Love Among the Ruins Part 48

Thus Fulviac and his rebels pa.s.sed on spoiling towards Gilderoy and the sea, where Sforza lay camped with forces gathered from the south. The great forest beckoned them; they knew its trammels, and hoped for strategies therein. Like a vast web of gloom it proffered harbour to the wolves of war, for they feared the open, and the vengeful onrush of the royal chivalry.

Meanwhile, the armies of the King came down upon Belle Foret, a great horde of steel. From its black ashes the country welcomed them with the dumb lips of death. Ruin and slaughter appealed them on the march; the smoke of war ascended to their nostrils. Fierce was the cry for vengeance in the ranks, as the host poured on like a golden dawn treading on the dark heels of night.

x.x.xIX

In a cave whose narrow mouth cut a rough cameo from the snow and azure of the sky, a man lay sleeping upon a bed of heather. The surge of the sea rose from the bastions of the cliff, where foam glittered and swirled over the black rocks that thrust their dripping brows above the tide. Gulls were winging over the waves, whose green crests shone brilliant under the sun. On a distant headland, bleak and sombre, the towers of a castle broke the turquoise crescent of the heavens.

In one corner of the cave a feeble fire flickered, the smoke therefrom curling along the roof to vanish in a thin blue plume of vapour. Beside the bed lay a pile of armour, with a broken casque like a cleft skull to crown it. Dried herbs and a loaf of rye bread lay on a flat boulder near the fire. The figure on the heather was covered by a stained yet gorgeously blazoned surcoat, that seemed an incongruous quilt for such a couch. Near the cave's entry a great axe glittered on the floor, an axe whose notched edge had tested the metal of many a ba.s.sinet.

Down a rough path cut in the face of the cliff scrambled a gaunt, hollow-chested figure, doubleted in soiled scarlet, battered shoes on feet, a black beard bristling on the stubborn chin. A red cloth was bound about the man's head. He breathed hard as he clambered down the cliff, as though winded by fast running. Sweat stood on his forehead.

Beneath him ran the sea, a pit of foam, swirling and muttering amid the rocks.

He reached the entry of the cave and dived therein like a fox into an "earth." Standing by the bed, he looked for a moment at the unconscious figure with the air of one unwilling to wake a weary comrade from his sleep. At last he went down on his knees by the heather, and touched the sleeping man's cheek with the gentle gesture of a woman. The figure stirred at the touch; two thin hands groped over the green and azure quilt. The kneeling man gripped them in his great brown paws, and held them fast.

"Modred."

The voice was toneless, husky, and without spirit.

"Sire."

"Ah, these waking moments. It had been better if you had let me rot in Gambrevault."

"Courage, sire, you wake to a better fortune."

"There is new life in your voice."

"The King has come at last."

The man on the heather raised himself upon one elbow. His face looked grey and starved in the half gloom of the cave. He lifted up one hand with a gesture of joy.

"The King!"

Modred of the black beard smiled at him like a father. His hands trembled as he put the man back gently on the heather, and smoothed the coverlet.

"Lie still, sire."

"Ah, this is life, once more."

"Patience, patience. Let us have no woman's moods, no raptures. Ha, I am a tyrannous dog. Did I drag you for dead out of Gambrevault to let you break your heart over Richard of Lauretia! Lie quiet, sire; you have no strength to gamble with as yet."

The man on the heather reached out again for Modred's hand.

"The rough dog should have been born a woman," he said to him.

Modred laughed.

"There is a great heart under that hairy chest of yours."

The moist mutterings of the sea came up to them from the rocky sh.o.r.e beneath. Clouds in white ma.s.ses pressed athwart the arch of day.

Modred, seated on a boulder beside the bed, eyed the prostrate figure thereon with a gaunt and tender pity. He was a stark man and strenuous, yet warm of heart for all his bull's strength and steely sinew. Youth lay at his feet, thin and impotent, a white willow wand quivering beside a black and knotty oak.

Modred rose up and stood by the opening of the cave, his broad shoulders well-nigh filling the entry as he looked out over the sea. Far over the amethystine waters, a hundred pearl-white sails glimmered beyond the cliffs of Gambrevault. The sun smote on gilded prow and blazoned bulwark, and upon a thousand streamers tonguing to the breeze.

Modred stretched out his great arms and smiled, a grim s.h.i.+mmer of joy over his ruffian's face. Standing at the mouth of the cave, he began to speak to the man couched in the inner gloom.

"Yonder, beyond Gambrevault," he said, "I see a hundred sails treading towards us over the sea. They are the King's s.h.i.+ps: G.o.d cherish them; their bulwarks gleam in the sun."

Flavian twisted restlessly amid the heather.

"A grand sight, old friend."

Modred stood silent, fingering his chin. His voice broke forth again with a bluff exultation that seemed to echo the roar of the waves.

"St. Philip, that is well."

"More s.h.i.+ps?"

"Nay, sire, they raise the royal banner on the keep of Gambrevault. I see spears s.h.i.+ne. Listen to the shouting. The King's men hold the headland."

This time the voice from the cave was less eager, and tinged with pain.

"Modred, old friend, I lie here like a stone while the trumpets call to me."

"Sire, say not so."

"Ah, for an hour's youth again, one day in the sun, one moment under the moon."

"Sire, I would change with you if G.o.d would grant it me."

"Bless you, old friend; I would not grant it you if I were G.o.d."

A trumpet cried to them from the cliff, sudden, shrill, and imperious.

Modred, leaning against the rock with his hand over his eyes, started from the cave, and began to climb the path. He muttered and swore into his beard as he ascended, queer oaths, spasmodic and fantastic. His black eyes were hazy for the moment. Contemptuous and fervid, he brushed the tears away with a great brown hand.

On the green downs above him rolling to the peerless sky, he saw armour gleam and banners blush. A fanfare of trumpets rolled over the sea. It was Richard the King.

Modred bent at the royal stirrup, and kissed the jewelled hand. Above him a keen, steely-eyed visage looked out from beneath a gold-crowned ba.s.sinet. It was the face of a soldier and a tyrant, handsome, haughty, yet opulently gracious. The red lips curled under the black tusks of the long moustache. The big, clean-shaven jaw was a promontory of marble thrust forth imperiously over the world.

"Well, man, what of our warden?"

Modred crossed himself, pointed to the cliff, muttered a few words into the King's ear.

"So," came the terse response, "that was an evil fortune. So splendid a youth, a bright beam of chivalry. Come, lead me to him."

The royal statue of steel dismounted and stalked down with knights and heralds towards the cliff. Leaning upon Modred's shoulder, Richard of the Iron Hand trod the rough path leading to the little cave. He bowed his golden crown at the entry, stooped like a suppliant, stood before the Lord Flavian's bed.