Love Among the Ruins

by Warwick Deeping

  XXXIV

  August came in with storm and rain, and a dreary wind blew from thesouth-west, huddling masses of cloud over a spiritless sky. Southwards,the sea tumbled, a grey expanse edged with foam, its great breakersbooming dismally upon the cliffs. The wind swept over Gambrevault,moaning and wailing over battlement and tower, driving the rain indrifting sheets. The bombards still belched and smoked under theirpenthouses, and the arms of the catapults rose and fell against thesullen sky.

  The eighteenth night of the siege came out of the east like a thunderbank, and the grey shivering ghost of the day fled over the westernhills. When darkness had fallen, the walls of Gambrevault wereinvisible from the trenches. Here and there a light shone out like aspark in tinder; the sky above was black as a cavern, unbroken by thecrack or cranny of a star.

  Flavian, fully armed, kept watch upon the breach with a strong companyof men-at-arms. He had taken the ugly measure of the night to heart,and had prepared accordingly. Under the shelter of the wall men slept,wrapped in their cloaks, with their weapons lying by them. Thesentinels had been doubled on the battlements, though little could beseen in the blank murk, and even the keep had to be looked for beforeits mass disjointed itself from the background of the night.

  It was treacherous weather, and just the season for an adventurous enemyto creep from the trenches and attempt to rush the breach. Flavianleant upon his long sword, and brooded. The black ends of the brokenwall stood up hugely on either hand; rubble and fallen masonry paved thebreach, and a rough rampart of debris had been piled along the summit.Around him shone the dull armour of his men, as they stood on guard inthe rain.

  The storm deadened soul and body, yet kept Flavian vigilant with itsboisterous laughter, a sound that might stifle the tramp of stormerspouring to the breach. He was not lonely, for a lover can do withoutthe confidences of others, when he has a woman to speak with in hisheart. In fancy he can lavish the infinite tenderness of the soul,caress, quarrel, kiss, comfort, with all the idealisms of theimagination. The spirit lips we touch are sweeter and more red thanthose in the flesh. To the true man love is the grandest asceticism theworld can produce.

  Flavian's figure straightened suddenly as it leant bowed in thought uponthe sword. He was alert and vigilant, staring into darkness thatbaffled vision and hid the unknown. A dull, characterless sound was inthe air. Whether it was the wind, the sea, or something more sinister,he could not tell. Calling one of his knights to his side, they stoodtogether listening on the wreckage of the wall.

  A vague clink, clink, came in discord to the wind, a sound thatsuggested the cautious moving of armed men. A hoarse voice was growlingwarily in the distance, as though giving orders. The shrilling noise ofsteel grew more obvious each moment; the black void below appeared togrow full of movement, to swirl and eddy like a lagoon, whose muddywaters are disturbed by some huge reptile at night. The sudden hoarsecries of sentinels rose from the walls. Feet stumbled on the debris atthe base of the breach; stormers were on the threshold of Gambrevault.

  A trumpet blared in the entry; the guard closed up on the rampart;sleeping men started from the shadows of the wall, seized sword andshield as the trumpets' bray rang in their ears. Colgran's stormers,discovered in their purpose, cast caution to the winds, and sent up ashout that should have wakened all Gambrevault.

  In the darkness and the driving rain, neither party could see much ofthe other. The stormers came climbing blindly up the pile of wreckagein serried masses. Flavian and his knights, who held the rampart, bigmen and large-hearted, smote at the black tide of bodies that rolled totheir swords. It was grim work in the dark. It was no sleepy,disorderly rabble that held the breach, but a tense line of steel, thatstemmed the assault like a wall. The stormers pushed up and up, tobreak and deliquesce before those terrible swords. Modred's deep voicesounded through the din, as he smote with his great axe, blows thatwould have shaken an oak. There was little shouting; it was breathlesswork, done in earnest. Colgran's men showed pluck, fought well, left arampart of dead to their credit, a squirming, oozing barrier, but cameno nearer forcing the breach.

  They had lost the propitious moment, and the whole garrison was underarms, ready to repulse the attacks made at other points. Scalingladders had been jerked forward and reared against the walls; menswarmed up, but the rebels gained no lasting foothold on thebattlements. They were beaten back, their ladders hurled down, masonrytoppled upon the mass below. Many a man lay with neck or back broken inthe confused tangle of humanity at the foot of the castle.

  Colgran ordered up fresh troops. It was his policy to wear out thegarrison by sheer importunity and the stress of numbers. He couldafford to lose some hundred men; every score were precious now toFlavian. It was a system of counter barter in blood, till the weakervessel ran dry. The Lord of Gambrevault understood this roughphilosophy well enough, and husbanded his resources. He could notgamble with death, and so changed his men when the opportunity offered,to give breathing space to all. Conscious of the strong stimulus ofpersonal heroism, he kept to the breach himself, and fought on throughevery assault with Modred's great axe swinging at his side. He owed hislife more than once to those gorilla-like arms and that crescent ofsteel.

  In the outer court, certain of the women folk with Yeoland dealt outwine and food, and tended the wounded. In the chapel, tapers glimmered,lighting the frescoes and the saints, the priest chanting at the altar,the women and children who knelt in the shadowy aisles praying for thosewho fought upon the walls. Panic hovered over the pale faces, the fear,the shivering, weeping, pleading figures. There was little heroism inGambrevault chapel, save the heroism of supplication. While swordstossed and men groped for each other in the wind and rain, old Peter thecellarer lay drunk in a wine bin, and lame Joan, who tended the linen,was snivelling in the chapel and fingering the gold angels sewn up inher tunic.

  Five times did Colgran's men assault the breach that night, each repulseleaving its husks on the bloody wreckage, its red libations to theswords of Gambrevault. The last and toughest tussle came during thegrey prologue before dawn. The place was so packed with the dead andstricken, that it was well-nigh impassable. For some minutes thestruggle hung precariously on the summit of the pass, but with the dawnthe peril dwindled and elapsed. The stormers revolted from the shambles;they had fought their fill; had done enough for honour; were sick andweary. No taunt, command, or imprecation could keep them longer in thatgate of death. Colgran's rebels retreated on their trenches.

  And with the dawn Flavian looked round upon the breach, and saw all thehorror of the place in one brief moment. Cloven faces, hacked bodies,distortions, tortures, blood everywhere. He looked round over his ownmen; saw their meagre ranks, their weariness, their wounds, theirexultation that lapsed silently into a kind of desperate awe. Sometried to cheer him, and at the sound he felt an unutterable melancholydescend upon his soul. The men were like so many sickly ghosts, a wanand battered flock, a ragged remnant. He saw the whole truth in amoment, as a man sees life, death, and eternity pass before him in theflashing wisdom of a single thought.

  And this was war, this cataclysm of insatiate wrath! His men were toofew, too bustled, to hold the breach against such another storm. Histrumpets blared the retreat, a grim and tragic fanfare. They draggedout their wounded, abandoned the pile of rubbish for which they hadfought, and withdrew sullenly within the inner walls. Colgran, thoughrepulsed, had taken the outer ward of Gambrevault.

  As one stumbling from a dream, Flavian found himself in the castlegarden. The place was full of the freshness that follows rain; and itwas not till the scent of flowers met him like an odour of peace, thathe marked that the sky was blue and the dawn like saffron. Thestorm-clouds had gone, and the wind was a mere breeze, a moist breathfrom the west, bearing a curious contrast to the furious temper of thenight.

  Flavian, looking like a white-faced debauchee, limped through the court,and climbed the stairway of the kee
p to the banqueting hall and his ownstate chambers. Several of his knights followed him at a distance and insilence. He felt sick as a dog, and burdened with unutterable care,that weighed upon him like a prophecy. He had held the breach againstheavy odds, and he was brooding over the cost. There was honour in thesheer physical heroism of the deed; but he had lost old friends andtried servants, had sacrificed his outer walls; there was little causefor exultation in the main.

  He stumbled into the banqueting hall like a man into a tavern.

  "Wine, wine, for the love of God."

  A slim figure in green came out from the oriel, and a pair of dark eyesquivered over the man's grey face and blood-stained armour. The girl'shands went out to him, and she seemed like a child roused in the nightfrom the influence of some evil dream.

  "You are wounded."

  She took him by the arm and shoulder, and was able to force him into achair, so limp, so impotent, was he for the moment. His face had theuncanny pallor of one who was about to faint; his eyes stared at her ina dazed and wistful way.

  "My God, you are not going to die!"

  He shook his head, smiled weakly, and groped for her hand. She brokeaway, brought wine, and began to trickle it between his lips. Severalof his knights came in, and looked on awkwardly from the doorway at thegirl leaning over the man's chair, with her arm under his head. Yeolandcaught sight of them, coloured and called them forward.

  The man's faintness had passed. He saw Modred and beckoned him to hischair.

  "Take her away," in a whisper.

  Yeoland heard the words, started round, and clung to his hand. Therewas a strange look upon her face. Flavian spoke slowly to her.

  "Girl, I am not a savoury object, fresh from the carnage of a breach.Leave me to my surgeon. I would only save you pain. As for dying, Ifeel like an Adam. Go to your room, child; I will be with you beforelong."

  She held both his hands, looked in his eyes a moment, then turned awaywith Modred and left him. She was very pale, and there was a tremorabout her lips.

  Irrelevant harness soon surrendered to skilled fingers. No great evilhad been done, thanks to the fine temper of Flavian's armour; the fewgashes, washed, oiled, and dressed, left him not seriously the worse forthe night's tussle. Wine and food recovered his manhood. He wasbarbered, perfumed, dressed, and turned out by his servants, a veryhandsome fellow, with a fine pallor and a pathetic limp.

  His first care was to see his own men attended to, the wounded properlybestowed, a good supply of food and wine dealt out. He had a brave wordand a smile for all. As he passed, he found Father Julian the priestadministering the Host to those whose dim eyes were closing upon earthand sky.

  Modred, that iron man, who never seemed weary, was stalking thebattlements, and getting the place prepared for the next storm thatshould break. Flavian renounced responsibilities for the moment, andcrossed the garden to Yeoland's room. He entered quietly, looked abouthim, saw a figure prostrate on the cushions of the window seat.

  He crossed the room very quickly, knelt down and touched the girl'shair. Her face was hidden in the cushions. She turned slowly on herside, and looked at him with a wan, pitiful stare; her eyes were timid,but empty of tears.

  "Ah, girl, what troubles you?"

  She did not look at him, though he held her hands.

  "Are you angry with me?"

  "No, no."

  "What is it, then?"

  She spoke very slowly, in a suppressed and toneless voice.

  "Will you tell me the truth?"

  He watched her as though she were a saint.

  "I have had a horrible thought in my heart, and it has wounded me todeath."

  "Tell it me, tell it me."

  "That you had repented all----"

  "Repented!"

  "Of all the ruin I am bringing upon you; that you were beginning tothink----"

  He gave a deep cry.

  "You believed that!"

  She lay back on the cushions with a great sigh. Flavian had his armsabout her, as he bent over her till their lips nearly touched.

  "How could you fear!"

  "I am so much a woman."

  "Yes----"

  "And something is all the world to me, even though----"

  "Well?"

  "I would die happy."

  He understood her whole heart, and kissed her lips.

  "Little woman, I had come here to this room to ask you one thing more.You can guess it."

  "Ah----"

  "Father Julian."

  She drew his head down upon her shoulder, and he knelt a long while insilence, with her bosom rising and falling under his cheek.

  "I am happy," he said at last; "child-wife, child-husband, let us gohand in hand into heaven."