THE TENTH CHRONICLE
HOW HE CAME BACK TO LOWLIGHT
"Master," Morano said. But Rodriguez rode ahead and would not speak.
They were riding vaguely southward. They had ample provisions on thehorse that Morano led, as well as blankets, which gave them comfort atnight. That night they both got the sleep they needed, now that therewas no captive to guard. All the next day they rode slowly in the Aprilweather by roads that wandered among tended fields; but a little wayoff from the fields there shone low hills in the sunlight, so wild, sofree of man, that Rodriguez remembering them in later years, wonderedif their wild shrubs just hid the frontiers of fairyland.
For two days they rode by the edge of unguessable regions. Had Panpiped there no one had marvelled, nor though fauns had scurried pastsheltering clumps of azaleas. In the twilight no tiny queens had courtwithin rings of toadstools: yet almost, almost they appeared.
And on the third day all at once they came to a road they knew. It wasthe road by which they had ridden when Rodriguez still had his dream,the way from Shadow Valley to the Ebro. And so they turned into theroad they knew, as wanderers always will; and, still without aim orplan, they faced towards Shadow Valley. And in the evening of the daythat followed that, as they looked about for a camping-ground, therecame in sight the village on the hill which Rodriguez knew to be fiftymiles from the forest: it was the village in which they had rested thefirst night after leaving Shadow Valley. They did not camp but went onto the village and knocked at the door of the inn. Habit guides us allat times, even kings are the slaves of it (though in their presence ittakes the prouder name of precedent); and here were two wandererswithout any plans at all; they were therefore defenceless in the gripof habit and, seeing an inn they knew, they loitered up to it. Minehost came again to the door. He cheerfully asked Rodriguez how he hadfared on his journey, but Rodriguez would say nothing. He asked forlodging for himself and Morano and stabling for the horses: he ate andslept and paid his due, and in the morning was gone.
Whatever impulses guided Rodriguez as he rode and Morano followed, heknew not what they were or even that there could be any. He followedthe road without hope and only travelled to change his camping-grounds.And that night he was half-way between the village and Shadow Valley.
Morano never spoke, for he saw that his master's disappointment wasstill raw; but it pleased him to notice, as he had done all day, thatthey were heading for the great forest. He cooked their evening meal intheir camp by the wayside and they both ate it in silence. For awhileRodriguez sat and gazed at the might-have-beens in the camp-fire: andwhen these began to be hidden by white ash he went to his blankets andslept. And Morano went quietly about the little camp, doing all thatneeded to be done, with never a word. When the horses were seen to andfed, when the knives were cleaned, when everything was ready for thestart next morning, Morano went to his blankets and slept too. And inthe morning again they wandered on.
That evening they saw the low gold rays of the sun enchanting the topsof a forest. It almost surprised Rodriguez, travelling without an aim,to recognise Shadow Valley. They quickened their slow pace and, beforetwilight faded, they were under the great oaks; but the last of thetwilight could not pierce the dimness of Shadow Valley, and it seemedas if night had entered the forest with them.
They chose a camping-ground as well as they could in the darkness andMorano tied the horses to trees a little way off from the camp. Then hereturned to Rodriguez and tied a blanket to the windward side of twotrees to make a kind of bedroom for his master, for they had all theblankets they needed. And when this was done he set the emblem andbanner of camps, anywhere all over the world in any time, for hegathered sticks and branches and lit a camp-fire. The first red flameswent up and waved and proclaimed a camp: the light made a littlecircle, shadows ran away to the forest, and the circle of light on theground and on the trees that stood round it became for that one nighthome.
They heard the horses stamp as they always did in the early part of thenight; and then Morano went to give them their fodder. Rodriguez satand gazed into the fire, his mind as full of thoughts as the fire wasfull of pictures: one by one the pictures in the fire fell in; and allhis thoughts led nowhere.
He heard Morano running back the thirty or forty yards he had gone fromthe camp-fire "Master," Morano said, "the three horses are gone."
"Gone?" said Rodriguez. There was little more to say; it was too darkto track them and he knew that to find three horses in Shadow Valleywas a task that might take years. And after more thought than mightseem to have been needed he said; "We must go on foot."
"Have we far to go, master?" said Morano, for the first time daring toquestion him since they left the cottage in Spain.
"I have nowhere to go," said Rodriguez. His head was downcast as he satby the fire: Morano stood and looked at him unhappily, full of asympathy that he found no words to express. A light wind slippedthrough the branches and everything else was still. It was some whilebefore he lifted his head; and then he saw before him on the other sideof the fire, standing with folded arms, the man in the brown leatherjacket.
"Nowhere to go!" said he. "Who needs go anywhere from Shadow Valley?"
Rodriguez stared at him. "But I can't stay here!" he said.
"There is no fairer forest known to man," said the other. "I know manysongs that prove it."
Rodriguez made no answer but dropped his eyes, gazing with listlessglance once more at the ground. "Come, senor," said the man in theleather jacket. "None are unhappy in Shadow Valley."
"Who are you?" said Rodriguez. Both he and Morano were gazing curiouslyat the man whom they had saved three weeks ago from the noose.
"Your friend," answered the stranger.
"No friend can help me," said Rodriguez.
"Senor," said the stranger across the fire, still standing with foldedarms, "I remain under an obligation to no man. If you have an enemy orlove a lady, and if they dwell within a hundred miles, either shall bebefore you within a week."
Rodriguez shook his head, and silence fell by the camp-fire. And afterawhile Rodriguez, who was accustomed to dismiss a subject when it wasended, saw the stranger's eyes on him yet, still waiting for him to saymore. And those clear blue eyes seemed to do more than wait, seemedalmost to command, till they overcame Rodriguez' will and he obeyed andsaid, although he could feel each word struggling to stay unuttered,"Senor, I went to the wars to win a castle and a piece of land thereby;and might perchance have wed and ended my wanderings, with those of myservant here; but the wars are over and no castle is won."
And the stranger saw by his face in the firelight, and knew from thetones of his voice in the still night, the trouble that his words hadnot expressed.
"I remain under an obligation to no man," said the stranger. "Be atthis place in four weeks' time, and you shall have a castle as large asany that men win by war, and a goodly park thereby."
"Your castle, master!" said Morano delighted, whose only thought up tothen was as to who had got his horses. But Rodriguez only stared: andthe stranger said no more but turned on his heel. And then Rodriguezawoke out of his silence and wonder. "But where?" he said. "Whatcastle?"
"That you will see," said the stranger.
"But, but how ..." said Rodriguez. What he meant was, "How can Ibelieve you?" but he did not put it in words.
"My word was never broken," said the other. And that is a good boast tomake, for those of us who can make it; if we need boast at all.
"Whose word?" said Rodriguez, looking him in the eyes.
The smoke from the fire between them was thickening greyly as thoughsomething had been cast on it. "The word," he said, "of the King ofShadow Valley."
Rodriguez gazing through the increasing smoke saw not to the otherside. He rose and walked round the fire, but the strange man was gone.
Rodriguez came back to his place by the fire and sat long there insilence. Morano was bubbling over to speak, but respected his master'ssilence: for Rodriguez was g
azing into the deeps of the fire seeingpictures there that were brighter than any that he had known. They wereso clear now that they seemed almost true. He saw Serafina's face therelooking full at him. He watched it long until other pictures hid it,visions that had no meaning for Rodriguez. And not till then he spoke.And when he spoke his face was almost smiling.
"Well, Morano," he said, "have we come by that castle at last?"
"That man does not lie, master," he answered: and his eyes wereglittering with shrewd conviction.
"What shall we do then?" said Rodriguez.
"Let us go to some village, master," said Morano, "until the time hesaid."
"What village?" Rodriguez asked.
"I know not, master," answered Morano, his face a puzzle of innocenceand wonder; and Rodriguez fell back into thought again. And the dancingflames calmed down to a deep, quiet glow; and soon Rodriguez steppedback a yard or two from the fire to where Morano had prepared his bed;and, watching the fire still, and turning over thoughts that flashedand changed as fast as the embers, he went to wonderful dreams thatwere no more strange or elusive than that valley's wonderful king.
When he spoke in the morning the camp-fire was newly lit and there wasa smell of bacon; and Morano, out of breath and puzzled, was calling tohim.
"Master," he said, "I was mistaken about those horses."
"Mistaken?" said Rodriguez.
"They were just as I left them, master, all tied to the tree with myknots."
Rodriguez left it at that. Morano could make mistakes and the forestwas full of wonders: anything might happen. "We will ride," he said.
Morano's breakfast was as good as ever; and, when he had packed upthose few belongings that make a dwelling-place of any chance spot inthe wilderness, they mounted the horses, which were surely there, androde away through sunlight and green leaves. They rode slow, for thebranches were low over the path, and whoever canters in a forest andcloses his eyes against a branch has to consider whether he will openthem to be whipped by the next branch or close them till he bumps hishead into a tree. And it suited Rodriguez to loiter, for he thoughtthus to meet the King of Shadow Valley again or his green bowmen andlearn the answers to innumerable questions about his castle which werewandering through his mind.
They ate and slept at noon in the forest's glittering greenness.
They passed afterwards by the old house in the wood, in which thebowmen feasted, for they followed the track that they had taken before.They knocked loud on the door as they passed but the house was empty.They heard the sound of a multitude felling trees, but whenever theyapproached the sound of chopping ceased. Again and again they left thetrack and rode towards the sound of chopping, and every time thechopping died away just as they drew close. They saw many a tree halffelled, but never a green bowman. And at last they left it as one ofthe wonders of the forest and returned to the track lest they lose it,for the track was more important to them than curiosity, and eveninghad come and was filling the forest with dimness, and shadows stealingacross the track were beginning to hide it away. In the distance theyheard the invisible woodmen chopping.
And then they camped again and lit their fire; and night came down andthe two wanderers slept.
The nightingale sang until he woke the cuckoo: and the cuckoo filledthe leafy air so full of his two limpid notes that the dreams ofRodriguez heard them and went away, back over their border todreamland. Rodriguez awoke Morano, who lit his fire: and soon they hadstruck their camp and were riding on.
By noon they saw that if they hurried on they could come to Lowlight bynightfall. But this was not Rodriguez' plan, for he had planned to rideinto Lowlight, as he had done once before, at the hour when Serafinasat in her balcony in the cool of the evening, as Spanish ladies inthose days sometimes did. So they tarried long by their resting-placeat noon and then rode slowly on. And when they camped that night theywere still in the forest.
"Morano," said Rodriguez over the camp-fire, "tomorrow brings me toLowlight."
"Aye, master," said Morano, "we shall be there tomorrow."
"That senor with whom I had a meeting there," said Rodriguez, "he ..."
"He loves me not," said Morano.
"He would surely kill you," replied Rodriguez.
Morano looked sideways at his frying-pan.
"It would therefore be better," continued Rodriguez, "that you shouldstay in this camp while I give such greetings of ceremony in Lowlightas courtesy demands."
"I will stay, master," said Morano.
Rodriguez was glad that this was settled, for he felt that to followhis dreams of so many nights to that balconied house in Lowlight withMorano would be no better than visiting a house accompanied by a dogthat had bitten one of the family.
"I will stay," repeated Morano. "But, master ..." The fat man's eyeswere all supplication.
"Yes?" said Rodriguez.
"Leave me your mandolin," implored Morano.
"My mandolin?" said Rodriguez.
"Master," said Morano, "that senor who likes my fat body so ill hewould kill me, he ..."
"Well?" said Rodriguez, for Morano was hesitating.
"He likes your mandolin no better, master."
Rodriguez resented a slight to his mandolin as much as a slight to hissword, but he smiled as he looked at Morano's anxious face.
"He would kill you for your mandolin," Morano went on eagerly, "as hewould kill me for my frying-pan."
And at the mention of that frying-pan Rodriguez frowned, although ithad given him many a good meal since the night it offended in Lowlight.And he would sooner have gone to the wars without a sword than underthe balcony of his heart's desire without a mandolin.
So Rodriguez would hear no more of Morano's request; and soon he leftthe fire and went to lie down; but Morano sighed and sat gazing on intothe embers unhappily; while thoughts plodded slow through his mind,leading to nothing. Late that night he threw fresh logs on thecamp-fire, so that when they awoke there was still fire in the embersAnd when they had eaten their breakfast Rodriguez said farewell toMorano, saying that he had business in Lowlight that might keep him afew days. But Morano said not farewell then, for he would follow hismaster as far as the midday halt to cook his next meal. And when nooncame they were beyond the forest.
Once more Morano cooked bacon. Then while Rodriguez slept Morano tookhis cloak and did all that could be done by brushing and smoothing togive back to it that air that it some time had, before it had flappedupon so many winds and wrapped Rodriguez on such various beds, and metthe vicissitudes that make this story.
For the plume he could do little.
And his master awoke, late in the afternoon, and went to his horse andgave Morano his orders. He was to go back with two of the horses totheir last camp in the forest and take with him all their kit exceptone blanket and make himself comfortable there and wait till Rodriguezcame.
And then Rodriguez rode slowly away, and Morano stood gazing mournfullyand warningly at the mandolin; and the warnings were not lost uponRodriguez, though he would never admit that he saw in Morano's staringeyes any wise hint that he heeded.
And Morano sighed, and went and untethered his horses; and soon he wasriding lonely back to the forest. And Rodriguez taking the other waysaw at once the towers of Lowlight.
Does my reader think that he then set spurs to his horse, gallopingtowards that house about whose balcony his dreams flew every night? No,it was far from evening; far yet from the colour and calm in which thelight with never a whisper says farewell to Earth, but with a gesturethat the horizon hides takes silent leave of the fields on which shehas danced with joy; far yet from the hour that shone for Serafina likea great halo round her and round her mother's house.
We cannot believe that one hour more than another shone upon Serafina,or that the dim end of the evening was only hers: but these are theChronicles of Rodriguez, who of all the things that befell himtreasured most his memory of Serafina in the twilight, and who heldthat this hour was hers as much as h
er raiment and her balcony: suchtherefore it is in these chronicles.
And so he loitered, waiting for the slow sun to set: and when at last atint on the walls of Lowlight came with the magic of Earth's most faeryhour he rode in slowly not perhaps wholly unwitting, for all hisanxious thoughts of Serafina, that a little air of romance from theSpring and the evening followed this lonely rider.
From some way off he saw that balcony that had drawn him back from theother side of the far Pyrenees. Sometimes he knew that it drew him andmostly he knew it not; yet always that curved balcony brought himnearer, ever since he turned from the field of the false Don Alvidar:the balcony held him with invisible threads, such as those with whichEarth draws in the birds at evening. And there was Serafina in herbalcony.
When Rodriguez saw Serafina sitting there in the twilight, just as hehad often dreamed, he looked no more but lowered his head to thewithered rose that he carried now in his hand, the rose that he hadfound by that very balcony under another moon. And, gazing still at therose, he rode on under the balcony, and passed it, until his hoof-beatswere heard no more in Lowlight and he and his horse were one dim shapebetween the night and the twilight. And still he held on.
He knew not yet, but only guessed, who had thrown that rose from thebalcony on the night when he slept on the dust: he knew not who it wasthat he fought on the same night, and dared not guess what that unknownhidalgo might be to Serafina. He had no claim to more from that house,which once gave him so cold a welcome, than thus to ride by it insilence. And he knew as he rode that the cloak and the plume that hewore scarce seemed the same as those that had floated by when more thana month ago he had ridden past that balcony; and the withered rose thathe carried added one more note of autumn. And yet he hoped.
And so he rode into twilight and was hid from the sight of the village,a worn, pathetic figure, trusting vaguely to vague powers of goodfortune that govern all men, but that favour youth.
And, sure enough, it was not yet wholly moonlight when cantering hoovescame down the road behind him. It was once more that young hidalgo. Andas soon as he drew rein beside Rodriguez both reached out merry handsas though their former meeting had been some errand of joy. And asRodriguez looked him in the eyes, while the two men leaned overclasping hands, in light still clear though faded, he could not doubtSerafina was his sister.
"Senor," said his old enemy, "will you tarry with us, in our house afew days, if your journey is not urgent?"
Rodriguez gasped for joy; for the messenger from Lowlight, thecertainty that here was no rival, the summons to the house of hisdreams' pilgrimage, came all together: his hand still clasped thestranger's. Yet he answered with the due ceremony that that age andland demanded: then they turned and rode together towards Lowlight. Andfirst the young men told each other their names; and the stranger toldhow he dwelt with his mother and sister in the house that Rodriguezknew, and his name was Don Alderon of the Valley of Dawnlight. Hishouse had dwelt in that valley since times out of knowledge; but thenthe Moors had come and his forbears had fled to Lowlight: the Moorswere gone now, for which Saint Michael and all fighting Saints bepraised; but there were certain difficulties about his right to theValley of Dawnlight. So they dwelt in Lowlight still.
And Rodriguez told of the war that there was beyond the Pyrenees andhow the just cause had won, but little more than that he was able totell, for he knew scarce more of the cause for which he had fought thanHistory knows of it, who chooses her incidents and seems to forget somuch. And as they talked they came to the house with the balcony. Awaning moon cast light over it that was now no longer twilight; but wasthe light of wild things of the woods, and birds of prey, and men inmountains outlawed by the King, and magic, and mystery, and the questsof love. Serafina had left her place: lights gleamed now in thewindows. And when the door was opened the hall seemed to Rodriguez somuch less hugely hollow, so much less full of ominous whispered echoes,that his courage rose high as he went through it with Alderon, and theyentered the room together that they had entered together before. In thelong room beyond many candles he saw Dona Serafina and her motherrising up to greet him. Neither the ceremonies of that age norRodriguez' natural calm would have entirely concealed his emotion hadnot his face been hidden as he bowed. They spoke to him; they asked himof his travels; Rodriguez answered with effort. He saw by their mannerthat Don Alderon must have explained much in his favour. He had thistime, to cheer him, a very different greeting; and yet he felt littlemore at ease than when he had stood there late at night before, withone eye bandaged and wearing only one shoe, suspected of he knew notwhat brawling and violence.
It was not until Dona Mirana, the mother of Serafina, asked him to playto them on his mandolin that Rodriguez' ease returned. He bowed thenand brought round his mandolin, which had been slung behind him; andknew a triumphant champion was by him now, one old in the ways of loveand wise in the sorrows of man, a slender but potent voice,well-skilled to tell what there were not words to say; a voiceunhindered by language, unlimited even by thought, whose universalmeaning was heard and understood, sometimes perhaps by wanderingspirits of light, beaten far by some evil thought for their heavenlycourses and passing close along the coasts of Earth.
And Rodriguez played no tune he had ever known, nor any airs that hehad heard men play in lanes in Andalusia; but he told of things that heknew not, of sadnesses that he had scarcely felt and undreamedexaltations. It was the hour of need, and the mandolin knew.
And when all was told that the mandolin can tell of whatever iswistfulest in the spirit of man, a mood of merriment entered its oldcurved sides and there came from its hollows a measure such as theydance to when laughter goes over the greens in Spain. Never a song sangRodriguez; the mandolin said all.
And what message did Serafina receive from those notes that werestrange even to Rodriguez? Were they not stranger to her? I have saidthat spirits blown far out of their course and nearing the mundanecoasts hear mortal music sometimes, and hearing understand. And if theycannot understand those snatches of song, all about mortal things andhuman needs, that are wafted rarely to them by chance passions, howmuch more surely a young mortal heart, so near Rodriguez, heard what hewould say and understood the message however strange.
When Dona Mirana and her daughter rose, exchanging their littlecurtsies for the low bows of Rodriguez, and so retired for the night,the long room seemed to Rodriguez now empty of threatening omens. Thegreat portraits that the moon had lit, and that had frowned at him inthe moonlight when he came here before, frowned at him now no longer.The anger that he had known to lurk in the darkness on pictured facesof dead generations had gone with the gloom that it haunted: they wereall passionless now in the quiet light of the candles. He looked againat the portraits eye to eye, remembering looks they had given him inthe moonlight, and all looked back at him with ages of apathy; and heknew that whatever glimmer of former selves there lurks about portraitsof the dead and gone was thinking only of their own past days in yearsremote from Rodriguez. Whether their anger had flashed for a momentover the ages on that night a month from now, or whether it was onlythe moonlight, he never knew. Their spirits were back now surelyamongst their own days, whence they deigned not to look on the daysthat make these chronicles.
Not till then did Rodriguez admit, or even know, that he had not eatensince his noonday meal. But now he admitted this to Don Alderon'squestions; and Don Alderon led him to another chamber and there regaledhim with all the hospitality for which that time was famous. And whenRodriguez had eaten, Don Alderon sent for wine, and the butler broughtit in an olden flagon, dark wine of a precious vintage: and soon thetwo young men were drinking together and talking of the wickedness ofthe Moors. And while they talked the night grew late and chilly andstill, and the hour came when moths are fewer and young men think ofbed. Then Don Alderon showed his guest to an upper room, a long roomdim with red hangings, and carvings in walnut and oak, which the onecandle he carried barely lit but only set queer shadows scampering. Andhere he l
eft Rodriguez, who was soon in bed, with the great redhangings round him. And awhile he wondered at the huge silence of thehouse all round him, with never a murmur, never an echo, never a sigh;for he missed the passing of winds, branches waving, the stirring ofsmall beasts, birds of prey calling, and the hundred sounds of thenight; but soon through the silence came sleep.
He did not need to dream, for here in the home of Serafina he had cometo his dreams' end.
Another day shone on another scene; for the sunlight that went in anarrow stream of gold and silver between the huge red curtains had sentaway the shadows that had stalked overnight through the room, and hadscattered the eeriness that had lurked on the far side of furniture,and all the dimness was gone that the long red room had harboured. Andfor a while Rodriguez did not know where he was; and for a while, whenhe remembered, he could not believe it true. He dressed with care,almost with fear, and preened his small moustachios, which at last hadgrown again just when he would have despaired. Then he descended, andfound that he had slept late, though the three of that ancient housewere seated yet at the table, and Serafina all dressed in white seemedto Rodriguez to be shining in rivalry with the morning. Ah dreams andfancies of youth!