Love Among the Ruins Part 14

"Whither?"

"To judge him."

"Not before all, not in the guard-room."

"Leave it to me," he said. "Be forewarned. We deal with no mere swashbuckler."

They went together to Fulviac's parlour, where a great brazen lamp hung from the roof, and a book bound in black leather lay chained on the table. Yeoland took the man's carved chair, while he stood behind her leaning on the rail. She was paler than was her wont. Now and again she pressed a hand to her breast, as though to stay the too rapid beating of her heart.

Two guards bearing partisans came in from the guard-room with a man bound and blindfold between them. A third followed, bearing a two-handed sword naked over his shoulder. He was known as Nord of the Hammer, an armourer like to a Norse Volund, burly, strong as a bear. The door was barred upon them. One of the guards plucked the cloth from the bound man's face.

In the malicious imagery of thought, Yeoland had often pictured to herself this Flavian of Gambrevault, a coa.r.s.e, florid ruffian, burly and brutal, a fleshly demiG.o.d in the world of feudalism. So much for conjecture. What she beheld was a straight-lipped, clean-limbed man, slim as a cypress, supple as good steel. The face was young yet strong, the grey eyes clear and fearless. Moreover there was a certain lonely look about him that invoked pity, and angered her in an enigmatic way.

She was wrath with him for being what he was, for contradicting the previous imaginings of her mind.

Flavian of Gambrevault stood bound before her, an aristocrat of aristocrats, outraged in pride, yet proud beyond complaint. The self-mastery of his breeding kept him a stately figure despite his tumbling and his youth, one convinced of lords.h.i.+p and the powerful splendour of his name. The whole affair to him was illogical, preposterous, insolent. A gentleman of the best blood in the kingdom could not be hustled out of his dignity by the horse-play of a bevy of cut-throats.

Possibly the first vision to snare the man's glance was the elfin loveliness of the girl, who sat throned in the great chair as on a judgment seat. He marked the rose-white beauty of her skin, her sapphire eyes gleaming black in certain lights, her ebon hair bound with a fillet of sky-blue leather. Moreover, it was plain to the man in turn that this damoisel in the red gown was deciphering his features in turn with a curiosity that was no vapid virtue. As for Fulviac, he watched them both with his amber-brown eyes, eyes that missed no movement in the mask of life. To him the scene under the great brazen lamp was a study in moods and emotions.

The aristocrat was the first to defy the silence. He had stared round the room at his leisure, and at each of its motionless figures in turn.

The great sword, slanted in gleaming nakedness over Nord's shoulder, appeared to fascinate him for the moment. Despite his ambiguous sanct.i.ty, he showed no badge of panic or distress.

Ignoring the woman, he challenged Fulviac, who leant upon the chair rail, watching him with an enigmatic smile.

"Goodman in the red doublet," quoth he, "when you have stared your fill at me, I will ask you to read me the moral of this fable."

Fulviac stroked his chin with the air of a man who holds an adversary at some subtle disadvantage.

"Messire," he said, "address yourself to madame--here; you are her affair in the main."

The Warden of the Southern Marches bowed as by habit. His grey eyes reverted to Yeoland's face, searching it with a certain courteous curiosity that took her beauty for its justification. The woman was an enigma to him, a most magical sphinx whose riddle taunted his reason.

"Madame," he began.

The girl stiffened in her chair at the word.

"You hold me at a disadvantage, seeing that I am ignorant of sin or indiscretion against you. If it is a question of gold----"

"Messire!"

He swept her exclamation suavely aside and ran on mellifluously.

"If it is a question of gold, let me beseech you to be frank with me. I will covenant with you instanter. My seneschal at Gambrevault will unbolt my coffers, and ease your greed. Pray be outspoken. I will renounce the delight of lodging here for a purse of good rose n.o.bles."

There was the faintest tinge of insolence in the man's voice, an insolence that exaggerated to the full the charge of plunder in his words. Whether he hinted at blood money or no, there was sufficient poison in the sneer to fire the brain and scorch the heart to vengeance.

The woman had risen from her chair, and stood gripping the carved woodwork with a pa.s.sion that set her arms quivering like bands of tightened steel. The milk-white calm had melted from her face. Wrath ran riot in her blood. So large were her pupils that her eyes gleamed red.

"Ha, messire, I bring you to justice, and you offer me gold."

The man stared; his eyes did not quail from hers.

"Justice, madame! Of what sin then am I accused? On my soul, I know not who you are."

She calmed herself a little, shook back her hair from her shoulders, fingered her throat, breathing fast the while.

"My name, messire? Ha, you shall have it. I am Yeoland, daughter of that Rual of Cambremont whom you slaughtered at the gate of his burning house. I--am the sister of those fair sons whom you did to death. Blood money, forsooth! G.o.d grant, messire, that you are in honest mind for heaven, for you die to-night."

The man had bent to catch her words. He straightened suddenly like a tree whose throat is loosed from the grim grip of the wind. He went grey as granite, flushed red again as a dishonoured girl. The words had touched him with the iron of truth.

"Hear me," he said to her.

"Ah, you would lie."

"By Heaven, no; give me an hour's justice."

"Murderer."

"Before G.o.d, you wrong me."

He stood with twitching lips, shackled hands twisting one within the other. For the instant words eluded him, like fruit jerked from the mouth of a thirst-maddened Tantalus. Anon, his manhood gathered in him, rushed forth redly like blood from a stricken throat.

"Daughter of Rual, hear me, I tell you the truth. I, Flavian of Gambrevault, had in my pay a company of hired 'spears,' rough devils from the north. The braggarts served me against John of Brissac, were half their service drunk and mutinous. When Lententide had come, their captain swore to me, 'Lording, pay us and let us go. We have spilt blood near Gilderoy,' scullion blood he swore, 'give us good bounty, and let us march.' So at his word I gave them largesse, and packed them from Gambrevault with pennons flying. Methought they and their brawlings were at an end. Before G.o.d and the saints, I never knew of this."

Yeoland considered him, strenuous as he seemed towards truth. He was young, pa.s.sionate, sanguine; for one short moment she pitied him, and pondered his innocence in her heart. It was then that Fulviac plucked at her sleeve, spoke in her ear, words that hardened her like a winter frost.

She stared in the man's eyes, as she gave him his death-thrust with the sureness of hate.

"Blood for blood," were her words to him.

"Is this justice!"

"I have spoken."

"Monstrously. Hear me----"

"Messire, make your peace with Heaven, I give you till daylight."

The man stumbled against the table, white as the moon. Youth strove in him, the crimson fountain of life's wine, the wild cry of the dawn. His eyes were great with a superhuman hunger. Fulviac's strong voice answered him.

"Hence, hence. At dawn, Nord, do your duty."

XI

Give doubt the pa.s.sword, and the outer battlements are traitorously stormed. Parley with pity, and the white banner flutters on the keep.