XXVIII
Dawn climbing red over pinewoods piled on the hills; dawn optimistic yetominous, harbinger of war and such perils as set the heart leaping andthe blood afire; dawn that cried unto the world, "Better one burst ofheroism and then the grave, than a miserable monotony of nothingness, adomestic surfeiting of the senses with a wife and a fat larder."
Out of the east climbed the man on the stolen horse, riding out of thedawn with the lurid phantasms of the night still running riot in hisbrain. No sleep had smoothed the crumpled page, or touched the memorywith unguent to assuage the smart. Maledictions, vengeances, propheciesof fire and sword rushed with the red dawn over the hills.
With forty miles behind him, he came on his jaded, sweaty beast towardshis own castle of Gambrevault, forded his own stream, saw his millsgushing foam, heard the thunder of the weir. How eternally peacefuleverything seemed in the dewy amber light of the dawn! Away rolled thedowns, billows of glorious green, into the west. Gambrevault's towersrose against the blue; he saw the camp in the meadows; his own bannerblowing to the breeze.
The meadows that morning were quiet as a graveyard, as the Lord Flavianrode through to the great gate of Gambrevault. Soldiers idling about,stiffened up, saluted, stared in astonishment at the grim, morose-facedman, who rode by on a foundered horse, looking neither to the right handnor the left. He cut something of a figure, as though he had been in atavern brawl, and had spent the night snoring in a cow-house. Yet therewas an indescribable power and dignity in the tatterdemalion rider forall his tumbled look. The compressed lips, knotted brow, smoulderingeyes spoke of phenomenal emotions, phenomenal passions. Not a mancheered, and the silence was yet more eloquent than clamour. He rode inby the great gate, and parrying the blank glances and interrogations ofhis knights, called for two esquires, and withdrew to his own staterooms.
His first trouble was to acknowledge such necessities as hunger andcleanliness. He contrived to compass both at once, eating ravenouslyeven while he was in the bath. His next command was for his harness, andhis esquires armed him, agog for news, even waxing inquisitive, to besnubbed for their pains.
"Assemble my knights and gentlemen in the great hall," ran his order,and after praying awhile in his own private oratory, he passed down tojoin the assemblage, solemn and soul-burdened as a young Jove.
There is a certain vain satisfaction in being the possessor of somephenomenal piece of news, wherewith to astonish a circle of friends.The dramatic person blurts it out like a stage duke; the real epicurelets it filter through his teeth in fragments, watching with a twinklingsatisfaction its effect upon his hearers. The Lord Flavian'srevelations that morning were deliberate and gradual, leisurely in theextreme. Many a man waxes flippant or cynical when his feelings aredeep and sincere, and he is disinclined to bare his heart to the world.Flavian addressed his assembled knights with a certain stinted andpedantic courtliness; when they had warmed to his level, then he couldindulge his sympathies to the full. The atmosphere about those who waitto hear our experiences or opinions is often like cold water, somewhatrepellent till the first plunge has been tried.
"Gentlemen," he said, "I regret to inform you that the Abbot Porphyry,my uncle, is numbered with the saints."
So much for the first confession; it elicited a sympathetic murmur fromthose assembled, a very proper and respectable expression of feeling,but nothing passionate.
"I also have to inform you, with much Christian resignation, that SirJordan and Sir Kay, Malise, my page, and some twenty men-at-arms are inall human probability dead."
This time some glimmer of light pervaded the hall. There was stillmystification, silence, and an exchanging of glances.
"Finally, gentlemen, I may confess to you that a great insurrection isafoot in the land; that Gilderoy has declared against the King and thenobility; that the scum of a populace has made a great massacre of themagnates; that I, gentlemen, by the grace of God, have escaped to preachto you of these things."
A chorus of grim ejaculations came from the knights and the captainsassembled. Astonishment, and emotions more durable, showed on everyface. Flavian gained heat, and let his tongue have liberty; at the endof ten minutes of fervid oratory, the men were as wise as their lord andevery wit as vicious. Gilderoy had signalised her rising in blood; mobrule had been proclaimed; the peasantry and townsfolk had thrown downthe glove to the nobles. These were bleak, plain facts, that touched tothe quick the men who stood gathered in the great hall of Gambrevault.Not a sword was in its scabbard when Modred's deep voice gave the cry--
"God and St. Philip--for the King."
Then like a powder bag flung into a fire came the news of the stormingand wrecking of Avalon. A single man-at-arms had escaped the slaughter,escaped by crawling down an offal shoot and hiding till the rebelsevacuated the place and marched under cover of night for Geraint. Theman had crept out and fled on foot from the stricken place forGambrevault. It was a tramp of ten leagues, but he had stuck to itthrough the night like a Trojan, and, knowing the road well, had reachedGambrevault before the sun was at noon. They brought him before Flavianand the rest, fagged to the fifth toe, and hardly able to stand. Hetold the whole tale, as much as he knew of it, in a blunt yet dazed way.His senses appeared numbed by the deeds that had been done that night.
Flavian leant back in his escutcheoned chair, and gnawed at his lip.This last thrust had gone home more keenly than the rest. That castleof lilies, Avalon the fair, was but a friend of wood and stone, yet afriend having wondrous hold upon his heart. He had been born there, andunder the shadows of its towers his mother had taken her last sacrament.Men can love a tree, a cottage, a stream; Flavian loved Avalon as beingthe temple of the unutterable memories of the past. Desolation andruin! Bertrand, his old master at arms, slain! He sprang up like anAchilles with the ghost of Patroclus haunting his soul.
"Gentlemen, shall these things pass? Hear me, God and the world, hearmy oath sworn in this my castle of Gambrevault. May I never rest tillthese things are reprieved in blood, till there are too few men to burythe dead. Though my walls fall, and my towers totter, though I win ruinand a grave, I swear by the Sacrament to do such deeds as shall ring andresound in history."
So they went all of them together, and swore by the body and blood ofthe Lord to take such vengeance as the sword alone can give to the hotpassions of mankind.
That noon there was much stir and life in Gambrevault. The camp hummedlike a wasp's nest when violence threatens; the men were ready to run toarms on the first sounding of the trumpet. Armourers and farriers wereat work. Flavian had sent out two companies of light horse toreconnoitre towards Gilderoy and Geraint. They had orders not to drawrein till they had sure view of such rebel voices as were on the march;to hang on the horizon; to watch and follow; to send gallopers toGambrevault; on no account to give battle. Companies were despatched todrive in the cattle from the hills, and to bring in fodder. TheGambrevault mills were emptied of flour, and burnt to the ground, inview of their being of use to the rebels in case of a siege. Certaincottages and outhouses under the castle walls were demolished to leaveno cover for an attacking force. The cats, tribocs, catapults, andbombards upon the battlements were overhauled, and cleared for a siege.
Towards evening, human wreckage began to drift in from the country,bearing lamentable witness to the thoroughness of Fulviac'sincendiarism. Gambrevault might have stood for heaven by the strangescattering of folk who came to seek its sanctuary. Fire and sword wereabroad with a vengeance; cottars, borderers, and villains had risen inthe night; treachery had drawn its poniard; even the hound had snappedat its master's hand.
Many pathetic figures passed under the great arch of Gambrevault gatethat day. First a knight came in on horseback, a baby in his arms, anda woman clinging behind him, sole relics of a home. Margaret, thegrey-haired countess of St. Anne's, was brought in on a litter by a fewfaithful men-at-arms; her husband and her two sons were dead. YoungProsper
of Fountains came in on a pony; the lad wept like a girl whenquestioned, and told of a mother and a sire butchered, a home sacked andburnt. There were stern faces in Gambrevault that day, and looks moreeloquent than words. "Verily," said Flavian to Modred the Strong, "weshall have need of our swords, and God grant that we use them to goodpurpose."
So night drew near, and still no riders had come from the companies thathad ridden out to reconnoitre towards Gilderoy and Geraint. Flavian hadhad a hundred duties on his hands: exercising his courtesy to therefugees, condoling, reassuring; inspecting the defences and the siegetrain; superintending the victualling of the place. He had ordered histroops under arms in the meadows, and had spoken to them of what hadpassed at Gilderoy, and what might be looked for in the future. Thereseemed no lack of loyalty on their part. Flavian had ever been amagnanimous and a generous overlord, glad to be merciful, and nolibertine at the expense of his underlings. His feudatories were boundto him by ties more strong than mere legalities. They cheered himloudly enough as he rode along the lines in full armour, with fiftyknights following as his guard.
Night came. Outposts had been pushed forward to the woods, and a strongpicket held the ford across the river. On the battlements guards went toand fro, and clarions parcelled out the night, and rang the changes. Inthe east there was a faint yellowish light in the sky, a distant glareas of a fire many miles away. In the camp men were ready to fly to armsat the first thunder of war over the hills.
Flavian held a council in the great hall, a council attended by all hisknights and captains. They had a great map spread upon the table, achart of the demesnes of Gambrevault and Avalon, and the surroundingcountry. Their conjectures turned on the possible intentions of therebels, whether they would venture on a campaign in the open, or liesnug within walls and indulge in raids and forays. And then--as to theloyalty of their own troops? On this point Flavian was dogmatic, havinga generous and over-boyish heart, not quick to credit others withtreachery.
"I would take oath for my own men," he said; "their fathers have servedmy fathers; I have never played the tyrant; there is every reason totrust their loyalty."
An old knight, Sir Tristram, had taken a goodly share in the debate, aveteran from the barons' wars, and a man of honest experience, no merepantaloon. His grey beard swept down upon his cuirass; his deep-seteyes were full of intelligence under his bushy brows; the hands thatwere laid upon the table were clawed and deformed by gout.
"Gentlemen," he said, "I have not the fitness and youth of many of you,but I can lay claim to some wisdom in war. To my liege lord, whom,sirs, I honour as a man of soul, I would address two proverbs. First,despise not, sire, your enemies."
Modred laughed in his black beard.
"Reverence the scum of Gilderoy?"
"Ha, man, if we are well advised, these folk have been breathed upon byfanaticism. I tell you, I have seen a meanly-born crowd make a verystubborn day of it with some of the best troops that ever saw service.Secondly, sire, I would say to you, turn off your mercenaries if the skylooks black; never trust your neck to paid men when any great perilthreatens."
Flavian, out of his good sense, agreed with Tristram.
"Your words are weighty," he said. "So long as we are campaigning, Iwill pay them well and keep them. If it comes to a siege, I will haveno hired bravos in Gambrevault. And now, gentlemen, it is late; getwhat sleep you may, for who knows what may come with the morrow. Modredand Geoffrey, I leave to you the visiting of the outposts to-night.Order up my lutists and flute-players; I shall not sleep without asong."
He passed alone to the outer battlements, and let the night expand abouthis soul, the stars touch his meditations. From the minstrels' galleryin the hall came the wail of viols, the voices of flute, dulcimer andbassoon keeping a mellow under-chant. He heard the sea upon the rocks,saw it glimmering dimly to end in a fringe of foam.
So his thoughts soared to the face of one woman in the world, the goldenEve peering out of Paradise, whose soul seemed to ebb and flow like themoan of the distant music. He fell into deep forecastings of thefuture. He remembered her words to him, her mysterious warnings, herinexplicable inconsistencies, her appeal to war. Gilderoy had taught himmuch, and some measure of truth shone like a dawn spear in the east. Agulf of war and vengeance stretched from his feet. Yet he let his soulcircle like a golden moth about the woman's beauty, while the wail ofthe viols stole out upon his ears.
Love Among the Ruins Page 28