Enchanting Cold Blood

by Petya Lehmann

  A picture she had seen but a few nights before recurred to her. She had been returning home in the evening by a path which wound westward through some low-lying wet lands. In her face was a red and golden sunset whose brightness penetrated all the air and the round sky. Between her and the sunset, a man was walking away westward. He was barefoot, stepping slowly across a plashy piece of brown bog-land, half marsh, half bog. His figure was black against the red heart of the sunset; as he walked on slowly, drawing out each bare foot from the mire in turn, behind him the hollow of the print filled up with water that made a mirror for the sunset light. Before the man lay the black bog; where he had trodden his footprints had turned to red gold. Meditating upon this, Sabia talked to herself. “I know it. I feel it now,” she said. “This is the want of the soul. This is the power that has chosen out our holy men and women of Ireland these hundreds and hundreds of years. The black miry road underfoot, the door of Heaven before, and the golden track behind.”

  This way she was thinking with her mind filled with a sort of sad joy when suddenly she heard a piercing whistle from the hillside above. She looked, and there was Estercel coming down towards her. He wore a leather jacket and a steel cap on his head, and he carried an arquebus slung on his back. He came straight towards her.

  “Good evening to you, Sabia,” he said. “I am glad to meet with you. It is not very often now that we can meet and have a quiet word together.”

  “We are both of us busy in our own way,” answered she.

  “That is so,” he said. “Indeed, I am hearing your praises very often. They say there is not your like in the country for wisdom; that you have gifts beyond your years.”

  “You know yourself that once the good word or the evil word is started, there is no stopping it. There it is in every one's mouth, and often neither sense nor reason behind it.”

  “That is so,” said Estercel. “But it seems to me there is sense and reason both in your case. What do you have in the basket?”

  “Nothing now,” said she. “I did but carry some beef water and cakes of wheaten bread to that poor child, but I doubt he is past caring. But tell me, Estercel, what were you wanting out of my basket?”

  “I want a good strip of strong linen to bind about my wrist to strengthen it,” said he.

  “Here is a clean cloth which I had folded about the cakes. Give me the knife from your belt, and I will cut a strip for you. Only I will first get off my horse.”

  Down she slipped lightly, basket in hand. Taking the knife from Estercel, she sat down on a big stone and shore a strip from the cloth while Estercel held her mare by the rein.

  “Have you been feeling it very weak today?” she asked.

  “Not specially so today. It is stronger all the time. Today I wish to strengthen it, because I have a mind to correct Tamburlaine. Will you wind the linen about it close and tight for me, if you will be so kind, Sabia?” He held out the hand and arm, scarred now but still shapely, the flesh on it firm and more full and round each day. As Sabia wound the strip close and tight the red colour mounted to her face, for she thought of the day by the salmon river, so long, so very long ago.

  “I am surprised,” she said, “that you should think of correcting Tamburlaine, so good as he is and so devoted to you. Every one is making a hero of him because of the ride.”

  “That is just what is the matter with him,” said Estercel. “He is altogether above himself. He is spoilt. He has been too long out of discipline. Instead of showing obedience and following behind me, whenever he chooses he just walks away. Twice I have warned him; now this is the third time. I did but lie down on the hill and close my eyes for a few minutes, and when I opened them, he was gone off on his own occasions.”

  “But I hope you will not hurt him, Estercel. He may have thought that you were sleeping sound and would not soon awake, and then the time may have gone by with him faster than he knew.”

  “It is no use your begging for him, cousin. A great horse like that, a horse of battle, must submit to discipline, must give obedience to his master, always and at once. It is too dangerous to have him raking the country with his head in the air, a law to himself. You should see him with Owen, the contempt of him and the bold looks! And all because Owen dared to smack his face!”

  “I have seen it,” said Sabia, and she sighed. She had finished binding up his wrist, and Estercel stood looking at the bandage and weighing his heavy fist in his left hand.

  “I will bring down his pride,” said Estercel. “He will become a terror else. He knows too well how to use his teeth and his hoofs. You have never seen him in battle, so you don't know what he can do. And now I suppose I will have to walk home without him.”

  As he spoke, the mare uttered a loud neigh, and, like an echo, it was answered from far away. Presently, the trampling of hoofs was heard, and down the hill galloped the white horse, snorting, throwing out his heels, laughing as he came. But when he saw his master standing there, looking so stern, his conscience awoke in him, he knew he was to blame: he had deserted him while he slept in order to have a game of play by himself. Therefore, he began slowly backing off, shaking his head this side and that, very full of his nonsense and not over-much abashed. But Estercel called to him sternly. “Here!” he said, “here, and make no delay. Sabia, take the mare by the bridle and lead her a little distance off and turn your back if you do not want to see him punished.”

  The young woman obeyed, but for the life of her she could not help turning round in time to see the beast come slowly up to his master with a shy look that sought for forgiveness and affection. Right opposite him, he stopped.

  “You have disobeyed me again,” Estercel said. “You must take your punishment. If there is any fault, it is yours, for you had your warning.”

  As he spoke, he lifted up his fist and let drive a smashing blow at the horse's forehead. His knuckles split on the bone, and the horse staggered and all but came down. His legs spread, and he dropped his head almost to the ground and stood so, stunned and stupid.

  The mare plunged and snorted, and the tears ran down Sabia's cheeks as she held to the bridle. Estercel looked now at his horse, now at his knuckles.

  “You hit him too hard,” said Sabia.

  “I did,” said Estercel. “And I have hurt my hand.”

  “I do not care for that,” said Sabia, still crying. “He would never have hurt you.”

  “That is true. But he will recover. Ride you home, now. No, don't go to him. I will not have him pitied: he must learn. We will come presently. Good-night.”

  “Good-night,” said she, and she went away leading the mare, her head hanging.

  Presently, she looked back. The horse was standing in the same position. Estercel was standing looking after her. In a minute more, she looked back again. Estercel had sat down with his back to Tamburlaine; he was leaning his head on his hand and looking at the ground.

  Late that evening, the two came home. Estercel walked first, his thumbs in his belt, the horse after him, head down, following him like a dog.

  Chapter XXX. - Estercel Discourses of Himself

  August came on, that fair and bright month which should see everywhere the green gilt of the ripening corn. But the whole south was blackened and destroyed with a double destruction. Where Essex has met with resistance, he has slaughtered and burned. Where he has met with friendship, the swift running regiments of the north have descended and in revenge have performed the same office. Everywhere was famine and bitter misery of children and women.

  The north was more formidable than ever: in Dungannon sat Tyrone, that great tall brown man, “the handsomest man of his time.” In the strong press at Dungannon was the crown of phoenix feathers sent by the Pope. While he despatched his armies, he dreamt of another crown built of a more solid material. Why not? The ruling sovereigns of Europe now addressed him as Brother.

  In the heather by the Pass of the Curlews waited Red Hugh O'Donnell, he of the word of lightning and the iron wi
ll. About him stood and knelt his men, without sleep and food, praying and fasting the whole night long, waiting for the English captains and the troopers. Before nightfall, the noble Sir Conyers Clifford,* his captains, and his men were dead and stripped, looking for all the world like white sheep in flocks upon the hills. Red Hugh, widows made and blind prayers granted, drew off to the north.

  (* English military commander.)

  In his lodging in Dublin Castle sits Essex, worn and ill: a most miserable man. His campaign in the south is over; he has got no credit by it. Up in the north the rebels laugh at him. There is the deep grass and the ripening corn, and three hundred thousand steers. The council can no longer plead that there is no food for horse or man. But still they mysteriously dissuade him from setting out.

  Presently, his first gentleman puts on his robes, and he goes down to the council chamber to hear the clerk read the vituperations of Elizabeth, directed against the council and himself together.

  “It appeareth,” she writes in this month of August, “that all the council have united themselves to dissuade the northern journey after they had joined with you seven days before in a request for greater numbers. Is it not enough for you of the council to have been the greatest causes of corruption, but that you must, at the landing of our lieutenant, seek to divert his course? Apply your counsels to that which may shorten and not prolong the war … What can be the reason of your stay?”

  How curiously must the words of the Queen have fallen on the ears of Essex and of these men who had each the secret advices of Cecil conveyed to him, and who knew well how all reality of power was leaving the Queen as her minister grew more and more powerful.

  That gorgeous old woman, with her splendid accomplishments, her genius, and her rhetoric sits enthroned at her council board in her red wig and white satin embroidered in black. She is hung all over with diamonds, and rubies, and emeralds as big as pigeon's eggs, a blazing mass of splendour. On the table are piles of parchments. Before her are Essex's letters. Round about, on their stools, sit Cecil and the officers of the Privy Council. All of them pretty gorgeous in their silks, satins, and jewels. That little crooked man, five foot two in height with the curved spine, Elizabeth's “little elf” and James's “pigmy,” is Robert Cecil, grandson of Seisyllt, Henry VII's yeoman of the guard. There he sits, he that never had a friend, he that was captain of an army of paid spies, torturers, poisoners, and bullies, he that cared nothing for learning, literature, or art; perhaps the hardest worker of his time, and unquestionably the most powerful man in the whole world at that moment, though the fact was only known to himself and one or two others. Was not Elizabeth the greatest of sovereigns and was not his foot planted on her neck? And not only that, but was not the goggle-eyed James, Elizabeth's foolish successor, already looking out of his pocket?

  The friends of Essex were in a minority at that council board for. Their faces are cast down. Elizabeth frowns. The small eye and the wide forehead of Cecil are quiet and without expression as the clerk reads aloud from the letters of Essex. “I lie open to the malice and practice of mine enemies in England who first procured a cloud of disgrace to overshadow me, and now in the dark give me wound upon wound.”

  Much sweeter than the scent of perfumed silk was the smell of the sun-dried grasses and the little herbs of August on the hillside at Ardhoroe. On the lower slopes of the castle of Ardhoroe lay Estercel, taking his rest. He had put off his steel jacket and leggings of leather and had swam up the river and down again. He now wore a loose suit of white homespun wool, the tunic belted above the hip. His eyes were closed, and he was dozing in the sun. Below at the wood's edge, in the shade, lay Tamburlaine, resting also; he was more weary than his master; had not the one carried the other all the way to the Curlew mountains and back? The horse lay in a strange attitude, his forelegs hooped out in front of him, he head laid sideways upon his knee. So still was he, that he looked like a horse of marble that had never drawn breath.

  Presently, down the hill came Sabia, carrying a bronze cup of mead and a cake of oaten bread. She sat down beside Estercel. “Wake up,” said she, “and take what I have brought you.”

  Estercel opened his eyes and sat up with great alacrity. “This is very welcome, Sabia,” he said. “I have a terrible hunger and thirst upon me. Red Hugh takes no account of eating and drinking. If food is to be got, well and good; if not, all the better. He is a great believer in fighting and travelling on an empty belly. He says he gets twice the work out of hungry men, provided they are of good bone. And when there is work to be done, there is no need for sleep, he says. You sleep all the sounder and sweeter when the work is over.” Estercel took a draught of the mead with great rejoicing and began to break up his cake. “Look here at my hand and my wrist,” he said, “how thin they are grown: my ring slips up and down.” He held out a great bony hand, scarred and strong, and with the fingers of the other hand he twisted the ring.

  Sabia looked at it with a strange expression. “It is indeed loose upon you,” she said. “You will be dropping it.”

  “Look at the eye of Tamburlaine,” he said. “I can see from here it is half open. He is watching you. He is jealous, or else he is wishing a piece of oaten cake.”

  “I have not forgotten him,” said the girl. “I have something for him also.” She held up a round cake and whistled to the horse. He half raised his head and then dropped it again.

  “He is very tired,” said Estercel.

  “I will go down to him,” said she, and she ran lightly down the hill and across to the wood-side. The horse lifted his head at her coming and looked at her placidly out of his large eyes. She knelt down beside him and stroked the warm shining neck and smoothed the forelock neatly on his forehead. “It is great folly of you to be jealous of me,” she murmured. “You are by far the best loved of us two.” Then she delicately balanced the oaten cake on his bent knee, and while he sniffed round about it, she went up the hill again and sat down by Estercel, who waited her coming.

  “Tell me,” said she, “has he been good all the time? Have you ever punished him again? And has he made it up with Owen?”

  “I have never needed to punish him,” said Estercel. “I have exercised him well. He is at the very top point of discipline. Shall I whistle him up and show you?”

  “No,” said Sabia; “let him alone; he is happy. See him licking up the crumbs of his cake.”

  “As for Owen, I doubt if he will ever forgive him. He is cold and disobedient with him. He never forgets. If he ever do meet again those men that ill-treated him, he will make them pay for it. He was a terror in the battle. He ran about with open jaws; with his bare chest he overthrew more than one horse and rider together. Sabia, once I made a vow that I would never let myself enjoy fighting more: I fear it is no use. Battle must ever remain a pleasure to me: when my rage comes upon me, I can do nothing but kill and, God forgive me, I do take a delight in it.”

  “That is very sad, Estercel,” said Sabia. “It is indeed your duty to destroy your enemies, but I cannot understand your taking a pleasure in it.” After a pause she spoke again: “And I take my pleasure in mending up the wounded and the sick. I believe that is what I was born for. If I can save a life or mend it, my heart sings like a bird.”

  “I understand that too,” said Estercel. “Suppose our enemies were driven backward out of the land, I would work night and day to heal this country of her wounds. But much I fear,” he said, sighing deeply, “after a while I should wish to be doing a bit of fighting again, no matter with whom.”

  “That is the way men are made,” said Sabia. “It is a pity they are no better. But I shall never forget to be grateful to the O'Neill, who started me on my road. Estercel, which would you rather march with, O'Neill or Red Hugh?”

  “Oh, there is no comparison,” he answered. “Red Hugh is too red for me. His hair is red, and his heart is red; ay, and his eyes are red. They shoot out red fire. I am too slow for him and too stiff-willed. The O'Neill tells me his w
ishes, and I would die before I would give up the doing of them. Red Hugh bids me go like the blast of a trumpet, and something in me stands stock-still. Is it not a strange thing? I believe that I am made on the same plan as the mule. It pleases me to sulk and go backwards where there is a compulsion upon me to go forwards.”

  “It is a most strange thing,” said Sabia.

  “I will tell you another difference,” said he, “between the O'Neill and Red Hugh. When I was in Dublin, I saw wonderful great streams of English gentlemen. The place was like a flower-garden with them. I spoke with them and not a few of them: and I tell you this: the ways of the O'Neill are their ways, he is one of them, but that he is a finer man than all or most of them. Red Hugh is more like one of us. When we have a king of our own, it will be well to have one who is the equal in knowledge with other kings and of the same mode of behaviour.”

  “And shall we have a king of our own one day?” said Sabia, “and shall we be free?”

  “Certainly we shall, and that soon,” said Estercel, in a comfortable voice. But presently, a change came over him, and he lay back on the fragrant hill. “Oh, but sometimes, Sabia, I have strange dreams, such miserable dreams. I see ranks and ranks of men in bright coloured clothes pouring out of the sunrise; always out of the sunrise they come. I hear the treading of thousands of feet on stone-ways. I feel the ground shaking under their cannon. Then a dreadful fear comes upon me, a fear that all we do is in vain, that we are only fighting the waves of the sea.”

  As he lay back in the sunlight, a cold sweat broke out over his forehead. After that, the silence between them was long and deep; the face of destiny is a terror to the young.

  Chapter XXXI. - The Ring and the Fisherman

  Estercel was indeed dog-tired. For two days he slept off and on; slept on the hill, in the hall, and on the river bank. He was so sleepy, that while the food was leaving the plate on its way to his mouth, he would be off dreaming!