Joris twitched the canvas from the hole above the cowshed door, and lay with his ragged beard cupped in his hands, gazing down at the worn threshhold stone and the sun-drenched cobbles beyond it; and Dort raised a genial hail of welcome to the one-legged newcomer.
"Ho, Gleeman Ingolard, are you here in time for our harvest home?"
"That I am," came the silvery piping answer, "since none on my way could be found to swear that I am Joris of the Rock."
"Bah, that folly! They will never catch the knave alive."
"True, Dodart – not though they shear and comb the heather as if the fells were sheep's fells. But why are you not in the fields to-day?"
"I am the hayward now, bending my bow by night instead of my back by day. But I take a turn at the threshing when it comes. Now sit you down awhile; it needs two hours until gleaning time is over."
"Gladly. Nay, the montoir is too high for me."
Ingolard swung into the outlaw's sight, turning in the doorway below and shifting grip on his crutches to slide deftly into a sitting posture, with back against the doorpost, stump sticking straight ahead, and thin white curls the brighter for the faded scarlet hood and multiplicity of patched and tattered tunics beneath it.
"Are you from Rambard?" asked Dodart.
"Ay," said the silvery voice. "A league on such a day is worth three in a frost. Phew! It is good to be still."
"How have you fared of late?"
"Times are hard – as Adam was wont to say, and as that man will be saying whose voice is quenched by the Doom Trumpet. There are still those who lend an ear to tales of love and war. Nor do I grudge a yawn in the midst if they part with a coin at the end. But war in these parts is a stale delight, and love is more easily come by now than in the winter evenings."
"Brr! Keep your winter evenings!"
"I hope to, Dodart, for another year or two. Ay, times are hard – although I did well enough at Hastain Midsummer Fair."
Hastain Midsummer Fair! Joris counted the years since Ingolard sold him runes by the limestone market cross and made them eighteen.
"I was there once," said Dodart. "I watched the archery all day. Good work, by the Mass!"
"Ay. Time was when I fancied my shooting. And even now contentment pricks my very bones to see the quiver of a clothyard shaft in the bull's eye."
"Ingolard, where lies your other leg?"
"Three leagues across the frontier, beyond Volsberghe."
"Lost in battle?"
"Ay, if you call it battle. Volsberghe – the late constable, I mean – raided the Gothmark forty years gone by. I was a foolish clerk with a mind for war. ON our way back the saucy Gothmarkers took heart; it seemed they did not like our just and gentle raid. It was midsummer, hotter than to-day; our wagons laboured in dry water courses, and a mule was struck by an arrow, and screamed so that I yet can hear it, and overturned a wagon laden with wine. My leg was under the wheel when it came to rest. Monks hauled me out as I lay in a swoon. Their infirmarian had my crushed bones off me before I woke therefrom. He was greatly addicted to surgery, and bartered a cask of the recaptured wine for my poor carcass; else I had died with the rest who fell by the way. Very seldom do I tell that tale, and never for gain. Most men and many women had rather you were butchered than befriended by the enemy."
The gleeman's voice, still musical, had sunk a tone or two as though bells of silver had become bells of bronze. Joris listened, half lulled and half contemptuous; no doubt this crippled manikin must have his hours of candour like any other.
"What is your farthest journey nowadays?" asked Dodart after a pause.
"Hastain to Dunsberghe and back. Sometimes to the coast, and very seldom Belsaunt; for either way is very hilly, and I live not great hills, neither the going in them, nor their shape and shadow."
"Why, man, what ails the shape and shadow of a hill?"
"The memory of that dreadful day which saw its first uprising. Wind and sea are forever in motion, but the hills stand tranced and waiting. I would not be thereamong when Gabriel wakes them."
"Gleeman, you dote with monkish fancies."
"Maybe. But yonder, in the twilight" – Ingolard gestured eastward toward the higher uplands of Honoy – "I have seen the long woods crawl and hang upon the crests like the stark brood of Jormungand–"
"Nose of the Pope! Who was he?"
"The serpent that lay coiled beyond the ocean, the serpent that would one day rise and slay the gods. It is old foolish legend – the terror with which Satan smote the heathen. Yet when storm clouds veiled the height of Dondunor I, a good Christian according to my strength, have walked backward, watching until rooftree or stack or church tower should conceal them, fearing always lest they rise and show…"
"Show what?"
"I do not know. Lest they show That Which Is Among The Hills. Something is there which draws me and threatens. What it is I know not, save that it is not the Sieur God. I am no Moses; Canaan is not Nordanay."
"Perish your folly, gleeman. A hill is a hill, from which you may spy your quarry, or maybe your foeman. If whimsies such as these invade your stories, what wonder your purse goes empty?"
Ingolard laughed a tinkling laugh.
"Nay, Dodart," he rejoined, "I know you for a lad of discretion. Such whimsies are not allowed to interfere with life as it is lived in my romaunts. There is a balm for any woe, and sharp swords in the nick of time for every desperate occasion. Ay, time is nicked most gloriously for the contentment of my lords and ladies. Ho, I have dealt with Arthur Pendragon, with Paladin Roland and Theseus Duke of Athens, so that those heroes must have smiled in pains of Purgatory! True, when I first began I told what tales came in my head. But no, that would not do at all."
Ingolard chuckled and paused and then went on.
"Each has his dream of how life may be good, and if I pierce his dream my own will quicken it. Then a face lights up in the crowd, and I know why I was born. Also I learned very long ago to bend a story as I fashion it, so that most of my tales have endings two or three or four – for castle hall, for abbey guest house, for farmstead, and for tavern of the town. Many a lesson took Ingolard while he wetted his whistle with ale. To keep the sneer from the almoner's lips and the fog from the eyes of the swineherd – there is craft in the ploughing of that furrow. Or again, to stir the mirth in a priest, yet touch the chivalry in a man-at-arms – that chivalry which the strong use toward the weak who do not cross them."
Joris, listening above, found something distasteful in this do-nothing's claim to conjure with deeds impossible of his own bodily achievement. But Ingolard seemed intent on purging his mind, for an hour at least, of syrup by which he lived; and he practised voice ran mockingly on in comment and quotation.
" 'That is too grim for truth,' said one – too grim for truth, with the Franconian wars not five years ended. 'La, what a tide of gore,' quoth a maid. But if the fighting languished, a man would mutter; 'We know how winds go whistling and how the primrose blooms; when is the rogue to flesh his steel again?"
"So at it once more with sword and buckler, and for reward a goodwife's sigh: 'Mercy upon us, who would hear tell of such a brute?' Then: 'I,' spoke up her little husband in the corner. 'And I,' chirped a boy whose bedtime was forgotten. 'And I,' blew out the blacksmith, fingering his muscles with a grin.
"Why, if my chevalier should pause in slaughter or reveal compunction, there would be a voice to jeer: 'Bah, he was made for a monk, that one.' Thus it went on. Some would have dragons, which must infallibly perish; they were fools who knew not the dragon in their own beasts. Some – in the towns – would have witches to be merry old women on broomsticks; and never a witch must kiss the face beneath the Devil's tail. If truth be harsh, avoid it!
"Also there were the loftily ignorant, who drawled: 'Who is this Lancelot of the Lake?' As though to say: 'He could not be, since I have never heard of him.' Then again, there were those who wondered what manner of troll you were that had learned all these things; those wer
e they who pass blind and deaf and stupid through war and childbed, pestilence and famine.
"Eh, that reminds me of an anchoress near Volsberghe – a dear saintly soul, with whom I sometimes talked through the window of her cell. I, being young, let fall some heedless word concerning an archer who strode past us and doffed his cap. I knew him bound for a coppice where a bright-eyed girl waited; but still I treasure the gentle reproof that smote into my sinful ear: 'I would have you know, Master Ingolard, there is no wenching in this parish!'
"And her window upon the world was just a foot square…
"But most of all in my early days I learned to beware of the shepherd who, knowing each one of his twenty sheep apart, grumbled most vilely if more than six people came into any story. My hero wandered far from place to place? No matter, he must meet the same folk everywhere. He might have one or two lovers, one friend to talk to, and one enemy to kill. A king might command two courtiers, a queen two demoiselles, a captain two lieutenants – but all was dire confusion if the number grew to three.
"The fault lay partly in the telling, if partly in the thickness of the shepherd's skull; so although it went against my conscience I pared my tales to the bone. And still sometimes I saw the flame of a secret dream wake sweetly in the eye of Sixty or Sixteen. Or pride of guarded knowledge, or memory of joy and power…
"Ay, Dodart, you yawn. But I warrant you also know a thing or two that for strangeness or sorrow or laughter would well adorn any tale. Now, is it not so? Have you not listened to me or to another, thinking the while in your heart: 'Ah, but he does not know what I know about' – whatever it may be?"
Dodart chuckled, and Joris curled his lip to hear the flattering twist of talk recapture the youth's attention.
"Well, now you say–" blurted Dodart, and stopped importantly.
"Nay, do not tell me and be ashamed thereafter," chided the old man gently. "I have listened to queer things enough in my time, and do not seek to know any more."
"Ashamed to hell!" protested Dodart. "And it is not about myself, save that he lay in my cradle when I first learned to crawl. He whom they call the Sieur de Ath is not the Sieur de Ath at all, but the true heir's baseborn cousin, begotten in rape by Joris of the Rock. When the Jacques stormed the Tower of Ath my father, who was the miller there, rescued the one baby, and hid it till the end of the revolt, and said it was the other, and so saved his neck and the keeping of the mill. He and my mother died in a week of the sweating sickness; my father told me before he passed, in case knowledge should one day prove useful. Useful, by the Mass! Useful when I want to lose my ears!"
"Ay," agreed Ingolard placidly. "Such things are best forgotten. And as for the Tower of Ath, one lord is there if another is not. What became of the little sieur?"
"Barberghe had him in ward, but lent him to Ger before the war broke out. So he is page to Ger, I was told. Maybe squire by now. I never saw him. But is it not strange?"
"Yes."
Joris thought so too, as he lay motionless in the gloom above Ingolard's head. So there was " a boy in the hills, the son of Joris of the Rock."
But while the faint memory of that far-off violence stirred in him Dodart uttered his name again, and the pitiful wraith of Tiphaine was presently swept from his mind by a storm of emotion.
"Joris, too, is a bastard. Did ever you see him, Ingolard?"
"Not that I know of. They say he has the face and stature of the house of Montcarneau. No mistaking that in a crowd. Ay, there is often torment in the blood of noble bastards. Witness Conrad of Burias, God rest his traitor soul – for him I have seen, and he was as nobly dark as the king is nobly red…
"Dodart, hove you heard the prophecy made when Thorismund was born? It came from near Hastain, and it was a fair shot on the target, for I myself peddled it before the little prince was Duke of Hastain, and before the old king built the castle there."
"No. What was it?"
"Thus, in runes, if I rightly remember:
"Black and gold
Red shall hold.
"Gold and red
At hand are led,
"Yet separated
Till years be sped.
"Red shall sin
For black to grin;
"Black and red
In the same bed.
"Gold shall sunder
And black shall blunder;
"Red shall run
Ere all be done.
"Black shall be riven
And gold given
To red new-shriven."
"There! You follow the marvel of it?"
"I follow it not at all," was Dodart's grumpy confession. "What is it about, that tangle of red and black and gold?"
"Listen, and I will expound it, phrase by phrase. I knew the old seer who forecast it, and twenty years after his death I honour him afresh…
"Black and gold red shall hold. Red-haired Thorismund shall hold Hastain, whose ducal device became a golden portcullis on a sable field…
"Gold and red at hand are led, yet separated till years be sped. Thorismund was only a child when he first stood heir to the crown, but he had ten years to wait while Rene wore it…
"Red shall sin for black to grin. Black-haired Conrad encouraged his cousin in all demeanour unworthy of a prince…
"Black and red in the same bed – the bed of the Lady Yolande de Volsberghe. Her, too, I have observed, and by the Rood I blamed not her or either of the lads, for all were very fair to see. Then: Gold shall sunder and black shall blunder. The crown came between Thorismund and Conrad; and Conrad trusted Raoul of Ger.
"Red shall run ere all be done – and run it did, in torrents on the filed of Pont-de-Foy.
"Black shall be riven, and gold give to red new-shriven. Plain enough, is it not? And they say Thorismund spent two nights upon his knees before the crown was set on his red head, God bless and guard him!"
"Amen to your prayer," said Dodart, "but that was a very grand prophecy! Are you sure it is not made up since the great battle of June?"
"I am sure," replied Ingolard, scratching himself gravely.
"And I also am sure," thought Joris, trembling to a silent storm of mingled rage and laughter.
Anne was gone, and his men were gone, and his runes were proven a mockery. This miserable crutched maggot, this piping vendor of ghostly adventure, had fooled him as he fooled the silly country wenches at any fair in Basse Honoy. It was true that he, Joris, had not only imagined, but also carved with his sword, another interpretation to that jangle of rhymed couplets; it was true that Anne's face would have haunted him without the gleeman's assistance. But that his strength and purpose should have bowed to Ingolard's fantasy, to Ingolard's turning of a silver coin – it was not even now to be borne.
It should not be borne – but how to – ah, Dodart was moving.
"Time to cease talking of marvels," said Dodart. "I must get my horn and my bow. Wait you there, Ingolard; Flar will be coming soon."
"Wait you there, Ingolard," mocked Joris with silent intentness. "Dodart has heard your gleeman's confession; death will be coming soon."
Dodart's shuffling tread grew soft and died away. Joris lowered his breast to the sacking and reached out both hands to the corner beyond him. There had long lain three heavy flattish stones, of the sort used for weighting thatch. One he seized and softly drew to him; his body writhed to the effort, and a floor board creaked sharply beneath the altered strain.
Ingolard's white head moved, and the lips of Joris curved in a savage grin. He poised the stone over the hole, and spoke a hoarse summons.
"Ingolard! Gleeman Ingolard!"
The cripple started and turned where he sat, twisting aloft a brown and wrinkled and inquiring face.
"Yes?" he inquired, sharply. "What is it? Who are you?"
"That Which Is Among The Hills," laughed Joris, and dropped the heavy stone.
Then he reached for his sword belt, stuffed food into his wallet, looked at his hunting horn and slung it, snat
ched up his cloak, and tore at the trap to swing himself to the floor of the cowshed. Out rasped his sword; Dodart was coming back at a shambling trot. The blurred thump of stone on stone had punched a strange hole in the silence; one of Ingolard's brass-ferruled crutches had clattered in the cobbled roadway.
Dordart cried and pounded up to the door; Joris had no space for a blow, so sped a fierce thrust, and broke out between the collapsed bodies, tearing his weapon free and loping away into the thickets where Flar had found him.
Sweat sprang quickly to his face; his legs were stiff and weak with inaction, and his first score of footprints stamped the sand in red. A dog saw him and gave tongue, but drew near to the cowshed and fell suddenly silent. Fortune favoured the brave, and Joris was nearly a league away before the second gleaning bell heralded wild tumult in the little street of Gomblay.
Twice he waded along a stream, in case hounds should track him. Curled up in deep bracken, he slept a sleep of exhaustion, and only woke to blink at a sun already high in the heaven.
Having eaten, he climbed a beech tree, and made sure of his whereabouts. Deep forest was near, and half-wooded land lay between. Nevertheless he had now no bow, and foraging would be difficult. Also his muscles were lax and he soon tired of running; but he was still Joris, and he spent a pleasant moment or two nicking his hilt a ninth time in honour of Gleeman Ingolard.
That night he slipped over the Ververon road, crawling flatly across wayside clearings when clouds hid the harvest moon. Morning found him observing a gibbet from bushes by a crossroads; the dreadful thing that swung therefrom had certainly once been known as Madoc, and Joris grimaced and turned away, and found "The Lay of Fastingal" careering through his head:
Here spins he by the gallows-tree
Whom shadows long befriended,
Stiff and stark at the edge of dark
With all his cantrips ended.
For a moment Joris had a desolate picture of the past month in the hills – of the dwindling handfuls of hopeless fugitives, the tightening coils of famine and fire and steel, the mad breaks for safety, the baying and whooping and hallooing, the flurry in the heather, and the stoop or raven or hooded crow when the bright coats were gone. And he unslung his great horn with its mouthpiece of chased silver, and flung it into the next forest pool; no use to burden himself with that, for those whom it once summoned were past all rallying now.
Joris of the Rock [The Neustrian Cycle, Book II] (Forgotten Fantasy Library) Page 30