Tale of an Empress

HERE were dead in the courtyard, and a noise. Across the morning twilight men shouted from tower to tower and blade clashed on mail where the last of the garrison sold blood for blood, and already from the bowels of the castle came the yells and crash of plundering. And the bells of the abbey beyond the wall were ringing to matins.

Only one man was alive among the dead in the courtyard, and he sat on his heels in a corner and played knuckle-bones. He flared in the grayness, one lean thigh scar let and one grass-green, his doublet a patchwork in all colors, about his neck and his big head a hood like a monk's cowl, but yellow, and the crest of it was red and fashioned as a cock's comb, and out of the sides came the gray, rough ears of an ass. While his big hands tossed and snatched the bones, he was singing a Latin hymn. From the battlements a man was thrown and fell beside him and lay with blood oozing through the rings of the hauberk. But he did not move or look; he tossed the bones still and still sang.

The storming-party mustered again, a sturdy, swaggering company, begrimed and with many a gap hewn in their mail coats; for their armor was rings or little scraps of steel, like a fish's scales, sewn upon cloth. That a man could wear steel plates no man had yet found out; it was the year of the Lord 1140. You remember that Stephen was then fighting to be king of England, and his cousin Matilda, who had been an empress in Germany when she was a child, fought to be queen, and all the country was ravaged by their wars and by the barons who throve upon their wars. From sea to sea in England there was no law; what a man could not hide, the sword took from him; what could be hidden, torture dragged from him, and over many a shire there was no meat, nor milk, nor corn for common folk, and they lived in holes upon acorns and beech-mast like swine.

Odo le Veneur was made to prosper in such a time. You see him, a hulking, big-bodied man in bright mail, the long nose-piece of his helmet shadowing all his face but the fat jowl. He came down to the courtyard and roared at his men.

“Splendor of God!”—he gave out that he was a base-born son of the Red King and he liked to swear the Conqueror's oath—“You grow slow, dogs!” He strode past, looking them over, and laughed. “The boars have gored you. Go to, do your will,” and they scattered to plunder. Odo took off his helmet and showed a bloated red face and lank black hair, and shouted for wine. The man in the corner still played knuckle-bones.

Odo put out a foot to kick him over, but the man fell on his hands and threw a somersault.

“Why, cousin Odo,” said he with a wide grin. “Cousin Odo, we have stormed heaven this morning and I bring you the keys of the gate,” and he held out his knuckle-bones.

“Bones, fool?”

“Why, yes, cousin; man's bones, woman's bones. Nought else will open heavens. to any man.”

“Out on you! Do you play with man's bones?”

“Even as you, cousin. What else are they good for in this world?” He threw a somersault backward and sat down on his heels and went on playing.

Hours after he was there still when from the hall Odo shouted “Bran! Bran!” He picked himself up, he picked up a shapeless thing beside him, which being blown out revealed itself as a small bagpipe and, playing upon it a jerky tune, he danced into the hall, an odd sight; for his fool's habit clothed a frame very lean and very short, yet with broad shoulders, a huge head, big hands and big feet, and he showed them off in a jig. This vastly amused Odo and his men, who stopped their eating and bade him do it again and again, till he fell upon hands and knees and ran about like a dog, and like a dog whined for food and scraped at Odo's knees and, putting his head on one side, looked up at him plaintively and licked his chops and dribbled and made more queer dog's noises.

Then Odo, swearing that he was the king of fools, flung him a bone, and he ran after it and growled, and thereafter picked himself up and sat down by the little table on Odo's left hand. He cut himself a trencher of bread like the rest and snatched slices of meat which another had cut and began to eat, using all his fingers. Then, “Pledge me in a cup of wine, cousin,” he said and giggled. “What, knaves, wine for my lord!” and when the steward came with a pitcher he snatched it. “The cup for the lord, but the jug for the Fool,” he cried and drank. Odo cuffed at him, and he fell over and waggled his great feet in the air. Then he sat down and ate again, and after a while, humming a glee, began to make his bread-platter into little dolls.

“What are you at, fool?” said Odo after awhile.

“Why cousin, I am like the good God. I make men and women for man to eat.” He swept up the dolls and gulped them all down. “God rest their souls,” quoth the Fool.

Then they made him dance again and juggle with knives, till at last he seemed to stab himself and fall backward out of the door and made the death-rattle, and was gone.

Out of the castle and down the hill he went. The Fool was fool enough to like to be alone. See him, if you please, throwing back his head and dipping his shaven head in the river, see him wandering in the green desert of the countryside, laughing to himself, preaching to the willow herb and the ragged robin and barking like a fox till a fox answered him and he found a litter of cubs at play. But the next thing that matters is that, scrambling down a hill, he came upon a cave in the oolite and a boy looking out of it, a sturdy, bold boy, young in his teens, who laid hold of him and said, “Whose man are you, fellow?”

E GIGGLED. “Bran does not know that. Bran is a poor fool. But we are all God's people, lord.”

A girl came up behind the boy, a little his elder by the look of her body, but with a wiser, sterner face. “He lies, Jocelin. All fools lie.”

“Na, na, na,” said Bran. “None but fools tell truth. None but fools keep troth. An alms for the fool, great lady.” He fell on his knees and put out his hands.

She dashed them aside. “Rogue, you are some rich lord's man. See his silver chain, Jocelin.”

“Chains are chains. God save all. Pity the poor fool. Sir Odo le Veneur is my lord, lady.”

“Jocelin!” she plucked out the knife from her girdle. The boy held her hand. “He will tell of us. He must not go back.”

“It were shame to kill a fool,” the boy said.

The Fool laughed. “Mercy was ever a man,” said he. “And wisdom is a woman. Strike, and I give you my blessing.” He flung back his head and opened his arms—then sprang up. “No! God forgive me, who tempted a child.” And he crossed himself and muttered a prayer. “Do I believe that? Why, care killed the cat.” And he laughed so queerly that the girl shrank away and made the sign against the evil eye. “Na, na, never fear. Bran is not a wicked one. The more fool Bran.”

WEAR that you will not tell on us,” said the boy, catching his wrist.

“By oak and ash and thorn I swear, yea and by the blood on the Holy Crown.”

“That is a great oath.”

“A great and terrible oath, lord. And thereafter a man must eat and be strong again.” Into the cave he came past the bewildered boy, squatted down and took from his scrip a gammon of bacon and bread and cut. “Bran's pouch never goes empty till Bran's paunch is back by the larder. Eat, lady.”

“I am not hungry, fool.”

His long finger shot out. “Swear it! Na, na. Bran knows when a body is hungry. Bran has seen.”

Eat they did then, and eating loosed tongues. They wanted to know if the castle of Malmesbury was taken and what had befallen the garrison.

“It is well with them. They are dead,” said Bran, and saw the children look at each other with fierce eyes. “Whose kin are ye?” And they told him. They were the children of Sir Jocelin Longuemain, who had held the castle for the Bishop of Salisbury; but he died in his bed in the spring. When Odo summoned the castle at nightfall, their father's steward had thrust them out by the postern and bade them take sanctuary in the abbey. But the abbey would not open to their knocking, and they ran away to hide.

“The drowsy knave monks,” said Bran. “Eh, eh, cousin Odo will wake them. Not a saint sleeps sound with Odo to neighbor. Patience, patience, my lord and my lady, the monkery will pay.” So they asked him what his lord Odo was like. “Saw ye ever a pig loose in a garth? What does he do? He eats the herbs, yea, and what he does not eat, that he roots up and defiles. Even such is my cousin Odo.”

“And you serve such an one!” said the girl.

“Pity the poor fool, Lady Judith,” Bran whined.

“A man may be a fool, yet have a man's spirit,” and she rated him fiercely for serving a robber lord, a knight unknightly, a hunter of the weak, a foreigner, till the fool broke out in that queer laugh of his:

“Foreign? Nenny, nenny, foreign are you all. The Saxon was before the Norman, and the Briton was before the Saxon, and before the Briton was my folk, yea, before Sir Brut the Trojan came. For we are the living earth, the clay and the chalk and the old, old stone, and it was a Saxon churl slew my mother with his spear in the thicket above Monken Risborough, and I only am left that I know. Bran the fool. Only the land, the old land and I.” He thrust at them with his big feet and laughed again. “Away, new folk!”

The children drew together. “You—that knife is iron?” the boy said.

“Aha! Yea, lord, iron; and yea, there is salt in the meat. Both the salt and the iron are my friends. No goblin I am, no fairy man. Born of woman I was, and body of man I am. Nought but a fool, lord.”

Perhaps they did not thoroughly believe him. They became curious about him, yet with a certain reverence, and talk came fast. They asked him a thousand things and his advice. Odo was King Stephen's man; but it was no order of Stephen's to seize on Malmesbury. That was Lord Odo's private venture. He was sent forth to watch the roads for the empress. What should they do, the children? Lie close, close. The castle was a bishop's castle and no arm so long as the arm of Holy Church. Wait a while. And while they talked and the light waned came from the valley the call of a woman, a long, despairing cry. The boy started up and ran out.

“Oh the mass! Lie close, say I, and off goes he. Who hath trouble enough ever goes to seek it.”

Up the steep in the twilight came Jocelin, tottering, panting, so heavily the woman leaned upon him, and as they drew near the cave she swayed and stumbled and fell upon her face and lay still. The Fool rolled her over and the children stood aghast. "She had ridden her horse to death,” Jocelin gasped. “She asked food for the love of God.”

OW God have mercy,” the Fool muttered, peering at her.

“Why, is she dead?” Judith cried.

“Nenny, nenny,” says he, and tweaked the woman's nose and laughed wildly and tweaked it again and fell to beating her hands. She sneezed, she grasped at the air and sat up, and he slipped his knee behind her.

“Wine, a cup of wine,” she said faintly.

“Water is our wine, goody,” he laughed.

“Who speaks?”

“A poor fool, goody.”

“I am well served,” she said. She was tall and largely made. Years and passion or care had furrowed her brow. Her cloak was deep in dust, but of rich blue cloth with broideries, and in it the gleam of a golden chain.

The boy brought her water in his cap and she made a wry face and drank, and they fed her on bread and bacon, and though she looked at it queerly, she said grace for it. “As dark as it is, a fool can tell you have an eye, goody,” Bran said.

She was pleased and laughed. “Whose folk are ye?”

“Na, na, goody. You are upside down.”

“How, fool?”

“Thus, by mine honor: 'tis the guest gives a name, not the host.”

“Here is deep policy! Why, then, sirrah, men call me Grandam Mold, and I am a landless woman this day.”

Bran lay back against the rock and looked at the children and laid his finger on his lip. Then, making a chant of it, he droned out:

“And well met then and very well met are Grandam Mold and we; for these be orphans and outcasts, and I am a fool, you see.”

“Ay, now am I come to my kingdom,” she said. “You are right to be merry, Fool.”

“Why, yea, goody, even as thorns do right to crackle in the fire. What now? What now?” There were horsemen riding in the valley and not keeping the track, but ranging wide and calling to each other. “Keep close now, you, or you are sped.”

“Close, quotha? I could not move a yard to shun the fiend,” the woman said, but Bran was gone.

It was not yet quite dark and a full moon rising red above the hills. So in the valley all things looked vague and treacherous, and the horsemen came on slowly, beating hither and thither. Then rose a long-drawn howl, a howl as of a creature in pain, yet with some wicked mirth in it, and it echoed from hill to hill, and while still the echoes rang came another that seemed to answer it and another.

The shouts of the horsemen were hushed and they drew together and halted, and through the stillness came the murmur of an anxious parley. Then, keeping close, they pushed on. Again the howling echoed, there was cawing and screaming and a rustle of wings as a pair of ravens, roused from their nests, hurtled through the air in angry fear. If they were ravens and not more evil things; for there on the lump of rock above the river was some creature neither human nor beast, a strange, shapeless sight, gray as the twilight, gray-white all over, without head without tail, now dancing on all fours, now on its hind legs, now on its fore legs, and either way waving great hoofs in the air. Whence came the howling that mocked and gibbered, no man could tell, whether from the dancing beast, whether from the hills.

The horsemen saw fiends on earth and in air, and turned and fled the haunted valley.

When he heard the panic, Bran scrambled down from his rock and brushed the dust out of his face and his clothes. “It is a good Bran,” he said, and for his own satisfaction performed another little dance. “A good Bran, yea. The trick was featly done. But, oh my wits, my wits, what a poor soul hath a man! As often as I play me that trick, under the roof, under the sky, never it fails me. Conjure up a fiend for them and their souls cower and their joints are loosened. Yet what fiend could be more a fiend than man? I will believe in Mahound ere I believe that any world hath worse than this. But Bran is a fool.”

O HE went lustily for the castle and, making a straight line, passed those anxious horsemen, who kept to the track, and coming into the huddled little town of Malmesbury, he hit upon some of Odo's men who had been drinking there and, mingling with them, he enter the castle by the postern. Then he sought the hall and curled himself up on the rushes among the dogs and slept careless as they, yet, like them, not without dreams that made him start and moan.

In the morning, prowling, as his wont was, for news, he heard that in the night a party of horsemen had come to the main gate and asked lodging, swearing that they were the king's men. But the guard made them out a large party and, according to the custom of that troubled time, bade them draw off till morning. And when Sir Odo was told, “Splendor of God!” says he, “you did well, Walter. And if you had done other, you should hang. No man, not the king's self comes into hold of mine by night.” Whereat a dog barked and Odo kicked him and the Fool laughed. “How now, rogue?”

“Why thus, cousin. The Fool treads on the hound's tail, the hound yelps and Lord Odo kicks the hound. And so the world goes on—and on—and on,” and he flung himself on his hands and turned round and round like a wheel.

Odo kicked a stool into him, brought him down with a crash and laughed at him, laughed the louder as he huddled himself together and hugged his elbows and whined. “Up with you rogue, up.” He lashed out with his riding-whip, and the Fool yelled, scrambled up and ran limping out. Thereupon Sir Odo mounted and hunted him round the courtyard, flogging him till he fell.

O THE Fool did not go hawking with Sir Odo that day. He was in the kitchen, rubbing his bruises with fat and thinking after his fashion, thinking that, if only pain did not hurt him, he would be a very great man; thinking that whatever happens, there are always a thousand other things to happen; thinking that the finest song in the world is the Magnificat.

But when Sir Odo and his troop came back, he saw and shaded his eyes to see, tied to the stirrup of Hugues le Roux, the girl Judith. So he bustled up to help old Robert the falconer.

“What sport, brother?”

“Spavin sport, Fool.”

“You have struck one gay heron at least.”

“That piece?” he scowled at the girl. “Your right sister, Fool. Do you know how we took her? The churl which Odo pinned to the oak at the cross-roads yesterday, he is there yet and the spear in him and the tree. None of his folk were fools enough to dare loose him. But by my faith, when we came there this morning this witless wench is pulling at him and calling for help. And Odo must needs put her in the bag. St. Joseph, it was empty enough! But an unfledged woman! Sport! And young Hugues, the soft lad, must needs stick the churl's throat, he screamed so to die. Odo knocked a tooth out of him for that.”

“You have been merry, brother,” said the Fool, and turned away to the hall.

Odo sat there sprawling his bulk, and the girl, her hands tied behind her back, stood in front of him, straight and still. She was unkempt, her fair hair and her clothes covered with dust; but something in her puzzled him. “Who in the fiend's name?” he roared out. “You are no villain's brat. Who are you, wench?”

“Untie my hands, churl,” she said, and her eyes met his, fierce and proud.

“Churl?” That was startled out of him.

“Churl and coward and naught. No knight uses a woman so.”

“Woman? Say wildcat. All one. I know how to deal with women, be sure. Splendor of God! I can tame you, girl. Come, save your hide. Who are you?” She did not answer. “What knave set you on to meddle with my man?”

“Your man? You lie. You are a robber and a villian [sic]. A landless man.”

Sir Odo started up and swore at length. “There is only one way with women all. Go think on it. Keep her hungry and thirsty, Walter. Put her in the chest. You will speak me fair before I have done with you, wench.”

So she was dragged out, and into the chest she was thrust. Now the nature of the chest was this: a box, which would hardly hold the body of a man doubled up, was lined with iron wrought into points and rough edges and, the prisoner being put in, the lid was shut down upon him and bolted so that he was tortured by the pressure and bruised and pierced. The girl Judith, being smaller than a man, suffered less, yet enough. But when Odo and his band were at dinner, into the cell where the chest stood the Fool came limping, and he pulled back the bolt and threw up the lid.

She lifted her head, and through the tangle of hair he saw her face flushed dark and damp with sweat. She stared at him and her eyes were wild and empty of thought, then she groaned. He put a pewter cup to her lips, and she drained the broth. Then passionately, “Holy Christ, I hoped it was water,” she cried. “Oh fool, fool!”

“Oh woman, woman. Woman every way.”

She began painfully to get out of the chest.

“Nenny, nenny,” said the Fool, and put his great hands on her and thrust her down again. “Thus, bad were worse. If they find you loose, you were better dead.” Then the child bade him go, and cowered down and fell aweeping.

“Help the poor fool, lady,” says he in a most piteous voice.

She looked up then. “Tell poor fool what brought lady into Malmesbury. Oh, Holy Cross, to come back into the jaws of the fiend!”

“The empress sent me to buy her a flask of wine.”

HE Fool gaped. “Empress? God ha' mercy, lady! Bran knows no empress. Bran knows Goody Mold.”

“She is the empress.”

“The foul fiend fly away with her and burn her in hell,” said Bran, and the girl stared at him, he spoke so like a natural man. “She will send a child to death lest her proud stomach should drink water.”

“She is ill,” the child said.

“Nenny, nenny, lady. Empresses and queens they can not be ill, they are great ones. It is poor you and poor I who are ill and very ill. Yea, faith, and so Goody Moll is Goody Empress! Now who had thought on that?” he giggled. “Why, but that is the end of the cord that is tangled. Here is Sir Odo hunting Madame Empress, and would give his soul to have her. And Sir Odo hath caught you and will torture your life away. Why, then, tell him where he may find Madame Empress and you go free.”

“Oh base!” the child cried. “It is treachery. You—you are a mean thing and naught.”

“Yea, yea. Yet think, child. He means the worst that a man can. But you have a way of deliverance, and it is no virtue to give yourself to suffer sin. Save yourself then, for blessed Mother Mary's sake.”

“It is you who are like the fiend!” the child cried.

“Not Bran, no. God help poor Bran, who means you well. Bran is but a fool. What is that gold about your neck, lady?”

She stared at him and put her hand to her bosom. “The empress gave it me. It is her own chain.”

The Fool's big hand shot out. He tore it from her, pressed her down again into the chest, and shot the bolt and ran away.

But he found the castle in a commotion. A great company of horsemen were before the walls, and among them a banner which bore, gold upon red, a Sagittarius, the banner of King Stephen. Sir Odo, heavy with wine, would not believe, though one and another bore him news, and when he heard the trumpets must needs climb the gate tower to see for himself, and the while a herald summoned the castle in the king's name, yet no man dared open without Odo's word. So the king was left to wait.

Down from the tower, his bloated face bowed and wrought in perplexities, came Sir Odo and, cursing, bade undo the gate. The first of the horsemen rode in and formed up on either side the courtyard while Odo's men scurried out of the way. The king's banner advanced and Ode came heavily forward to meet the king.

“Sir, I give you loyal welcome to this hold of mine.”

“You, ay, I swore it was you,” the king said. “What brought you here?”

“Please you enter my hall, sir.”

“Your hall!” the king muttered, but swung down and strode on before.

The hall was littered and foul with the mess of dinner. Dogs were growling over the broken meat. "Pardieu, you keep high state for me,” said the king, curling the nostril, and serving men scurried out. But the Fool, huddled on a stool by the cold hearth, stayed.

“I promise you good cheer, sir,” Odo leered. “There is old wine in Malmesbury.”

“Good cheer for swine in a sty. God's body, sirrah, why do I find you wallowing here?”

Odo stared at him, and the Fool looked sideways. King Stephen had the body for a king, tall and strong and stately, he had the face of a king in a picture-book, handsome, benign, but weak.

“Sir, you do me a wrong. Do me reason,” said Odo glowering at him. “Splendor of God, I am worth what I take.”

“Who bade you take Malmesbury?”

Odo shrugged. “The place was fair game, sir. The Bishop of Salisbury had it in hold. Your friends must live upon your enemies.”

“God have mercy, what are you to set Holy Church against me?”

“The Church?” Odo laughed. “By my faith, a king may laugh at the Church while such men as I ride with his banner.”

The king swore and checked himself and shifted his feet, and the Fool looked at him and rocked to and fro. “You have done a great wrong,” says the king. “Let it go. God's body, man, who sent you to Malmesbury? You were sent to watch the roads.”

“I am not a boy to be schooled. I must ride my hunt my own way. I have won Malmesbury for you. That is my answer to all.”

“Is it so?” the king flamed out again. “Are you fool, or are you rogue, sirrah?” And Odo flinched as the big man strode upon him. “While you waste time plundering here the empress slips by. And you, you keep no guard of the roads. You turn my men away when they come here for word of her.”

“They came by night. I open no gate o' nights. For the rest, it is false, sir. Madame Empress has not come by this way.”

“Oh, the lady, the great lady, the tall lady with the gold lilies on her cloak,” the fool giggled.

They both turned on him. “Out, you dog!” Odo roared.

“What said he?” said the king.

The fool grinned at Odo and nodded and began to shuffle out, muttering to himself: “The lady, the tall lady with the gold lilies on her cloak and the black Barbary mare.”

“By the rood, it is she!” the king cried. “Come hither, lad,” and he turned upon Odo. “So, my lord! She has not come by this way!”

And Odo had not words in his surprise, and then they tumbled over each other. “The fellow is a fool, my lord, the veriest fool. He knows not what he says. There is no drain of wit in him. He means nothing. He knows not how to mean. He”

“Be silent, you. Come, lad, when did you see the lady?”

The fool, watching Odo's furious brow, shrank away, putting up a hand to guard his head. “Na, na, Bran is a poor fool! Bran said naught. Bran has seen naught. Bran sees naught but what Lord Odo wants. Bran is a good fool.”

“No man shall hurt thee, lad,” the king said.

EA, yea. No one hurts Bran when Bran says naught.” And he fell to talking gibberish.

Odo wiped his face. “Will you listen to a fool, my lord?” he said, and tried to laugh heartily.

“I have listened to a knave,” said the king.

Odo bit his lips and then, seeing the Fool staring from one to the other with a vacant grin, struck at him and bade him out. The Fool shunned the blow, stumbled over the high chair where Odo sat and, picking himself up, put upon the table a great gold chain, as if he had knocked it down. He went out in a shambling run.

“Splendor of God!” quoth Odo, reaching for the chain. But the king was first. For the chain was wrought with the letters MATILDA IMPERATRIX. He held it aloft.

“You foul traitor!” he said and shouted. “Grimbald! Hugolin!”

But Odo did not understand, for he could not read. “I swear I never saw the thing before, my lord,” he stammered.

And then the king laughed. “Ay, lie it out to the end. You never saw her chain, no more than you have seen her. Her chain wrought with her own name that she bought you with! God's body, man, do you think you can cheat me still? Take your lies to the fiend. Grimbald!” He flung round upon the men at arms who were running in. “Take the fellow and hang him.”

“Sir Odo, my lord?”

IR Odo! Strike off his spurs and hang him like a churl.”

Now by this time the Fool was slunk into the kitchen and to the scullions who spoke to him he answered, whining and howling, that there was great work afoot, great and very terrible and poor Bran was afraid. So they ran out to see, and he broke up a fowl and lay down and gnawed it and thought. Then he filled his pouch with food and stole out. In the courtyard Odo's men were huddled together apart and the king's men kept their ranks, and all were gazing up at the gate tower where could be seen a little company gathered close.

The Fool crept along from door to door and went to ground in the little chapel. The chief desire in his mind was to hide. So, cowering by the altar, “While the fool is the fool all men know him,” says he. “King's men and Odo's men, all. If the fool is some other man, no man knows who he is. King's men think he is Odo's man. Odo's men think he is king's man. Ergo, dear fool, ergo—” and he fell to rummaging. In a curtained archway he found a chest, but it had been pillaged already, and priestly vestments strewed the ground. He grimaced at them, yet, turning them over, found among them an ample hooded cloak such as a priest might wear in walking. He put it on and preened himself.

“Now is Bran a learned clerk. Yea, yea. Cucullus facit monachum. The gown it makes a priest of me as motley made a fool of me, and many sorrier fools there be and many a naughtier priest I see; so God send I and myself go free.” He stole to the door. In the light of sunset Odo swung, a black bulk from the tower.

Bran shrunk back, crossed himself, went to the altar and said a prayer for Sir Odo his soul.

And while he prayed, he heard busy movements in the courtyard. The king's men were taking over the castle, sending out parties, unsaddling, seeking lodging and food. Bran stayed on his knees till all was quiet. Then in the twilight he stole out and sought the cell where the girl was prisoned. He opened the chest and she raised herself, staring through the dark. “Silent, silent, for the love of God, lady,” he whispered, and lifted her out and laid her on the ground. She groaned and turned her face, stretching her cramped, bruised body. He pulled a flask of wine from his pouch and made her drink. “Have good heart. Odo is dead and all goes merrily. But the king is here and we must do stealthily.” He left her and peered out. “Can you walk, child?” She struggled to her feet. “Wait a while, wait a while.” He stole out and scouted on the way to the postern. There was no guard on the stair. He drew her after him.

They were out on the open hillside under the stars. She turned and looked in his face. “It is you! The Fool!” And she began to laugh weakly and caught at him and hung heavy on his arm.

He laid her down fainting. “Yea, yea. Bran is a fool,” said he. And giggled and looked helplessly about him in the dark. And therewith an ass brayed. “Holy Cross! The monks are at vespers,” quoth he, and suddenly ran on. Beyond a bank on the abbey's ground the monks' asses were at pasture. Bran came back holding two of them by the ears. He rubbed the girl's temples with wine and set her on one and, himself mounting the other, they rode away.

So through the moonlight they came again to that cave in the valley and found the boy quarreling with Madame Empress because she would not have him go look for his sister, but commanded him by gentle blood to stay and guard his liege lady. And indeed Jocelin had come near forswearing both gentlehood and allegiance, when Judith and the Fool, having left their asses by the river, toiled up to the cave.

“Is it you, child? God's word, you have taken long enough of your errand,” says the empress. “Have you brought us Christian food and drink at last?”

“Goody Mold, you have a proud stomach,” the fool said. “Yea, and how be your poor bones, Goody Mold?”

The girl flung herself down. “I have naught, madame, and I have almost died for it,” she said, and cried in her weariness. “He has it. He has everything, the Fool.”

“She has said. Yea and verily and out of the mouths of babes and sucklings,” said Bran in a voice like thunder. “He has all things, the Fool.” And then it was the girl he fed first, and while she ate she stammered out her tale.

OD'S word,” said the empress. “Stephen is in Malmesbury?”

“I do not know, madame. I was in that foul chest.”

“Speak out, Fool. You have your story to tell.”

“King Stephen is a goodly knight, he came to the castle in armor bright, he hanged Sir Odo against the light, he will march on Goody Mold with his might, pray God you do not come in his sight. That is the tale I tell.”

She was silent a while, then suddenly: “Where is my chain, sirrah? The chain you took from the child?”

"Pardieu, Goody, that chain hanged cousin Odo. How, saith Goody? Marry thus! Because it lay by Odo's platter for the king to see,” and he cackled laughter.

“Rogue, you have betrayed me!”

“God have mercy, Goody! Which is the fool here? Goody or I? Are you me or I you? Well, God mend all!” He flung himself down and snuggled into his cloak and began to snore.

In the morning the empress was feverish to be gone, and there was but one mind to it: whether King Stephen hunted them out or not, they could be no worse off by seeking a roof and food. She promised them safety if she could but come within the country that Bristol held or Gloucester.

But when she tried to walk she made a bad business of it, and the girl was little the lighter. Yet she gave trouble at being set upon an ass. “Nay, faith, Goody, ride or stay, all is one upon Judgment Day,” said the Fool. “Yet an ass was good enough for Christ our Lord to ride.”

So mount she did and they trudged off up the valley, and all the long morning met no man but some charcoal-burners, who sold them poached venison with a leer and a blessing. But a while after noon, drawing into a broader track, they sighted a banner. “Or and two bends gules and—what is it, child? A scallop sable? God's word, it is de Tracy's banner; they are Stephen's men! Now are we sped!” The empress laughed a little grimly and stopped the ass and stood.

The Fool swung himself up into a tree. “Yea, yea, they are horsemen, a company. They watch the road,” he said, and slipped down to earth and grinned at the empress. “Will you trust poor Bran, mother?”

“You can do me no hurt, Fool, nor any good. Go your ways. I can meet what comes to me.”

“Yea, yea. And these little ones?” She did not answer. She turned away. “I know and you know,” Bran said.

“We stand by our lady, Fool,” the boy said.

“Why, so do I, lord. Thus: Let you lie across the ass, mother, like to one dead, and I will be the priest that takes you to burial. Yea, yea, I can talk it, and more Latin than a mitered abbot. So go we through their lines to Gloucester.”

“Madame, it is not fit,” the girl cried.

The woman's eyes dwelt on her. “And these be your children, mother,” the Fool said.

“I will do it,” the empress said. Then she lay upon the ass and they bound her with the cord of the Fool's cloak so that she hung safe, and the Fool covered her own cloak with dust, and they went on.

Then when the horsemen challenged them, “Pax vobiscum,” Bran drawled through his nose.

“Who are ye?”

“My son, I am the priest of St. Samson's cell by Avon, and this a poor woman which burn charcoal in the woods. But she is dead of a putrid fever—” the horsemen reined back in a hurry—“being stricken down in foul torments, and in one hour living and dead and full of corruption. So that, rest her soul, she died unshriven. These be her children, and we take her to bury her in holy ground.”

“Go your ways in God's name.” The horsemen drew off to windward.

“Benedicite," said Bran, and strode on, and for a good mile, still in gait and manner, acted the priest.

Then the girl plucked his arm. “Let her up now, for God's sake.”

“What, what, what? Is Goody not dead, after all? By my faith, I thought she was dead in sooth and I true priest. Nenny, nenny. Bran is a fool now and forever.” So he unlashed the empress and set her on her feet and she, holding her flushed head, swore like a man. “Nay, Goody, was it not featly done?”

“Do me no more such feats,” said she.

“Now I know you are royal,” said he.

So they went on again, working through the high hills to the safety beyond, seeing no man but lonely shepherds afar, till in the late afternoon a shout rang through the stillness, and out of the bosom of the hills horsemen swept down on them. “Here is not even time to die, Goody,” said Bran.

But she cried out: “No time nor need. See, it is the lions and the bar sinister. It is my brother's banner. These are mine own people. They are Robert's men.” And she fell to dusting her cloak and patting at her coif and, slipping from the ass, strode on before and she called out: “Who is your captain?”

There was parley and a knight galloped forward who, as soon as he made her out, saluted her and, coming up, dismounted and fell on his knee with a “God be praised, lady!”

“You are well met.” She gave him her hand. “You will be my escort to Bristol, sir.”

He kissed her hand again. “You are alone, lady?”

“Have these two children in care,” she said. He lifted her to his saddle and, calling to his men-at-arms, gave the boy and the girl. The company clattered off down the hill.

The Fool sat himself down on the turf and kissed his hand to their backs. And he laughed and talked to himself in Latin thus: “Now there was found in it a poor wise man and he, by his wisdom, delivered the city. Yet no man remembered that same poor man.” He started and turned. The two asses were nuzzling against his shoulders.