Love Among the Ruins Part 21

"Messire, but an hour ago that girl was sitting her horse where your destrier now stands."

"And you sketched this at her desire?"

"At my own, sire; it was courtesy for courtesy: I had shown her our handiwork here."

"You showed her this tower and chapel?"

"Certainly, sire."

"She seemed sad?"

"Nay, merry."

"This is romance!" He lifted the little picture at arm's length to the sun, kissed it, and put it in his bosom. His face was radiant; he laughed as though some golden joy rang and resounded in his heart.

"A hundred golden angels for this face!"

Fra Balthasar was in great measure mystified. The Lord of Avalon seemed an inflammable gentleman.

"Messire, you are ever generous."

"Man, man, you have caught the one woman in the world."

"Sire----"

"The Madonna of the Pine Forest, the Madonna of Mercy; she whose kinsfolk were put to the sword by my men; even the daughter of Rual whose tower stands yonder."

The priest comprehended the whole in a moment. The dramatic quaintness of the adventure had made him echo Flavian's humour. He laughed and shrugged his shoulders.

"Romance, romance! By all the lovers who ever loved, by Tristan and the dark Iseult, by Launcelot and Guinivere, follow that picture."

"Which way went she?"

"By the southern ride, towards Gilderoy."

The man was in heroic humour; his sword flashed out and shook in the sun.

"By G.o.d, I'll see her face again, and yet again, though I burn in h.e.l.l for it. Roland, G.o.damar, come, men, come, throw away your spears.

Ride, ride, we chase the sunset. Life and desire!"

He sprang away on his great bay horse, a shimmering shaft of youth--youth that flashed forth chivalry into the burgeoning green of Spring. The sunlight webbed his hair with gold; his face glowed like a martyr's. Balthasar watched him with much poetic zest, as he swept away with his thundering knights into the woods.

The friar settled to his work again, but it was fated that he was to have no lasting peace that morning. He was painting in a background, a landscape, to a small Crucifixion. His hand was out of touch, however; the subject was not congenial. A pale face and a pair of dusky eyes had deepened a different stream of thought in the man. Themes hypersensuous held his allegiance; from prim catholic ethics, he reverted to his glorious paganism with an ever-broadening sense of satisfaction.

He was interrupted once more, and not unpleasantly, by a lady, with two armed servants at her back, riding in from the forest by the northern ride. The woman was clad in a cloak of damask red, and a jupon of dark green, broidered with azure scroll work. Her hood, fallen back, showed her purple black hair bound up in a net of gold. Her large dark eyes flashed and smouldered under their long lashes. She had high cheek-bones, a big nose, lips full as an over-ripe rose. She was big of body, voluptuous to look upon, as an Eastern odalisque, a woman of great pa.s.sions, great appet.i.tes.

Fra Balthasar tumbled his brushes and paints aside, and went to meet her as she rode over the gra.s.s. There was a smile on the man's lips, a flush upon his sleek face, as he walked with a courtly and debonair vanity. The woman caught sight of him and wheeled her horse in his direction. The autumn splendour of her cheeks told of hard riding, and her horse dropped foam from his black muzzle.

Fra Balthasar crossed himself with much meekness.

"Good greeting, Madame Duessa," were his words, as he kept his eyes on the ground.

The woman scanned the glade with the strenuous spirit of a Boadicea.

"My Lord Flavian?"

"Madame?"

"He has been here."

"But is here no longer."

"These buildings?"

"Are the Lord Flavian's."

"And you?"

"I am his architect."

"Morally, messire monk?"

"Madame, I do not edificate souls."

The woman stared him over with a critical comprehensiveness.

"Balthasar."

The man half glanced at her.

"Look me in the face."

He gave a sigh, made a gesture with his hands, looked melancholy and over-ecstasied to the point of despair.

"Madame, there are thoughts beyond one's liberty."

"Well?"

"There are women, a woman, one dares not look upon. There are eyes, well--well, that are too bright. Pardon me, I would serve you."

She took a deep breath, held out her hand to him, a big, warm hand, soft and white. The man's lips burnt upon it. She touched his cheek and saw him colour.

"Well?"

"My Lord Flavian is not here."

"But has been. Where now?"