Beltane the Smith Part 47

"Lieth the goldsmith deep?"

"Above the water-dungeons, my lord."

"And she wept, say you? Methinks the goldsmith shall go free to-morrow!"

So saying, Sir Gui went on into the city, and as he went, his smile was back again, and his tongue curved red betwixt his lips. And presently the tall miller hoisted his burden and went on into the city also; turned aside down a narrow pa.s.sage betwixt gloomy houses, and so at last out into the square that hummed with a clamour hushed and expectant. But my lord Seneschal, unheeding ever, came unto a certain quiet corner of the square remote and shady, being far removed from the stir and bustle of the place; here he paused at an open doorway and turned to look back into the square, ruddy with sunset--a careless glance that saw the blue of sky, the heavy-timbered houses bathed in the warm sunset glow, the which, falling athwart the square, shone red upon the smock of a miller, who stooping 'neath his burden, stumbled across the uneven cobble-stones hard by. All this saw Sir Gui in that one backward glance; then, unheeding as ever, went in at the doorway and up the dark and narrow stair. But now it chanced that the miller, coming also to this door, stood a while sack on shoulder, peering up into the gloom within; thereafter, having set down his burden in stealthy fashion, he also turned and glanced back with eyes that glittered in the shadow of his hat: then, setting one hand within his smock, he went in at the door and, soft-footed began to creep up that dark and narrow stair. She sat in a great carven chair, her arms outstretched across the table before her, her face bowed low between, and the setting sun made a glory of her golden hair. Of a sudden she started, and lifting her head looked upon Sir Gui; her tears, slow-falling and bitter, staining the beauty of her face.

"My lord--ah, no!" she panted, and started to her feet.

"Dear and fair my lady--fear not. Strong am I, but very gentle--'tis ever my way with beauty. I do but come for my answer." And he pointed to a crumpled parchment that lay upon the table.

"O, good my lord," she whispered, "I cannot! If thou art gentle indeed --then--"

"He lieth above the water-dungeons, lady!" sighed Sir Gui.

"Ah, the sweet Christ aid me!"

"To-morrow he goeth to death, or lieth in those round, white arms.

Lady, the choice is thine: and I pray you show pity to thy husband who loveth thee well, 'tis said." Now hereupon she sobbed amain and fell upon her knees with arms outstretched in pa.s.sionate appeal--but lo! she spake no word, her swimming eyes oped suddenly wide, and with arms yet outstretched she stared and stared beyond Sir Gui in so much that he turned and started back amazed--to behold one clad as a dusty miller, a mighty man whose battered hat touched the lintel and whose great bulk filled the doorway--a very silent man who looked and looked with neck out-thrust, yet moved not and uttered no word. Hereupon Sir Gui spake quick and pa.s.sion-choked:

"Fool--fool! hence, thou blundering fool. For this shalt be flayed alive. Ha!--hence, thou dusty rogue!" But now this grim figure stirred, and lifting a great hand, spake hoa.r.s.e and low:

"Peace, knight! Hold thy peace and look!" The wide-eaved hat was tossed to the floor and Sir Gui, clenching his hands, would have spoken but the harsh voice drowned his words: "How, knight, thou that art b.l.o.o.d.y Gui of Allerdale! Dost thou not know me, forsooth? I am Waldron, whose father and mother and sister ye slew. Aye, Waldron of Brand am I, though men do call me Walkyn o' the Dene these days. Brand was a fair manor, knight--a fair manor, but long since dust and ashes--ha! a merry blaze wherein father and mother and sister burned and screamed and died--in faith, a roguish blaze! Ha! d'ye blench? Dost know me, forsooth?"

Then Sir Gui stepped back, drawing his sword; but, even so, death leapt at him. A woman, wailing, fled from the chamber, a chair crashed to the floor; came a strange, quick tapping of feet upon the floor and thereafter rose a cry that swelled louder to a scream--louder to a bubbling shriek, and dying to a groaning hiss, was gone.

And, in a while, Walkyn, that had been Waldron of Brand, rose up from his knees, and running forth of the chamber, hasted down the dark and narrow stair.

CHAPTER x.x.xVI

HOW THE FOLK OF BELSAYE TOWN MADE THEM AN END OF TYRANNY

The market-place was full of the stir and hum of jostling crowds; here were pale-faced townsfolk, men and women and children who, cowed by suffering and bitter wrong, spake little, and that little below their breath; here were country folk from village and farmstead near and far, a motley company that talked amain, loud-voiced and eager, as they pushed and strove to see where, in the midst of the square beyond the serried ranks of pike-men, a post had been set up; a ma.s.sy post, grim and solitary, whose heavy chains and iron girdle gleamed ominous and red in the last rays of sunset. Near by, upon a dais, they had set up a chair fairly gilded, wherein Sir Gui was wont to sit and watch justice done upon the writhing bodies of my lord Duke's enemies. Indeed, the citizens of Belsaye had beheld sights many and dire of late, wherefore now they blenched before this stark and grisly thing and looked askance; but to these country folk such things were something newer, wherefore they pushed and strove amid the press that they might view it nearer--in especial two in miller's hooded smocks, tall and l.u.s.ty fellows these, who by dint of shoulder and elbow, won forward until they were stayed by the file of Sir Gui's heavy-armed pikemen.

Thereupon spake one, close in his fellow's ear:--

"Where tarries Walkyn, think you?" said Beltane below his breath.

"Master, I know not--he vanished in the press but now--"

"And Eric?"

"He watcheth our meal-sacks. Shall I not go bid him strike flint and steel? The time were fair, methinks?"

"Not so, wait you until Sir Gui be come and seated in his chair of state: then haste you to bold Eric and, the sacks ablaze, shout 'fire;'

so will I here amid the press take up the cry, and in the rush join with ye at the gate. Patience, Roger."

And now of a sudden the throng stirred, swayed and was still; but from many a quivering lip a breath went up to heaven, a sigh--a whispered groan, as, through the shrinking populace, the prisoner was brought. A man of Belsaye he, a man strong and tender, whom many had loved full well. Half borne, half dragged betwixt his gaolers, he came on stumbling feet--a woeful shivering thing with languid head a-droop; a thing of noisome rags that told of nights and days in dungeon black and foul; a thing whose shrunken nakedness showed a mult.i.tude of small wounds, slow-bleeding, that spoke of teeth little yet vicious, bold with hunger in the dark; a miserable, tottering thing, haggard and pinched, that shivered and shook and stared upon all things with eyes vacant and wide.

And thus it was that Beltane beheld again Friar Martin, the white friar that had been a man once, a strong man and a gentle. They brought him to the great post, they clasped him fast within the iron band and so left him, shivering in his chains with head a-droop. Came the sound of m.u.f.fled weeping from the crowd, while high above, in sky deepening to evening, a star twinkled. Now in a while the white friar raised his heavy head and looked round about, and lo! his eyes were vacant no longer, and as folk strove to come more nigh, he spake, hoa.r.s.e-voiced and feeble.

"O children, grieve not for me, for though this body suffer a little, my soul doth sit serene. What though I stand in bonds, yet doth my soul go free. Though they burn my flesh to ashes yet doth my soul live on forever. So grieve not your hearts for me, my children, and, for yourselves, though ye be afflicted even as I--fear ye nothing--since I, that ye all do know for a truthful man, do tell ye 'tis none so hard to die if that our hearts be clean. What though ye suffer the grievous horror of a prison? Within the dark ye shall find G.o.d. Thus I amid the dreadful gloom of my deep dungeon did lie within the arms of G.o.d, nothing fearing. So, when the fire shall sear me, though this my flesh may groan, G.o.d shall reach down to me through smoke and flame and lift my soul beyond. O be ye therefore comforted, my children: though each must die, yet to the pure in heart death is none so hard--"

Thus spake Friar Martin, shivering in his bonds, what time the crowd rocked and swayed, sobbing aloud and groaning; whereat Sir Gui's pikemen made l.u.s.ty play with their spear-shafts.

Then spake Beltane, whispering, to Roger, who, sweating with impatience, groaned and stared and gnawed upon his fingers:

"Away, Roger!" And on the instant Roger had turned, and with brawny shoulders stooped, drove through the swaying press and was gone.

Now with every moment the temper of the crowd grew more threatening; voices shouted, fists were clenched, and the scowling pike-men, plying vicious spear-b.u.t.ts, cursed, and questioned each other aloud: "Why tarries Sir Gui?"

Hereupon a country fellow hard by took up the question:

"Sir Gui!" he shouted, "Why cometh not Sir Gui?"

"Aye!" cried others, "where tarries Sir Gui?" "Why doth he keep us?"

"Where tarries Sir Gui?"

"Here!" roared a voice deep and harsh, "Way--make way!" And suddenly high above the swaying crowd rose the head and shoulders of a man, a mighty man in the dusty habit of a miller, upon whose low-drawn hood and be-floured smock were great gouts and stains evil and dark; and now, beholding what manner of stains these were, all men fell silent and blenched from his path. Thus amid a lane of pallid faces that stared and shrank away, the tall miller came unto the wondering pike-men --burst their ranks and leapt upon the dais where stood the gilded chair.

"Ho! soldiers and men-at-arms--good people of Belsaye--call ye for Gui in sooth? hunger ye for sight of b.l.o.o.d.y Gui of Allerdale in faith? Why then--behold!" and from under his be-dabbled smock he drew forth a head, pale as to cheek and hair, whose wide eyes stared blindly as it dangled in his hairy hand; and now, staring up at this awful, sightless thing--that brow at whose frown a city had trembled, those pallid lips that had smiled, and smiling, doomed men and women to torment and death--a hush fell on Belsaye and no man spoke or stirred.

Then, while all folk stood thus, rigid and at gaze, a wild cry was heard, shivering the stillness and smiting all hearts with sudden dread:--

"Fire! Fire!"

"Aye, fire!" roared the miller, "see yonder!" and he pointed where a column of thick smoke mounted slowly upon the windless air. But with the cry came tumult--a hurry of feet, shouts and yells and hoa.r.s.e commands; armour clashed and pike-heads glittered, down-sweeping for the charge. Then Walkyn laughed, and hurling the pale head down at the nearest soldiery, drew from his smock his mighty axe and swung it, but lo! 'twixt him and the pike-men was a surging, ravening mob that closed, front and rear, upon knight and squire, upon pike-man and man-at-arms, men who leapt to grip mailed throats in naked hands, women who screamed and tore. And one by one, knight and squire, and man-at-arms, smiting, shrieking, groaning, were dragged down with merciless hands, to be wrenched at, torn, and trampled 'neath merciless feet, while high and clear above this fierce and dreadful clamour rose the shrill summons of a horn.

And lo! a shout--a roar--drowning the shrieks of dying men, the screams of vengeful women, "Arise--arise--Pentavalon!" Came a rush of feet, a shock, and thereafter a confused din that rose and fell and, gradually ceasing, was lost in a sudden clamour of bells, fierce-pealing in wild and joyous riot.

"Aha! 'tis done--'tis done!" panted Roger, stooping to cleanse his blade, "spite of all our lack of method, Giles--'tis done! Hark ye to those joy-bells! So doth fair Belsaye shout to all men she is free at last and clean of Gui and all his roguish garrison--"

"Clean?" quoth Giles. "Clean, forsooth? Roger--O Roger man, I have seen men die in many and diver ungentle ways ere now, but these men-- these men of Gui's, look--look yonder! O sweet heaven keep me ever from the tearing hands of vengeful mothers and women wronged!" And turning his back on the littered market square, Giles shivered and leaned him upon his sword as one that is sick.

"Nay," said Black Roger, "Gui's black knaves being rent in pieces, Giles, we shall be saved the hanging of them--ha! there sounds my lord's horn, and 'tis the rallying-note--come away, Giles!"

Side by side they went, oft stepping across some shapeless horror, until in their going they chanced on one that knelt above a child, small and dead. And beholding the costly fashion of this man's armour, Roger stooped, and wondering, touched his bowed shoulder:

"Sir Fidelis," said he, "good young messire, and art thou hurt, forsooth?"

"Hurt?" sighed Sir Fidelis, staring up great-eyed, "hurt? Nay, behold this sweet babe--ah, gentle Christ--so innocent--and slain! A tender babe! And yonder--yonder, what dire sights lie yonder--" and sighing, the youthful knight sank back across Black Roger's arm and so lay speechless and a-swoon.

Quoth Roger, grim-smiling:

"What, Giles, here's one that loveth woman's finger-work no more than thou!" Thus saying, he stooped and lifting the young knight in his arms, bore him across the square, stumbling now and then on things dim-seen in the dark, for night was at hand.

So thus it was that the folk of fair Belsaye town, men and women with gnashing teeth and rending hands, made them an end of Tyranny, until with the night, there nothing remained of proud Sir Gui and all his l.u.s.ty garrison, save shapeless blotches piled amid the gloom--and that which lay, forgotten quite, a cold and pallid thing, befouled with red and trampled mire; a thing of no account henceforth, that stared up with glazed and sightless eyes, where, remote within the sombre firmament of heaven, a great star glowed and trembled.