fortune had not blessed the cause of the people with that torrential triumph toiled for by their captains. the flood of war had risen, had overwhelmed tall castles and goodly cities, yet there were heights that had baulked its frothy turmoil, mountains that had hurled it back upon the valleys. victory was like a sphere of glass tossed amid the foam of two contending torrents.
in the west, sir simon of imbrecour, that old leopard wise in war, had raised the royal banner at his castle of avray. the nobles of the western marches had joined him to a spear; many a lusty company had ridden in, to toss sword and shield in faith to the king. from his castle of avray sir simon had marched south with the flower of the western knighthood at his heels. he had caught malgo on the march from conan, even as his columns were defiling from the mountains. sir simon had leapt upon the wild hillsmen and rebel levies like the fierce and shaggy veteran that he was. a splendid audacity had given the day as by honour to the royal arms. malgo's troops had been scattered to the winds, and he himself taken and beheaded on the field under the black banner of the house of imbrecour.
in the east, godamar the free-lance lay with his troops in thorney isle, closed in and leaguered by the warlike abbot of rocroy. the churchman had seized the dyke-ways of the fens, and had hemmed the rebels behind the wild morasses. as for the eastern folk, they were poor gizardless creatures; having faced about, they had declared for the king, and left godamar to rot within the fens. the free-lance had enough ado to keep the abbot out. his marching to join fulviac was an idle and strategetical dream.
last of all, the barons of the north--fierce, rugged autocrats, had gathered their half-barbarous retainers, and were marching on lauretia to uphold the king. they were grim folk, flint and iron, nurtured amid the mountains and the wild woods of the north. they marched south like winter, black and pitiless, prophetic of storm-winds, sleet, and snow. some forty thousand men had gathered round the banner of sir morolt of gorm and regis, and, like the goths pouring into italy, they rolled down upon the luxurious provinces of the south.
fortune had decreed that about lauretia, the city of the king, the vultures of war should wet their talons. it was a rich region, gemmed thick with sapphire meres set in deep emerald woods. lauretia, like a golden courtesan, lay with her white limbs cushioned amid gorgeous flowers. her bosom was full of odours and of music; her lap littered with the fragrant herbs of love. no perils, save those of moonlit passion, had ever threatened her. thus it befell that when the storm-clouds gathered, she cowered trembling on her ivory couch, the purple wine of pleasure soaking her sinful feet.
in a broad valley, five leagues south of the city, fulviac's rebels fought their first great fight with richard of the iron hand. a warrior's battle, rank to rank and sword to sword, the fight had burnt to the embers before the cressets were red in the west. fulviac had headed the last charge that had broken the royal line, and rolled the shattered host northwards under the cloak of night. dawn had found fulviac marching upon lauretia, eager to let loose the lusts of war upon that rich city of sin. he was within three leagues of the place, when a jaded rider overtook him, to tell of malgo's death and of the battle in the west. yet another league towards the city his outriders came galloping back with the news that the northern barons had marched in and joined the king. outnumbered, and threatened on the flank, fulviac turned tail and held south again, trusting to meet godamar marching from the fens.
he needed the shoulders of an atlas those september days, for rumour burdened him with tidings that were ominous and heavy. godamar lay impotent, hedged in the morasses; malgo was dead, his mountaineers scattered. sir simon of imbrecour was leading in the western lords to swell the following of the king. vengeance gathered hotly on the rebel rear, as fulviac retreated by forced marches towards the south.
it was at st. gore, a red-roofed town packed on a hill, amid tall, dreaming woods, that colgran, with the ten thousand who had leaguered gambrevault, drew to the main host again. fulviac had quartered a portion of his troops in the town, and had camped the rest in the meadows without the crumbling, lichen-grown walls. he had halted but for a night on the retreat from lauretia, and had taken a brief breath in the moil and sweat of the march. his banner had been set up in the market-square before a rickety hostel of antique tone and temper. his guards lounged on the benches under the vines; his captains drank in the low-ceilinged rooms, swore and argued over the rough tables.
it was evening when colgran's vanguard entered the town by the western gate. his men had tramped all day in the sun, and were parched and weary. none the less, they stiffened their loins, and footed it through the streets with a veteran swagger to show their mettle. fulviac came out and stood in the wooden gallery of the inn, watching them defile into the market-square. they tossed their pikes to him as they poured by, and called on him by name--
"fulviac, fulviac!"
he was glad enough of their coming, for he needed men, and the rough forest levies were in colgran's ranks. ten thousand pikes and brown bills to bristle up against the king's squadrons! there was strength in the glitter and the rolling dust of the columns. yet before all, the man's tawny eyes watched for a red banner, and a woman in armour upon a white horse, yeoland, wife of flavian of gambrevault.
in due season he saw her, a pale, spiritless woman, wan and haggard, thin of neck and dark of eye. the bloom seemed to have fallen from her as from the crushed petals of a rose. the red banner, borne by a man upon a black horse, danced listlessly upon its staff. she rode with slack bridle, looking neither to the right hand nor to the left, but into the vague distance as into the night of the past.
around her tramped colgran's pikemen in jerkins of leather and caps of steel. the woman moved with them as though they were so many substanceless ghosts, stalking like shadows down the highway of death. her face was bloodless, bleached by grievous apathy and chill pride. the bronzed faces round her were dim and unreal, a mob of masks, void of life and meaning. sorrow had robed her in silent snow. the present was no more propitious to her than a winter forest howling under the moon.
before the hostelry the column came to a halt with grounded pikes. the woman on the white horse stirred from her stupor, looked up, and saw fulviac. he was standing with slouched shoulders in the gallery above her, his hands gripping the wooden rail. their eyes met in a sudden mesmeric stare that brought badges of red to the girl's white cheeks. there was the look upon his face that she had known of old, when perilous care weighed heavy upon his stubborn shoulders. his eyes bewildered her. they had a light in them that spoke neither of anger nor reproach, yet a look such as arthur might have cast upon fallen guinivere.
they took her from her horse, and led her mute and passive into the steel-thronged inn. up a winding stair she was brought into a sombre room whose latticed casements looked towards the west. by an open window stood fulviac, chin on chest, his huge hands clasped behind his back. colgran, in dusky harness, was speaking to him in his rough, incisive jargon. the woman knew that the words concerned her heart. at a gesture from fulviac, the free-lance cast a fierce glance at her, and retreated.
the man did not move from the window, but stood staring in morose silence at the reddening west. hunched shoulders and bowed head gave a certain powerful pathos to the figure statuesque and silent against the crimson curtain of the sky. the very air of the room seemed burdened and saturated with the gloomy melancholy of the man's mood. war, with its thousand horrors, furrowed his brow and bowed his great shoulders beneath its bloody yoke. her woman's instinct told her that he was lonely, for the soul that had ministered to him breathed for him no more.
he turned on her suddenly with a terse greeting that startled her thoughts like doves in a pine wood.
"welcome to you, lady of gambrevault."
there was a bluff bitterness in his voice that forewarned her of his ample wisdom. colgran had surrendered her, heart and tragedy in one, to fulviac's mercy. a looming cloud of passion shadowed the man's face, making him seem gaunt and rough to her for the moment. she remembered him standing over duessa's body in sforza's palace at gilderoy. life had too little promise for her to engender fear of any man, even of fulviac at his worst.
"i trust, madame yeoland, that you are merry?"
the taunt touched her, yet she answered him listlessly enough.
"do what you will; scoff if it pleases you."
fulviac shrugged his shoulders, and tossed his lion's mane from his broad forehead.
"it is a grim world this," he said; "when thrones burn, should we seek to quench them with our tears! whose was the fault that god made you too much a woman? red heart, heart of the rose, a traitorous comrade art thou, and an easy foe."
she had no answer on her lips, and he turned and paced the room before her, darting swift glances into her face.
"so they killed him?" he said, more quietly anon; "poor child, forget him, it was the fate of war. even to the grave he took the love i might never wear."
she shuddered and hid her face.
"fulviac, have pity!"
"pity?"
"this is a judgment, god help my soul!"
"a judgment?"
"for serving my own heart before the virgin's words."
the man stopped suddenly in his stride, and looked at her as though her words had touched him like a bolt betwixt the jointings of his harness. there was still the morose frown upon his face, the half closure of the lids over the tawny eyes. he gripped his chin with one of his bony hands, and turned his great beak of a nose upwards with a gesture of self-scorn.
"since the damned chicanery of chance so wills it," he said, "i will confess to you, that my confession may ease your conscience. the madonna in that forest chapel was framed of flesh and blood."
"fulviac!"
"of flesh and blood, my innocent, tricked out to work my holy will. we needed a saint, we cleansers of christendom; ha, noble justiciaries that we are. well, well, the virgin served us, and tripped back to a warm nest at gilderoy, reincarnated by high heaven."
yeoland stood motionless in the shadows of the room, like one striving to reason amid the rush of many thoughts. she showed no wrath at her betrayal; her pale soul was too white for scarlet passion. the significance of life had vanished in a void of gloom. she stood like hero striving to catch her lover's voice above the moan of the sea.
fulviac unbuckled his sword and threw it with a crash upon the table. he thrust his arms above his head, stretched his strong sinews, took deep breaths into his knotted throat.
"the truth is out," he said to her; "come, madame, confess to me in turn."
yeoland faced him with quivering lips, and a tense straining of her fingers.
"what have i to tell?" she asked.
"nothing?"
"save that i loved the lord flavian, and that he is dead."
"sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof."
"ah, you are avenged," she said, "you have crushed my heart; may the thought comfort you."
her parched apathy seemed to elapse of a sudden, and she lost her calmness in an outburst of passion. she was athirst for solitude, to be cloistered from the rough cavil of the world. colour glowed upon her sunken cheeks as she stretched out her arms to the man with a piteous vehemence.
"fulviac----"
"girl."
"ah, for god's love, end now this mockery. take this armour from me, for it burns my bosom. let me go, that i may hide my wounds in peace."
"peace!" he said, with a twinge of scorn.
"fulviac, can you not pity me? i am broken and bruised, men stare and jeer. oh, my god, only to be out of sight and alone!"
the man stood by the window looking out into the sky with lowering brows. the west burnt red above the house-tops; from the street came the noise of men marching.
"do not kill yourself," he said with laconic brevity.
"why do you say that?"
"there is truth in the suspicion."
"ah, what is life to me!"
"we christians still have need of you."
the man's seeming scorn scourged her anguish to a shrill despair. the hot blood swept more swiftly through her worn, white body.
"cursed be your ambition," she said to him; "must you torture me before the world?"
"perhaps."
"i renounce this lying part."
"as you will, madame; it will only make you look the greater fool."
"ah, you are brutal."
he turned to her with the look of one enduring unuttered anguish in the spirit. his strong pride throttled passion, twisting his rough face into tragic ugliness.
"no, believe it not," he said; "i desire even for your heart's sake that you should make the best of an evil fortune. learn to smile again; pretend to a zest in life. i have fathomed hell in my grim years, and my words are true. time loves youth and recovers its sorrow. know this and ponder it: 'tis better to play the hypocrite than to suffer the world to chuckle over one's tears."
该作者其它作品
《the red saint》
