The Seven Streams

by Warwick Deeping

  Three days’ hard marching brought Benedict, who held the van, within three leagues of the River Lorient, where it parted the Southern Marches from the province of the Seven Streams. It was here that certain grey-faced, mud-bespattered riders fell in with the vanguard as they came riding south. They were the remnant of a garrison that had been driven out of Marvail by Samson the Heretic, a town beyond the fords of the River Lorient. The men told how Tristan le Sauvage stormed hither and thither through the Seven Streams, falling on outposts, putting garrisons to the sword. They told also how Samson and his heretics had been reinforced from the north, though they were ignorant that Blanche the Duchess had herself taken the field.

  With such news to set him cogitating, Jocelyn halted his banners south of the Lorient, and took counsel with his captains as to what their schemes should be. To strike at Holy Guard, they had to cross the river and march along the northern bank through the enemy’s country. Now Samson the Heretic was at Marvail with three hundred men, ignorant, perhaps, that the southern barons had drawn so near. Samson was the one man in all Christendom whom the Holy Father desired to see in chains, and the chance was too flattering for Jocelyn to eschew it.

  The Bishop’s tent was pitched in the woods south of the river, with the crusaders camped around under cover of the trees. Jocelyn had called Count Reynaud, Benedict, and several other barons to him in council. He had determined to set the necessity of Samson’s capture before his confederates that night. They were gathered under the shade of a huge ilex tree, with the great banner adroop over the embroidered canopy of the tent. Through the opening they could see the woods billowing below them to the river valley, the dark domes of the trees clear cut under the sky.

  Jocelyn was very suave, yet mightily in earnest. He gestured with his hands, used the subtlest modulations of his voice, lifted his eyes to the darkening heavens as though ever ready to behold visions, stars portending the triumph of the truth.

  “Remember, sirs,” he said, “that our faith constrains us to save the ignorant from the powers of those who trade upon their folly. If we could bind the arch-fiend, how many souls we should preserve from hell! Even so is it in this war of ours. This Samson, foul-mouthed blasphemer, perverter of the Scriptures, has bewitched with his tongue the province of the Seven Streams. To slay the heresy, we must slay the arch-heretic. Heaven seems eager to deliver him even now into our hands. You, sirs, as men of the sword, are able to deal with the elements of war.”

  Benedict of the Mountains was quick to understand the churchman’s argument. He and Jocelyn were cronies of a common cult, and the soldier would have been more outspoken in the vulgar sense had not the occasion constrained him to dignity. Count Reynaud of Vanclure was a good Catholic and an honest knight, one who hated coarseness and would not suffer a lie. And since he was a powerful noble and necessary to the cause, Jocelyn pandered to his respect with a display of exaggerated zeal. His great power over the Count was by the power of fanaticism; even such a Christian as Reynaud could wax brutal in the battle for a faith.

  “So, my lord, you would have us strike at this Samson, speedily?”

  Jocelyn spread his hands, made a pretence of leaving all technical machinations to their military intelligence.

  “An ambuscade, a false message, a night attack,” he said; “these, sirs, are ruses I may abandon to your strategy. All I desire is that you shall deliver this blasphemer into my hands, and I vouch that the Holy Father will bless your children.”

  “The man is a lying whelp,” said Benedict, with a pious leer. “What say you, Sir Reynaud and gentlemen, to a night attack?”

  The Lord of Vanclure bent his brows.

  “Samson is at Marvail,” he argued, “with three hundred men. It will be well for us to send out riders over the river, that we may know whether the heretics hold the fords, also as to whether Samson has moved his banner or no.”

  “True enough,” quoth Benedict. “Scent out the bear before you set the dogs on. My light riders know the ways.”

  “Then, sirs,” said Jocelyn, “we are agreed on this point—if Samson is at Marvail, and the fords are not held, we will swoop at night and seize the town.”

  “Plain as your Mass Book, Bishop,” said he of the Mountains.

  Jocelyn made the sign of the cross in the air.

  “God bless ye, good sons of the Church,” he said. “The saints are with us. And assuredly ye shall prosper.”

  CHAPTER XXIX

  It is the common fate of reformers that they inspire the enmity both of the ignorant and the self-seeking, and hence the larger portion of humanity is arrayed against them. Ruffian and blinded saint meet and kiss over the corpse of an innovator. Many a Prometheus is torn and rent by the insensate malice of the age. The fate of fools is to live; that of great spirits that they should be immolated by the savage present for the blessing of a fairer future. Each martyr lights a beacon fire that hurls light and splendour within the portals of the coming century.

  Thus when Reynaud of Vanclure fell at midnight with five hundred men upon the heretics of Marvail, he butchered them with a good conscience, in the full belief of the efficacy of the deed. Samson’s men were caught asleep, snugly housed in the town. Half armed and dazed, they were hunted out and slaughtered in the streets. Samson himself was taken alive while fighting with his back against a wall; bound and pinioned, tied upon a horse, led from the town under the escort of a strong body of men-at-arms.

  When the news was brought to Jocelyn at the fords of the Lorient, he gave the messenger a hundred silver pieces out of his own strong box, licked his lips, and ordered a triumphal service to be sung. In the woods under the great ilex trees and pines the soldiers mustered, while the hoarse chanting of the monks rose on the silent air. Through the ranks were carried the Sacred Banner and the Cross Processional, knights and warriors kneeling, kissing their naked swords. Samson the arch-heretic had fallen into their hands; God had greatly blessed the cause of Holy Church.

  The day after the night attack, on Marvail, Count Reynaud marched south again to the Lorient, leaving two hundred men to garrison the town. He was eager to bear so precious and notorious a burden beyond the river, to deliver Samson to the mercies of the Church. The Heretic was brought bound upon a horse, Reynaud’s men massed round him, tauntingly exultant, flinging mud and mockery at his head.

  The strong soul in Samson rose that day to meet the doom he knew must follow. There was no hope for him save in a rescue, and though a few scattered followers were dogging Count Reynaud’s march through the woods, they dared not ambuscade so powerful a force. Samson was in the hands of fanatics, nay, in the hands of usurers who extracted bribes from the souls of men. He had dealt too mightily with these hypocrites with his tongue to expect much mercy at their hands. He knew full well that the priests were as vultures, ready to rend and to destroy.

  They forded the Lorient well before noon, their horses trampling the water, the men smiting spray at Samson with the shafts of their lances.

  “Leper, be cleansed,” they cried, laughing and mocking him.

  “Behold, here is Jordan; cleave a path for us, O saint.”

  Samson took the taunts in silence, girding his spirit for this great trial of the flesh. He gazed at the river, believed that he would be dead before the water that they forded reached the sea. All hope lapsed as the Lorient rolled behind and as he neared the southern bank. The wooded slopes glittered with steel, for the soldiers of the Church had thronged down to see the Heretic brought back in bonds from Marvail. A fierce, mocking outcry rose from the thickets, a clamour as of wild beasts tongueing to the slaughter. The road to the ford seethed with men, a mass of squealing, frenzied beings, more like the brown savages of primitive ages than cleansed and baptised Christians. Even Samson on his death march pitied them with some measure of pure scorn. He rode unmoved through the mocking mob, with pale, calm face and steadfast eyes.

  He knew this to be the end of all his struggles, of his strenuous preaching, his H
eaven-inspired zeal. He had sought to seize the people from the grip of the priests, men who had traded and fattened on the frailties of mankind. Had he not pointed them heavenwards to the great All-Father, and to the Son who had redeemed the world with the passion of self-sacrifice? He had preached against those who had usurped the portals of heaven, who had blasphemed the Great Spirit by claiming their own bodies to be the sole channels of grace. He had cried that man stood face to face with his Maker, that the Holy of Holies was in the heart.

  As Samson rode amid the railing mob that played around him on the road, his thoughts sped to Calvary and the crosses there. Should he flinch from what the Christ had suffered, and from what the martyrs had rejoiced to bear? The strain of heroism deepened in his soul, and a divine patience purged out wrath. It was the fate of prophets to seal with their blood the truths they expounded to mankind.

  Had he laboured for nothing? No, the seed had been sown, and, like a good husbandman, he could go to his rest. There were strong men who would take up the challenge, and seize the torch from his dying hand. He remembered Tristan, that youthful Titan, who would preach with the sword what he had preached with the tongue. The Duchess Blanche had breathed the true spirit, and there were scores of heralds in the Seven Streams. Samson was strengthened by such thoughts as these. He feared not death, since death was not the end; they could slay the body, but not the soul.

  Samson was brought before Jocelyn’s tent, torn from his horse, dragged before the chair where the Bishop sat. Helmets, wave on wave, swayed on the hillside; a thousand faces dwindled into the gloom of the woods. One heavy hand had buffeted the Heretic’s mouth, yet he stood before Jocelyn with pale, firm face, blood on his lips, his eyes unwavering.

  There was a peculiar lustre in Jocelyn’s eyes. His face was suffused; his hands quivered as they gripped the carved rails of the chair.

  “So, blasphemer, you have fallen to us at last.”

  A divine patience showed on Samson’s face, also the melancholy of a man who grieved but did not fear. Now and again his dark eyes kindled; he stood unmoved by the menacing faces that hemmed him round.

  “Bishop,” he said, “boast not thyself blessed because thou hast conquered dullards with a lie.”

  “Infidel, what hast thou to plead?”

  “That I have spoken the truth and served God. That I have not pandered to a greedy Church, nor cheated men by forged doctrines and by false decrees.”

  A soldier sprang forward and spat in Samson’s face.

  “Kneel, dog, to the Bishop.”

  The Heretic turned to him with a smile.

  “Friend, your taunts are brave enough since I am bound. I kneel to no man, only to God in Heaven.”

  A mocking wave of laughter spread from rank to rank, for the jest sped home. The rough faces craning towards the Bishop’s tent were suffused and contorted with a savage zest.

  “Make him kneel, by God!” cried a black-bearded Hercules with a flash of the sword.

  The words echoed the will of the mob. Four men seized on Samson, bore him to his knees, threw him prostrate, so that his face was bathed in the trampled mire before the tent. Still his patience and his dignity withstood them. He knelt in silence, knowing that mere words were vain.

  Jocelyn rose in his pontificals, stretched out a scornful hand towards the Heretic.

  “Tell me, sirs, what shall be done with this poor anti-Christ?”

  The men seemed to catch a wild and savage echo from the past.

  “Crucify him! crucify him!” was the cry.

  Jocelyn stood motionless a moment with folded hands, his eyes turned heavenwards as though in prayer. The crowd watched him, their glances wavering betwixt Samson and the Bishop’s face. It was a full minute before the churchman spoke again. Then the words fell like a sad condemnation wrung by duty from a merciful heart.

  “God, Mother Virgin, and ye holy saints,” he said, “have pity, we beseech thee, on this sinner’s soul. In death and after death let him know well the God whom his proud lips have so blasphemed. Sons of the Church, I surrender this heretic into your hands.”

  A great shout rolled up, billowing from the soldiery crowding from under the trees. The ranks swayed, broke, stood still a moment. Samson, with flashing eyes, and face with the calm of death thereon, had risen from his knees. He stood at his full height, as Paul before Festus, noble and undismayed. For one brief instant his voice rang through the woods.

  “Ye men,” he cried, “if I have sinned, God see to it, and save my soul. I die in the strength of a holy life, fearing neither death nor the powers of hell. As for ye priests, never have I lusted after women nor grovelled after gold. God see to it, sirs, when the judgment comes, Samson the Heretic will meet Pope and Bishop undismayed.”

  Jocelyn’s cross went up; there was hot anger on his face, and a dozen monks pushed forward through the crowd, calling on the soldiery to work their will. Samson was seized, thrown down, trampled upon, drawn savagely by the heels. Shouting and cursing, the pack drew him into the wood, while the monks, gathered in a company, raised a deep chant of thanksgiving over the slaying of such a sinner. Thus they crucified Samson on the hills above the Lorient, nailing him to a tree, naked and covered with wounds.

  Yet the Heretic’s patience was as triumphant as their wrath, nor did his courage fail him in that hour, and his cry was the cry of a great spirit:

  “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”

  Meanwhile, the tidings had passed to the heretics lurking in the woods, and one of their number had watched the martyrdom from the bosom of a great ilex tree. Fierce in their sorrow, they gathered and swam the river as the night came down, vowing vengeance for Samson’s death. Ten men took horse that same night, and rode north together into the province of the Seven Streams. They headed for Merdin, where Tristan and the Duchess were said to be.

  It was in a valley wild with trees, dark as some valley of death, that the first of these ten riders found Tristan marching towards the south. Black crags towered above; a dark smoke of rain was rushing before the wind under a granite sky. The horseman, worn and mud-stained, drenched to the skin, met Tristan riding at the head of his men, grim with the weather and the working of his own heart.

  “They have crucified Samson,” was the man’s cry, before he fell fainting with hunger and weariness from off his horse.

  “Samson crucified!”

  The cry rang through the rain-drenched ranks. As for Tristan, he said nothing, but frowned at the winter sky.

  CHAPTER XXX

  Sea spray was blown upon the rocks of Holy Guard, the grey sky raved, the trees rocked and moaned upon the hills. Rain whirled with the wind. The towers and walls shook; doors chattered; gallery and court were full of the storm.

  At midnight there came the cry of a trumpet from the troubled darkness of the night. Armed men were climbing the causeway with rain beating upon their faces, moisture clinging to their beards. There came the rattle of a spear staff on the great gate of the abbey, and again the trumpet challenged the dark walls, like the cry of a sea-bird driven by the storm.

  Twelve nuns and novices were in the chapel keeping a vigil with the Abbess Joan. For the rest, Holy Guard and all its sisterhood were plunged in darkness and in sleep. The porteress at the gate, nodding over her prayers in the guard cell, started at the trumpet cry, drew her gown round her, crept shivering to the grille.

  “Who knocks?” she cried.

  “Open in God’s name!”

  The woman drew back the bolts, opened the wicket, peered out into the gloom. Men, rain-drenched and cloaked, scrambled in, black shadows pouring out of the night. Two soldiers seized on the porteress. A wet, hairy hand was over her mouth, stifling her cries; she was huddled into her cell, where a lamp flared with the draught through the gate.

  Armed men still poured in, a tide that swirled from wall to wall. Rough voices rose amid the racket of the storm.

  “Lights there; fire the torches.”

 
“Keep together.”

  “The chapel, sirs. Follow me. Ten of you hold the gate.”

  A tall figure led the way like an old grey wolf heading the hunt, while the pack poured up the passage-way betwixt the towering walls, finding no swords to stem their progress. They climbed the fifty steps that wound in the rock to the main mass above, scrambling, shouting, plucking at each other’s belts. Soon they were under the second arch and within the heart of Holy Guard.

  In the chapel Joan the Abbess had been keeping the vigil of St. Margradel with six nuns and six novices. Two lamps hung from the wooden roof, flinging vague streams of light into the gloom. The Abbess knelt on the stone steps before the altar, with the women crouching in cramped reverence at her feet. A single taper burnt before the rough wooden cross whose beams were linked by a crown of thorns.

  Overhead the wind screamed, and the rain drove in through the crazy latticing upon the floor. The tide was full below, and they could hear the thunder of the waves upon the rock. Holy Guard was overarched by darkness and all the turbulent passion-throes of the world.

  The trumpet’s cry had passed unheard by those within the chapel: the rush of many feet had merged into the vaster clamour of the storm. A pikestaff smote the chapel door. The rusty latch clashed, the door swung in on its sea-rotted hinges, the arch of gloom was filled with hissing torches, smoke, and the gleaming bodies of armed men. Joan the Abbess started to her feet, stood with her back to the altar, her crucifix upraised. The nuns and novices, some standing, some crouching on their knees, huddled back towards her like fledgelings beneath a mother’s wing.