SYBILLA'S VENGEANCE
There stands a solitary rock at the base of which is a cave, on the
seashore of La Vendée. Behind stretch the marshes, and the place is
shut in and desolate. Birds cry there. The bittern booms in the
thickets of grey willow and wet-shot alder. The herons nest upon the
pine trees near by, till the stale scent of them comes down the wind
from far. Ospreys fish in the waters of the shallow lake behind, and
the scales of their prey flash in the sun of morning as they rise
dripping from the dive.
In this place Sholto, Malise, and the Lord James Douglas were
presently abiding.
It was but a tiny cell, originally formed by two portions of marly
rock fallen together in some ancient convulsion or dropped upon each
other from a floating iceberg. In some former age the cleft had been a
lair of wild beasts, or the couch of some hairy savage hammering flint
arrowheads for the chase, and drawing with a sharp point upon polished
bone the yet hairier mammoth he hunted. But this solitary lodging in
the wilderness had been enlarged in more recent times, till now the
interior was about eight feet square and of the height of a man of
stature when he stands erect.
The hearts of the three present cave-dwellers were sick and sad, and
of them all the bitterest was the heart of Sholto MacKim. It seemed
to his eager lover's spirit, as he climbed to the top of the sand
dunes and gazed towards the massive towers of Machecoul rising above
the green woodlands, that hitherto they had but wandered and done
nothing. The sorcerer had prevented them about with his evil. They had
lost Laurence utterly, and for the rest they had not even touched the
outer defences of their arch enemy.
Thrice they had tried to enter the castle. The first time they had
taken by force two waggons of fuel from certain men who went towards
Machecoul, leaving the woodmen behind in the forest, bound and
helpless. But at the first gate of the outer hall the marshal's guard
had stopped them, and demanded that they should wait till the cars
were unloaded and brought back to them. So, having received the money,
the Scots returned as they went to the men whom they had left in the
forest.
After this repulse they had gone round and round the vast walls of
Machecoul seeking a place vulnerable, but finding none. The ramparts
rose as it had been to heaven, and the flanking towers were crowded
night and day with men on the watch. Round the walls for the space of
a bow-shot every way there ran a green space fair and open to the
view, but in reality full of pitfalls and secret engines. From the
battlements began the arrow hail, so soon as any attempted to approach
the castle along any other way than the thrice-defended road to the
main gate.
The wolves howled in the forests by night, and more than once came so
near that one of the three men had to take it in turns to keep watch
in the cave's mouth. But for a reason not clear to them at the time
they were not again attacked by the marshal's wild allies of the
wood.
The third time they had tried to enter the castle in their pilgrim's
garb, and the outer picket courteously received them. But when they
were come to the inner curtain, one Robin Romulart, the officer of the
guard, a stout fellow, suddenly called to his men to bind and gag
them--in which enterprise, but for the great strength of Malise, they
might have succeeded. For the outer gates had been shut with a clang,
and they could hear the soldiers of the garrison hasting from all
sides in answer to Robin's summons.
But Malise snatched up the bar wherewith the winding cogs of the gate
were turned, and, having broken more than one man's head with it, he
forced the massive doors apart by main force, so that they were able
all unharmed to withdraw themselves into the shelter of the woods. So
near capture had they been, however, that over and over again they
heard the shouting of the parties who scoured the woods in search of
them.
It was the worst feature of their situation that the Marshal de Retz
certainly knew of their presence in his territories, and that he would
be easily able to guess their errand and take measures to prevent it
succeeding.
Their last and most fatal failure had happened several days before,
and the first eager burst of the search for them had passed. But the
Scots knew that the enemy was thoroughly alarmed, and that it behoved
them to abide very closely within their hiding-place.
The Lord James took worst of all with the uncertainty and confinement.
Any restraint was unsuited to his jovial temper and open-air life. But
for the present, at least, and till they could gain some further
information as to the whereabouts of the maidens, it was obvious that
they could do no better than remain in their seaside shelter.
Their latest plan was to abide in the cave till the marshal set out
again upon one of his frequent journeys. Then it would be
comparatively easy to ascertain by an ambush whether he was taking the
captives with him, or if he had left them behind. If the maids were of
his travelling company, the three rescuers would be guided by
circumstances and the strength of the escort, as to whether or not
they should venture to make an attack.
But if by any unhoped-for chance Margaret and Maud were left behind at
Machecoul, it would at least be a more feasible enterprise to attack
the fortress during the absence of its master and his men.
Alone among the three Scots Malise faced their predicament with some
philosophy. Sholto ate his heart out with uncertainty as to the fate
of his sweetheart. The Lord James chafed at the compulsory confinement
and at the consistent ill success which had pursued them. But Malise,
unwearied of limb and ironic of mood as ever, fished upon the tidal
flats for brown-spotted flounders and at the rocky points for white
fish, often remaining at his task till far into the night. He
constructed snares with a mechanical ingenuity in advance of his age.
And what was worth more to the company than any material help, he kept
up the spirits of Sholto and of Lord James Douglas both by his brave
heart and merry speech, and still more by constantly finding them
something to do.
At the hour of even, one day after they had been a fortnight in the
country of Retz, the three Scots were sitting moodily on a little
hillock which concealed the entrance to their cave. The forest lay
behind them, an impenetrable wall of dense undergrowth crowned along
the distant horizon by the solemn domes of green stone pines. It
circumvented them on all sides, save only in front, where, through
several beaker-shaped breaks in the high sand dunes they could catch a
glimpse of the sea. The Atlantic appeared to fill these clefts half
full, like Venice goblets out of which the purple wine has been
partially drained. To right and left the pines grew scantier, so that
the rays of the sunset shone red as molten metal upon their stems and
made a network of alternate gold and black behind them.
The three sat thus a long time without speech, only looking up from
their tasks to let their eyes rest wistfully for a moment upon the
deep and changeful amethyst of the sea, and then with a light sigh
going back to the cleaning of their armoury or the shaping of a long
bow.
It chanced that for several minutes no sound was heard except those
connected with their labour, the low whistle with which the Lord James
accompanied his polishing, the _wisp-wisp_ of Malise's arms as he
sewed the double thread back and forth through a rent in his leathern
jack, and the rasp of Sholto's file as he carved out the finials of
the bow, the notched grooves wherein the string was to lie so easily
and yet so firmly.
Thus they continued to work, absorbed, each of them in the sadness of
his own thought, till suddenly a shadow seemed to strike between them
and the red light of the western sky. They looked up, and before them,
as it were ascending out of the very glow of sunset, they saw a woman
on a white palfrey approaching them by the way of the sea.
So suddenly did she appear that the Lord James uttered a low cry of
wonder, while Malise the practical reached for his sword. But Sholto
had seen this vision twice already, and knew their visitor for the
Lady Sybilla.
"Hold there!" he said in an undertone. "Remember it is as I said. This
woman, though we have no cause to love her, is now our only hope. Her
words brought us here. They were true words, and I believe that she
comes as a friend. I will stake my life on it."
"Or if she comes as an enemy we are no worse off," grumbled sceptical
Malise. "We can at least encourage the woman and then hold her as an
hostage."
The three Scots were standing to receive their guest when the Lady
Sybilla rode up. Her face had lost none of the pale sadness which
marked it when Sholto last saw her, and though the look of utter agony
had passed away, the despair of a soul in pain had only become more
deeply printed upon it.
The girl having acknowledged their salutations with a stately and
well-accustomed motion of the head, reached a hand for Sholto to lift
her from her palfrey.
Then, still without spoken word, she silently seated herself on the
grey-lichened rock rudely shaped into the semblance of a chair, on
which Malise had been sitting at his mending. The strange maiden
looked long at the blue sea deepening in the notches of the sand dunes
beneath them. The three men stood before her waiting for her to speak.
Each of them knew that lives, dearer and more precious than their own,
hung upon what she might have to say.
At last she spoke, in a voice low as the wind when it blows its
lightest among the trees:
"You have small cause to trust me or to count me your friend," she
said; "but we have that which binds closer than friendship--a common
enemy and a common cause of hatred. It were better, therefore, that we
should understand one another. I have never lost sight of you since
you came to this fatal land of Retz. I have been near you when you
knew it not. To accomplish this I have deceived the man who is my
taskmaster, swearing to him that in the witch crystal I have seen you
depart. And I shall yet deceive him in more deadly fashion."
Sholto could restrain himself no longer.
"Enough," he said roughly; "tell us whether the maidens are alive, and
if they are abiding in this Castle of Machecoul."
The Lady Sybilla did not remove her eyes from the red west.
"Thus far they are safe," she said, in the same calm monotone. "This
very hour I have come from the White Tower, in which they are
confined. But he whom I serve swears by an oath that if you or other
rescuers are heard of again in this country, he will destroy them
both."
She shuddered as she spoke with a strong revulsion of feeling.
"Therefore, be careful with a great carefulness. Give up all thought
of rescuing them directly. Remember what you have been able to
accomplish, and that your slightest actions will bring upon those you
love a fate of which you little dream."
"After what we remember of Crichton Castle, how can we trust you,
lady?" said Malise, sternly. "Do you now speak the truth with your
mouth?"
"You have indeed small cause to think so," she answered without taking
offence. "Yet, having no choice, you must e'en trust me."
She turned sharply upon Sholto with a strip of paper in her
outstretched hand.
"I think, young sir, that you have some reason to know from whom that
comes."
Sholto grasped at the writing with a new and wonderful hope in his
heart. He knew instinctively before he touched it that none but Maud
Lindesay could have written that script--small, clear, and distinct as
a motto cut on a gem.
"_To our friends in France and Scotland,_" so it ran. "_We are still
safe this eve of the Blessed Saint Michael. Trust her who brings this
letter. She is our saviour and our only hope in a dark and evil place.
She is sorry for that which by her aid hath been done. As you hope for
forgiveness, forgive her. And for God's dear sake, do immediately the
thing she bids you. This comes from Margaret de Douglas and Maud
Lindesay. It is written by the hand of M. L._"
The wax at the bottom was sealed in double with the boar's head of
Lindesay and the heart of Margaret of Douglas.
Sholto, having read the missive silently, passed it to the Lord James
that he might prove the seals, for it was his only learning to be
skilled in heraldry.
"It is true," he said; "I myself gave the little maid that ring. See,
it hath a piece broken from the peak of the device."
"My lady," said Sholto, "that which you bring is more than enough. We
kiss your hand and we will sacredly do all your bidding, were it unto
the death or the trial by fire."
Then, as was the custom to do to ladies whom knights would honour, the
Lord James and Sholto kneeled down and kissed the hand of Sybilla de
Thouars. But Malise, not being a knight, took it only and settled it
upon his great grizzled head, where it rested for a moment, lightly as
upon some grey and ancient tower lies a flake of snow before it melts.
"I thank you for your overmuch courtesy," the girl said, casting her
eyes on the ground with a new-born shyness most like that of a modest
maid; "I thank you, indeed. You do me honour far above my desert.
Still, after all, we work for one end. You have, it is true, the
nobler motive,--the lives of those you love; but I the deadlier,--the
death of one I hate! Hearken!"
She paused as if to gather strength for that which she had to reveal,
and then, reaching her hands out, she motioned the three men to gather
more closely about her, as if the blue Atlantic waves or the red boles
of the pine trees might carry the matter.
"Listen," she said, "the end comes fast--faster than any know, save I,
to whom for my sins the gift of second sight hath been given. I who
speak to you am of Brittany and of the House of De Thouars. To one of
us in each generation descends this abhorred gift of second sight. And
I, because as a child it was my lot to meet one wholly given over to
evil, have seen more and clearer than all that have gone before me.
But now I do foresee the end of the wickedest and most devilish soul
ever prisoned within the body of man."
As she spoke the heads of the three Scots bent lower and closer to
catch every word, for the voice of the Lady Sybilla was more like the
cooing of a mating turtle as it answers its comrade than that of a
woman betrayed, denouncing vengeance and death upon him whom her soul
hated.
"Be of good heart, then, and depart as I shall bid you. None can help
or hinder here at Machecoul but I alone. Be sure that at the worst the
unnameable shall not happen to the maids. For in me there is the power
to slay the evil-doer. But slay I will not unless it be to keep the
lives of the maids. Because I desire for Gilles de Retz a fate
greater, more terrible, more befitting iniquity such as the world hath
never heard spoken of since it arose from the abyss.
"And this is it given to me to bring upon him whom my soul hateth,"
she went on. "I have seen the hempen cord by which he shall hang. I
have seen the fire through which his soul shall pass to its own place.
Through me this fate shall come upon him suddenly in one night."
Her face lighted up with an inner glow, and shone translucent in the
darkening of the day and the dusk of the trees, as if the fair veil of
flesh wavered and changed about the vengeful soul within.
"And now," she went on after a pause, "I bid you, gentlemen of the
house of Douglas, to depart to John, Duke of Brittany, and having
found him to lay this paper before him. It contains the number and the
names of those who have died in the castles of de Retz. It shows in
what hidden places the bones of these slaughtered innocents may be
found. Clamour in his ear for justice in the name of the King of
France, and if he will not hear, then in the name of the folk of
Brittany. And if still because of his kinship he will not listen, go
to the Bishop of Nantes, who hates Gilles de Retz. Better than any he
knows how to stir the people, and he will send with you trusty men to
cause the country to rise in rebellion. Then they will overturn all
the castles of de Retz, and the hidden things shall come to light.
This do, and for this time depart from Machecoul, and entrust me (as
indeed you must) with the honour and lives of those you love. I will
keep them with mine own until destruction pass upon him who is outcast
from God, and whom now his own fiend from hell hath deserted."
Then, having sworn to do her bidding, the three Scots conducted the
Lady Sybilla with honour and observance to her white palfrey, and like
a spirit she vanished into the sea mists which had sifted up from the
west, going back to the drear Castle of Machecoul, but bearing with
her the burden of her revenge.