denise slipped slowly to her knees, still leaning the weight of her body against the trunk of the tree. the languor of death seemed upon her, but her eyes could still meet aymery’s, brown eyes swimming with the death mist, and growing blind to the sunlight. the man’s shocked face, and his outstretched hands were the last things that she remembered.
“lord, it is better so.”
her head drooped, her hair falling about her face. the long lashes flickered over the eyes like the flickering light of a taper before it dies in the darkness. aymery dropped on his knees beside her. he was awed, shaken to the deeps, a man who looked upon the face of death, and knew that the great silence was falling upon the mouth of the woman whom he had kissed in dreams.
“denise.”
he took her into his arms, for there was no power to gainsay him, and death, dread lord, still watched and waited. they were heart to heart for the moment, though life was melting within the span of the man’s arms. denise opened her eyes once, and smiled, but it was the ghost of a smile that aymery had.
“denise!”
his mouth was close to hers.
“lord, it is the end; do not judge me hardly.”
“denise, my desire, am i here to judge?”
“it was gaillard’s doing,” she said, “and god deserted me. i am very tired, so tired. now, i am falling asleep.”
she gave a great sigh, and let her head lie upon his shoulder, her skin growing more white under the clouding of her hair. aymery felt her hands grow cold as he knelt there looking at her in a stupor of awe, and wrath, and rebellious wonder. he believed that denise would open her eyes no more, that the eternal silence was falling upon her mouth. this was death indeed, death that found him inarticulate and helpless.
he let her lie there upon the grass with her head resting upon a mossy root of the tree, and turned to call marpasse back through the wood. and marpasse came running, to stare at the deed her knife had done, and then to fall on her knees with a kind of blubbering fierceness, that was combative in its grief. she laid her hand on denise’s bosom, and bent over her till her mouth nearly touched the silent lips. but denise still breathed, and marpasse sat back on her heels and began to unlace denise’s tunic.
aymery was standing by, looking down at them as though stunned. his helplessness maddened marpasse, and she turned and stung him.
“fool, will you let her bleed to death?”
she had laid bare the wound in denise’s bosom, a narrow mouth from which the red life was ebbing slowly.
“fool! have you such things as hands? for god’s love, something to staunch the flow!”
her words were like cold water dashed into his face. aymery ripped his surcoat, tore a great piece away, folded it, and gave the pad to marpasse. she pressed it to the wound with one hand, and with the other beckoned aymery to take her place.
“shall we give in without a fight?” she said, “you are better with a sword than with a sponge, lording. i have some linen on me, though it might have come white out of the wash.”
she turned up her blue gown, and tore strips from the shift beneath.
“blood stops blood, they say,” and she ran back between the trees to where the dead man lay with the spear through him. the stuff and her hands were red when she returned.
“lift the pad, lording.”
he obeyed her, and she pressed some of the linen into the wound.
“a bandage, what shall we do for a bandage?”
aymery tore his surcoat into strips, and knotting them together, he gave the end to marpasse.
“raise her, gently, gently, my man.”
while aymery held denise limp and still warm, with her head and her hair upon his hauberk, marpasse wound and rewound the bandage about her body, drawing the swathings as tightly as she could.
when she had ended it, she put her mouth to denise’s mouth, and felt the white throat with her fingers.
“life yet,” she said.
then she and aymery looked into each other’s eyes.
“what next?”
that was what they asked each other.
now marpasse knew the country in those parts, having lived near at one time in the house of a lord’s verderer, and gone a-hawking, and a-hunting in the woods. when she and denise had started on their flight from gaillard and the king’s army, marpasse had had a certain house of sempringham nuns in her mind’s eye. it was a little convent hid in a valley, aloof from the world, and very peaceful. marpasse told aymery of the place. they could carry denise there, a forlorn venture, for both felt that she would die upon the road.
“the prioress is named ursula,” said marpasse, “and she is a good woman, though that may be worth little. they may know something of leech-craft.”
aymery mounted his horse, and marpasse lifted denise, and gave her into the man’s arms.
“while the torch flickers there is light, lording,” she said; “god grant that she may not die on the way.”
they set off through the april woods, aymery with denise lying in his arms, marpasse walking beside the horse, a marpasse who was solemn and pensive, and unlike her ribald self. aymery hardly glanced at the woman who walked beside the horse, for his whole soul was with denise, denise so white and silent, with the death shadows under her eyes. her hair lay tossed in a shining mass over aymery’s neck and shoulder, and he held her very gently as though afraid of stifling those feebly drawn breaths. sometimes he spoke to his horse, and the beast went very softly as though understanding denise’s need.
they came out of the wood and found themselves on the edge of a valley, a green trough threaded by a stream running between meadows. marpasse stood looking about her for some familiar tree or field or the outline of a hill. they saw smoke rising in a blue column from a stone chimney behind a knoll of trees. marpasse’s eyes brightened. they had stumbled on the very place that she sought.
“the luck is with us, lording,” she said, “i will come with you as far as the gate. but a devil’s child may not set foot on so godly and proper a threshold.”
she spoke a little scornfully, and aymery looked down at marpasse as though he had hardly noticed her before. she had been a mere something that had moved, and exclaimed, and acted. of a sudden he seemed to touch the humanism and the woman in her.
he bent over denise, and then looked again at marpasse.
“she is yet alive. how did you two come together?”
marpasse had not discovered yet why denise had used the knife, though aymery had saved her from gaillard’s men. but marpasse had her suspicions.
“we met on the road, lording, where we wastrels drift. she was not one of us. no. she told me her whole story. that was last night outside guildford town.”
aymery’s eyes were on the priory beneath them amid its meadows. he kept silence awhile, and when he spoke he did not look at marpasse.
“part of the tale i know,” he said, “and god forgive me, i had an innocent share in it.”
his eyes were on denise’s face again, and he smiled as a man smiles with bitter tenderness at death.
“tell me what you know.”
marpasse plodded along, staring at the grass. and presently she had told aymery all that denise had told her, and told it with the blunt pathos of a rough woman telling the truth.
they were nearing the convent now with its grey walls and trees, its barns and outhouses with their dark hoods of thatch. aymery’s face was grim and thoughtful. he touched denise’s hair with his lips, and marpasse saw the kiss and, being a woman, she understood.
“the devil snatched at her lording,” she said, “but god knows that she was not the devil’s, either in heart or in body.”
aymery rode on with bowed head. he was thinking of gaillard, and how he would follow that man to the end of the world, and kill him for the death he had brought upon denise.
they came to the convent, and marpasse sat down on a rough bench outside the gate. the portress was waiting there, a very old woman with a dry, wrinkled face, a harsh voice, and grey hairs on her chin. she screwed up her eyes at the knight, and at the burden that he carried in his arms. aymery was blunt and speedy with her, a man not to be gainsaid.
“peace to you,” he said, “soul and body are hurt here. go and tell your prioress that we are in need.”
he rode into the court, though a most sensitive etiquette might have forbidden an armed man to ride into such a place. the portress went her way with a hobbling excitement that was very worldly. presently ursula the prioress came out, and two nuns with her and since aymery held out denise to the women they could not let him drop her upon the stones.
