fulviac passed away that morning into the forest, a shaft of red amid the mournful glooms. colour and steel streamed after him fantastically. the great cliff, silent and desolate, basked like a leviathan in the sun.
of the daylight and its crown of gold, the girl yeoland had no deep joy. when she had ended her passion over the blazoned pages of her breviary, and mopped her tears with a corner of her gown, she rose to realism, and turned her mood to the cheating of the dues of time.
the hours lagged with enough monotony to degenerate a saint; yeoland was very much a woman. the night had left her a legacy of evil. she had shadows under her eyes, and a constant swirl of thoughts within her brain that made solitude a torture-house, full of prophetic pain. there was her lute, and she eschewed it, seeing that her fingers seemed as ice. as for her embroidery, the stitches wandered haphazard, wrought grotesque things, or lost all method in a stupor of sloth. she threw the banner aside in a fume at last, and let her broodings have their way.
the forenoon crawled, like a beggar on a dusty high-road in the welt of august. time seemed to stand and mock her. hour by hour, she was tortured by the vision of steel falling upon a strong young neck, of a white face lying in a pool of blood, of a dripping carcase and a sweating sword. though the vision maddened her, what could her weak hands do? the man was shackled, and guarded by men with whom she dared not tamper. moreover, she remembered the last look in fulviac's keen eyes.
towards evening she grew rabid with unrest, fled from the cave by the northern stair, and took sanctuary amid the tall shadows of the forest. the pine avenues were ever like a church to her, solemn, stately, sympathetic as night. there was nought to anger, nought to bring discord, where the croon of the branches soothed like a song.
it was as she played the nun in this forest cloister, that a strange thought challenged her consciousness under the trees. it was subtle, yet full of an incomprehensible bitterness, that made her heart hasten. even as she considered it, as a girl gazes at a jewel lying in her palm, the charm flashed magic fire into her eyes. this victim for the sword lay shackled to the wall in the great guard-room. she would go and steal a last glance at him before fulviac and death returned.
stairway, bower, and gallery were behind her. she stood in fulviac's parlour, where the lamp burnt dimly, and harness glimmered on the walls. the door of the room stood ajar. she stole to it, and peered through the crack left by the clumsy hingeing, into the lights and shadows of the room beyond.
at the lower end of a long table the two guards sat dicing, sprawling greedily over the board, the lust of hazard writ large in their looks. the dice kept up a continuous patter, punctuated by the intent growls of the gamesters. by the sloping wall of the cavern, palleted on a pile of dirty straw, lay the lord flavian of gambrevault, with his hands shackled to a staple in the rock. he lay stretched on his side, with his back turned towards the light, so that his face was invisible to the girl behind the door.
she watched the man awhile with a curious and dark-eyed earnestness. there was pathos in the prostrate figure, as though hezekiah-like the man had turned to the bare rock and the callous comfort despair could give. once she imagined that she saw a jerking of the shoulders, that hinted at something very womanish. the thought smote new pity into her, and sent her away from the cranny, trembling.
yeoland withdrew into fulviac's room, and thence into the murk of the gallery leading to her bower. a sudden sense of impotence had flooded into her heart; she even yearned for some shock of fate that might break the very bonds that bound her to her vengeance, as to a corpse. on the threshold of her room, a sudden sound brought her to a halt like a hand thrust out of the dark to clutch her throat. she stood listening, like a miser for thieves, and heard much.
a curse came from the guard-room, the crash of an overturned bench, the tingling kiss of steel. she heard the scream as of one stabbed, a smothered uproar, an indiscriminate scuffling, then----silence. she stood a moment in the dark, listening. the silence was heavy and implacable as the rock above. fear seized her, a lust to know the worst. she ran down the gallery into fulviac's room. the door was still ajar; she thrust it open and entered the great cavern.
her doubts elapsed in an instant. at the long table, a man sat with his head pillowed on his arms. a red rivulet curled away over the board, winding amid the drinking horns, isleting the dice in its course. on the floor lay the second guard, a smudge of crimson oozing from his grey doublet, his arms rigid, his hands clawing in the death-agony. at the end of the table stood the lord flavian of gambrevault, free.
three cubits of steel had tangled the plot vastly in the passing of a minute. the climax was like a knot of silk thrust through with a sword. the two stood motionless a moment, staring at each other across the length of the table, like a couple of mutes over a grave. the man was the first to break the silence.
"madame," he said, with a certain grand air, and a flippant gesture, "suffer me to condone with you over the lamentable tricks of fortune. but for gross selfishness on my part, i should still be chastening myself for the unjust balancing of our feud. god wills it, seemingly, that i should continue to be your debtor."
despite her woman's wit, the girl was wholly puzzled how to answer him. she was wickedly conscious in her heart of a subtle gratitude to heaven for the sudden baulking of her malice. the man expected wrath from her, perhaps an outburst of passion. taking duplicity to her soul, she stood forward on the dais and tilted her chin at him with dutiful defiance.
"thank my irresolution, messire," she said, "for this reprieve of fortune."
he came two steps nearer, as though not unminded to talk with her in open field.
"at dawn i might have had you slain," she continued, with some hastening of her tongue; "i confess to having pitied you a little. you are young, a mere boy, weak and powerless. i gave you life for a day."
the man reddened slightly, glanced at the dead men, and screwed his mouth into a dry smile.
"most harmless, as you see, madame," he said. "for your magnanimity, i thank you. deo gratias, i will be as grateful as i may."
she stood considering him out of her dark, long-lashed eyes. the man was good to look upon, ruddy and clean of lip, with eyes that stared straight to the truth, and a pose of the head that prophesied spirit. the sunlight of youth played sanguine upon his face; yet there was also a certain shadow there, as of premature wisdom, born of pain. there were faint lines about the mouth and eyes. for all its sleek and ruddy comeliness, it was not the face of a boy.
"messire," she said to him at last.
"madame."
"he who lurks over long in the wolf's den may meet the dam at the door."
he smiled at her, a frank flash of sympathy that was not devoid of gratitude.
"haste would be graceless," he said to her.
"how so?" she asked him.
"ha, madame yeoland, have i not watched my arms at night before the high altar at avalon? have i not sworn to serve women, to keep troth, and to love god? you judge me hardly if you think of me as a butcher and a murderer. for the death of your kinsfolk i hold myself ashamed."
there was a fine light upon his face, a power of truth in his voice that was not hypocritic. the girl stared him over with a certain critical earnestness that boasted a gleam of approval.
"fair words," she said to him; "you did not speak thus to me last eve."
"ah!" he cried, beaming on her, "i was cold as a corpse; nor could i whine, for pride."
"and your shackles?"
he laughed and held up both hands; the wrists were chafed and bloody.
"it was ever a jest against me," he said, "that i had the hands of a woman, white and meagre, yet strong with the sword. your fellows thrust a pair of wristlets on me fit for a goliath, strong, but bulky. my hands have proved my salvation. i pulled them through while the guards diced, crept for a sword, gained it, and my freedom."
she nodded, and was not markedly dismal, though the wind had veered against her cause. the man with the grey eyes was a being one could not quarrel with with easy sincerity. probably it did not strike her at the moment that this friendly argument with the man she had plotted to slay was a contradiction worthy of a woman.
the lord of avalon meanwhile had drawn still nearer to the girl upon the dais. his grey eyes had taken a warmer lustre into their depths, as though her beauty had kindled something akin to awe in his heart. he set the point of the sword on the floor, his hands on the hilt, and looked up at the white face medallioned in the black splendour of its hair.
"madame," he said very gravely, "it is the way of the world to feel remorse when such an emotion is expedient, and to fling penitence into the bottomless pit when the peril is past. i shall prove to you that mine is no such april penitence. here, on the cross of my sword, i swear to you a great oath. first, that i will build a chapel in cambremont glade, and establish a priest there. secondly, i will rebuild the tower, refit it royally, attach to it cottars and borderers from mine own lands. lastly, mass shall be said and tapers burnt for your kinsfolk in every church in the south. i myself will do such penance as the lord bishop shall ordain for my soul."
the man was hotly in earnest over the vow--red as a ruby set in the sun. yeoland looked down upon him with the glimmer of a smile upon her lips as he kissed the cross of the sword.
"you seem honest," she said to him.
"madame, on this sword i swear it. it is hard to believe any good of an enemy. behold me then before you as a friend. there is a feud betwixt us, not of my willing. by god's light i am eager to bridge the gulf and to be at peace."
she shook her head and looked at him with a sudden mysterious sadness. such a pardon was beyond belief, the man's pure ardour, nothing but seed cast upon sand. fulviac, a tower of steel, seemed to loom beyond him--an iron figure of fate, grim and terrible.
"this can never be," she said.
his eyes were honestly sorrowful.
"is madame so implacable?"
"ah!" she said, "you do not understand me."
he stood a moment in thought, as though casting about in his heart for the reason of her sternness. despite her wrongs, he was assured by some spirit voice that it was not death that stalked betwixt them like an angel of doom. as he stood and brooded, a gleam of the truth flashed in upon his brain. he went some steps back from her, as though destiny decreed it that they should sever unabsolved.
"your pardon, madame," he said to her; "the riddle is plain to me. i no longer grope into the dark. this man, here, is your husband."
she went red as a rose blushing on her green throne at the coming of the dawn.
"messire."
"your pardon."
"ah, i am no wife," she said to him. "god knows but for this man i should be friendless and without home. he has spread honour and chivalry before my feet like a snow-white cloak. even in this, my godless vengeance, he has served me."
the man strode suddenly towards the dais, with his face turned up to hers. a strange light played upon it, half of passion, half of pity. his voice shook, for all its sanguine strength.
"ah, madame, tell me one thing before i go."
"messire."
"have i your pardon?"
"if you love life, messire, leave me."
"have i your pardon?"
"go! ere it is too late."
like a ghostly retort to her appeal came the sound of armed men thundering over the bridge. their rough voices rose in the night's silence, smitten through with the clash and clangour of arms. fulviac had caught john of brissac's company in the woods by gilderoy. there had been a bloody tussle and much slaughter. triumphant, they were at the gate with prosper the preacher in their midst.
the pair in the cavern stared at each other with a mute appeal.
"fulviac," said the girl in a whisper.
"the door!"
"it is barred."
they were silent and round-eyed, as children caught in the midst of mischief. mailed fists and pike staves were beating upon the gate. a babel of impatience welled up without.
"adrian, gregory!"
"lazy curs!"
"unbar, unbar!"
mocking silence leered in retort. yeoland and the lord of avalon were still as mice. the din slackened and waned, as though fulviac's men were listening for sound of life within. then came more blows upon the gate; fingers fumbled at the closed grill. the man gregory lay and stared at the rocky roof; adrian sat with his face pooled by his own blood.
a fiercer voice sounded above the clamour. it was fulviac's. the girl shivered as she stood.
"ho, there, gregory, adrian; what's amiss with ye?"
still silence, mocking and implacable. the lull held for the moment; then the storm gathered.
"break down the gate," roared the voice; "by god, we will see the bottom of this damned silence."
the lord flavian of avalon had stood listening with the look of a man cooped in a cavern, who hears the sea surging to his feet. he glanced at the dead guards, and went white. to save his soul from purgatory it behoved him to act, and to act quickly. a single lamp still burnt in the oratory of hope. he went near to the girl on the dais, and held up the crossed hilt of his sword.
"by the holy cross, mercy!"
she cast a frightened glance into his eyes, and continued mute a moment. the thunder grew against the gate, the crash of steel, a rending din that went echoing into all the pits and passage-ways of the place. fulviac's men had dragged the trunk of a fallen pine up the causeway, and were charging the gate till the timber groaned.
the man, with his sword held like a crucifix, stood and pleaded with his eyes.
"mercy!" he said; "you know this warren and can save me."
"are you a craven?"
"craven? before god, no, only desperate. what hope have i unharnessed, one sword against fifty?"
for yet another moment she appeared irresolute, dazed by the vision of fulviac's powerful wrath. he was a stark man and a terrible, and she feared him. the timbers of the gate began to crack and gape. flavian of avalon lifted up his voice to her with a passionate outburst of despair.
"god, madame, i cannot die. i am young, look at me, life is at its dawn. by your woman's mercy, hide me. give me not back to death."
his bitter agitation smote her to the core. she looked into his eyes; they were hungry as love, and very piteous. there could be no sinning against those eyes. great fear flooded over her like a green billow, bearing her to the inevitable. in a moment she was as hot to save him as if he had been her lover.
"come," she said, "quick, before the gate gives."
she led him like the wind through fulviac's parlour, and down the gallery to her own bower. it was dark and lampless. she groped to the postern, fumbled at the latch and conquered it. night streamed in. she pushed the man out and pointed to the steps.
"the forest," she said, "for your life; bear by the stars for the north."
a full moon had reared her silver buckler in the sky. the night was sinless and superb, drowned in a mist of phosphor glory. the man knelt at her feet a moment, and pressed his lips to the hem of her gown.
"the virgin bless you!"
"go----"
"i shall remember."
he descended and disappeared where the trees swept up with wizard glimmerings to touch the cliff. when he had fled, yeoland passed back into the cavern, and met fulviac before the splintered gate with a lie upon her lips.
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《the red saint》
