The Forest Lovers Part 39

"Open it," said Prosper.

"Messire?"

"Open it, hound!"

The man reeled, but carried the order. Prosper rode stately out; and when he returned a second time it was at the head of the Countess Isabel's troops.

"Bailiff," said he, when they were in the citadel and all the news out, "I am no friend of your mistress, as you know; but I am not a thief. Hauterive is hers. To-morrow morning I shall declare it so; until then Galors, if you please, is Lord. Let me now say this," he continued. "I admire you because you have a high heart. But you lack one requisite of generalship, as it appears to me. You have no head.

Get back at once to Wanmeeting with one thousand of your men, and leave me five hundred of them to work with. You may think yourself lucky if you find one stone on another or one man's wife as she should be. By the time you are there you will no doubt have orders from High March. You may send news thither that this place is quiet and restored, as from to-morrow morning, to its allegiance. Good morning, Bailiff"

The Bailiff was very much struck with Prosper's sagacity, and went at once. Prosper and his five hundred men held the citadel.

He confided his secret to those whom he could trust; the remainder fraternized in the wine shops and dealt liberally in surmise. The general opinion seemed to be that Galors had married the Countess Isabel.

Having thus ridded him of all his charges, Prosper could steer the ship of his mind whither his soul had long looked--to Isoult and marriage. Marriage was become a holy thing, a holy sepulchre of peace to be won at all costs. No crusader was he, mind you, fighting for honour, but a pitiful beaten wayfarer longing for ease from his aching. He did not seek, he did not know, to account for the change in him. It had come slowly. Slowly the girl had transfigured before him, slowly risen from below him to the level of his eyes; and now she was above him. He shrined her high as she had shrined him, but for different reasons as became a man. What a woman loves in man is strength, what a man loves in women is also strength, the strength of weak things. The strength of the weak thing Isoult had been that, she had known how to hold him off because of her love's sake. There is always pity (which should become reverence) in a man's love. He had never pitied her till she fought so hard for the holiness of her lover.

Oddly enough, Isoult loved him the more for the very attack which she had foiled. Odd as it may be, that is where the truth lies. As for him, grat.i.tude for what she had endured for his sake might go for nothing. Men do not feel grat.i.tude--they accept tribute. But if they pity, and their pity is quickened by knowledge of the pitiful, then they love. Her pleading lips, her dear startled eyes stung him out of himself. And then he found out why her eyes were startled and why her lips were mute. She was lovely. Yes, for she loved. This beseeching child, then, loved him. He knew himself homeless now until she took him in.

CHAPTER x.x.x

THE CHAINED VIRGIN OF SAINT THORN

The Abbot Richard of Malbank Saint Thorn went hunting the deer in Morgraunt with a good company of p.r.i.c.kers and dogs. In Spenshaw he unharboured a stag, and he followed him hard. The hart made straight for Th.o.r.n.yhold Brush where the great herd lay; there Mellifont, who was sentry for the time, heard him and gave the alarm. Fern brakes will hide man from man, but here were dogs. The hunted hart drove sheer into the thicket on his way to the water; a dog was at his heels, half-a-dozen more were hard on him. The herd had scattered on all hands long before this. Mellifont saved herself with them, but Belvisee tarrying to help Isoult was caught. A great hound snapped at her as he pa.s.sed; she limped away with a wounded side. Isoult, too much of a woman and too little of a hind, stood still. She had closed with Fate before.

Up came the Abbot's men with horns and shouting voices for the baying of the deer. He, brave beast, was knifed in the brook and broken up, the dogs called off and leashed. Then one of the huntsmen saw Isoult.

She had let down her hair for a curtain and stood watching them intently, neither defiant nor fearful, but with a long, steady, unwinking gaze. Her bosom rose quick and short, there was no other stressful sign; she was flushed rather than white. One of the men thought she was a wood-girl--they all knew of such beings; he crossed himself. Another knew better. Her mother Mald was a noted witch; he whistled.

A third thought she was uncommonly handsome; he could only look. The dogs whimpered and tugged at the leash; they doubtless knew that there was blood in her. So all waited till the Abbot came up much out of breath.

Isoult, cloaked in her panoply of silence, saw him first. In fact the Abbot had eyes only for the dead hart which had led him such a race.

One of the p.r.i.c.kers ran forward and caught at his stirrup-leather.

"Lord Abbot, here is the strangest thing my eyes have ever seen in Morgraunt. As we followed the chase we drove into a great herd which ran this way and that way. And in the thick of the deer were three young women scantily attired, as the one you see yonder, going with the beasts. Of whom two have got clear (one bitten by the mouse- coloured hound), and this one remains speechless. And who the others were, whether flesh and blood or wind and breath, I cannot tell you; but if this laggard is not Isoult, whom we call La Desirous, Matt-o'- the-Moor's daughter, I am no fit servant for your Holiness'

diversions."

The Abbot had p.r.i.c.ked up his ears; now he looked sharply at Isoult.

"You are right, Sweyn," he said; "leave her to me. Girl," he turned to her, "this time it shall likely go hard with thee. Trees are plenty and ropes easy to come by. I warned thee before. I shall not warn thee now."

Isoult bowed her head.

"What dost thou do here, herding in the wood with wild beasts?" he went on.

"Lord, none but the beasts will give me food or rest or any kindness at all. There is no pity in man nor woman that I have seen, save in two, and one is dead. Prosper le Gai, my lord, and husband, hath pity, and will come to me at last. And whether he shall come to my body alone or my spirit alone, he will come. And now, lord, hang me to a tree."

"Dost thou want to be hanged?" he asked.

"Nay, lord, I am too young to be hanged," she said. "Moreover, though I am wedded to my lord, I am not a wife. For only lately he hath loved me, and that since we were put apart."

"Wed, and a virgin, girl? Where is thy husband?"

"Lord, he is searching for me."

"Where hath he been, what hath he done--or thou, what hast thou done, for such a droll fate as this?"

Isoult very simply told him everything. Of Galors he already had some news--enough to dread more. But when he heard that the girl had actually been in High March Castle, had been expelled from it, he crossed himself and thanked G.o.d for all His mercies. He became a devout Christian at this critical point in Isoult's career, whereby her neck was saved a second time from the rope. He felt a certain pity--she a handsome girl, too, though his type for choice was blonde --for her simplicity, and, as he certainly wished to obtain mercy, reflected upon the possible blessings of the merciful. Besides, Galors was at large, Galors who knew the story, to say nothing of Prosper, also at large, who did not know the story, but did know, on the other hand, the Countess Isabel. Difficult treading! But so the habits of a lifetime for once chimed in with its professions. Even as he stood pitying he roughed out another set of shifts. Prosper and his unconsummated marriage might be set aside--the fool, he thought with a chuckle, deserved it. There remained Galors. He would get the girl married to a mesne of the abbey, or stay! he would marry her elsewhere and get a dowry. She had filled out astonishingly, every line of her spoke of blood: there would be no trouble about a dowry. Then he might supplant Galors by being beforehand with him at the Countess's ear.

Grat.i.tude of the mother, grat.i.tude of the daughter, grat.i.tude of the son-in-law! Thus Charity walked hand in hand with Policy. The girl was a beauty. What a picture she made there, short-frocked, flushed and loose-haired, like an Amazon--but, by Mars, not maimed liked an Amazon. The Abbot was a connoisseur of women, as became a confessor and man of the world.

"If I do not hang thee, Isoult, wilt thou come with me to Saint Thom?"

"Yes, lord, I will come."

"Up with you then before me," said the Abbot, and stooped to lift her.

Her hair fell back as she was swung into the saddle. "My lady,"

thought the Abbot, "it is clear you are no Amazon; but I should like to know what you wear round that fine little neck of yours."

He bided his time, and sent the men and dogs on ahead. Then at starting he spurred his horse so that the beast plunged both his riders forward. The burden of the chain slipt its harbourage, and the next minute the Abbot had ring and locket in the palm of his hand.

"What is this ring, my girl?" he asked.

"My lord, it is my wedding-ring, wherewith I was wed in the cottage."

"Ah, is that it? Well, I will keep it until there is need."

Isoult began to cry at this, which cut her deeper than all the severances she had known. She could confess to the ring.

"Don't cry, child," said the Abbot, whom women's tears troubled; "believe me when I say that you shall have it for your next wedding."

"Oh, my ring! my ring! What shall I do? It is all I have. Oh, my lord, my lord!"

This pained the Abbot extremely. He got what satisfaction there was from the thought that, having dropt it behind him, he could not give it back for all the tears in the world. He was busy now examining the other token--a crystal locket whereon were a pelican in piety circled with a crown of thorns, and on the other side the letters I and F interlaced. He knew it better than most people.

"Isoult, stop crying," he said. "Take off this chain and locket and give them to me."

So she did.

"Ah, my lord," she pleaded as she tendered, "I ask only for the ring."

"Plague take the ring," cried the Abbot very much annoyed. "I will throw it away if you say another word about it."

The threat chilled her. She dried her eyes, hoping against hope, for even hope needs a sign.

When he had his prize safe in Holy Thorn, the Abbot Richard, who had a fantastic twist in him, and loved to do his very rogueries in the mode, set himself to embroider his projects when he should have been executing them. His lure was a good lure, but she would be none the worse for a little gilding; there must be a pretty cage, with a spice of malice in its devising, to excite the tenderer feelings. It should be polite malice, however--a mere hint at a possible tragedy behind a smirk.