The Black Douglas Part 16

On the morrow, the amba.s.sador of France being confined to his room with a slight quinsy caught from the marshy nature of the environment of Thrieve, the Earl escorted the Lady Sybilla to the field of the tourney, where, as Queen of Beauty, her presence could not be dispensed with.

The Maid Margaret, the Earl's sister, remained also in the castle, not having yet recovered from her fright of the preceding evening.

With her was Maud Lindesay and her mother--"the Auld Leddy," as she was called throughout all the wide dominions of her son.

In spite of his weariness Sholto led his archer guard in person to the field of the tournament. For this day was the day of the High Sport, and many lances would be splintered, and often would the commonalty need to be scourged from the barriers.

But ere he went Sholto summoned two of the staunchest fellows of his company, Andro, called the Penman, and his brother John. Then, having posted them at either end of the corridor in which were the chambers occupied by the two girls, he laid a straight charge, and a heavy, upon them.

"On your heads be it if you fail, or let one soul pa.s.s," he said.

"Stand ready with your hands on the wheel of your cross-bows, and if any man come hither, challenge him to stand, and bid him return the way he came. But if any dog or thing running on four feet ascend or descend the stair, make no sound, ask no question, cry no warning, but whang the steel bolt through his ribs, in at one side and out at the other."

Then Andro the Penman and his brother John, being silent capable fellows, said nothing, but spat on their hands, smiled at each other well pleased, and made the wheels of their cross-bows sing a clear whirring note.

"I would not like to be that dog--" said Andro the Swarthy.

"Whose foul carcase I pray G.o.d to send speedily," echoed John the Blond.

Sholto had hoped that whilst he was at the guard-setting, he might have had occasion to see once more the tantalising mischief-maker whom he yet loved with all his heart, in spite of, or perhaps because of, the distraction to which she continually reduced his spirit by means of her manifold and incalculable contrarieties.

Nevertheless, it was with an easier heart that Sholto wended his way out of the castle yett, all arrayed in the new suit of armour his lord had sent him. It was made of chain of the finest, composed of many rings set alternately thick and thin, and the whole was flexible as the deer leather which he wore underneath it. Over this a doublet of blue silk carried the Lion of Galloway done in white upon it, and all the cerulean of the ground was dotted over with the Douglas heart.

But, greatest joy of all, there was brought to him by command of the Earl a suitable horse, not heavily armed like a charger for the tilt, but light of foot, and answering easily to the hand. Blue and red were the silken housings, fringed with long silver lace, through which could be seen here and there as the wind blew the sheen of the glossy skin. The buckles and bits were also of ma.s.sive silver, and at sight of them the cup of Sholto's happiness was full. For a s.p.a.ce, as he gazed upon his steed, he forgot even Maud Lindesay.

Then when he was mounted and out upon the green, waiting for the coming forth of his lord, what delight it was to feel the n.o.ble dark grey answer to each touch of the rein, obeying his master's thought more than the strength of his wrist or the p.r.i.c.k of his heel.

As he waited there, his predecessor in office, old Sir John of Abernethy, Landless Jock as he was nicknamed, came out from the main doorway. He carried a gleaming headpiece from which the blue feather of the Douglas fell over his arm half-way to the ground. On its front was a lion crest which ramped among golden _fleur-de-lys_. The old man held it up for Sholto to take.

"Hae," he said in a surly tone, "this is his lordship's new helmet just brought as a present frae the Dauphin of France. So he has cast off the well-tried one, and with it also the auld servant that hath served him these many years."

"Nay, Sir John," said Sholto, with courtesy, taking the helmet which it was his duty as his master's esquire to carry before him on a velvet-covered placque, "nay--well has the good servant deserved his rest, and to take his ease. The young to the broil and the moil, the old to the inglenook and the cup of wine beneath the shade."

"Ah, lad, I envy ye not, think not that of puir Landless Jock," said the mollified old man, sadly shaking his head; "I also have tried the new office, the shining armour, and felt the words of command rise proudly in the throat. I envy you not, though your advancement hath been sudden--and well--for my own son John I had hoped, though indeed the loon is paper backed and f.e.c.kless. But now there remains for me only to go to the Kirk of Saint Bride in Douglasdale, and there set me down by my auld master's coffin till I die."

At that moment there issued forth from the gateway the young Earl, holding by the hand the Lady Sybilla. His mother, the Countess, came to the door to see them ride away. The Queen of the Sports was in a merry mood, and as she tripped down the steps she turned, and looking over her shoulder she called to the Lady Douglas, "Fear not for your son, I will take good care of him!"

But the elder woman answered neither her smile nor yet her word, but stood like a mother who sees a first-born son treading in places perilous, yet dares not warn him, knowing well that she would drive him to giddier and yet more dangerous heights.

The pennons of the escort fluttered in the breeze as the men on horseback tossed their lances high in the air, in salutation of their lord. The archer guard stood ranked and ready, bows on their shoulders and arrows in quiver. Horses neighed, armour clanked and sparkled, and from the moat platform twenty silver trumpets blared a fanfare as the Lady Sybilla, the arbiter of this day's chivalry, mounted her palfrey with the help of Earl Douglas. She thanked him with a low word in his ear, audible only to himself, as he set her in the saddle and bent to kiss her hand.

A right gallant pair were Douglas and Sybilla de Thouars as they rode away, their heads close together, over the green sward and under the tossing banners of the bridge. Sholto was behind them giving great heed to the managing of his horse, and wondering in his heart if indeed Maud Lindesay were looking down from her chamber window. As they pa.s.sed the drawbridge he turned him about in his saddle, as it were, to see that his men rode all in good order. A little jet of white fluttered quickly from the sparred wooden gallery which clung to the grey walls of Thrieve, just outside the highest story. And the young man's heart told him that this was the atonement of Mistress Maud Lindesay.

Earl Douglas was in his gayest humour on this second day of the great tourneying. He had got rid of his most troublesome guests. His uncle James of Avondale, his red cousin of Angus, the grave ill-a.s.sorted figure of the Abbot of Dulce Cor, had all vanished. Only the young and chivalrous remained,--his cousins, William and James, Hugh and Archibald, good lances all and excellent fellows to boot. It was also a most n.o.ble chance that the French amba.s.sador was confined by the quinsy, for it was certainly pleasant to ride out alone with that beauteous head glancing so near his shoulder, to watch at will the sun crimsoning yet more the red lips, sparkling in the eyes that were bright as sunshine slanting through green leaves on a water-break, and to mark as he fell a pace behind how every hair of that luxuriant coif rippled golden and separate, like a halo of Florentine work about the head of a saint.

The Lady Sybilla de Thouars was merry also, but with what a different mirth to that of Mistress Maud Lindesay--at least so thought Captain Sholto MacKim, with a conscious glow of pride in his own Scottish sweetheart.

True, Sholto was scarce a fair judge in that he loved one and did not love the other. He owned to himself in a moment of unusual candour that there might be something in that. But when the gay tones of the lady's laughter floated back on the air, as his master and she rode forward by the edge of Dee towards the Lochar Fords, the first fear with which he had looked upon her in the greenwood returned upon the captain of the guard.

Earl William and the Lady Sybilla talked together that which no one else could hear.

"So after all you have not become a churchman and gone off to drone ma.s.ses with the monks of your good uncle?" she said, looking up at him with one of her lingering, drawing glances.

"Nay," Earl William answered; "surely one Douglas at the time is gift enough to holy church. At least, I can choose my own way in that, though in most things I am as straitly constrained as the King himself."

"Speaking of the King," she said, "my uncle the Marshal must perforce ride to Edinburgh to deliver his credentials. Would it not be a most mirthful jest to ride with equipage such as this to that mongrel poverty-stricken Court, and let the poor little King and his starved guardian see what true greatness and splendour mean?"

"I have sworn never again to enter Edinburgh town," said the Earl, slowly; "it was prophesied that there one of my race must meet a black bull which shall trample the house of Douglas into ruins."

"Of course, if the Earl of Douglas is afraid--" mused the lady. The young man started as if he had been stung.

"Madame," he said with a sudden chill hauteur, "you come from far and do not know. No Douglas has ever been afraid throughout all their generations."

The lady turned upon him with a sweet and moving smile. She held out her fair hand.

"Pardon--nay, a thousand pardons. I knew not what I said. I am not acquainted with your Scottish speech nor yet with your Scottish customs. Do not be angry with me; I am a stranger, young, far from my own people and my own land. Think me foolish for speaking thus freely if you like, but not wilfully unkind."

And when the Earl looked at her, there were tears glittering in her beautiful eyes.

"I _will_ go to Edinburgh," he cried. "I am the Douglas. The Tutor and the Chancellor are but as two straws in my hand, a longer and a shorter. I fling them from me--thus!"

The Lady Sybilla clapped her hands joyously and turned towards the young man. "Will you indeed go with me?" she cried. "Will you truly? I could kiss your hand, my Lord Douglas, you make me so glad."

"Your kiss will keep," said the Earl, with a quiet pa.s.sion quivering in his voice.

"Nay, I meant it not thus--not as you mean it. I knew not what I said.

But it will indeed change all things for me if you do but come. Then I shall have some one to speak with--some one with whom to laugh at their pitiful Court mummery, their fiasco of dignity. You are not like these other beggarly Scots, my Lord Duke of Touraine."

"They are brave men and loyal gentlemen," said the generous young Earl. "They would die for me."

"Nay, but so I declare would I," gaily cried the lady, glancing at his handsome head with a quick admiring regard. "So would I--if I were a man. Besides, there is so little worth living for in a country such as this."

The Earl was silent and she proceeded.

"But how joyous we shall be at Edinburgh! Know you that at the Court of Charles that was my name--La Joyeuse they called me. We will keep solemn countenances, you and I, while we enter the presence of the King. We will bow. We will make obeisances. Then, when all is over, we will laugh together at the fatted calf of a Tutor, the cunning Chancellor with his quirks of law, and the poor schoolboy scarce breeched whom they call King of Scotland. But all the while I shall be thinking of the true King of Scots--who alone shall ever be King to me--"

At this point La Joyeuse broke off short, as if her feelings were hurrying her to say more than she had intended.

"I did wrong to flout their messengers yesterday," said William Douglas, his boyish heart misgiving him at dispraise of others; "perhaps they meant me well. But I am naturally quick and easily fretted, and the men annoyed me with their parchments royal, their heralds-of-the-Lion, and the 'King of Scots' at every other word."

"Who is the youth who rides at the head of your company?" said the Lady Sybilla.

"His name is Sholto MacKim, and it was but yesterday that I made him captain of my guard," answered the Earl.

"I like him not," said the Lady Sybilla; "he is full of ignorance and obstinacy and pride. Besides which, I am sure he loves me not."

"Save that last, I am not sure that a Douglas has a right to dislike him for any such faults. Ignorance, obstinacy, and pride are, indeed, good old Galloway virtues of the ancientest descent, and not to be despised in the captain of an archer guard."

"And pray, sir, what may be the ill qualities which, in Captain Sholto, make up for these excellent Scottish virtues?" asked the lady, disdainfully.