The Fool (Bailey)/Chapter 16

HE milkmaids were in bloom by the stream, swaying daintily as the wind set the light dancing on the water, and the meadow was dark with bluebells and under the beeches on the bank which bounded the great forest clusters of primroses gleamed out of the moss.

There a child was busy. On his face by the stream lay Bran the fool, so that his big head was thrust out above the stream and he looked down into the water and saw himself, and he shook his cock's comb hood and made its bells jingle and the ass's ears on it bow to him from the water.

"Oh, Bran," the child called, "it is good for us to be here."

"Now nay, quoth I, as here I lie, for I see myself when none is by, and then I know that a fool am I," so he droned to himself and rolled over on his back.

"It is always best when there is none but you."

"Oh la, God keep you long of that mind. But heigho and heigho, little maids must learn to grow, and Bran the fool must go to school"

The child looked up. "Bran is Bran," she said fiercely.

"Well a day, now it is May. It is good picking flowers, my flower."

"But I do not pick flowers," said the child with indignation. "Never I pick flowers. And you know it well."

"Yea, yea. A stern maid are you who fast even from flowers. What is the work then?"

"I am building," says she proudly, "a house for the fairies. Oh, Bran, there are little fairies here in this England too?"

"For certain everywhere there are fairies and some as like you as your eye to your eye and some as small as a violet's eye and there you see them dance," and he nodded to the points of light in the rippling water.

"It is the little ones I love."

"Oh great one!" Bran laughed. "Yea, now the fairies thrive in England, now England has peace. For without peace they will not be born."

"I love fairies," the child said. "Look, Bran: look at the fairy house I have made." Of dry twigs the walls were woven, two inches high, and there was a roof of last year's leaves and a patch of moss for the garden and in a little hole a beechnut held water to make a well.

"A house for King Oberon. A goodly house. Yea, yea, there are many houses a-building in England now. The land bears fruit."

"Every one works in your England," the child said.

Bran looked up. The beech-mast was crackling under footsteps. Through the forest a woman came in a man's arm. She was something the taller, a big creature deep-bosomed and strong, but still in the first of her womanhood. She was very fair and blue-eyed and the plaits of hair that hung over her bosom silvery yellow. She did not look at her lover, but smiled on the world a candid simple happiness. She wore a kirtle of blue, good honest stuff, but of the plainest. He was in all things unlike her, dark of skin and eye and hair, slight and lithe, by much the elder, gravely earnest and with many words to her few. He was richly furnished, his green doublet embroidered and furred, a gold chain about his neck.

"Yea, yea, England is at work," Bran said.

The two lovers heard and saw him and turned back into the forest.

"She is pretty," said the child. "I think she is a princess. She has hair like cowslips."

"Well a day, now it is May," Bran droned again. "Comes October to make you sober, naught for December but to remember, well a day, what was your May."

"That is a sad song." The child went on building. "I will not sing a sad song, I. They are not true."

"But fairyland is true," Bran laughed.

"That is sure," the child said.

The man came striding upon them and jumped down from the bank.

"Seigneur Bran, all hail," says he. "Walk aside with me, my lord."

Bran groaned and slowly heaved himself up. "A young man's youth it knows no ruth," he said, and looked at his man long and hard.

The man linked arms with him and drew him away. "Do me no wrong. Bran. You have seen us. It is ill luck." "That is ill said, Cousin Walter."

"Ill may be mended, if you mean me well."

"Nenny, nenny, I am for nought. If you mean ill, you will sup on ill."

"My lady is Ursula, the daughter of Siward of the Hatch."

"And Monseigneur Walter is son of Sir Walter of Betchworth. And King Cophetua he did wed a beggar maid. But that was in the old time before and"

"No beggar she is, but a most fair wise lady. And her I will wed or I will wed none. But we must be secret yet. If my father hears suddenly that I go wooing her, he will break out upon us."

"Do you mean good faith, cousin?" Bran said.

"By the holy rood," the young man grasped his hand.

"What is her father, the Sieur Siward, cottar or villein?"

"He has a furnace here in the woods. He holds of us and of Gilbert of Ockley. He is a shrewd fellow and prospers."

"But you are born of a Norman lord and she of a Saxon churl. God be with you, cousin. England is a-making. But 'twixt hammer and anvil, it goes hard with the iron."

"I fear not nor she. But let me fight my fight fair. Tell no tales at home, Bran. Stand off and be my friend."

"Fie, fie. Bran sours no man's milk."

"Good fellow," the young man held to him, "good friend," he waved his hat to the child, "Princess Ia, your own true knight," and he was gone.

In the castle of Betchworth the King took his ease. From hunting in the royal chase by Guild- ford he was come to hunt the wide forest of the hills and the weald and great sport he had. For the woodland was dense and wild and in many miles no hamlet made a clearing and no man disturbed the coverts and there was great plenty of beasts of forest, beasts of chase and beasts of warren, hart and boar, fox and roe and hare. Also there was good entertainment indoors. For the lady Alice of Betchworth was a merry woman and wise and Sir Walter had seen cities and men, had worn the Cross in his youth and fought for the King of Castile in his middle age and, what the King valued most, he was a very learned clerk.

"Of all the lands that you have ridden which likes you best, Walter?" the King said.

And Sir Walter, having talked of all Europe, praised the high woods of Surrey. "This land that I hold is best tome," and he quoted Latin verse.

"Happy man, you," quoth the King. "And blither land I know none in my realm who know it well. What says wise Bran, who knows more than I know?"

"All land is good to a landless man," said Bran with his mouth in a pasty. "But for me, bury me in the chalk, brother."

"Nay, man, God grant I never see your grave. But landless! The more shame to me. You shall have a good manor to your name ere the earth is a week older."

"Many a manor is in a feebler hand," said Sir Walter.

"Na, na, Bran is a snail that bears his house on his back. Bran is a dog that runs on his master's land. You are trouble enough for my life, Henry. Give me no more." "Why, Seigneur Bran," said the lady, "but you must have hall and bower. You have a daughter to rear. She cannot long wander the world with you. She will not be ever a child."

"Sooth, sooth," Bran rolled his eyes at her. "A wanderer and a vagabond are you, Henry, and it is no life for maids. But what home should the fool make? How should the fool give a maiden grace, Dame Alice?"

"She is a child to love," the lady said, "it is women's work, Seigneur Bran, and there are true women would do it."

"Yea, yea, everywhere good women are, but where is home? Many a home has pleased me well, but none was a home where I would dwell." Bran counted the plum stones from his pasty. "Pig-stye, tavern, palace, hall, convent, workshop, castle wall, where it is the best for me, there I pray my life may be, of myself I cannot see. God save the good company." He made a grotesque bow and shambled out.

"There is one who wants nothing of any man, my lord," said Sir Walter.

"A wise man, he," the King laughed.

"I dare not say that, sir," said the lady.

"Then say he wants nothing but love, fair lady. God is my life, he should not go hungry," and the King went to the work that never was long out of his mind.

Then in the afternoon came to the castle in haste Sir Gilbert of Ockley, whose lands marched with the lands of Betchworth, with but one squire and one forester he came, who followed him far off, and an angry man was he. Into the court he rode and he cursed the grooms who would have taken his horse, and when the steward came out to him he roared for Sir Walter and sat muttering on his smoking horse.

So Sir Walter, a leisurely man, greeted him with, "Why, Gilbert, you are in a heat."

Sir Gilbert thrust out in his face a crossbow bolt so violently that the older man drew back. "Nay, fear it not," Gilbert laughed. "It is your own."

Sir Walter took it and made out in the iron his stamp W.B. "What then, has it done you a wrong?"

"I found it in a hart—a hart of ten—in my covert under the Hatch. The foul fiend burn him that shot it! Do you own the kill. Sir Walter of Betchworth?"

"By my faith, not I. No man of mine has ridden your borders. We have been busy otherwhere."

Sir Gilbert laughed. "Aye, you have oil enough on your tongue. I say he was a false knave that did it and he is a false coward that denies it. Will you answer that with oil?"

"I shall know how to answer."

"Answer me now or I strike you down before your own grooms," he plucked at his sword.

"And hang for it," said Sir Walter with a shrug. "Look up, man, look up!" He pointed to the Royal Standard flying over his keep. "The King is here."

Sir Gilbert stared and Sir Gilbert swore. "The King has saved you this day," he growled. "When the King has gone look to yourself."

"I have saved your head now. I have kept my own against better men than you. Go your way," and he turned and went in and Sir Gilbert rode off more furiously than he came.

"As old as I am I grow no wiser," Sir Walter took counsel with himself. "I should not have told the fellow I had spared him. Such an oaf is he he would not have known else. And now he will never forgive me." And the good man was disturbed. The chance of fighting Gilbert pleased him, but to quarrel was weariness and by the cause of the quarrel he was puzzled. Churl or outlaw might risk his head to kill deer, but that churl or outlaw should shoot with Betchworth bolts was out of reason. One of his own men in Gilbert's coverts? They had enough to do with the King's hunting. He would not believe it, but conferring with his chief forester and his son found them less solemn on the matter, the forester sagely propounding that when covert marches with covert a chance is a chance and St. Hubert to speed while young Walter laughed and bade him ask Gilbert for the haunch. But Sir Walter was precise in his notions of right and he delivered a short homily and was troubled.

Now on the next day when the King went hunting they roused a hart beyond the river and it ran boldly, but on a sudden they came upon the hounds nosing at a beast that lay in a pool of blood.

"God bear witness!" Sir Walter cried. "Who kills the King's quarry?"

Young Walter was down by the dead hart. "This is not yours, my lord. This beast is hours dead. And a hart of ten."

"Who kills in your coverts, Walter?" the King said. "God's my life, I would I had the whipping of him," and he gnawed his fingers and glowered, for he loved his hunting.

"I crave that honour, my lord," says Sir Walter.

"A shrewd shot," young Walter said and cut out the bolt. He wiped it on the turf and looked at it. "It is our make—no, by my faith. Gilbert of Ockley! Gibby the bold!" and loud he laughed.

"God is my witness!" Sir Walter exploded.

"What is the jest, friend?" says the King sourly.

"Why, my lord, Sir Gilbert of Ockley came raging to my father, for he had found a hart killed upon his ground by a bolt of ours and here is a bolt of his in a hart of our covert. And each, by your leave, a hart of ten."

"He is a merry fellow, your Gilbert," the King glowered. "He needs chastening."

"I vow I never knew him merry, my lord," young Walter must still be chuckling. "Nay, this quip is too neat for him."

"An oaf, an oaf," Sir Walter cried.

"What is it then? Your men and his harry each other's coverts? God is my life, you keep good order in your forests."

Bran plucked at his sleeve and he turned to see Bran scratching a bare head. "Of the hart that fell and the hart that fled—what ails you, brother? Tell poor Bran. He is quick which should be dead, he is dead which should be quick. God have mercy, why do you rage, brother? It was ever so. Thus is the world made. No man yet slew what he fought. No man yet won what he thought. No man yet lost what he ought. And when you have made the world anew, you will not make what you think you do."

The King laughed and "I will wear the motley then, I," he said.

But Sir Walter was still solemn. "I can make nothing of it but that some rogues of mine and Gilbert's are set on breaking bounds. A vile thing. All will go to havoc if this be not stayed. There is ever trouble brewing when covert marches with covert."

"And cursed be he that removeth his neighbour's landmark," the King laughed. "Nay, man, call quits now and let each man take order with his own rogues."

"I will deal roundly with mine, my lord. But I would I knew the truth of this."

"The beast is not long killed," his son said. "A bold thing, sir. It is a chance but we had marked the rogue. And by my faith if he came from Gilbert's ground there be more than we might have seen him—Siward's folk from the Hatch."

Bran blinked at him. "It is well thought on," his father cried. "By your leave, my lord, let the boy ride to this Siward. It is a shrewd fellow and true and loves us well. God is my witness, I would not for all I hold have shown you so ill a chase, and now I must have the right of it."

"Nay, man, nay, it is no such matter," the King said. "Order it as you will, but make no ill blood of it. And now ride on in God's name. The day is young yet."

Bran lingered by young Walter's horse. "A shrewd fellow, Siward of the Hatch, cousin?" he grinned.

"Why so he is," Walter stared. "What is in your head, Seigneur Bran?"

"And so say I, cousin," Bran laughed and rode on.