father merlin set out betimes on a fine spring morning, a hunch of bread in his wallet and his beads hanging down over his grey frock.
father merlin walked with his head thrown back, and his beak of a nose with its hungry nostrils sniffing the freshness of the morning; for the forest was in a joyous mood and the birds were singing in every bush and tree. the friar’s grey habit brushed the dew from the grass and heather. rabbits scampered to cover. the primroses were dwindling, but the wild hyacinths were blue in the woods, and the blackthorn hung white against the sky. the soft bloom of a misty morning lay over the forest, deepening towards the grey chalk hills by the southern sea, and filling the valleys with a film of silver smoke. life cried out lustily with the voice of desire. green buds were bursting; the great hills seemed swollen with the mystery of birth; the birds were coming from the lands of the sun, and the wryneck complained in the oak boughs, and from the deep woods a cuckoo called. “joy, joy, joy,” sang the blackbirds. woodlarks hovered and thrilled, dust motes of melody dancing in the sunlight.
half a furlong ahead of father merlin went a little hobbling figure in rags, prodding the earth with the point of a staff, for the polecat had trudged ahead to show the grey friar the way. merlin’s eyes watched this forerunner of his with cynical complacency. such creatures were very useful when a man of god could send them down to hell and then tweak them back again at the end of an absolution. father merlin was no clumsy, tumultuous bully; his voice had many modulations; he could be as quiet as death and as persevering as a badger.
now about the time that merlin passed by the ghost oak, fulk ferrers stood outside isoult’s door with a cup of water and a platter of bread and meat. he had taken them out of the cook-maid’s hands and left her gaping and looking at dame ferrers.
fulk unlocked the door, pushed it open with his foot, and had no need to tell himself that he had not thought to find the woman at her prayers. she was kneeling by the window, the sunlight falling upon the curve of a white neck and the silver net that covered her hair. she did not stir or look round at him, but kept her eyes shut and her hands folded over her bosom.
fulk crossed the room softly, set the cup and plate on a stool, drew back, and waited by the door. it may have been in his mind that isoult of the rose did not know who had deigned to serve her, and that to a woman who prayed with her eyes closed one footstep was very like another.
she remained motionless, and fulk waited, watching her, meaning to be gone, and yet not going. this woman was a creature of surprises, a creature more wild and subtle than any hart he had ever tracked and hunted in the forest.
“good-morning, messire fulk.”
he stared, for she had neither moved nor opened her eyes, for he had been watching her.
“it seems that you see with your ears!” he said.
“yes, and with my nostrils and my fingers.”
“even while you say your prayers!”
“i was praying for you, messire fulk, therefore i knew you, though my eyes were closed.”
she turned and gave him the full challenge of her opened eyes—eyes in which there was neither laughter nor raillery, but rather a prophetic pity. the polecat had been to her window during the night, and the polecat’s claws were to be dreaded because of those magicians whom the polecat served.
fulk hovered there like a hawk, not seeing anything upon which his reason could pounce.
“madame isoult, wherefore do you pray for me?”
“because of your great need.”
“think you i need your prayers?”
“far more than i need yours.”
he was puzzled, both by the singing softness of her voice, and by the intent way in which she regarded him.
“i have no knowledge of needing a woman’s prayers.”
“no? yet, good sir, since you will keep me here i must pray for you, even though my prayers may be of no avail.”
he came a step forward, looking at her steadfastly.
“always riddles!”
she returned his look as steadfastly.
“you are young, messire fulk, and it is hard that a young man should come to a sudden end.”
“you are for making a ghost out of a sheet and a candle!”
her eyes flashed.
“not so. but i have a kind of pity for that stiff neck of yours. not very often have i found such stiffness in a man, and in a young man! but go to, now, i talk to a winter frost. yet it may so fall out that you shall have cause to thank me.”
he stood at gaze, and her face was the crystal into which he looked.
“for your prayers—if they are honest—i thank you,” he said. “i will stand on guard against the mischances that a woman’s prayers may hint at.”
she looked at him meaningly.
“turn your back to no bush.”
“so!”
“a vest of ring mail under a doublet may turn a knife or an arrow.”
he stood a moment, and then went out from before her thoughtfully, without uttering a word.
father merlin overtook the polecat where the heathland sloped down towards the white lodge valley. the beggar stood to one side and made the friar a reverence, his red eyes twinkling under the edge of his hood.
“a blessing, holy father.”
merlin stopped and blessed him as though he had never set eyes on the man before.
“how runs the road, my son?”
“down yonder, father, stands a goodly house, and fulk of the forest dwells therein.”
merlin crossed himself.
“my son,” said he, “there may be that work to be done which i told you of. follow, but see that no man mistakes you for my follower.”
the polecat pulled his forelock.
“i will be there, but not seen, holy father, like a toad under a stone.”
merlin marched on, but at the white lodge he found only dame margaret and her wench, and john the forester feathering arrows in the porch. merlin could be as soft and debonair as any king’s chaplain, and a cup of wine and a cold pie were brought out for his good cheer. dame margaret was at her orfrey work in the parlour, and merlin was well content to leave her there and to talk with john the forester in the porch. a second cup of hippocras was to be had for the asking, and the grey friar had much to say of the evil temper of the times and of the villainy of those lewd and meddlesome folk who grumbled because the king and the lords and gentles needed money.
merlin discovered what he wished to discover, whither fulk of the forest had gone.
“for,” said he, “i never miss speech with a gentleman in whatsoever parts i may be travelling. i follow in the steps of st. francis, and all living things were st. francis’s children.”
he left drunken john much edified and a little redder about the nose, and set out westwards with his cowl drawn down and his beads in his hand.
beyond the gorse lands by stoneygate, where the world was all green and gold, he came to the rich meadows by the vachery and sat himself down under a wind-blown thorn. it was not for merlin’s eyes to overlook the cowherd or bibulcus in leather jerkin and leggings standing by the vachery gate and talking to a man on a rough roan horse. the man on the horse was dressed in green, and the liripipes of his hood were blue and white; moreover, he carried a bow, and a horn slung to a blue and white baldric—colours that were the duke of lancaster’s, even of john of gaunt.
merlin heard a bird twittering in the furze, and he guessed it was the polecat who twittered. fulk of the forest was turning his horse from the vachery gate, and the cowherd went in and closed it after him. merlin sat well back against the trunk of the thorn tree, his head bowed, his beads in his hands, his ears listening for the hoof-falls of the riding forester’s horse.
fulk, mounting the meadow slope, saw the grey friar under the thorn tree telling his beads. he had no great love for the strolling friars, holding them to be deer stealers when the chance served, and self-seeking meddlers who were breeding an insolent pride in the hearts of the lewd commons. for fulk had an eagle scorn for the villein folk and the lower craftsmen of the town. such creatures were to be kept under, and not puffed into a vain conceit of themselves by men who had left the dunghill to put on a friar’s frock.
fulk took a good look at the franciscan, and from under his hood merlin’s eyes were watching the legs of the roan horse. it was part of his plan that he should seem lost in his devotions and blind to the world till messire fulk rode up.
“good-day to you, master friar.”
merlin lifted his head with a start of pretended surprise. fulk had reined in close to the thorn tree, and merlin looked up at him as he sat there full in the sunlight.
“good-day, lording.”
the astonishment that he had feigned lost itself in an astonishment that was real. merlin’s eyes fell into a stare; his lower lip drooped; the beads dropped into his lap. for the moment he lost all knowledge of himself, and his subtlety was as a snake that has been stunned with a blow.
“sir, i am but a poor friar.”
fulk looked him over, and thought him a gaping, stammering fool. merlin was trying to scramble back out of the open amazement into which he had fallen, to steady his wits, to hide what he had betrayed. he blinked, and bit his cheek. but the thing was monstrous. to whom was he speaking—to a stripling called fulk of the forest or to richard the king?
merlin was shaken. for the moment he hardly knew whether the earth was real under him.
“sir,” he said, to gain time, “my name is father merlin, and i travel in these parts for the good of all souls.”
he stood up with a humility that hid much turmoil, doubt, and wonder, yet his eyes were fiercely alive under his grey hood—eyes that snatched at every visible detail, and yet pretended to see nothing.
fulk considered him as a lord considers a beggar.
“you friars are notorious busybodies. our own priests say you take away their own alms-dish from under their very noses.”
merlin drew a step nearer.
“lording, we are much abused.”
“and it is pleasant to confess to a man whose face one may not see again.”
“lording, you have a sharp tongue. yet i will take a groat from any gentleman for the glorifying of our great house in london. and from messire fulk ferrers——”
“well, i am he.”
merlin stood yet closer. his dark eyes seemed to search every line of fulk’s face with a fascinated and greedy eagerness which could not be hid. fulk took it to be a notorious hunger for money, for no beggars could beg like the preaching friars.
“maybe you have been in london, messire fulk, and have seen the great and noble church of st. francis, near to newgate. kings and great lords and ladies have given us money, and jewels, and plate, and rich stuffs, not for our glory but for the glory of st. francis and the good of their souls. doubtless, when you have tarried at my lord of lancaster’s palace of the savoy——”
fulk took him up.
“i have never been in your city of london, master friar.”
a bird twittered in the furze, and merlin threw up his arms of a sudden, and cried in a loud voice: “peace—peace! all honour to st. francis, and let all men love one another.”
fulk looked at him as at one gone mad. merlin waxed explanatory.
“sir, at times the spirit stirs in me so strongly that i have to leap and cry out. and assuredly it is a marvellous thing that such a bachelor as fulk ferrers should never have ridden thirty miles and crossed london bridge! yet you are not altogether the loser, for in a city lurks much wickedness.”
fulk’s horse began to fidget, and his master was in sympathy with him.
“we forest folk keep our wits and our money about us, father merlin, nor have we much of the latter to lose. i wish you a good journey, plenty of alms, and many sinners.”
merlin showed his teeth and grinned.
“pax tecum, my son.”
and so they parted.
the polecat came wriggling out of the furze as soon as fulk of the forest had disappeared over the hill. he rubbed one finger along his nose and spat into the grass.
“father merlin is merciful to-day.”
merlin turned on him with the savage impatience of a fierce spirit wantonly disturbed in the midst of some marvellous meditation.
“back into the grass, you snake. and by the wood of the cross, do not budge thence till nightfall.”
the polecat wriggled back, and father merlin went on his way, staring at the ground. he had walked a mile or more before he threw up both hands with a snapping of the thumbs and fingers and shouted aloud with exultation.
“a bastard, a prince’s bastard! how would it serve to steal and use the likeness of a king?”
