When they returned to the fire Isoult was no longer there, but she had
left some sign behind her that Marpasse understood, for the elder woman
showed no concern. She was discreetly curt with Denise when the latter
began to wonder what had befallen Isoult.
“Lie down and sleep, my dear,” she said, “and take care of your feet,
for you will want them on the morrow. The black cat can see in the dark,
she will come to no harm, will Isoult.”
Marpasse might as well have told Denise to love Gaillard as to sleep.
Her brain was full of a listening wakefulness that started uneasily when
a stick cracked on the fire. So she and Marpasse kept vigil together,
while a gradual silence spread over the valley with its armed host and
its sombre town. Nor were Marpasse and Denise disturbed that night, for
the men of the rear-guard had been marched and counter-marched that day
owing to some mad rumour, and they were dead tired, and glad to snore
under any hedge.
The dawn came listlessly, and without colour. The birds were awake and
singing, and with their song, bizarre and discordant came the blowing of
trumpets and the stupid curses of the stirring men. The dawn seemed
heavy, and full of a dull discontent. Yet the birds sang, and the men
cursed perfunctorily, sulkily, the creatures of a habit. So with the
voices of the morning thrilling from the throats of the choir invisible,
the camp of the King was one great oath.
Denise was ready, and shivering to be gone. The fire was out, her body
stiff and cold, the dew heavy upon the grass. The dawn had shown Denise
how hemmed in she and Marpasse were. Horses stood tethered everywhere,
gaunt, clumsy waggons waited like patient mammoths, not a hundred yards
away a red pavilion had been pitched, its coloured canvas swelling and
falling lazily with the morning breeze. The babel of coarse, rough
voices that rose out of the green earth made Denise shudder and yearn to
be gone.
But Marpasse held her ground.
“Food and drink first,” she said.
Denise’s restless eyes betrayed her desire.
“Rest easy,” Marpasse assured her, “men are meek in the morning, though
they curse all heaven and earth. Eat and drink, and see that your shoes
sit comfortably.”
Denise ate with such hurry and such artificial greed that Marpasse could
not help but laugh.
“My teeth are not so good as yours,” she said; “if your legs are as
sound we shall not do amiss.”
Denise’s eyes were on the red pavilion. The flap thereof was open, and
in the black slit that clove like a wedge into the colour, Denise
thought that she saw a man standing and looking towards where she and
Marpasse sat. Marpasse was still at her meal, when two men-at-arms came
out of the red pavilion, carrying their shields as servers carry dishes
to a table. They came over the grass towards the women, while a man in a
blue surcoat appeared at the door of the pavilion, and stood as though
to watch.
Denise half rose, but Marpasse caught her, and pulled her back.
“Sit still. You are far too simple.”
“It is Gaillard, yonder!”
“Yes, yes. Fool him first, my dear, and then run away when he is not
looking. That is what we women have to do when men are the stronger.”
The two soldiers came up, and stood before Denise. One carried food and
a flask of wine in the hollow of his shield; the other, a red scarf and
a silver girdle.
“Messire Gaillard, our lord, yonder, begs for the Lady Denise’s
good-will.”
Marpasse beckoned with her arm.
“Give them here, sirs, my good will is worth homage.”
The men grinned, and inclined their heads with quaint accord towards
Denise.
“It is the grey, not the blue,” said one.
Denise stared at the grass, and did not catch Marpasse’s urgent nods and
winks.
“I take no gifts from Messire Gaillard,” she said.
Marpasse made an impatient clucking with her tongue. How prejudiced
people did bungle matters, to be sure!
“Think twice, my dear,” she said meaningly.
Denise repeated the same words. The men grinned, looked at one another,
and did not stir.
“Messire Gaillard,” said they, “has set us at your service. It is proper
that you should be guarded when all men are not as honourable as our
lord.”
Denise saw herself trapped, and went red, and then white. She looked at
Marpasse, but Marpasse stared obtusely into the distance, knowing that
they were in the Gascon’s hands, and that the men had been sent to see
that they did not flit. Marpasse remembered the promise of the knife,
but the morning was cold and grey, and Marpasse too practical and
hopeful to indulge in such heroics. Therefore she put the best face she
could upon it for Denise’s sake, and Marpasse knew how to deal with men.
“Sit down, gentlemen,” said she, “I am sorry the fire is out, but we
shall be moving before long. You, there, with the beard, since my sister
is in the sulks, I will take some of that baked meat and wine you have
brought us. Now, good health to the King, and all soldiers.”
Marpasse ate and drank with relish, a second breakfast not coming at all
amiss to her, and she talked and laughed with the men, and soon had them
at her service. Denise would touch nothing, though Marpasse smiled,
nodded and whispered in her ear. “Courage, girl,” she said, “leave it to
me, a laugh and a flash of the eyes work marvels, even with pigs. We
will spread our fingers at them before the day is old.” But Denise sat
like one stunned, and would not believe that Marpasse meant what she
said. The red tent had a fascination for Denise, and she saw Gaillard
and two other knights come out, sit down on cloaks their servants spread
for them, and make a meal. Then they were washed, barbered, and armed in
full view of the two women, while a boy stood near, and sang to the
sound of a lute. The whole camp was full of stir and movement. Already,
black columns were pouring out of Guildford town. In an hour the whole
host would be on the march.
So it befell that Denise found herself walking beside Marpasse that
morning at the tail of Gaillard’s company of spears. The two men-at-arms
who had been set to guard them, walked their horses one on either side.
Marpasse trudged along, merry and insolent; Denise, with her thoughts
humbled into the dust. Gaillard had ridden up and spoken to her, not
mockingly, but with the arrogance of a man in power. “Sanctissima,” he
had said, “before long I will find you a palfrey, and you shall ride at
my side. Hold up your head, my dear, and be sensible; I have something
on my conscience, and by my sword, I am not unready to right a wrong.”
Denise had answered him nothing, for she was bitter with the humiliation
of it, and that Gaillard of all men should look at her as on one whom he
might graciously lift up out of the mire. Chance had joined her to these
two women, and she guessed that Isoult’s red gown had coloured
Gaillard’s vision.
When they had gone a mile or more Denise asked Marpasse in an undertone
for her knife. But Marpasse shut her mouth firmly, and shook her head.
“Have patience, my dear,” she said in a whisper, “I have my trick to
play. Be ready when I give the word.”
And Marpasse trudged on cheerfully, mocking at herself in her heart.
“Fool,” she said to herself, “what is the girl to you? Why burn your
fingers pulling cinders out of the fire? You may get kicks for it, and
no money. And you may lose your chance, too, of getting a lover. Fool!
You have had a heart of pap ever since you were born.”
Yet though Marpasse talked to herself thus, her mind was set on cheating
Gaillard of Denise.
The King’s host went winding through the green valleys that spring
morning, marching Kentwards, where Earl Simon had taken the town of
Rochester by assault, and pressed hard upon John de Warenne who held out
in the castle. Horse and foot, archers and camp-followers,
baggage-waggons, sumpter mules, and loose women, made up the stream of
steel and colour. It was a rough, careless, confident march, for had not
the first triumphs fallen to the King? Northampton had been taken, and
Simon the Younger made prisoner, with Madame Etoile, his lady. Leicester
and Nottingham had fallen, and Gifford’s seizure and destruction of
Warwick was all that the Barons could claim on their side. The Mise had
gilded Henry’s cause. Even the King of the Scots had sent aid to his
Brother of England; a Balliol, a Bruce, and a Comyn were among his
captains. John de Warenne should keep Earl Simon under Rochester’s
walls, until the King should come and crush him, or drive him headlong
over the sea.
Henry, weak, persuadable, false, yet brilliant gentleman, might count
himself strong that spring, with his Poitevins and his adventurers, and
the rougher lords who preferred the licence of a weak King to the
justice of Earl Simon. But the old lion was not driven to bay yet, much
less cowed or beaten. De Montfort and his men were not asleep, nor over
confident like the King’s party. Rochester might be many miles away, but
Earl Simon had sent some of his most trusted men to watch the march of
the King’s army, to judge its strength, and keep him warned as to all
that passed.
Waleran de Monceaux and Sir Aymery, woodlanders both of them, and wise
in woodland law, lay that morning in a coppice close to the road and
watched the King’s host go by. These Sussex men were men whom De
Montfort trusted to the death. And they lay on their bellies in the
thick of the dead bracken and the brambles, two wise dogs that saw and
were not seen.
Aymery was stretched at full length, his chin upon his two fists, his
grey eyes at gaze, while Waleran, more restless and impetuous, carried
on a mumbling monologue, and chewed grass with hungry jaws. They were
counting the banners and the pennons, and marking as best they could the
lords and knights who were with the King. Aymery lay still enough till
Gaillard’s company came up, the Gascon riding bareheaded, his blue
surcoat ablaze with its golden suns. Gaillard had found favour with the
King, despite the happenings at Pevensey, and the anger of Peter of
Savoy. Aymery knew Gaillard at the first glance, and set his teeth hard
so that the muscles stood out about his jaw.
Yet the tail of Gaillard’s company brought a far fiercer inspiration,
for Denise walked there beside Marpasse, Denise with her hair of red
gold shining like a torch against the green. She walked as one going to
the ordeal of fire, white-faced, mute, looking neither to the right hand
nor left. Her grey cloak went like a cloud beside Marpasse’s azure blue.
The two men-at-arms rode stolidly behind, while the men in the rear rank
of Gaillard’s troop were laughing and joking with Marpasse.
Aymery stiffened as he lay, and his hand went to the sword in the dead
bracken beside him. He scrambled suddenly to his knees, with a fierce,
inarticulate cry deep down in his throat. Waleran seized him, and
dragged him back to cover, for they were so near the road that the
slightest movement might betray them.
“God, man, are you mad!”
Aymery lay there a moment with his face on his arms. He said nothing to
Waleran, but when he raised his head again his face was grim and full of
thought. He kept watch there in silence, but the road was empty now save
for a few camp-followers, women and beggars. Aymery rose on one elbow,
and looked towards the drifting dust that hung on the heels of the
King’s host.
He turned suddenly to Waleran.
“Brother, you and I must part company for a while. Go back to our men. I
must follow the march farther.”
Waleran looked at him curiously out of half-closed eyes.
“I know the man you are. Simon trusts us both.”
They scrambled up out of their “forms,” and went back through the wood
till they came to a dell where they had left their horses. Aymery laid
his hands on Waleran’s shoulders.
“Brother-in-arms,” he said, “trust me. I have a book to read, and a debt
to pay. There is nothing of the traitor in my heart.”
Waleran hugged him like a bear.
“Blood of my father, I know that! I can carry the news.”
They parted there, two men who loved and trusted one another. Aymery
took spear, shield, and helmet, and mounted his horse to follow the
march of the King’s host, that splendid stream that seemed to gather and
to carry with it all the pomp and music, the violence and passion, and
the suffering sinfulness that the land held.