Enchanting Cold Blood

by Petya Lehmann

  “To me it seems,” said Essex, “that boldness and the straight course are the soldiers' virtues. An army is sent to you to chastise this Lucifer of the north, and you would turn it against the south.”

  “Your pardon, Excellency, but your Grace has no knowledge of the people or the country. These Irish wars are peculiar. They are not to be conducted like wars abroad.”

  This for three hours; till Essex, chafed, gloomy, angry, was overborne.

  After the breaking up of the council, the Earl is alone in his closet, with Sir Henry Cuffe, that hot and ill-fated councillor of a hot, ill-fated man. Sir Henry Cuffe sits on a stool in the corner, his hands clenched upon his knees, his back against the stone wall that is hung with embroidered silk. From beyond the curtained doorway comes the loud buzzing talk from the two-score of gentlemen that pack the bed-chamber. Under covert of murmurs, the talk between the Earl and Cuffe is carried on.

  “I have a sure presage of coming misfortune, Cuffe,” says the Earl. “I doubt I am undone. My enemies have it their own way, for my back is broken at home.”

  “A blast seize Robert Cecil,” said Cuffe, the tears of rage pouring out of his eyes. “Fly him, I say. A poisonous great spider with his webs and his plots. They are about something, and I cannot rightly make out what.”

  “There is more in this than appears. I doubt the air of this island is unwholesome for my family,” said Essex. “Here it was my good father lost his fortune and his life at the hands of Leicester's poisoners. I doubt but my enemies have it now in mind here also to make an end of me.”

  A heavy silence fills the narrow closet in strange contrast to the loud roar of talk in the bed-chamber.

  Near enough for their Worships to be incommoded by certain foul smells is the castle-prison, called the Grate. There in a stone room half-dark, lit only by a narrow spick or slit window, hangs the tall figure of a powerful young man, suspended by his broken bleeding thumbs. His head is fallen forward on his chest, his face ghastly pale is convulsed, while from his forehead run down drops of sweat that fall on the floor. Beside him stand two men, laughing, who with sharp-pointed staves prick him till he swings and spins.

  Chapter XVII. - The Written Word

  In the early morning light, Meraud sat up in her bed, her arms about her knees. She was newly awake from a strange dream. Some obscure infection must have lingered in her blood, for though the mirror was gone, her dream had been of it. She thought she wished to look into a round whitish pool and always, as she came near, the pool fled further away. Under the glassy face of it was a mist, and something moved in the mist that she ardently desired to catch a sight of. It was brightly coloured, she saw, but the shape she could not see. So she followed and followed, and of a sudden, the pool raised itself up from the ground and stood in her path, a circle of mist. Out of its depths, there dashed in that instant a terrible golden apparition, ruddy-haired, fearful-faced. And the creature made at her with such violence as though it meant to destroy her, so that she screamed and woke and found herself shaking on her bed with the dawn light coming in at the window. Her room had a cold pale look, like a person in penitence. Everything in it had been sprinkled with holy water, even the walls and the floors. All the shining silks and the pots of essence, and the charming follies were put away in the big chests. On the wall was a faint round mark showing where the mirror had been. Now in the midst of it hung the cross, the symbol of pain.

  The only unchastened thing in the room was the girl herself, painted as she was in all the colour and splendour of youth. Neither was there any chastened spirit in her eyes. They burned with resentment of the varied pains of life. She raged as she sat there, holding her knees. She abhorred her aunt's governance. She hated the chill purity of her room, sanctimonious it seemed to her. Most of all, she hated the gnawing pain at her heart. She could not get rid of it, night or day. It lay down with her and rose up with her. She was like one who had been stabbed not once, but twice, and in the same place; the wound was open and would not heal. Even as she sat there, her face contracted and turned pale, her eyes closed, and she laid down her head on her knees. A spasm of anguish ran through her. She felt in the very marrow of her bones the tortures of Estercel.

  The evening before, Sir Xylonides Bullen had called at her father's house. Meraud had turned her back upon him and made to go upstairs to be out of his sight. But her father had bidden her return and, though she sat sullen, she had to hear him speak.

  He began by paying her many compliments on her beauty, which Meraud disregarded, troubling herself no more than if he had been an old piece of furniture at her side that creaked through age. At that, the man's malicious nature awoke in him. He took a strange-looking toy out of his pocket and began turning it about. Meraud could not but look on it. The more she looked, the less she liked it. She glanced up at the face above it, then down again at the steel toy, and a shudder crept along her flesh.

  He laughed. “You don't like it, pretty mistress? Can you guess what it is?”

  “I cannot,” said Meraud.

  “Why, it is a gag for our comely friend. He is a most difficult disciple. There are times when he will bellow like a bull under the torture. So great is his noise, that we must instantly relieve him, or the place would be about our ears. For it is no ordinary outcry he makes like that of a soldier under punishment, but a most barbarous and unmeasured hulloing that provokes inquiry. Therefore, I have procured this gag which is of most ingenious construction. See here: these screws fit into the two cheeks, here is a neat spike, sharp enough you perceive to keep the tongue from wagging. This part with a bend runs down the throat quite a great way. Why, a man would tell all he might know just for the pure privilege of getting shot of it.”

  Meraud looked at him with cold eyes in a face that grew sensibly paler. All the malice of the man was plain to her. She had had more than one hint from her lady mother of his intentions with regard to herself, which she received with contempt. Now she read in him the triumph of his jealousy.

  A strange smile broke over her pale face as she asked him, “Has he confessed anything?”

  Puzzled by her manner and expression, he answered, “No, mistress, no. Unfortunately nothing but bellow or keep silence. But we shall try a better persuader tonight or tomorrow.”

  Meraud was learning that it was easier to throw a man into a dungeon than to get him out again. Every effort that she had made to approach the person of Essex had been in vain. She had written him a letter, which was rolled up small and carried in the bosom of her gown. She had determined to give it him, but in the end dared not, for she must have done it openly. Foolhardy as she was, she had a vague idea that the written word was dangerous: she was soon to find it out.

  In her gown of grey homespun, she was sitting listless at the breakfast-table. All about her sounded the hubbub of the morning meal. The FitzPierces were a lusty race. When father, mother, eight children, twenty servants and retainers, all in a high state of bodily vigour, are all feeding at once and restraining the emotions of half a score of dogs, the noise will be great. Sir Alan was occupied in quarrelling with his victuals.

  “Abominable hard! Most nauseously salt! A man could not begin the day on a more unfavourable diet than this beef!”

  “Fie for shame of your chiding, sir!” cried his wife. “The beef is good beef enough. Don't you know it is the last of the great roan Kilbracken ox? We have ate up one side of him and down the other. Now, thank God, we are very near the tail.”

  “Mistress Meraud is too fine to eat of him at all!” called out a fine lad of sixteen, with all a brother's malice.

  Every one looked at Meraud where she sat silent amid the noise, islanded in her own atmosphere of trouble and grief. Her mug of ale was untasted. Before her lay her apportioned lump of salt beef on a round wheaten cake, and she had not so much as cut it with her knife.

  “She has been sad ever since aunt took her toys from her,” said young Alice.

  Meraud looked up fiercely. Bu
t her mother's controlling eye was upon her. At that moment, the door opened, and a servant in the livery of the Clancartys appeared on the threshold.

  “Lady Clancarty desires Mistress Meraud FitzPierce will wait upon her instantly,” he announced. “I am to attend her.”

  “I will come, Shaun,” said Meraud, escaping with right good will to muffle herself in her hood.

  There was a dead silence in the hall of the Clancartys' house as Meraud was ushered in. The old lord, a fine portly man with a large face, was standing in front of the blazing log fire, his chin thrust out. The dame sat on a carved stool near by with a severe countenance that altered not by a line as the girl approached her. Meraud was about to precipitate herself on her aunt's neck after her usual fashion when the chill of that face communicated itself to her and stopped her half-way.

  Meraud dropped a low curtsey, like a flower that stoops in the wind, and stood up, her brilliant head uncovered, her hood thrown back. Her uncle nodded to her with a doubtful face. Her solemn aunt relaxed not a line. From a little bag of dyed leather that hung by her side, she took a small soiled roll of parchment.

  “Come here, niece,” said she, “and look on this and tell me whether the handwriting be yours or no.”

  Meraud approached, a vague sense of fear stealing over her in spite of all her boldness. She took the roll in her hand. As soon as she touched the parchment, she knew it for her own, a tiny slip, rolled up. It was the enclosure she had sent in her letter to Sir Xylonides Bullen. It was written in Gaelic:

  “Noble youth, will you speak with me privately at the gate of Mary's Meadow at six of the clock tomorrow evening? There is news of a surprising sort for your ear, by the telling of which I would recompense you for all your courtesies. — Emeraud FitzPierce.”

  The girl was struck speechless. To gain time, she read the letter again and again. A change passed over her as she stood there so tall in her long dark mantle like a bright-headed iris that springs from its sheath. The change was like that which passes over a flower when the sun is suddenly hidden. Her very hair seemed less shining because of the shame at her heart that overflowed in her veins and washed around her like the cold waves of an invisible sea.

  “Come, come!” said the uncle; “speak out, girl. I should know your writing. Where is the young man? That letter was found in his chamber by his man here, Owen Joy, who has got the horse below in my stable. I have had warning from a personage to whom I will not give a name that the young man is missing and must be accounted for. It is no affair of mine, unless it were to be proved that he is come to harm through a relative of my own who had become acquainted with him in my house. Speak up, girl, I say. Why did you write the letter? Where is the lad?”

  Meraud tried to speak. It is one thing to know oneself a traitor and an evil-doer; another thing to be exposed to the world as such. Her mouth could not frame an answer; her lips were dry; her hands were as cold as though they had been dipped in the chill waters of shame. So she stood helpless in a bitter abasement, all the more bitter to one of her proud spirit.

  Lady Clancarty was a generous old woman. She never saw suffering, but she wished to relieve it. Now she changed her face and held out a hand to her niece. In an instant, the girl was on her knees, glad and thankful to take refuge in the comfortable rich brocade of her aunt's gown.

  Lord Clancarty was beginning to weary of the scene. He walked impatiently up and down, while his wife signed to him with her hand.

  “Speak now, girl,” she said at length. “Remember that the truth is master and commands us all. Better say the truth while you are alive today, than have it called out tomorrow above your grave.”

  “Well, good aunt, I will speak then,” said Meraud rising; “here is all the truth. The young man insulted me; or rather I took certain words that he spoke as an insult when he meant none. I revenged myself upon him by delivering him into the hands of Sir Xylonides Bullen, who took him and his horse in Mary's Meadow, by readily slipping bags over their heads.”

  Uncle and aunt looked at each other in horror. Was this the child who was in her cradle but yesterday? They looked at her again and saw her for what she was, a woman, brilliant, bold, and dangerous.

  “I do repent now,” said Meraud. “I would save him if I could.”

  “Where is he, you naughty wench?” said the old Earl.

  “In the Grate and under the torture,” answered she.

  “God's wounds!” said he in a rage. “Women and fools are at the bottom of every mischief. Little do you think what hangs by this young man's captivity.”

  “My Lord,” said Meraud, “I know all you could teach me and more beside. Could you but help me, and that at once, to speak with the Earl of Essex, you would do many a service.”

  “The Earl of Essex, you baggage!” roared old Clancarty in a rage. “Will no one less than the Earl Marshal of England serve your turn? I have a mind to take you home and bid your father give you a whipping. A little slut to be meddling in high matters! Get home to your needle and your prayer-book, mistress.”

  For all answer, Meraud lifted up her head still higher, her wreathing lips half smiling, her quivering eyelids half closed upon her eyes, while two long cold shafts of light escaped beneath them. The old aunt drew in her breath as she looked at her. Here was a girl the like of whom she had seldom seen. The old man looked at her, cursed, turned away to the window and sulked in silence.

  Lady Clancarty spoke first, shaking her head and sadly grave.

  “You were a bad one to betray the young man in that fashion,” she said.

  “I do allow it, and I do repent,” said Meraud with sincerity.

  Lord Clancarty turned round and addressed her in an altered manner.

  “You have talked with the Earl already,” said he.

  “I have so,” said Meraud. “He will listen very readily to me, could I see him alone. I have more than one piece of news for his private ear.”

  “To see him alone were not proper,” said Lady Clancarty.

  “Whisht, good aunt!” said Meraud; “we talk of no light matters now.”

  “It is a difficult thing that you ask for,” said Lord Clancarty. “The Earl is so surrounded, but I will bethink myself. I shall find a way. Go home, Meraud, I will come to you before the end of the day.”

  Meraud curtsied again and silently quitted the room.

  Chapter XVIII. - Stable Companions

  As Meraud left the hall, she paused for a moment in the porch. Then turning to the serving man who stood ready to attend her:

  “You have a strange horse in the stables?” said she.

  “Yes, lady, a big horse, and a cross one, at that. I have not seen him. He has a man of his own, lady, who takes him out to exercise in the early morning hours.”

  “I will have a look at him,” said the girl. “Wait you here for me, Shaun.”

  As she went round to the stables, her face changed: a queer smile crept over her mouth, a flicker of devilment woke in her. Her uncle had abused her, had he? She could make it so much the worse for him if she wished, and she would too. A word about the horse and sundry other little informations placed in the right quarter would supply her uncle with annoyance sufficient to keep him well occupied for some time to come. Thus she would serve all who interfered with her; she would teach men to dread her.

  Smiling, she came to the yard and, meeting a groom, asked him where was the strange horse.

  He ran to a door, calling out: “Have a care, lady, he might leap out on you.”

  “Go, George,” said the high and mighty young madam. “He knows me. I am safe enough.”

  The man drew the bolt, and she stepped inside. Next moment, she was stepping out again when a second thought drew her back. Certainly, it was the wrong horse and yet — there was no horse of her uncle's of that height, nor of so unusual a colour. She stepped inside, closing the door. It was an ordinary loose box. The light was misty and dim. It came from the little window in one long bar filled with dust and
motes cast up from the straw below. This bar shot straight upon the queerly dun-shaded side of the creature that faced her.

  Meraud knew him again. She spoke the words softly that Estercel had taught her. The horse reared up till he struck the stable roof, then came down with his forefeet wide apart, his hind feet planted together forward. The whites of his eyes rolled in his head, and his breath came gushing loud in a double stream from his two nostrils. She made as if to step up to him, when something in that rolling eye repelled her, warned her of danger.

  Tamburlaine's memory was swifter and more certain than a man's. Once let him travel a road, and he knew it again; every inch of every mile he knew. Once let him look in a face to consider it, and he knew it again, knew its sense and its inner meanings. Large tracts of the minds of men were open to his understanding, he knew love and rage. He knew a traitor by the smell of him. And he knew revenge.

  As clear as in a glass, he saw again the bright-headed one first strike, then kiss, his master. For the blow he hated her, the kiss he but half forgave. All the fire of him, quenched by grief and wounds, and sad imprisonment, now started again at the sound of his master's words. As Meraud watched the creature toss his head up and down, his ears laid back while the foam gathered at the corners of his mouth — as she read the judgment of his eye, her heart misgave her. Tamburlaine knew how to trample and strike, and tear with his well-furnished jaws. He seemed a dragon-horse to Meraud as she slid panting along the wall to the door.

  Now the straw in the corner moved. A man's face was thrust up, and Meraud recognised Owen Joy. He had the blank look of one that wakes from sleep.

  “Speak to the horse, man! Up and hold him!” she loudly cried.

  Tamburlaine turned his shoulder to look at Joy. Joy turned his head to look at the horse. The two consulted together. While gazing, every tinge of colour faded down from under the sun-brown of the man's face, his eyes opened to their fullest extent, and his lips became white. He turned his awful gaze for a moment on the girl. Rising to his feet, he uttered a barbarian shout, not loud but fierce and wild.