VI
Fulviac's lair lay deep within the waving wilderness of pines. Abovethe spires of the forest, a massive barrier of rock thrust up its ruggedbartisans into the blue. East and west it stretched a mile or more,concavitated towards the north, and standing like a huge breakwater amidthe sea of boughs.
The rocky plateau above was peopled by pines and rowans, thatched alsowith a wild tangle of briar, whin, and heather. Crannies cleft into it;caves tunnelled its massive bosom; innumerable minarets of stone mingledwith the wind-wracked trees. The cliffs rose like the walls of a castledonjon from the forest floor, studded with dwarf trees, bearded withferns and grass. The plateau was inaccessible from the forest save by athin rocky track, where the western slope of the cliff tailed off tomerge into the trees.
The significance of the place to Fulviac lay in the existence of acavern or series of caves piercing the cliff, and opening both upon thesouthern and northern facades of the mass. A wooden causeway led to thesouthern entry, bridging a small gorge where a stream foamed under thepines. The yawn of the southern opening had been built up with greatblocks of stone, and the rough walls pierced by narrow squints, and agate opening under a rounded arch.
Within, the roof of the main cavern arched abruptly upwards, hollowing agreat dome over the smooth floor beneath. This grotesque androck-ripped hall served as guard-room and dormitory, a very variouschamber. Winding ways smote from it into the black bowels of the cliff.The height of the main cavern dwindled as it tunnelled northwards intothe rock. A second wall of stone partitioned the guard-room from asecond and smaller chamber, lit always by a great lamp pendent from theceiling, a chamber that served Fulviac as state-room.
From Fulviac's parlour the cavern narrowed to a throat-like gallery thathad been expanded by human craft into a third and smaller room. Thislast rock chamber was wholly more healthy and habitable than the others.Its walls stood squarely from floor to rocky roof, and it was blessedwith a wide casement, that stared northwards over a vista of obeisanttrees. A postern gave entry to the room from a narrow platform, andfrom this ledge a stairway cut in the flank of the cliff dwindled intothe murk of the forest below.
A more romantic atmosphere had swept into the bleak galleries of theplace that winter. Plundered stores were ransacked, bales ofmerchandise ungirded, caskets and chests pilfered as for the endowing ofthe chamber of a queen. The northern room in the cliff blossomed intothe rich opulence of a lady's bower. Its stone walls were panelled withold oak carvings taken from some ancient manor. There were tapestries ofgreen, gold, and purple; an antique bed with a tester of silver silk,its flanks blazoned with coloured escutcheons. Painted glass, azure,red, and gold, jewelled the casement, showing also Sebastian bound tohis martyr's tree. A Jew merchant plundered on the road had surrendereda set of brazen ewers, a lute inlaid with pearl, a carpet woven on thelooms of the purple East. There were mirrors of steel about the walls.A carved prayer-desk, an embroidery frame, a crucifix wrought in ivory:Fulviac had consecrated all these to Yeoland, dead Rual's daughter.
A white lily amid a horde of thistles! The girl's life had drawn underthe black shadow of the cliff, and into the clanging torrent of theserough men of the sword. It was a wild age and a wild region. Fulviac'srogues were like wolves in a forest lair, keen, bloody, and relentless.There was a rude strain of violence running through the strenuous moodof the place, like the song of Norse rovers, piercing the roar of thesea. Mystery enveloped the girl, war, and the sound of the sword. Shefumbled at the riddle of Fate with the trembling fingers of one whounbars a prison gate in the hush of night. It was all strange andfantastic beyond the riot of a dream.
"Madame," Fulviac had said to her when he had hung a key at her girdle,"I have bidden you trust me; remember that I trust you in turn. Takethis room as your sanctuary. Lock me out when you will. I prepare,among other things, to perfect your vengeance."
Yeoland suffered him and her necessity. She was shrewdly wise in theconviction that it would be useless to rebel against the man. Thoughover-masterful and secretive, his purpose appeared benignant in theopulence of its favour. Moreover, the forest was as a vast web holdingher within the maze of the unknown.
"I have no alternative," she said to him, "I am in your power. And yet,I believe you are no villain."
"Your charity pleases me. I am a man with a strong purpose."
"For good?"
"Do I not need you?"
"Am I then so powerful a person?"
"You will learn anon."
"You seem something of a mystic," she said to him.
"Madame," he retorted, "trust my discretion. In due season I shallunfold to you certain aspects of life that will kindle your sympathies.I shall appeal to the woman in you. When you are wise you will commendmy ambition."
"You speak in riddles."
"Wait. As yet you see through a glass darkly."
From the mountainous north to the warm southern sea, from the woodedwest to the eastern fens, the good King ruled, holding many great baronsin feudal faith, and casting his fetters of gold over Church and State.Chivalry moved through the world to the clangour of arms and the songsof the troubadour. Lutes sounded on terrace and in garden, fair womenbloomed like roses, bathed in a sensuous blaze of romance. Baron madewar upon baron; glory and death were crowned together. The painterspread his colours in the halls of the great; the goldsmith and thecarver wrought wondrous things to charm the eye. Church bells tolled.Proud abbots carried the sword, and made fine flutter among the women.Innumerable saints crowded the avenues to heaven. It was a fair age andvery lovely, full of colour and desire, music and the odour of romance.
And the poor? Their lot hung largely on the humour of an overlord, orthe state of a gentleman's stomach. They had their saints' days, theirgames, their pageants, their miracle plays. They had hovels of clay andwattle; labour in wind and rain; plagues and pestilences in the rottingfilth of their city alleys. They marked the great folk go by in silksand cloth of gold, saw the pomp and opulence of that other life,remembered their own rags and their squealing children.
And yet, consider the broad inclinations of the world. To eat, to bewarm, to satisfy the flesh, to ease a lust, to drink beer. There was novery vast gulf betwixt the rich man and the poor. The one feasted tomusic, the other scraped a bone to the dirge of toil. They had likeappetites, like satisfactions, and hell is considered to be Utopian inthe extreme. The poor man envied the rich; the rich man ruled the poor.Envy, that jingling demagogue, has made riotous profit out of such astew since the world was young.
Fulviac's cliff was shut out from the ken of man by leagues of woodland,moor, and waste. The great pine forest girded it in its inmost bosom.No wayfarers rode that way; no huntsman ranged so deep; the place had anevil rumour; many whom it had welcomed had never returned. Romancershad sung of it, the lay of Guingamor. Horror ruled black-browed over itspine-cumbered hills, its gloomy depths. Solitude abode there, as over aprimaeval sea, and there was no sound save the moan or storm-cry of thewind over its troubled trees.
According to legend lore, Romulus peopled Rome with the offscourings ofItaly. Fulviac had emulated the device with the state-craft of a strongconspirator. The forest stood a grand accomplice, abetting him with itsmyriad sentinels, who gossiped solely with the wind. The venture hadbeen finely conceived, finely edificated. A cliff, a cave, five-scorearmed men. Not a vast power on the face of it to threaten a system orto shake a throne. Superficialities were fallacious, the surface falseand fair as glistening ice. The forest hid more than a company ofruffians banded together to resist tyranny. Enthusiasm, genius, vigour,such torches, like a burning hovel, can fling a city into flame.
As for the girl Yeoland, she was more than mocked by the swift vagariesof life. Two days of mordant realism had erased from her heart thedream visions of childhood. To be declared homeless, kinless, in oneday; to be bereft of liberty the next! To what end? She stared roundthe rich
ly-garnished room into which Fate had thrust her, fingered thepearl-set lute, gazed at her own face in the steel mirrors. She was thesame woman, yet how differently circumstanced! Fulviac's mood had nothinted at love, or at any meaner jest. What power could he prophesy tohis advantage in the mere fairness of her face? What was the gall of awoman's vengeance to a man who had conceived the downfall of a kingdom?
Her knowledge of psychology was rustic in the extreme, and she had nowit for the unravelling of Fulviac's subtleties. There were certainconvictions, however, that abode with her even in her ignorance. Shecould have taken oath that he was no mere swashbuckler, no captain ofoutlaws, no mere spoiler of men. Moreover, she believed him to be thepossessor of some honour, and a large guerdon of virility. Lastly, pityappealed her as a sentiment not to be discarded. The man, whoever hemight be, appeared desirous of putting his broad shoulders betwixt herand the world.
Fulviac grew perspicuous sooner than she could have prophesied. He hada fine, cloud-soaring way with him that seemed to ignore the mole-hillsof common circumspection. He had wit enough also to impose his trust onothers with a certain graceful confidence that carried bribery in thevery generosity of its hardiness.
March was upon them like a spirit of discord, wild, riotous weather,with the wind thundering like storm-waves upon the cliff. The pineswere buffeting each other in the forest, and reeling beneath thescourgings of the breeze. Fulviac came to the girl one windy noon, whenthe caverns were full of the breath of the storm. His manner to herseemed as a significant prelude, heralding the deep utterance of somehuman epic.
Fulviac took the girl by a winding stair leading from the guard-room--astair that circled upwards in the thickness of the rock some hundredsteps or more, and opened into a basin-shaped pit on the plateau above.Dwarf trees and briars domed the hollow, giving vision of a grey andhurrying sky. The pair climbed a second stair that led to a rockperched like a pulpit on the margin of the southern precipice. The windswept gusty and tempestuous over the cliff. It tossed back the girl'shood, made her stagger; she would have fallen had not Fulviac grippedher arm.
Below stretched an interminable waste of trees, of bowing pine-tops, anddishevelled boughs. The dull green of the forest merged into the greyof the cloud-strewn sky. On either hand the craggy bulwarks of thecliffs stretched east and west, its natural bartisans and battlementstopped by a cornice of mysterious pines. It was a superb scene, richwith a wild liberty, stirred by the wizard chanting of the wind.
Fulviac watched the girl as she stood limned against the grey curtain ofthe sky. Her hair blew about her white throat and shoulders in sombrestreams; her eyes were very bright under their dusky lashes; and thewind had kissed a stronger colour into her cheeks. She was clad in akirtle of laurel-green cloth, bound about the waist with a girdle ofsilver. A white kerchief lay like snow over her shoulders and bosom;her green sleeves were slashed and puffed with crimson.
"Wild country," he said, looking in her eyes.
"Wild as the sea."
"You are a romanticist."
She gave a curt laugh.
"After what I have suffered!"
"Romance and sorrow go hand in hand. For the moment my words are morematerial. You see this cliff?"
She turned to him and stood watching his face.
"This cliff is the core of a kingdom. A granite wedge to hurl feudalismto ruins, to topple tyranny."
She nodded slowly, with a grave self-reservation.
"You have hinted that you are ambitious," she said.
"Ambition would have stormed heaven."
"And your ladder?"
The man made a strong gesture, like one who points a squadron to thecharge. His eyes shone with a glint of grimness under his shaggy brows.
"The rabid discontent of the poor, fermenting ever under the crust ofcustom. The hate of the toiler for the fop and the fool. The iron thatlies under the rusting injustice of riches. The storm-cry of a people'svengeance against the tyrant and the torturer."
Yeoland, solemn of face, groped diligently amid her surmises. The manwas a visionary by his own showing; it was impossible to mistake him fora fool. Like all beings of uncommon power, he combined imagination withthat huge vigour of mind that moves the world. A vast element ofstrength lay coiled in him, subtle, yet overpowering as the body of somegreat reptile. The girl felt the gradual magic of his might mesmerisingher with the inevitableness of its approach.
"You have brought me here?" she asked him.
"As I promised."
"Well?"
"To tell you something of the truth."
She looked at him with a penetrating frankness that was inspirit--laudatory.
"You put great trust in me," she said.
"That I may trust the more."
He sat himself down on a ledge of rock, and proceeded to parade beforeher imagination such visions as were well conceived to daze the reasonof a girl taken fresh from a forest hermitage. He spoke of riot,revolution, and revenge; painted Utopias established beneath thebenediction of a just personal tyranny, a country purged of oppression,a kingdom cleansed of pride. He told of arms stored in the warrens ofthe cliff, of grain and salted meat sufficient for an army. He pointedout the vast strength of the place, the plateau approachable only by thestairway in the cliff, and the narrow causeway towards the west. Hedescribed it as sufficient for the gathering and massing of a greathost. Finally, he swept his hand over the leagues of forestland, dark asthe sea, isleting the place from the ken of the world.
"You understand me?" he said to her.
She nodded and waited with closed lips. He gazed at the horizon, andspoke in parables.
"The King and the nobles are throned upon a pile of brushwood. A torchis plunged beneath; a tempest scourges the beacon into a furnace. Thekingdom burns."
"Yes?"
"Consider me no mere visionary; I have the country at my back. For fiveyears the work has gone on in secret. I have trusted nothing to chance.It needs a bold man to strike at a kingdom. I--Fulviac, am that man."
Love Among the Ruins Page 6