Love Among the Ruins

by Warwick Deeping

  XXXVIII

  The royal host had massed about the walls of Lauretia, and marchedsouthwards to surprise Fulviac at St. Gore. Half the chivalry of theland had gathered under the standard of the King. Sir Simon ofImbrecour had come in from the west with ten thousand spears and fivethousand bowmen. The Northerners under Morolt boasted themselvestwoscore thousand men, and there were the loyal levies of the midlandprovinces to march under "The Golden Sun" upon the south. Never hadsuch panoply of war glittered through the listening woods. Their marchwas as the onrush of a rippling sea; the noise of their trumpets as thecry of a tempest over towering trees.

  Chivalry, golden champion of beauty, had much to avenge, much toexpurgate. The peasant folk had plunged the land into ruin and red war.Castles smoked under the summer sky; the noble dead lay unburied in thehigh places of pride. To the wolf cry of the people there could be noanswer save the hiss of the sword. Before the high altar at Lauretia,the King had sworn on relics and the Scriptures, to deal such vengeanceas should leave the land cowering for centuries in terror of his name.

  Southwards from St. Gore there stretched for some fifteen leagues theprovince of La Belle Foret, a region of rich valleys and romantic woods,green and quiet under the tranquil sky. Its towns were mere gardens,smothered deep in flowers, full of cedars and fair cypresses. Itspeople were simple, happy, and devout. War had not set foot there fortwo generations, and the land overflowed with the good things of life.Its vineyards purpled the valleys; its pastures harboured much cattle.Its houses were filled with rich furniture and silks, chests laden withcloth of gold, caskets of gems, ambries packed with silver plate. Thegood folk of La Belle Foret had held aloof from the revolt.Peace-loving and content in their opulence, they had no fondness foranarchy and war.

  It was into this fair province that Fulviac led his arms on the marchsouth for Gilderoy and the great forest by the sea. Belle Foret,neutral and luxurious, was spoil for the spoiler, stuff for the sword.Plundering, marauding, burning, butchering, Fulviac's rebels pouredthrough like a host of Huns. Strength promised licence; there waslittle asceticism in the cause, though the sacred banner flew in the vanwith an unction that was truly pharisaical. From that flood of war, theprovincials fled as from a plague. It was Fulviac's policy to devastatethe land, to hinder the march of the royal host. Desolation spread likewinter over the fields; Fulviac's ravagers left ruin and despair and agreat silence to mark their track.

  The march became a bloody parable before three days had passed. Fulviachad taken burning faggots upon his back, and the iron collar of warweighed heavy on him that autumn season. It was a grim moral and aterrible. He had called up fiends from hell, and their antics mockedhim. Storm as he would, even his strong wrath was like fire licking atgranite. Death taunted him, and Murder rode as a witness at his side.The mob of mad humanity was like a ravenous sea, hungry, pitiless, andinsatiate. Even his stout heart was shocked by the bestial passions warhad roused. His men were mutinous to all restraint. Fight they wouldwhen he should marshal them; but for their lusts they claimed awolf-like and delirious liberty.

  Yeoland the Saint rode on her white horse through La Belle Foret, like apale ghost dazed by the human miseries of war. A captive, she hadsurrendered herself to Fate; her heart was as a sea-bird wearied by longbuffetings in the wind. There was no desire in her for life, no sparkof passion, no hope save for the sounding of a convent bell. Sheimagined calmly the face of death. Her grave stretched green and quietto her fancy, under some forest tree.

  Even her hebetude of soul gave way at last before the horrors of thatbloody march. She saw towns smouldering and flames licking the nightsky, heard walls crack and roofs fall with a roar and an uprushing offire. She saw the peasant folk crouching white and stupefied abouttheir ruined homes. She heard the cry of the children, the wailing ofwomen, the cracked voices of old men cursing Fulviac as he rode by. Shesaw the crops burnt in the fields; cattle slaughtered and their carcasesleft to rot in the sun.

  The deeds of those grim days moved in her brain with a vividness thatnever abated. War with all its ruthlessness, its devilry, its riotoushorror, burnt in upon her soul. The plash of blood, the ruin, thedespair, appalled her till she yearned and hungered for the end. Lifeseemed to have become a hideous purgatory, flaming and shrieking underthe stars.

  She appealed to Fulviac with the vehemence of despair. The man wasobdurate and moody, burdened by the knowledge that these horrors werebeyond him. His very impotence was bitterness itself to his strongspirit. In the silent passion of his shame, he buckled a sullen scornabout his manhood, scoffed and mocked when the woman pleaded. He waslike a Titan struggling in the toils of Fate, flinging forth scorn tomask his anguish. He had let war loose upon the land, and the riotmocked him like a turbulent sea.

  One noon they rode together through a town that had closed its gates tothem, and had been taken by assault. On the hills around stood thesolemn woods watching in silence the scene beneath. Corpses stiffenedin the gutters; children shrieked in burning attics. By the cross inthe market-square soldiers were staving in wine casks, the split leesmingling with the blood upon the cobbles. Ruffians rioted in thestreets. Lust and violence were loose like wolves.

  Fulviac clattered through the place with Yeoland and his guards, a towerof steel amid the reeking ruins. He looked neither to the right handnor the left, but rode with set jaw and sullen visage for the southerngate, and the green quiet of the fields. His tawny eyes smoulderedunder his casque; his mouth was as stone, stern yet sorrowful. He spokenever a word, as though his thoughts were too grim for the girl's ears.

  Yeoland rode at his side in silence, shivering in thought at the scenesthat had passed before her eyes. She was as a lily whose pure petalsquailed before the sprinkling plash of blood. Her soul was of toodelicate a texture for the rude blasts of war.

  She turned on Fulviac anon, and taunted him out of the fulness of herscorn.

  "This is your crusade for justice," she said to him; "ah, there is acurse upon us. You have let fiends loose."

  He did not retort to her for the moment, but rode gazing into the gildedglories of the woods. Even earth's peace was bitter to him at thatseason, but bitterer far was the woman's scorn.

  "War is war," he said to her at last; "we cannot leave the King fatlarders."

  "And all this butchery, this ruin?"

  "Blame war for it."

  "And brutal men."

  "Mark you," he said to her, with some deepening of his voice, "I am nogod; I cannot make angels of devils. The sea has risen, can I cork it ina bottle, or tie the storm wind up in a sack? Give me my due. I amhuman, not a demi-god."

  She understood his mood, and pitied him in measure, for he had a burdenon his soul sufficient for a Hercules. His men were half mutinous; theywould fight for him, but he could not stem their lusts. He was as astout ship borne upon the backs of riotous waves.

  "Well would it have been," she said, "if you had never raised thisstorm."

  "It is easy to be wise at the eleventh hour," he answered her.

  "Can you not stay it even now?"

  "Woman, can I stem the sea!"

  "The blood of thousands dyes your hands."

  He twisted in the saddle as though her words gored him to the quick.His face twitched, his eyes glittered.

  "My God, keep silence!"

  "Fulviac."

  "Taunt me no longer. Have I not half hell boiling in my heart?"

  Thus Fulviac and his rebels passed on spoiling towards Gilderoy and thesea, where Sforza lay camped with forces gathered from the south. Thegreat forest beckoned them; they knew its trammels, and hoped forstrategies therein. Like a vast web of gloom it proffered harbour to thewolves of war, for they feared the open, and the vengeful onrush of theroyal chivalry.

  Meanwhile, the armies of the King came down upon Belle Foret, a greathorde of steel. From its black ashes the country welcomed them with thedumb lips of death. Ruin and slaughte
r appealed them on the march; thesmoke of war ascended to their nostrils. Fierce was the cry forvengeance in the ranks, as the host poured on like a golden dawntreading on the dark heels of night.