Aymery went riding southwards over the snow, a cloak of furs over his
harness, and the leather flaps of his steel cap turned down to cover
cheeks and ears. He rode alone, for though the gilt spurs were at his
heels, his purse saw little of the colour of gold, and his horse and his
arms were all that he had.
There was peace in the land that January, for men had put up their
swords, and delivered their quarrel into the hands of the King of
France. It was the month of the Mise of Amiens, when Louis, Saint and
King, sat to judge between Henry of England and his people. Men trusted
in that Holy Heart, that Flame of Sacred Chivalry, that had brought
peace to France, and given God martyrs on Egyptian sands. But Louis was
a King judging between a King and turbulent towns and still more
turbulent barons. Nor was it strange, therefore, that a saint, from
whose mouth should have sprouted an olive branch, hurled back over the
sea a two-edged sword.
A truce had been called, and with the sheathing of his sword, Aymery had
seized the chance and the time to ride southwards into Sussex. Goldspur
manor house was a black ruin, but the manor folk were there, with
Grimbald to see that an absent lord was not forgotten. No forfeiture had
been proclaimed, and Aymery had saddled his horse Necessity, and ridden
to see whether his villeins and cottars were honest men. Aymery had left
no steward over them, but Grimbald was more to be trusted than any
steward; no one would play him any tricks.
Aymery’s road ran a devious way that January morning, the road of a man
who galloped ten miles out of his path for the glimpse of a woman’s
face. And Aymery rode wilfully towards Battle, though Goldspur lay over
and away beyond the white hills in the west.
About noon Aymery let his horse take his own pace up the hill from
Watlingtun. The slope of Mountjoye seemed one sweep of virgin snow, and
Aymery, looking for Denise’s cell, marked it out above the thicket of
oaks where he had kept his vigil that summer night. When he came to the
place where the path should turn aside from the road, he saw a muddy and
much trampled track leading over the snow towards the cell with its
hedge of thorns. It looked to Aymery as though the whole countryside had
made a pilgrimage to Denise of the Hill. He followed the path in turn,
giving Denise her glory with the sadness of a man who cherishes an
impossible desire.
The ground about the gate in the thorn hedge had been trampled into a
quagg of mud as though many people had passed to and fro that morning.
Aymery dismounted, and threw his bridle over the gate post, numbering
himself among those who had come for Denise’s blessing. But the sight he
saw startled him not a little, for there was no benediction to be won
there that morning.
The door of the cell stood open, and before it, in the middle of a space
of trampled snow, two of the Abbey servants were heaping up straw and
faggots as though for a fire. The trampling of Aymery’s horse had been
deadened by the snow, the men had not heard it, and he stood at the
gate, watching them and wondering what this meant. The two men went to
and fro into Denise’s cell, carrying out the wooden bed, the straw, and
the sheets thereof, her prayer stool, and cross, and other lesser
things, for Silvius in his first ardour had seen her better housed than
a mere recluse. The men piled everything upon the faggots, and then
stood aside in silence as though waiting for someone’s coming.
Aymery tarried no longer, but marched out from the shadow of the thorn
hedge, a voice crying in him: “Can it be that she is dead?” The two
servants saw him, and for some strange reason began to handle their
staves, while one of them went to the door of the cell, and spoke to
someone within.
Dom Silvius and Aymery came face to face outside Denise’s cell that
morning, for the monk had been within, watching the unclean things
carried out for the burning. He came out with a lighted torch in his
hand, ready with canonical curses, hot and hungry for the chance of
scolding the whole world. But when Silvius saw Aymery, he seemed to grow
cold of a sudden, and thin with a malicious carefulness.
For Silvius saw the hauberk and the gilt spurs, the long sword at the
girdle, the shield slung across the back, the shoulder plates painted
with a knight’s device, the golden claw of a hawk. And Silvius sprang to
sinister conclusions with the intuition of a woman. Here, no doubt, was
the woman’s paramour, some hot-headed gentleman who had ridden in to
discover how things fared with Denise.
Silvius took no notice of the Knight of the Hawk’s Claw, but plunged his
torch into the straw, and watched the flames spring up and seize the
wood. The smoke rose straight up into the still air, turning to a pearly
haze as the sunlight touched it. The monk stood there, with bowed head
and folded arms, as though too busy with his own prayers to be troubled
by any stranger. But prayer was very far from Silvius’s soul. His eyes
were wide awake under their lowered lids.
Aymery came two steps nearer. Silvius raised his head and looked at him,
and saw at a glance the face of a man who was not to be repulsed or
fooled.
“Whom may you be seeking, my son?” he asked, watching Aymery out of the
corners of his eyes.
The Knight of the Hawk’s Claw turned his head towards the cell. Silvius
seemed to enjoy an inaudible chuckle.
“Perhaps you have come for a blessing, messire?”
As yet Aymery had not spoken a word, but Silvius read his thoughts by
the puzzled frown and the alert eyes.
“Ah, my son,” he went on, beginning to sneer, “you are wondering what
has become of our saint.”
Aymery looked from Silvius to the flames that were leaping through the
wood.
“Has death been here?”
Silvius’s eyes were netted round with cynical wrinkles.
“Assuredly your saint is both dead and alive,” he said. “Some of you
gentlemen have slain the saint in her. I will not ask you, my son,
whether the guilt of the sacrilege is yours.”
His sly, sneering face made Aymery’s manhood grow hot in him. He was in
no temper for sardonic subtleties. Silvius saw a look in his eyes that
betrayed a lust to take someone by the throat. And Silvius kept the fire
between him and the man of the sword, nodding to the two servants, and
hinting without deceit that they should be ready with their staves.
“My son,” he said, licking his lips; “we are burning the unclean relics
of an unclean woman. If you ask me for reasons, I send you to my lord,
Reginald, at the Abbey. His word is law here. I am but a humble servant
in God’s house.”
Aymery looked Silvius in the eyes, and then turned on his heel, with a
face like ice. He mounted his horse, and went up Mountjoye Hill at a
canter, choosing to gallop at the core of the truth rather than suffer
Dom Silvius to lick his lips and sneer. Nor had horse and rider
disappeared below the sky line before Silvius called the two servants to
him, gave them their orders, and sent them away into the town. He
himself tarried there awhile, warming his hands at the fire that
consumed those relics of an unsaintly saint.
When Aymery came out from the presence of Reginald of Brecon that day
his face had the frozen bleakness of a winter land. He walked stiffly,
almost rigidly, with nostrils that twitched, and hungered for air. The
Abbey servants fell back before him as he mounted his horse at the gate.
Here was a man who was not to be meddled with. His face sobered them
more than the face of a leper.
Aymery struck his horse with the spurs, and the beast leapt his own
length, stood quivering a moment, and then went away at a sharp gallop
as though he had the devil on his back. Aymery’s eyes looked straight
before him, eyes that caught the white glare of an inward fury, and were
blind to the outer world. The snow lay white upon the roofs of the
little town. Smoke ascended tranquilly into a shimmer of sunlight.
Aymery was not to ride out of Battle town at his own pace; Dom Silvius
had seen to that. At the sound of a horn a crowd of figures seemed to
start from nowhere; men, women, and children came running together; the
whole wasps’ nest was on the wing.
Aymery drew up sharply, for the crowd in front of him filled the street.
He did not grasp the meaning of it at first, but stared round at the
people as though he were but a chance actor in some chance scene. A
stone thrown from the crowd carried a rude hint, striking him upon the
shield that hung at his back. And with the throwing of the first stone
the whole mob sent up a sudden roar of anger.
“Out, out, seducer!”
“Pelt the sacrilegious dog!”
“Here is Dame Denise’s man, neighbours.”
“Drag him off.”
“Roll him in the mud.”
The uproar and the fury of the fools might have dazed any man for the
moment. The crowd came tossing about Aymery’s horse, keeping a coward’s
distance, content as yet with stones, and filth, and curses.
Thorn-in-the-Thumb and her women were there, obscene and violent,
howling like cats, and urging the men on. Some of them cut coarse
capers, leering up into the knight’s face.
Aymery sat still in the saddle for a moment, looking neither to right
nor left. His lips were white and pressed hard together, his eyes full
of that shallow glare that fills the eyes of an angry dog. The yelling
and distorted faces began to close upon him. A stone thrown by a man
near struck Aymery upon the mouth.
Blood showed, but with it a blaze of wrath so terrible and yet so
silent, that hands which were uplifted did not fling their stones.
Aymery’s sword was out. He struck his beast with the spurs, and rode
straight into the thick of the crowd. And though he smote only with the
flat of the blade, they tumbled over each other in their hurry to give
him room, while those who were safe stood open-mouthed, staring like
stupid sheep.
Aymery rode through them as he would have ridden through a cornfield,
swinging his sword, and laughing, the terrible laughter of a man who has
no pity. No sooner did the rabble see his back, than their courage came
again, the courage of dogs that yap at a horse’s heels. They scampered
after him, shouting, screaming, pelting him as they ran.
Thorn-in-the-Thumb, with a bloody poll from the flat of Aymery’s sword,
panted along with the very first, her apron full of filth that she had
brought with her from her kitchen, and kept gloatingly until too late.
But Aymery never turned his head, and leaving the slobbering pack
behind, rode at a canter out of Battle town.