CHAPTER LIII
SYBILLA'S VENGEANCE
There stands a solitary rock at the base of which is a cave, on theseashore of La Vendee. Behind stretch the marshes, and the place isshut in and desolate. Birds cry there. The bittern booms in thethickets of grey willow and wet-shot alder. The herons nest upon thepine trees near by, till the stale scent of them comes down the windfrom far. Ospreys fish in the waters of the shallow lake behind, andthe scales of their prey flash in the sun of morning as they risedripping from the dive.
In this place Sholto, Malise, and the Lord James Douglas werepresently abiding.
It was but a tiny cell, originally formed by two portions of marlyrock fallen together in some ancient convulsion or dropped upon eachother from a floating iceberg. In some former age the cleft had been alair of wild beasts, or the couch of some hairy savage hammering flintarrowheads for the chase, and drawing with a sharp point upon polishedbone the yet hairier mammoth he hunted. But this solitary lodging inthe wilderness had been enlarged in more recent times, till now theinterior was about eight feet square and of the height of a man ofstature when he stands erect.
The hearts of the three present cave-dwellers were sick and sad, andof them all the bitterest was the heart of Sholto MacKim. It seemedto his eager lover's spirit, as he climbed to the top of the sanddunes and gazed towards the massive towers of Machecoul rising abovethe green woodlands, that hitherto they had but wandered and donenothing. The sorcerer had prevented them about with his evil. They hadlost Laurence utterly, and for the rest they had not even touched theouter defences of their arch enemy.
Thrice they had tried to enter the castle. The first time they hadtaken by force two waggons of fuel from certain men who went towardsMachecoul, leaving the woodmen behind in the forest, bound andhelpless. But at the first gate of the outer hall the marshal's guardhad stopped them, and demanded that they should wait till the carswere unloaded and brought back to them. So, having received the money,the Scots returned as they went to the men whom they had left in theforest.
After this repulse they had gone round and round the vast walls ofMachecoul seeking a place vulnerable, but finding none. The rampartsrose as it had been to heaven, and the flanking towers were crowdednight and day with men on the watch. Round the walls for the space ofa bow-shot every way there ran a green space fair and open to theview, but in reality full of pitfalls and secret engines. From thebattlements began the arrow hail, so soon as any attempted to approachthe castle along any other way than the thrice-defended road to themain gate.
The wolves howled in the forests by night, and more than once came sonear that one of the three men had to take it in turns to keep watchin the cave's mouth. But for a reason not clear to them at the timethey were not again attacked by the marshal's wild allies of thewood.
The third time they had tried to enter the castle in their pilgrim'sgarb, and the outer picket courteously received them. But when theywere come to the inner curtain, one Robin Romulart, the officer of theguard, a stout fellow, suddenly called to his men to bind and gagthem--in which enterprise, but for the great strength of Malise, theymight have succeeded. For the outer gates had been shut with a clang,and they could hear the soldiers of the garrison hasting from allsides in answer to Robin's summons.
But Malise snatched up the bar wherewith the winding cogs of the gatewere turned, and, having broken more than one man's head with it, heforced the massive doors apart by main force, so that they were ableall unharmed to withdraw themselves into the shelter of the woods. Sonear capture had they been, however, that over and over again theyheard the shouting of the parties who scoured the woods in search ofthem.
It was the worst feature of their situation that the Marshal de Retzcertainly knew of their presence in his territories, and that he wouldbe easily able to guess their errand and take measures to prevent itsucceeding.
Their last and most fatal failure had happened several days before,and the first eager burst of the search for them had passed. But theScots knew that the enemy was thoroughly alarmed, and that it behovedthem to abide very closely within their hiding-place.
The Lord James took worst of all with the uncertainty and confinement.Any restraint was unsuited to his jovial temper and open-air life. Butfor the present, at least, and till they could gain some furtherinformation as to the whereabouts of the maidens, it was obvious thatthey could do no better than remain in their seaside shelter.
Their latest plan was to abide in the cave till the marshal set outagain upon one of his frequent journeys. Then it would becomparatively easy to ascertain by an ambush whether he was taking thecaptives with him, or if he had left them behind. If the maids were ofhis travelling company, the three rescuers would be guided bycircumstances and the strength of the escort, as to whether or notthey should venture to make an attack.
But if by any unhoped-for chance Margaret and Maud were left behind atMachecoul, it would at least be a more feasible enterprise to attackthe fortress during the absence of its master and his men.
Alone among the three Scots Malise faced their predicament with somephilosophy. Sholto ate his heart out with uncertainty as to the fateof his sweetheart. The Lord James chafed at the compulsory confinementand at the consistent ill success which had pursued them. But Malise,unwearied of limb and ironic of mood as ever, fished upon the tidalflats for brown-spotted flounders and at the rocky points for whitefish, often remaining at his task till far into the night. Heconstructed snares with a mechanical ingenuity in advance of his age.And what was worth more to the company than any material help, he keptup the spirits of Sholto and of Lord James Douglas both by his braveheart and merry speech, and still more by constantly finding themsomething to do.
At the hour of even, one day after they had been a fortnight in thecountry of Retz, the three Scots were sitting moodily on a littlehillock which concealed the entrance to their cave. The forest laybehind them, an impenetrable wall of dense undergrowth crowned alongthe distant horizon by the solemn domes of green stone pines. Itcircumvented them on all sides, save only in front, where, throughseveral beaker-shaped breaks in the high sand dunes they could catch aglimpse of the sea. The Atlantic appeared to fill these clefts halffull, like Venice goblets out of which the purple wine has beenpartially drained. To right and left the pines grew scantier, so thatthe rays of the sunset shone red as molten metal upon their stems andmade a network of alternate gold and black behind them.
The three sat thus a long time without speech, only looking up fromtheir tasks to let their eyes rest wistfully for a moment upon thedeep and changeful amethyst of the sea, and then with a light sighgoing back to the cleaning of their armoury or the shaping of a longbow.
It chanced that for several minutes no sound was heard except thoseconnected with their labour, the low whistle with which the Lord Jamesaccompanied his polishing, the _wisp-wisp_ of Malise's arms as hesewed the double thread back and forth through a rent in his leathernjack, and the rasp of Sholto's file as he carved out the finials ofthe bow, the notched grooves wherein the string was to lie so easilyand yet so firmly.
Thus they continued to work, absorbed, each of them in the sadness ofhis own thought, till suddenly a shadow seemed to strike between themand the red light of the western sky. They looked up, and before them,as it were ascending out of the very glow of sunset, they saw a womanon a white palfrey approaching them by the way of the sea.
So suddenly did she appear that the Lord James uttered a low cry ofwonder, while Malise the practical reached for his sword. But Sholtohad seen this vision twice already, and knew their visitor for theLady Sybilla.
"Hold there!" he said in an undertone. "Remember it is as I said. Thiswoman, though we have no cause to love her, is now our only hope. Herwords brought us here. They were true words, and I believe that shecomes as a friend. I will stake my life on it."
"Or if she comes as an enemy we are no worse off," grumbled scepticalMalise. "We can at least encourage the woman and then hold her as anhostage.
"
The three Scots were standing to receive their guest when the LadySybilla rode up. Her face had lost none of the pale sadness whichmarked it when Sholto last saw her, and though the look of utter agonyhad passed away, the despair of a soul in pain had only become moredeeply printed upon it.
The girl having acknowledged their salutations with a stately andwell-accustomed motion of the head, reached a hand for Sholto to lifther from her palfrey.
Then, still without spoken word, she silently seated herself on thegrey-lichened rock rudely shaped into the semblance of a chair, onwhich Malise had been sitting at his mending. The strange maidenlooked long at the blue sea deepening in the notches of the sand dunesbeneath them. The three men stood before her waiting for her to speak.Each of them knew that lives, dearer and more precious than their own,hung upon what she might have to say.
At last she spoke, in a voice low as the wind when it blows itslightest among the trees:
"You have small cause to trust me or to count me your friend," shesaid; "but we have that which binds closer than friendship--a commonenemy and a common cause of hatred. It were better, therefore, that weshould understand one another. I have never lost sight of you sinceyou came to this fatal land of Retz. I have been near you when youknew it not. To accomplish this I have deceived the man who is mytaskmaster, swearing to him that in the witch crystal I have seen youdepart. And I shall yet deceive him in more deadly fashion."
Sholto could restrain himself no longer.
"Enough," he said roughly; "tell us whether the maidens are alive, andif they are abiding in this Castle of Machecoul."
The Lady Sybilla did not remove her eyes from the red west.
"Thus far they are safe," she said, in the same calm monotone. "Thisvery hour I have come from the White Tower, in which they areconfined. But he whom I serve swears by an oath that if you or otherrescuers are heard of again in this country, he will destroy themboth."
She shuddered as she spoke with a strong revulsion of feeling.
"Therefore, be careful with a great carefulness. Give up all thoughtof rescuing them directly. Remember what you have been able toaccomplish, and that your slightest actions will bring upon those youlove a fate of which you little dream."
"After what we remember of Crichton Castle, how can we trust you,lady?" said Malise, sternly. "Do you now speak the truth with yourmouth?"
"You have indeed small cause to think so," she answered without takingoffence. "Yet, having no choice, you must e'en trust me."
She turned sharply upon Sholto with a strip of paper in heroutstretched hand.
"I think, young sir, that you have some reason to know from whom thatcomes."
Sholto grasped at the writing with a new and wonderful hope in hisheart. He knew instinctively before he touched it that none but MaudLindesay could have written that script--small, clear, and distinct asa motto cut on a gem.
"_To our friends in France and Scotland,_" so it ran. "_We are stillsafe this eve of the Blessed Saint Michael. Trust her who brings thisletter. She is our saviour and our only hope in a dark and evil place.She is sorry for that which by her aid hath been done. As you hope forforgiveness, forgive her. And for God's dear sake, do immediately thething she bids you. This comes from Margaret de Douglas and MaudLindesay. It is written by the hand of M. L._"
The wax at the bottom was sealed in double with the boar's head ofLindesay and the heart of Margaret of Douglas.
Sholto, having read the missive silently, passed it to the Lord Jamesthat he might prove the seals, for it was his only learning to beskilled in heraldry.
"It is true," he said; "I myself gave the little maid that ring. See,it hath a piece broken from the peak of the device."
"My lady," said Sholto, "that which you bring is more than enough. Wekiss your hand and we will sacredly do all your bidding, were it untothe death or the trial by fire."
Then, as was the custom to do to ladies whom knights would honour, theLord James and Sholto kneeled down and kissed the hand of Sybilla deThouars. But Malise, not being a knight, took it only and settled itupon his great grizzled head, where it rested for a moment, lightly asupon some grey and ancient tower lies a flake of snow before it melts.
"I thank you for your overmuch courtesy," the girl said, casting hereyes on the ground with a new-born shyness most like that of a modestmaid; "I thank you, indeed. You do me honour far above my desert.Still, after all, we work for one end. You have, it is true, thenobler motive,--the lives of those you love; but I the deadlier,--thedeath of one I hate! Hearken!"
She paused as if to gather strength for that which she had to reveal,and then, reaching her hands out, she motioned the three men to gathermore closely about her, as if the blue Atlantic waves or the red bolesof the pine trees might carry the matter.
"Listen," she said, "the end comes fast--faster than any know, save I,to whom for my sins the gift of second sight hath been given. I whospeak to you am of Brittany and of the House of De Thouars. To one ofus in each generation descends this abhorred gift of second sight. AndI, because as a child it was my lot to meet one wholly given over toevil, have seen more and clearer than all that have gone before me.But now I do foresee the end of the wickedest and most devilish soulever prisoned within the body of man."
As she spoke the heads of the three Scots bent lower and closer tocatch every word, for the voice of the Lady Sybilla was more like thecooing of a mating turtle as it answers its comrade than that of awoman betrayed, denouncing vengeance and death upon him whom her soulhated.
"Be of good heart, then, and depart as I shall bid you. None can helpor hinder here at Machecoul but I alone. Be sure that at the worst theunnameable shall not happen to the maids. For in me there is the powerto slay the evil-doer. But slay I will not unless it be to keep thelives of the maids. Because I desire for Gilles de Retz a fategreater, more terrible, more befitting iniquity such as the world hathnever heard spoken of since it arose from the abyss.
"And this is it given to me to bring upon him whom my soul hateth,"she went on. "I have seen the hempen cord by which he shall hang. Ihave seen the fire through which his soul shall pass to its own place.Through me this fate shall come upon him suddenly in one night."
Her face lighted up with an inner glow, and shone translucent in thedarkening of the day and the dusk of the trees, as if the fair veil offlesh wavered and changed about the vengeful soul within.
"And now," she went on after a pause, "I bid you, gentlemen of thehouse of Douglas, to depart to John, Duke of Brittany, and havingfound him to lay this paper before him. It contains the number and thenames of those who have died in the castles of de Retz. It shows inwhat hidden places the bones of these slaughtered innocents may befound. Clamour in his ear for justice in the name of the King ofFrance, and if he will not hear, then in the name of the folk ofBrittany. And if still because of his kinship he will not listen, goto the Bishop of Nantes, who hates Gilles de Retz. Better than any heknows how to stir the people, and he will send with you trusty men tocause the country to rise in rebellion. Then they will overturn allthe castles of de Retz, and the hidden things shall come to light.This do, and for this time depart from Machecoul, and entrust me (asindeed you must) with the honour and lives of those you love. I willkeep them with mine own until destruction pass upon him who is outcastfrom God, and whom now his own fiend from hell hath deserted."
Then, having sworn to do her bidding, the three Scots conducted theLady Sybilla with honour and observance to her white palfrey, and likea spirit she vanished into the sea mists which had sifted up from thewest, going back to the drear Castle of Machecoul, but bearing withher the burden of her revenge.