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Forest Lovers

<h2 id="id01162" style="margin-top: 4em">CHAPTER XX</h2> <h5 id="id01163">HOW PROSPER HELD A REVIEW</h5> Messire Prosper le Gai with his dozen men had scoured the forest country from March on the east to Wanmeeting on the west, and from March-Gilbert among the hills of the north to Gracedieu in Mid-Morgraunt, without any sign of the Egyptian. But at Wanmeeting there had been news of a golden knight, who, unattended, rode into the market-place at sunset asking the whereabouts of Galors de Born and his force. Having learned that they had taken the Goltres road the knight had posted off at a gallop, hot foot. Now Prosper knew what sort of a force Galors might have there, and guessed (from what intelligence Isoult had added to his own) that the golden knight would make at least two brains in it. To follow, to get his dozen men killed, were nothing; but could he be certain Galors would be dropped and Maulfry secured for the appointed branding before the last of them fell? As for his own life, we know that he considered that arranged for. He habitually left it out of the reckoning. On the whole, however, he decided that he could not successfully attack. He must return for reinforcements, taking with him a report which, he relied, would secure them. Waisford had been raided, the fields about it laid waste. There were evidences of burnings and slaughterings on all hands. He put what heart he could into the scared burgesses before he left, and what common-sense. But Galors had gone through like a hot wind. So Prosper and his men returned to High March. On the morning in which Isoult stirred to open her loaded eyes, and began to moan a little, he and they went by within some forty yards of her—the troopers first, then himself riding alone behind them. He heard the moaning sound and looked up; indeed, he saw the black ram standing, alone as he thought, with drooped head. Prosper was full of affairs. "Some ewe but lately yeaned," he thought as he rode on. The glaze swam again over Isoult's eyes, and the moaning grew faint and near its death. The ram fell to licking her cheek. In this pass she was presently found by a charcoal-burner, who had delivered his loads, and was now journeying back with his asses into the heart of the forest. He also heard the moaning; he too saw the ram. Perhaps he knew more of the habits of ewes or had them readier in mind. He may have had no affairs. The beast, at any rate, was a ram for him, and the licked cheek that of a murdered boy who lay with the other cheek on the sward. The blood about his eyes and hair, the blood on the grass, was dry blood; nevertheless the man turned him over, felt his bones, listened at his heart, and made up his mind that he was not dead. A little wine to his lips brought him to. The charcoal-burner looked into the wounds and washed them, produced black bread, goat's-milk cheese, with a little more wine, finally helped the beaten lad to his feet and to one of his asses. He assumed it was a fight and not a failure to murder: that was safer for him. With the same view he asked no questions. It was a pity to leave the ram, he thought. Butcher's meat was scarce. He killed it then and there, having plenty of asses to hand. In that category, with little doubt, must be placed the ram in question, who, had he had a proper abhorrence of persons who rode him face to the tail, would have kept his skin and lived to found a family. The charcoal-burner, when all was made fast, set his team in motion. Man, woman, and asses, they ambled off down the green alley towards the middle holds of Morgraunt. Prosper and his men, lords of those parts, went on their way home to High March. The men disposed in their lodging, Prosper himself rode under the gateway of the castle, crossed the drawbridge, and entered the courtyard amid the mock salutes of the grinning servants. Full of thought as he was, vexed at his check, curiously desiring to see Isoult again (who had such believing eyes!), he took no heed of all this, but dismounting, called for his page. At this there was a hush, as when the play is to begin. Then Master Porges, the seneschal, solemnly awaiting him, solemnly blinked at him, and cleared his throat for a speech. "Messire," he said, "Messire, to call for a page is an easy matter, but to answer for a page is a difficult matter." He loved periphrasis, the good Porges. "What do you mean by that, my dear friend?" said Prosper blandly, defying periphrasis. "Messire," went on Master Porges, hard put to it, "to answer you were to defile the tongue God hath given me for her ladyship's service. To obey is better than sacrifice. Her present obedience is that I should request your presence in the ante-chamber the instant of your appearing before these halls." "You will do me the honour, seneschal," said Prosper, growing polite, "to answer my question first." "I will send for the girl Melot, Messire," answered Master Porges. "You shall send for whom you please, my friend, but you shall answer my question before you move from that step." The seneschal did not move from the step. He sent a loiterer to fetch Melot from the kitchen, while Prosper waited, the centre of an entranced crowd. "Ah, the suffering maid!" cried the seneschal as he saw Melot near at hand. "My maid, you must speak to Messire in answer to a question he put me but a few minutes since. Messire, my girl, asked for his page." Melot's heart began to thump. The steel demigod was before her, she unprepared. The fire was laid, but wanted kindling. Prosper kindled it for his own consuming. "Pray what has this woman to do here?" he asked. "Woman indeed!" rounded Melot, breathing again. "Woman! do you call me names, Messire? Keep them for the baggage you fetched in!" Prosper saw the whole thing in a flash. He grew still more polite. "Seneschal," he said, "have the goodness to inform your mistress of my coming. Pray that I may wait upon her immediately…. I think," he added after a pause, "I think that you had better go at once." The seneschal agreed that he had. He went. Prosper waited in silence, in a crowd equally silent. The seneschal shortly returned. "Her ladyship will see Messire at once. I beg Messire to follow me." He entered the Countess's chamber, and, lifting his head, looked at a white lady on a throne. He had never seen her so before. She was dressed in pure white, with a face near as dead as her clothes. All that was dark about it haunted her masked eyes. She sat with her chin in her hand, looking and waiting for him; when he came, and the seneschal was dismissed with a curt nod, she still sat in the same dead fashion, watchful of her guest, unwinking, pondering. Prosper, for his part, bided the time. He guessed what was coming, but a word from him might have put him in the wrong. In the end the Countess broke the long silence. He thought he had never heard her voice; it sounded like that of a tired old woman. "I had thought to find in you, my lord, the son of an old friend, like in spirit as in blood to him whom at first I sought to honour in you. I find I have been mistaken, but for your father's sake I will not tell you how much nor by what degrees. Rather I will beg you go at once from my house." Said Prosper— "Madam, for my father's sake, if not for mine, you will tell much more than this to his son. Have your words any hint of reference to the Lady Isoult? Speak of her, madam, as you would speak of my mother, for she is my wife." The Countess shrank back in her throne as if to avoid a whip. She cowered there. Her eyes dilated, though she seemed incapable of seeing anything at all; her mouth opened gradually—Prosper expected her to scream—till it formed a round O, a pale ring circling black. Prosper, having delivered his blow, waited in his turn; though his breath whistled through his nostrils his lips were shut, his head still very high. The blow was a shrewd one for the lady. You might have counted twenty before she began to talk to herself in a whisper. Prosper thought she was mad. "I should have known—I should have known—I should have known," she whispered, very fast, as people whisper on a death-bed. "Madam," he broke in, "certainly you should have known had it seemed possible to tell you. Even now I can tell you no more than the bare fact, which is as I have stated it. And so it must be for the moment, until I have completed an adventure begun. But so much as I tell you now I might have told you before. It is shame to me that I did not. Marriage to me is a new thing, love still a strange thing. Had I thought then as I now do, be sure you would never have seen me here without my wife, whom now, madam, I will pray leave to present to you, the Lady Isoult le Gai." During this narration the Countess had risen slowly to her feet. She was labouring under some stress which Prosper could not fathom. For a little she stood, working her torture before him. Then she suddenly smote herself on the breast and cried at him—"You have done more misery than you can dream." And again she struck herself, and then, coming down from her throne like a wild thing, she shrieked at him as if possessed—"You fool, you fool! Look at me!" He could not help himself; look he must. She came creeping up to him. She caught at his two hands and peered into his face with her blind eyes. "Do you love Isoult, Prosper?" He could hardly hear her. But he raised his head. "By God and His Christ, I believe that I do," said he. The Countess took a dagger from her girdle, unsheathed it, and put it in his hand. She knelt down before him as a woman kneels to a saint in a church. With a sudden frenzy she tore open the front of her gown so that all her bosom was bare, and then as suddenly whipt her hands behind her back. "Now kill me, Prosper," she whined; "for I love thee, and I have killed thy love Isoult." So she bowed her head and waited. But Prosper gave a terrible cry, and turned and left her kneeling. He ran down the corridor blindly, not knowing how or whither he fared. At the end of it was a door which gave on to the Minstrel Gallery over the great hall. Into this trap he ran and fetched up against the parapet. Below him in the hall were countless faces—as it seemed, a sea of white faces, mouthing, jeering, and cursing. He stood glaring blankly at them, fetching his breath. Words flew about—horrible! Out of all he caught here and there a scrap, each tainted with hate and unspeakable disgrace. "Come down, thou polluter." Again, "Serve him like his wench."—"Trounce him with his woman."—"Send the pair to hell!" The dawning attention he began to pay sobered his panic, quenched it. What he learned by listening struck him cold. He took pains; he could hear every word now, surely. He was really very attentive. The chartered rascals packed in the hall took this for irresolution, and howled at him to their hearts' content. Once more Prosper held to his motto—bided the time. The time came with the coming of Master Porges—that smug and solemn man—into the assembly. The seneschal looked round him with a benignant air, as who should say, "My children all!" The listening man in the gallery watched all this. Suddenly his sword flashed out. Prosper vaulted over the gallery, dropped down into the thick of them, and began to kill. Kill indeed he did. Right and left, like a man with a scythe, he sliced a way for himself. There were soldiers, pikemen, and guards in the press: there was none there so tall as he, nor with such a reach, above all, there was none whose rage made him cold and his anger merry. However they were, they could scarcely have faced the hard glitter of his blue eyes, the smile of his fixed lips. He could have carved with a dagger, with a bludgeon, a flail, or a whip. As it was, to a long arm was added a long sword, which whistled through the air, but through flesh went quiet. There had been blows at first from behind and at the side of him. The long mowing arms stayed them. It became a butchery of sheep before he was midway of the hall, thence the rest of his passage to the door was between two huddled heaps, with not a flick in either. He reached his goal, shot the bolt, and turned, leaning against the door. The heaped walls of that human sea had by this flowed over his lane; now they stood eyeing him who faced them and wiped his blade with a piece cut from the arras—eyeing him askance with silly, shocked faces. Behind them a few grunted or sobbed; but for the most part he had done his work only too well. Having wiped exquisitely his sword and sheathed it, Prosper took a step forward. The heap of men huddled again. "Let one go to fetch Melot," he said softly. No one stirred. "Let one go to fetch Melot." No motion, no breath. "Ah," said he as if to himself, and laid hand to pommel. The heap shuddered and turned on itself. It swarmed. Finally, like a drop from a sponge, Master Porges exuded and stood out, a sweating monument. "Seneschal," said Prosper, with a bow, "I am for the moment about to ask a favour of you. Have the goodness to oblige me." He unbolted the door and held it open for the man. Master Porges gasped, looked once to heaven, thought to pray. "In manus teas, Domine!" he sighed. "Exactly," said Prosper, and kicked him out. The breathless audience was resumed. A timid knocking—a mere flutter—at the door ushered in as tip-toe a couple as you might easily see. Master Porges fell to his knees and prayers; Melot was too far gone for that. She simply did everything she was told. "Melot," said Prosper, "you will tell me the whole tale from the beginning. It was you who first knew the Lady Isoult?" "Yes, Messire." "It was you who told the others?" "Yes, Messire." "Your mistress then saw the Lady Isoult?" "Yes, Messire." "What happened next?" "My lady struck her, and pushed her into the corridor, Messire." "Ah! And then?" "And we were all there, Messire." "Ah, yes. Waiting?" "Yes, Messire." "And then?" "Then we had a procession, Messire." "Who ordered it?" "The seneschal had the ordering, Messire." "O Pudor! O afflicted liar!" prayed Master Porges. But the tale went on. The afflicted liar forgot nothing except Master Porges' syllogisms. These she took for granted. At the end Prosper said to her— "Melot, you may go. I do not punish women, and you have only done after your kind. Go to the others." The pack opened and swallowed her up. Prosper turned to Master Porges, who was gabbling prayers for his enemies. "Master Seneschal," he said, "since it is you who have driven this herd of hogs to do your work, now I shall drive them to do mine. And in teaching you through them what it is to do villainy to ladies, I teach them through you. They could not have a better guide than their headman; and as for you, I will take care that you are well grounded in what you have to teach." "Ah, Messire," babbled the shiny rogue, "have I not done after my kind also?" "You have indeed, my friend," Prosper replied. "Now I will do after mine." To be short, he had Master Porges stripped, horsed, and stoutly flogged then and there. This he did by the simple device of calling up his agents by name, having the general's knack of judging men. Master Porges was a pursy man, but there were burlier than he; a couple of lean stablemen made good practice with the stirrup-leathers. At the end the entire herd were his slaves. One fetched his horse, another his shield and spear, three fought for the stirrup. A dozen would have shown him the way to the last scene of the martyrdom (for so, by vivid comparison, the common enthusiasm conceived it); but for this he chose the man who had unstrapped the girl. This worthy had not failed to recommend himself to notice on that score. He received his reward. Prosper addressed him two requests. The first was, "Lead," and the man led him. The second was, "Go," and the man fled back. Prosper was left alone before a form of bruised bracken to make what he could of it. He was a man of action, not given to reflections, not imaginative, essentially simple in what he thought and did. What he did was to dismount and doff his helmet. Next, with the butt of his spear, he battered out the cognizance on his shield till no fesse dancettée rippled there. "I will bear you next when I have won you," said he to the maimed arm. Bare-headed then he knelt before the form in the fern and prayed. "Lord God of heaven and earth, now at last I know what the love of woman is. Let my wife learn of me the love of an honest man. And to that end, Father of heaven, suffer me to be made a man. Per Christum Dominum," etc. At the end of his prayer he knelt on, and what drove in his brain I know not at all. The unutterable devotion of that meek and humble creature who called him master and lord, who had lain by his side, walked at his heels, sat at his knee, served at his table, put his foot to her neck (she so high in grace, he so shameless in brute strength!), bowed to a yoke, endured scorn, shame, bleeding, stripes, blindness, and the swoon like death—all this was something beyond thought: it was piercingly sweet, but it beat him down as a breath of flame. He fell flat on his face upon the black fern and blood, and so stayed crying like a boy. When he got up he buckled on his helm, mounted, and rode straight for Goltres. Master Porges knew an image-maker at March, and paid him a visit. He caused to be made a little stone figure of a lady, very beautiful, with a brass aureole round her victorious head. She was depicted trampling on a grinning knight—evidently the devil in one of his many disguises, though as like Prosper as description could provide. Underneath, on the pedestal, ran the legend—Sancta Isolda Dei Genetricis Ancilla Ora Pro Nobis. He set this up in his chamber over a faldstool, and said three Paters and nine Aves before it daily. He reported that he derived unspeakable comfort from the practice, and for my part I believe that he did. <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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