Love Among the Ruins

by Warwick Deeping

  VII

  The free city of Gilderoy climbed red-roofed up a rocky hill, a hilllooped south-east and west by the blue breadth of the river Tamar. Itscastle, coroneting the central rock, smote into the azure, a sheaf ofglistening towers and turrets, vaned with gold. Lower still, thecathedral's sable crown brooded above a myriad red-tiled roofs andwooden gables. Many fair gardens blazoned the higher slopes of thecity. Tall walls of grey stone ringed round the whole, grim and quaintwith bartisan and turret. To the north, green meadows dipped to thebillowy distance of the woods. The silver streak of the sea could beseen southwards from the platforms of the castle.

  Gilderoy was a rich city and a populous, turbulent withal, holdinghonourable charters from the King, exceeding proud of its own freedom.Its Guilds were the wealthiest in all the south; the coffers of itsCommune overflowed with gold. Nowhere was fairer cloth woven than inGilderoy. Nowhere could be found more cunning smiths, more subtlearmourers. The mansions of its rich merchant folk were wondrous opulentand great, bedight with goodly tapestry and all manner of rarefurniture. Painters had gathered to it from the far south; itscourtezans were the joy of the whole kingdom.

  Two days after his confessions on the cliff, Fulviac took horse, mountedYeoland on a white palfrey, and rode for Gilderoy through the forest.The man was upholstered as a merchant, in a plum-coloured cloak, a capof sables, and a Venetian mail cape. Yeoland wore a light blue juponedged with silver, a green kirtle, a cloak of brocaded Tartarin. Sherode beside the man, demure as a daughter, her bridle of scarlet leathermerry with silver bells. Two armed servants and some six packhorsescompleted the cavalcade.

  Fulviac had fallen into one of his silent moods that day. He wassaturnine and enigmatic as though immersed in thought. The girl wonnothing from him as to the purpose of their ride. They were forGilderoy; thus much he vouchsafed her, and no more. She had a shrewdbelief that he was for giving her tangible evidence of the hazardousschemes that were fermenting under the surface of silence, and that shewas to learn more of the tempest that was gathering in the dark. Beingtactful in her generation, she asked him no questions, and kept herconjectures to herself.

  They broke their ride to pass the night at a wayside hostelry, where theroad from Gambrevault skirted the forest. Holding on at their goodleisure on the following day, they entered Gilderoy by the northerngate, towards evening, with the cathedral bell booming a challenge tothe distant sea. Crossing the great square with its tall mansions ofcarved oak and chiselled stone, they plunged into a narrow highway thatcurled downhill under a hundred overhanging gables. Set back in a murkycourt, a tavern hung out its gilded sign over the cobbles, a GoldenLeopard, that groaned in the wind on its rusty hinges. The inn'scasements glowed red under the gloom of roof and bracket. Fulviac rodeinto its stone-paved court with its balustraded gallery, its carvedstairways, its creaking lamps swaying under the high-peaked gables.

  Their horses were taken by a lean groom, blessed with a most malevolentsquint. On the lower step of the gallery stair stood a rotund littleman, with a bunch of keys reposing on his stomach, the light from alantern overhead shining on his bald pate, as on a half sphere ofalabaster. He seemed to sweat beef and beer at every pore. Shufflinghis feet, he tilted his double chin to the sky, as though he wereconducting a monologue under the stars.

  "No brew yet," he hummed in a high falsetto, throaty and puling from soponderous a carcase.

  Fulviac set one foot on the stairs.

  "St. Prosper's wine, fat Jean," he said.

  The rotund soul turned his face suddenly earthwards, as though he hadbeen jerked down by one leg out of heaven.

  "Ah, sire, it is you."

  "Who else? What of the good folk of Gilderoy?"

  "Packed like a crowd of rats in a drain. Will your honour sup?"

  The man stood aside with a great sweep of the hand, and a garlic-ladenedbreath given full in Yeoland's face.

  "And the lady, sire, a cup of purple; the roads are dry?"

  Fulviac pushed up the stairs.

  "We are late, and supped as we came. Your private cellar will suit usbetter."

  "Of a truth, sire, most certainly."

  "Send the men back with the horses; Damian has his orders, and yourmoney-bag."

  "Rely on my dispatch, sire."

  "Well, then, roll on."

  Fat Jean, sweaty deity of pot and gridiron, took the keys from hisgirdle and a lantern from a niche in the wall. Going at a wheezyshuffle, he led them by a long passage and two circles of stairs to acellar packed with hogsheads, tuns, and great vats of copper. From thefirst cellar a second opened, from the second, a third. In the lastvault Jean rolled a cask from a corner, turned a flagstone on its side,showed them a narrow stairway descending into the dark.

  Fulviac took the lantern, made a sign to Jean, and passed down thestairway with Yeoland at his heels. The tavern-keeper remained above inthe cellar, and closed the stone when the last gleam of the light haddied down the stair. He rolled the cask back into its place, and felthis way back by cellar and stairway to the benignant glow of his owntavern room.

  Fulviac and the girl had descended the black well of the stair. Tunnelsof gloom ran labyrinthine on every hand; a musty scent burdened the air,and fine sand covered the floor. Fulviac held the lanternshoulder-high, took Yeoland's wrist, and moved forward into a greatgallery that sloped downwards into the depths of the rock. The placewas silent as the death-chamber of a pyramid. The lantern fashionedfantastic shadows from the gloom.

  Yeoland held close to the man with an instinct towards trust that madeher smile at her own thoughts. Fulviac had been in her life little morethan a week; yet his unequivocating strength had won largely upon herliking--in no sentimental sense indeed, but rather with the calm commandof power. Possibly she feared him a very little. Yet with the despairof a wrecked mariner she clung to him, in spirit, as she would haveclung to a rock.

  As they passed down the gallery with the lantern swinging in Fulviac'shand, she began to question him with a quiet persistence.

  "What place is this?" she said.

  For retort, Fulviac pointed her to the wall, and held the lantern to aidher scrutiny. The girl saw numberless recesses excavated in the rock;some had been bricked up and bore tablets; others were packed withgrinning skulls. There were scattered paintings on the walls, symbolicdaubs, or scenes from scriptural history. The place was meaningless tothe girl, save that the dead seemed ever with them.

  Fulviac smiled at her solemn face.

  "The catacombs of the city of Gilderoy," he said; "yonder are the nichesof the dead. These paintings were made by early folk, centuries ago. Averitable maze this, a gallery of skulls, a warren for ghosts to squeakin."

  Yeoland had turned to scan a tablet on the wall.

  "We go to some secret gathering?" she asked.

  Fulviac laughed; the sound echoed through the passages withreverberating scorn.

  "The same dark fable," he said, "telling of vaults and secret stairs,passwords and poniards, masks and murder. Remember, little sister, youare to be black and subtle to the heart's chords. This is life, not aromance or an Italian fable. We are men here. There is to be nostrutting on the stage."

  The girl loitered a moment, as though her feet kept pace with hercogitations.

  "I am content," she said, "provided I may eschew poison, nor need run abodkin under some wretch's ribs."

  "Be at peace on that score. I have not the heart to make a Rosamund ofyou."

  Sudden out of a dark bye-passage, like a rat out of a hole, a man sprangat them and held a knife at Fulviac's throat. The mock merchant gavethe password with great unconcern, putting his cap of sables back fromoff his face. The sentinel crossed himself, fell on one knee, and gavethem passage. Turning a bluff buttress of stone, they came abruptlyupon a short gallery that widened into a great circular chamber,pillared after the manner of a church.

  A flare of torches harassed the shadowy vault
, and played upon athousand upturned faces that seemed to surge wave on wave out of thegloom. In the centre of the crypt stood an altar of black marble, andbefore it on the dais, a priest with a cowl down, a rough woodencrucifix in his hand. A knot of men in armour gleamed about the altar,ringing a clear space about the steps. Others, with drawn swords, keptthe entries of the galleries leading to the cavern. A great quiet hungover the place, a silence solid as the rock above.

  A group of armed men waited for Fulviac at the main entry to the crypt.He merged into their ranks, exchanging signs and words in an undertonewith one who seemed in authority. The ring of figures pressed throughthe crowd towards the altar, Fulviac and Yeoland in their midst.Fulviac mounted the steps, and drew the girl up beside him. Heuncovered his face to the mob with the gesture of a king uncovering tohis people.

  "Fulviac, Fulviac!"

  The press swayed suddenly like the black waters of a lake, stirred bythe rush of flood water through a broken dam. The ring of armed mengave up the shout with a sweeping of swords and a clangour of harness.The great cavern took up the cry, reverberating it from its thunderingvault. A thousand hands were thrust up, as of the dead rising from thesea.

  Yeoland watched the man's face with a mute kindling of enthusiasm. Asshe gazed, it beaconed forth a new dignity to her that she had neverseen thereon before. A sudden grandeur of strength glowed from itsweather-beaten features. The mouth and jaw seemed of iron; the eyeswere full of a stormy fire. It was the face of a man transfigured,throned above himself on the burning pinnacle of power. He toweredabove the mob like some granite god, colossal in strength, colossal incourage. His manhood flamed out, a watch-fire to the world.

  As the cry dwindled, the priest, who still kept his cowl down over hisface, held his crucifix on high, and broke into the strident cadence ofa rebel ballad. The people followed as by instinct, knowing the song ofold. Many hundred voices gathered strenuously into the flood, themassed roar rolling through the great crypt, echoing along the gallerieslike the sound of some subterranean stream. It was a deep chant and astirring, strong with the strength of the storm wind, fanatic as thesea.

  The silence that fell at the end thereof was the more solemn in contrastto the thundering stanzas of the hymn. Under the flare of the torches,Fulviac stood forward to turn the task from the crucifix to the sword.

  "Men of Gilderoy."

  A billow of cheering dashed again to the roof.

  "Fulviac, Fulviac!"

  The man suffered the cry to die into utter silence, before leaping intoa riot of words, a harangue that had more justification in it thanappeal. His voice filled the cavern with its volume and depth. It wasmore the voice of a captain thundering commands to a squadron of horsethan the declamatory craft of the orator. Fulviac knew the mob, thatthey were rough and turbulent, and loved a demagogue. Scholasticsubtleties could never fill their stomachs.

  "Men of Gilderoy, I come to you with the sword. Bombast, bombast, comehither all, I'll laden ye with devilry, puff you up with pride. Ha, whois for being strong, who for being master? Listen to me. Damnation anddeath, I have the kingdom in the palm of my hand. Liberty, liberty,liberty. We strike for the people. Geraint is ours; Gore is ours; allthe southern coast waits for the beacons. Malgo of the Mountain holdsthe west like a storm cloud under his cloak. The east raves against theKing. Good. Who is for the stronger side, for Fulviac, liberty, andthe people?"

  He halted a moment, took breath, quieted all clamour with a sweep of thehand, plunged on again like a great carrack buffeting tall billows.

  "Are there spies here? By God, let them listen well, and save theirskins. Go and tell what ye have heard. Set torch to tinder. Blood andfire, the country would be in arms before the King could stir. No, no,there are no spies in Gilderoy; we are all brothers here. By my sword,sirs, I swear to you, that before harvest tide, we shall sweep thenobles into the sea."

  A great shout eddied up to answer him. Fulviac's voice pierced it likea trumpet cry.

  "Liberty, liberty, and the people!"

  Sound can intoxicate as well as wine. The thunder of war, the bray ofclarions, can fire even the heart of the coward. The mob swirled aboutthe altar of black marble, vociferous and eager. Torches rocked to andfro in the cavern; shadows leapt grotesquely gigantic over the roughgroinings of the roof. Yet Fulviac had further and fiercer fuel for thefire. At a sign from him, the circle of armed men parted; two peasantsstumbled forward bearing a cripple in their arms. They carried him upthe steps and set him upon the altar before all the people, supportinghim as he stared round upon the sea of faces.

  He was a shrivelled being, yellow, black of eye, cadaverous. He lookedlike a man who had wallowed for years among toads in a pit, and hadbecome as one of them. His voice was cracked and querulous, as hebrandished a claw of a hand and screamed at the crowd.

  "Look at me, mates and brothers. Five years ago I was a tall man andlusty. I forbade the Lord of Margradel my wife. They racked andbranded me, tossed me into a stinking pit. I am young, young. I shallnever walk again."

  A woman rushed from the crowd, grey-haired, fat, and bloated. Sheclimbed the altar steps, and stretched out her hands in a kind of frenzytowards the people.

  "Look at me, men of Gilderoy. Last spring I had a daughter, a cleanwench as ever danced. Seek her from John of Brissac and his devils.Ha, good words these for a mother. Men of Gilderoy, remember yourchildren."

  Fulviac's pageant gathered grimly before the mob. A blind man totteredup and pointed to his sightless eyes. A girl held up an infant, and toldshrilly of its father's murder. One fellow displayed a tonguelessmouth; another, a face distorted by the iron; a third had lost nose andears; a fourth showed arms shrivelled and contracted by fire. It was asinister appeal, strong yet piteous. The tyranny of the age showed inthe bodies of these wronged and mutilated beings. They had been merecarrion tossed under the iron heel of power. The granite car ofruthless opulence and passion had crushed them under its reddenedwheels.

  At a gesture from Fulviac, the priest upon the steps threw back his cowland stood forward in the torchlight. His face was the face of a zealot,fanatical, sanguine, lined with an energy that was prophetic of power.His eyes smouldered under their straight black brows. His hands, whiteand bony, quivered as he stretched them out towards the people.

  They knew him on the instant; their clamour told as much. Often had theshadow of that thin figure fallen athwart the parched highways ofstricken cities. Often had those hands tended death, those lips smittenawe into the souls of the drunkard and the harlot.

  "Prosper, Prosper the Preacher!"

  There rang a rude, rough joy in the clamour that was spontaneous andeloquent. It was the heart's cry of the people, wild, trusting, andpassionate. Men and women broke through the circle of armed men, castthemselves upon the altar steps, kissed the friar's gown, and fawned onhim. He put them back with a certain awkward dignity, and a hot colourupon his almost boyish face. The man had a fine humility, though thestrenuous ideals of his soul ran in fire to the zenith.

  Anon he signed a benediction, and a hush descended on the place.

  "God's peace to you, people of Gilderoy!"

  The clamour revived.

  "Preach to us, preach to us!" came the cry.

  The friar stretched forth his hands; his voice rang strong and stridentover the packed upturned faces.

  "Children, what need have we of words! To-night have we not seen enoughto scourge the manhood in us, to bear forth the Holy Cross of war? Theevil beast is with us even yet; Mammon the Mighty treads you under foot.Ye saints, what cause more righteous since the martyrs fell? Look onthese scars, these wrongs, these agonies. Preach! I am dumb besidesuch witnesses as these."

  The crypt thundered to him when he lowered his hands. It was the cry ofmen bankrupt of liberty, thirsty for revenge. Fulviac grappled theclimax, and stood forward with uplifted sword. His lion's roar soundedabove the din.

  "Go, people of Gilderoy,
" he cried, "go--but remember. When castlesburn, and bolts scream, when spears splinter, and armies crash to thecharge, remember your children and your wrongs. Strike home for God,and for your liberty."