fulviac and his rebels had plunged into the great pine forest for refuge from the multitudinous glitter of the royal spears. the wilderness engulfed them, throwing wide its sable gates to take the war wolves in. the trees moaned like tall sibyls burdened with prophetic woe. the gold had long fallen from the gorse; the heather's purple hills were dim. mystery abode there; a sound as of tragedy rose with the hoarse piping of the autumn wind.
from the north and from the west the royal "arms" had drawn as a glittering net towards the sea of pines. a myriad splendid warriors streaked the wilds, like rich rods flowering at some magic trumpet cry. the king's host swept the hills, their banners blazing towards the solemn woods. gambrevault was theirs, and avalon of the mere. morolt's northerners had marched upon geraint, to find it a dead city, empty of life and of human sound. only gilderoy stood out for fulviac. the king had failed to leaguer it as yet, for reasons cherished in his cunning brain.
some twoscore thousand men had marched with fulviac into the forest's sanctuary. over the hills the royal horse had pressed them hard, cutting down stragglers, hanging on their rear. fulviac's host was a horde of "foot"; he had not a thousand riders to hurl against the chivalry of the king. on the bold, bleak uplands of the north and west the royal horsemen would have whelmed him like a sea. necessity turned strategist at that hour. fulviac and his rebels poured with their stagnant columns into the wilds.
the thickets teemed with steel; the myriad pike points glittered like silver moths through the dense green gloom. once more the great cliff echoed to the clangour of war and the sword. fulviac had drawn thither and camped his men upon the heights, and under the shadow of its mighty walls. watch-fires smoked on the hills. every alley had its sentinel, a net of steel thrown forth to await the coming of the king. fulviac had gathered his cubs into this lair, trusting to trammel the nobles in the labyrinths of the forest. it was a forlorn hope, the cunning purpose of despair. the spoilers of belle forêt were wise in their generation; little mercy would they win from the iron hand of richard of lauretia.
like a pale pearl set in ebony, yeoland the saint had been established again in her bower of stone. the room was even as she had left it that misty summer dawn. prayer-desk, lute, and crucifix were there, mute relics of a passionate past. how much had befallen her in those packed weeks of peril; how great a guerdon of woe had been lavished on her heart! love was as the last streak of gold in a fading west; only the stars recalled the unwavering lamps of heaven.
the cliff-room and its relics tortured her very soul. she would glance at the sebastian of the casement, and remember with a shuddering rush of woe the man in whose arms she had slumbered as a wife. death had deified him in her heart. she remembered his grey eyes, his splendid youth, his passion, his pure chivalry. he gazed down on her like a dream hero from a gloom of dusky gold. the bitter ecstasy of the past spoke to her only of the infinite beneficence of death. the grave yearned for her, and she had no hope to live.
those drear days she saw little of fulviac. the man seemed to shirk her pale, sad face and brooding eyes. her grief stung him more fiercely than all the flames nurtured in the glowing pit of war. moreover, he was cumbered with the imminent peril of his cause, and the facing of a stormy fortune. his one hope lay in some great battle in the woods, where the king's mailed chivalry would be cumbered by the trees. he made many a feint to tempt the nobles to this wild tussle. the cliff stood as adamant, a vast bulwark to uphold the rebels. yet nature threatened him with other arguments. his stores were meagre, his mouths many. victory and starvation dangled upon the opposing beams of fate.
if fulviac feared procrastination, richard of lauretia favoured the same. wise sluggard that he was, he curbed the vengeance of his clamorous soldiery, content to temporise with the inevitable trend of fortune. his light horse scoured the country, garnering food and forage from the fat lands north of geraint. time fought for him, and the starving wolves were trapped. sufficient was it that he held his crescent of steel upon the hills, leaving unguarded the barren wilds that rolled on gilderoy towards the east.
a week passed, dull and lustreless. the forest waved dark and solemn under the autumn sky; no torrents of steel gushed from its sable gates; no glittering squadrons plunged into its shadows. the king's men lay warm about their watch-fires on the hills, fattening on good food, tingling for the trumpet cry that should herald the advance. richard of the iron hand smiled and passed the hours at chess in his great pavilion pitched on the slopes towards geraint. simon of imbrecour held the southern marches; morolt and his northerners guarded the west.
it was grey weather, sullen and storm-laden, eerie of voice. the black wild tossed like a sombre sea over hill and valley, its spires rocking under the scurrying sky, its myriad galleries shrill with the cry of the wind. there was no rest there, no breathless silence under the frail moon. the trees moaned like a vast choir wailing the downfall of a god. the wild seemed full of death, and of the dead, as though the souls of those slaughtered in the war screamed about fulviac's lair. the sentinels, grey figures in a sombre atmosphere, watched white-faced in the thickets. the clarions of the storm might mask the onrush of the royal chivalry.
yeoland the saint lay full length upon a carved settle before a dying fire. she was listening to the wind as it roared over the cliff, amid the shrill clamour of the trees. it was such an eve as when flavian had rattled at the postern to offer her love, and a throne at avalon. she had spoken of war, and war had sundered them, given death to desire, and a tomb to hope. the glow of the fire played upon the girl's face and shone in her brooding eyes. night was falling, and the gloom increased.
she heard footsteps in the gallery, the clangour of a scabbard against the rock. the door swung back, and fulviac stood in the entry, clad in full harness save for his casque. there were deep furrows upon his forehead. his lids looked heavy from lack of sleep, and his eyes were bloodshot. the tinge of grey in his tawny hair had increased to a web of silver.
he came in without a word, set his hands on the back of the settle, and stared at the fire. yeoland had started up; she sat huddled in the angle, looking in his face with a mute surmise. fulviac's face was sorrowful, yet strong as steel; the lips were firm, the eyes sullen and sad. he was as a man who stared ruin betwixt the brows, nor quailed from the scrutiny though death stood ready on the threshold.
"cloak yourself," he said to her at last; "be speedy; buckle this purse to your girdle."
she sprang up as the leather pouch rattled on the settle, and stood facing fulviac with her back to the fire.
"whither do we ride?"
"i send you under escort to gilderoy."
"and you?"
he smiled, tightened his sword belt with a vicious gesture, and still stared at the hearth.
"my lot lies here," he said to her; "i meet my doom alone. what need to drag you deeper into the dark?"
she understood him on the instant, and the black thoughts moving in his mind. disasters thickened about the cliff; perils were clamorous as the wind-rocked trees. fulviac feared the worst; she knew that from his face.
"you send me to gilderoy?" she said.
"i have so determined it."
"and why?"
"need you doubt my discretion?"
the flames flashed and gleamed upon his breastplate, and deepened the shadows upon his face. his eyes were sorrowful, yet full of a strenuous fire.
"the sky darkens," he said to her, "and the king's hosts watch the forest. i had thought to draw them into the wilds, but the fox of lauretia has smelt a snare. our stores lessen; we are in the last trench."
she moved away into a dark corner of the room, raised the carved lid of a chest, and began to draw clothes therefrom, fingering them listlessly, as though her thoughts wavered. fulviac leant with folded arms upon the settle, seemed even oblivious of her presence under the burden of his fate.
"fulviac," she said at last, glancing at him over a drooping shoulder.
he turned his head and looked at her.
"must i go then to gilderoy?"
"the road is open," he answered, with no obvious kindling of his sympathy; "there will be bloody work here anon; you will be safer behind stone walls."
"and the king?" she asked him.
he straightened suddenly, like a man tossing some great burden from off his soul.
"ha, girl! are you blind as to what shall follow? richard of the iron hand waits for us with fivescore thousand men. we shall fight--by god, yes!--and make a bloody end; there will be much slaughter and work for the sword. the king will crush us as a falling rock crushes a scorpion. there will be no mercy. death waits. put on that cloak of thine."
she stood motionless a moment, listening to the moaning of the wind. the man's grim spirit troubled her. she remembered that he had bulwarked her in her homeless days, had dealt her much pity out of his rugged heart. he was alone now, and shadowed by death. thus it befell that she cast the cloak aside upon the bed, and stood forward with quivering lips before the fire.
"fulviac."
"little sister."
"ah! god pardon me; i have been a weak and graceless friend. you have been good to me, beyond my gratitude. the past has gone for ever; what is left to me now? shall i not meet death at your side?"
he stood back from her, looking in her eyes, breathing hard, combating his own heart. he loved the girl in his fierce, staunch way; she was the one light left him in the gathering gloom. now death offered him her soul. he tottered, stretched out his hands to her, snatched them back with a great burst of pride.
"no, this cannot be."
"ah!"
"i have dared the storm; alone will i fall beneath its vengeance. you shall go this night to gilderoy."
she thrust out her hands to him, but he turned away his face.
"ah! little sister, this war was conceived for god, but the devil leavened it. i have gambled with fire, and the ashes return upon my head. i give you life; 'tis little i may give. come now, obey me, these are my last words."
she turned from him very quietly in the shadow, hiding her face with her arm. picking up her cloak, she drew it slowly about her shoulders, fulviac watching her, a pillar of steel.
"they wait for you in the forest," he said; "go down the stair. colgran rides with you to gilderoy. he is to be trusted."
she drooped her head, staggered to the door, darted back again with a low cry and a gush of tears.
"fulviac."
"little woman."
"god keep you! kiss me, this once."
he bent to her, touched her forehead with his lips, thrust her again towards the door.
"go, my child."
and she went forth slowly from him, weeping, into the night.
