Uther and Igraine/Book 2/1

Book II

GORLOIS

I

RADAMANTH the goldsmith was held in no little honour, and esteem by the townsfolk of Winchester. Even the market women and the tavern loungers stood aside for him in the street as he made his stately march in black robe and chain of gold. He was a man possessed of those outward virtues so well suited to commend a character to the favour of the world. He was venerable, rich, and much given to charity. His coffers were often open to infirmary and church; his house near the market square was as richly furnished as any noble's, and he gave good dinners. No man in Winchester had a finer aptitude for pleasing all classes. He was smooth and intelligent to the rich, bland and neighbourly to his equals, quite a father to the poor, and moreover he had no wife. Every Sabbath he went at the head of his household to the great basilica church in the chief square, worshipped and did alms as a rich merchant should.

Disinterestedness is a somewhat unique virtue, and it must not be supposed that Radamanth lived with his eye on eternity alone. It must be confessed that self-interest was often the dial of his philanthropy, and expediency to him the touchstone of action. Nothing furthers commerce better than a pious and merciful reputation, and Radamanth knew the inestimable value of a solid and goodly exterior. Wise in his generation, he nailed the Cross to his door, and plied his balances prosperously behind the counter.

Thus when the girl Igraine trudged sad-eyed into Winchester in her gown of grey, and appeared before him as a homeless child of the Church, he took her in like the good uncle of the fairy tale, and proffered her his house for home. Possibly he pitied her for her plight after the burning of Avangel, for she seemed much cast down in mind and very deserving of a kinsman's proper comfort. Then she was of noble family, a coincidence that no doubt weighed heavily in Radamanth's opinion. It was good to have so much breeding in the house to be able to say with a smirk to his friends and neighbours, "My niece, the daughter of Malgo, Lord of the Redlands, slain and plundered of the heathen in Kent." Igraine brought quite a lustre into Radamanth's home. He beamed on her with sleek pride and satisfaction, gave her rich stuffs for dress, a goodly chamber, and a little Silurian maid to wait. Moreover, he gave his one child and daughter Lilith a grave lecture on sisterly companionship, advised her to study Igraine's gentle manners, and to profit by her aristocratic and educated influence. Luckily Lilith was a quiet girl, not given to jealousy or much self-trust, and Igraine found as warm a welcome as her unhappy heart could wish.

No few days had passed since that dawn on the hill above Winchester when Igraine had started up from under the green boughs to find Pelleas gone. They had been days of keen trouble to the girl. Often and often had she hated herself for her vain delay, her over-tender procrastination, that had brought misery in place of joy. The past was now a wounded dream to her, ripe and beautiful, yet fruited with such mute pain as only a woman's heart can feel. Igraine had conjured up love like some Eastern house of magic, only to see its domes faint goldly into a gloom of night. She felt as much for Pelleas as for herself, and there was a blight upon her that seemed as though it could never pass. She was not a woman given to tears. Her trouble seemed to live in her eyes with pride, and to stiffen her stately throat into a pillar of rebellious strength.

Not a word, not a sign had come to her of Pelleas. Taken into Radamanth's house, served, petted, flattered, she went drearily through its daily round, sat at its board, talked with the guestfolk, while hope waited wide-eyed in her heart and kept her brave. Pelleas had told her that he was for Winchester, and assuredly, she thought, she might find him and confess all. She often kept watch hour by hour at her window overlooking the street. In her walks she had a glance for almost every man who passed on foot or horseback, till she grew almost ashamed of herself, and feared for her modesty. Her eyes always hungered for a red shield and harness, a black horse, a face grieving in dark reserve and silence. At night she was often quite a child in herself. She would take the little gold cross from her bosom and brood over it. She even found herself whispering to the man as she lay in bed, and stretching out her arms to him in the dark as in pain. For all her pride and courage she was often bowed down and broken when no one was near to see.

It was not long before she found a confidant to befriend her in her distress of heart. Lilith, the goldsmith's daughter, had great brown eyes, soft and very gentle; her face was wistful and white under her straightly combed hair; she was a quiet girl, timid, but very thoughtful for others. The two appealed each other by contrast. Lilith had soon read trouble in Igraine's eyes, and had nestled to her in soul, ready with many little kindnesses that were like dew in a dry season. Igraine unbent to her, and suffered herself to be enfolded by the other's sympathy.

One day she told her the whole distressful tale. It was in the garden behind the house, a green and pleasant place opening on the river, and flanked with stone. The two were in an arbour framed of laurels, its floor mosaicked with quaint tiles. Igraine sat on the bench with Lilith on a stool at her feet. They were both sad, for Lilith was a girl whose heart answered strongly to any tale of unhappy mood. Igraine had made mere truth of the matter, neither justifying nor embellishing. Her clear bleak words were the more pathetic for their very simpleness. Lilith had been crying softly to herself. Her brown eyes were very misty when she turned her white face to Igraine's with a grievous little sigh.

"What can I say to you?" she said.

"Nothing," said Igraine, taking her hands and smiling through misery.

"I have never the words I wish for, and when I feel most I can say little."

"You understand; that is enough for me."

"Ah," said Lilith, with a fine blush and a shy look, "I think I can feel for you, Igraine, almost to the full, though I seem such an Agnes. I am woman enough to have learnt something that means all to a girl. I am very sad for your sake."

"Child."

"I will try to comfort you."

Igraine's eyes burned. She kissed Lilith on the lips and was mute. For a while they sat with their arms about each other, not daring to look into each other's eyes. Then the girl kissed Igraine's cheek, and touched her hair with her slim fingers.

"Perhaps I can help you," she said.

"Help me?"

Lilith flushed, and spoke very quickly.

"Yes--to find Pelleas. I tell you what I will do. I will send a friend of mine to question all the guards at the gates whether they have seen such a one as you have described ride in."

Igraine hugged the girl.

"And then you say this Pelleas was in the King's service. I have never heard of a knight so named; but there are so many, and I hear only gossip. I know a girl in the King's household. I will go and ask her whether she knows of a tall, dark knight whose colour is red, who rides a black horse, and is named Pelleas. You do not know how much I may not learn from her. I feel wise already."

Igraine plucked up heart and spirit. She felt sorry that she bad not spoken of her trouble to Lilith before, for she had lost many days trusting to her own eyes and her little knowledge of the town. She kissed the girl again, and almost laughed. Then in a flash she remembered a speech of Pelleas's which she had forgotten till that moment.

"Fool that I am," she said; "the very chain he wore he had it from your father, and here in my bosom I have the little cross that nigh lost him his life. Surely this may help us in some measure."

Lilith looked at the cross that Igraine had taken from under her tunic, where it hung by a little chain about her neck.

"We will show it to my father," said the girl, "and ask him thereof. He may have record of such a chain, and to whom it was sold. Who knows? Come, Igraine, we will show it him after supper if you wish."

And again Igraine kissed her.

It was Radamanth's custom, after the business of the day had been capped by an honest supper, to sit in his parlour and drink wine with certain of his friends. He had a particular gossip, an old fellow named Eudol, who had been a merchant in his time, and had retired with some wealth. These two would spend many an evening together over their wine, taking enough to make their tongues wag, but never exceeding the decent warmth of moderation. Eudol was a lean old gentleman with a white beard and a most patriarchal manner. He was much of a woman's creature, and loved a pretty face and a plump figure, and he would father any wench who came in his way with a benignity that often made him odious. He had a soft voice and a sleek, silken way with him that made folk think him the most tender-souled creature imaginable.

These two were at their wine together when Lilith and Igraine went in to them that evening. Radamanth since his spouse's death had grown as much a father as trade and the getting of gold permitted. In his selfish, matter-of-fact way he was fond of this timid, brown-eyed creature he called daughter. His affections boasted more of science than of sentiment. Lilith, unusually bold, went and sat on the arm of his chair, and patted his face in a half-shy, half-mischievous fashion. Eudol laughed, and shook his head with a critical look at Igraine.

"More begging," quoth he. "So, cousin Igraine, you look fresh as a yellow rose in the sun."

Igraine laughed, and sat down to talk to him, while Lilith questioned her father. The goldsmith bore his daughter's caresses with a sublime and patient resignation. She began to tell him about the chain, keeping Igraine and her tale wholly in the background. When she had said enough for the sake of explanation, she showed her father the cross, and waited his words.

Radamanth fingered it, turned it this way and that, and found his own mark thereon.

"I wrought and sold three such chains as you describe," he said; "but what is such a chain to you, child, and whence came this cross?"

Lilith flushed, hesitated, and glanced at Igraine.

"The cross is mine," quoth the latter.

Radamanth eyed her as though he were not a little desirous of questioning her further, but there was a very palpable coldness on his niece's face that forbade any such curiosity. He had a most hearty respect for the girl's pride, and never dreamt of any degree of tyranny that might seem vulgarly plebeian to her more noble notions. The remembrance of her parentage and estate had always a most emollient effect upon his mind.

"Well, well," he said, "I'll meddle discreetly, and go no further than I am asked."

Eudol winked at the company at large.

"Never ask a lady an uncomfortable question," quoth he.

Lilith beamed at him shyly.

"You are very wise," she said.

Radamanth rose from his chair, and going to a great press took a book from it. He set the book on the table, and after much turning of pages, discovered the record that he sought. Following the scrawling lines with his finger, he read aloud from the ledger:

"Gold chain of special weight, large links, two gold crosses pendant over either breast. Of such three were wrought and sold.

"The first to Bedivere, knight of the King's guard.

"Nota bene--unpaid for."

Eudol set up a sudden brisk cackle.

"The man, the very man, I'll swear."

Igraine gave him a look that made his mouth close like a trap and his body stiffen in his chair. Radamanth continued his reading.

"The second chain was sold to John of Glastonbury. The third to the most noble Uther, Prince of Britain."

Radamanth closed the book and returned it to the press--orderly even in trifles. Lilith and Igraine had exchanged a mute look that meant everything. Slipping away without a word to either man, they went to Igraine's bedroom, a great chamber hung with heavy red hangings and richly garnished. A carved bed stood in the centre. The two girls sat on it and stared into each other's eyes. Igraine was breathing fast, and her face was pale.

"Know you Bedivere?" she said.

Lilith shook her head.

"Or John of Glastonbury?"

"No."

"Or Uther?"

Lilith's brown eyes brightened.

"Noble Uther I have often seen," she said "riding through Winchester on a black horse. A dark man, and sad-looking. He would be much like your Pelleas."

Igraine was very white. There seemed a race of thoughts in her as she played the statue with her eyes at gaze, and her lips drawn into a line of red. Her hands hung limply over the edge of the bed, and she seemed stiffened into musings. Lilith sidled close to her, and put her warm arms round her neck, her soft cheek to Igraine's.

"We may learn yet," she said.

"Uther," said Igraine as in a dream.

"Can it be?"

Igraine drew a long breath and sighed like one waking.

"I must see him," was all she said.

Lilith kissed her.

"I will go to the King's house to-morrow," she said; "the girl may tell us something of use. I have heard it said that Uther has not been in Winchester for many a week. Ah, Igraine, if it should be he."

They looked deep in each other's eyes, and smiled as only women can smile when their hearts are fast in sympathy. Then they went to bed in Igraine's bed, and slept the night through in each other's arms.

Early next day they went together to the King's house that stood by the gardens and the river. At the kitchen quarters Lilith inquired for the girl who served as a maid in the household. Being constrained by a most polite lackey, she went in to see the woman, while Igraine kept her pride and herself in the porch, and watched the people go by in the street. Presently Lilith came out again with a frown on her mild face, and her brown eyes troubled. She took Igraine aside into the gardens that lined the great highway skirting the palace, and led her to where a fountain played in the sun, and stone seats ringed a quiet pool. White pigeons were there, coquetting and sweeping the ground with their spread tails, their low cooing mingling with the musical plashing of the water. An old beggar woman sat hunched in a corner, and three or four children were feeding the fish in the pool. All about them the gardens were thickly shadowed with great trees and glistening lusty laurels.

Igraine looked into Lilith's face.

"I see no news in your eyes," she said.

Lilith brooded at the pool and the children, and seemed disquieted, even angry.

"I have learnt little, Igraine," she said, and am dis-appointed. I will tell you how it was. The old wretch who oversees the women found me talking with the girl Gwenith, read me a sermon on interfering with household work, scolded me for a young gossip, and had me packed off like a beggar."

"What a harridan!"

"I have learnt a little."

"Quick!--I thirst."

Lilith hurried on for sympathy.

"The girl has never heard of a knight named Pelleas," she said, " and there are so many dark men about Court that your description was little guide. As for Uther, no one knows where he is at present. Folk are not disquieted, for he seems to be ever riding away into the woods on adventure. So much gossip could read me."

Igraine's face clouded.

"Did you ask of Bedivere?" she said.

"Oh, yes; a silly, vain fellow, with a red beard and sandy hair."

"And John of Glastonbury?"

"Gwenith could tell me nothing of that man. Dame Martha caught us talking, and it was then she scolded--the ugly, red-faced old hen. She said"--and Lilith blushed--"that I was an idle, silly hussy to gad and gossip after Court gentlemen. Now that wasn't fair, was it, Igraine?"

"No, dear. I should like to have a talk with Dame Martha."

Lilith rose to the notion.

"She would never scold you, Igraine. You look far too stately."

"Simpleton! a scold would spatter Gabriel."

"Well, if I were Gabriel I know what I should do to Dame Martha."

"You quiet-faced thing--why, you are quite a vixen after all!"

"Ah, Igraine, was there ever a woman without a temper?

"No, dear, and I wouldn't give a button for her either."

Suddenly, as they sat and talked, the beggar woman lifted up her head to listen, and the children turned from feeding the fish in querulous, childish wonder. There was something strange on the wind. Igraine and Lilith heard a gradual sound rising afar off over the city--a noise as of men shouting, a noise that waxed and waned like the roar of surges on a beach. It grew--rushed nearer like a storm through trees,--deep, sonorous, triumphant. The girls sat mute a moment, and looked at each other in conjecture.

"What can it be?"

"God knows!"

"The heathen?"

"Not that shout."

"Then--Uther."

Igraine caught a deep breath.

"Listen! it comes nearer. Come away, I must see."

Passing through the gardens they came again to the highway skirting the palace. Men, women, brats, monks, all Christendom, seemed swarming up from the city, and there was already a great throng in the street. The breeze of shouting came nearer each moment. Igraine climbed the pediment of a statue that rose above the balustrading of the gardens; the ledge gave room to both Lilith and herself. Together they stood and looked down on the crowd that began to swarm at their feet--soldiers, nobles, dirty craftsmen, courtezans, fat housewives, churchmen--their small prides lost in one common curiousness. The street seemed mosaicked with colour. The broken words and cries of the crowd were flung up to Igraine like so much foam.

"Gorlois, say you?"

"Noble Gorlois."

"A thousand heathen."

"What--all slain!"

"Where?"

"Under the walls of Anderida."

"Come to my house and I will give you red wine, and play to you on the cithern."

"Thank the Virgin."

"Great Gorlois."

"If it is true I'll burn twenty candles."

"Give over trampling me."

"A thousand heathen."

"Ho! there--some rogue's thieved my purse."

"They are coming."

"Let's shout for him."

"Great Gorlois."

Up between the stone fronts of the palace and the dwindling houses and the rolling green of the gardens came a blaze of gold and purple, of white, green, blue, and scarlet, a gross glare of steel thundered on with the tramp of men and the cry of many voices. A river of armour seemed to flow with a brazen magnificence between the innumerable heads of the crowd. Clarions were braying, banneroles adance. The sun flashed on helmet and shield, and made a brave blaze on the flanks of the great serpent of war as it swayed through the thundering street, arrogant, triumphant, glorious.

Well in the van rode a knight on a great white horse. His armour was all of gold, his trappings white with gold borders, and stars of gold scattered thereon. His baldric was set with jasper, his sword and scabbard marvellous with beryl and sardonyx. A coronet gemmed with one great ruby circled his casque, and shot red gleams at the archer sun.

Behind him came a veritable grove of spears,--lusty knights, their saddles weighed down with the spoil of battle, with torque, bracelet, sword, and axe. Further yet came pikemen, mass on mass, bearing each on his spear-point a heathen head,--pageant of leers, frowns, scowls of red wrath, wild eyes, blood, and blood-tangled hair.

The great knight on the white horse rode with a certain splendid arrogance, and his eyes were full of fire under the arch of his casque. It was easy to see that the noise and pomp were like wine to him, and that his pride blazed like a beacon in a wind.

"Gorlois, great Gorlois!" thundered the crowd.

By the palace there was such a press that the white horse came to a halt, hemmed in by a sea of vociferous faces. Igraine, in a gown of violet, was leaning from her statue, and looking at Gorlois. Her glance seemed to magnetise him, for he turned and stared full at the girl as she stood slightly above him in the glory of her beauty and her pride.

Long looked Gorlois, like a man smitten with a sudden charm. Then he wrenched the coronet from his casque, and spurring his horse through the crowd, rode close to the statue whose knees were clasped by Igraine's arm. It was the statue of Fame crowned by Love with a wreath of laurels. So, Gorlois, with head bowed, held up the coronet on the cross of his sword, and gave Igraine his glory.