"My beloved son in religion whom I should hold as a brother if I were of

this world," he said, "I cannot say if you were pure in heart at that

season, yet I hope you were. If you were you may take great pride and

be very thankful. If you were in a state of sin then consider this for

a warning and amend very much your ways. And it may well be that the

hosts of heaven who are all round us and watch very attentively that

which we do on earth--that they are and have been concerned to see how

that you regard too little the needs of the Church that is militant here

in earth, forgetting it in the too frequent contemplation of the Church

Triumphant that is in heaven. For I think that your tales of chaste

knights of Brittany and the pursuers of the Holy Grail are rather

glimpses vouchsafed to us of how it shall be with the Church Triumphant

than of anything that can be until that day. In these North parts the

times are very evil and we have more need of a great lord and one ready

to be a strong protector than of ten Sir Galahads seeking mysteries,

though that too may be a very excellent thing in its time and place.

Yet I would rather see you Warden of these Marches, since the one that

we have, though an earl pious and generous enough, turns rather his

thoughts in fear to the King in London Town than in love and homage to

the Prince Bishop that is set above us. And I make no doubt that it was

to exhort you to this that that angel or that saint came down. And, in

token, you have, for the time being, lost your lands to very godless

people who have sought to dispossess you by having recourse to the

courts temporal upon a false charge. You say to me that ever since you

saw that lady's face this world has seemed as a mirror and an unreality

to you so that you cannot cease from sighing and longing. I will tell

you that those very same words were written of Gudruna, Saint, Queen and

Martyr of these parts. Being an evil and lascivious queen she had in

sleep a vision of the joys of paradise and so she said that she never

ceased from sighing for them all the days of her life. Yet nevertheless

that did not hinder her from waging war against the heathen and winning

a great part of this kingdom from Heathenesse, so that she converted

forty thousand souls. And, for the fact that three months have passed,

I will have you remember the case of the founder of this

monastery--blessed Wulfric. For walking in the fields here, Our Lady

came to him and so he remained upon his knees by the space of forty and

nine days in a swoon or trance, being fed by such as passed by or as

gradually flocked there to see that wonder. And so, being restored to

himself, he said that Our Lady had but just gone from him, having staid,

as he thought, but a very short while. And that is explained by this,

that to the dwellers in heaven and in the sight of God, even as marriage

is not, so time is not, it being written that in His courts one day is

as a thousand years. So it may well be that that angel--and by that I

think it may have been rather an angel than a saint--having no knowledge

of time and none either of the necessity of mankind for shelter or

food--for the heavenly host have no need of either--so this fair, pretty

angel in staying ninety days before you may have thought it was but the

space of a minute, for it is only God that is all-wise. Yet may God,

observing these things from where He sate in Heaven, and desiring

neither to abash the angel nor to starve and slay you, have conveyed

nourishment to you by the hands of other angels and have rendered mild

the winds. And now I think of it, in these last ninety days, there has

been very little or no rain at all so that the hay harvest and fenaison

is a month before its time and all men have marked this for a marvel.

So I read these wonders, and so I command you to regard them until you

come upon a man more holy, to interpret them otherwise. And for that, if

I be wrong, we shall very soon know it, for I will have you go with

me--as soon as I shall have arranged certain matters of this

monastery--to the Prince Bishop himself in Durham. And there, if he do

not find me at fault, we will devise with him how best you may again be

set in your inheritance. For I will tell you this. A fortnight gone I

had speech with that gracious prince for a space of two days touching

the affairs of the diocese, and he said that he would very well that you

should be set back in your lands. And I ask you this: If such a mighty

prince and wise and reverend servant of God shall say that, commending

you, what would it be in you but a very stiff-necked perseverance in

humility and the conviction of sin to gainsay him, a prince palatine

that hath spent many years in the city of Rome before the face of the

pope himself?"

The Young Lovell sighed deeply. In all those long speeches he had heard

rather the voice of a friend that sought to enhearten him than that of a

ghostly pastor and comforter. And at last he said:

"For what you say, father, of my retaking my Castle I will do it very

willingly, and so I will administer my lands that, with the grace of

God, it shall be to His greater glory, if so I may. And for what you

have bidden me believe I will seek to believe it, but strong within me

is the thought of what before was in my mind that I may not change it

all of a piece. Nevertheless, by prayer and fasting I may come to it."

The monk, who had observed his penitent's face to light up at the

mention of his Castle, said quickly:

"Why, I think you have fasted enough," and so he bade the lay brother to

bring there quickly wine and meat, and hot water to wash with, and clean

linen if they had any good enough. And so he bade the young lord lay

off the heavier of his garments and unbrace his clothes, for it was hot

weather. And so food and a table were brought and the lay brother

washed the feet of the lord, whilst he reclined upon the bed-foot.

Whilst he ate, little by little the religious brought the Young Lovell

to talk of how he should have arms and money for his men-at-arms and

other costs.

And the Young Lovell saw that he had still in his cap his string of

great pearls and this he pledged to the monk Francis for the sum of two

hundred pounds.

Of this sum, one hundred pounds the monk Francis had of the funds of the

monastery, and he could just make it with the twenty-eight pounds that

John Harbottle had paid him. This hundred pounds the Young Lovell

should take with him upon his adventure to Durham and the other hundred

should remain with the good monk. And this should pay for the keep of

thirty men for a fortnight, at the rate of fourpence a man, and that

would be seven pounds. And the men should have arms from the armourer of

the monastery and from the men-at-arms there until they came to arms of

their own. And if they should return those arms unbroken and unharmed

the Lord Lovell should pay for their hire at the rate of one shilling

the man per week, and all that should be matter of account out of the

hundred pounds that remained.

So the monk Francis bargained for the good of his monastery, for he held

it against his conscience to give these things for less. Moreover, he

perceived that in talking of these things the Young Lovell appeared to

come back to life. Then the Young Lovell told this news to his

men-at-arms who stood before the door.

Afterwards the Young Lovell bought of the knight of the monastery, Sir

Nicholas Ewelme, some light armour for his horse; and for himself he

bought a light helmet, a breastpiece and an axe, which were not very

fair, but sufficient to make the journey to Durham. And all these

things having taken many hours, it was decided that they should put off

their departure until the next day at dawn when the Young Lovell should

take with him ten of his men-at-arms. By that evening, the news of his

being at the monastery having spread, more than twenty more of his men,

with an esquire called Armstrong, came there and entered his employment.

IV

The Lady Margaret of Glororem had that day, near dawn, abandoned hope

that the Young Lovell, her true love, would come again, and for that

reason she rode south to Durham to set about the releasing of the Lady

Rohtraut in good earnest. She had been unwilling to do this before hope

departed of his returning, because he was her lord and might have plans

for the retaking of his Castle and the rest, and any action that she

might take might hinder these.

She had said that she would ride to Durham on the day when the Young

Lovell should have been ninety days away and that was the ninety-first.

That night she lay at Warkworth where she had the hospitality of the

Percies. She had with her an old lady called Bellingham and three maids

with forty men-at-arms under the direction of the husband of the lady

called Bellingham, an old esquire who had never come to be a knight, but

yet a very honest man and capable for such a post. For if he had little

skill or desire to take fortresses or the like, he could very well set

out his men so as to drive off any evil gentry.

And that night the Lady Margaret, after supper--which was late because

it was the time of the haying when every man of the largest castle must

be in the fields whilst daylight lasted--the Lady Margaret held a hot

discussion with the Earl of Northumberland. The Lady Maud his wife was

by, that was daughter to the Earl of Pembroke, and she sought to

moderate at once the anger of that lord and the importunities of that

hotheaded damsel. The Lady Margaret would have the Percy raise his many

with cannon and siege apparatus and march against Castle Lovell to

release her aunt, the Lady Rohtraut who was also that Earl's cousin.

And so she exhorted him, in the light of a great fire of sea coal, for

the nights were chilly enough if the days were fine.

She said many words in that sense to the Earl before he answered her.

At last he spoke to a page standing behind her, that was son to the

esquire, John Harbottle, and gave him a key and bade him bring a little

box that he would find in an aumbry in the tower where his muniments and

charters were locked up. For this Earl, according as he was at Alnwick

which he did not much love, or at Warkworth where he much delighted to

be, so he moved his window-glass, his muniments and his charters from

the one Castle to the other, and for their greater safety they were

placed in the tower called the Bail. Night and day watch was kept in

the chambers that were both above them and below, with the best ancients

and lieutenants that he had, keeping watch upon the men-at-arms. So

high a value did his lord set upon his charters.

And when the box was brought to him he opened it with another key and

took out certain old and stained papers and parchments which he bade

this lady read. And she could make little of them because there was no

light but the firelight, for the Earl and his wife were accustomed to go

to bed after supper.

When she could not read them, the Earl took them from her and read them

easily enough, for he had them nearly by heart, though the writing was

cramped and nearly fourscore years of age, or more. And once, whilst he

read them, the Earl looked over the edge of a parchment at the Lady

Margaret and asked her if she had heard of a Percy called Hotspur. She

answered, yes, indeed; so he read out lugubriously what was in that

writing.

"The King to the mayor and sheriffs of York, greeting: Whereas of our

special grace we have granted to our cousin Elizabeth who was the wife

of Henry de Percy, Chevalier, commonly called Hotspur, the head and

quarters of the same Henry to be buried: we command you that the head

aforesaid, placed by our command upon the gate of the city aforesaid you

deliver to the same Elizabeth, to be buried according to our grant

aforesaid." And, with a droning voice the Earl followed other pieces of

the body of that Henry Percy about the realm, a certain quarter of him

having been placed upon the gate at Newcastle, another at Chester,

another at Shrewsbury, and so on. And when he had done with Hotspur,

the Earl went on to read of the fate of the father of Hotspur, Henry,

the Fourth Lord Percy of Alnwick. This lord fell at Bramham Moor

fighting against King Henry IV, as Hotspur had done at Hately Field,

fighting against the same King four years before. This lord's head and

quarters were placed upon London Bridge: one quarter upon the gate of

York, another at Newcastle, and yet further pieces at King's Lynn and

Berwick-on-Tweed. Lugubriously and in a level voice this Earl read out

all the writs that he had collected, whether by the King's hand or Privy

Seal, whether of setting up or for burial. He looked gravely upon the

Lady Margaret and asked her what she learned from them. And when she

said that she learned that those Percies were very gallant men, he shook

his head and said that he found from them this lesson, that it is not

healthy for a Percy to rebel against a King Henry that slew a Richard.

For, just as Henry IV had put down King Richard II by the aid of the

Percies that afterwards rose against him, so King Henry VII had put down

and slain King Richard IV on Bosworth Field with the aid of that Percy

that there spoke to her. And very surely it would be upon no Bramham

Moor or Hately Field that that Percy would fall, for he was determined

to be a very good liege man of King Henry VII and that was all he had to

it.

Then the Lady Margaret said boldly that, for this present King she knew

nothing of him, nor either could anybody, seeing that he had reigned but

a little while. The Percy made sounds of disagreement and anger, for he

was afraid of having such things said in his Castle, and moreover

desired to be in his bed.

She exclaimed loudly that she regretted having seen the day when a great

lord should talk of loyalty to a King not a year on the throne, where

they, the great barons of this realm, had set him. For the Percies were

a respectable family though they were not of the standing and worth, in

those parts, of the Eures, the Dacres, or the Nevilles; they had

acquired the most part of their lands by a gradual purchase of Bishop

Anthony Bek, who betrayed his ward the young Vesey, so that the Veseys

ever since were poor enough and some of them as they knew had taken to

evil ways. Still the Percies had had some very good knights amongst

them, such as that Hotspur and his father Henry, and others.

At that point the Countess Maud sought to calm her, but the Lady

Margaret would not be quieted. For she said that this was what all the

North part was saying, and it was better for the Earl to hear it than to

sit all day surrounded by flatterers of the make of John Harbottle and

his like, or than setting up tablets on the walls of towers as John

Harbottle was doing at Belford, praising the credit and renown of this

Earl.

The Lady Margaret looked a very fair woman and the Earl had an eye for

such, or very certainly he would have had her taken away, for he

regarded himself like a second king in those North parts. Her eyes were

very dark and flashed with the firelight; her black hair fell in two

plaits, one over her back and one over her shoulder, and when she

pointed at him her white hand, on which were many rings set with green

stones and red stones, her ample sleeves of scarlet damask touched the

firelit carpet. In the dark hall of that place her angry figure

appeared to wave as the flames went over the logs of the sea coal, and

over her shoulder looked the white face of the old lady, Bellingham, her

duenna, who was much afraid. For the Lady Margaret continued her rude

speeches. She was so vexed that the Percy would not go to the rescue of

her aunt, the Lady Rohtraut.

"Sir Earl," she said, "this is the manner of the governance of this

realm of England, that, if the great barons dislike a King they set him

down. So they did, for one cause or another, with Edward II and with

Richard II and with Henry VI and with Edward V and with Richard III.

He, I think, was a very good King; nevertheless you and others betrayed

him on Bosworth Field, God keeps the issue. And when we put down Edward

II we set up Edward III; misliking his grandson we set up Henry

Bolingbroke instead. And that Bolingbroke, called Henry IV, we did not

well like when we had set him up. Yet I do not blame anyone either for

setting him up nor yet for seeking to force him down again. For

somebody must be King. He will make fair promises before we come to it,

and if he break them afterwards it must be put to the issue of swords,

pull devil, pull baker. So this Henry IV was too strong for Hotspur,

God rest his soul... Then came Henry V that was a King after my heart

and all good people's hearts, and so it went on... But that you, a

Percy, should cry out before this King has sat in his saddle a year,

that you are afraid of the fate of your grandsire Hotspur; that I think

is a very filthy thing and so I tell you. And we of the North parts are

not like to suffer it."

The Percy smiled a red smile in the firelight.

"Then you of the North parts," he said, "women and jackanapes, will do

what you are held down to do... For I tell you this: this Henry Tudor

sitteth so firm in his saddle by my aid that we will break all your

necks or ever you raise them from the dust where you belong. And that I

say to the North parts, brawling and fighting brother against brother as

ye are ever doing... And this I say to you Margaret Eure and my gentle

cousin: that your aunt, who has broad lands should be in prison to your

cousins of Cullerford and Haltwhistle and to Bastards suits well my case

and there she shall stop for me. For she has broad lands and the Lovells

have broad lands and so have the Dacres, to whom she belongs, and whilst

they are at each other's throats it is well for the King in London Town

and for me at Alnwick. And I wish you were all at each other's throats

more than you are; for the King shall have his pickings by way of fines

and amercements, and so will I, and so will lawyers and bailiffs and

others, and so ye are weakened the more. And it was for this reason

that I gave judgment against your true love, the Young Lovell, in my

Warden's court, though I knew that judgment should not stand... For I

think that Young Lovell was a dangerous whelp, with his prating of this

and that, and his being a very good knight and commander. And so I

would be very willing to pull him down again if the Scots had not hanged

him, as I hope they have. And I have written a broad letter to the King

in London that these Lovells are a dangerous race with their hearts full

of love for Richard Crookback. If the King do not forbid it, and, if

Young Lovell shall come again to raise men and march upon Castle Lovell,

I will march out with men and cannon and hot-trod and hang him upon the

first gallows I come to. So say I, Henry, Earl Percy."

The Lady Margaret swallowed her hot rage and considered that she might

better sting this lord with a low voice. So she spoke very clearly as

follows:

"Henry Earl Percy, thou art a very filthy knave, and so thou knowest and

so know all thy neighbours. Thou wast a foul traitor to Richard; thou

art a foul traitor to thy kith and kin and to thy peers. For thou

mightest well put down Richard Crookback. That was open to any man that

could. And thou mightest well set up Henry and seek to maintain him

till he has time to prove himself. But to seek to weaken thy kith and

thy kin and thine order and thy kind that he may sit firm rivetted

whether he deserve it or not, with the house of Percy as his flatterers,

servants and pimps--that is not a pretty and gallant thing. For my

cousin Lovell, I do not think ye dare set out against him, for if ye

did, all the North part--and it is not yet so cast down--should rise

upon you, and there should not remain, of Alnwick, nor yet of Warkworth,

one stone upon another. And for this thing of my cousin and true love,

I think you have a little mistaken it. For whiles my true love is away

we, such as the Eures and the Dacres and the Nevilles and the

Widdringtons and the Swinburns and the commoner sort, and the Elliotts

and Armstrongs, go a little in doubt. For, if my true love be dead, it

is his sisters that are his heirs, and to set them out of that Castle

would be to set down his heirs, which is a thing not to be done. But if

the Young Lovell should come again I think you should see a different

thing, for there is not one of these people but should rise upon you,

aye, and the Prince Palatine. I think you could not stand against us

all. For that so they would do I have upon their oaths...."

The Countess Maud said then:

"So there you have the end of it." But the Earl was in haste to seize a

point:

"Then there you are convicted by your own mouth," he said hatefully to

Lady Margaret. "I hold that Young Lovell to be dead and his sisters'

husbands are the heirs of that Castle. How then shall I march upon a

Castle that is the lawful property of Cullerford and Haltwhistle upon an

idle peasant's tale that a lady there is captive?"

The Lady Margaret made him a deep reverence, leaning back in her scarlet

gown that had green undersleeves.

"Simply for this," she said, "that there are Percies that would have

done it." Then she laughed; and after she was done with her curtsy that

took a long time, she said:

"So, now I have what I wish, I will get me gone from this your Castle of

Warkworth."

So she made her way to her room that had dark hangings all of the

crowned lion of the Percies. And when she was there she called to her

the old squire, John Bellingham, that had charge of her men-at-arms. He

had gone to his bed and was some time in coming.

So she bade him rouse all her men because she would ride forth from the

Castle. Then he said it would be very dangerous, seeing the darkness of

the night and the rumours of Scots being abroad. She answered that, if

the night were dark it would be as hard for the Scots to see them as for

them to see the Scots. And she had chosen him, John Bellingham, to be

the ancient of her men because he was said to possess much knowledge of

the different ways of that country-side, that never the Scots could come

to him if he had but two minutes' start by night.

In the middle of that dispute came the Countess Maud a knocking at the

door. She cried out that it was not to be thought of that this lady

should leave their Castle in that wise. She, the Countess, had done as

best she might to make hospitality for that lady, and it would be an ill

discourtesy if she left them so. This Countess Maud, daughter of Sir

Herbert Stanley, Earl of Bedford, was of the South parts, and she was

amazed at all these clamours. Indeed she had not well understood all

that had been said, for when the Earl and the Lady Margaret had become

heated they spoke in the Northern fashion of which she knew nothing. So

the Countess said again that she had done all she knew to do honour to

that her guest. If she had fallen short of due hospitality, very gladly

she would amend it. This Countess was a large, white woman that had

once been very fair. And she wrung her hands.

Then the Lady Margaret laughed and bade peremptorily John Bellingham to

bid her men arm themselves and lie all together under arms, for they had

been scattered about the Castle. And, at all those noises the women of

the Lady Margaret awakened and came into the little room where they

slept; two were in their shifts and one had her bed clothes about her.

Then the Lady Margaret bade them dress themselves and lie down upon

their beds; but to be ready. After that she answered the Countess Maud

that her entertainment had been such as she had seldom had before,

lacking nothing, but with certain dishes added, that in their rough

North parts they had seldom seen before though they had heard of them.

Such were the scents in the water for washing hands, the golden apples

of Spain, and the fowl called a Turkey. And indeed the Countess had

made her great cheer. Nevertheless, since eating these things she and

the Earl had become sworn enemies, and it would be contrary to the rules

of hospitality if she stayed longer in that Castle.

The Countess wrung her hands again and said, "What was this of making

enemies and why could they not live amicably together as cousins did in

the South?" The Lady Margaret laughed and answered that if the people

of the South were better than they of the North in these matters, then

they were better than God meant men to be; nevertheless she was glad of

it.

Then came John Bellingham, who by now understood the danger of the

matter, to say that the Lady Margaret's men were all together and armed

in a room in a wall by the postern gate and at the foot of a stairway

just beside that lady's chamber-room. Then the Lady Margaret bade him

let her men lie down upon straw in that room; but upon any sound that

the Percy's men were arming or at any movement of lights in the Castle,

he should come at once to her.

Then the Countess Maud asked what was this, for she had not understood

what had passed between the lady and her ancient, by reason that they

spoke in the Northern tongue. Then came a knocking at the door and the

dame Bellingham said that there stood the Earl Percy in his night-gown.

So the Lady Margaret said that was what she feared--that the Earl should

come down at night with amorous proposals; but she was jesting. The

Countess did not know this and she went to the door and began to cry out

upon that lord for desiring to dishonour her.

Then between the two of them came a great clamour, the Countess holding

to that, and the Earl crying out that she was a fool and that this

matter might lead to the deaths of them all if she would not let him

come in to speak to the Lady Margaret. This the Countess did not wish to

allow, for the Countess Maud had no comprehension at all of what all

this trouble was about, and it seemed to her to be nonsense to say, as

her lord did, that this matter might lead to the deaths of them all.

Nevertheless, when the Lady Margaret heard those words she laughed very

silently but long to herself. For she knew that now, if she could come

out of the Castle and get safe away, she had a power that might well

drive that Earl to do all that she wished later, or some of it.

Henry, Earl Percy, had indeed said much and so much to his kinswoman in

his anger. For it was indeed his intention, secret but resolute, to

break the power of all the barons and great nobles in the North, so that

King Henry VII should be almighty and himself the King's viceregent.

When the day came there would be indeed no end to his power in those

parts, for the King would be very distant and there would be no one to

oppose him. So he fomented all the quarrels that he could amongst these

people, and he had seen with joy the troubles that were afoot about the

Castle Lovell.

But as yet he was not ready; for all these people were still very strong

in armed men, wealth and lands, and, if they joined together they might

well overset both himself and King Henry VII with him. Thus he wished

he had bitten his tongue out before ever, in his anger, he had revealed

what was his secret design to his cousin. For the Lady Margaret was a

great gadabout and, if he could not come to her, either to modify what

he had said or to bind her to secrecy, there would not be a Dacre or a

Eure or a Widdrington that would not soon know the worst of his design.

He had sought his bed, but his pillow had seemed to be of nettles, and

since he had discerned that it might be her design to ride away early,

he had sought her chamber door to have speech with her. He did not in

truth know what to do. He was very willing to have laid her by the

heels and to keep her a prisoner in that tower. But he was afraid that

that might bring about his ears a hornet's nest of his cousins, and even

it might bring him reproof from the King. The King was not at all

willing or ready to have the whole of Northumberland rise upon him at

that time. Nay, Henry VII had bidden him to be very careful that,

whilst he weakened these troublesome people as much as he could, he

should rouse their anger as little as he might.

All this, laughing behind the door, the Lady Margaret knew very well,

even to the fact that the Lord Percy might come to shutting her up in

prison. But she knew that, whilst the silly Countess kept him crying at

the door, he could not bid his men to arm against her, and whilst her

men were armed and his not, he could do little or nothing at all. They

could all go out at the postern gate and so into the trackless sedges of

the sea and the marches. Moreover, the Percy and his Countess were such

married people that, upon any occasion they quarrelled furiously and at

great length and so they did now.

For the Countess was well begun upon her grievances such as, as how the

Earl had dealt with his lands of her dowry, as to the little attention

he paid her as his wife, as to the fact that she had no more than four

damask dresses and, very particularly, as to the store he set by one of

her ladies called Isabel. And at the last she pushed the door to

against his resistance and set the bar across it.

The Earl thundered upon it very violently but in the end he went away.

The Lady Margaret did as best she might to comfort the Countess Maud

until at last John Bellingham came to tell her that people were astir in

the Castle with some lights, though whether they were about arming

themselves or getting ready for the day and the hay harvest, he could

not well say. But indeed the Earl Percy had twice ordered his men to

arm and seize the lady and twice he ordered them to desist, during that

night; for he was in a very great quandary.

So the Lady Margaret went down the little stairway, after she had roused

her women, and found her men by the postern gate. The keeper of the

gate did not dare to withhold the keys for he knew that they, being

thirty to one, could slay him very peacefully.

When they had walked from the walls of that Castle over the bridge and

two good gunshots beyond and the day was beginning to break, they all

stood together upon a little mound, and the Lady Margaret sent a little

boy called Piers, that was her kinsman and page, back to the Castle to

ask for their horses. For they could not have taken horses out by the

postern way which went narrowly down twisting steps. She did not think

that the Earl would dare to come and take her there. It would have been

too great an outrage, to set upon a lady of her quality in the open;

besides, being thirty and more, they would be able to give account of

themselves and no doubt get away by tracks that John Bellingham knew

very well. So the ladies sat down upon shields of the men-at-arms, for

the grass was wet with the night's dew, and they watched the dawn come

up over the sea and across the wide stretches of the Coquet river. The

Lady Margaret and her handmaidens made merry and played a game with

white stones that they picked up; but the old lady Bellingham moaned and

grumbled a great deal, for she was weary with having watched and stiff

with the rawness of the air.

So, after a time, when it was quite light, the page called Piers came

back. He reported that at first the Earl had been in a great rage and

had threatened to hamstring all the Lady Margaret's horses; but,

afterwards, he had seemed to change his mind and had given orders that

all the horses should be sent out to her. Moreover, he sent her word

that, if she would come back into the Castle he would give her news of

the Young Lovell, for his receiver, John Harbottle, had sent him,

through the night a messenger from Alnwick with very certain tidings,

and these she should have and might make a treaty with the Earl if she

would go back.

But she believed this to be more lying in order to get her back into his

power; so she sent ten of her men to fetch the horses from the Castle

gate and very soon they perceived all the horses come round the Castle

wall, to the number of thirty-two with eleven mules. The Lady Margaret

rode a tall horse called Christopher, a brown, that she loved, and John

Bellingham had another tall horse. But the old lady and the three maids

had mules, and there were seven pack mules that carried the Lady

Margaret's hangings, furnishings for her room if she slept in an inn,

her dresses and much things of value as she would not willingly leave in

the Tower of Glororem. The men-at-arms rode little, nimble horses, such

as the false Scots had, very fit for picking their way amongst springs,

heather and the stones of hillsides. This lady could not bring herself

to believe that her true love was not dead, so that, although she

laughed and jested to keep up the hearts of her maids, as her plain duty

was, within herself she was a very sad woman.

When the sun was off the horizon they broke their fast with small beer

and cheese that they got from a husbandman's tower near Acklington, for

they were sticking inland. This husbandman advised them to go by way of

Eshot Hill and Helm, for, by reason of the dry weather, the road from

this latter place to Morpeth was very good travelling, and it ran

straight. The Lady Margaret was minded to sleep that night at

Newcastle, which would be twenty-four miles more or less, for she had no

haste to be in one place more than another. She had little pleasure in

life; although she wished to rescue the Lady Rohtraut she thought this

could only be done by means of the Lady Dacre, her mother, that had been

a Princess of Croy. And, from the news she had, it was very unlikely

that that ancient lady would reach her house in the city of Durham

before that night or the next day.

So, as they rode between the fields, the sun rose up--its rays poured

down fiercely and smote on them. It was marvellously hot weather, so

that those ladies must at first lay off their gray cloaks and then open

their shifts at the neck and fan themselves with their neckerchers. A

great langour descended upon the Lady Margaret; her head ached sorely

and her sadness grew unbearable.

And all, even to the men-at-arms and the page Piers, complained of the

great heat and because they had had little sleep the night before, and

the ladies yawned and half slept upon their mules. So, when they came

to a little green hill where ash trees climbed to the top, the Lady

Margaret said, out of compassion to them, that when they were at the top

of the hill, so that they could see the flat country all round, they

might get down from their horses and mules and sleep the noontide away

in the shade. And so they did.

The men-at-arms got down from the sumpter mules mattresses that the

ladies might lie upon them, and there, in a shady grove, they lay and

slept. The men set their backs against trees and let their heads fall

forward between their knees. One or two were set to walk as sentries

outside that wood, to watch the flat country below, so that no sound was

heard in that little wood save the light noises of steel and of buckles

clinking as the watchmen walked. And so they lay a long time, all

recumbent, some covering their faces with their arms, some casting them

abroad.

The Lady Margaret awakened from a slumber, and the sun had climbed far

round in the heaven. Then she perceived a lady watching her through the

trees and smiling. So beautiful and smiling a lady she had never seen.

She stood between the stems of two white birch trees and leaned upon

one, with her arm over her head in an attitude of great leisure. The

Lady Margaret rose from her mattress and went towards that lady; she had

never felt so humble, nor had her eyes ever so gladdened her at the

sight of the handiwork of God.

Then that lady walked through the wood, very light of foot, so that the

long grass was hardly trampled at all, and no briars caught at her gown.

Yet the Lady Margaret could not overtake her. So that lady came to the

edge of the wood and the hill to the west, looking over the tower called

Helm, where the white road ran southward and the green lands swung up

towards the distant hilts. And here there was a white charger and a

great company of ladies-in-waiting, all very beautiful, in gowns of

sea-blue silk with girdles of silver and gold. The Lady Margaret had

never seen so fair a company, though she had seen the Queen of Richard

Crookback with all her court. Then it seemed to her that that lady

pointed down into the plain as if she wanted to show her lover and her

lord. On the road that came from the North, the Lady Margaret perceived

one that she knew for a knight, by the sun upon his armour, and a monk

that walked beside him. And a mile behind, by the cloud of dust that

rose, she knew there were men-at-arms, and perceived their spears above

the dust. The Lady Margaret knew that this must be the other lady's

husband, for certainly such a troop of fair women would never ride

abroad in that dangerous country without men to guard them.

Then she saw that lady riding down the hill, with all her many, towards

the little figures in the plain; but they went so quickly that it was

like a flight of blue doves in the sunlight below her. Then the Lady

Margaret wondered who that lady must be, for she knew of none in that

neighbourhood that could keep up so fair a state, except it were the

King of Scots, and not even he, and that could not be the Queen of

Scots, for she was a stout, black lady, whereas this one had been a tall

woman with red-gold hair, such a one as she could have loved if she had

been a man. And, at the thought that that woman was going to her lover

and her lord, the Lady Margaret wept three or four tears, for that she

would never do herself, and going back to her guards, she upbraided them

for that they had let that lady pass unchallenged. But they said they

haD seen no one.

V

The Princess Rohtraut of Croy, Tuillinghem and Sluijs, Duchess of

Muijden and Lady Dacre, dowager of the North, was a vociferous old

German woman who passed for being ill to deal with. She would cry at

the top of her voice orders that it was very difficult to understand,

and, when her servants did not swiftly carry these out, she would strike

at them with the black stick that she leaned upon when she hobbled from

place to place. This she did so swiftly that it was a marvel; for she

was short and stout. She could not move without groans and wheezing and

catching at the corners of tables and the backs of chairs. Nevertheless

she would so strike with her stick at her servants, her stewards, the

gentlemen attendant upon her son, the Lord Dacre, or even at knights,

lawyers, or lords that frequented her son. She had told the King,

Richard III, that he would come to no good end; she had told the Queen,

Elizabeth Woodville, that she was an idle fool, and King Henry VII that

his face was as sour as his wine. For that King, being a niggard,

served very sour wine to his guests. Richard III had laughed at her;

the Queen Elizabeth Woodville had gone crying with rage to King Edward

IV. King Henry VII had affected not to hear her, which was the more

prudent way. For her father, the Duke of Croy, who still lived, though

a very ancient man of more than ninety, was yet a very potent and

sovereign lord in Flanders, Almain, and towards Burgundy. Seventy

thousand troops of all arms he could put into the field either against

or for the French King, and eighty armed vessels upon the sea. The

Emperor of Rome was afraid of him, for he was very malicious and had

great weight with all the Electors from Westphalia to Brunswick and the

Rhine. Moreover, though he himself rode no longer afield, his son, the

brother of the Princess Rohtraut, was a very cunning, determined, and

hardy commander. And that was to say nothing of the powers of the

Dacres in England.

So those Kings and Queens did what they could least to mark the

outrageous demeanour of this Princess. They did no more than as if she

had been a court jester, and affected to wonder that she had once been a

beautiful and young Princess, for love of whom her husband, then a

simple esquire, had languished longer than need be in prison in Almain.

Yet so it was.

This Princess spent the winter of most years, latterly, in London for

the benefit of the climate. The summers until lately she had been

accustomed to spend in Bothal Castle or Cockley Park Tower, which she

hired of Sir Robert Ogle, who had lately been made Lord Ogle of Ogle.

Upon the death of her husband she had inherited much land near Morpeth

and she considered that she would have had much more had not the Lord

Lovell, lately dead, seized so much of it by reason of his marriage with

the Lady Rohtraut, the Princess's daughter. The lawsuits about these

lands were not yet concluded, and it was these that the knights of

Cullerford and Haltwhistle were seeking to force from the Lady Rohtraut

by keeping her imprisoned. The Princess had, however, by no means

abandoned her claim to these lands and it was to prosecute her lawsuits

that, each summer, she came to the North. She was otherwise a very rich

woman, having many coronets, chains with great pearls, rubies, ferezets,

silks, hangings, furniture and much gold. Moreover, she was for ever

trafficking in parcels of land with the Ogles, the Bartrams, the

Mitfords and other families round the town of Morpeth. In that way she

had both occupation and profit, and she harried the leisure of the

several receivers of her son, the Lord Dacre whom the King kept in

London.

Now, upon a day, being the second day in July of the year 1486, this

lady sat upon a chair resembling a high throne upon three stone steps

covered with a carpet. She had behind her yet another carpet that

mounted the wall and came forward over her head in the manner of a dais.

This old lady inclined always to the oldest fashions.

Thus, upon her round, old head she had an immense structure that bent

her face forward as if it had been that of our Father at Rome beneath

the triple tiara. It was made of two pillows of scarlet velvet, covered

with a net of fine gold chains uniting large pearls. Such a thing had

not been seen in England for two or three score years, but the ladies at

her father's court had worn them when she had been a girl. For the rest

of her, she was dressed in black wool with a girdle, from which there

hung ten or a dozen keys of silver, steel, or gold inlaid with steel.

The room was fair in size, but all of stone and very dark because of the

smallness of the windows. The roof went up into a peak. All painted the

stone walls were, with woods and leaves, with fowlers among trees

setting their nets, and maidens shaking down fruits, and men and women

bathing in pools, and the vaults of the ceiling showed the history of

the coffin of St. Cuthbert. Each history was divided from the other by

ribs of stone painted fairly in scarlet with green scrolls. There you

might see how the good monks set out from Holy Island, or how the coffin

floated of itself, or how the women called one to the other about the

Dun Cow. This room without doubt had formerly been some council chamber

or judgment room of the Prince Bishop's in old days. But its purpose

was by now forgotten, and the Lord Dacre had bought the house lately,

for he considered the practice of living always in castles to be

barbarous and uncomfortable. It was his purpose to pull down this old

stone house and build there a fair palace where he might dwell in

comfort. But, for the time being, it suited his mother well enough to

dwell there.

She was sitting in the chair like a throne, leaning forward and perusing

a great book of accounts held up to her by an old fellow who knelt

before her in black cloths with the badge of the Dacres upon one

shoulder and the silver portcullis of Croy upon the other. The old lady

puzzled over this tale of capons, pence, eggs, bolls of wheat, oats and

the rest that her tenants owed her. She thought it was not enough. And

consequently messengers came in from the Prince Bishop, from the Dean,

from the Chapter, down to the sacristan, to ask how it was with her

health after her long journey from London city to Durham. She had come

there the night before. And one brought her the offering of a deer,

another of two fat geese, a third a salmon, a fourth a basket of

strawberries grown beneath a southern wall. And, as each of these

things was brought before her, she would lean forward and look upon it,

and so she would lose her place in the book of accounts and scold

perpetually at the old man that held it up for her.

In one of the deep, narrow window spaces stood a notable man of forty,

stout and grave, with a brown beard cut squarely, and wearing a very

rich blue cloak and blue round hat with a great white plume. He said

nothing at all, but pared his finger-nails with a little knife. He

looked between whiles out upon the high, wooded banks of the Wear that

confronted his gaze across the river, and were all ablaze with the

sunlight: once the Princess Rohtraut turned her head stiffly to have

sight of him. But he was standing too far in the depth of the window,

her chair being between one window and the other. So she cried out in a

rough voice that was at once insulting and indulgent:

"This is very easy spying for King Henry." Then she chuckled and added,

"Do you hear me, Sir Bertram of Lyonesse? This is very easy spying for

King Henry."

He made no answer to this gibe, but instead he pushed open the window

and carefully surveyed the deep gorge beneath him, for this place was

new to him. The night before they had come in by torch-light, over a

steep bridge above a black river. The gate into the tower had been

opened for them only after long parleying, but he had perceived walls

well planned and formidable, great heights in the blackness, and steep,

up-and-down streets amongst which they went between strong, stone

houses. But he had been aware that this city of Durham was a very

strong place.

He had been set to sleep that night in a room that faced inwards, and

rising in the morning he had seen that just before his face were the

great stones of the wall surrounding and fortifying the cathedral.

Beneath his gaze were two great towers, pierced with meurtrieres, which

are slits through which arrows may be shot. Between these two towers

was a gateway which he doubted not had a double portcullis, devices for

dropping huge stones and rafters upon any enemy that should break

through the first portcullis and be captured by the second, so that they

would be like rats in a trap. By craning his head out of his window he

could see, further along, both to his right and to his left, tall towers

in this inner wall, each tower having the appearance of an arch let into

its face. But this Sir Bertram was an engineer well skilled in the

plans of fortresses, and he knew that what appeared to be arches led up

to two slanting holes in each tower, and that the slant of each hole was

directed with a fell and cunning purpose. For, to each tower foot a

steep and narrow street of the town came up. So, if any enemy should

have won the town itself and should come up those streets, then those in

the tower would set running down these slanting holes balls of stone

weighing two, three or four hundred pounds. By the direction of the

slantings, those balls of stone would run bounding down those narrow

streets and cause dreadful manglings, maimings and death, principally by

the breaking of legs.

By those and other signs, this Sir Bertram knew that here, even within

the walled town was a fortress almost impregnable and dreadful to

assault. This Bishop might well be a proud and disdainful prelate. He

was safe, not only from foreign foes, but from his own townsmen, which

was not so often the way with Bishops. For it is the habit of townsmen

to be at perpetual strife with their Bishops, seeking to break in on

them by armed force and to make the Bishops give up their rights and

rents and fees in the towns, which if the Bishops could not prevent was

apt to render them much the poorer. But at this Prince Bishop the

townsmen could never come, so strong was this citadel within the town.

So he would become ever richer, not only for that reason but because of

the great shrines of St. Cuthbert and of the Venerable Bede. To these,

year in, year out, at all seasons and in all weathers, thousands

resorted with offerings and tolls and tributes.

So this Sir Bertram perceived it would be no easy thing to humble this

Palatine Prince even though the Percy had reported to King Henry VII

that he could smoke out Bishop Sherwood at very little cost.

It was true that, as the Percy thought, King Henry VII heartily desired

the downfall of this Bishop Sherwood. He had supported Richard

Crookback and loved little King Henry. And indeed, Sir Bertram knew,

for he had the King's private thoughts, that the King would very

willingly see the downfall not only of the Bishop Sherwood but of this

whole see of Durham. For it was contrary to that Prince's idea of

kingship to have within his realm a Palatine county with a Bishop there

having such sovereign powers that it was as if there was no King at all

in the realm. But, to be rid of the bishopric, even King Henry thought

would be impossible since it would raise against him all the Church and

get him called heretic and interdicted as King John had been. So that

the King would very willingly have had the Percy to act as his catspaw

and make civil war upon Bishop Sherwood and so drive him out of the

land. That might impoverish and weaken the see a little, but not much.

For a Bishop is not like a temporal baron; though Sherwood be cast out

another must succeed him and have all his rights and grow as strong or

stronger.

It was upon these things that this Sir Bertram--a cool and quiet knight,

loving King Henry and beloved by him above most men--meditated whilst

that old lady cast up her accounts, and he trimmed his finger nails.

So, when he leaned out of that bright window, he perceived how steeply

perched was the house in which he was. Sheer down to the river ran

rocky paths with here and there a tree. At the bottom was a high wall

well battlemented and slit for archers to hold it. The river ran very

swiftly. On it there was a fisherman casting his nets from an anchored

boat. The boat tugged and tore so at its chain that even the practised

fisherman had difficulty to stand. So the river must be very swift, and

there would be no mining there.

On the other side of the river the banks rose as steeply and were

clothed with trees. There cannon might be set against the town. But to

shoot so far they must be great guns and the Percy had none of these,

nor were there any large enough nearer than Windsor. If the Percy had

them, it was difficult to think that he could drag them there into

position, and all that would take a year or two years. So, this Sir

Bertram, who had been sent there by the King to advise him, considered,

as his first thoughts, that if the Earl of Northumberland attacked this

Bishop Palatine he might take the city, but hardly the inner citadel,

and never at all the castle within. Or, if the King lent him cannon, he

might break the wall of the citadel.

On the other hand, having the Bishop shut up in the castle the Earl

might starve him out--but this he could not do unless all the country

round were friendly to the Earl and hated the Bishop. Without that

there would be no doing it. And the same might be said of any project

for dragging cannon on to those heights. For the cannon must be brought

up narrow valleys where ambushes very easily could lie, and that could

not be thought of in a hostile country.

The Percy had reported himself to King Henry as being cock of all the

North parts; if that were true, he might very well be loosed upon the

Bishop. But from conversations that he had had with the Lords Dacre and

Ogle, as well as with the Abbot of Alnwick and lesser men, this Sir

Bertram thought it was possible that the Earl Percy was not so strong

nor yet so beloved in those parts as he would have the King believe. In

that case, if he relied upon this Earl and this Earl's faith, the King

might get great discredit and no profit either in those parts or

elsewhere. It was in order to study and inquire into these things that

this cautious Sir Bertram was come into those parts. So he leaned upon

the sill of the window and looked down upon the river that appeared two

hundred feet below.

After he had watched the river and reflected a long time, for he was a

slow thinker, adding point to point in his mind, to have as it were a

strong platform on which to build, he heard a woman's voice say highly:

"I tell you, ah, gentle Princess, that there is no man more hated in

these North parts, and if you will lend your sanction and your wealth we

may speedily have down not only these robbers that hold your daughter

imprisoned by his encouragement but also that flail of the North

himself."

Sir Bertram turned slowly on his elbow, leaning upon the sill and looked

into the room. There he saw a monstrous beautiful young lady that

kneeled with her voluminous rich gown all about her and held out her two

hands towards the Princess whom he could not see. The Princess did not

speak, and that lady held her peace, so that knight moved softly and

deliberately forward, and when he was near the younger lady he asked

her:

"Even who is this man who is so hated in the North parts?"

That young lady looked at him with astonished lowering and resentful

eyes, as much as to say, who was he that he should ask her such a

question? The Princess had been leaning back in her chair with both

elbows upon the arms and a hand caressing her chin, for all the world as

if she had been an old man considering a knotty point. But, when she

saw Sir Bertram and heard his voice, she said hastily and harshly:

"Get up, child and your ladyship. It is not decent that a lady of high

rank and my kinswoman should be spoken to kneeling by a Cornish knight

of nowhere and yesterday, God help me, if he be ten times a King's spy!"

And so she bade the lady, who was the Lady Margaret of Glororem, to

fetch a stool from a corner of the room and set it by her throne on the

step. And there she had the Lady Margaret sit beside her and that Sir

Bertram fetch off his hat with the large feather and so stand before

them. "For," said she to that knight, "you may well be the King's

companion, but in this place the King's writ does not run and I am a

royal Princess and this is my cousin and niece."

It was nonsense and a tyranny, but Sir Bertram did it with calmness. He

cared little about forms when there was news to be had that could help

him and only one old woman and one very beautiful and proud one before

whom to abase himself. So he made an apology, saying that he had not

known that lady to be of such high rank, she being in the dim room and

not over plain to his eyes which had been gazing on the sunlight. He

bent one knee and stood there composedly with his hat in his hands

before him.

Then that old Princess, who had affected anger affected now a

complaisance towards that gentleman. She spoke as follows, formally to

the Lady Margaret:

"This Sir Bertram of Lyonesse," she said,--"though God knows where

Lyonesse is; I have heard it is some poor islands in Scilly or Cornwall

or where you will,--so this Sir Bertram of Lyonesse is the King's

commissioner to inquire into the state of these North parts. And if you

will ask me what make of a thing a commissioner is, I will answer you

that he is what you and I and other simple folk do call a spy. But the

King calls him his commissioner and that is very well."

She looked upon Sir Bertram maliciously to see if he winced. But that

knight turned his face composedly to the Lady Margaret.

"Ah, gentle lady," said he, "you may count that for truth. I am here to

find out what I can."

The old Princess liked this Sir Bertram, in truth, very well. She

counted him so low, on account of his obscure and distant birth and his

former poverty, that she could jest with him as if he had been a peasant

boy. She considered English lords as of so low a rank against her own

that she thought not much about them, one with another, except may be it

was the Dacres and their kin. So she was very glad to keep this Sir

Bertram, if she could do it without trouble or expense, and have some

amusement from it.

She turned upon the Lady Margaret and said again:

"You must know that, though in a concealed manner, this Sir Bertram is

of great worth in the counsels of King Henry VII. Why this should be

so, God knows, for one says one thing and one will say another. But so

it is; in all matters in which a king may be advised this new knight

rules the King."

Then again Sir Bertram looked upon the Lady Margaret:

"Ah, gentle lady," he said, "to dispel what may appear of mystery in

this royal Princess's account of me, let me say this--for I would not

have you think evil of me: I have twice saved this King's life, once by

discovering assassins sent to murder him in France before he was King

and once, since, at Windsor where I caught by the wrist a man with a

knife that came behind him when he walked in the gardens. And I have

farmed the King's private lands to greater profit than came to him

before and, having studied the art of fortifying of a pupil of the monk

Olberitz that made most of the strong castles of France, I have designed

or strengthened successfully certain strong places for this King. If I

could say I had saved this King's life in gallant battles I would rather

say it, for it would gain me greater honour in your sight. But I am

rather a man of the exchequer board than of the tented field. It is for

caution, defence and prudence that the King trusts me rather than for

things more gallant that should stir your pulse in the recital. I wish

it were the other way, but that is not the truth of it."

"Well, it is true what this knight says," the old Princess confirmed

him. "He has twice saved the King's life by caution and has increased

the King's gear and so on. Now he is sent here as the King's spy--the

King's reconciler or the King's trumpeter or what you will. For his

mission is to take a survey of these North parts first and then to prove

to them that the King is a mild, loving, gracious and economical

sovereign."

"Well, that is my mission," Sir Bertram said to the Lady Margaret, "and

I hope I may do it."

"I will tell you what I think of it," the Lady Margaret said then, "as

soon as I have your opinion on certain words I said two nights ago to

Henry Percy, my cousin, Earl of Northumberland."

"I shall hear them very gladly," Sir Bertram answered.

Then, in her own way, the old Princess exposed all these matters to Sir

Bertram of Lyonesse, how certain filthy rogues had taken prisoner her

daughter Rohtraut, and the rest. Sir Bertram had heard all that before.

The King had ordered him to travel to the North with the Princess of

Croy, protecting her the better with his train and bearing a share of

her expenses, so that he might the better make out the affairs of the

Dacres, what was their wealth, who resorted to them, and whether they

seemed to conspire with other rebels. And, upon the road, in three

various towns, three delayed messengers had met the Princess of Croy,

coming from that very Lady Margaret with broad letters in which she told

the story of the things that passed at Castle Lovell. So Sir Bertram

had heard most of the tale before, nevertheless he heard it very gladly

again, more particularly as the Lady Margaret corrected the old Princess

here and there and made things the plainer.

It was a very long congress that they held in that room with the vaulted

ceiling and the painted walls, that were all sprays of leaves and dark

green boskage with the figures of men and women in scarlets and whites

and blues, holding bows and fowling nets and fish nets and falcons.

For, when the Princess had told that story she was impatient to know,

but with sarcastic and hard words, what this adviser of the King would

advise her to do. For her own part, she said, it was her purpose to go

with a small train, and unarmed, up to that Castle Lovell and in at the

door. And she did not think it was those robbers who would withstand her

when she set free her daughter, opening the door of her prison with her

own hands, and so leading her out into the light of day and so there to

Durham, where she might dwell till justice was done about the lands and

other things that were in dispute.

The Lady Margaret said she was very glad to hear this, for she had been

afraid that the Princess had too much displeasure against her daughter,

seeing that in fifteen years she had not spoken to her or written broad

letters.

The Princess erected her old, round head stiffly, with the pillows upon

it, and exclaimed that it was not the fashion of their royal house to

quarrel with its daughters or to do less than decency demanded for their

rescue and sustenance. She would not wish that Lady Rohtraut to dwell

in her house and at her charges for ever, for she must have her due

train and estate, and that would make a great charge. But, until she

were set up in her own lands and had her wealth again, that Princess

would there maintain her and her train.

The Lady Margaret said again that she was very glad of it, and she was

certain that those robbers would very quickly release the Princess's

daughter. For they would fear the might of the Dacres and the Duke of

Croy with his tall ships, his cannon, and his thousands of men that

would come by sea and burn that Castle.

It was at that that Sir Bertram said that the King of England would not

very willingly seE Flemings and Almains landing in his dominion; but the

Lady Margaret might be certain that that King would see justice done to

that injured lady by his own knights and the terror of his name.

Then the old Princess scowled upon both that knight and the lady so

fiercely that her eyes grew red and dreadful. She smote her breast with

the handle of the black crutch that dangled from her wrist and cried:

"Mutter Gottes! By the mother of God! It is not the King of England

nor my father, the Duke of Croy, that shall go to that Castle but I

alone and _bij Gott_! It is at my wrath that the knees of these robbers

shall knock together and the keys fall from their hands."

Then the Lady Margaret said that that might well be the case and Sir

Bertram said that so it would be much better. The old Princess bent her

brows upon that knight and asked him, jesting bitterly, if he had any

better advice to give her. He said that he had none, but that he would

very gladly hear what Henry, Earl Percy, had had to say to the Lady

Margaret and she to him and also something of Sir Paris Lovell, that

well-esteemed lording.

The Lady Margaret told him very clearly all that she knew, and that

knight considered her to be as sensible as she was fair. When she told

him of the disappearing of her true love and of the rumours that were

told against him he had a pensive air; but when she told him of the

Percy's high words of how he was minded to break the great lords of the

North and that that was the King's mind, Sir Bertram frowned heavily.

When she said that it was the duty of great lords not to support too

readily a new King that they had set up, nor too abjectly to obey him or

lavishly fawn upon him, that knight's eyebrows went up, for this was a

new thought to him. And so, whilst she recited to him the history of

this realm of England as she had done to the Percy, he continued with

his left hand behind his back holding his blue hat with the white

feather and his right hand to his mouth whilst he hit the knuckles and

reflected.

The old Princess of Croy said that all that the Lady Margaret uttered

was nonsense; the truth of the matter was that all the English and their

lords were murderers and wallowers in blood, slaying their kings without

reason or pity or the fear of God, but like hogs fighting at a trough.

When she was done Sir Bertram took down his hand from his mouth and

smoothed his beard. He said that if that was the mind of the Northern

lords, though it was a new thought to him, he need quarrel little with

it. For, though he might need to reflect further upon the principle,

yet undoubtedly the case of King Richard III had gone in favour of the

Lady Margaret. He was a King set up by certain lords and pulled down

again when they found him evil. And, as far as the practice went, he

would be satisfied to have that the touchstone for King Henry VII. For

he was certain that that King would prove a dread lord benign, loving

and prudent; all mighty lords and Princes of the North parts would

gladly acknowledge--in the course of a year or two--that there had never

been so good a King and they would all of them very willingly support

him. And, if King Henry VII did not prove as good a King as he then

reported, Sir Bertram, though he loved him, would very willingly see him

cast down as Richard Crookback had been.

The Lady Margaret said she was very glad to hear it, and that upon such

terms they might soon be good friends. Then Sir Bertram smiled a little

in his beard and said:

"Ah, gentle lady, I perceive from certain words you have dropped that

you did not think all these thoughts of the constitution of this realm

of England by your lonely self." And so he perceived certain tears in

that lady's eyes.

"Nay, truly," she said, "I learned them of the lips of my lord, Sir

Paris Lovell, in sweet devising and conversations that we had before his

death, and may God receive his poor soul and give him sweet rest in

paradise! For such a gentle lording or one so wise in the reading of

books, anxious for the good of his estate, so fine of his fair body, so

fierce in war and fightful in the breach, or so merciful to his foes,

they being down, God never did make. Though he was of young age yet he

had fought in Italy, in Ferrara, in Venice, in France, in harness; in

this realm against the false Scots and upon fightful journeys into

Scotland."

Sir Bertram lowered his head a little.

"I wish I had been such a one," he said. "This was a very gallant

gentleman. I have heard other such reports of him."

The old Princess said:

"I did not know I had had such a swan and phoenix amongst my

grandchildren."

"Why, it is true, madam," Sir Bertram said. "You have lived too much

amongst the Dacres to know that you had this lording for part heir."

Now this house, built in the old days before that time, and all of

stone, like a fortress, had for its greater strength only one staircase.

It wound round in a little space, all of thick stone, so it would be

very difficult for an enemy to come up it if it were at all defended.

On the lower floor there were no windows at all towards the street, to

make it the stronger, and that staircase served all the rooms. This old

fashion struck the Lord Dacre as very barbarous, and he would have it

all pulled down, with a big hall and hangings upon the ground floor and

large square windows with carvings on them, as was the pleasanter

fashion of London and that new day. The paintings, too, in that room he

would have whitened over, and the stone ceilings covered in with wood

and beams, that should be bossed and carved and gilded and with coats of

arms. But, for that time, so it was, and the staircase came up from the

street.

Now it happened that, below, the door into the street was open, and a

fisherman owing a tithe of fish for that Princess's table stood before

it offering fish. The old steward had gone to him and complained that

his fish and trout, eels and lampreys, were not fine enough to set

before that Princess. Much of this could be heard in that room, and then

came the sounds of the feet of a company of horse and the clank of

armour and loud knockings upon the gate that went into the cathedral

precincts and voices crying out and answering. With one thing and

another none of those three could hear a word that there they uttered.

So the Princess was angry and clapped her hands for an old woman to come

that had a white clout hanging down before her chin, for all the world

as if it were a beard. The Princess bade take that fisherman into the

kitchen and he to be given twenty stripes--for she had heard what passed

between him and the steward--the door into the street was to be shut and

news to be brought her what knight that was that rode with his many up

the street. And if it was a knight of these parts and one she knew, she

ordered him to come to her for she desired news of that countryside.

So that old woman, as best she could, went down the stairway sideways,

for she was very old and fat and the stairway very little and winding.

Then they heard her clamorously upbraiding alike old steward and the

fisherman for the clamour they had made. Afterwards, the door was closed

and there was peace. Then Sir Bertram looked gravely upon the Lady

Margaret. And:

"Ah, gentle lady," said he, "from what I have observed of your

conversation I can tell you this much. You tell me that this Sir Paris

Lovell was a good friend to Richard Crookback that is dead. And I do

not much blame him for it, since, as you tell me, that late King showed

great courtesy here in the North parts when he was Duke of Gloucester.

And well King Richard III knew how to bear courtesy when it suited him,

though at other times he was a false tyrant. So that this Sir Paris

Lovell was a friend to Crookback and could have aided him against my

King if his father would have given him leave. But this his father

would not do and it is so much the better.

"And further you have reported to me that this Sir Paris Lovell has said

to you, in his own words: 'Now this King Richard is dead and alas for

it! And we have another King of whom I, Sir Paris Lovell, know little,

though I fear he may be a heavy ruler. But so as it is'--so you say you

remember the words of this lord--'what I am minded to do,' said he, 'is

to set up a chantry where masses may be said for the dead King's soul.

If he had been alive I would have fought for him, but now I will see if

I may live at peace with Henry of Richmond for a King. For to be sure,

what we need in these North parts is peace amongst ourselves, that

husbandry and mining and fisheries may flourish on my lands and others.

And so one may make such a great journey into Scotland that the false

Scots may not raise their heads for fifty years or more again. And so

we may have leisure to go upon our own affairs. Therefore I, Sir Paris

Lovell, for one will, if I may, live at peace with King Henry VII and be

his subject if he will be bearable.' ... Now therefore I, Sir Bertram of

Lyonesse..."

"God keep us," the old Princess cried out here, "you speak more like a

lawyer drawing a bond than a gallant knight."

"Madam and gentle Princess," Sir Bertram said, "I am more like a lawyer

than a gallant knight." And so he looked again gravely upon the Lady

Margaret who, in her voluminous gown, sat on her little stool beside

that kind of throne and leaned her arm along its arm, folding her hands

together. She looked upon him earnestly and, after a time, she said:

"Good Knight, if you talk with me thus to make an agreement with me in

the gentle Lord Lovell's name, I tell you that can never be, for he is

dead."

"Ah, gentle lady," Sir Bertram answered, "how can it be said that any

man is dead that is but three months away? These are strange and evil

times. God knows I am no very learned knight and one not overways

well-read in the lore of Holy Church. Yet nowadays strange things are

seen, books not written by hand, Greek sorcerers, as I have heard,

driven out of Byzantium by the Sultan, who press with new learnings

across Christendom. I have heard there was lately one new Greek Doctor

at London called Molossos, or some such name, though I never came to see

him. And he had crabbed books of Greek and other sorceries. So, if

your true love and lording be but ninety days away..."

"Sir," the Lady Margaret said, "my lord was never for so long a prisoner

amongst the false Scots or the thieves of Rokehope without news to me.

Surely they have killed him."

"I do not well know this country as you tell me; but let me ask you

this: if the false Scots had killed so great a lord would they not boast

and say great things? Or if the thieves of Rokehope or the Debateable

Lands, or of those places that I do not know, had taken him, would they

not have made more attempts at his ransoming than once sending to Castle

Lovell? For you tell me that you think he was taken by Gib Elliott, as

you call him, or some such naughty villain, and that Gib Elliott sent to

Castle Lovell for his ransom and that the Knights of Cullerford and

Haltwhistle refused to give either white mail or black, as the saying

is. And maybe, as you think, they clapped that messenger into prison

for greater secrecy, so that the countryside might have no news of your

lord but consider him gone away with warlocks and others. But, in the

first place, is it to be thought that such a messenger could be come

from that Elliott to Castle Lovell and no one know it? Would not the

Castle Lovell bondsmen see him and report it to your bondsmen and so on

through all the countryside? For what cause should that messenger have

in going to Castle Lovell, to be very secret, though Cullerford and

Haltwhistle should desire to keep it secret afterwards? Or again, why

should Gib Elliott, if that be his name, slay the Lord of Castle Lovell

merely because Haltwhistle and Cullerford refused ransom or imprisoned

his messenger? Gib Elliott I take it, is as other men, and seeketh

money and how best he may have it. Moreover, Castle Lovell is a great

Castle, and cannot be taken in a little corner. I will tell you this:

that within a fortnight that news was known to us in London Town; for

merchant wrote it to merchant at the bottom of his bills, and packman

passed the news on to packman from town to town."

"Say you so!" the old Princess called out at this. "Ye knew it and I did

not, yet ye never told me!"

"Madam and gentle Princess," Sir Bertram answered, "that is the duty of

the servants of a King, to be all ears and no tongue. And partly that

is why I am here, for the King desired to know if such lawless robberies

could be done in any part of his realm. So now I am inquiring into this

matter. And this I will ask you, my fair and gentle lady--if that news

was known in London Town under a fortnight, should not that Gib Elliott

know it in a day or two days at the most, seeing that all the

countryside talked of that and nought else? For it is not every day

that a great lord dies and robbers seize upon his Castle and imprison

his sad widow. So, very surely, this Gib Elliott would hear of this

thing or ever his messenger could come to Castle Lovell and back again.

And then, very surely, he would send another messenger to some friend of

the Young Lovell, to see if he might not get a ransom of them, since his

enemies held his Castle. Consider how that would be with a cunning

robber. Full surely he would have sent a messenger to yourself, ah,

fair and gentle lady, to have money of you, if of none others?"

"Sir," the Lady Margaret interrupted him hotly and with a sort of

passion--"I am very certain that that lord is dead. For three times

Saint Katharine, whom I love above other saints, appeared to me in a

gown of gold and damask and leaning upon her wheel. She looked upon me

sorrowfully, as who should say my true love--for whom I had besought

that saint many times--was dead to me."

The Cornish knight raised his hand.

"God forbid," he said, "that I should say anything against that sweet

madam Katharine. Yet there are true dreams and false dreams and dreams

wrongly interpreted. And of this I am instantly assured, that this Lord

Lovell is held prisoner by no border raiders. It is not to be thought

upon."

The Lady Margaret spoke to him contemptuously and almost with hatred, so

her breast heaved as she bade him say then where he considered that that

lord should have been or should even then be hiding. The Cornish knight

answered slowly:

"Ah, gentle lady, what to believe I do not so well know. But this I

know that I would rather believe in tales of sorcery in this matter than

in that idea of border robbers. For these are strange times of

newnesses coming both from the East and the West. From the East is come

new learning which is for ordinary men, a thing very evil at all times,

leading to sorceries and civil strife and change. And from the West is

talk of a New World possessed with demons and pagans and dusky fiends as

is now on the lips of all men. And I hold it for certain that, if

anything evil and inexplicable shall occur in this land from now on it

shall come from that East or that West. The path to the West having

been found, shall it not lead those demons and dusky fiends in upon us?

And, all the contents of Byzantium having been set flying in upon us,

shall we go unharmed?"

"This is very arrant folly," the old Princess said; "what shall a parcel

of soft Greeks or Indian savages do to this island in the water?"

"Madam and gentle Princess," the Cornish knight answered, "I speak only

the misgivings of wealthy and sufficient men of London Town. It may be

a folly here. But this I hold for strange: this lording was the one of

all the North parts to have most of new-fangled lore, as I have heard:

he has read in many books of which I know not so much as the name; such

as _Ysidores Ethimologicarum_ or _Summa Reymundi_--or maybe I have the

names wrong. And he has travelled to Venice where many evil, eldritch

and strange things are ready for the learning.... And now I will ask

you this: ah, gentle mistress ... Have you of late had news of a

monstrous fair lady that several people have seen to ride about these

parts, attended, or not attended at all ... upon a white horse?"

"Such a one I saw yesterday," the Lady Margaret said, "and so fair and

kind a lady it made me glad to see her."

Then Sir Bertram crossed himself.

"And have you," he asked, "heard where she dwells or who she is?"

"I never heard," she said; "I thought she was the King's mistress of

Scotland, for a lesser she could not be."

"I have heard of her this many months," Sir Bertram said, "for, for this

many months, I have been set by the King to gather information about

these North parts. And now from one correspondent, now from another;

now by word of mouth, now here, now in Northumberland, I have heard tell

of this White Lady. And this again I will tell you.... An hour agone,

as I looked out of this window, I saw a knight, with a monk and a small

company of spears go over Framwell Gate Bridge. The sun was upon their

armour. And, as they rode over it, I perceived upon the banks before me

a wondrous fair figure of a woman in white garments, going among the

thick of the trees as lightly as if it had been a flower garden. And, as

she went, she held her hand over her eyes to shield them from the sun so

as to gaze upon that knight. And I think that was that strange lady.

And, if you ask me what she is, I think she is a vampire, a courtesan or

a demon from the East. And if you ask me where your lord is, I will say

I think she has him captive amongst weary sedges and the bones of other

knights, if they have been dead long enough to become bones. And there

he sits enthralled by her and she preys upon his heart's blood...."

The Lady Margaret stood up with her hand to her throat. Her face was

blanched like faded apple blossom.

"Good sir," she said, "I think ye lie. For that lady had the kindest

face that ever I saw."

"Yet such fair faces," Sir Bertram said, "are, as is known to all men,

best fed by the heart's blood of true knights."

"Before God," the old Princess cried at him, "I have heard such tales of

my bondsmen's wives...."

"Or, if you will have it a little otherwise," Sir Bertram said to the

Lady Margaret, "let it be thus. This monstrous fair and magic lady saw

this Sir Paris in a grove or amid the smoke of war or where you will in

Venice or near it. And so she fell enamoured of him. Such things

happen. And so, coming in a magic boat, in the morning before cockcrow

she finds him--having waited many years for this chance--by the

sea-shore where you say that chapel was. And so she beguiles him to

step aboard and miraculously they are transported to the very isles of

Greece. And there, poor man, he sitteth in the sun, lamenting beneath a

vine as they say there are in Greece, and to beguile him she dances

before him...."

The Lady Margaret held out her white hand to silence the words upon his

lips. And so they heard a voice speak to the porter below and a heavy

tread upon the stairfoot.

"Sir," the Lady Margaret said to the Cornish knight, "I think you do

lie. For I hear my true love's voice and his foot upon the stair."

At that heavy beating of an iron foot on the stone steps a sort of fear

descended upon both Sir Bertram and the Lady Margaret; but the old

Princess said jestingly:

"Now I shall see the eighth wonder of the world."

VI

John Sherwood, Bishop Palatine of Durham, was seated in a deep chair, in

the vestiary of his dwelling in Durham Castle. He had just come in

there from the cathedral, and he was very weary with having sung a

solemn mass for the soul of Sir Leofric Bertram, one that had, in times

past, been a great benefactor of that see. This mass was sung every

year upon the second day of July and, along with the oration, it lasted

a full two hours. He had had a little fever too, and was weak with the

monthly bloodletting which had been done the day before; for the Prince

Bishop and his household were bled upon the first day of each month.

Moreover, he was fasting till then, and it was close on the stroke of

eleven.

So, although a good dinner awaited him, of five courses, each of fifteen

dishes, he had felt so tired that there, in his own vestiary--for he did

not wear the vestments of the cathedral or the monastery, but, in all

his canonicals, walked across the green from the cathedral down to the

castle with the people all kneeling and candles and a great cross and

his crozier carried before him--he had fallen down into the deep chair

in his mass garments. It made it the worse that his vestiary was up two

flights of stairs in the castle that was old and not well arranged.

This vestiary was a large hall, but so tall that it seemed narrow and,

in spite of two deep window spaces, its sombre vaulting of stone went up

into darkness. The Bishops of Durham had always very many and very

splendid vestments of their own, not belonging to the cathedral, and so

on three sides of the room and from twelve feet high or more there were

chests of oaken wood to hold vestments, with round cupboards in which

copes could be laid out. In the two angles of the wall between the

windows were all manner of great pegs and wooden bases upon which armour

was hung or displayed. Upon three of these pegs were three helmets, the

gauntlets hanging beneath them. Below each were the breastplates, the

thigh pieces and so on. The great swords, with their crossed hilts, and

scabbards covered in yellow velvet, were in stands along the bottom of

the wall, like a fence. Above them were the more splendid and

bejewelled plumed hoods for his falcons, their jesses, and leashes for

his hounds; and tall steel maces made, as it were, panels between them.

Spears or lances this Bishop had none, his arm being the heavy mace. He

had four suits of armour, a black one, English, and kept well greased,

for rainy weather or dangerous times; a French one of bright and fluted

steel that he wore on Spring days; and one Milanese, very light and so

beautiful in its lines that it pleased him to see it--a steel helmet

that seemed to float like a coif, without a visor at all, and steel

chain-mail as light as silk yet impenetrable even to the steel quarrels

of arbalests.

These three suits were arranged upon the wall. The suit of state, of

black steel inlaid thickly with gold, stood upon a stand, like a

threatening man, between the two windows and catching the light from

each. This piece came from Nuremberg, where it had been worked for the

Prince Bishop of Muenster, but he dying, the Bishop had bought it of the

heirs. Upon the helmet was a prince's circlet of gold and all the

breastplate, the thigh and kneepieces were hammered and graved and

inlaid in gold with scenes from the life of Our Lady. Her Coronation in

Heaven was shown upon the visor. This fine piece the Bishop wore only

upon occasions of great state, such as if he should make a progress

through the Palatinate with the King upon his right hand out of

courtesy, since, of right, his left alone belonged to the King and the

right to the Pope of Rome alone. This Bishop Palatine thought himself a

delicate rather than a splendid prince; he had, before being Bishop,

spent many years in Rome, as the King of England's friend and advocate;

so he thought that better could be done by a display of simplicity and

elegance, for a sovereign Bishop, than by great profusion of coarse

things. Thus, such Bishops as Anthony Bek, that was Patriarch of

Jerusalem as well, had had forty suits of mail to his own body alone.

So there, now, Bishop Sherwood sat, leaning back in his chair and

crushing up his cope which was a grief to his vestiarius, an old and

orderly man. For this was a very splendid cope of black velvet from

Genoa; it was worked with broad silver in pomegranates, the sacred

initials being of seed pearls over silver, and the vestiarius did not

like to see it crushed. The crozier leant against an oaken case in the

corner; and a great cross was against the heavy table where the Bishop

sat. The Bishop had sent away his pages and attendants, saying that his

head ached so that he could not bear the opening and closing of cases

where these things should be placed. He had sent for some wine, a

manchet of bread and a little salt to refresh himself with and these, in

vessels of silver, stood before him. He had made shift to pull the rich

glove off his right hand, and so he had taken a sip of wine and was

dipping the bread in the salt. He felt himself a little refreshed.

Before him, upon the table, stood two mitres, and his glove lay between

the silver dish of bread and the wine cup.

Then the vestiarius, who stood in the doorway, perceived that Bishop,

all black and silver, lean forward in his chair, gazing out of the

window with his jaw falling down. The sunlight was streaming in. The

vestiarius considered with disfavour--for he was a sour old priest--that

the Bishop was undoubtedly ill, and God knew when he should get those

vestments put away, which should be done before the stroke of noon. So

the Bishop passed his hand across his eyes, after he had made the sign

of the cross repeatedly.

"Gilbert," the Bishop said, "my eyes are very tired."

"It would be better, then," the vestiarius said, "not to look out at

that window upon the sunlight. You have tired them with looking upon

the picture of the new missal while you said mass."

"That may well be," the Bishop said. He was a little afeared of the

anger of his vestiarius, who had been with him twenty years, and would

not let him do as he would. So he continued for a little looking at the

napkin they had laid beneath his refection. It was worked in white

damask with the letter M, being the initial of Our Lady's name.

After a while, being anxious to lessen his weakness in the eyes of his

servant, the Bishop raised his eyes to the two mitres that stood before

him. Both were of white silk stuff, very curiously and beautifully

sown, but one was high and the other more squat. The Bishop was about to

speak of these, to placate the old sour man--for it was in such things

that he took most interest. It was very quiet in that room.

There came a knocking, like a fumbling at the door. So the vestiarius

went to it, and, opening it by a crack, whispered out by that way. And

then he turned and said sourly:

"Here is a monk. A monk of Belford called Francis. He says he has your

word that he may come to you at all times and seasons." The Bishop made

a sign with the hand, that hung over the arm of his chair, that that

monk should come in. And indeed the Bishop had given orders that the

monk Francis should come in to him at all times.

For those, as the Bishop saw them, were evil days and full of sudden

perils that must very suddenly be reported to him. And, as far as peril

from the North went--and mostly from Alnwick way--he knew no man, monk

or laymen, that could more swiftly warn him. Besides, the Bishop heard

his conversation with pleasure and counted him a very holy young monk,

so that he would gladly have had him for his confessor.

He accounted him the best adviser that a Bishop could have in that see.

For of the religious that he had round him there, the lay priests were

too ignorant, with a rustic simplicity; the monks of Durham were too

haughty; those of Belford too learned; those of Alnwick too set upon the

glory of their abbey. The ecclesiastical lawyers quibbled too much over

parcels of land; the knights were too formal and concerned for the state

of the see. But this monk Francis loved God and considered the world.

The Bishop had been reflecting in that way for some time whilst the

monk, entering in his woollen robes had knelt beside his chair. Then

the Bishop stretched his hand languidly out and the monk set his lips to

the ring upon it. So the Bishop pointed a finger to the taller of the

two mitres.

"This is my new one," he said, "it has just come to me from Flanders,

while I was at mass."

The monk Francis looked upon the new mitre.

"I have never seen finer stitching in silver," he said. The vestiarius

said harshly:

"I consider the old one more fitting. For a Prince of the Church

Militant it is more fitting. It sits more squatly upon the head, like a

helmet."

The monk Francis looked upon him, and seeing that the Bishop did not

wish to speak, he said:

"That is true! But then this new one, with its greater height is more

graceful and seemly. Moreover there is room upon it for another panel

over the forehead. The old one, you perceive, has only a picture of the

crucifixion of our Lord worked in pearls and silk. Whereas the new one

has below it a picture of Our Lady at the Tomb. It is always good to

have a picture of Our Lady."

This was a thing that the vestiarius could not gainsay. So he brought

out:

"Well, if the Bishop and monks are content with it, it may work to the

greater glory of God;" and then he said: "Prince Bishop, I would have

you go to another room that I may put away your vestments."