching, drained to the white like a dripping calf in the shambles,yet at the same time reddened and shamed with the shame deadly andunnameable. Then La Meffraye, whom now you disdain to answer with alook, will wash her hands in your life's blood and laugh as your tearsfall slowly upon the latchet of her shoon!"
But a new voice broke in upon the railing of the hideous woman fiend.
"_Out, foul hag! Get you to your own place!_" it said, with an accentstrong and commanding.
And the affrighted and heart-sick girls turned them about to see theLady Sybilla stand fair and pale at the head of the turret stair whichopened out upon the roof of the White Tower.
At this interruption the eyes of La Meffraye seemed to burn with afresher fury, and the green light in them shone as shines an emeraldstone held up to the sun.
The hag cowered, however, before the outstretched index finger ofSybilla de Thouars.
"Ah, fair lady," she whimpered, "be not angry--and tell not my lord, Ibeseech you. I did but jest."
"_Hence!_" the finger was still outstretched, and, in obedience to thethreatening gesture, the hag shrank away. But as she passed throughthe portal down the steps of the turret, she flung back certain wordswith a defiant fleer.
"Ah, you are young, my lady, and for the present--for the present yourpower is greater than mine. But wait! Your beauty will wither and growold. Your power will depart from you. But La Meffraye can never growolder, and when once the secret is discovered, and my lord is youngagain, La Meffraye is the one who with him shall bloom with immortalyouth, while you, proud lady, lie cold in the belly of the worm."
* * * * *
"It is true--all too true," said Sybilla de Thouars, sadly, "they aredead. The young, the noble were--and are no more. I who speak saw themdie. And that so greatly, that even in death their lives cease not.Their glory shall flow on so that the young brook shall become ariver, and the river become a sea."
Then in few words and quiet, she told them all the heavy tale.
But when the maids made as though they would cleave to her for thesympathy that was in her words and because of her tears, she set thepalms of her hands against their breasts and cried, "Come not near onewhom not all the fires of purgatory can purify--one who, likeIscariot, hath contracted herself outside the mercy of God and of ourLord Christ!"
But all the more they clave to her, overpassing her protestations andclasping her, so that, being deeply moved, she sat down on the stepsof a corner turret which rose from the greater, and wept there, withthe weeping wherewith women are wont to ease the heart.
Then went Maud Lindesay to her and set her hand about her neck, andkissed her, saying: "Do not be sorry any more. Confess to the ministerof God. I also have sinned and been sorry. Yet after came forgivenessand the unbound heart."
Then the Lady Sybilla ceased quickly and looked up, as it had been,smiling. Yet she was not smiling as maidens are wont to smile.
"Pretty innocent," she said, "you mean well, but you know not what theword 'sin' means to such as I. Confess--absolve! Not even the Holy Oneand the Just could give me that. I tell you I have eaten of the appleof the knowledge of good and evil--yes, the very core I have eaten. Ihave the taste of innocent blood upon my lips. I have seen the axefall, the axe which I put into the headsman's hands. I am condemned,and that justly. But one of you shall live to taste sweet love, andthe crown of life, and to feel the innocent lips of children at herbreasts. And the other--but enough. Farewell. Fear not. God, who hasbeen cruel in all else, has given your lives to Sybilla de Thouars,ere in His own time He strike that guilty one with His thunderbolt."
And as she went within, the eyes of the maids followed her; but themasked man with the naked sword never so much as turned his head,gazing straight forward over the battlements of the White Tower intothe lilac mist which hung above the Atlantic.