Uther and Igraine/Book 1/8

VIII

PELLEAS lay the afternoon through in a half dream of shifting thought. But for the tangible things about him there might have been elfin mischief in the air, for the last few days had passed with such flash of new feeling and desire that the man's mind was still in a daze.

He lay in bed, with jars of lilies round him, and a woman tending him with the grace of a Diana. It was all very strange, very pleasant, despite the ague in his ribs and his inordinate weakness. He was not so sure after all that he bore Morgan la Blanche any so fervent a piece of malice; fortune seemed to beckon him towards generosity, seeing that his condition was so truly picturesque. Uncouth feelings were swallowed up for the time being by a benignant stupor of contentment.

But the balance of human happiness is often very nice and subtle. Leaden reason tumbled into the scale of melancholy may even outscale the bowl of dreams. Love and law often dangle on either beam of a man's mind, or philosophy anchored to a rock may sky poor fancy into the clouds. So it was with Pelleas that day, wisdom being often enough a miserable nurse. When he thought of Igraine, reason as he would with himself, his soul began to shimmer like moon-rippled water. When she looked at him the very pillars of his manhood seemed to quake. When she passed, light-footed, from garden to porch, she seemed to come in like the sun, bringing streams of warmth into his wounded flesh. Of necessity, he soon met other cogitations less pleasant, and no less imperative. From legal quarters came that inevitable pedagogue blear-eyed Verity, paunched up with dogma and breathing ethical platitudes like garlic. "The woman's a nun," quoth Dom Verity, with a sneer. "Keep your fancy in leash, my good Pelleas, and forswear romance. Bar your thoughts from a child of the church or you will rue it. No man may serve a nun. The world has said."

What with his wound and his fractious meditations, Pelleas soon fell into a most dismal temper. Like most sick folk he had lost for the time that level sense of proportion that is the sure outcome of health. His thoughts began to gape at him, and to pull most melancholy grimaces. Even the dead man squatting in the great chair in the manor in Andredswold began to haunt him like an ogrish conscience. Hot and racked, he could stand his own company at last no longer. Calling Igraine to him, he began to unburden himself to her with regard to the man he had done to death in the forest.

The girl listened, mild as moonlight, and ready to swear away her soul to soothe him.

"I am troubled for the deed," he was saying, "though the man deserved death, twenty deaths, and though I served justice to the echo. His blood hangs on my hands, and makes me restless at heart."

"Tell me his sin, Pelleas."

"They were many, and too gross for ears such as thine."

"Then palpably he was too gross to live."

"No doubt, child."

"Then why trouble for his death, Pelleas; you would not shrink from treading out an adder's brains?"

"Ah, but there is the man's soul. I feel for him after my own down-bringing. What chance had he of penitence?"

"True," she said gravely, "but your mother, the Abbess Gratia, used to tell us that bad men repented only in legends and in the Bible; never in grim life. Besides, you prevented the man committing worse offences in the future, and getting deeper into the pit. Why, Pelleas, hundreds of good knights have lost life for a mere matter of love; why trouble for the life of a wretch who perhaps never knew what truth meant. You would not grieve for men slain in battle."

"In battle the blood is hot and the brain afire. This was a rank and reasonable stroke."

"And therefore the more deserved. Why trouble about it, Pelleas? In faith, since your plight makes me tyrant, I forbid such brooding. It is but the evil fancy of a distraught mind, an incubus I must chase away. See, your hands are hot, and your forehead too. Will you sleep again, or shall I sing to you?"

"Presently," he said. "I have more to speak of yet."

Igraine knelt by him on her cushion, serene and tender.

"Say on, Pelleas," she said; "a woman loves a man's confidence. If I can give you comfort I will gladly listen here till midnight. You are not yourself, weak from loss of blood, and a gnat's sting is like a lance thrust to you. Tell me your other troubles."

Pelleas groaned, hesitated, looked up into her eyes, and recanted inwardly. He furbished up a minor woe to serve the occasion.

"It is my sword and shield," he said; "they were given me blessed and consecrated by my mother. It is in my thought that I had smirched them by this deed. What think you, girl?"

"I cannot think so," she said stoutly.

Then since his face was so wistful and troubled, she racked her fancy for some plan she thought might soothe him. A sudden purpose came to her like prophecy.

"Listen," she said. "I can do this for you. Give me your shield and sword, and let me lay them on the high altar under the cross with candles burning, and let me pray for them there. Will that comfort you, Pelleas?"

"Yes," he said, with a sudden sad smile; "pray for me, go and pray for me, Igraine."

It was the impulse of a moment. She bent down with a great thrill of wonder, and kissed the man's lips. It was soon done, soon sped. She saw Pelleas's blood stream to his face, saw something in his eyes that made her heart canter. Then she darted away, took up the great sword and the shield with its red face, and went to the chapel singing like a seraph. Her prayers were a strange jumble of worshipand recollection. "Lord Jesu, cleanse his spirit," said her heart one moment; "truth, how he coloured and looked at me," it sang with more human refrain the next. "May he be a knight above knights," quoth devotion; "and may I be ever fair in his eyes," chimed love. Altogether, it was a most quaint prayer.

Now, a certain mundane matter had been troublingIgraine's thought that day. The barge, seized and put to use by Morgan and her men, lay amid the reeds on the nether shore, ready to give passage to any chance wayfarer, welcome or otherwise, who should choose to cross the mere. The boat, so fixed, floated as a constant peril to Pelleas and herself. She felt that peace would flout them so long as the barge lay ready to play ferry-boat to any casual intruder. Pelleas's wound might keep them cooped many days in the place. She vowed to herself that the boat should be regained, and blushed when the oath accused her.

At dusk, when the birds were piping, and there was agreen hush over the world, she went back to Pelleas, abeautiful shameface, accompliced by the twilight.

"I have prayed," she said simply.

Pelleas touched her fingers.

"I feel happier," he said.

"That is well."

"Stay near me, Igraine. It grows dark fast."

"I shall be with you till you sleep," she said.

Igraine fed him with her own hands, talking little the while, but feeling very enamoured of her lot. She was thinking of her new surprise with some mischieful pleasure as she tended Pelleas. The man was silent, yet very placid and facile to her willing. When she had bathed his face and neck, and seen him well couched, she took the lute Morgan had handled, and began to sing to him softly--wistfully, as though the song was the song of a quiet wind through willows. It was a chant for the dusk, for the quiet gazing of the first fires of heaven. Pelleas heard it like the distant touching of strings over charmed water, and with the breath of lilies over him he fell asleep.

Igraine held by him still as a mouse in the dark, till she knew by his breathing that he was deep in slumber. Then she set the lute aside, put the lamp by the porch door, so that it should be ready to hand, and stole out into the garden.

The moon was just coming up above the distant trees. Igraine waited under the black-vaulted cedar till the great ring rode bleak above the fringe of the tops before she went down between laurels to the water's edge. There was a deep cedarn scent on the warm air, and everything seemed deathly still. Going to the landing stage, she stood there awhile looking at the water, dark and mysterious, with pale webs of light upon its agate surface. Then she began to bind her hair closely on her head, smiling to herself, and staring down at her vague image in the water.

Her hair in shackles, she turned to her task in earnest. Soon habit, shift, and sandals were lying in a heap, and she was standing clean, rare, gleamingly straight as a statue, with her arms folded upon her breast. For a moment she stood, making the night to swoon, before taking to the mere. Pearly white with an aureole of foam, she swam flankwise with an overhand stroke, one arm thrusting out like a silver sickle. Here and there, fretted by the willows, long moonbeams glinted on her round whiteness, as the maddened foam bubbled, and the water sighed and yearned amid the sedges. A fine glow had leapt through her body like wine, and the mere seemed to sway and sing as she swam for the main bank, where the willows stood blackly in a mist of phosphor glory. Soon she reached the shallows at a pleasant place where stretch of grassland tongued down into the mere. She climbed out, and stood like a water nymph, her body agleam and asparkle with its dew, her skin like rare silk, smooth as a star's glance. Down fell her hair like smoke. She stretched her arms to the moon, and laughed, aglow with the warmth gotten of her swim. Then she went to where the barge lay amid the reeds, and boarding it poled out into the deeps.

Standing on the poop she used an oar as a paddle, and so brought the cumbrous barge slowly under way. It stole out from the fretted shadows of the trees, and glided like a great ark over the mere in black silence, save for the dip of the blade and the drip of water. The voyage took Igraine longer than her swim. At last, with the boat moored at the stage, she dried her limbs and body with her hair, and took again to shift and habit. Then she stole back to the manor, listened a moment to Pelleas's breathing, and having lit her lamp she went to bed.

Next morning Igraine, with her deed locked up in her heart, was preparing Pelleas a meal. He had just stirred and roused himself from sleep with a little cry, and he was watching the girl with the mute reflective look of one just freed from the visions of the night.

"Igraine," he said.

She turned to him with a soft smile.

"I have been dreaming," he confessed gravely.

"Dreaming, Pelleas?"

"I thought," said he, "that I saw a great dragon of gold come over the meadows with a naked sword in his mouth, and a collar of rubies round his throat. And he came to the mere's edge, ramping and breathing fire. And lo! he entered into the barge there, and the barge went forth bearing him, while all the mere's water boiled and shone about the boat like flame. So he came to the island, and all greenness seemed to wither before him, and with the fear of him I awoke."

Igraine shook her head at the man.

"Your dreams are distraught," she said; "it is your wound, Pelleas. In faith we should need the great Merlin for such a vision."

"Ah," said he, "I can read you the riddle, Igraine. Our barge lies by, the land bank ready for any foe. That is where the dream touches us."

Igraine brought him a bowl of crushed bread and fruit, and made as though to feed him.

"Never worry," she said; "the barge is moored safe at the stage."

Pelleas put the bowl aside with one hand, and stared at her from his pillows.

"Did the barge swim the mere of herself," quoth he, "and anchor for us so fairly?"

"No."

"Then-"

Igraine went red of a sudden, and looked at her knees.

"Sooth, Pelleas," she said, "I must have been the dragon of your dream; God pardon me."

"Igraine!"

"I never knew I seemed so fearful a creature."

"Honour and praise-"

He half rose on his pillows in his enthusiasm. Igraine put him gently back, and took up the bowl of bread and fruit.

"That will do, my dear Pelleas," she said; "now just lie still and have your breakfast."

What boots it to chronicle at length their sojourn in the island manor. Twelve days Igraine nursed the man there, giving all her heart for service, tending him from sunrise to the fall of night. She seemed to have no other joy than to sit and talk to him, to make music with voice and hand, to keep his couch posied round with flowers. On waking Pelleas would find her by him, fresh as the dawn and full of a golden tenderness; at night his eyes closed upon her gracious figure as she sat in the gloaming and sang. She was near to hear his voice, quick to see his needs and to remedy them with soft hands and softer looks. The very atmosphere about the man seemed touched and mellowed by her, and the hours seemed to trip to the measure of a golden rhyme.

Pelleas mended very rapidly under her care. His wound, sweet and innocent, gave him no trouble save some slight feverishness on the third day. The sixth morning found him so stalwart of temper that Igraine consented to his leaving bed for a morning provided he obeyed her to the letter. His first steps were taken in the atrium with Igraine's arm about his waist, and his upon her shoulders. So well did he bear himself that the girl led him to the chapel, and there side by side on the altar steps they winged up their devotion to heaven. Igraine's prayers, be it known, were all for love; Pelleas's for the threatening shadows over his own soul.

Daily after this innovation Igraine would make him a couch under the great cedar tree in the garden, where he could rest shaded from the sun, and there, morn, noon, and eve, they had much comradeship and speech together. They would talk of God, the saints, and the souls of men, of love and honour, and the needs of Britain. Pelleas would tell her of his own service with Aurelius, of all the fair pomp of Lesser Britain, where Conan had begun a goodly kingdom years ago, and where many British folk had taken refuge. He had been to Rome as a boy, and he described that vast city to her, or told her of the bloody fields he had seen when the steel of Christendom met the heathen. Fresh streams from either soul welled out, and mingled much during those summer days. Pelleas and Igraine looked deep each into the heart of the other, finding fine store of nobleness, of truth, and of things beautiful, till the heart of each had treasured everything for love and for love's desire. They were fair hours and very sweet to the two. The day seemed a casket of gold, and the night a bowl of ebony ablaze with stars.

About this time the man Pelleas began to go down into deep waters. Many days had passed with a flare of torches in the west; their sojourn was drawing to a close, and the night seemed near. The haler Pelleas grew in body, the more halt and hopeless waxed his soul. The whole world seemed to grow wounded to his eyes; the west was wistful at evening, and the starry sky a sob of pain. When Igraine harped and sang, each note flew like winged death into his heart. He had no joy that was not smitten through with anguish, no thought that was not crowned with thorns.It was a very simple matter indeed, but perverse to utter bitterness. Pelleas saw no hope for himself in the end.He would rock and toss, and think at night till the darkness seemed to crush him into a mere mass of misery. Above all there seemed to rise a great hand holding a cross of gold, and a voice that said, "Beware thy soul and death."

Not so was it with Igraine. To her life had no shroud,and love prophesied of love alone. She knew what she knew, and her heart was full of summer and the song of birds. Pelleas loved her; she would have staked her soul on it, though she did not realise the desperate turmoil passing in the man's clean heart. Knowing what she did, she was all for sun and moods of radiant thought and happiness. Each day she imagined that she would tell Pelleas of her secret; each day she gave the golden moment to the morrow. She knew how the man's face would flame up with the fulness of great wonder, and like a woman she hoarded anticipation in her heart and waited.

The day soon came when Pelleas declared himself hale enough to bear armour, though the admission was made with no great amount of satisfaction. To test his strength he armed himself with Igraine's help, harnessed his black horse, and rode round the island, first at a level pace withIgraine running beside him. Then he tried a gallop, handling spear and shield the while. Lastly, he took Igraine up to him, and rode with her as he had ridden through the wold. Suffering nothing from these ventures, and seeming sure in selle as ever, he declared with heavy heart that they should sally for Winchester on the morrow.

Pelleas and Igraine passed their last evening in the island under the great cedar in the garden. The place had deep memories for them, and very loth were they to leave it, so fair and kind a refuge had it proved to them in peril. Neither said much that evening, for their thoughts were busy. As for Pelleas, he was glum and heavy-browed as thunder, with a look in his deep eyes that spelt misery. It was as though he were leaving his very soul in the place to ride out like a corpse on a pilgrimage with despair. How much she might have eased him, perhaps Igraine never knew.

The west was already red and rosy, and there was a green hush over the meadows, and a canopy of pale porphyry in the east. All the soul of the world seemed to lift white hands to the night in a stupor of mutest woe. Yet the girl's mood tended towards mere sensitive regret, for the future was not dark to her imaginings.

"You are sad, Pelleas," she said.

"I am only thinking, Igraine."

"I am sorry to leave this place."

Pelleas sighed for answer. With a contradictory spirit, born of pain, he longed for night and the peace it would not bring. Something swore to him that he was more to the girl than man had ever been, and yet she seemed happy when he compared her humour with his own. The possibility that she could dream of broken vows was never in his thought. He could only believe that her heart was less deep than his, and the thought only added bitterness to his mead of sorrow.

"Igraine," he said anon.

She turned to him.

"You love life?"

"Truth, Pelleas, I do."

"Then love it not, girl."

"Ah!"

"Tis a broken bowl."

"How so?" she said, thrilling.

Pelleas turned his face from her to hide the strife thereon. He felt as though death was in his heart, yet he spoke as quietly as though he were telling some mundane tale, and not words conjured up by a desperate wisdom.

"Igraine," he said, "I have lived and learnt something in my time, and my words are honest. On earth what do we find--a lie on truth's lips, and anguish on the face of joy. The roses bloom and die, white hands shrivel, and harness rusts under the green grass. As for fame, it breeds hate and jealousy, and the curse of the proud. Music is broken by the laugh of the fool, nor can youth forget the crabbed noisomeness of age. Women sing and pass. A man marries one night and is tombed the next. And love, what of love? I tell you love lives only in the eyes of woe. It is all mockery, cold damned mockery. I have said."