Sea spray was blown upon the rocks of Holy Guard, the grey sky raved,
the trees rocked and moaned upon the hills. Rain whirled with the wind.
The towers and walls shook; doors chattered; gallery and court were full
of the storm.
At midnight there came the cry of a trumpet from the troubled darkness
of the night. Armed men were climbing the causeway with rain beating
upon their faces, moisture clinging to their beards. There came the
rattle of a spear staff on the great gate of the abbey, and again the
trumpet challenged the dark walls, like the cry of a sea-bird driven by
the storm.
Twelve nuns and novices were in the chapel keeping a vigil with the
Abbess Joan. For the rest, Holy Guard and all its sisterhood were
plunged in darkness and in sleep. The porteress at the gate, nodding
over her prayers in the guard cell, started at the trumpet cry, drew her
gown round her, crept shivering to the grille.
“Who knocks?” she cried.
“Open in God’s name!”
The woman drew back the bolts, opened the wicket, peered out into the
gloom. Men, rain-drenched and cloaked, scrambled in, black shadows
pouring out of the night. Two soldiers seized on the porteress. A wet,
hairy hand was over her mouth, stifling her cries; she was huddled into
her cell, where a lamp flared with the draught through the gate.
Armed men still poured in, a tide that swirled from wall to wall. Rough
voices rose amid the racket of the storm.
“Lights there; fire the torches.”
“Keep together.”
“The chapel, sirs. Follow me. Ten of you hold the gate.”
A tall figure led the way like an old grey wolf heading the hunt, while
the pack poured up the passage-way betwixt the towering walls, finding
no swords to stem their progress. They climbed the fifty steps that
wound in the rock to the main mass above, scrambling, shouting, plucking
at each other’s belts. Soon they were under the second arch and within
the heart of Holy Guard.
In the chapel Joan the Abbess had been keeping the vigil of St.
Margradel with six nuns and six novices. Two lamps hung from the wooden
roof, flinging vague streams of light into the gloom. The Abbess knelt
on the stone steps before the altar, with the women crouching in cramped
reverence at her feet. A single taper burnt before the rough wooden
cross whose beams were linked by a crown of thorns.
Overhead the wind screamed, and the rain drove in through the crazy
latticing upon the floor. The tide was full below, and they could hear
the thunder of the waves upon the rock. Holy Guard was overarched by
darkness and all the turbulent passion-throes of the world.
The trumpet’s cry had passed unheard by those within the chapel: the
rush of many feet had merged into the vaster clamour of the storm. A
pikestaff smote the chapel door. The rusty latch clashed, the door swung
in on its sea-rotted hinges, the arch of gloom was filled with hissing
torches, smoke, and the gleaming bodies of armed men. Joan the Abbess
started to her feet, stood with her back to the altar, her crucifix
upraised. The nuns and novices, some standing, some crouching on their
knees, huddled back towards her like fledgelings beneath a mother’s
wing.
Silence held for a moment, save for the blustering of the wind and the
hiss of the rain on the burning torches. Joan the Abbess was no coward;
her eyes were fixed questioningly upon the armed men at the door. Since
they made no sign of entering the chapel, she still held her cross on
high and challenged them from the altar.
“Who are ye who break the peace of Holy Guard?”
There was some stir in the crowd without the door, and the torches
plunged forward, their smoke rolling to the roof. A tall man in a green
cloak, with a sable hood shadowing his face, had pushed through the
soldiery with drawn sword. His men stood with crossed spears before the
door, while he faced the Abbess under the flaring lamps.
The woman still held her cross on high.
“Who are ye who trouble Holy Guard?”
The man in the green cloak answered her.
“Woman, the noise of your misdeeds has filled all Christendom. The Holy
Father has decreed the breaking of the abbey of Holy Guard.”
“These are false words.”
The man ignored the Abbess’s straining lips and upraised cross. His eyes
were searching the faces of those who thronged the altar, white and
mute, carven as out of stone.
“Rise, women, we command you.”
Some obeyed him, others hesitated. Joan the Abbess still stood before
the altar with a few of the women huddling about her feet. The man in
the green cloak pointed towards her with his sword.
“Take her hence, sirs,” he said. “Let her not cheat you with that cross
of hers.”
There was some scuffling, some screaming, as in a dovecot where a hawk
has entered. The Abbess calmed the scene by sudden surrender to the
tyranny of the hour. She put the men from her, folded the crucifix over
her breast, passed down from the altar towards the door. Her women
gathered at her heels like sheep, thronging betwixt the line of torches
and the glistening helms.
The man in the hood of sables suffered them to pass before him one by
one, staring hard into each frightened face. At each motion of his sword
the soldiers let a woman through, and they passed singly from the flare
of the torches into the night.
The last woman had drawn her hood down over her face. She was taller
than her fellows, and moved with more stateliness, a more youthful
grace. At a sign one of the soldiers tossed back her hood and uncovered
the face of Rosamunde of Joyous Vale, dead Ronan’s wife.
The man in the green cloak made a gesture with his sword. The soldiers
herded to the entry, passed out from the chapel, and closed the creaking
door. The torchlight flickered in through the lattices; vague cries
pierced the clamour of the storm; the wind screamed, the sea surges
thundered against the rock.
The man with the sword tossed back his hood. He and Rosamunde were alone
together; the lamps flung their wavering light down upon his face.
Rosamunde, knowing him in a moment, fell back and leant against a
pillar. It was Jocelyn of Agravale, who had trapped her in Holy Guard.