Delphi Works of Ford Madox Ford (Illustrated) (541 page)

Sir Bertram lowered his head a little.

“I wish I had been such a one,” he said.
“
This was a very gallant gentleman. I have heard other such reports of him.”

The old Princess said:

“I did not know I had had such a swan and phoenix amongst my grandchildren.”

“Why, it is true, madam,” Sir Bertram said. “You have lived too much amongst the Dacres to know that you had this lording for part heir.”

Now this house, built in the old days before that time, and all of stone, like a fortress, had for its greater strength only one staircase. It wound round in a little space, all of thick stone, so it would be very difficult for an enemy to come up it if it were at all defended. On the lower floor there were no windows at all towards the street, to make it the stronger, and that staircase served all the rooms. This old fashion struck the Lord Dacre as very barbarous, and he would have it all pulled down, with a big hall and hangings upon the ground floor and large square windows with carvings on them, as was the pleasanter fashion of London and that new day. The paintings, too, in that room he would have whitened over, and the stone ceilings covered in with wood and beams, that should be bossed and carved and gilded and with coats of arms. But, for that time, so it was, and the staircase came up from the street.

Now it happened that, below, the door into the street was open, and a fisherman owing a tithe of fish for that Princess’s table stood before it offering fish. The old steward had gone to him and complained that his fish and trout, eels and lampreys, were not fine enough to set before that Princess. Much of this could be heard in that room, and then came the sounds of the feet of a company of horse and the clank of armour and loud knockings upon the gate that went into the cathedral precincts and voices crying out and answering. With one thing and another none of those three could hear a word that there they uttered.

So the Princess was angry and clapped her hands for an old woman to come that had a white clout hanging down before her chin, for all the world as if it were a beard. The Princess bade take that fisherman into the kitchen and he to be given twenty stripes — for she had heard what passed between him and the steward — the door into the street was to be shut and news to be brought her what knight that was that rode with his many up the street. And if it was a knight of these parts and one she knew, she ordered him to come to her for she desired news of that countryside.

So that old woman, as best she could, went down the stairway sideways, for she was very old and fat and the stairway very little and winding. Then they heard her clamorously upbraiding alike old steward and the fisherman for the clamour they had made. Afterwards, the door was closed and there was peace. Then Sir Bertram looked gravely upon the Lady Margaret. And:

“Ah, gentle lad)’,” said he, “from what I have observed of your conversation I can tell you this much. You tell me that this Sir Paris Lovell was a good friend to Richard Crookback that is dead. And I do not much blame him for it, since, as you tell me, that late King showed great courtesy here in the North parts when he was Duke of Gloucester. And well King Richard III knew how to bear courtesy when it suited him, though at other times he was a false tyrant. So that this Sir Paris Lovell was a friend to Crookback and could have aided him against my King if his father would have given him leave. But this his father would not do and it is so much the better.

“And further you have reported to me that this Sir Paris Lovell has said to you, in his own words: ‘Now this King Richard is dead and alas for it! And we have another King of whom I, Sir Paris Lovell, know little, though I fear he may be a heavy ruler. But so as it is’ — so you say you remember the words of this lord—’what I am minded to do,’ said he, ‘is to set up a chantry where masses may be said for the dead King’s soul. If he had been alive I would have fought for him, but now I will see if I may live at peace with Henry of Richmond for a King. For to be sure, what we need in these North parts is peace amongst ourselves, that husbandry and mining and fisheries may flourish on my lands and others. And so one may make such a great journey into Scotland that the false Scots may not raise their heads for fifty years or more again. And so we may have leisure to go upon our own affairs. Therefore I, Sir Paris Lovell, for one will, if I may, live at peace with King Henry VII and be his subject if he will be bearable,’... Now therefore I, Sir Bertram of Lyonesse...”

“God keep us,” the old Princess cried out here, “you speak more like a lawyer drawing a bond than a gallant knight.”

“Madam and gentle Princess,” Sir Bertram said, “I am more like a lawyer than a gallant knight.” And so he looked again gravely upon the Lady Margaret who, in her voluminous gown, sat on her little stool beside that kind of throne and leaned her arm along its arm, folding her hands together. She looked upon him earnestly and, after a time, she said:

“Good Knight, if you talk with me thus to make an agreement with me in the gentle Lord Lovell’s name, I tell you that can never be, for he is dead.”

“Ah, gentle lady,” Sir Bertram answered, “how can it be said that any man is dead that is but three months away? These are strange and evil times. God knows I am no very learned knight and one not overways well-read in the lore of Holy Church. Yet nowadays strange things are seen, books not written N

by hand, Greek sorcerers, as I have heard, driven out of Byzantium by the Sultan, who press with new learnings across Christendom. I have heard there was lately one new Greek Doctor at London called Molossos, or some such name, though I never came to see him. And he had crabbed books of Greek and other sorceries. So, if your true love and lording be but ninety days away...”

“Sir,” the Lady Margaret said, “my lord was never for so long a prisoner amongst the false Scots or the thieves of Rokehope without news to me. Surely they have killed him.”

“I do not well know this country as you tell me; but let me ask you this: if the false Scots had killed so great a lord would they not boast and say great things? Or if the thieves of Rokehope or the Debateable Lands, or of those places that I do not know, had taken him, would they not have made more attempts at his ransoming than once sending to Castle Lovell? For you tell me that you think he was taken by Gib Elliott, as you call him, or some such naughty villain, and that Gib Elliott sent to Castle Lovell for his ransom and that the Knights of Cullerford and Haltwhistle refused to give either white mail or black, as the saying is. And maybe, as you think, they clapped that messenger into prison for greater secrecy, so that the countryside might have no news of your lord but consider him gone away with warlocks and others. But, in the first place, is it to be thought that such a messenger could be come from that Elliott to Castle Lovell and no one know it? Would not the Castle Lovell bondsmen see him and report it to your bondsmen and so on through all the countryside? For what cause should that messenger have in going to Castle Lovell, to be very secret, though Cullerford and Haltwhistle should desire to keep it secret afterwards? Or again, why should Gib Elliott, if that be his name, slay the Lord of Castle Lovell merely because Haltwhistle and Cullerford refused ransom or imprisoned his messenger? Gib Elliott I take it, is as other men, and seeketh money and how best he may have it. Moreover, Castle Lovell is a great Castle, and cannot be taken in a little corner. I will tell you this: that within a fortnight that news was known to us in London Town; for merchant wrote it to merchant at the bottom of his bills, and packman passed the news on to packman from town to town.”

“Say you so!” the old Princess called out at this. “Ye knew it and I did not, yet ye never told me!”

“
Madam and gentle Princess,” Sir Bertram answered, “that is the duty of the servants of a King, to be all ears and no tongue. And partly that is why I am here, for the King desired to know if such lawless robberies could be done in any part of his realm. So now I am inquiring into this matter. And this I will ask you, my fair and gentle lady — if that news was known in London Town under a fortnight, should not that Gib Elliott know it in a day or two days at the most, seeing that all the countryside talked of that and nought else? For it is not every day that a great lord dies and robbers seize upon his Castle and imprison his sad widow. So, very surely, this Gib Elliott would hear of this thing or ever his messenger could come to Castle Lovell and back again. And then, very surely, he would send another messenger to some friend of the Young Lovell, to see if he might not get a ransom of them, since his enemies held his Castle. Consider how that would be with a cunning robber. Full surely he would have sent a messenger to yourself, ah, fair and gentle lady, to have money of you, if of none others?”

“Sir,” the Lady Margaret interrupted him hotly and with a sort of passion—”I am very certain that that lord is dead. For three times Saint Katharine, whom I love above other saints, appeared to me in a gown of gold and damask and leaning upon her wheel. She looked upon me sorrowfully, as who should say my true love — for whom I had besought that saint many times — was dead to me.”

The Cornish knight raised his hand.

“God forbid,” he said, “that I should say anything against that sweet madam Katharine. Yet there are true dreams and false dreams and dreams wrongly interpreted. And of this I am instantly assured, that this Lord Lovell is held prisoner by no border raiders. It is not to be thought upon.”

The Lady Margaret spoke to him contemptuously and almost with hatred, so her breast heaved as she bade him say then where he considered that that lord should have been or should even then be hiding. The Cornish knight answered slowly:

“Ah, gentle lady, what to believe I do not so well know. But this I know that I would rather believe in tales of sorcery in this matter than in that idea of border robbers. For these are strange times of newnesses coming both from the East and the West. From the East is come new learning which is for ordinary men, a thing very evil at all times, leading to sorceries and civil strife and change. And from the West is talk of a New World possessed with demons and pagans and dusky fiends as is now on the lips of all men. And I hold it for certain that, if anything evil and inexplicable shall occur in this land from now on it shall come from that East or that West. The path to the West having been found, shall it not lead those demons and dusky fiends in upon us? And, all the contents of Byzantium having been set flying in upon us, shall we go unharmed?”

“This is very arrant folly,” the old Princess said; “what shall a parcel of soft Greeks or Indian savages do to this island in the water?”

“Madam and gentle Princess,” the Cornish knight answered, “I speak only the misgivings of wealthy and sufficient men of London Town. It may be a folly here. But this I hold for strange: this lording was the one of all the North parts to have most of new-fangled lore, as I have heard: he has read in many books of which I know not so much as the name; such as
Ysidores Ethimologicarum
or
Summa Reyviundi
— or maybe I have the names wrong. And he has travelled to Venice where many evil, eldritch and strange things are ready for the learning.... And now I will ask you this: ah, gentle mistress... Have you of late had news of a monstrous fair lady that several people have seen to ride about these parts, attended, or not attended at all... upon a white horse?”

“Such a one I saw yesterday,” the Lady Margaret said, “and so fair and kind a lady it made me glad to see her.”

Then Sir Bertram crossed himself.

“And have you,” he asked, “heard where she dwells or who she is?”

“I never heard,” she said; “I thought she was the King’s mistress of Scotland, for a lesser she could not be.”

“I have heard of her this many months,” Sir Bertram said, “for, for this many months, I have been set by the King to gather information about these North parts. And now from one correspondent, now from another; now by word of mouth, now here, now in Northumberland, I have heard tell of this White Lady. And this again I will tell you.... An hour agone, as I looked out of this window, I saw a knight, with a monk and a small company of spears go over Framwell Gate Bridge. The sun was upon their armour. And, as they rode over it, I perceived upon the banks before me a wondrous fair figure of a woman in white garments, going among the thick of the trees as lightly as if it had been a flower garden. And, as she went, she held her hand over her eyes to shield them from the sun so as to gaze upon that knight. And I think that was that strange lady. And, if you ask me what she is, I think she is a vampire, a courtesan or a demon from the East. And if you ask me where your lord is, I will say I think she has him captive amongst weary sedges and the bones of other knights, if they have been dead long enough to become bones. And there he sits enthralled by her and she preys upon his heart’s blood....”