so briskly did the lord of pevensey sweep the woods that maytide, hunting his enemies with horn and hound, that he drove such mesne lords as had drawn the sword beyond his borders into other parts. the mere gentleman and the yeoman could make no fight of it as yet against a great lord who held the castles. the peasants were cowed by the lances of the troopers; a few still lurked in the deeps of the woods, chased hither and thither like wild things that fly from the cry of the hound. the finer and fiercer spirits fled with savage thoughts in their hearts, counting on the day when their chance should come again. waleran de monceaux took refuge in winchelsea, and joined himself to the men of that town. others galloped away to seek earl simon, and to ease their wrath under de montfort’s banner. as for grimbald the priest, he lay near to death, hidden near a swineherd’s hovel, stricken with the wounds that he had gotten him at goldspur manor.
when waleran de monceaux, that man of the fierce face and the bristling beard, fled to winchelsea town, he rode by the abbey of battle as the dawn was breaking and halted there and called for food. he and his men had touched neither meat nor bread for a day and a night. some were wounded, all of them ragged, famished, and caked with the mire of the woodland ways. the hosteler looked sulkily at these savage and beaten men. love them he could not because of their importunity, and their great hunger. and while they cursed him because of his slowness, he sent word to the abbot, desiring his commands.
abbot reginald’s message came to him with curt good sense.
“feed them, and be rid of them.”
so waleran and his men had their paunches filled, because reginald of battle was a man of discretion and desired to keep his lands untainted. there were sundry inconveniences that clung even to the right of sanctuary and such high prerogatives. reginald of brecon was a smooth and astute man, a fine farmer, and keen as any lombard. he would have no neighbour’s sparks from over the hedge setting fire to his own hayrick. if fools quarrelled, he could pray for both parties, and hold up the cross benignantly, provided no one came trampling his crops.
in those days dom silvius was almoner at the abbey, a quiet, sharp-faced, gliding mortal, very devout yet very shrewd. men said that dom silvius loved his “house” better than he loved his soul. never was a mouse more quick to scent out peas. he knew the ploughlands in every manor, every hog in every wood, how much salt each pan should yield, the value of the timber and the underwood, the measure of the corn ground at the mills, the honey each hive yielded, the number of fish that might be taken from the stews. the abbey’s charter, and each and every several bequest might have been written on dom silvius’s brain. he was ever on the alert, ever contriving, and such a man was to be encouraged. his brethren loved him, for he was not miserly towards the “girdle,” and their pittances were bettered by dom silvius’s briskness. what did it matter if a monk meddled with more than concerned him, provided the buildings were in good repair, and his brethren had red wine to warm their bellies.
dom silvius’s ears were always open. he was a quiet man who did not frighten folk, but he learnt their secrets, and he often touched their money. few lawyers could have snatched a grant from under the almoner’s cold, white fingers. he was a man of foresight, and of some imagination. property to him was not merely a matter of so many plough teams and so many hides, pannage for hogs, and grindings at the mill. the church held all charters in the land of the spirit; she could take toll from the lay folk, and make them pay for using her road to heaven.
the very day that waleran rode through battle, dom silvius walked with folded arms and bowed head into the abbot’s parlour. he stood meekly within the door, his face full of a smooth humility, his eyes fixed upon the rushes.
abbot reginald trusted greatly in this monk. the man was ever courteous and debonair, never turbulent or facetious, always inspired for the “glory” of his “house.”
“the blessing of the day, brother. what business lies between us?”
dom silvius lifted his eyes for the first time to his superior’s face.
“if i repeat myself, father, my importunity is an earnest failing. it concerns the red saint for whom olivia of goldspur built a cell.”
reginald of brecon leant back in his chair, and closed the book that he had been reading.
“the woman whom they call denise?”
silvius looked demure, as though his sanctity were especially sensitive where a woman was concerned.
“her fame has become very great these months,” he said quietly.
“you covet it, silvius.”
the almoner bowed his head.
“i grudge no soul its good works, father. but in these days of burnings, and of spilling of blood——”
“the woods have grown perilous, silvius, with lord peter’s men abroad.”
“that is the very truth, sir. there is no place safe outside the sanctuaries. i have heard it said that the prior of mickleham has offered protection to the woman.”
abbot reginald smiled, the smile of a philosopher.
“speak your thoughts, brother.”
silvius spread his hands.
“the woman is certainly a saint,” he said. “it is common report that she has worked many and strange cures. and, lord, with the foresight of faith i look towards the future. from simple beginnings great things have arisen. we do not draw pilgrims here—to our abbey. how much glory, sir, has the altar of canterbury won by the swords of those violent men.”
reginald of brecon saw dom silvius’s vision.
“a hundred years hence, brother, we shall be blessed through the relics of st. denise!”
silvius had no mistrust of his inspiration.
“the maid is certainly miraculous,” he said. “we could grant her a cell within our bounds.”
he of the mitre put the tips of his fingers in opposition.
“our brethren of mickleham or of robertsbridge would forestall us, if they could?”
“they love their ‘houses,’ father, and for that i praise them.”
“worthy men! where would you lodge her, silvius?”
“there is that stone cot near mountjoye, sir, with the croft below it. we could set up a cross there that would be seen from the road. if the maid can but work miracles here, people will flock to her; then gifts can be laid upon our altar.”
a sudden clangour of bells from the tower brought the almoner’s audience to an end. reginald of brecon rose, and laid aside his book.
“what does the woman say?” he asked, touching the core of silvius’s conception.
“that, lord, must be discovered. if i have your grace in this——?”
“go, brother, and prosper.”
and silvius went out noiselessly from the parlour, his hands hidden in the sleeves of his habit.
though the may was whitening in the woods, and the blue bells spread an azure mist above the green, may was a harsh and rugged month that year, with north winds blowing, and the sky hard and grey. and dom silvius when he mounted a quiet saddle horse and trotted away followed by two servants, drew his thick cloak about him, and was glad of his gloves and his lamb’s-wool stockings.
up in the beech wood above goldspur the wind made a restless moan through the branches of the trees. sometimes the sun struck through the racing clouds, and a wavering chequer of light and shadow fell on the thin forest grass. there was a shimmer of young green everywhere, yet the year seemed sad and plaintive as though chilled to heart by the north winds.
denise, wrapped in her grey cloak, wandered that morning along the grass paths of her trampled garden, brooding over the wreck thereof. here were her thyme and lavender bushes trodden under foot, or snapped and shredded by the browsing teeth of a horse. crushed plants peered at her pathetically from the pits where hoofs had sunk into the soft soil; a bed of pansies seemed to scowl at her with their quaint and many-coloured faces, as though reviling her for having brought such barbarians to trample them. almost the whole of the wattle fence had fallen, dragging down into the dirt the roses that had been trained to it.
yet never had denise’s garden been a more intimate part of herself than that may morning with the wind tossing the beech boughs against a heavy sky. what a change from yesterday, what a breaking in of violent life, what revelations, what regret! the quiet days seemed behind her, far in the distance, for the vivid present had made even the near past seem unreal. as for her own heart, denise was almost afraid to look therein. it was like her garden, with the barriers broken, and the life of yesterday trodden into the soil.
she had tried to put these passionate things from her, and to turn again to the life that she had known. there were a hundred things for her hands to do, but do them she could not, for the will in her seemed dead. even the familiar trifles of her woodland hermitage were full of treachery and of suggestive guile. her bed, aymery had lain there. her earthen pitcher, she had brought him water therein. the very stones of the path still seemed to show to her the stains of the man’s blood. memories were everywhere, memories that would not vanish, and would not pale.
denise’s face still burnt when she remembered etoile’s laughter, that hard, metallic laughter like the clash of cymbals. the woman’s insolence showed her the mocking face of the world, yet for the life of her, denise could not tear her thoughts from the happenings of those two days. had the whole country risen to jeer at her, she could have suffered it because of the mystery that made of the ordeal a sacrifice. she had not saved the man, and yet she did not grudge all that she had borne, all that she still might bear. the violence of yesterday had opened the woman’s eyes in denise. the world had a new strangeness, and the chant of the wind a more plaintive meaning.
she had been unable to sleep with thinking of aymery, and of what had befallen him, for she still seemed to see his white, furious face, throwing its scorn into the scoffing mouths of the gascon’s men. nor could she forget the last look that had passed between them, the appeal in the man’s eyes as though he would have said to her: “god forgive me, for all this.” where were they taking him, would they be rough with him, would he die of his wounds upon the road? what offence had he committed that his house should be burnt, and his life hazarded, and who was this peter of savoy, this provençal that he should lord it over the men of the land, claiming to act for his over-lord the king? it was the right of the strong over the weak, the pride of the men who held the castles crushing those who refused to be exploited. the curse of a weak king was over the country. these hawks of his whom he had let loose in england obeyed no one, not even their own lord.
but denise’s conscience took scourge in hand at last, and drove her from her broodings and her visions. work, something to fill the mind, something tangible to fasten the hands upon! what did it avail her to loiter, to dream, and to conjecture? there was no salvation in mere feeling. her heart was turning to wax in her, she who had worked for others, and who had been knelt to as a saint. a rush of shame smote her upon the bosom. the peasant women, these men of the fields, what would they think of her if they could read her thoughts? she had held up the cross before their eyes, and was forgetting to look at it herself.
so denise drove herself to work that morning, lifting the fallen fence and propping it with stakes, gathering the wreckage, binding up the broken life of the place. it eased her a little this labour under the grey sky, with the wind in the woods, and the smell of the soil. for in simple things the heart finds comfort, and idleness is no salve to the soul.
it was about noon when dom silvius came to the clearing in the beech wood, and denise, who was binding up her trailing roses, saw figures moving amid the trees. her brown eyes were alert instantly as the eyes of a deer. but there was nothing fierce about dom silvius’s figure, and nothing martial or masterful about the paces of his horse.
the almoner left the two servants under the woodshaw and rode forward slowly over the grass. silvius’s eyes had a habit of seeing everything, even when they happened to express a vacant yet inspired preoccupation. he saw the scarred turf, the hoof marks everywhere, the broken fence about the garden, the woman in the grey cloak at work upon her roses.
silvius kept a staid and thoughtful face till he had come close to the hermitage. then his eyes beamed out suddenly as though he had only just discovered denise behind the spring foliage of her roses. and dom silvius could put much sweetness into his smile so that his face shone like the face of a saint out of an italian picture.
“peace to you, sister; we were nearer than i prophesied.”
denise lifted her head and looked at him. a rose tendril had hooked a thorn in the cloth of her cloak. and to silvius as he gazed down into the questioning brown of her eyes, that thorn seemed to point a moral.
“i come as a friend,” he said, hiding his curiosity behind smooth kindness. “silvius the almoner of the abbey of battle.”
“i have heard of you, father,” she answered him.
silvius smiled, as though there were no such thing as spite and gossip in the world.
“may my grace fly as far as yours, sister,” he said. “you are wondering why i have ridden hither? well, i will tell you. it is because of the rumours of violence and of bloodshed that have come to us. even here, i see that you have not been spared.”
he looked about him gravely, yet with no inquisitive, insinuating briskness. his eyes travelled slowly round the circle of the broken fence, and came to point at last upon denise.
“i have come with brotherly greetings to you, sister, from lord reginald our abbot. all men know what a light has burnt here these many months upon the hills. it is a holy fire to be cherished by us, and all men would grieve to see it dimmed or quenched.”
after some such preamble he began to speak softly to denise, for he was a good soul despite his shrewdness, and the woman’s face was like a face out of heaven. he put the simple truth before her, speaking with a devout fatherliness that betrayed no subtler motive. peace should be hers, and a sure sanctuary, roof, clothes, bed, and garden, and a daily corrody from the abbey. the times were full of violence, lust, and oppression, and silvius feared for those far from the protecting shadow of some great lord or priest. at battle she should enjoy all the sweetness of sanctity; she should have even her flowers there, and he waved a hand towards the ruinous garden.
denise listened to him with a pale and unpersuaded face. perhaps a flicker of distrust had leapt up at first into her eyes. but the monk’s simplicity seemed so sincere a thing that she put distrust out of her heart.
when he had ended, she looked towards the woods in silence for a while, and silvius made no sound, as though he reverenced her silence, and understood its earnestness.
“for all this i thank you, father,” she said at last. “but come to you i cannot. it is not in my heart to leave this place.”
silvius smiled down at her very patiently.
“who shall deny that the spirit must guide you. yet even st. innocence may remember what god has given.”
denise reddened momentarily, and silvius looked away from her towards the sky.
“i am not a child, father,” she said simply. “the people in these parts love me, and i, them. they will return home in time, and will come and seek for me. i should seem to them the worst of cowards, if they found that i had fled.”
silvius was too sensitive and too shrewd to press his importunity upon her, seeing that she was prejudiced in her heart. he could leave her to think over what he had said to her. her pride might refuse to waver at the first skirmish.
“you are living your life for others, sister,” he said. “nor do we live in the midst of a wilderness at battle. trust the spirit in you; do not be misled. yet i would beseech you to remember what manner of world this is. had not st. paul fled from the city of damascus, the faith would have lacked a flame of fire.”
denise looked up at him with miraculous eyes.
“and yet, i would stay here,” she said.
“so be it, sister; some day i will ride this way again.”
so denise sent dom silvius away, clinging with all this strange new tenderness of hers to a place that seemed sacred by reason of its memories. yet if she had known what others knew, or guessed what was passing beyond her ken, she might have fled with silvius that day, and left her cell to the wild winds, the sun, and the rain.
