Long Will Part 6

"Of a surety," answered Peter; "I am come to Long Will."

And Long Will covered his face and so remained. And they all sat silent and as it were ashamed, till Kitte put her head in and said:--

"Calote, get thee to bed, child!"

CHAPTER IV

A Vow

Calote slipped out at the back door into a weedy lane full of moonlight. She set her feet ankle-deep in gra.s.s and dew. A muck heap cast a shadow from one side to the other of the lane and filled the air with pungent odour. There was a stair against the wall of Will Langland's cot, and Calote climbed up this to a little gabled chamber that had a window looking on Cornhill. The street was white and silent under the moon. There was no light in any house as far as Calote could see. Even the tavern was dark: Dame Emma had shut out her roisterers and made her house a house of mourning, for that the Black Prince was dead. Calote let slip her strait russet gown and stood at the window in her kirtle, shaking out her hair.

"Such hair had Guenevere," she said thoughtfully; "yet am I Calote.--A kinsman to the Earl of March?--Mayhap to-night he weeps the death of the Black Prince. Yet, I know not.--Wat Tyler saith these n.o.bles be aye at one another's throat.--When there be so many kind of love i'

the world, wherefore do some folk make choice of hating?--So many kind of love!--Wherefore may not I essay all?--Wherefore be there Calotes--and Gueneveres?--Yet, there be a many left for me. I will leave thinking o' squires and knights. I will listen to Dame Reason in the Romaunt,--and Wat, and the ploughman, and my father."

She crossed herself and said her Pater Noster, then dropped her kirtle and lay down upon her pallet. For coverlet she had a frayed old ca.s.sock of her father's. She lay beneath the window, and the moon came about to look on her.

"I will love all I may," said Calote; "but I will forget to be loved."

And so she fell asleep.

She did not wake an hour after when Long Will came up to bed, stooping among the rafters. He crossed the room to look upon her where she lay full in the light of the moon. Because the night was close she had set free her arms from the warmth of the old ca.s.sock, but the golden mantle of her hair veiled her white breast that rose and fell ever so lightly.

Will Langland beckoned to his wife and she came to stand beside him:--

"'T is now a woman,--and yesterday a child," said he. "Mayhap I am dull-eyed, noting little that's not writ on parchment, yet meseems I have never seen woman so fair as this my daughter. Is 't true?"

"Yea, Will; it is true," said Kitte.

Then Calote opened her eyes upon her father and mother, and she was dreaming.

"O red rose!" said she, and shut her eyes again.

And Will Langland and Kitte his wife went down on their knees to pray.

CHAPTER V

A Disciple

The second time Calote saw the squire he bore a hooded falcon on his wrist and he rode a little white horse, in the fields beyond Westminster. He sang a pensive lyric in the French tongue; and when he saw Calote he lighted down from his horse and held his cap in his hand. She was gathering herbs.

He told her he had got him a copy of her father's poems, and he kept it in a little chest of carven ivory and jade that his mother gave him afore she died. And Calote, being persuaded, went and sat with him beneath a yew tree. He said that she might call him Stephen, if she would, or Etienne; men spoke to him by the one or the other indifferently, but they were the same name. It was his mother that was cousin german to the Earl of March; his father being a gentleman of Derbyshire, Sir Gualtier Fitzwarine, of a lesser branch of that name.

And both his father and his mother were dead, but the Earl of March was his G.o.dfather.

But when Calote questioned him of the poem, he could say little, excepting that his man had bought it of a cook's knave in the palace, that was loath to part with it; and it smelled frightful of sour broth, but Etienne had sprinkled it with flower of lavender. Moreover, he had searched therein for Calote and her golden hair and her gray eyes; he marvelled that her father had not made mention of these things.

Then Calote took up her knotted kerchief with the herbs, and gave him good day. And whether she were displeased or no she could not determine, nor could he. But he went immediately to his chamber and read diligently, with a rose of sweet odour held beneath his nose.

The third time Calote saw the squire was on the day when London learned that Peter de La Mare was cast into prison in Nottingham Castle. London growled. London stood about in groups, ominously black-browed,--choking the narrow streets. Certain rich merchants even shut up their shops and barred their doors, for it was not against the n.o.bles only that London had a grievance.

Now this fair child, Stephen Fitzwarine, knew that Peter de la Mare was seneschal to the Earl of March, and, hearing of the good man's imprisonment, he set it down that this was yet another grudge to be fought out 'twixt his G.o.dfather and John of Gaunt, and he prayed that he might be in at the affray. But of the Good Parliament, its several victories, and present sore defeat, Stephen knew little. He was of the household of young Richard, son to the Black Prince, and all that household was as yet in leading-strings. In the laws of fence and tourney Stephen was right well instructed; twice had he carved before Richard at table; he could fly a hawk more skilfully than Sir John Holland, the half-brother to the Prince; he knew by heart the argument and plea whereby we made our claim upon the crown of France; he knew by heart also the half of the Romaunt of the Rose, and all of Sir Gawaine and the Green Knight, and more than one of the tales of Dan Chaucer. Richard loved him, and hung upon him as a little lad will on a bigger one. And Stephen loved Richard, and slept before the door of Richard's bedchamber with a naked sword at his side; this for his own and Richard's sake. But at that time there were other warders before this door, that slept not at all; for after the Black Prince died, the guard in Kennington Palace was doubled, and a certain armourer in the city had sent the heir to the throne a gift of a little shirt of mail, the which so delighted him that he wore it night and day; and if by any fortune he forgot it, his mother, caressing him, would say:--

"Where is thy chain coat, Richard? Wilt not wear it to-day to pleasure the kindly armourer?"

Moreover, the little Prince was seldom let abroad, and his household must needs keep him company; wherefore Stephen Fitzwarine might not go into the city except he slipped leash and braved the displeasure, nay, the stripes even, of Sir Simon de Burley, who was Richard's tutor.

Nevertheless, on this ill-fated day when London was scarce in the mood to see young gentlemen in broidered coats a-walking her streets, he dropped his lute into a rosebush and went adventuring.

When he came on London Bridge,--for Kennington Palace was t' other side of the river by Lambeth, and who would go to the city must cross by this way,--he found a great crowd of idle people blocking the street; and because none moved to right or left to let him pa.s.s, he must needs elbow it like any prentice; and this he did as far as Cornhill. Now, although young Stephen did not yet know the Vision concerning Piers Ploughman so well as the Romaunt of the Rose, one thing he had discovered, namely, that Will Langland dwelt on Cornhill; and he would have slackened his pace to scan the houses. But the unmannerly throng that had followed him across the bridge would not have it so, and pushed and pressed upon him that he must wag his legs briskly or be taken off them altogether. And in this fashion he went the length of Cornhill, and had he been discreet he had gone yet farther in Cheapside and sheltered him in St. Paul's. But Etienne was a valiant lad, and wilful. He had come out to see a certain cot on Cornhill, and his desire was yet unsatisfied. He turned him back and faced a grinning crew of prentice lads and artisans, some merry, all mischievous, and not a few malicious.

"Give me room, good fellows," he said.

Then mocking voices rose and pelted him:--

"Yonder 's thy way, flower-garden."

"Hath missed his road,--call 's nursie!"

"There be no palaces o' Cornhill."

"Here 's not the road to the Savoy."

"We harbour not John of Gaunt nor his ilk i' the city."

"Nay, we ha' not men at arms sufficient to keep him in safety."

"I am not for John of Gaunt. Give way!" said Etienne.

"Ay, friends," bawled a six-foot lad with a carpenter's mallet in his hand; "we mistook; the lording hath come hither to give himself as hostage for the safety o' Speaker Peter."

A part of the crowd laughed at this speech, and others cursed, and some said:--

"Take him! Take him!"

"Yea, take him!" roared the throng, closing in; and above this sea of sound Etienne sent his voice shrilly:--

"Disperse! Disperse, I say! I come a peaceful errand. Who will point me the dwelling of one they call Long Will, I 'll give him three groat."

"So, 't is Long Will must follow good Peter de la Mare?" shrieked a woman from a window.

"What dost thou with Long Will?"