The Fool (Bailey)/Chapter 8

HERE was a new King in England and a new Queen, and since no man could think of one to set against him, no man denied him. This also was strange and new, a change of kings without a fight. Through the weary country Henry II and his Eleanor made a progress, and the barons gave them homage and feasts. So they came to the castle of Sir Gilbert du Marais in Risborough under the hills.

Sir Gilbert was lavish. He had sweet herbs on his floor and Flemish tapestries on his walls, and good yew-coloured cloth upon his chairs and foot-stools covered in fur, and his beds were made with sheets of silk and sendal, and there was even a table-cloth at his dinner. His dinners were furnished with cranes and peacocks and swans, with spiced and seasoned meats in great plenty, with white powder and large sweetmeats, and mulberry wine and piment and clary and clove wine. Musicians and mummers he had in abundance. He provided a merry, pretty niece to divert the King. He was himself assiduously gallant to the Queen. He had an air, he had still a presence, he had never lacked wit. Sir Gilbert succeeded with his King and his Queen.

But Bran, the King's fool, was not merry in Risborough, and on a day when the dinner in its length surpassed all the other dinners. King Henry (of whom his enemies said that he would sin every other sin but gluttony, and his friends that he would do anything for them but eat)—King Henry, I say, remarked this fool spurning a dish of field fares as he sat apart sewing. "Why, brother, what woman's work is that?" quoth the King.

"It is my shroud, Henry."

"God save you, fool, why a shroud?"

"Because I am old, brother, old, and the spirit is gone out of me. Here is a new King and a new Queen, yea, and a new castle and a new lord in it. But the new is what the old was and the spring as the winter, and there is no more hope. Hush you, brother, I stitch me my shroud."

The King bit his finger and fidgeted, but in a moment pretty Matilda at his elbow engaged him, and when the mummers came Bran slunk out and no one saw him go.

It was in his nature to seek the hills, and along the ridge he rode looking out through the beechwoods over the wide blue green of the vale and singing to himself, sometimes in English, a babbling child's song, more often the Latin of the Magnificat. A ludicrous creature indeed, in his piebald clothes, his jingling cock's comb, his ass's ears, chanting "For he that is mighty hath magnified me, and holy is his name." He was aware of it; he ended in giggling, laughter. "An old song, brother. Yea, yea, and an old fool. And the world is old and hearts are cold, and only the wicked dare be bold. God have mercy, brother, so it has been all your days. And the new is but the old, and new Sir Gilbert is but old Sir Thief. Yea, yea, and new King Henry is but the barons' king of old. And the weak must go hide in the old, old hills." So he rode on droning, and in a while when the sun was waning level with the ridge and the shadow's in the wood darkened he came suddenly upon smoke and a little township of huts.

Children scurried away from his horse like rabbits. Women rose from the ground to stare at him and cried out. Through the smoke which rose from great mounds men came to meet him sooty and glistening with sweat. "God save all in this place," said Bran.

They looked at him under gathered browns, women and men. "Who are you that come here?" a man asked.

"A child of this earth, brother."

They thought it over, then solemnly, "That is a lie you have said."

"Nenny, nenny. A man of these hills, I. Child of the chalk."

The man strode forward, "I say, you are a vain liar. 'Nenny, Nenny,'" he mimicked Bran. "That is a Frenchman's bleat."

"Yea, wise man. And I will talk to you in French of the North and French of the South, in vile Flemish and godly Latin. Yet English is my tongue, and my blood and my bones are English."

"Who then? And what do you make on our hills?"

"I am one Bran, a fool by nature and grace, brother. And I am here on the chalk hills to dwell awhile with what is mine."

"Go your ways. Here is naught that is yours."

Bran came down from his horse. "Yea, brother, yea,"—he grinned and shuffled in the beech-mast—"all this is mine and the white chalk under that made my bones. Why are you unkind to me, brother?"

"You are a Frenchman and some French lord's hound."

"A hound, I! Hear him!" he barked grotesquely. "God mend your wits, brother. Do I look a hound?" and he showed off his ungainliness and grimaced, and some of them began to grin. "Holy thorn, who are you that you call me French?"

"We be good Saxon folk, and we want no Norman dogs to spy on us."

And Bran laughed. "I tell you a tale that was told to me, an old tale, brother, a new tale. The sheep, he hated the wolf, which came a stranger to eat him. Then said the grass to the sheep: 'Nay, brother, I was here before you, but you eat me.' But the good chalk said, 'I was here when the world was made, when the Lord God set the land apart from the sea, but goody grass eats of me.' Who is the sheep, brother? Good Saxon folk. And your Norman lords be the wolves. But I, I am the very chalk of the hills. The Norman came from over the sea, from over the sea the Saxon came. King Brute brought Britons from over the sea, my folk were here when the Britons came. Little folk, old folk, folk of the white chalk hill. We were here at the birth of things, we shall watch their death."

They drew nearer him, and one of the women said, "He is a fairyman."

"He is a liar," the man laughed.

"I love you, brother," Bran said. "You are English stuff. Nay, but I tell you true. My mother was of the little folk. Have you any left, brother? Or have you harried them all, you Saxon and Norman men?"

"He is a fairyman," the woman said. "Good friend, the hills are empty. There are no more little people. When the sad years came they fled away."

"Yea, yea. So it was said of old. So it shall be said anew. But always the little people come again. Even as I. I am of them by my mother, and my father no man knows but God. My mother, she was speared by a woodman of old Hugo d'Oilly's, a Saxon, Penda his name, and Hugo's men took me, a child, to make them sport."

They looked at each other. "It rings true, friend," the man said. "Such a man Penda there was, and an evil man. And he is dead unshriven."

"That well I know," Bran said. "Now know you me, brother. But God have mercy, I know not you."

"We be folk out of Watlington."

Bran looked from one to the other. Even for country folk they were rudely clad: barefoot, bare-headed, in tunics and kirtles of coarsest cloth and that old and ragged; the signs of hard living were branded on body and face.

"Men say there be fish which fly," said Bran, "but who heard ever of townsmen living wild in the hills?"

"You are a stranger who have not heard it, fellow," the man said. "No man holds his home in our England."

"No horse has a tail, said mine when I docked him. Tell the tale of your tail, brother."

"We be villeins of Watlington, and so were our folk before us, holding our housen our own for dues and service to our lord. But King Stephen gave the manor to Sir Gilbert de Marais. Then Sir Gilbert built him a castle in Watlington, where castle had never been, and to build it he pulled down our housen and we have no home nor living."

"The foxes have holes and the birds of the air have nests. Yet I have none, brother."

"Like outlaws we live and like outlaws we die."

"Godric!" the woman said, and touched his hand.

"So it is. Are you one of us, brother?" The man's eyes were grave and hard.

"I am the world's fool, brother," Bran said.

"By St. Dunstan, if you abide with us you are fool indeed. You are welcome to the nothing we have." He turned on his heel and called sharply to the other men and took them back to their charcoal burning. And Bran unsaddled and tethered his horse where in an open glade there was grazing and came back to the huts, and everything he did the women watched as it were a miracle. He sat himself down cross-legged and began to cut a whistle that he could play upon out of an elder twig. And as he cut he thought. But the woman who had called him a fairy came so close that he must needs look up at her: "Yea, yea. I have no fear to handle iron. And I will eat your salt and your baked bread," he laughed. "I am no fairy, I. Good faith, I have dwelt too long with men."

"I—I thought no ill," the woman said. She was a comely creature, something worn by hard living, but tall and finely made and of a gentle face.

Bran looked up into her blue eyes: "How are you called, maid?"

She blushed and he knew that a maid she was and not without thought of whom she should wed: "I am Godiva," she said.

Then he surprised her again: "These men of yours, are they all craftsmen?"

"Surely, yes, one and all."

"And who is their leader?"

Again she blushed: "It is Godric. He is a joiner, the best joiner in all our hundred."

"The Lord loves a good craftsman. But God have mercy, the world is wide. Why not go seek fortune? Why lurk here?"

"We love our own land," she said proudly; "we wait for our rights again."

Bran blew a horrid discord upon his whistle. "English!" he said. "Oh, English every way!" and he sprang up and marched off playing weird music.

Now of all things in the world Bran loved a good craftsman, and what roused his passions (I conceive) in this matter was not the bare wrong and cruelty, but that craftsmen should be cast out of their shops and their skill lie waste while they toiled at rude work burning charcoal for meagre livelihood. He was not loving Sir Gilbert de Marais before. But this it was which determined him to hate. An odd thing to choose, yet every man has his own abominations and this was Bran's. And he applied his mind to Sir Gilbert. A castle in Risborough, a new castle in Watlington. "Yea, yea, the wicked flourish like a green bay-tree. And the man is a new man too. And now he will be lord of all the hills. It is well planned of Gilbert. And that hold at Watlington is shrewdly set against the King's castle at Wallingford. A great man is Gilbert. And my King lies in his halls and eats his meat and sports with him and plays with his buxom niece. Yea, yea, Gilbert is wise in his generation," and stranger and stranger the music grew.

When Bran came back to the huts, he found pots steaming over the fire. He flung down a brace of hares. "The fool pays his shot, brother."

"God help you, fool." Godric tossed them swiftly out of sight. "If Eudo saw you, you are sped."

"And who is friend Eudo?"

"Gilbert's forester: and such a one as Penda was that killed your mother."

"Yea, yea," says Bran mildly, "and in their death they shall not be divided. Be easy, brother, no man sees Bran when Bran would not be seen. And here is what friend Eudo may see and say naught." He had made his cloak into a bag; he put it down and showed a heap of truffles. They caused more consternation. From the truffles to Bran, from Bran to the truffles, the good folk stared unbelieving. "How, in God's name?" quoth Godric.

"Where the beeches grow, there grow truffles," Bran shrugged.

"But you have no dog, man. Or—" he crossed himself and looked all about. "What aids you?"

Bran laughed. "Nenny, nenny. No dog, nor pig neither. Nay, nor ghost thereof. Bran hath only Bran. But Bran is the good earth's brother."

"You are more than a man."

"Yea, yea, or less, being a fool."

So they made a savoury meal, and when they began to be genial, "What is this Eudo, brother, that you love him so?" Bran said. "Has he harried you?" He produced a silence. Godric consigned Eudo to the devil and Godiva drew near and touched him. The others looked at each other and from one another to Godric and were glum. "Fie, fie, never fear the man," Bran said.

Then Godric swore. "I fear him not, fellow," he roared. And again there was silence.

Across the firelight Bran darted his glances hither and thither. Each man was communing with himself. Only Godiva looked into Godric's face as she pressed against him. He held his head high, staring into the darkness of the woods; it was a heavy face and sullen, not a clever man's face, but of a frank courage that redeemed it.

"Godric! You will not go!" the woman said.

"I do not fear him."

"Nay, but fear for us."

"It is that. It is hard. I do fear for you," said Godric, and turned away from her.

Then one of the bent brooding men lifted up his head and said: "What strikes one that strikes all," and there was rumbling and muttering.

"Sooth, sooth," Bran nodded. "But who strikes here?" Godric turned on him and said fiercely: "Eudo, fool."

"Friend Eudo, who is the forester of friend Gilbert." Bran thrust out his leg and stirred Godric's bulk. "Tell on, brother."

The tale was this. A while before, Eudo had bidden Godric to his cottage to talk with him of their leaving the woods, desiring as he said to make their peace with his master, of which talk nothing came, Godric swearing that in the woods they would stay till they had their rights again and Eudo shaking a dark head over him. Then came word that Eudo charged Godric with stealing a silver horn of his, the rich gift of his lord Gilbert, and in due and lawful order Godric was summoned to answer the charge before the moot court.

"If I go I am sped," said Godric, "for he will make the court of Gilbert's people. If I go not we are all sped, for he will make me outlaw and hunt me and all that harbour me."

"Yea, yea, it is a wise Gilbert," Bran nodded.

"If you go and you are sped, then are we all sped, for you are our best, Godric," said one, and again there was a rumble among them.

"He strikes at me," Godric said heavily.

"When is your moot court to be, brother?"

"In the dawn."

"And by to-morrow's night you may be outlaw and nailed to a tree. It is well planned of Gilbert. I see one way, brother. Gird and go. The land is wide and craftsmen need never lack meat."

"By the cross, I will not go," Godric thundered. "I will stand for my right."

"Aye, aye, stand," the others answered him.

"Your rights be more than your life?" Bran laughed. "Oh, English, English. Then I see another way, brother: meet your court. As bad as men are they will not do that in council which one man will plot alone. When they gather, shame comes with them. Go to court with all your folk and have all told and sworn. I think he does not love the light, our Gilbert. He is too wise."

Godric stared at him. "I thought you false," he growled, "you have said what a true man should say. To the court I will go." He thrust out his big hard hand and took Bran's.

"Godric, Godric,"—the woman clutched at him—"this is a fool's word. It is to go to your death. There is another way, Godric. Here we rest safe. Hide here in the hills."

"You are no friend to me," Godric said, and she cried.