The terror was abroad, such terror as had not possessed the land since
the days of the Black Death.
Fulk, tramping it, with an oak cudgel over his shoulder and his face set
like a stone towards London Town, saw nothing but empty fields and great
woods that seemed to smother the land in silence. He kept to the open
country, his forest instinct standing him in good stead, and once only
did he go down into a village to beg or seize bread for his belly. He
found only women, children, and old men there, for all the labourers
were on the road to London. The women fell upon him like a crowd of wild
cats, and he was forced to clear himself with ungallant sweeps of his
cudgel.
“A gentle, a gentle, by the cock of his chin!”
And since his club kept them at a distance they pelted him out of the
village with stones and broken potsherds, and Fulk got no bread that
morning.
He was sore within, most devilish sore, and full of the wrath of a
strong man in pain. He heard Isoult’s voice singing, and the lips that
were dead tormented him. His humility towards the thought of her
contrasted with his fierce desire to fly at the throat of this Blatant
Beast that went bellowing through the countryside.
He was hungry and in need of a horse to carry his wrath more swiftly,
and chance served him before the day was out. Coming upon a solitary
manor-house, half hidden by woods at the end of a meadow, Fulk
adventured thither to find a horse in the stable, food in the larder,
but also two hairy men eating and drinking like lords at the high table.
The folk had fled to the woods, and the men in the hall were two of the
Commons of England, guzzling and laying light fingers on anything that
could be stolen.
One was a swineherd, the other a tiler, and being two to one, and Fulk
no labourer in looks and dress, they showed a bullying valour, and fell
upon him together. All Fulk’s fury took its outlet. He left both of them
flat on the floor, helped himself to the wine and food, and was cheered
by finding some rusty harness and a sword in an oak chest in the cellar.
The horse in the stable would have carried the two boors, so Fulk had no
qualms over saving him from such a fate. He saddled and bridled the
beast, and rode on till the darkness made him call a halt.
Fulk passed the night in a wood, trying to sleep and making no great
success of it. The ground was hard under him, and his heart sore within.
Not for a moment could he get the dead woman out of his thoughts. She
was in the darkness about him, in the rustling of the leaves, in the
stars overhead, in the scent of the fern. He turned from side to side,
his brain on fire with a restless and compassionate grieving for Isoult
of the Rose.
It was on the morning of the second day that Fulk came within sight of
the Thames. At dawn he had started over the great chalk-hills with their
beech woods hanging in a glimmer of golden light, and had seen the river
country, dim and blue under the northern sky. A skull-faced old priest
whom he had met riding on an ass along a sheep-track, had pointed him
out the way.
“Cross the river west of London, my son,” he had said, “for they tell me
the southern roads that lead to London Bridge are full of the mob. God
have pity on the fools! Peace, and a safe passage to you.”
As for peace, it was the very last thing that Fulk desired, but he meant
to know how much truth there had been in Merlin’s words, and a wholesome
curiosity possessed him. Moreover, the lords and the gentry would be
gathering about the King; it was at the White Tower that swords were
needed, and men to teach the rabble of the fields that there was rhyme
and reason in the pride of the sword.
So about seven of the clock Fulk rode down into the river country where
the lush green June mocked the lover in him. His eyes saw blood upon the
grass, and the shining meadows all white and gold with flowers. Here was
a dream country, a lover’s land fit for idleness and laughter, yet even
the splendid summer stillness of the trees filled him with a measure of
scorn. Bare woods, a whistling wind, and a flaming sunset, and brown men
to be galloped after over leaves and mud! That was his mood, whereas,
here, by the river, he saw herons flapping peacefully over the meadows,
and the whole land seemed full of succulent green life, with poplars
that pricked the blue, and willows trailing their branches in mysterious
and secret waters. Reeds and sedges laughed and rustled, and he caught
the thunder of weirs and mill-races. It was dewy, languorous, full of
slow and glimmering delight, but for such a peaceful picture Fulk had no
use at all.
As he rode through Kingston towards the ford, he saw that nearly all the
houses had their doors and windows barred and shuttered. The road was
deserted save for a few hens pecking at garbage, and sparrows bathing in
the dust. Fulk might have ridden naked past the houses, and no one would
have taken offence. The morning sun blazed on the thatched roofs, the
black beams and white plaster, but gossip seemed dead, and the tongues
of the old women silent.
Fulk rode down to the ford, and reined in abruptly, with his horse’s
fore feet in the water. Out of a grove of poplars lining the farther
road came a jigging of pennons and a glittering of steel, with dust
flying like smoke from the hoofs of horses at the trot, and a whirl of
colour amid the green. Fulk saw it to be a company of some fifty spears
led by a knight on a towering black horse, a knight who rode in full
battle harness, save that his head was covered by a red velvet cap. The
whole glittering, clangorous, many-coloured mass came to a halt in the
roadway, the spears standing straight and close together, the dust still
making a mist about them in the sunlight.
Fulk’s heart grew big in him, and his eyes shone. Here was the grim
splendour of the sword out on a summer morning, and his nostrils
quivered as he pushed forward into the stream.
He was a third of the way across when the knight of the red velvet cap
kicked his heels into the flanks of his black horse and came splashing
into the shallows. He of the red cap had the face of a great
captain—haughty, shrewd, iron about the mouth, with blue eyes that
looked straight and far, eyes that could strike like a sword. Fulk felt
the man’s eyes on him as they splashed through the water towards each
other; moreover, as they drew nearer he saw something like astonishment
gather on the other’s face like a dazzle of sunlight on a shield.
They met, and reined in in the midst of the stream, the knight on the
black horse bending forward slightly in the saddle. His eyes seemed to
wait, and to wonder, and his iron mouth remained shut like a trap.
Fulk saluted him.
“The grace of God to you, sir. I have seen nothing but brown villeins
for the last ten days.”
The knight still stared and said nothing, sitting stiffly in the saddle.
Suddenly he opened his mouth as though his astonishment could hold back
no longer.
“By the tail of the devil, my friend, who are you?”
Fulk was on the alert.
“The Duke of Lancaster’s Riding Forester, the son of Roger Ferrers.”
Fulk saw the knight’s eyebrows come together.
“Roger Ferrers’ son!”—and he spoke as though talking to prove to
himself that he was awake—“Roger Ferrers’ son! Have I eyes in my head
or not? Look you, my friend, have you heard the name of Sir Robert
Knollys?”
“Surely.”
“I am he. Come close in, your knee to mine.”
Fulk edged his horse closer, and he of the red cap sat and stared at
him, and at every part of him from eyebrows to hands. He traced every
line, every trick of the body, and the more he looked the more he seemed
to marvel.
“Monstrous! You have steady eyes, young man.”
“And an easy conscience!”
“Come, tell me now, Master Ferrers, whither do you ride, and for what
purpose?”
“I ride nowhere, and I keep my own counsel.”
“Tsst, no fencing with me. I am to be trusted.”
“To be honest with you, sir, I have had to run for my life from certain
people who were for making me dance like a doll on a wire.”
“And how was the doll to be dressed?”
“In a King’s robes, and with a crown on its head.”
He saw Knollys’ eyes flash and harden.
“By the Three Leopards, speak out! How much do you know?”
Fulk told him the tale that Merlin had poured into his ears, and Robert
Knollys listened, never moving his eyes from Fulk’s face. Their horses
stood shoulder to shoulder, with the water washing under their bellies,
while the armed men on the northern bank wondered why their captain
tarried so long at the ford.
“The ruffian priest! And the woman saved ye, and lost her own life? That
was bravely done. But look you, my friend; the truth’s writ on you in
flesh and blood. You are as like the King as one bean is like another,
save—this in your ear—you have something the King lacks. I judge a man
by his eyes. How old are you?”
“Turned twenty.”
“And old at that. Let me think, let me think.”
He laid his right hand on Fulk’s shoulder, and, leaning forward, looked
into his eyes.
“I loved the Black Prince, and I have lain across the door of his tent
at night. In the French wars we were brothers in arms, and, by God! you
have his eyes, the set of his head, the very turn of his shoulders. It’s
damnable, marvellous!”
His grip tightened on Fulk’s shoulder.
“The King is but fifteen, and you some five years older, yet you might
pass, before a crowd, for the King. That friar had quick wits! What a
devil’s game, with half the country in a panic and the other half
foaming like a dog gone mad. Lancaster in Scotland, Woodstock in Wales,
half our best knights sailed or sailing for Spain! Fulk Ferrers, has no
man ever whispered this tale to you before?”
Fulk had no need to shirk the other’s eyes.
“Never a word. I have lived the forest life.”
“Who knows the truth? She—who——! Damnation, it was her splendour to
mate with such a man, and no shame.”
He turned his head, and stared at the water running past, his hand still
on Fulk’s shoulder.
“If we had but such a Prince! Bah! what am I saying?”
His eyes flashed up to Fulk’s.
“Come now, what’s in your heart? Out with it. If you are the son of your
father you will be gallant and generous.”
“I swear troth to the King. Let men call me a bastard if it pleases
them; there is good blood in me.”
“Am I to trust you?”
“As you trusted the Prince.”
“That carries! But, by my honour, we are in the thick of crooked
happenings. A boy King, and the rabble rushing to make a Jumping Jack of
him, and he none too stiff in his knees! You see—I trust you. We rode
out here to see if any of this scum had crossed the river. I see no
other way but to take you back with us.”
“I ask nothing better than to follow Robert Knollys.”
They had taken each other’s measure, and they gripped hands.
“I am to trust Robert Knollys, as he trusts in me.”
“Take my oath on it.”
“It is given and taken.”
The elder man thought a moment.
“Lad, no one yet must see your face.”
He turned in the saddle and shouted to a squire who was waiting with his
pennon on the northern bank.
“Fitzurse—hey!”
“Sir?”
“Leave my helmet on the grass. Tell my gentlemen to ride back straight
to the city. I follow—with a friend.”
He and Fulk waited, sitting their horses in the midst of the river,
while the company of spears turned and rode off with a churning of dust
into the aspen wood. The thunder of the horses’ hoofs had nearly died
away before Knollys stirred.
“Come.”
They splashed through to the northern bank together. A vizored bassinet
lay on the grass beside the road, and Knollys pointed to it, and glanced
meaningly at Fulk.
“Cover your face, my son. A good hawk will not bate at being hooded.”
As they rode towards the city through the fields and orchards, Knollys
desired to hear Fulk’s adventures and all that he could tell him of the
temper of the rebels in the south, and he in turn was frank with Fulk,
unbarring his thoughts to him as to a comrade in arms.
“No such thing as this would have happened,” said he, “with the sire or
the grandsire ruling. There is no master, and the country has lost its
wits, every man cowering in a corner and afraid to utter one bold word
for fear of a cutthroat.”
“Where are the great lords and their people?”
“Man, I know not! The King can count on no more than five hundred spears
in London, and the city scum is said to be with the rebels. The country
is besotted with apathy and fear. Never in my life have I seen such
poltroonery—the men who should be in the saddle turned to a crowd of
old women. I am asking myself whether this can be the England that sent
our armies to trample upon France.”
His haughty and scornful seriousness was not to be questioned, and Fulk
felt that the case was desperate when such a man looked gloomy.
“What of the King? Is he in peril?”
“It is those who stand between him and the ‘Jacks’ who are likely to be
in peril. There are wrongs to be righted—who doubts it?—but the
shipmaster must rule the ship. The Jacks in France were very near
overturning a kingdom.”
“I thought to find a great host of the lords and gentles in London.”
“A few old pantaloons in the Tower. I promise you I would not stake a
groat on half of us having our heads upon our shoulders this time next
month.”
They passed a group of the common people standing outside an alehouse,
and some of them jeered and put out their tongues like children. One
fellow ran about on all fours, howled, and lifted up a leg. Another had
a dead cat, which he held up by a thong fastened to its neck. He
shouted, and jigged the dead cat up and down: “Ha! John of Gaunt dancing
on a rope!” Knollys rode by as though they were dirt in the gutter, but
his eyes were the eyes of a leopard.
“Honest mud in the wrong place, friend Fulk. Many of these fellows are
good lads when not in the wolf pack.”
He stared into the distance.
“If death could give us back the father for one week! But with this boy,
and a few old women round him! Lancaster would be useless, even were he
not parleying with the Scots. The people hate him like poison. Never
breathe it that you are John of Gaunt’s man, if you are taken.”
“There must be good men somewhere.”
“Faith, what are a few beacons when the whole country is burning? I tell
you it needs a comet in the sky to master these mad peasants. Fate lies
with the King.”
“If he is the son of his father——”
“If, if! That’s where the devil’s laugh comes in!”
The dust of Knollys’ company of spears drifted eastwards before them,
and hung like a haze among the elm trees beside the road. The silver
loops of the river came and went, until the towers of Westminster rose
from among the orchards, fields, and gardens. A great silence held
everywhere, and even as they rode towards Ludgate past the great houses
on the river bank and John of Gaunt’s palace of the Savoy, the people
who loitered thereabout looked mute, and sullen, and watchful. The
purple edge of a thundercloud was looming up over the city, deepening
every patch of colour in the streets, and making the vanes and steeples
shine like gold. The air was close and ominous, like the spirit of the
people.
As they passed the Savoy, Knollys cocked a thumb at it.
“See your duke’s house. I’d not give a penny for it if those wolves
cross the river.”
Fulk had a need of silence, for his head was like a skin full of new
wine. All was strange, and vast, intricate, and grotesque to him, and
the great city itself was like a forest with its spires and towers and
gables and narrow winding ways. It was a world of new sights, new
sounds, new smells, new colours. He looked at the houses and the people
through the bars of the vizor, and felt a strange unrest stirring in
him, a yearning to play a mighty part, to strike some blow that should
make all these heedless and unfamiliar faces gape and stare. The pride
of mastery cried in his blood—the cry of a heritage that yearned in
him.
They saw the spears ahead of them winding through Ludgate with the
clangour of iron-shod hoofs on the cobbles. A trumpet blared, and people
crowded out of courts and alleys to see Knollys’ war-dogs ride past. To
Fulk these people were like sheep crowding at gaps in a hedge. The
trumpet’s cry wailed for a something that England lacked, a voice like a
trumpet’s cry and the mien of a lord.
They came to Knollys’ lodging, and by noon Fulk found himself in a
little attic under the tiles, with thunder rumbling overhead. The window
looked out over roofs and gables through a sheet of drenching rain that
glimmered when the lightning flashed. There was food and wine, and a
truckle bed in the room, and the door was barred on the inner side.
Knollys had left him there to the thunderstorm and his own thoughts.
“Let the sword lie hid in the sheath,” he had said; “trust me, good lad.
Perhaps I have dreamed a dream!”