Denise had some sign at last from the Goldspur folk, for she found that
offerings had been left at her gate, and since her store of food had
fallen to half a very dry loaf and a pot of honey, she was carnally glad
of such a godsend.
The evening of the same day while she was at work in her garden, two of
Aymery’s villeins came out of the wood, each carrying a bundle of ash
stakes and an axe, for they had heard that the saint’s fence was as flat
in places as the walls of Jericho. The two men, Oswald and Peter, were a
little shy of Denise, as though the Goldspur conscience had accused the
community of neglecting the Red Saint. They told her that the cattle had
broken out from the pen, and strayed far and wide through the woods. It
had taken them days to recover the beasts, and they had been hampered by
the knowledge that the men of Pevensey were still sweeping the hundreds
of the rape.
Both of the men knew that Aymery was a prisoner at Pevensey, but they
did not know that he had been taken at the very doorway of the Red
Saint’s cell. Nor did Denise betray to them all that had passed; she had
too much pride and a sacred sense of secrecy for that. Oswald and Peter
set to work, their axes catching the sunlight that sifted through the
trees, white chips flying, their brown faces intent and stolid. Denise
stood and watched them for a time, and Oswald, the elder of the two,
told her what had befallen Father Grimbald. A swineherd had found him
half dead in the woods, and had hidden him in a saw-pit for fear of
Gaillard and his men. It had been a sharp escape, and a sharp sickness
for Grimbald. He was still in hiding, and being healed of his wounds,
and there was not a woman in the whole hundred who would not have had
her tongue cut out rather than betray Grimbald to Peter of Savoy.
Dusk was falling before the men had finished mending the fence, and a
wind had risen like a restless and plaintive voice, making the twilight
seem more grey and melancholy. The whole beech wood had begun to shiver
with a sense of loneliness that made the earth itself seem cold. Oswald
and Peter knelt down before Denise, and asked her to bless them before
they shouldered their axes and marched off into the wood.
The two men followed the winding path that struck the main “ride”
running through the heart of the wood, and they walked fast because of
the twilight, and because it was believed that the wood was haunted. For
the wilds were the haunts of the evil things of the night, and when a
saint lived a holy life in such a place she was sure of being tempted
and vexed by devils. The tale of St. Guthlac of Crowland was a tale that
was told of many a saint. When the lamp of sanctity was lit in some such
wilderness the spirits of evil would fly at it in fury, and seek to beat
it out with the rush of their black wings.
Oswald and Peter were no more superstitious than their neighbours, but
they were as timid as children in the thick of that dark wood. And to
frighten their credulity a strange sound seemed on the gallop with the
gusts of the wind, a sound that was like the trampling of a horse under
the sad gloom of the trees. The sound came so uncomfortably near to
them, that Oswald and Peter bolted into the underwood like a couple of
brown rabbits. And looking back half furtively, as they scrambled
through brambles and under hazels, they had a glimpse of a great black
shape rushing through the darkness on the wings of the wind.
The two men did not wait to see more of it, but got out of the wood as
fast as their legs could carry them.
“It was a ghost or a devil,” they said to one another. “God defend us,
but surely it is a terrible thing to be a saint.”
They pushed on, heartily glad to be free of the far-reaching hands of
the spectral trees.
“It was good for us that we had the saint’s blessing.”
“God and St. Martin hearten her. The devil vexes those who live for good
works.”
“Father Grimbald must know of it. He is man enough to come and take a
devil by the beard.”
So Oswald and Peter went back to their womenfolk and their cattle, glad
to be near warm bodies, snug under their woodland huts. The night
passed, and the dawn came, a slow, stealthy dawn muffled in silver mist.
Rabbits scampered in the glades, brushing the dew from the wet grass.
Birds hunted for worms, and fluttered away to feed their young. And the
devil whom Oswald and Peter had seen, sent the rabbits bolting for their
burrows as he rode away through the beech wood towards the sea.
Before noon Etoile the lute girl had a wreath of hair curled like a
snake about the little wooden cross in her lap. Gaillard had brought
them to her, hiding a guilty memory in the eyes behind a laughing
swagger. The Gascon’s voluble tongue was driven to deal very fancifully
with the adventure, since Etoile was very curious, and intent on hearing
everything. The Red Saint was very ready to be worshipped, such was
Gaillard’s explanation. She was a little vainer than the majority of
women, and Gaillard shrugged his shoulders and laughed.
“A red apple is always a red apple,” he said. “Mother Eve taught us
that.”
The mischievous devil in Etoile was not yet satisfied.
“Never trust a saint, Gaillard,” she said. “I have not forgotten that
the man in the tower might be glad of this piece of hair. It will give
him something to think about while he sits and nibbles straws. Take it
up and push it under his door, and tell him it comes from his lady.”
The joke caught Gaillard’s fancy. He climbed the tower, and pushed the
trophy under Aymery’s door with the point of his poniard.
“A woman gave it me, my man,” he said. “But since I have something
better for a keepsake, you can have the hair.”
He went away, laughing, a thorough Gascon in his gross
self-satisfaction. And Aymery picked up what Gaillard had left him. He
knew it for Denise’s hair, for there was none like it in all those
parts.