The Black Douglas Part 9

"Dear kinsman," said the Abbot to his nephew, "I have a request to prefer which I hope you will grant, though it deprive you of one retainer. This sweet youth is not fit company for rude soldiers and ill-bred rufflers of the camp. His mind is already on higher things.

He hath good clerkly Latin also, being skilled in the humanities, as I have heard proven with mine own ears. His grace of language and deportment is manifest, and he can sing the sweetest and most spiritual songs in praise of Mary and the saints. I would have him in our choir at Sweetheart Abbey, where we have much need both of a voice such as his, and also of a youth whose sanct.i.ty and innocence cannot fail to leaven with the grace of the spirit the neophytes of our college, and the consideration of whom may even bring repentance into older and more hardened hearts."

Malise MacKim could not believe his ears as he listened to the Abbot's rounded periods. But all the same his grey eyes twinkled, his mouth slowly drew itself together into the shape of an O, from which issued a long low whistle, perfectly audible to all about him except the Abbot. "Lord have mercy on the innocence and cloistered quiet of the neophytes if they get our Laurie for an example!" muttered Malise to himself as he turned away.

Even the young Earl smiled, perhaps remembering the last time he had seen the youth beside him, clutching and tearing like a wild cat at his brother's throat in the smithy of Carlinwark.

"You desire the life of a clerk?" said Lord William pleasantly to Laurence. He would gladly have purchased his uncle's silence at even greater price.

"If your lordship pleases," said Laurence, meekly, adding to himself, "it cannot be such hard work as hammering at the forge, and if I like it not, why then I can always run away."

"You think you have a call to become a holy clerk?"

"I feel it here," quoth Master Laurence, hypocritically, indicating correctly, however, the organ whose wants have made clerks of so many--that is, the stomach.

Earl William smiled yet more broadly, but anxious to be gone he said: "Mine Uncle, here is the lad's father, Malise MacKim, my master armourer and right good servant. Ask him concerning his son."

"'Tis all up a rotten tree now," muttered Laurence to himself; "my father will reveal all."

Malise MacKim smiled grimly, but with a salutation to the dignitary of the church and near relative of his chief, he said: "Truly, I had never thought of this my son as worthy to be a holy clerk. But I will not stand in the way of his advancement nor thwart your favour. Take him for a year on trial, and if you can make a monk of him, do so and welcome. I recommend a leathern strap, well hardened in the fire, for the purpose of encouraging him to make a beginning in the holy life."

"He shall indeed have penance if he need it. For the good of the soul must the body suffer!" said Abbot William, sententiously.

"Saints' bones and cracklings," muttered Laurence, "this is none so cheerful! But I can always run away if the strap grows overlimber, and then let them catch me if they can. Sholto will help me."

"Fall out!" commanded the Earl, sharply, "and join yourself to the company of the Abbot William. Come, Malise, we lose our time."

Thus was one of our heroes brought into the way of becoming a learned and holy clerk. But all those who knew him best agreed that he had a far road to travel.

CHAPTER XI

THE AMBa.s.sADOR OF FRANCE

The Earl had almost arrived at the pavilion erected at the southern end of the jousting meadow, when a gust of cheering borne along the lines announced the arrival of a belated company. The young man glanced northward with intent to discover, by their pennons, who his visitors might be. But the distance was too great, and identification was made more difficult by the swarming of the populace round the newcomers. So, being unable to make the matter out, Earl William despatched his brother David to bring him word of their quality.

Presently, however, and before David Douglas' return, shouts of "Avondale, Avondale!" from the men of Lanarkshire informed the young Earl of the name of one at least of those who had arrived. A frown so quick and angry darkened his brow that it showed the consideration in which the Douglas held his granduncle James the Gross, Earl of Avondale.

"I hope, at least," he said in a low voice to Malise, who stood half a step behind him, "that my cousins Will and James have come with him.

They are good metal for a tourney, and worth breaking a lance with."

By this time the banners of the visitors were discernible crossing the fords of Lochar, while high advanced above all private pennons two standards could be seen, the banner royal of Scotland, and close beside the rampant lion the white lilies of France.

"Saint Bride!" cried the Earl, "have they brought the King of Scots to visit me? His Majesty had been better at his horn-book, or playing ball in the tennis court of Stirling."

Then came David back, riding swiftly on his fine dark chestnut, which, being free from the mantle wherein the horses of knights were swathed, and having its mane and tail left long, made a gallant show as the lad threw it almost on its haunches in his boyish pride of horsemanship.

"William," said David Douglas, "a word in your ear, brother. The whole tribe are here,--fat Jamie and all his clan."

The brothers conferred a little apart, for in those troubled times men learned caution early, and though the Douglas was the greatest lord in Scotland, yet, surrounded by meaner men as he was, it behoved him to be jealous and careful of his life and honour.

Earl Douglas came out of the sparred enclosure of the tilt-ring in order to receive his guests.

First, as an escort to the amba.s.sador royal of France and Scotland who came behind, rode the Earl of Avondale and his five sons, n.o.ble young men, and most unlikely to have sprung from such a stock. James the Gross rode a broad Clydesdale mare, a short, soft unwieldy man, sitting squat on the saddle like a toad astride a roof, and glancing slily sideways out of the pursy recesses of his eyes.

Behind him came his eldest son William, a man of a true Douglas countenance, quick, high, and stern. Then followed James, whose lithe body and wonderful dexterity in arms were already winning him repute as one of the bravest knights in all Christendom in every military and manly exercise.

Behind the Avondale Douglases rode two men abreast, with a lady on a palfrey between them.

The first to take the eye, both by his stature and his remarkable appearance, rode upon a charger covered from head to tail in the gorgeous red-and-gold diamonded trappings pertaining to a marshal of France. He was in complete armour, and wore his visor down. A long blue feather floated from his helmet, falling almost upon the flank of his horse; a truncheon of gold and black was at his side. A pace behind him the lilies of France were displayed, floating out languidly from a black and white banner staff held in the hands of a young squire.

The knight behind whom the banner royal of Scotland fluttered was a man of different mould. His spare frame seemed buried in the suit of armour that he wore somewhat awkwardly. His pale ascetic countenance looked more in place in a monkish cloister than on a knightly tilting ground, and he glanced this way and that with the swift and furtive suspicion of one who, while setting one trap, fears to be taken in another.

But the lady who rode on a white palfrey between these two took all men's regard, even in the presence of a marshal of France and a herald extraordinary of the King of Scots.

The Earl Douglas, having let his eyes once rest upon her, could not again remove them, being, as it were, fixed by the very greatness of the wonder which he saw.

It was the lady of the pavilion underneath the pines, the lady of the evening light and of the midnight storm.

She was no longer clothed in simple white, but arrayed like a king's daughter. On her head was a high-peaked coiffure, from which there flowed down a graceful cloud of finest lace. This, even as the Earl looked at her, she caught at with a bewitching gesture, and brought down over her shoulder with her gloved hand. A close-fitting robe of palest blue outlined the perfections of her body. A single fleur-de-lys in gold was embroidered on the breast of her white bodice, and the same device appeared again and again on the white housing of her palfrey.

She sat in the saddle, gently smiling, and looking down with a sweetness which was either the perfection of finished coquetry or the expression of the finest natural modesty.

Strangely enough, the first thought which came to the Earl Douglas after his surprise was one in which triumph was blended with mirth.

"What will the Abbot and Malise think of this?" he said, half aloud.

And he turned him about in order to look upon the face of his master armourer.

He found Malise MacKim ashen-pale and drawn of countenance, his mouth open and squared with wonder. His jaw was fallen slack, and his hands gripped one upon the other like those of a suppliant praying to the saints.

The Earl smiled, and bidding Malise unlace his helmet in compliment to his guests, he stood presently bareheaded before them, his head appearing above the blackness of his armour, bright as a flower with youth and instinct with all the fiery beauty of his race.

It was James the Gross who came forward to act as herald. "My well-beloved nephew," he began in somewhat whining tones, "I bring you two royal emba.s.sies, one from the King of France and the other from the King of Scotland. I have the honour to present to you the Marshal Gilles de Retz, amba.s.sador of the most Christian King, Charles the Seventh, who will presently deliver his master's message to you."

The marshal, who till now had kept his visor down, slowly raised it, and revealed a face which, being once seen, could never afterwards be banished from the memory.

It was a large grey-white countenance, with high cheek-bones and colourless lips, which were continually working one upon the other.

Black eyes were set close together under heavy brows, and a long thin nose curved between them like the beak of an unclean bird.

"Earl William," said the marshal, "I give you greeting in the name of our common liege lord, Charles, King of France, and also in that of his son, the Dauphin Louis. I bring you also a further token of their good-will, in that I hail you heir to the great estates and dignities of your father and grandfather, sometime Dukes of Touraine and va.s.sals premier of the King of France."

The young man bowed, but in spite of the interest of his message, the marshal caught his eyes resting upon the face of the lady who rode beside him.

"To this I add that which, save for the message of the King, my master, ought fitly to have come first. I present you to this fair lady, my sister-in-law, the Damosel Sybilla de Thouars, maid of honour to your high princess Margaret of Scotland, who of late hath expanded into a yet fairer flower under the sun of our land of France."

The Earl dismounted and threw the reins of his horse to Malise, whose face wore an expression of bitterest disappointment and instinctive hatred. Then he went to the side of the Lady Sybilla, and taking her hand he bowed his head over it, touching the glove to his lips with every token of respect. Still bareheaded, he took the reins of her palfrey and led her to the stand reserved for the Queen of Beauty.