Форд Мэдокс Форд
The Young Lovell
And, in that way too, he came before the Lady Margaret and his grandmother, the Princess Rohtraut, as well as Sir Bertram of Lyonesse, in his armour of state. He seemed to survey them for a space through the opening of his helmet. This he had kept closed in riding through the city for fear any friend of the Knights of Cullerford and Haltwhistle should by chance be in those streets and aim an arrow at him from a window or from behind a buttress. Then he pushed up the visor.
Stern he always looked when his face was framed in iron, but so stern as he looked that day the Lady Margaret considered that she had never seen him. He had broad, level eyebrows of brown, a pointed nose, firm lips and a determined chin. The Lady Margaret knew that he had a pleasant smile but he showed none of it then, and he paid no attention either to her or to the Cornish knight. His grandmother regarded him with a keen, hostile glance, and with his eyes set upon hers he advanced grimly towards her. His short dagger was girt around him, but he had no sword. So, in that shining harness, he knelt before that old lady on the second step. He lifted up his hands and said:
"Madam, Princess and my Granddam, to whom I owe great honour…"
"That is a good beginning, by Our Lady," the Princess said.
"I would not so soon have come to you," he continued in firm tones, "but that you sent me your commands."
"Well, this grows better and better," the old woman said.
"It is neither out of lack of duty, nor of due awe and natural affection, that I had not the sooner come," the Young Lovell said.
"That passes me!" the Princess cried out. "By Our Lady, I do not understand that speech."
The Young Lovell who towered on high when he stood, and was tall enough though he knelt, appeared like a great hound, attacked by this fierce little woman as by a savage lap-dog.
"Madam and gentle Princess," he said slowly, "I cannot easily say what I would say, for no man would say it easily."
"Then you are on a fool's errand," the Princess said, "for a wise man can say most things." She considered him for a moment and then said jeeringly: "If you had business in the town, stiff grandson of mine, say you had business: if you were gone after wenches, lie about it. But I care very little. I sent for you to have your news; so leave the complimenting and give me that."
"Madam and gentle Princess," he began again, though the old lady grunted and mumbled. "I did not come before because I sought assoilment."
"What is assoilment?" she asked.
He answered briefly:
"Pardon for sin, witting and unwitting."
"Well, get on," she said impatiently.
"Lacking that assoilment," he said, "I did not know if I were a fit knight to come into your presence."
"Why, I am an old horse," she said, "and not to be frightened by a dab of pitch. If you never showed yourself but after confession you might live in a cave, or so it was in my time."
"Then," said he, "know this. I came to my Castle and they shot upon me. So I have gathered together certain of my men and have taken my mother's Castle of Cramlin and hold it. So that is my news. And when I have the pardon of the Bishop and have paid forfeit, or what it is, I will get more of my men. For my standard is set up in Castle Cramlin and my men come to it from here and there. So in a fortnight or less I will retake my Castle; and I shall hang my brothers-in-law, send my half-brother across the sea, and put my sisters into nunneries. These are my projects."
"Body of God!" the old lady said. "By the Body of God!"
Then the Cornish knight moved round and stood beside the Princess and spoke to the Young Lovell.
"Ah, gentle lord," he said, "may I ask you a fair question?"
"By God's wounds," the Young Lovell said, "you shall ask me none. Who be you?"
"A poor knight," Sir Bertram answered, "but the commissioner of the most dread King Henry!"
"Then you are a friend of the false Percy," the Young Lovell said. "Get you gone. You are no friend to me."
And at that the old Princess cried out:
"Body of God! You have taken Castle Cramlin? Then without doubt you have taken Plessey House and Killingworth?"
"Madam and gentle Princess," the Young Lovell said, "I have taken and hold them for my mother. And so I will do for all my mother's lands whether round Morpeth or elsewhere."
"Then I have no more to say," the old Princess said. "Get you gone." The Young Lovell remained nevertheless kneeling for a space.
"Madam," he said, "it comes to me now that ye have a lawsuit with my mother for certain of those lands."
"Aye, and I will have them," she said. "It is not you nor any stiff popinjay shall hold them from me." She leaned out from her chair and cried these words into his face, her own being purple and her eyes bloodshot. So he crossed himself with his hand of bright steel.
"Madam," he said, "I cannot talk of lawsuits. They have done me too much wrong."
"But I will talk of lawsuits," she said. "By God, I will take a score of my fellows and drive your rats from my Castle of Cramlin!"
"Madam and gentle Princess," he answered, "you could not do it with ten score nor yet twenty. For I have there forty of the best fighting men of this North country; and in two days I think I shall have six score. How the rights of this lawsuit may be I do not know. But my mother's necessity is great. She has languished for a quarter year in prison during which time you have done nothing for her. When the lands fall to me upon my mother's death you and the Dacres may have them again. That is all that I know. And so I pray our gentle Saviour to have you in His keeping; and so I get me gone."
All this while the Lady Margaret had sat motionless, gazing upon her true love's face that never cast a glance aside at her. For it was not manners that she should speak before that old lady. But when he was on his feet and near the door, she ran down from that throne-step, and her rich robes and her great veil ran out behind her. The Cornish knight was already in the stairway, and the Lady Margaret came to it before the Young Lovell, for he walked slowly on account of the weight of his armour. So in the stairway she came before him and held up her hands to his steel chest:
"Ah, gentle lord," she said, "will you speak no word with me?" And, in having said so much, because she had spoken before he had, she had said too much for manners, and she hung her head and trembled, for she was a very proud woman.
He looked at her with stern and affrighting eyes.
"Ah, gentle lady," he said, "you are plighted to my false brother."
"No! No!" she said, "not with my will. Would you believe I am in a tale against you, with your false sisters?"
He raised his voice till it was like the harsh bark of the male seal; his eyes glowed with hatred.
"Gentle lady," he cried out, "ye should have known!"
The sight of this lady had been to him a sudden weariness, like the sound of a story heard over and over again. And hot anger and hatred had risen violently in his heart when she spoke.
But then he perceived her anguished face, the corners of the proud lips drawn down and the features pale like alabaster. And he remembered that all things, to pursue a fair course, must go on as they before would have gone – even all things to the end. So that, although his heart was weary for the lady of the doves and sparrows, he said:
"Ah, gentle lady, I believe you. I remember me. My false brother was inside these pot-lids. You could do no otherwise. All these things shall be set in order. We will sue to the Pope. So it shall be." He could not easily find words; that was very difficult speaking for him; for still this lady was wearisome beyond endurance to him, because of the lady of the doves and sparrows. But he would not let her see this, for he knew she was a loyal and dutiful friend to him, and he must take her to wife when he had his Castle again and the dispensation of our Father that is in Rome. And indeed she fell upon her knees before him there in the stairway:
"Gentle lord, my master and my love," she said, "I smote your false brother on the mouth in that day. And all my lands are yours and my towers of Glororem and on Wearside; and all my red gold and all my jewels of price. And all my men-at-arms are yours, to the number of eight score, and two esquires; and all my bondsmen that can bear bows, and my rough pikemen…"
He stepped back stiffly in his arms, so that he was nearly within his grandmother's chamber again. And this he did that he might avoid her touch. And he said "No! No!" That he said because it seemed horrible to him to have her aid in the retaking of his Castle. But, before she was done speaking with her deep and full voice, he knew that these things too must be.
Therefore he advanced upon her courteously, and stretched out his hands in steel and raised her up.
"Ah, gentle lady," he said, "all these things shall be, and I thank you. And peaceful times shall, God willing, repay these troublous ones."
She looked upon him a little strangely; but she held her cheek to him.
"Ah, gentle lady," he said, "I may not kiss you. For, as I stand before you, I am a man under a ban, so I think I may not do it until my lord the Prince Bishop shall have assoiled me and taken cognisance of my plea to Rome against my false brother."
She wished to have said: "Ah, what reck I of that!" and so to have taken him in her arms, steel and all. But that she might not do for fear of her manners. For she had been well schooled, and, whereas, she might well, if she would, give him her towers and lands and men and bondsmen, still she could not go against the ban of the Church; for the ladies of her house of Eure were very proud ladies. Neither, for pride, though the tears were wet upon her cheeks, would she ask him what ban it was that he lay under.
So, seeing those her tears, he said as gently as he could – for when the head of the axe is thrown the helve may as well go with it:
"Ah, gentle lady, be of very good cheer! For I am assured of assoilment by such a very good churchman that I know no better. And, that once had, shall we not make merry as in the old time? Aye, surely, for if you will, I will well. And so, that it may be the sooner done, I will go to that good prince." Yet, as he said these words, he sighed. Then he added: "In a little while, gentle lady and my true love, I will come back to you."
So she stood back in the stairway to let him pass; but it was piteously that she looked after him. For she had never seen him so earnest and so sober. He seemed the older by twenty years, and never had his foot been so heavy on the stairs; it was like the beating of a heart of lead.
Now when the Young Lovell came to the stair-foot where there was a square space, there there was standing the Knight Bertram of Lyonesse. And so he stood before the Young Lovell that that lord could not pass him or get to the street. And hot rage was already in that lording's heart, for never had he talked so painfully as he had done to that Lady Margaret, and it seemed as if his breast must burst its armour. Up to him stepped that Cornish knight and spoke in gentle tones, bending his particoloured leg courteously, in the then fashion of London town.
"Gentle lording," he said, "you called me even now the friend of Henry Percy, Earl of Northumberland. Let me say presently that by my office I stand above that lord, though far below him in my person. So I am no friend of his, though not his foe."
The Young Lovell held his brows down and gazed upon this man beneath them, breathing heavily in his chest.
"Go on," he said.
"Then I will tell you this," the Cornish knight went on. "I have heard you twice say ye were beneath a ban. Now that may well be and I think it is along of a White Lady."
The Young Lovell loosened his dagger within its sheath.
"My silken knight," he said, "ye were never so near your death."
"Gentle lording," that knight answered, "if I die another will take my place and no one will lament me. But it is my function and devoir to talk and so I take it." He paused for a moment, and then he went on: "God forbid that I should say word against Holy Church; I am not one that does it. Yet I will say this: If Holy Church will not raise the ban from you, yet I, Sir Bertram of Lyonesse, who have some skill at inquiries, will so put this matter to the King and dread lord that, without more words said, that judgment of the Warden's Court against you shall be revised, and if those false Knights shall withhold your Castle from you you shall have instant licence to take it again and do justice upon them as you will. And the fines due of you under that judgment shall be remitted to you. For I acknowledge that therein the Percy hath overstepped himself; for firstly he can give no judgment and foul no bill upon a suit of sorcery. And secondly, I am convinced that here was no sorcery. For, touching that White Lady…"
"Sir Knight," the Young Lovell said, "I bid you stand aside from that door and see a thing…" Then Sir Bertram stepped down into the roadway.
The Young Lovell took out his dagger and raised it above his shoulder. It was of the length of his forearm. The door that stood against the wall, being open, was of thick oak, studded with large bosses of iron. The Young Lovell brought forward that dagger over his head and it sank into that door up to the hilt, and sank in and passed through the door, and so into the mortar between two stories and the door was nailed there.
"Sir," the Young Lovell said, "seek to withdraw that dagger."
"Nay, that I cannot do," Sir Bertram said.
"Neither can I nor any man," the Young Lovell said. "And I am glad of it. For if you had spoken more upon that theme, that dagger should have gone through your throat. And this I tell you: there is no knight in all the North parts that could have done that, and I think none in all Christendom. How it may be in Heathenesse I do not know, for I hear that the Soldan has some very good knights. And that I did to show you that I am no braggart if you will hear me further."
"Very willingly will I hear you further, ah, gentle lording," the Cornish knight answered, and again he bent his knee where he stood in the street.
"Then," the Young Lovell said, "it is because I can do such deeds as that you have seen that all the men of the North parts will willingly follow me upon any journey. So it would be well if the Percy let me be. For – an he will not I will come to Alnwick and to Warkworth with twice four thousand men for this Percy is little beloved. And so, with scaling hooks and hurdles and faggots and the rest I will smoke him out of Northumberland and hang him upon the first tree in this County Palatine. And that you may tell your King."
"Ah, gentle lording," Sir Bertram said, "I tell you that judgment is already reversed."
"Of that I know nothing," the Young Lovell said. "But so it is as I have told you. If your King will dwell at peace with us of the North parts he may for me, and I ask nothing better. And so much more I will say, that he has good servants; for no man ever went nearer his death than you when you spoke to me now. And I think you know it well, yet you gave no ground and spoke on. I do not like your kind, for I have seen some of them about the courts of princes, here and elsewhere and you are the caterpillars upon the silken tree of chivalry that shall yet destroy it. Yet that was as brave a feat as ever I saw, and your King is happy if he have more such as you."
VIII
In the meanwhile that monk Francis sat writing in the Bishop's room and the Bishop walked up and down behind his back. Once or twice the Bishop paused in his walking as if he wished to speak to the monk, but again he walked on and the monk Francis continued to write rapidly, pausing now and then and looking upwards as he sought to remember the words of the decree beginning: "Jejunandi," or the Decretal: "Nullam res est…"
So at last the Bishop stood for a long time near the door, looking down at the nails of his fingers, and then suddenly:
"Touching the matter of sorcery, my brother in God…" he said.
The monk swung quickly round upon his stool:
"There was no sorcery," he said determinedly. "Those three of Castle Lovell were perjured."
"So I gathered," the Bishop said softly; "I considered that; it appeared so from what was said to me by the lawyer, Magister Stone."
The monk looked with the greater respect at the Bishop.
"Father in God," he said, "will you tell me how you came upon that thought?"
The Bishop smiled a little faint smile of pleased vanity. For he liked to be considered that he was a subtle reader of the hearts of men. In that he thought that he was the superior of this monk.
"When a man comes to me," he said, "with two tales, to each of which he will swear to find many witnesses, I am apt to think that one is false. So it was with this our friend called Stone."
"May I hear more?" the monk asked.
"It was in this way," the Bishop said, "and now you will see why I was troubled in my conscience when you found me. This lawyer Stone took it for postulated that I thirsted for the lands of this Young Lovell. He would have it no other way. Though once or twice I said I loved justice better than land he would have it no other way, but took my protestings for the solemn fooleries of a priest. He is, I think, a very evil man, with the face of an ape, stiff gestures, and the voice of a door hinge."
"I know the man very well," the monk Francis said. "He has twice proposed to me the spoliation of widows with false charters for the benefit of our monastery."
"So," the Bishop said, "he would have it that I was greedy of gold and lands for my see. And indeed I am if I may have them with decency. So he saith to me under his breath that, in two ways I might have Castle Lovell. One tale was that this Young Lovell had capered with naked witches and others round a Baal fire. For that he had as witnesses himself and another gossip called Meg of the Foul Tyke and that bastard called the Decies."
"It is because of that false witnessing that the Decies shall be broken on the wheel," the monk Francis said.
"Well, it was false witnessing," the Bishop said. "And so I divined. For, afterwards, this lawyer, brings along another story. And it was easy to see that this lawyer considered this the better story of the two and would be mightily relieved of doubt if I would adopt it. And it was this."
The monk Francis looked now very eagerly upon the Bishop, who stood straight and still in his furred gown, lifting one hand stiffly:
"There is in the village of Castle Lovell," he said, "a fair lovechild called Elizabeth. Some will have it that the father is the Young Lovell, some that it is of the Young Lovell's father. How that may be I do not know, but it is certain that that child is of the Lovell kin and Harrison is its name. Now, as May comes in, that child, as children will, goeth afield seeking herbs for a coney that the mother had a-fattening. So the child Elizabeth goeth further and further amongst these hills of sand where green stuff is rare. For, that she might not pluck herbs in the bondsmen's fields, that are laid down to hay, that child very well knew. So, looking up suddenly, that child perceived upon a high sand-hill, and sitting upon a brown horse that she well knew, a knight that very well she knew too, being the Young Lovell. For this lording was accustomed to bring the child Elizabeth pieces of sugar and figs and to give her fair words and money to the mother.
"So that child had no fear of the Young Lovell, but ran up to him crying out for sugar and figs. But he paid no heed to her, only sat there upon his horse. So the child looked further and perceived, upon a white horse, a lady in a scarlet gown, in a green hood, who smiled very kindly at her. So that child was afraid, as children are, and ran home. That was in the midst of May…
"Now came fell poverty into the hut where dwelled that woman and her child. The last pence were gone, the fatted coneys eaten; they must go batten upon roots, and when that mother sought relief of the Ladies Douce and Isopel in the Castle they jeered and spat upon her. And ever the mother cried that if the Young Lovell would come they would find relief. Then at last that child took courage and said that she knew where the Young Lovell was and would lead her there.
"So she leads her mother through these hills of sand – and it was then close to July, the 29th of June as it might be. There upon the hills of sand that mother perceives the Young Lovell. He sat upon his brown horse, in his cloak of scarlet, with his parti-coloured hose of scarlet and green. He wore his cap of scarlet set about with large pearls…"
"These pearls," the monk Francis said, "I have as a gage in my aumbrey of Belford."
"His long hair fell down upon his shoulders and he looked away. Then wearily that mother climbed the sand-hill crying out to the Young Lovell for gold. He never looked upon her but gazed always away; nevertheless he fingered his girdle and found his poke and cast down to her a French mark of gold."
"I thank God he did that charity," the monk Francis said, "even if he did not know it; and I think he did not."
"Why let us thank God," the Bishop said. And he asked: "Then this is a true tale?"
"I think it is," the monk Francis answered. "But, of your charity, tell me more."
"Then," the Bishop said, "that poor woman fell upon that piece of gold in the sand and kissed it. And, as she looked up over it to kiss too the Young Lovell's hand, so she saw a fair, kind woman. Red hair she had and was clothed in white with a jewel of rubies in a white hat. Such a kind, fair lady that woman had never seen, and the Young Lovell gazed upon her and she into his eyes. Then tears blinded that woman and grief and pain at the heart. So she came back to her hut, she knew not how; and, indeed, she knew no more until there came the lawyer Stone holding a cordial to her lips.
"For, you must know that that child, taking that piece of gold from her mother's fingers and being all innocent, went away into the village to buy food for her mother. So the first man she came to, seeing her with it, took her to the house of the lawyer Stone to have the right of it. Then the lawyer having beaten her, she told him that the Young Lovell had that day given it to her mother.
"So the lawyer, avid of news of the Young Lovell, jumped like an ape to that poor hut. But it was two days before that woman could speak, though he nursed her and fed cordials to her never so. Then that lawyer got men-at-arms and scoured the country according to her directions. But upon the Young Lovell he never came."
"By that day," the monk Francis said, "he was in my cell commending himself to God."
The Bishop looked apprehensively upon the monk Francis.
"Then this you take for a true tale," he said. "Woe is me."
They were both silent for a while, and then the monk said – for they were looking with faces of great weariness upon the tiles:
"Father in God, tell me truly, I do pray, all that you know from this lawyer."
"Brother," the Bishop said, "God help us, this lawyer was insistent that the tale of sorcery against this lording should be let to lapse or changed for another, such as that he consorted with old fairies and worse."
"How then," the monk Francis said, "would he put aside his former perjuries?"
"He would say," the Bishop said, "that his eyes deceived him, magic being in the air, and that on that morning the Young Lovell rode furiously past him going as if he knew not whither."
"Why so he did!" the monk Francis said, "but that shall not save the lawyer. His former oaths are written down."
"Brother," the Bishop said, "it is that lawyer's plan to begin another suit in the courts ecclesiastical and there not to swear at all, but ignoring the bill before the Wardens, to bring many witnesses about this fairy lady."
"What other witnesses has he?" the monk Francis asked. He spoke like a man without hope.
"You must know," the Bishop said, "that this lawyer during these months was enquiring of the Young Lovell in the past. So in Newcastle he found a master-tailor to whom the Young Lovell for long owed four pounds. And one day in February this tailor, needing money, went out from Newcastle towards Castle Lovell, riding upon an ass. And so, upon the way, he saw a lady that had a white horse and was little and dark. He was in tribulation for his money and pondered much upon the Young Lovell whether he was a lording that would pay him or one that would have him beaten at the gate.
"And, as he thought that, this lady looked upon him as if she would ask the way to where the Young Lovell dwelt. She was little and swart and had a green undercoat.
"And again in February there was a ship boy that went from Sunderland with a white falcon his ship had brought from Hamboro', for the Young Lovell. Now, upon this voyage, this ship boy had conceived a great love for that falcon even as boys will that upon ships are beaten by all and conceive loves for dumb beasts. So that ship boy went pondering with the white hawk and wondering and almost weeping to think that that lording might be a cruel master to the falcon. For he loved that falcon very well. So he was aware of a kind, fair lady with a white horse that looked upon him as much as to say that the Young Lovell would be a gentle and kind lord to that fowl. She was a great fair woman in a German hood of black velvet – such a one as that ship boy had seen and, as boys will, had conceived an ardent love for, in Hamboro'."
The monk Francis said: "Ah," and then he brought out the words: "Father in God, I too have seen her – and twice. When I thought of the Young Lovell."
Then the Bishop groaned lamentably; three times and very swiftly he walked from end to end of the cell, holding his hands above his head. Then he ran upon a shelf and with a furious haste pulled out a large book bound in white skin. He threw it open upon his bed and bade the monk come look at a picture.
This picture was all in fair blues and reds and greens, going across the two pages of the book.
"I had this book in Rome," the Bishop said, "of a Greek called Josephus. Look upon this picture."
The picture showed a mountain with trees upon it. And round the mountain went a colonnade of marble pillars. In between the central columns, where it was higher, sat a grey-bearded and frowning man. Naked he was to the waist and he was upon a throne of gold. At his left hand was an eagle; in his right the forked lightning of a thunderbolt. Beside him stood a proud woman in purple with a diadem of gold. In the next temple was a helmed woman that leaned upon a great spear; next her, a man all furious, that held up a great round shield and a pointed sword. Over against him reclined a great man with a lion's hide who leant upon a club; beyond him a man all white with the sun in his hair and beyond that a youth with wings upon his feet, upon his cap and upon a rod, twined with snakes that he held. All these were in the temple, and many more, such as a woman in a chariot drawn by oxen, and an old crowned man rising from the blue waves of the sea.
Then the Bishop laid his trembling imperious fingers upon a place higher up the mountain, above the temple.
"Look upon this," he said. There, amongst olive trees, the monk perceived a pink, naked woman. In one hand she held a mirror into which, lasciviously, she smiled. Her other hand held out behind her a wealth of shining hair like gold. Above her, clouds upon the blue sky turned over and let down a rain of pink roseleaves.
"I do not know who these be," the monk Francis said. "I was never in Rome."
Then the Bishop said harshly:
"Was the woman you saw like this woman?"
"Not so," the monk answered, "she had dark hair divided down the middle and parted lips. She was like the cousin that I slew and so she smiled."
The Bishop groaned. And so he wrung his hands and cried out:
"As God is good to me, I saw that naked woman stand so and smile so, in my vestiary, this morning after I had said mass. Six times I made the sign of the cross and she went not away. I was pondering upon the case of the Young Lovell… She went not away… Pondering… God help me, a sinful man… The eremites of the Libyan desert… But no, it was not so… No temptation…"
The waves of terror shook that Bishop with the thin features. His hands were so knitted and squeezed together in a paroxysm that it seemed the blood must spurt from his finger nails. And even as he stood, so he groaned with a hollow and continuous sound. Then the monk Francis cried out:
"Those are the fairies! Those women are the fairies! God help you, Lord Bishop, you cannot condemn my friend because he has seen them, if you cannot keep them out of your own vestiary… For all about this world they are… They peer in upon us. Thro' the windows they peer in! Looking! Looking! You cannot condemn my friend… Like beasts of pray in the night they peer into the narrow rooms… Hungering! … Hungering!" His voice was like heavy, fierce sobs and it sounded against the Bishop's moans.
"God forgive me," he cried out, "it was upon these that I thought when I comforted my friend with talks of angels and saints… I lied and thought I was lying… Angels! These are the little people! The little angels, as the country people say, that were once the angels of God. But they would not aid Him against Lucifer, doubting the issue of the combat… They it is, have brought this fine weather we enjoy. A great host of them, like fair women, is descended upon this country. They cannot live without fine weather…"
Both these churchmen were weakened with fasting and prayers when they might have slept. The monk Francis had great fears, their minds leapt from place to place. That long, bare room seemed surrounded with hosts of fair, evil fiends. He imagined devils with twisted snouts and long claws scraping and scratching at the leads of the painted glass and at the stones of the mortar.
Then the Bishop cried out upon him with a fearful voice, calling him ignorant, a fool rustic monk, a low, religious filled with barbarous superstitions. He came close to the monk Francis and cried into his very face:
