CHAPTER XXIV: THE MAID TELLS OF WHAT HAD BEFALLEN HER
"Now, friend, by the clear of the moon and this firelight will I tellwhat I may and can of my tale. Thus it is: If I be wholly of the race ofAdam I wot not nor can I tell thee how many years old I may be. Forthere are, as it were, shards or gaps in my life, wherein are but a fewthings dimly remembered, and doubtless many things forgotten. I rememberwell when I was a little child, and right happy, and there were peopleabout me whom I loved, and who loved me. It was not in this land; butall things were lovely there; the year's beginning, the happy mid-year,the year's waning, the year's ending, and then again its beginning. Thatpassed away, and then for a while is more than dimness, for nought Iremember save that I was. Thereafter I remember again, and am a youngmaiden, and I know some things, and long to know more. I am nowisehappy; I am amongst people who bid me go, and I go; and do this, and I doit: none loveth me, none tormenteth me; but I wear my heart in longingfor I scarce know what. Neither then am I in this land, but in a landthat I love not, and a house that is big and stately, but nought lovely.Then is a dim time again, and sithence a time not right clear; an eviltime, wherein I am older, wellnigh grown to womanhood. There are a manyfolk about me, and they foul, and greedy, and hard; and my spirit isfierce, and my body feeble; and I am set to tasks that I would not do, bythem that are unwiser than I; and smitten I am by them that are lessvaliant than I; and I know lack, and stripes, and divers misery. But allthat is now become but a dim picture to me, save that amongst all theseunfriends is a friend to me; an old woman, who telleth me sweet tales ofother life, wherein all is high and goodly, or at the least valiant anddoughty, and she setteth hope in my heart and learneth me, and maketh meto know much . . . O much . . . so that at last I am grown wise, and wiseto be mighty if I durst. Yet am I nought in this land all this while,but, as meseemeth, in a great and a foul city."
"And then, as it were, I fall asleep; and in my sleep is nought, savehere and there a wild dream, somedeal lovely, somedeal hideous: but ofthis dream is my Mistress a part, and the monster, withal, whose headthou didst cleave to-day. But when I am awaken from it, then am I verilyin this land, and myself, as thou seest me to-day. And the first part ofmy life here is this, that I am in the pillared ball yonder, half-cladand with bound hands; and the Dwarf leadeth me to the Lady, and I hearhis horrible croak as he sayeth: 'Lady, will this one do?' and then thesweet voice of the Lady saying: 'This one will do; thou shalt have thyreward: now, set thou the token upon her.' Then I remember the Dwarfdragging me away, and my heart sinking for fear of him: but for that timehe did me no more harm than the rivetting upon my leg this iron ringwhich here thou seest."
"So from that time forward I have lived in this land, and been the thrallof the Lady; and I remember my life here day by day, and no part of ithas fallen into the dimness of dreams. Thereof will I tell thee butlittle: but this I will tell thee, that in spite of my past dreams, or itmay be because of them, I had not lost the wisdom which the old woman haderst learned me, and for more wisdom I longed. Maybe this longing shallnow make both thee and me happy, but for the passing time it brought megrief. For at first my Mistress was indeed wayward with me, but as anygreat lady might be with her bought thrall, whiles caressing me, andwhiles chastising me, as her mood went; but she seemed not to be cruel ofmalice, or with any set purpose. But so it was (rather little by littlethan by any great sudden uncovering of my intent), that she came to knowthat I also had some of the wisdom whereby she lived her queenly life.That was about two years after I was first her thrall, and three wearyyears have gone by since she began to see in me the enemy of her days.Now why or wherefore I know not, but it seemeth that it would not availher to slay me outright, or suffer me to die; but nought withheld herfrom piling up griefs and miseries on my head. At last she set herservant, the Dwarf, upon me, even he whose head thou clavest to-day. Manythings I bore from him whereof it were unseemly for my tongue to tellbefore thee; but the time came when he exceeded, and I could bear nomore; and then I showed him this sharp knife (wherewith I would havethrust me through to the heart if thou hadst not pardoned me e'en now),and I told him that if he forbore me not, I would slay, not him, butmyself; and this he might not away with because of the commandment of theLady, who had given him the word that in any case I must be kept living.And her hand, withal, fear held somewhat hereafter. Yet was there needto me of all my wisdom; for with all this her hatred grew, and whilesraged within her so furiously that it overmastered her fear, and at suchtimes she would have put me to death if I had not escaped her by someturn of my lore."
"Now further, I shall tell thee that somewhat more than a year ago hitherto this land came the King's Son, the second goodly man, as thou art thethird, whom her sorceries have drawn hither since I have dwelt here.Forsooth, when he first came, he seemed to us, to me, and yet more to myLady, to be as beautiful as an angel, and sorely she loved him; and heher, after his fashion: but he was light-minded, and cold-hearted, and ina while he must needs turn his eyes upon me, and offer me his love, whichwas but foul and unkind as it turned out; for when I nay-said him, asmaybe I had not done save for fear of my Mistress, he had no pity uponme, but spared not to lead me into the trap of her wrath, and leave mewithout help, or a good word. But, O friend, in spite of all grief andanguish, I learned still, and waxed wise, and wiser, abiding the day ofmy deliverance, which has come, and thou art come."
Therewith she took Walter's hands and kissed them; but he kissed herface, and her tears wet her lips. Then she went on: "But sithence,months ago, the Lady began to weary of this dastard, despite of hisbeauty; and then it was thy turn to be swept into her net; I partly guesshow. For on a day in broad daylight, as I was serving my Mistress in thehall, and the Evil Thing, whose head is now cloven, was lying across thethreshold of the door, as it were a dream fell upon me, though I stroveto cast it off for fear of chastisement; for the pillared hall wavered,and vanished from my sight, and my feet were treading a rough stonepavement instead of the marble wonder of the hall, and there was thescent of the salt sea and of the tackle of ships, and behind me were tallhouses, and before me the ships indeed, with their ropes beating andtheir sails flapping and their masts wavering; and in mine ears was thehale and how of mariners; things that I had seen and heard in the dimnessof my life gone by."
"And there was I, and the Dwarf before me, and the Lady after me, goingover the gangway aboard of a tall ship, and she gathered way and wasgotten out of the haven, and straightway I saw the mariners cast abroadtheir ancient."
Quoth Walter: "What then! Sawest thou the blazon thereon, of a wolf-likebeast ramping up against a maiden? And that might well have been thou."
She said: "Yea, so it was; but refrain thee, that I may tell on my tale!The ship and the sea vanished away, but I was not back in the hall of theGolden House; and again were we three in the street of the self-same townwhich we had but just left; but somewhat dim was my vision thereof, and Isaw little save the door of a goodly house before me, and speedily itdied out, and we were again in the pillared hall, wherein my thralldomwas made manifest."
"Maiden," said Walter, "one question I would ask thee; to wit, didst thousee me on the quay by the ships?"
"Nay," she said, "there were many folk about, but they were all as imagesof the aliens to me. Now hearken further: three months thereafter camethe dream upon me again, when we were all three together in the PillaredHall; and again was the vision somewhat dim. Once more we were in thestreet of a busy town, but all unlike to that other one, and there weremen standing together on our right hands by the door of a house."
"Yea, yea," quoth Walter; "and, forsooth, one of them was who but I."
"Refrain thee, beloved!" she said; "for my tale draweth to its ending,and I would have thee hearken heedfully: for maybe thou shalt once againdeem my deed past pardon. Some twenty days after this last dream, I hadsome leisure from my Mistress's service, so I went to disport me by theWell of the Oak-tree (or forsooth she might have se
t in my mind thethought of going there, that I might meet thee and give her some occasionagainst me); and I sat thereby, nowise loving the earth, but sick atheart, because of late the King's Son had been more than ever instantwith me to yield him my body, threatening me else with casting me intoall that the worst could do to me of torments and shames day by day. Isay my heart failed me, and I was wellnigh brought to the point of yea-saying his desires, that I might take the chance of something befallingme that were less bad than the worst. But here must I tell thee a thing,and pray thee to take it to heart. This, more than aught else, had givenme strength to nay-say that dastard, that my wisdom both hath been, andnow is, the wisdom of a wise maid, and not of a woman, and all the mightthereof shall I lose with my maidenhead. Evil wilt thou think of methen, for all I was tried so sore, that I was at point to cast it allaway, so wretchedly as I shrank from the horror of the Lady's wrath."
"But there as I sat pondering these things, I saw a man coming, andthought no otherwise thereof but that it was the King's Son, till I sawthe stranger drawing near, and his golden hair, and his grey eyes; andthen I heard his voice, and his kindness pierced my heart, and I knewthat my friend had come to see me; and O, friend, these tears are for thesweetness of that past hour!"
Said Walter: "I came to see my friend, I also. Now have I noted whatthou badest me; and I will forbear all as thou commandest me, till we besafe out of the desert and far away from all evil things; but wilt thouban me from all caresses?"
She laughed amidst of her tears, and said: "O, nay, poor lad, if thouwilt be but wise."
Then she leaned toward him, and took his face betwixt her hands andkissed him oft, and the tears started in his eyes for love and pity ofher.
Then she said: "Alas, friend! even yet mayst thou doom me guilty, and allthy love may turn away from me, when I have told thee all that I havedone for the sake of thee and me. O, if then there might be somechastisement for the guilty woman, and not mere sundering!"
"Fear nothing, sweetling," said he; "for indeed I deem that already Iknow partly what thou hast done."
She sighed, and said: "I will tell thee next, that I banned thy kissingand caressing of me till to-day because I knew that my Mistress wouldsurely know if a man, if thou, hadst so much as touched a finger of minein love, it was to try me herein that on the morning of the hunting shekissed and embraced me, till I almost died thereof, and showed thee myshoulder and my limbs; and to try thee withal, if thine eye shouldglister or thy cheek flush thereat; for indeed she was raging in jealousyof thee. Next, my friend, even whiles we were talking together at theWell of the Rock, I was pondering on what we should do to escape fromthis land of lies. Maybe thou wilt say: Why didst thou not take my handand flee with me as we fled to-day? Friend, it is most true, that wereshe not dead we had not escaped thus far. For her trackers would havefollowed us, set on by her, and brought us back to an evil fate.Therefore I tell thee that from the first I did plot the death of thosetwo, the Dwarf and the Mistress. For no otherwise mightest thou live, orI escape from death in life. But as to the dastard who threatened mewith a thrall's pains, I heeded him nought to live or die, for well Iknew that thy valiant sword, yea, or thy bare hands, would speedily tamehim. Now first I knew that I must make a show of yielding to the King'sSon; and somewhat how I did therein, thou knowest. But no night and notime did I give him to bed me, till after I had met thee as thou wentestto the Golden House, before the adventure of fetching the lion's skin;and up to that time I had scarce known what to do, save ever to bid thee,with sore grief and pain, to yield thee to the wicked woman's desire. Butas we spake together there by the stream, and I saw that the Evil Thing(whose head thou clavest e'en now) was spying on us, then amidst thesickness of terror which ever came over me whensoever I thought of him,and much more when I saw him (ah! he is dead now!), it came flashing intomy mind how I might destroy my enemy. Therefore I made the Dwarf mymessenger to her, by bidding thee to my bed in such wise that he mighthear it. And wot thou well, that he speedily carried her the tidings.Meanwhile I hastened to lie to the King's Son, and all privily bade himcome to me and not thee. And thereafter, by dint of waiting andwatching, and taking the only chance that there was, I met thee as thoucamest back from fetching the skin of the lion that never was, and gavethee that warning, or else had we been undone indeed."
Said Walter: "Was the lion of her making or of thine then?"
She said: "Of hers: why should I deal with such a matter?"
"Yea," said Walter, "but she verily swooned, and she was verily wrothwith the Enemy."
The Maid smiled, and said: "If her lie was not like very sooth, then hadshe not been the crafts-master that I knew her: one may lie otherwisethan with the tongue alone: yet indeed her wrath against the Enemy wasnought feigned; for the Enemy was even I, and in these latter days neverdid her wrath leave me. But to go on with my tale."
"Now doubt thou not, that, when thou camest into the hall yester eve, theMistress knew of thy counterfeit tryst with me, and meant nought butdeath for thee; yet first would she have thee in her arms again,therefore did she make much of thee at table (and that was partly for mytorment also), and therefore did she make that tryst with thee, anddeemed doubtless that thou wouldst not dare to forgo it, even if thoushouldst go to me thereafter."
"Now I had trained that dastard to me as I have told thee, but I gave hima sleepy draught, so that when I came to the bed he might not move towardme nor open his eyes: but I lay down beside him, so that the Lady mightknow that my body had been there; for well had she wotted if it had not.Then as there I lay I cast over him thy shape, so that none might haveknown but that thou wert lying by my side, and there, trembling, I abodewhat should befall. Thus I passed through the hour whenas thou shouldesthave been at her chamber, and the time of my tryst with thee was come asthe Mistress would be deeming; so that I looked for her speedily, and myheart wellnigh failed me for fear of her cruelty."
"Presently then I heard a stirring in her chamber, and I slipped from outthe bed, and hid me behind the hangings, and was like to die for fear ofher; and lo, presently she came stealing in softly, holding a lamp in onehand and a knife in the other. And I tell thee of a sooth that I alsohad a sharp knife in my hand to defend my life if need were. She heldthe lamp up above her head before she drew near to the bed-side, and Iheard her mutter: 'She is not there then! but she shall be taken.' Thenshe went up to the bed and stooped over it, and laid her hand on theplace where I had lain; and therewith her eyes turned to that false imageof thee lying there, and she fell a-trembling and shaking, and the lampfell to the ground and was quenched (but there was bright moonlight inthe room, and still I could see what betid). But she uttered a noiselike the low roar of a wild beast, and I saw her arm and hand rise up,and the flashing of the steel beneath the hand, and then down came thehand and the steel, and I went nigh to swooning lest perchance I hadwrought over well, and thine image were thy very self. The dastard diedwithout a groan: why should I lament him? I cannot. But the Lady drewhim toward her, and snatched the clothes from off his shoulders andbreast, and fell a-gibbering sounds mostly without meaning, but brokenhere and there with words. Then I heard her say: 'I shall forget; Ishall forget; and the new days shall come.' Then was there silence ofher a little, and thereafter she cried out in a terrible voice: 'O no,no, no! I cannot forget; I cannot forget;' and she raised a greatwailing cry that filled all the night with horror (didst thou not hearit?), and caught up the knife from the bed and thrust it into her breast,and fell down a dead heap over the bed and on to the man whom she hadslain. And then I thought of thee, and joy smote across my terror; howshall I gainsay it? And I fled away to thee, and I took thine hands inmine, thy dear hands, and we fled away together. Shall we be stilltogether?"
He spoke slowly, and touched her not, and she, forbearing all sobbing andweeping, sat looking wistfully on him. He said: "I think thou hast toldme all; and whether thy guile slew her, or her own evil heart, she wasslain last night who lay in mi
ne arms the night before. It was ill, andill done of me, for I loved not her, but thee, and I wished for her deaththat I might be with thee. Thou wottest this, and still thou lovest me,it may be overweeningly. What have I to say then? If there be any guiltof guile, I also was in the guile; and if there be any guilt of murder, Ialso was in the murder. Thus we say to each other; and to God and hisHallows we say: 'We two have conspired to slay the woman who tormentedone of us, and would have slain the other; and if we have done amisstherein, then shall we two together pay the penalty; for in this have wedone as one body and one soul.'"
Therewith he put his arms about her and kissed her, but soberly andfriendly, as if he would comfort her. And thereafter he said to her:"Maybe to-morrow, in the sunlight, I will ask thee of this woman, whatshe verily was; but now let her be. And thou, thou art over-wearied, andI bid thee sleep."
So he went about and gathered of bracken a great heap for her bed, anddid his coat thereover, and led her thereto, and she lay down meekly, andsmiled and crossed her arms over her bosom, and presently fell asleep.But as for him, he watched by the fire-side till dawn began to glimmer,and then he also laid him down and slept.