Delphi Works of Ford Madox Ford (Illustrated) (545 page)

The remaining five and forty men with the esquire La Rougerie, who was a man to be trusted, should remain to hold Castle Cramlin for the Young Lovell and to aid in the buildings that should go forward there. In that way the Young Lovell rode out from a Castle of his own. —

And, in that way too, he came before the Lady Margaret and his grandmother, the Princess Rohtraut, as well as Sir Bertram of Lyonesse, in his armour of state. He seemed to survey them for a space through the opening of his helmet. This he had kept closed in riding through the city for fear any friend of the Knights of Cullerford and Haltwhistle should by chance be in those streets and aim an arrow at him from a window or from behind a buttress. Then he pushed up the visor.

Stern he always looked when his face was framed in iron, but so stern as he looked that day the Lady Margaret considered that she had never seen him. He had broad, level eyebrows of brown, a pointed nose, firm lips and a determined chin. The Lady Margaret knew that he had a pleasant smile but he showed none of it then, and he paid no attention either to her or to the Cornish knight. His grandmother regarded him with a keen, hostile glance, and with his eyes set upon hers he advanced grimly towards her. His short dagger was girt around him, but he had no sword. So, in that shining harness, he knelt before that old lady on the second step. He lifted up his hands and said:

“Madam, Princess and my Granddam, to whom I owe great honour....”

“That is a good beginning, by Our Lady,” the Princess said.

“I would not so soon have come to you,” he continued in firm tones, “but that you sent me your commands.”

“Well, this grows better and better,” the old woman said.

“It is neither out of lack of duty, nor of due awe and natural affection, that I had not the sooner come,” the Young Lovell said.

“That passes me!” the Princess cried out. “By Our Lady, I do not understand that speech.”

The Young Lovell who towered on high when he stood, and was tall enough though he knelt, appeared like a great hound, attacked by this fierce little woman as by a savage lap-dog.

“Madam and gentle Princess,” he said slowly, “I cannot easily say what I would say, for no man would say it easily.”

“Then you are on a fool’s errand,” the Princess said, “for a wise man can say most things.” She considered him for a moment and then said jeeringly: “If you had business in the town, stiff grandson of mine, say you had business: if you were gone after wenches, lie about it. But I care very little. I sent for you to have your news; so leave the complimenting and give me that.”

“Madam and gentle Princess,” he began again, though the old lady grunted and mumbled. “I did not come before because I sought assoilment.”

“What is assoilment?” she asked.

He answered briefly:

“Pardon for sin, witting and unwitting.”

“Well, get on,” she said impatiently.

“Lacking that assoilment,” he said, “I did not know if I were a fit knight to come into your presence.”

“Why, I am an old horse,” she said, “and not to be frightened by a dab of pitch. If you never showed yourself but after confession you might live in a cave, or so it was in my time.”

“Then,” said he, “know this. I came to my Castle and they shot upon me. So I have gathered together certain of my men and have taken my mother’s Castle of Cramlin and hold it. So that is my news. And when I have the pardon of the Bishop and have paid forfeit, or what it is, I will get more of my men. For my standard is set up in Castle Cramlin and my men come to it from here and there. So in a fortnight or less I will retake my Castle; and I shall hang my brothers-in-law, send my half-brother across the sea, and put my sisters into nunneries. These are my projects.”

“Body of God!” the old lady said. “By the Body of God!”

Then the Cornish knight moved round and stood beside the Princess and spoke to the Young Lovell.

“Ah, gentle lord,” he said, “may I ask you a fair question?”

“By God’s wounds,” the Young Lovell said, “you shall ask me none. Who be you?”

“A poor knight,” Sir Bertram answered, “but the commissioner of the most dread King Henry!”

“Then you are a friend of the false Percy,” the Young Lovell said. “Get you gone. You are no friend to me.”

And at that the old Princess cried out:

“Body of God! You have taken Castle Cramlin? Then without doubt you have taken Plessey House and Killingworth?”

“Madam and gentle Princess,” the Young Lovell said, “I have taken and hold them for my mother. And so I will do for all my mother’s lands whether round Morpeth or elsewhere.”

“Then I have no more to say,” the old Princess said. “Get you gone.” The Young Lovell remained nevertheless kneeling for a space.

“Madam,” he said, “it comes to me now that ye have a lawsuit with my mother for certain of those lands.”

“Aye, and I will have them,” she said. “It is not you nor any stiff popinjay shall hold them from me.” She leaned out from her chair and cried these words into his face, her own being purple and her eyes bloodshot. So he crossed himself with his hand of bright steel.

“Madam,” he said, “I cannot talk of lawsuits. They have done me too much wrong.”

“But I will talk of lawsuits,” she said. “By God, I will take a score of my fellows and drive your rats from my Castle of Cramlin!”

“Madam and gentle Princess,” he answered, “you could not do it with ten score nor yet twenty. For I have there forty of the best fighting men of this North country; and in two days I think I shall have six score. How the rights of this lawsuit may be I do not know. But my mother’s necessity is great. She has languished for a quarter year in prison during which time you have done nothing for her. When the lands fall to me upon my mother’s death you and the Dacres may have them again. That is all that I know. And so I pray our gentle Saviour to have you in His keeping; and so I get me gone.”

All this while the Lady Margaret had sat motionless, gazing upon her true love’s face that never cast a glance aside at her. For it was not manners that she should speak before that old lady. But when he was on his feet and near the door, she ran down from that throne-step, and her rich robes and her great veil ran out behind her. The Cornish knight was already in the stairway, and the Lady Margaret came to it before the Young Lovell, for he walked slowly on account of the weight of his armour. So in the stairway she came before him and held up her hands to his steel chest:

“Ah, gentle lord,” she said, “will you speak no word with me?” And, in having said so much, because she had spoken before he had, she had said too much for manners, and she hung her head and trembled, for she was a very proud woman.

He looked at her with stern and affrighting eyes.

“Ah, gentle lady,” he said, “you are plighted to my false brother.”

“No! No!” she said, “not with my will. Would you believe I am in a tale against you, with your false sisters?”

He raised his voice till it was like the harsh bark of the male seal; his eyes glowed with hatred.

“Gentle lady,” he cried out, “ye should have known!”

The sight of this lady had been to him a sudden weariness, like the sound of a story heard over and over again. And hot anger and hatred had risen violently in his heart when she spoke.

But then he perceived her anguished face, the corners of the proud lips drawn down and the features pale like alabaster. And he remembered that all things, to pursue a fair course, must go on as they before would have gone — even all things to the end. So that, although his heart was weary for the lady of the doves and sparrows, he said:

“Ah, gentle lady, I believe you. I remember me. My false brother was inside these pot-lids. You could do no otherwise. All these things shall be set in order. We will sue to the Pope. So it shall be.” He could not easily find words; that was very difficult speaking for him; for still this lady was wearisome beyond endurance to him, because of the lady of the doves and sparrows. But he would not let her see this, for he knew she was a loyal and dutiful friend to him, and he must take her to wife when he had his Castle again and the dispensation of our Father that is in Rome. And indeed she fell upon her knees before him there in the stairway:

“Gentle lord, my master and my love,” she said, “I smote your false brother on the mouth in that day. And all my lands are yours and my towers of Glororem and on Wearside; and all my red gold and all my jewels of price. And all my men-at-arms are yours, to the number of eight score, and two esquires; and all my bondsmen that can bear bows, and my rough pikemen...

He stepped back stiffly in his arms, so that he was nearly within his grandmother’s chamber again. And this he did that he might avoid her touch. And he said” No! No!” That he said because it seemed horrible to him to have her aid in the retaking of his Castle. But, before she was done speaking with her deep and full voice, he knew that these things too must be.

Therefore he advanced upon her courteously, and stretched out his hands in steel and raised her up.

“Ah, gentle lady,” he said, “all these things shall be, and I thank you. And peaceful times shall, God willing, repay these troublous ones.”

She looked upon him a little strangely; but she held her cheek to him.

“Ah, gentle lady,” he said, “I may not kiss you. For, as I stand before you, I am a man under a ban, so I think I may not do it until my lord the Prince Bishop shall have assoiled me and taken cognisance of my plea to Rome against my false brother.”

She wished to have said: “Ah, what reck I of that!” and so to have taken him in her arms, steel and all. But that she might not do for fear of her manners. For she had been well schooled, and, whereas, she might well, if she would, give him her towers and lands and men and bondsmen, still she could not go against the ban of the Church; for the ladies of her house of Eure were very proud ladies. Neither, for pride, though the tears were wet upon her cheeks, would she ask him what ban it was that he lay under.

So, seeing those her tears, he said as gently as he could — for when the head of the axe is thrown the helve may as well go with it:

“Ah, gentle lady, be of very good cheer! For I am assured of assoilment by such a very good churchman that I know no better. And, that once had, shall we not make merry as in the old time? Aye, surely, for if you will, I will well. And so, that it may be the sooner done, I will go to that good prince.” Yet, as he said these words, he sighed. Then he added: “In a little while, gentle lady and my true love, I will come back to you.”

So she stood back in the stairway to let him pass; but it was piteously that she looked after him. For she had never seen him so earnest and so sober. He seemed the older by twenty years, and never had his foot been so heavy on the stairs; it was like the beating of a heart of lead.

Now when the Young Lovell came to the stair-foot where there was a square space, there there was standing the Knight Bertram of Lyonesse. And so he stood before the Young Lovell that that lord could not pass him or get to the street. And hot rage was already in that lording’s heart, for never had he talked so painfully as he had done to that Lady Margaret, and it seemed as if his breast must burst its armour. Up to him stepped that Cornish knight and spoke in gentle tones, bending his particoloured leg courteously, in the then fashion of London town.

“Gentle lording,” he said, “you called me even now the friend of Henry Percy, Earl of Northumberland. Let me say presently that by my office I stand above that lord, though far below him in my person. So I am no friend of his, though not his foe.”

The Young Lovell held his brows down and gazed upon this man beneath them, breathing heavily in his chest.

“Go on,” he said.

“Then I will tell you this,” the Cornish knight went on. “I have heard you twice say ye were beneath a ban. Now that may well be and I think it is along of a White Lady.”