Delphi Works of Ford Madox Ford (Illustrated) (546 page)

The Young Lovell loosened his dagger within its sheath.

“My silken knight,” he said, “ye were never so near your death.”

“Gentle lording,” that knight answered, “if I die another will take my place and no one will lament me. But it is my function and devoir to talk and so I take it.” He paused for a moment, and then he went on: “God forbid that I should say word against Holy Church; I am not one that does it. Yet I will say this: If Holy Church will not raise the ban from you, yet I, Sir Bertram of Lyonesse, who have some skill at inquiries, will so put this matter to the King and dread lord that, without more words said, that judgment of the Warden’s Court against you shall be revised, and if those false Knights shall withhold your Castle from you you shall have instant licence to take it again and do justice upon them as you will. And the fines due of you under that judgment shall be remitted to you. For I acknowledge that therein the Percy hath overstepped himself; for firstly he can give no judgment and foul no bill upon a suit of sorcery. And secondly, I am convinced that here was no sorcery. For, touching that White Lady....”

“Sir Knight,” the Young Lovell said, “I bid you stand aside from that door and see a thing... Then Sir Bertram stepped down into the roadway.

The Young Lovell took out his dagger and raised it above his shoulder. It was of the length of his forearm. The door that stood against the wall, being open, was of thick oak, studded with large bosses of iron. The Young Lovell brought forward that dagger over his head and it sank into that door up to the hilt, and sank in and passed through the door, and so into the mortar between two stones and the door was nailed there.

“Sir,” the Young Lovell said, “seek to withdraw that dagger.”

“Nay, that I cannot do,” Sir Bertram said. “Neither can I nor any man,” the Young Lovell said. “And I am glad of it. For if you had spoken more upon that theme, that dagger should have gone through your throat. And this I tell you: there is no knight in all the North parts that could have done that, and I think none in all Christendom. How it may be in Heathenesse I do not know, for I hear that the Soldan has some very good knights. And that I did to show you that I am no braggart if you will hear me further.”

“Very willingly will I hear you further, ah, gentle lording,” the Cornish knight answered, and again he bent his knee where he stood in the street.

“Then,” the Young Lovell said, “it is because I can do such deeds as that you have seen that all the men of the North parts will willingly follow me upon any journey. So it would be well if the Percy let me be. For — an he will not I will come to Alnwick and to Warkworth with twice four thousand men — for this Percy is little beloved. And so, with scaling hooks and hurdles and faggots and the rest I will smoke him out of Northumberland and hang him upon the first tree in this County Palatine. And that you may tell your King.”

“Ah, gentle lording,” Sir Bertram said, “I tell you that judgment is already reversed.”

“Of that I know nothing,” the Young Lovell said. “But so it is as I have told you. If your King will dwell at peace with us of the North parts he may for me, and I ask nothing better. And so much more I will say, that he has good servants; for no man ever went nearer his death than you when you spoke to me now. And I think you know it well, yet you gave no ground and spoke on. I do not like your kind, for I have seen some of them about the courts of princes, here and elsewhere and you are the caterpillars upon the silken tree of chivalry that shall yet destroy it. Yet that was as brave a feat as ever I saw, and your King is happy if he have more such as you.”

CHAPTER VIII
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IN the meanwhile that monk Francis sat writing in the Bishop’s room and the Bishop walked up and down behind his back. Once or twice the Bishop paused in his walking as if he wished to speak to the monk, but again he walked on and the monk Francis continued to write rapidly, pausing now and then and looking upwards as he sought to remember the words of the decree beginning: “Jejunandi,” or the Decretal: “Nullam res est....”

So at last the Bishop stood for a long time near the door, looking down at the nails of his fingers, and then suddenly:

“Touching the matter of sorcery, my brother in God... he said.

The monk swung quickly round upon his stool:

“There was no sorcery,” he said determinedly. “Those three of Castle Lovell were perjured.”

“So I gathered,” the Bishop said softly; “I considered that; it appeared so from what was said to me by the lawyer, Magister Stone.”

The monk looked with the greater respect at the Bishop.

“Father in God,” he said, “will you tell me how you came upon that thought?”

The Bishop smiled a little faint smile of pleased vanity. For he liked to be considered that he was a subtle reader of the hearts of men. In that he thought that he was the superior of this monk.

“When a man comes to me,” he said, “with two tales, to each of which he will swear to find many witnesses, I am apt to think that one is false. So it was with this our friend called Stone.”

“May I hear more?” the monk asked.

“It was in this way,” the Bishop said, “and now you will see why I was troubled in my conscience when you found me. This lawyer Stone took it for postulated that I thirsted for the lands of this Young Lovell. He would have it no other way. Though once or twice I said I loved justice better than land he would have it no other way, but took my protestings for the solemn fooleries of a priest. He is, I think, a very evil man, with the face of an ape, stiff gestures, and the voice of a door hinge.”

“I know the man very well,” the monk Francis said. “He has twice proposed to me the spoliation of widows with false charters for the benefit of our monastery.”

“So,” the Bishop said, “he would have it that I was greedy of gold and lands for my see. And indeed I am if I may have them with decency. So he saith to me under his breath that, in two ways I might have Castle Lovell. One tale was that this Young Lovell had capered with naked witches and others round a Baal fire. For that he had as witnesses himself and another gossip called Meg of the Foul Tyke and that bastard called the Decies.”

“It is because of that false witnessing that the Decies shall be broken on the wheel,” the monk Francis said.

“Well, it was false witnessing,” the Bishop said. “And so I divined. For, afterwards, this lawyer, brings along another story. And it was easy to see that this lawyer considered this the better story of the two and would be mightily relieved of doubt if I would adopt it. And it was this.”

The monk Francis looked now very eagerly upon the Bishop, who stood straight and still in his furred gown, lifting one hand stiffly:

“There is in the village of Castle Lovell,” he said, “a fair lovechild called Elizabeth. Some will have it that the father is the Young Lovell, some that it is of the Young Lovell’s father. How that may be I do not know, but it is certain that that child is of the Lovell kin and Harrison is its name. Now, as May comes in, that child, as children will, goeth afield seeking herbs for a coney that the mother had a-fattening. So the child Elizabeth goeth further and further amongst these hills of sand where green stuff is rare. For, that she might not pluck herbs in the bondsmen’s fields, that are laid down to hay, that child very well knew. So, looking up suddenly, that child perceived upon a high sand-hill, and sitting upon a brown horse that she well knew, a knight that very well she knew too, being the Young Lovell. For this lording was accustomed to bring the child Elizabeth pieces of sugar and figs and to give her fair words and money to the mother.

“So that child had no fear of the Young Lovell, but ran up to him crying out for sugar and figs. But he paid no heed to her, only sat there upon his horse. So the child looked further and perceived, upon a white horse, a lady in a scarlet gown, in a green hood, who smiled very kindly at her. So that child was afraid, as children are, and ran home. That was in the midst of May....

“Now came fell poverty into the hut where dwelled that woman and her child. The last pence were gone, the fatted coneys eaten; they must go batten upon roots, and when that mother sought relief of the Ladies Douce and Isopel in the Castle they jeered and spat upon her. And ever the mother cried that if the Young Lovell would come they would find relief. Then at last that child took courage and said that she knew where the Young Lovell was and would lead her there.

“So she leads her mother through these hills of sand — and it was then close to July, the 29th of June as it might be. There upon the hills of sand that mother perceives the Young Lovell. He sat upon his brown horse, in his cloak of scarlet, with his parti-coloured hose of scarlet and green. He wore his cap of scarlet set about with large pearls....”

“These pearls,” the monk Francis said, “I have as a gage in my aumbrey of Belford.”

“His long hair fell down upon his shoulders and he looked away. Then wearily that mother climbed the sand-hill crying out to the Young Lovell for gold. He never looked upon her but gazed always away; nevertheless he fingered his girdle and found his poke and cast down to her a French mark of gold.”

“I thank God he did that charity,” the monk Francis said, “even if he did not know it; and I think he did not.”

“Why let us thank God,” the Bishop said. And he asked: “Then this is a true tale?”

“I think it is,” the monk Francis answered. “But, of your charity, tell me more.”

“Then,” the Bishop said, “that poor woman fell upon that piece of gold in the sand and kissed it. And, as she looked up over it to kiss too the Young Lovell’s hand, so she saw a fair, kind woman. Red hair she had and was clothed in white with a jewel of rubies in a white hat. Such a kind, fair lady that woman had never seen, and the Young Lovell gazed upon her and she into his eyes. Then tears blinded that woman and grief and pain at the heart. So she came back to her hut, she knew not how; and, indeed, she knew no more until there came the lawyer Stone holding a cordial to her lips.

“For, you must know that that child, taking that piece of gold from her mother’s fingers and being all innocent, went away into the village to buy food for her mother. So the first man she came to, seeing her with it, took her to the house of the lawyer Stone to have the right of it. Then the lawyer having beaten her, she told him that the Young Lovell had that day given it to her mother.

“So the lawyer, avid of news of the Young Lovell, jumped like an ape to that poor hut. But it was two days before that woman could speak, though he nursed her and fed cordials to her never so. Then that lawyer got men-at-arms and scoured the country according to her directions. But upon the Young Lovell he never came.”

“By that day,” the monk Francis said, “he was in my cell commending himself to God.”

The Bishop looked apprehensively upon the monk Francis.

“Then this you take for a true tale,” he said. “Woe is me.”

They were both silent for a while, and then the monk said — for they were looking with faces of great weariness upon the tiles:

“Father in God, tell me truly, I do pray, all that you know from this lawyer.”

“Brother,” the Bishop said, “God help us, this lawyer was insistent that the tale of sorcery against this lording should be let to lapse or changed for another, such as that he consorted with old fairies and worse.”

“How then,” the monk Francis said, “would he put aside his former perjuries?”

“He would say,” the Bishop said, “that his eyes deceived him, magic being in the air, and that on that morning the Young Lovell rode furiously past him going as if he knew not whither.”

“Why so he did!” the monk Francis said, “but that shall not save the lawyer. His former oaths are written down.”

“Brother,” the Bishop said, “it is that lawyer’s plan to begin another suit in the courts ecclesiastical and there not to swear at all, but ignoring the bill before the Wardens, to bring many witnesses about this fairy lady.”

“What other witnesses has he?” the monk Francis asked. He spoke like a man without hope.

“You must know,” the Bishop said, “that this lawyer during these months was enquiring of the Young Lovell in the past. So in Newcastle he found a master-tailor to whom the Young Lovell for long owed four pounds. And one day in February this tailor, needing money, went out from Newcastle towards Castle Lovell, riding upon an ass. And so, upon the way, he saw a lady that had a white horse and was little and dark. He was in tribulation for his money and pondered much upon the Young Lovell whether he was a lording that would pay him or one that would have him beaten at the gate.

“And, as he thought that, this lady looked upon him as if she would ask the way to where the Young Lovell dwelt. She was little and swart and had a green undercoat.

“And again in February there was a ship boy that went from Sunderland with a white falcon his ship had brought from Hamboro’, for the Young Lovell. Now, upon this voyage, this ship boy had conceived a great love for that falcon even as boys will that upon ships are beaten by all and conceive loves for dumb beasts. So that ship boy went pondering with the white hawk and wondering and almost weeping to think that that lording might be a cruel master to the falcon. For he loved that falcon very well. So he was aware of a kind, fair lady with a white horse that looked upon him as much as to say that the Young Lovell would be a gentle and kind lord to that fowl. She was a great fair woman in a German hood of black velvet — such a one as that ship boy had seen and, as boys will, had conceived an ardent love for, in Hamboro’.”

The monk Francis said: “Ah,” and then he brought out the words: “Father in God, I too have seen her — and twice. When I thought of the Young Lovell.”

Then the Bishop groaned lamentably; three times and very swiftly he walked from end to end of the cell, holding his hands above his head. Then he ran upon a shelf and with a furious haste pulled out a large book bound in white skin. He threw it open upon his bed and bade the monk come look at a picture.

This picture was all in fair blues and reds and greens, going across the two pages of the book.

“I had this book in Rome,” the Bishop said, “of a Greek called Josephus. Look upon this picture.”

The picture showed a mountain with trees upon it. And round the mountain went a colonnade of marble pillars. In between the central columns, where it was higher, sat a grey-bearded and frowning man. Naked he was to the waist and he was upon a throne of gold. At his left hand was an eagle; in his right the forked lightning of a thunderbolt. Beside him stood a proud woman in purple with a diadem of gold. In the next temple was a helmed woman that leaned upon a great spear; next her, a man all furious, that held up a great round shield and a pointed sword. Over against him reclined a great man with a lion’s hide who leant upon a club; beyond him a man all white with the sun in his hair and beyond that a youth with wings upon his feet, upon his cap and upon a rod, twined with snakes that he held. All these were in the temple, and many more, such as a woman in a chariot drawn by oxen, and an old crowned man rising from the blue waves of the sea.

Then the Bishop laid his trembling imperious fingers upon a place higher up the mountain, above the temple.

“Look upon this,” he said. There, amongst olive trees, the monk perceived a pink, naked woman. In one hand she held a mirror into which, lasciviously, she smiled. Her other hand held out behind her a great wealth of shining hair like gold. Above her, clouds upon the blue sky turned over and let down a rain of pink roseleaves.

“I do not know who these be,” the monk Francis said. “I was never in Rome.”

Then the Bishop said harshly:

“Was the woman you saw like this woman?”