Love Among the Ruins

by Warwick Deeping

  XII

  Fulviac passed away that morning into the forest, a shaft of red amidthe mournful glooms. Colour and steel streamed after him fantastically.The great cliff, silent and desolate, basked like a leviathan in thesun.

  Of the daylight and its crown of gold, the girl Yeoland had no deep joy.When she had ended her passion over the blazoned pages of her breviary,and mopped her tears with a corner of her gown, she rose to realism, andturned her mood to the cheating of the dues of time.

  The hours lagged with enough monotony to degenerate a saint; Yeoland wasvery much a woman. The night had left her a legacy of evil. She hadshadows under her eyes, and a constant swirl of thoughts within herbrain that made solitude a torture-house, full of prophetic pain. Therewas her lute, and she eschewed it, seeing that her fingers seemed asice. As for her embroidery, the stitches wandered haphazard, wroughtgrotesque things, or lost all method in a stupor of sloth. She threwthe banner aside in a fume at last, and let her broodings have theirway.

  The forenoon crawled, like a beggar on a dusty high-road in the welt ofAugust. Time seemed to stand and mock her. Hour by hour, she wastortured by the vision of steel falling upon a strong young neck, of awhite face lying in a pool of blood, of a dripping carcase and asweating sword. Though the vision maddened her, what could her weakhands do? The man was shackled, and guarded by men with whom she darednot tamper. Moreover, she remembered the last look in Fulviac's keeneyes.

  Towards evening she grew rabid with unrest, fled from the cave by thenorthern stair, and took sanctuary amid the tall shadows of the forest.The pine avenues were ever like a church to her, solemn, stately,sympathetic as night. There was nought to anger, nought to bringdiscord, where the croon of the branches soothed like a song.

  It was as she played the nun in this forest cloister, that a strangethought challenged her consciousness under the trees. It was subtle,yet full of an incomprehensible bitterness, that made her heart hasten.Even as she considered it, as a girl gazes at a jewel lying in her palm,the charm flashed magic fire into her eyes. This victim for the swordlay shackled to the wall in the great guard-room. She would go andsteal a last glance at him before Fulviac and death returned.

  Stairway, bower, and gallery were behind her. She stood in Fulviac'sparlour, where the lamp burnt dimly, and harness glimmered on the walls.The door of the room stood ajar. She stole to it, and peered throughthe crack left by the clumsy hingeing, into the lights and shadows ofthe room beyond.

  At the lower end of a long table the two guards sat dicing, sprawlinggreedily over the board, the lust of hazard writ large in their looks.The dice kept up a continuous patter, punctuated by the intent growls ofthe gamesters. By the sloping wall of the cavern, palleted on a pile ofdirty straw, lay the Lord Flavian of Gambrevault, with his handsshackled to a staple in the rock. He lay stretched on his side, withhis back turned towards the light, so that his face was invisible to thegirl behind the door.

  She watched the man awhile with a curious and dark-eyed earnestness.There was pathos in the prostrate figure, as though Hezekiah-like theman had turned to the bare rock and the callous comfort despair couldgive. Once she imagined that she saw a jerking of the shoulders, thathinted at something very womanish. The thought smote new pity into her,and sent her away from the cranny, trembling.

  Yeoland withdrew into Fulviac's room, and thence into the murk of thegallery leading to her bower. A sudden sense of impotence had floodedinto her heart; she even yearned for some shock of Fate that might breakthe very bonds that bound her to her vengeance, as to a corpse. On thethreshold of her room, a sudden sound brought her to a halt like a handthrust out of the dark to clutch her throat. She stood listening, likea miser for thieves, and heard much.

  A curse came from the guard-room, the crash of an overturned bench, thetingling kiss of steel. She heard the scream as of one stabbed, asmothered uproar, an indiscriminate scuffling, then----silence. Shestood a moment in the dark, listening. The silence was heavy andimplacable as the rock above. Fear seized her, a lust to know theworst. She ran down the gallery into Fulviac's room. The door wasstill ajar; she thrust it open and entered the great cavern.

  Her doubts elapsed in an instant. At the long table, a man sat with hishead pillowed on his arms. A red rivulet curled away over the board,winding amid the drinking horns, isleting the dice in its course. Onthe floor lay the second guard, a smudge of crimson oozing from his greydoublet, his arms rigid, his hands clawing in the death-agony. At theend of the table stood the Lord Flavian of Gambrevault, free.

  Three cubits of steel had tangled the plot vastly in the passing of aminute. The climax was like a knot of silk thrust through with a sword.The two stood motionless a moment, staring at each other across thelength of the table, like a couple of mutes over a grave. The man wasthe first to break the silence.

  "Madame," he said, with a certain grand air, and a flippant gesture,"suffer me to condone with you over the lamentable tricks of Fortune.But for gross selfishness on my part, I should still be chasteningmyself for the unjust balancing of our feud. God wills it, seemingly,that I should continue to be your debtor."

  Despite her woman's wit, the girl was wholly puzzled how to answer him.She was wickedly conscious in her heart of a subtle gratitude to Heavenfor the sudden baulking of her malice. The man expected wrath from her,perhaps an outburst of passion. Taking duplicity to her soul, she stoodforward on the dais and tilted her chin at him with dutiful defiance.

  "Thank my irresolution, messire," she said, "for this reprieve offortune."

  He came two steps nearer, as though not unminded to talk with her inopen field.

  "At dawn I might have had you slain," she continued, with some hasteningof her tongue; "I confess to having pitied you a little. You are young,a mere boy, weak and powerless. I gave you life for a day."

  The man reddened slightly, glanced at the dead men, and screwed hismouth into a dry smile.

  "Most harmless, as you see, madame," he said. "For your magnanimity, Ithank you. _Deo gratias_, I will be as grateful as I may."

  She stood considering him out of her dark, long-lashed eyes. The manwas good to look upon, ruddy and clean of lip, with eyes that staredstraight to the truth, and a pose of the head that prophesied spirit.The sunlight of youth played sanguine upon his face; yet there was alsoa certain shadow there, as of premature wisdom, born of pain. Therewere faint lines about the mouth and eyes. For all its sleek and ruddycomeliness, it was not the face of a boy.

  "Messire," she said to him at last.

  "Madame."

  "He who lurks over long in the wolf's den may meet the dam at the door."

  He smiled at her, a frank flash of sympathy that was not devoid ofgratitude.

  "Haste would be graceless," he said to her.

  "How so?" she asked him.

  "Ha, Madame Yeoland, have I not watched my arms at night before the highaltar at Avalon? Have I not sworn to serve women, to keep troth, and tolove God? You judge me hardly if you think of me as a butcher and amurderer. For the death of your kinsfolk I hold myself ashamed."

  There was a fine light upon his face, a power of truth in his voice thatwas not hypocritic. The girl stared him over with a certain criticalearnestness that boasted a gleam of approval.

  "Fair words," she said to him; "you did not speak thus to me last eve."

  "Ah!" he cried, beaming on her, "I was cold as a corpse; nor could Iwhine, for pride."

  "And your shackles?"

  He laughed and held up both hands; the wrists were chafed and bloody.

  "It was ever a jest against me," he said, "that I had the hands of awoman, white and meagre, yet strong with the sword. Your fellows thrusta pair of wristlets on me fit for a Goliath, strong, but bulky. Myhands have proved my salvation. I pulled them through while the guardsdiced, crept for a sword, gained it, and my freedom."

  She nodded, and was not markedly dismal, though the wind had veeredagai
nst her cause. The man with the grey eyes was a being one could notquarrel with with easy sincerity. Probably it did not strike her at themoment that this friendly argument with the man she had plotted to slaywas a contradiction worthy of a woman.

  The Lord of Avalon meanwhile had drawn still nearer to the girl upon thedais. His grey eyes had taken a warmer lustre into their depths, asthough her beauty had kindled something akin to awe in his heart. Heset the point of the sword on the floor, his hands on the hilt, andlooked up at the white face medallioned in the black splendour of itshair.

  "Madame," he said very gravely, "it is the way of the world to feelremorse when such an emotion is expedient, and to fling penitence intothe bottomless pit when the peril is past. I shall prove to you thatmine is no such April penitence. Here, on the cross of my sword, Iswear to you a great oath. First, that I will build a chapel inCambremont glade, and establish a priest there. Secondly, I willrebuild the tower, refit it royally, attach to it cottars and borderersfrom mine own lands. Lastly, mass shall be said and tapers burnt foryour kinsfolk in every church in the south. I myself will do suchpenance as the Lord Bishop shall ordain for my soul."

  The man was hotly in earnest over the vow--red as a ruby set in the sun.Yeoland looked down upon him with the glimmer of a smile upon her lipsas he kissed the cross of the sword.

  "You seem honest," she said to him.

  "Madame, on this sword I swear it. It is hard to believe any good of anenemy. Behold me then before you as a friend. There is a feud betwixtus, not of my willing. By God's light I am eager to bridge the gulf andto be at peace."

  She shook her head and looked at him with a sudden mysterious sadness.Such a pardon was beyond belief, the man's pure ardour, nothing but seedcast upon sand. Fulviac, a tower of steel, seemed to loom beyond him--aniron figure of Fate, grim and terrible.

  "This can never be," she said.

  His eyes were honestly sorrowful.

  "Is madame so implacable?"

  "Ah!" she said, "you do not understand me."

  He stood a moment in thought, as though casting about in his heart forthe reason of her sternness. Despite her wrongs, he was assured by somespirit voice that it was not death that stalked betwixt them like anangel of doom. As he stood and brooded, a gleam of the truth flashed inupon his brain. He went some steps back from her, as though destinydecreed it that they should sever unabsolved.

  "Your pardon, madame," he said to her; "the riddle is plain to me. I nolonger grope into the dark. This man, here, is your husband."

  She went red as a rose blushing on her green throne at the coming of thedawn.

  "Messire."

  "Your pardon."

  "Ah, I am no wife," she said to him. "God knows but for this man Ishould be friendless and without home. He has spread honour and chivalrybefore my feet like a snow-white cloak. Even in this, my godlessvengeance, he has served me."

  The man strode suddenly towards the dais, with his face turned up tohers. A strange light played upon it, half of passion, half of pity.His voice shook, for all its sanguine strength.

  "Ah, madame, tell me one thing before I go."

  "Messire."

  "Have I your pardon?"

  "If you love life, messire, leave me."

  "Have I your pardon?"

  "Go! ere it is too late."

  Like a ghostly retort to her appeal came the sound of armed menthundering over the bridge. Their rough voices rose in the night'ssilence, smitten through with the clash and clangour of arms. Fulviachad caught John of Brissac's company in the woods by Gilderoy. There hadbeen a bloody tussle and much slaughter. Triumphant, they were at thegate with Prosper the Preacher in their midst.

  The pair in the cavern stared at each other with a mute appeal.

  "Fulviac," said the girl in a whisper.

  "The door!"

  "It is barred."

  They were silent and round-eyed, as children caught in the midst ofmischief. Mailed fists and pike staves were beating upon the gate. Ababel of impatience welled up without.

  "Adrian, Gregory!"

  "Lazy curs!"

  "Unbar, unbar!"

  Mocking silence leered in retort. Yeoland and the Lord of Avalon werestill as mice. The din slackened and waned, as though Fulviac's menwere listening for sound of life within. Then came more blows upon thegate; fingers fumbled at the closed grill. The man Gregory lay andstared at the rocky roof; Adrian sat with his face pooled by his ownblood.

  A fiercer voice sounded above the clamour. It was Fulviac's. The girlshivered as she stood.

  "Ho, there, Gregory, Adrian; what's amiss with ye?"

  Still silence, mocking and implacable. The lull held for the moment;then the storm gathered.

  "Break down the gate," roared the voice; "by God, we will see the bottomof this damned silence."

  The Lord Flavian of Avalon had stood listening with the look of a mancooped in a cavern, who hears the sea surging to his feet. He glancedat the dead guards, and went white. To save his soul from purgatory itbehoved him to act, and to act quickly. A single lamp still burnt inthe oratory of hope. He went near to the girl on the dais, and held upthe crossed hilt of his sword.

  "By the Holy Cross, mercy!"

  She cast a frightened glance into his eyes, and continued mute a moment.The thunder grew against the gate, the crash of steel, a rending dinthat went echoing into all the pits and passage-ways of the place.Fulviac's men had dragged the trunk of a fallen pine up the causeway,and were charging the gate till the timber groaned.

  The man, with his sword held like a crucifix, stood and pleaded with hiseyes.

  "Mercy!" he said; "you know this warren and can save me."

  "Are you a craven?"

  "Craven? before God, no, only desperate. What hope have I unharnessed,one sword against fifty?"

  For yet another moment she appeared irresolute, dazed by the vision ofFulviac's powerful wrath. He was a stark man and a terrible, and shefeared him. The timbers of the gate began to crack and gape. Flavianof Avalon lifted up his voice to her with a passionate outburst ofdespair.

  "God, madame, I cannot die. I am young, look at me, life is at itsdawn. By your woman's mercy, hide me. Give me not back to death."

  His bitter agitation smote her to the core. She looked into his eyes;they were hungry as love, and very piteous. There could be no sinningagainst those eyes. Great fear flooded over her like a green billow,bearing her to the inevitable. In a moment she was as hot to save himas if he had been her lover.

  "Come," she said, "quick, before the gate gives."

  She led him like the wind through Fulviac's parlour, and down thegallery to her own bower. It was dark and lampless. She groped to thepostern, fumbled at the latch and conquered it. Night streamed in. Shepushed the man out and pointed to the steps.

  "The forest," she said, "for your life; bear by the stars for thenorth."

  A full moon had reared her silver buckler in the sky. The night wassinless and superb, drowned in a mist of phosphor glory. The man kneltat her feet a moment, and pressed his lips to the hem of her gown.

  "The Virgin bless you!"

  "Go----"

  "I shall remember."

  He descended and disappeared where the trees swept up with wizardglimmerings to touch the cliff. When he had fled, Yeoland passed backinto the cavern, and met Fulviac before the splintered gate with a lieupon her lips.

  PART II