a poor rag of a man, with the pinched face of a sick girl, came limping on sore heels to the western gate of pevensey. the man had a broken arrow through the flesh of his neck; his mouth was all awry, and his breath came in great heaves, for he had run ten miles that morning. when someone caught him round the middle as he tottered at the gate, he doubled up like a wet clout over a line, and emptied his very soul over the stones. the guards put him on his back awhile, rubbed his legs, and gave him a horn of mead to drink. one of them forced the back of the arrow through the skin, and whipped it out as a woman whips a broken bodkin out of a friend’s finger.
the beer, and the blunt heroism of this barber surgeon brought barnabo’s man briskly upon his haunches. he clapped his hand to his neck, saw that there was blood on it, and promptly began to whimper.
“you’ve pulled the spiggot out,” he wailed. “lord, did ever a hogshead gush faster! linen—oil, and linen, for the love of the saints.”
the men laughed at him. one of them took a smock that hung on a nail outside the porter’s lodge, tore a strip from it, spat on the wound, and bandaged barnabo’s man till he had a gorget and whimple fit for a nun.
“take a little more beer, comrade,” he said. “never a rabbit ran more bravely.”
the fugitive sulked under their attentive and jeering faces.
“go to perdition,” he retorted. “it was fifty to one, there, in the woods. messire gaillard must hear of it. you will all be very brave, sirs, when these devils begin to shoot at you from behind a hundred trees.”
gaillard heard of it soon enough, as did etoile, and peter of savoy. barnabo had been waylaid in the woods that morning, and the pole-cats had clawed him off his mule. for no man was more hated than dan barnabo in those parts, a hard, shrewd man who held many benefices, and saw that his steward ground out the dues. the italian could not speak ten words in the vulgar tongue. his ministrations would have been ridiculous had he ever troubled his soul about the people. it was told that a woman had once waylaid barnabo, and demanded to be shriven. the italian had understood nothing of what she said to him, but since she was pretty and importunate, he had created a scandal by misunderstanding her whole desire, and by seeking to comfort her in a fashion that was not fatherly. the woman had scratched barnabo’s face. there were many people who had lusted to scarify him more viciously. barnabo baptised no children, sought out none of the sick, buried none of the dead. twice a year perhaps he had said mass in the churches that belonged to him. few of the people had come to hear barnabo’s roman voice. he was a better lute player and lap-dog than priest, and the people knew it.
gaillard had his orders from peter of savoy. etoile laughed in his face when she met him upon the stairs.
“let the pole-cats play a little with barnabo,” she said. “do not ride furiously, dear lord! i can learn to serve at chess better than barnabo.”
gaillard caught at her, but she slipped past him up the stairs.
“there are two sorts of fools in the world, my gaillard,” she said. “one is killed for the sake of a woman, the other through greed for a woman. keep out of barnabo’s path.”
both peter of savoy and the gascon knew whither barnabo had ridden that april day. it was notorious that the italian had kept a focaria or hearth-ward at a priest’s house of his in a valley beyond the hill called bright ling because of the glory of its heathlands in the summer. the woman—a norman—was more comely than was well for dan barnabo’s name, and she had kept the house for him, and rendered it to him sweet and garnished whenever he chose to ride that way.
gaillard and his men marched past dallington, where guillaume sancto de leodegario was lord of the manor, and on over bright ling with the furze in full bloom. the little red spy jogged along beside the gascon’s horse. he led them into a deep valley, a valley full of the grey-green trunks of oak trees, and the brown wreckage of last year’s bracken. a stream dived and winked in the bottoms, and at the end of a piece of grassland the thatch of the priest’s house shelved under the very boughs of the oaks. no smoke rose from the place. it seemed silent and deserted as gaillard and his men came trampling through the dead bracken.
gaillard’s eyes swept hillside and valley, for he was shrewd enough to guess that many an alert shadow had dogged them on the march that day. he dismounted, sent his archers into the woods as scouts, and taking the pick of his men-at-arms, marched up to the silent house, holding his shield ready to catch any treacherous arrow that might be shot from the dark squints. a wooden perch shadowed the main entry, and gaillard saw that the door stood ajar, and that the flagstones paving the porch were littered with rushes, and caked with mud as though many feet had passed to and fro over the stones.
gaillard pushed the door open with the point of his sword. it gave to him innocently enough, and he crossed the threshold, and stood staring at something that the men behind him could not see.
the place had the dimness of twilight, lit as it was by the narrow lancets cut in the thickness of the wall. not three paces from gaillard, their feet nearly touching the floor, two bodies dangled on ropes from the black beams of the roof. the face of the one was grey; of the other, black and turgid; for one had died by the sword, the other by the rope.
the body with the black face was still twisting to and fro as a joint twists on a spit before the fire. the arms had been pinioned, and the man’s tongue been drawn out, and the head of an arrow thrust through it. the face could scarcely be recognised, but by the clothes gaillard knew him for dan barnabo, the italian, lutanist, lover, spoiler of the poor.
gaillard touched the body. it was still warm. his men were crowding in, peering over each other’s shoulders so that the doorway was full of faces, shields, and swords.
gaillard waved them back. he swung his sword, struck at the rope that held barnabo, and cut it so cleanly that the body came down upon its feet. for a moment it stood, poised there, before falling forward to hide its black face in the rushes.
gaillard looked at it a little contemptuously, thinking of etoile, and the rivalry between her and this thing that had been a man.
“only fools come by such a death,” he said. “a dog’s death. this man had a woman’s hands.”
dusk was falling, and gaillard and his men settled themselves to pass the night in dead barnabo’s house under the oak trees. gaillard, who did not trouble himself about such a thing as a “crowner’s quest,” had the two bodies buried in the garden at the foot of a holly tree. waleran de monceaux had hanged barnabo, and the priest was not pretty to look at with his black face and his swollen tongue. nor was gaillard going to quarrel with so convenient a coincidence. he called his archers back out of the woods, posted two sentinels, had the horses brought in and stabled in the hall. a fire was lit on the hearth, and the men gathered round it, and opened their wallets for supper.
gaillard kept the red-headed hunchback at his elbow, and questioned him narrowly as to the woodways, and the manor houses, and the gentry with whom he would have to deal. these sussex rebels had hanged barnabo, and in the hanging, thrown down the blood gauge to peter of savoy. war was gaillard’s business. he had learnt the trade in gascony, where neighbour went out against neighbour as for a day’s hunting. nor was it gaillard’s concern to trouble about the law of the land, and how far feudal faith bound this man or that. the king was the great over-lord, and peter of savoy stood as his champion in those parts. hence if rebels popped their heads up, it was only necessary to strike with the sword.
night fell, and the men lay down to sleep in the long hall, crowding about the fire, for the horses were ranged along the walls. the air of the place was close and heavy with the smoke from the fire, the animal heat of the crowded bodies, and the pungent scent of horses’ dung. faint flickers of light lost themselves in the black zenith of the timbered roof. gaillard, sitting propped in a corner with his sword across his knees, could hear the wet murmur of the stream that ran close to the house. he could also hear the two sentinels answering each other, and since they seemed so whole-heartedly alert, gaillard dozed off like a dog.
about midnight gaillard opened his eyes, and sat staring at the dying fire, and though he remained motionless, his face sharpened like the face of one who listens. his eyes moved slowly from figure to figure, to rest at last on the shutter closing a window. and gaillard saw that the shutter was shaking ever so little, and he knew that there was no wind.
gaillard did not move. he could hear a vague scuffling as of many men moving about the house. but there were other sounds that made the gascon’s lips tighten and retract so that the teeth showed, a faint crackling as of dry brushwood being piled against the door of barnabo’s house.
the gascon saw the shutter open. a white face peered in with eyes that moved like the eyes of a wonder-working image. then the face disappeared, and the shutter closed again, but gaillard was on his feet, and going to and fro, silently rousing his men. hardly a word was spoken. the men caught up their arms, and stood like listening dogs, while the archers marked the windows.
gaillard was at the door trying to lift the bar, but some weight from without had jammed it in the sockets. he stood listening, sniffing the air, and watching grey puffs of smoke come curling in through the crevices. then he shouted an order through the hall, an order that brought his men crowding forward for a sally. some of the strongest of them put their shoulders to the bar. it flew up, letting the door swing in with a gush of smoke and a crash of falling faggots.
“out—out!”
gaillard and his men broke through, hurling the brushwood aside, dragging it into the hall, cursing as they realised the devil’s trick that had been played them. only the outer faggots were alight. there was a gush of flame under the hooded entry, but gaillard and his men sprang through it with a weird glitter of gold upon their harness, and an uprush of smoke and sparks. dark figures flitted about the priest’s garden. arrows whistled and struck the walls as the savoyard’s men came tumbling out over the burning faggots.
there was a sharp tussle in the garden; blows were given and taken in the dark; arrows shot at a venture; torches thrust into hairy faces. gaillard’s men-at-arms in their heavy mail, for they had lain down armed to sleep, were more than a match for the woodlanders in their leather jerkins. soon—scampering shadows went away into the moonlight. gaillard and his men were left to put out the fire about the porch.
and savage men they were, men with the hot flare of that death trap in their nostrils. the two sentinels had been stalked and killed, and the brushwood piled against the door. the windows were so narrow that men could have been shot while struggling through them. the flames and smoke would have leapt in, making the place a hell of plunging, terrified beasts, and mad and half-dazed men.
gaillard watched his fellows trampling on the brushwood. now and again an arrow came whistling out of the moonlight.
“we will pay them for this,” he said grimly. “god, but they meant to burn us like blind mice in a stack!”
the fire was soon out, and there was nothing left but to wait for the daylight, and to keep the house in darkness so that no lurking woodlander should have the outline of a window for a mark. gaillard’s men were very sullen and bitter over the night’s adventure. they had brought in the two dead sentinels, and crowded about them, letting their fury break out in growls for to-morrow’s reckoning. there was no more sleep for gaillard’s men that night; they squatted round the walls, telling each other what they would do to these people who murdered priests and set fire to houses where the king’s men slept.
the dawn came with a thick mist hanging over the woods, even covering the crowns of the uplands of bright ling. gaillard had made his plans, and in the garden the little spy was drawing a map on the soil with the point of a charred stake. the archers had gone out to scout, but had found nothing but fog and rotting bracken. gaillard ordered his men to horse, and they were soon on the move through the mist, the drippings from the trees falling on them, and on grass that was grey with dew.
the hunchback, marching beside gaillard’s horse, led them towards goldspur, following the high ground where there was less chance of an ambuscade. gaillard had ordered silence. not a man spoke. the grey shapes moved through the greyer mist with no sounds but the dull shuffle of hoofs, the occasional snort of a horse, the creaking of saddles, and the faint jingle of steel.
it was still very early when they came to the hill above goldspur, and skirted the great beech wood whose topmost boughs were beginning to glitter in the sunlight. the mist lifted quite suddenly like a white diaphanous curtain drawn up into the sky. a broad beam of sunlight clove like a sword into the deeps of the beech wood. and to these rough riders of peter of savoy was revealed a vision, a vision such as a crystal-gazer might watch growing from nothingness in the heart of a crystal.
in the full sunlight at the opening of a glade a woman stood washing herself at a forest pool. the woman’s figure gleamed like snow against the sombre trunks of the trees. her hair blazed about her naked body like flames licking a white tower. as yet she had not seen that line of armed men winding along the hillside not a hundred paces from where she stood.
gaillard reined in, and held up a hand for his men to halt. he looked from the woman to the hunchback who held his stirrup strap.
“hallo, what have we here?”
the cripple crossed himself, cur that he was.
“it is denise of the forest, lording,” he said. “they call her their lady of healing in these parts. she has a cell yonder, in the wood. she can work miracles, so they say.”
the rough faces behind gaillard were all agog. a short, yapping laugh came from some man in the rear. gaillard turned in the saddle, and looked for the man who had made the noise.
“enough of that, sirs,” he said. “shall we laugh because a saint happens not to cherish vermin.”
perhaps curiosity pricked gaillard, perhaps something still more human. at all events he pushed his horse forward and rode alone up the stretch of green turf that sloped towards the beech wood. the men grinned like apes so soon as his back was turned. messire gaillard might be a great captain, but assuredly he was no saint.
gaillard was laughing to himself with a coarse spirit of mischief, being inquisitive as to what this woman would do when she discovered that she was no longer alone. he carried his chin high in the air, his hard eyes gleaming like the eyes of a man who has drunk strong wine. but denise made her womanhood a thing of pride and splendour that spring morning. her tunic was still open at the bosom when the gascon’s horse threw a shadow on the grass close to the pool.
denise looked gaillard straight in the eyes, and yet not at him, but past him, as though he were so much vapour. gaillard, gascon that he was, had not a word to say for himself, though he boasted himself so debonair with women. denise took her hair with her hands, put it behind her shoulders, and picking up the clean cloth that she had brought, turned and walked away into the wood.
for once in his life gaillard felt a fool, and his arrant sheepishness did not please him. he comforted himself with that infallible sneer that is the refuge of a vain man who has done something mean and cowardly.
“red-headed pharisee, go your way,” he said. “a woman’s sanctity is as thick as her skin. fool! i am not the first sheep that has bleated in these parts.”
