A Welsh chieftain of the lesser and wilder sort—not one of the nine princes—had befriended and practically adopted him; and so, in due course, he had married a beautiful daughter of the chieftain. Married, as single, they had continued to live with her family in her parental home, which was a confusion of stone and timber towers and halls, and bowers and byres, overlooking a glen of crofts and huts, and itself overhung by a great forest of oaks. Strange to say, the life had suited him better than it had his mountain-bred wife. This had not been so in the first year, but with the arrival of the first daughter, and increasingly so with the arrival of each of the following three, the mother had bemoaned the lack of social opportunities for young ladies in those parts. But the exiled courtier had laughed at her— for he preferred his present to his past and looked to the future with gusto. In hunting wolves and bears and wild boars, in occasional armed clashes with encroaching neighbors or invading savages, and in less frequent but even more exciting raids into the Marches under the banneret of his father-in-law and the banner of Prince Powys, he had found life very much to his taste and nothing to worry about. But he died in the course of one of those battles of the disputed Marches, leaving hundreds of mourners, chief of whom were his widow and four daughters.
* * *
Now for a jump of time and space to Sir Gayling of Joyous Vale. Hearing from a wandering soothsayer that the most knowledgeable of all living stargazers, and the one possessed of the finest astrolabe and cross-staff in the world, inhabited a high tower atop the highest mountain of Wales, Sir Gayling had set out to find him, accompanied by his squire and lifelong friend Master John of Yarrow (who was as old and almost as stargazy as himself) and a few servants. It was a most otherworldly and untraveled company, for the gentlemen had never before been farther afield than Salisbury, where both of them, as youths, had studied astrology and kindred sciences under the famous Friar Garnish; and the servants had never been out of the Vale.
But they went unmolested, day and night, league after league. Some took them for holy men, others for mental cases (and so equally under divine protection), and yet others for magicians or worse. Their innocence was their armor. Jinking thieves and all manner of roving, master-less knaves, shared the best of their stolen meats and drinks with them, and honest farmers and lords of castles alike entertained them honorably. They came into Wales in due course, unscathed and in good health, and Sir Gayling and Master John still keen in their pursuit of knowledge.
There they asked the way to the highest mountain in the world of everyone they met, and at every door, but the answers were mostly conflicting. One point which all their informants agreed upon, however, was that it was somewhere in Wales. In most cases, the person questioned simply pointed to the highest summit within his range of vision. Up and down, up and down and around, toiled the questers after stellar wisdom. They found the people hospitable but inconveniently scattered. They were glad when they came at last, after weeks of fruitless mountaineering, upon a narrow valley full of crofts. The crofters regaled them with strange and potent liquors and collops of venison, but it was not long before a little man in green came to them and requested them to follow him to his master.
It was the manikin Joseph himself; and his master was the father of the widow with four beautiful daughters. The chieftain was an old man by then, and the widowed daughter had silver in her black hair, and only one of the beautiful girls remained unmarried and at home. She was the youngest and most beautiful—and, as you may have guessed, her name was Clara. The travelers were so well treated that they almost lost sight of their reason for being so far from home; and when the mountain lord himself had assured them, after mental searchings, that he had never heard of an outstanding Welsh stargazer in all his life, nor of an astrolabe, whatever that might be, but could name the world's twenty greatest bards and harpers and ten greatest warriors, and all of them Welshmen, Sir Gayling decided to let the matter rest—and himself with it—for a few days. The cushion of the chair he sat in was softer than his saddle, and the bearskins underfoot did not cut and bruise like rocky mountain tracks.
Lapped in comfort, he drowsed while the widow told her romantic story, which was always in her heart and never far from her tongue. She began by telling him that her husband had been an English fugitive like himself, only larger and much younger. He protested sleepily that he was not a fugitive. She continued with a glowing description of her lamented partner, and a dramatic account of his career at King Uther's court, his justifiable slaying of a false friend in the royal presence, and his subsequent flight. Sir Gayling, who had heard rumors of an affair of the kind a long time ago, bestirred himself sufficiently to inquire as to the gentleman's name and style.
"Roland of Fenchurch, the Earl of Fenland's third son," the lady informed him proudly.
"I heard something of it at the time," he replied; and he went on, though reluctantly, for he was still drowsy, to say that the Fenland family was distantly related to him on the spindle side.
As the lady accepted this information in silence (a very busy silence, but he didn't know that), he thought no more of it till the following morning, when Master John told him that the widow had questioned him, John, exhaustively concerning Sir Gayling's life, condition, affairs, and establishment; and he confessed that he had answered her fully, though against his better judgment. The old squire was suspicious and uneasy, but the old knight laughed at him, saying that the lady's curiosity was perfectly natural. Even when his anxious friend suggested that she was contemplating a second English marriage, he refused to be alarmed. Days and nights passed, and ran into weeks— days of ease and good cheer, and nights in feather beds— so peacefully that Master John forgot his suspicions of the dame's intentions and both old stargazers forgot their mission. Nothing in the place was too good for them, and their servants and horses grew fat and frisky with idleness and high living.
But this idyllic time came to an end. One morning the widowed daughter of the chieftain and mother of the beautiful damosel requested an astonishing service of the knight. Addressing him as Cousin Gayling, and with a hand on his shoulder and a compelling gleam in her eyes, she advised him to set out for home within the week, so as to establish Clara comfortably before the first hard frosts. The stargazer could only gape at that: but when she added that Clara would prove to be the ideal wife for him, he cried out in agonized protest. She laughed at him kindly, even affectionately, and made known her plans to him patiently and with the utmost good humor, as if to a dull but beloved child. His continued protests became feebler and feebler, though no less agonized. The damosel herself was of no help to him. When he protested to her that she could not possibly want him for a husband, she contradicted him, politely but firmly.
Well, they were married by the domestic chaplain of Prince Powys before many witnesses. The bride and her mother were radiant, the company was merry; but Sir Gayling and Master John were dazed beyond words. They set out for home with a formidable escort, to which the Prince and neighboring chiefs had contributed generously to assure them a safe passage of the Marches. Twenty leagues south of the border, the bulk of the escort turned about and withdrew. Only the bride and her grandfather, her mother, her harpist ex-governess the Damosel Mary, the family counselor Joseph, and a score of clansmen on mountain ponies remained in addition to the original English party. Forty leagues farther on, every Welsh heart save Dame Clara's, Damosel Mary's, and Joseph's was seized by irresistible and unreasoning nostalgia for the mountains and airs of home; and in a fit of mob panic, the old chief and the widow and their highland cavalry wheeled about and headed back on the long road to Wales.
The ladies were somewhat dashed by that, but Sir Gayling, who had feared that his mother-in-law intended to make of Joyous Vale her permanent abode, congratulated himself and Master John. . . . Two days later, they were joined by two cavaliers who introduced themselves as Sir Drecker and Sir Barl, knights-errant from King Arthur's court. Their manners were excellent, and they made th
emselves very entertaining; especially Sir Drecker, and he very particularly to Sir Gayling and Master John, to whom he declared a keen interest in astrology—and a lamentable ignorance of it.
From then onward all the way to Joyous Vale, the two old stargazers belabored their pupil's ears with stellar truths and mysteries. But the dwarf noted the furtive rov-ings and oblique glances of Drecker's small but lively eyes. Trust Joseph—by his own telling! He warned his mistress against the stranger, and received in return an enigmatic smile. His warning to Sir Gayling won a promise of consideration upon the proper drawing up and study of Sir Drecker's horoscope, which would require at least ten days. But Joseph continued to watch and suspect, wore a shirt of chain mail under his tunic, and added a short sword to his armament of daggers.
They reached Joyous Vale in safety, however, and found all as the astrologers had left it five months before, save for a few natural deaths and those mostly of old age. Dame Clara established herself and her ex-governess in the best bedroom, and Sir Gayling and Master John returned thankfully to their old quarters and neglected telescope at the top of the tower and set to work on Sir Drecker's horoscope. What might have happened if that task had been completed is anybody's guess, for upon the departure of the self-styled knights-errant within the week, the astrologers laid it aside and forgot it in the pursuit of more abstruse stellar secrets.
* * *
Winter came and passed uneventfully. Sir Gayling and Master John were happy with their books and arguments, and since philosophically accepting the rumored Welsh astrologer and his peerless instrument as mere myths, with their telescope too. Also, they became aware of improvements in food and service, and the whole economy and atmosphere of the place; and each confessed to himself, though neither to the other, that the adventure into Wales had been nothing worse than a loss of time. April brought back Sir Drecker and Sir Barl. Sir Drecker's original intention was (by Joseph's reckoning) to carry off Lady Clara and the old knight's treasure chests, but he changed it for the more ambitious plan of marrying the lady and settling down as a lord of lands. The first step toward his goal—the transforming of a wife to a widow— was mere child's play for him, but then difficulties developed. The gates of the great house were closed and barred against him. Accepting that as a purely provocative gesture on the lady's part, he subdued the tenantry, murdering and robbing and despoiling just enough to show her who was master, and bided his time.
That is the story, as told (rather more than less) by the Welsh manikin Joseph to the squire Peter and by said Peter to King Torrice.
"It's a queer tale, but I've heard queerer," said the King. "How old did you say she is?"
"I didn't say, but Joseph told me she will be eighteen very soon," Peter answered.
"Eighteen or eight hundred," the King muttered. "If but eighteen, how can she be what I believe her to be—the achievement and the end of my quest?" He looked at Peter keenly and added: "If that is the whole story, why has Merlin dragged us into the affair? He is not one to take all the trouble of conjuring up a forge and shoeing our horses just to save a distressed lady from a tyrant. But whatever and whoever she is, and whatever that old fox's game may be, we are committed to her protection."
He looked back at the farmyard from which he and his squire had come away and saw it empty. He turned the other way then, and looking widely over meadows and cornlands and orchards, saw the little cavalcade enter the outer court of the great house; and he sighed. Peter, who looked too and also saw that Lady Clara rode pillion with Sir Lorn, chuckled to see that Damosel Mary rode pillion with Gervis.
"This is no laughing matter," the King reproved mildly; and he added: "Have you forgotten that the rogue Drecker is at large?"
Peter replied that he had not forgotten Drecker's escape.
"Has it occurred to you that he will return some day, any day now, with all the cutthroats and robbers from forty leagues around at his heels?" demanded Torrice.
"It has, sir; but, knowing that you would bring the subject up in plenty of time for us to do something about it, I haven't worried over it, sir," replied Peter.
The King looked embarrassed and muttered: "I hope you are right, but I must confess that I had quite forgotten the peril we are in—not the rogue, but the menace of him— until now, God forgive me!"
Chapter Seven
The Lady Rides with a Hand on Sir Lorn's Sword-belt
The Lady Clara rode home on Sir Lorn's pillion, up on the great white stallion Bahram.
"King Torrice told me of your quest," she murmured.
He neither spoke in reply nor did he turn his head to glance at her. She murmured again, leaning a little closer to his apparently unresponsive back.
"But how can it be one and the same quest, if he searches for that which he has never known, and you for something you have known and lost?"
Lorn continued to gaze straight to his front in silence. The great warhorse's advance was very slow, despite much showy action. He tossed his head and plumed his silver tail; but high though he lifted each massive hoof in turn, it was only to set it down softly on practically the same spot of ground.
"You heard his song?" she murmured. "The things he called me? Poor old man!—it must have been the wine he drank. If I am a wicked old witch, how can I be the end of his quest? And yet he truly believes me to be both, it seems—poor me!—and he is unhappy and afraid now for his quest's end."
"Not afraid," he said. "Whatever he may believe, he is not afraid of it. He has never feared anything—neither its end nor its beginning."
"Do you too take me for a witch?"
He let that pass.
She sighed: "You do not take me for the end of your quest, that is sure."
Her right hand, which grasped his sword-belt, transmitted a slight quiver to her heart.
"He is mad, I fear, for how could he think me beautiful? And now he is unhappy because of me, in his new madness, and you are still unhappy in your old madness. So your unhappiness is my fault too, for if I were actually as your dear grandfather sees me in his madness, you might forget your loss or mistake me for the lost one. But I am not, and you do not; and so two brave knights are unhappy because of me—one in the foolish belief that his quest is ended, and the other because he knows that he has not found what he seeks."
Again her hand transmitted a quiver from his sword-belt to her heart. He spoke a word; but it was to Bahram, who instantly stopped his shilly-shallying and went forward at a purposeful walk. But not for long.
"I fear I´ll be shaken right off, at this pace," the lady whispered.
At another word from Lorn, Bahram resumed his dilatory posturings.
"If I were a witch," she said, "I would make myself appear to the King as you see me, and to you as he sees me."
Though the only response she received was by way of the telltale belt, she smiled quite contentedly at the knowledge that, no matter how he might pretend to ignore her, she could make him tremble like a leaf. . . .
Later, Dame Clara told one of the ancient servitors to find Joseph and send him to her. It took four of the old men the better part of an hour to carry out the order.
"Take my compliments to King Torrice, and remind him that I am expecting him and Sir Lorn and their gentlemen to supper," she instructed the manikin. "And don't take all night about it," she admonished gently.
"They won't come," he said, consequentially. "Too busy. Even Sir Lorn is busy. And why shouldn't he be busy now—that moonstruck quester!—since 'tis all the fault of his fuddling?"
Before Dame Clara could speak, for astonishment and indignation, Damosel Mary spoke.
"How now, little man? If you have forgotten my teachings often years ago, I shall have to take your education in hand again."
Joseph had not forgotten. Sadly deflated, he recalled to mind the matter and the occasions referred to by the gray-haired damosel. That stalwart and learned governess had not confined her instructions to little Clara, but had given the household dwarf an
d mascot a course in manners that, being much needed and long overdue, had proved extremely painful to the recipient. Now he ducked and turned to slip out by the way he had swaggered in; but Lady Clara was upon him like a falcon on a partridge.
"No, you don't!" she cried. "Oh, you saucy knave, how dare you speak so? For a pin, I'd send you back where you came from! Fuddling? What d'ye mean by that, you jackanapes? How dare you speak so of that—of your betters? For a pin—at one more word—I´ll shake you out of your boots, you wicked Joseph!"
She had him in both hands. Her face was pink; her eyes shot fire and her lofty headdress was askew. She shook him like a clout.
"And quite rightly too," said the old ex-governess judicially. "The silly rascal has outgrown his boots anyhow. But stay your hand, my dear, I beg you, so that he may tell us more of this business that's afoot—unless he invented it to puff up his own importance—before he loses the power of speech, which might happen if he bit off his tongue."
Clara complied instantly, but kept a grip on Joseph with one hand while straightening her headdress with the other.
"Now then, out with it!" she demanded, but in a softer and reasonable tone of voice. "Tell us what it is they are all so busy about."
He hung limp and gasping in the grip of that small white hand and rolled his eyes piteously. Never before had he been treated with violence, or angry words even, by his beautiful young mistress.
"He needs wine, poor fellow!" she cried.
The damosel thought so too, and brought it quickly. He drained the cup and recovered his breath and something of his assurance.
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