Enchanting Cold Blood

by Petya Lehmann

  Did Essex know his enemies? Did Estercel know his danger? She might warn them both, she thought.

  But when they were got round to Estercel and stood face to face with him, being a girl and young, she forgot the black passage and the jealous eyes of Sir Xylonides and felt only joy. Like old friends, they turned to each other and talked together; talked of the life each had known before they had come to town; of riding and the day's joy out hunting, of the lakes and the fishing, and much of the music that they both loved.

  “And where in the north is it you live?” asked Meraud.

  “In the O'Neill's country,” said he, “beyond the Yellow Ford.”

  “And perhaps you know Tyrone?” says she, smiling sly to herself.

  “To my glory I do,” says he, “for a great man he is. There is more strength and seriousness in him than in the Earl of Essex; although the outward appearance of my Lord Essex is grand indeed tonight. But Tyrone has very fine clothes of his own too. Tonight I have seen a great sight that will last me my life. I am glad and sorry at the one time to be going back to my own country tomorrow.”

  “Going back tomorrow? Tomorrow, oh, no!” said Meraud, and her voice had a new note.

  Estercel looked upon her, saw her pale face and the tears springing to her shining eyes, and in part he loved her. Looking round to see if they were observed, he laid his hand upon her shoulder.

  “And will you come back with me,” said he, laughing to her, “on the back of Tamburlaine?”

  Meraud forgot the kincob gown and her dignity together. She could not bear to lose her great shining Estercel. She turned herself to him, and if they had been alone, she would have cast her arms about his neck. “Oh, I will come with you,” she cried. “Oh, that would be the joy, to ride together!”

  Then Estercel remembered himself, for upon his finger he saw a slender ring of twisted gold. He took away his hand.

  “I ask your pardon, Meraud FitzPierce,” he said, and to his face came the sudden colour of regret and shame. “I ought not to have asked you any such thing. I have given my promise to another girl, and if I should ride home with you behind me, what would she say to me then?”

  Have you seen a galloping horse brought up on a sudden by a powerful rider? Have you seen the rearing, the indignant mouth, the wild eye, the panting nostril? Even so was Meraud checked; all this for one moment Estercel saw and recognised his fatal mistake. The next minute, the girl had turned her face away and stepped to meet her father who hurried towards her, saying:

  “Come, Meraud, child, where have you hidden yourself? His Lordship asks for you.”

  In a kind of forlorn regret, Estercel watched her go, as a child's eyes will follow a departing light or a hand that takes a rose away. He had heard her father's words, and, in going, she appeared so splendid in her golden gown that almost it seemed to him as if she were chosen to take the shining path to honour, while his lay out in the dark. Then he went out and left the castle. Involuntarily, as he went along, he turned the ring on his finger. Clear as in the moonlight of their last meeting, he saw the brown Sabia, her tender face looking upon him, and he was consoled for the loss of bright Meraud.

  Chapter XIV. - The Abbess Interferes

  That night when Meraud at last found herself alone in her chamber, the vacant sense of newly-won triumphs left her, and the deeps of her heart came up. Till but a few weeks ago she had been fancy-free. Then her fancy in all its wildness had lit upon Estercel. Ardent and strong, fanned by strange winds, the flame burned in her; how was it with her now? In a dead pause, she waited, questioning her own heart. Now and then, a foot sounded in the passageway or on the stairs passing to the upper chambers of the house. From the street, voices of those that went home now and then reached her lattice. Idly, she rose and went to the mirror; idly, she looked at her own likeness there.

  Suddenly, coming from where she did not know, hate, like an arrow, passed into her heart. So great a passion of rage at the insult she had received seized upon her, that she was convulsed. With swelling bosom, out-straining arms, and clenched hands, she stepped a pace backwards on the floor, while through her closed teeth came indistinctly such words as she had never before uttered, the dangerous language of hate. Before her passion had exhausted itself, her unseeing eyes, that looked beyond the mirror at the object of her anger, on a sudden, saw. Her own face in the mirror was distorted and grown strange to her. For one second, it seemed to her the likeness of the face she had seen before setting out. Grown cold, she turned away and, sitting on her bedside, began to think. Neither love nor hate are sufficient to themselves. As love seeks to render a golden service, so hate must yield her service too, the poisonous service of revenge.

  Meraud's pride was great, her nature high and tyrannous. She had received her first insult, and she would destroy the man who had insulted her. With that determination, she unlaced the golden gown and presently lay down upon her bed and slept.

  With the early morning, she was up again, following the impulse which had survived, even gained strength in her sleep. A few words written with much labour on a piece of parchment from her father's cabinet sufficed, and a quick messenger sent from the house in haste. Late the same evening, a packet was brought to her. Receiving it from the hand of the man that brought it, Meraud retired from the noisy hall to the quiet of her own chamber, where she opened it. Two silver crowns fell into her lap. Paying no heed to them, she read the writing:

  “Most Fair Mistress, — Most fairly have you won the wager. Our friend we spoke of lies safe in the castle or, as I might more truly say, under the castle. He has suffered a rap upon the pate; Heaven mend him soon; for George Arglass advises that we do apply some sort of persuasion to speech. If this matter be shrewdly pushed, fortune may be found to lie behind it. Small bolts will sometimes bring down mighty great birds. — In haste, fair mistress, I remain, your devoted servant,

  “Xylonides Bullen.”

  When Meraud had succeeded in spelling out her letter, with an unmoved countenance she folded it and tucked it in the bosom of her dress. Downstairs she went again to join in the common life of the hall and parlour where there was noise and laughter, and coming and going.

  Although it was the month of May, the day was cold and cloudy, and the windows of the houses were now and again buffeted by drenching storms of rain. Towards afternoon, a trembling seized upon the limbs of Meraud. How did she know but that they might be torturing him now? She rose from her place and went slowly up the stairs to her room. On the threshold, she paused. The chamber was filled with a greenish light from the lattice upon which the rain beat. It seemed to her as though there was, or had been, some presence in the room. With a fainting heart, Meraud crossed the floor: sidelong she glanced at the mirror which she had learned to fear. It seemed to her that a formless shadow swept across its depths. Turning her face away, she moved to the bedside and sank upon her knees. Not many minutes elapsed before the abbess entered the room and, approaching the kneeling girl, sat down upon the bedside and took her cold hand in hers.

  “What ails you, daughter?” she said.

  Meraud answered no word, but turned and laid down her shining head upon the abbess's white knees, sighing as she did so with a pitiful sound. The abbess felt her powerless hands and her damp forehead; then crossed herself many times and murmured a prayer while she gazed about her and round the chamber so filled with the air, the very perfume of vanity. Meraud's beauty and demeanour had brought her many lovers, for the city was full of gentlemen. And these had given her gifts: draperies and kerchiefs, and perfumes, and buckled shoes, and little toys, and there was no order in the room at all.

  “What ails you, daughter?” asked the abbess again, and again came no answer, but only the pitiful sighs.

  “It is even as I feared,” murmured the holy woman. “This is no bodily illness. The girl is bewitched and will die.”

  Herself now paler even than ordinary with fear, the abbess turned her eyes sideways upon the mirror. The rain
streamed upon the lattice, and the shimmering greenish light moved within the glass.

  “The mirror is accursed,” said the abbess.

  Rising with determination, she unclasped the girl's hands from her knees and endeavoured to raise her so as to place her on the bed, but Meraud, still kneeling, cast her arms over the coverlet and buried her face in it. The abbess made the sign of the cross over the girl's head; then with a great boldness went and faced the mirror. The light flickered in it, and her loathing for it as an evil thing grew upon her as she gazed. Lifting it in her arms, as it swung on a double chain, she looked between it and the wall.

  “Spiritus Sanctus, adjuva me!”* she murmured, as turning she hurried from the room.

  (* Holy Spirit, help me!)

  In a moment, she came back carrying a huge brass-bound book of prayers. Raising it high in the air, she dashed the heavy clasp against the glass. Meraud started at the crash. She looked up and saw the splintered glass flying, then buried her face in the coverlet as before. But when, in another moment, she felt a hand laid upon her head, as though the breaking of the mirror had loosed her spirit, she raised herself and, throwing her arms across the abbess's knees, burst into weeping and bemoaned herself most bitterly.

  “What ails you, child? What ails you?” said the abbess anxiously, feeling her stricken state.

  Meraud ceased her weeping, drew forth from her bosom both money and letter and put them into the abbess's hands.

  “I have given a man's life for two crowns,” she said, and putting down her head again, she resumed her weeping.

  The abbess, once used to authority, had long skill in reading people's faces and much activity in inquiring into their affairs. She loved Meraud, and because she had carefully watched her, and because she had in her zeal contrived to peruse the letter before Meraud had received it, she needed but to ask a question or two, and the whole matter was clear to her. Her pale face became lit with a holy fervour; her hands hovered over the head of the weeping girl.

  “You have done an evil deed, child,” she said.

  “I have indeed!” cried Meraud. “I am undone. Oh, Mother of God, in the black dark they will have put him. They will be torturing him even now. The saints forgive me, but surely I was mad.”

  “Worse than mad, daughter,” said the holy woman, “bewitched! And for the time the child of the devil. Look round at the room, Meraud. It is the chamber of a wanton. Not another night do you sleep here till it has been cleansed. The spirit of that woman lingers here and has overcome yours.”

  “But the evil is done, reverend mother. They will show him no mercy. What can I do? Take me away to some convent, reverend mother and aunt, for I will go into the world no more.”

  The abbess made no answer for a long while. Still the girl wept on in anguish, and the heavy rain beat on the latticed window. At length, she spoke.

  “Daughter,” she said, “lift up your head and listen to what I shall say.”

  In the midst of her weeping, Meraud lifted up her head, her face was pale as death. The white lids of her eyes were swollen, and down her cheeks ran rivers of tears.

  “Daughter,” said the holy woman, “those tears are blessed. Long enough you have shown me the face of pride. And of late, I have feared my prayers were unacceptable for it was the face of a wanton as well. But now, daughter, that you have repented, did you but will it, your body, which is of itself but vileness, might be as the throne of an angel. Did you but accept of heaven's grace, your carnal beauty, which is even now more powerful than ten swords, might be as an arrow in the hand of the Almighty. I will bring holy water and sprinkle your jewels and your fine clothes and your slippers and your pots of unguent, that all may be used in His service. I have heard much of you of late, and it is borne in upon my mind that you are intended for greatness. Come, daughter, rise up and leave your weeping. We must find means to liberate this young man, if it be possible, under God. Come away from this chamber; you shall stay no longer here.”

  Slowly, Meraud rose up, a faint life stirring in her sick heart. In her going, she paused on the threshold of the room that she was not to enter again till it was wholly purified and cleansed. She looked at the broken mirror and the glass that lay in fragments on the floor. Memory showed her a picture of her own countenance as she had seen herself therein only the night before. She saw the red cheek and lips, the crown of shining hair, the golden crown. Now like the glass, her pride was shattered, and she turned away, loathing her sin.

  “I don't know what to do,” said she, with meek voice and countenance, “nor how to save him!”

  Chapter XV. - The Horse-Thief

  Owen Joy, his head wrapped in a mantle, his heart beating under its folds, roamed the corn market, avoiding the pale light of the half moon that shone on the centre booths. On his feet were silent shoes of supple cow-hide. He was looking for a man and horse, either of them the beauty of the world to him. The city gates were fast shut, the three clocks answered each other: one chiming from the castle, one from the tholsel,* one from the cathedral. So worn was he by grief and panic fear, that as each new chime fell upon his ear his heart leaped like a deer's.

  (* Merchant's hall.)

  Three days now since a message had come for Estercel, brought by a man in the livery of the FitzPierces. Three days since Estercel had mounted his horse and ridden away out of the Dame Gate, and along Dame's Lane, when man and horse alike had disappeared. Owen Joy and his men had scarce slept since then. Like madmen, they wandered the streets, keeping their madness secret, dreading the wild bands of soldiers they must be continually meeting. By day, they had explored north, south, east, and west of the city boundaries, and but one trace had Owen Joy come upon. Three men lay sick in a hut half a mile beyond St. Andrew's Church, an old woman nursing them. She told one of Joy's men they had got their broken bones from a great white horse that was more fiend than horse. That was all the old woman could say; the men were very bad, near death indeed. Therefore, Owen explored all that neighbourhood more particularly; not an outhouse or a dirty stable but he had peered into it, often at the risk of his life.

  Now the watch came up past Hanging Tower crying the hour. He dodged into a doorway, then turned up Back Lane. Half way up, a noise struck upon his ear, the noise of iron upon wood and stone. Owen Joy's heart leapt again; his mantle fell from about his face, as he craned forward to listen. The noise had ceased. There was silence, broken only by the baying of dogs and the crying of some woman far away. Owen went forward: a turn to the left into an ill-smelling alley brought him presently to a door in a high wall that stood across the way. From the other side of the wall came the thundering noise again.

  “No horse in the world could make that noise but himself,” said Owen Joy, and he sprang like a cat on the door. It was bolted on the inside, but there was a round hole over the lock. Owen Joy put his hand through and grasped about for a bolt inside. He felt a horrid tingling in all his fingers and up his arm: who knew but a sword cut might come down upon it from the other side? After some fumbling, he found a wooden bar. It was heavy and rattled in the stanchions as he pulled on it. Softly and steadily, he drew it back, and the door gave in. Owen waited a moment, then slipped inside and closed it, shutting himself in.

  He was standing in a yard round which were the closed doors of stables. In the middle of the yard, the moonlight shone. Owen drew into the shadow, he whistled low and soft, making a sound like a distant owl-note. It was answered by the whinny of a horse from a stable near at hand.

  “It's himself,” said Owen.

  At the sound of his voice there was a mighty thundering of hoofs, not four, but thirty-two hoofs, you would have said were in it. As Owen watched, he saw splinters dashed from the stable door across the moonlight. He slipped along in the shadow and whispered at the door.

  “Horse of my heart, is it you?”

  A piercing neigh answered him.

  “Be still then, son of my soul: look under the door, I will pass my hand to you.”


  The hand was slipped under, and the horse's great tongue licked it over and over again while he snuffled and whinnied with a sound like weeping. Owen drew his hand away. He stood up and examined the door. It was bolted on the outside and secured with a huge padlock.

  “Keep up your heart, my son. Somehow or other, I'll come to you,” he whispered.

  He examined the lock. Almost he could get his finger into the keyhole, but not quite. He drew out his sheath-knife and fitted it in; one strong turn and the lock shot back. Cautiously he opened the door and passed inside, closing it again. Seeking out the shadow of the great beast in the darkness, he threw his arms about his neck. Man and horse communed together in sighs and moanings, weeping for the sake of him that was not there.

  Owen opened the door a little way that the moonlight might come in. Tamburlaine was in a fearful state: his white hide was sullied and stiff with sweat; his hocks were running with blood, his eyeballs red and nostrils too. Owen took off the neck-cloth that he wore and mopped head and neck, while the creature gratefully tossed and exulted in the touch of love, the familiar thing. Throwing his arm along the horse's neck, he rested his forehead upon him and continued his thought in silence. Raising himself up at last, he said: