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Форд Мэдокс Форд
The Young Lovell

"God help me, thou fool, bleating of fairies… All those women were one woman! … And again God help me! When I heard thee bleat ignorantly of the prowess of that young knight I did not believe thee… But now I do believe he is the most precious defender we have in this place… I will asperge his shining armour with holy oils… I will bless his sword… God help him… How shall he fight against a goddess with a sword of steel… Yet she is vulnerable! All writings say she is vulnerable…"

He began a pitiful babble that the monk could not well understand, of Italy where he had lived many years as the King's Friend. So he spoke of cypress groves and the ruined corners of old temples, and fireflies and nights of love. He spoke of earth crumbling away in pits and great white statues with sightless eyes rising out of the graves on hill-sides, tall columns that no one could overset, and the gods of the hearth. Of all these things the monk Francis knew nothing. The Bishop spoke of crafty Italians with whom he had spoken, and of subtle Greeks of the fallen Eastern Empire; and of how this subtle creature, as the credible legends said, dwelt now, since the fall of Byzantium, upon a mountainside in Almain, and of an almond staff that flowered…

Then that Bishop cast himself upon his bed, face downwards, and so he lay still.

That monk sat there many hours upon the little stool, and whether the Bishop slept or thought he could not tell, for the Bishop never moved. Then that monk considered that that Bishop had many and strange knowledges, having passed so long a time in foreign parts. And there was fear in that monk's heart, for he thought he was with a sorcerer that aimed to make himself pope by sorceries. And afterwards he fell to considering of how this Bishop should deal with his friend the Young Lovell, for that Bishop was master and lord.

And so, being the harder man of the two, he went over in his mind the necessity that that see had for a champion in those parts and how there could be none so good as the Young Lovell, even though that knight were, as he feared, a man accursed and certain of a pitiful end. Yet he might as well do what he could for the Church before that end came. And the monk thought of the evil King and the subtle Sir Bertram and the grim coward that the Percy was and the discontent of the common sort and how that might be used. And he thought of all these things for a long time, as if they were counters he moved upon a chess-board. And he cried to himself: "Ah, if I were Bishop I would control these things."

And then he remembered that it was long since he had prayed for the soul of his cousin that he had slain. So he set himself upon his knees and sought to make up for lost time in prayer. Those windows faced towards the west, being high over the river that rushes below. And from where one knelt he could see the tower of St. Margaret's Church through the open casement of stained glass. And at last, towards its setting, the sun shone blood red through all those windows of colours, ruby, purple, vermeil, grass green and the blue of lapis lazuli. All those colours fell upon the tiles of the floor that were hewn with a lily pattern in yellow of the potter. Twenty colours fell upon the figure of the Bishop, lying all in black upon his bed and as many upon the form of the monk where he knelt and prayed. Scarlet irradiated his forehead, purple his chin and shoulder, and to the waist he was bluish.

The voices of the pigeons on the roofs lamented the passing of the day with bubbling sounds, the great bell of the cathedral and many other bells called for evening prayer in the fields; it was late, for that was the season of hay-making. Then that praying monk perceived, through the small window, a great red globe hastening down behind the tower of St. Margaret's Church and, with a sudden deepening, twilight and shadows filled that long room because of the opaque and coloured windows.

And ever as the monk prayed there, he was pervaded by the image of his cousin's face – Passerose of Widdrington she had been called, for she was held to exceed the rose in beauty. In that darkness where he knelt he was pervaded by the thought of her face with the hair divided in the middle, the smooth brow, the so kind eyes and the parted lips. He knew she must be in purgatory for that space, for he had killed her with an arrow in the woodlands, unassoiled, and he could not consider that his prayers yet had sufficed to save her so little as five hundred years of that dread place. Yet, tho' he knew her to be in purgatory, in those dark shadows he had a sense that she was near him so that he could hear the rustle of her weed moving around him. She had loved green that is very dark in shadowy places. A great longing seized upon him to stretch out his arms and so to touch her. Then he remembered that it was that face that had looked kindly in upon him in his cell, and he groaned and cried upon our Saviour and His Mother to save him from such carnal longings. He had much loved his kind cousin whilst he had been a rough knight of this world. Many had loved her, but he alone remembered, and he considered how she that had been most beautiful was now no more than a horrible and grinning skull, God so willing it with all beauty that is of this world and made of the red blood that courses through the veins.

At the sound that he then gave forth he heard another sound which was that of the Bishop where he stirred upon his bed. And, in the deep shadows, he was aware that that Bishop sat up and looked upon him. And at last John Sherwood, Bishop Palatine spoke, his voice being harsh and first.

"Brother in God," he said, "I have determined that this Young Lovell shall have my absolution and blessing upon his arms and the sacrament of knighthood and all the things of this world that you desired for him. Touching the things that are not of this world I will not say much, but only such matters as shall suffice for your guidance. For of these matters I know somewhat and you nothing at all."

The Bishop paused and the monk said humbly:

"Father in God and my lord, I thank you."

"I lately rebuked you," the Bishop said, "for meddling brutishly in things of which you knew nothing. For you cried out to me ignorant and rustic superstitions, such as it is not fitting for a religious to meditate upon. And so I rebuke you again and I command you that you ask of your confessor such a penance as he shall think fitting for one that has miserably blasphemed, and in a manner of doctrine… Now this I tell you for your guidance… This apparition that you have seen and I, appeareth with many faces and bodies, being the spirit that most snareth men to carnal desires. So doth she show herself to each man in the image that should snare him to sin, with a face, kind, virtuous and alluring after each man's tastes. That is the nature of such false gods. For this is a false god, such as I have discerned you never, in your black ignorance, to have heard of. But Holy Writ, which I have much studied and you very little, after the fashion of certain monks, enjoins upon us to believe in the existence of false gods. So there are ever strange and cold creatures, looking upon this world with steadfast eyes. For Lucretius says, that was a writer, pagan yet half inspired: 'The universe is very large and in it there is room for a multitude of gods.' So I rede you, believe of false gods."

"Father in God, I will," the monk said, "I perceive it to be my duty. For now I remember me the Church enjoins upon us to be constant in fighting against such, therefore they must exist."

"Then this too I command you as a duty," the Bishop said from the thick darkness, "that for the duration of his life you quit never this knight but be ever with him, seeking how you may win him from the perception of this evil being. For signing of the cross shall not do it, neither shall sprinklings with holy water such as avail with the spirits of men deceased or with Satan and such imps. For this is even a god and the only way you may prevail against it is by keeping the mind of your penitent upon the things of this world of God. If you shall perceive this form of a woman here or there you shall speak to him quickly of setting up an oratory, or charity to the poor, or riding, in the name of God, against the false Scots. This shall avail little, but somewhat it may. Do you mark me?"

"Father in God," the monk said, "you put me in much better heart than I was before. For if I may, I will tell you how once I have done."

So the monk, from the darkness, told the Bishop how for the second time he had seen that lady. This was upon the road below Eshot Hill, going to Morpeth, near the farmhouse called Helm. Here, as he rode with the Young Lovell, a little before his men, he had seen that lady come out of a little wood and mount upon a white horse with a great company of damsels upon horses about her. And so all that many, brightly clad, rode down to a little hillock and watched that lording pass them, all smiling together. So that monk for the first time had been afraid that this was no St. Katharine and no angel of God.

But the Young Lovell had gone drooping in the hot sun and thirsting within himself and had not seen that lady. And at first that monk had wished to pull out his breviary and bid the Young Lovell read a prayer in it. But in his haste he could not come upon it amongst his robes for he was riding upon a mule. So, in that same haste, he had made certain lines with his finger nail upon the saddle before him and commanded the Young Lovell to look upon them saying it was a plan of Castle Lovell that he scratched, and the White Tower. And to have money, he told the Young Lovell, that lord must go with a boat to below the White Tower where it stood in the sea. And so Richard Raket should lower him gold in baskets at the end of a rope.

And the Young Lovell had looked down upon these markings attentively and said it was a good plan and never looked up at that lady and her company who sat there, all smiling, until they were passed.

"Well, she can bide her time," the Bishop said; then he said: "Brother in God, I have never seen this Young Lovell, but I perceive that he must be fair in his body."

"He is the fairest man of his body that ever I saw," the monk answered, "And as I have heard said by servants that went to meet him and his father, to Venice, he was esteemed the fairest man that those parts, as all the world, ever saw. But how that may be I know not."

"You may say he is the fairest knight of Christendom," the Bishop said. "That is very certain. I know it that have never seen this lord… But so it is that I see you are not so great a fool as I had thought. And it is ever in such ways that you shall deal with this Young Lovell as you did then."

"I will very well do that, if I may," the monk said. "And if I may do nothing more I will spit upon that foul demon who without doubt beneath a fair exterior beareth a beak or snout, claws, and filthy scales…"

"Nay do not do that," the Bishop said, "for if God who is the ancient of days permitteth these false gods to walk upon this godly earth that is His, shall we not think that they are in some sort His guests? Or so I think, for I do not know."

So by that hour both these churchmen were very hungry and weary too. For that reason the fury was gone out of them, and it was ten at night. So the Bishop called for torches in the gallery and went into a little refectory that he had in that part of the Castle. Whilst these two ate heartily together, the Bishop sent messengers to the higher officers of the monastery to rouse them from their beds and to say that shortly after midnight, as soon as they might, the Prince Bishop begged them to rise from their sleep and sing a Te Deum in the cathedral, upon a very special occasion.

In the black cathedral, near the steps that pass into the choir, the Young Lovell knelt. Beside him, since he was so great a lord, stood the esquire Cressingham supporting his banner and his shield and having in his arm the helmet of state. There were lay brothers up before the altar, moving into place a great statue of Our Lady that ran upon wheels. This they were bringing from near the North door to stand before the high altar. This statue was twelve foot high of brass gilt and, the better to see, these lay brothers had placed a candle upon Our Lady's crown. That was all the light there was in the great space that smelt of incense and was sooty black.

As near as she might to the black line in the floor – beyond this no woman may go in the cathedral of Durham and even Queen Eleanor of Aquitaine had been beaten with rods by the monks when she passed it to join King Edward – beyond this line knelt the Lady Margaret of Glororem in the darkness, and behind a pillar was the lawyer Stone who would fain speak some words with the Young Lovell. For he wished to have sold the people of Castle Lovell to him if the Young Lovell would pay him a small price.

The lawyer had waited all that night from seven or earlier.

Then a little noise began to be heard in the great cathedral, and two little boys came in and lit candles by the North door and then came a page bearing a great sword. He leant it against a vast pillar and began to laugh with the little boys that had lit the candles. Then there came in the Bishop with his chaplain and the monk Francis.

So the Bishop went and stood before the Young Lovell and said he had permission of them of the monastery to hear that lord confess himself there where he knelt. So the esquire Cressingham removed himself to a distance and drove away the little boys when they would have approached. And so the Bishop absolved the Young Lovell and bade him rise from his knees and go with him to where the Lady Margaret of Glororem knelt in darkness.

Her too he bade rise from her knees, and so walked up and down between them, saying comfortable things and exhorting them, when the Pope should have given them licence, to marry one another and live faithful each to each and to be charitable and piteous to the poor and be good children of Holy Church. And so by twos and threes monks began to come in, and, going behind the high altar, they sang a mass with a Te Deum, for it was just past midnight.

Then the Prior of that monastery placed between the lips of the Young Lovell the flesh of our Lord. The Prior wished to do this that he might do honour to that young lord, and that great boon of giving him the sacrament. And, afterwards, with the sword that page had brought, sitting in his stall the Bishop made a Knight of that lord.

In that way the Young Lovell had his knighthood and his pardon.

PART III

I

On the fourteenth day of July in the year of our Lord, 1486, in the dark of the night between two o'clock and four, the Young Lovell took the Tower of Cullerford, setting fires all round it and beneath it and driving out all its inhabitants. On the seventeenth, a little before six in the morning, he stood on the height of the White Tower and looked down into Castle Lovell. This was a very still dawn, the sun being already risen, for it was near midsummer. The sea was a clear blue, and in a sky as clear that sun hung, round and pale gold. To the eastward, towards the seas called The Lowlands, were several monstrous grey shapes, going up into the heavens like tall columns in a church and twisting in a writhing manner as if they had been pallid serpents in an agony. They advanced towards one another as if they had been dancers. Separated again and so ran before the pale sun, that they appeared to be sentient beings. But, waterspouts such as these, far out to sea, were no very unfamiliar sight in those parts during hot weather and no man heeded them very much.

The better to have a sight of this Castle of his – for the great courtyard was occupied with many hovels, so that even from on high it was difficult to see who there was moving – the Young Lovell mounted upon the parapet of the battlements and stood looking down. He was all in his light armour, for it would fall to him to be very active that day, so that he had steel only upon his chest, his arms, and the forepart of his thighs, shins, and feet. In such accoutrement he could spring very easily over a wall five foot in height, and his round helmet was a very light one of black iron surmounted by a small lion's head.

This Castle that he now looked down upon was a very fair great Castle. The battlements which were a circle of nearly a quarter of a mile, had in them three square towers of three stories each and two round ones of two, the peaked roofs of all these towers being of slate. In the centre of the space enclosed by the battlements rose up the keep, a building of four stories, four round towers being at each corner that spread out at the top with places for pouring down lead, Greek fire, or large stone bullets upon any that should assault those towers. But, in between the keep and the battlements, there had gradually grown up a congeries of hovels like a dirty thatched town. The Young Lovell had never liked this in his father's day, but then he had been the son and had had no say in these matters.

This state of things had arisen, although the tenure of the lands appertaining to the Lovells was as follows: that is to say, that in time of war each of the outer towers should be manned by able-bodied fellows from the one hundred and twenty-seven hamlets, villages, townships, and parishes that the Lovells owned. Thus, giving on the average five capable tenants to each of these, there should have been six hundred men to hold the outer walls, being forty men to each of the towers in the walls and two hundred and eighty for the battlements between. The inner keep should in such a case be held by the best men-at-arms and the knights and the squires that a Lord Lovell should have about him. And the tenure of the six hundred bondsmen from those hamlets and parishes was such that, by giving their services for indefinite periods during times of war for the defence of that Castle, they were excused all further services, or service in any other parts. For it was held, that the defence of that Castle was very necessary for the protection of the realm from the false Scots if they should take Berwick and so come down into England by that way.

That had been the original tenure, but by little and little, when the Percies had had those lands of the Vescis by the treachery of Bishop Anthony Bek, they had begun to make changes in these tenures, desiring to have men to accompany them upon journeys whether against the Kings of England or Scotland, as suited their humour. So that in many townships and parishes the Percies bargained with their bondsmen for so many days' service in the year and rent-hens and other things. And this the bondsmen had agreed to readily enough. For, on account of the perpetual takings and re-takings of the town of Berwick by the Scots and the English, there was never any knowing when they might not be called in to defend that Castle for a year's space at a time, and so their farmings would go to rack and ruin, and their towers, barnekyns and very parish churches lie undefended at the mercy of the false Scots. And when the Lovells had bought these lands of the Percies they had changed the tenure still more, not so much because they desired to ride upon journeys, for by comparison with the Percies, they were stay-at-homes, but because, as a family, the Lovells were greedy of money and desired rather the payments of rents and the service of men in their own fields than much military doings.

So they had had to hire men-at-arms by the year or for life. Thus, in that Castle, which had been meant to be defended by six hundred men upon varying services, sleeping on the floors of the towers, or here and there as they could, the Lovells would have a certain number of men-at-arms, but seldom more than two hundred and fifty that dwelt there in the Castle. And because these men-at-arms would have wives and children and kith and kin, or they would not stay there, they could not sleep to the number of many families in these towers, whether round or square, that went along the battlements. Some of them, it is true, took these towers for homes, making great disorder, keeping them very foul and filthy, shutting up the meurtrières, or slits for arrows, in order to keep out draughts, and much unfitting that Castle for defence when sieges came. For there, in those towers which should be places of defence, there would be warrens of children crying out and shrieking women. And other men-at-arms had built them hovels between the battlements and the keep, building with mud and roofing with rushes, so that all that space was like a disorderly town with little streets and sties for pigs and middens and filthy water that ran never away.

Thus this place had become a source of manifest danger, but the Young Lovell's father would not clear out all these places, because to him they were a source of much profit, for he employed the women and children and the hangers on and rabble to work in his fields all the year round, and so he had much money by that means. But because he recognized that his Castle was thus in some danger – for any enemy that won on to the battlements might, by casting down a few torches, set all these roofs on fire, and so the inner keep would stand in the midst of a furnace and all those people within the battlements be burned and slain like rats in a well – the old Lord Lovell had determined to make a safe place for himself and for the money that he and his father had hoarded up, being a very vast sum. So he had hired to come to him out of France an esquire called La Rougerie, being the son of the man that the King Louis XI of France used to build all his fortresses. So this La Rougerie had considered very well the situation and extent of this Castle that upon three faces was thundered upon by the seas at high tide. Then that La Rougerie perceived at about ten yards from the North-east end of the Castle, a crag of rock well in the sea even at high tide, in shape like a dog's tooth and nothing useful except to gannets, and not even to them of much use, for they would not build their nests so near the Castle. So this La Rougerie had advised that Lord Lovell that he should build upon that rock a great slender but very high tower, with walls of stone six yards in thickness. For the first eighty feet of its height there should be no openings at all, not so much as slits for the firing of arrows. And in the windowless chambers there the Lord Lovell should keep his treasure walled up. And above these there should be rooms for the guards with arrow holes in the form of crosses, and above these fairer rooms with somewhat larger windows, where the Lord Lovell and his family might retire, if so be his Castle should be taken, and above these dwelling rooms should be attics and granaries where gunpowder and ammunition should be stored and arrows and the quarrels of cross-bows, and there the sakers should be kept so that they should not rust upon the battlements in time of peace. And there were pulleys for hauling up these cannons on to the battlements above. Seven of these sakers there were that could cast a bullet weighing thirty pounds of stone or fifty of iron, in full flight into the furthest part of that Castle upon which those battlements looked down as a church steeple looks into the graveyard. For this tower was intended solely for the protection of that lord and his people in case any enemy should take the Castle itself. They would retreat there by a little narrow drawbridge giving into a very little door at the foot of the tower, being thirty feet long, and over a piece of sea that by nature of the currents, and by reason that the Frenchman hollowed out the rocks, ran there almost tempestuously if there were any wind at all, which happened on most days in these parts. And once there, the Lord Lovell could thunder upon his Castle thus taken by enemies with cannon balls of stone and iron, with arrows and with iron bolts shot by arbalists. There could not any inch of that Castle go unsearched, for the battlements were one hundred feet above the keep itself.

This then was the White Tower upon which the Young Lovell stood. Up to the seaward side of this tower he had come from a boat, just before sunrise, climbing up iron spikes that were inserted in the mortar for that purpose, and coming to a very small door in the guard room. This tower had been held for him by Richard Bek, Robert Bulman, and Bertram Bullock, who had been its captains, and dwelt there in his father's day, being much trusted by the old Lord Lovell. These esquires, with ten men, had held this tower very stoutly against them of the Castle that could in no wise come to them. To them had resorted ten or fifteen other stout fellows, that had slipped in over the drawbridge or came there by climbing up the spikes of the seaward wall. They victualled themselves how they could from the sea; but indeed they had food enough within the tower of the old lord's storing, except that at first they lacked of fresh meat, which in the summer time was a grievous thing.

What the Young Lovell could not tell was how many men they of the Castle had, for some reported that they had as few as a hundred and eighty, and others as many as three hundred. How that might be it was very difficult to say, for there was a constant coming and going between Castle Lovell and Cullerford and Haltwhistle, as well as Wallhouses, where the evil knight, Henry Vesey, had his men. In short, if they had withdrawn all their men into Castle Lovell they might have three hundred well armed between them. And this the Young Lovell thought might be the case, for when he had taken the tower of Cullerford there had been very few men there, or none at all. So he judged that Sir Simonde Vesey would have been forced by agreement to withdraw all his men from Haltwhistle to the defence of that Castle if Sir Walter Limousin had agreed to leave Cullerford defenceless. And without doubt, too, the Vesey of Wallhouses would have his men there as well. Thus there might be as many as three hundred stout fellows there, and that might make the adventure a difficult one, for the Young Lovell had not gathered any more men himself, though what he had were mostly very proved fighting men, there being five knights that were his friends, twenty-seven esquires, one hundred and twenty of his own men, and those the best, and one hundred and seventy that were the picked men of his friends and of the Lady Margaret of Glororem.

So he had gone up to the battlements to see how many men he could observe in that Castle. But because he could not very well see between the openings in the battlements, he seized his chance and sprang on to the very top of the stones. He had observed the watchman on the keep below him. This man walked regularly from side to side, keeping his watch, and at each turn he would be gone regularly for as long as you could count ninety-eight. So, in the absence of that watchman, he stood there and looked down.

But until he stood there many things had gone before; there were so many people active about his affairs. There were the Bishop Palatine, Sir Bertram of Lyonesse, the old Princess of Croy, the Lady Margaret, the Earl of Northumberland, the bondsman Hugh Raket, and the people in the Castle themselves. And all these ran up and down that county of Northumberland upon the Young Lovell's affairs.

Let us consider them in that order.

First there was the Bishop Palatine, John Sherwood. He did not stir himself much. Nevertheless he sent a messenger to the people of the Castle – the Knights of Cullerford, Haltwhistle, and Wallhouses, as well as the Decies. He warned them that he had given his full absolution to the Young Lovell, and had accepted his homage as a tenant-in-chief of the See of Durham. He commanded them, therefore, on pain of absolution, to evacuate the Castle and lands of that lord. Those in the Castle replied with an assurance of their ready and prompt obedience to the Prince Bishop. They said that they would immediately set the Young Lovell in possession of all such lands and emoluments as he held as tenant-in-chief of the Palatine see. They would do it immediately upon his producing to them the title deeds and charters of such lands of his. For, as matters were, they did not know which of his lands and townships he held of the Prince Bishop and which of the King, their most dread lord. As for his holdings from the King, those they could not, nay, they dare not, surrender; for these had been adjudged to them by a writ fouled in the court of the Warden of the Eastern Marches. That might be a small matter in itself, but, in addition to the assigning of the lands to themselves, there went certain huge fines to the King, as was fit and proper. At that moment they were very ready to surrender their own holding of the Castle, but they could not themselves pay the fine to the King, for they had not so much money amongst them. Supposing, therefore, that the Young Lovell held that Castle of the King, they would be guilty of high treason if they surrendered it without paying those fines, and they could not pay themselves, neither could they have any security that the Young Lovell would do so.

So they said they would very willingly surrender all the lands that that lord held of the Palatine see as the Young Lovell should produce to them his charters and show which was which.

This was a very cunning answer, for by professing to be so ready to surrender at the command of the Bishop that prelate was precluded from proceeding to their instant excommunication which he would have done. That would have caused at least half of their men, if not a greater proportion, to fall away from them, for there was a sufficiency of piety left in the North parts. Moreover, as against that answer, the Bishop was advised that he could not, as he would willingly have done, send his own forces with the Young Lovell against the Castle. For it was true enough that, until the Young Lovell could appeal against that judgment of the Lord Percy's, those false knights held a certain part of his lands in the interests of the King, so that the Prince Bishop could not well war upon them.