Surprised as I was by the strangeness of this place, and by the meaning of the pennons about the walls, I had at first failed to note a small table standing in the very center of the hail. But as I neared it, I considered it closely. It was ornately gilt-worked; and it stood between me and the arched entryway as if it had been placed there for some purpose. When I came to it, I saw that on it lay a silver tray like a serving dish, polished until it reflected the wails and ceiling without flaw. All its workmanship was excellent; but I saw no reason for its presence there, and so I stepped aside to pass around the table toward the far entryway.
At my next step, I struck full against the outer door of the cottage. Of a sudden there was sunlight on my back, and my eyes were blurred by the brightness of the whitewashed walls. The dell lay about me as fragrant as if I had not left it to enter that place of witchery, and the red door was closed in my face.
Then for a time I stood motionless, as still as Leadenfoot when the fit comes upon him and he stops to consider the depths of his own stupidity. It seemed to me that the mere taking of air into my lungs required great resolve, that the beating of my heart required deliberate choice, so unutterable was my astonishment. But then I perceived the foolishness of my stance and took hold of myself. Though the act gave me a pang akin to fear, I lifted my hand and knocked at the door again.
There was no answer. As my surprise turned to ire, I knocked at the door, pounded at it; but there was no answer. I shook mightily on the handle, kicked at the door, heaved against it with my shoulder. There was no answer and no opening. The door withstood me as if it were stone.
Then. I ran cursing around the cottage and strove to gain entrance another way. But there was no other door. And I could not break any window, either with fist or with stone.
At last it was the thought of the Lady in White that checked me. I seemed to feel her within her walls, laughing like the scornful birds of the Deep Forest. So I bit my anger into silence, and I turned on my heel, and I strode away from the cottage and the deli without a backward glance. And through my teeth I muttered to her in a voice that only I could hear, “Very well, my fine Lady. Believe that you have beaten me if you will. You will learn that you scorn me at your peril.”
But when I regained the old road, I ran and ran on my way back to the village, wearying my unwonted fury until I became master of myself once again.
When I returned to our hut. I found Festil my brother sitting in wait for me on the stoop. Hearing my approach, he said, “Mardik?” And I replied, “Festil.”
“Did you—?” he said.
“I failed,” I said. I had become myself again and was not afraid to speak the truth.
For a moment, I saw a strange pain in my brother’s face; but then the gaze of his blindness brightened, and he said, “Mardik my brother, did you take the Lady a gift?”
“A gift?” said I.
Then Festil laughed at my surprise. “A gift!” he said. “What manner of suitor are you, that you do not take a gift to the Lady of your heart?”
“A gift, forsooth!” I said. “I am not accustomed to need gifts to win my way.” But then I reflected that mad Festil my brother, loon and dreamer though he was, had had more success than I with the Lady in White. “Well, a gift, then,” I said. Considering his blindness and his happy smile, I asked, “And what was your gift?”
His laugh became the mischievous laugh of a boy. “I stole a white rose from the arbor of the priests,” he said.
Stole a rose? Aye, verily, that had the touch of mad Festil upon it. But I am not like him. I am Mardik the blacksmith, wheelwright and ironmonger. I had no need to steal roses. Therefore I slept confident that night, planning how I would make my gift.
Dawn found me in my smithy, with the music of the anvil in my heart. The blade of a discarded plowshare I put into the forge, and I worked the bellows until the iron was as white as sunfire. Then I doubled the blade over and hammered it flat while the smithy ran with bright sparks as the impurities were stricken away. Then I tempered it in the trough and put it in the forge again and worked the bellows so that the fire roared. Again I doubled it, hammered it flat, tempered it. Again I placed it in the forge. And when I had doubled it once again, hammered it to the shape I desired, and tempered it, I had formed a knife blade that no hand in the village could break.
To the blade I attached a handle of ox-horn; and then I gave the knife a keen edge on the great grindstone made by our father in his prime, when Festil and I were young. And all the while I worked, my heart sang its song, using the name of the Lady in White for melody.
My task was done before the passing of midday. With the new blade gleaming in my hand, I determined at once to assay that cottage of bewitchment without awaiting a new day. I returned to our hut to take food. I spoke pleasantly with Festil my brother, who listened to my voice with both gladness and concern in his face, as if the hazards of the Lady were as great as the rewards. But when I sought to learn more from him concerning the “test,” he turned his head away and would not speak.
Well, I felt that I had no need of further counsel. He had told me of the gift, and that was enough. I put the new knife in my belt and went just as I was, begrimed and proud from the smithy, to visit again the dell and the cottage of the Lady in White.
On my way between the dark and forbidding tree-walls of the Deep Forest, my confidence was weakened by a kind of dread—a fear that the branching of the road would be gone or lost. But it was not: it lay where I had left it, and it led me again to the dell of flowers and grass and the cottage of white walls and red wood.
At the door I paused, took the blade from my belt and held it before me. “Now, then, my fine Lady,” I muttered softly, “let us see if any man in the village can match such a gift as this.” With the butt of the knife, I rapped on the door.
Again the door swung inward. And again I saw no one, heard no one.
I entered at once and found myself once more in that huge high hall, castle-forecourt spacious enough to hold a dozen such cottages. But now I did not waste my time in wonder. Though the image of the Lady in White filled my very bones with desire—and though the pennons of the dead (young men consumed by whatever hunger drove that cruel and irrefusable woman) did not fail to raise my anger—still I had not lost all sense. I knew my time was short. If I were to fail another test, I meant to do so and be gone from this place before day’s end. No man would choose to travel the Deep Forest at night.
So I strode without delay across that long stone floor toward the table in the center of the hall. The light was dimmer than it had been the previous day—the afternoon sun did not shine into those high windows—and this dimness seemed to fortify the echoes, so that the sound of my feet marched all about me like a multitude as I approached the table. But I did not hesitate. Nor did I trouble myself to make any speech of gift-giving. I held up the knife so that any hidden eyes might see it. Then I placed it on the silver tray.
There was no response from the castle. No voices hailed my gift, and the Lady in White did not appear. I stood there before the table for a moment, allowing her time for whatever answer seemed fit to her. But when none came, I took my resolve in both hands and stepped around the table toward the arched entryway at the far end of the hall. Almost I winced, half expecting to find myself in the dell once more with the cottage door shut in my face.
But I did not. Instead, another thing came upon me— a thing far worse than any unexplained vanishing of hall and locking of cottage door.
Before I had gone five paces past the table, I heard a scream that turned the strength in my limbs to chaff. It rent the air. It echoed, echoed, about my head like the howling of the damned. A gust of chili wind near extinguished the blaze in the hearth, and some cloud covered the sun, so that the verges of the hall were filled with night. I spun where I was, searching through the gloom for the inhuman throat which had made that scream.
It was repeated, and repeated. And then the creature that made it cam
e down the broad stairs from the upper levels—came running with murder in its face and a great broadsword upraised in its foul hands, shrieking for my blood.
It was fiend-loathsome and ghoul-terrible, a thing of slime and scales and fury. Red flame ran from its eyes. In the dimness, its broadsword had the blue sheen of lightning. Its jaws were stretched to rend and kill, and it ran as if it lived for no other purpose than to hack my heart out from between my ribs for food.
The fear of it unmanned me. Even now, looking back on things that are past, I am not shamed to say that I was lost in terror—so much lost that I was unable to take the knife from my boot to defend myself. The creature screamed as it charged, and I screamed also.
Then I was lying on the greensward of the dell, and the afternoon sunlight was slanting through the treetops to glint in my eyes. The cottage stood near at hand, but the door was closed, and the windows had a look of abandonment. Only the curling of smoke from the chimney showed that the Lady in White was yet within, untouched by any desire or anger of mine.
Stricken and humbled, I left the dell and returned to the old road. As the sun drew near to setting, I went back through the Deep Forest toward the village.
But there was another thing in me beyond the humbling, and I came to know it soon. For while I was still within the bounds of the Forest, with the hand of the coming night upon me, I met a man upon the road. When we drew near enough to know each other, I saw that he was Creet the stonemason. He stood tall in the village; and it’s true that his head overtopped mine, though may-hap he was not as strong as I. We were somewhat friends, for like me he had done much wooing but no marrying— and somewhat wary one of another, for we had only measured our strength together once, and there had been no clear issue to that striving. But I gave no thought to such things now. For Crest the stonemason was walking into the Deep Forest at dusk, and there was a spring of eagerness in his step.
Seeing him, the other thing in me was roused; and I shifted my path to bar his way. “Go back, mason,” said I. “She is not for you.”
“I have seen her,” he replied without hesitation. “How can I go back? Mayhap you have failed to win her, blacksmith. Creet the stonemason will not.”
“You speak in ignorance, Creet,” said I. “She has slain men of this village. That I have seen.”
“Men!” he scoffed. “Paoul and Forin? They were boys, not men.” Clearly, he did not doubt himself. He placed a hand on my chest to push me from his way.
But I am Mardik the blacksmith, and I also can act without hesitation when I choose. I shrugged aside his hand and struck him with all my strength.
Then for a time we fought together there in the old road and the Deep Forest. Night came upon us, but we did not heed it. We struck one another, clinched, fell. arose to strike and clinch and fall again. Creet was mighty in his way, and his desire for the Lady in White was strong beyond bearing. But the other thing in me had raised its head: it was a thing of iron, a thing not to be turned aside by failure or fear or stonemasons. After a time, I struck Creet down, so that he lay senseless before me in the road.
Thus I chose my way—the way that brought me near to dying in the end, lost in the maze of the Deep Forest.
From the moment that I struck down Crest the stonemason, I gave no more thought to humbling or fear. I was Mardik the blacksmith, wheelwright and ironmonger. I was accustomed to have my will and did not mean to lose it at the hand of any Lady, however strange. I lifted Creet and stretched him across my shoulders and bore him with me and did not allow his weight to trouble me. So I became the first man in my lifetime to find his way out of the Deep Forest in darkness. —
I bore my burden direct to the Red Horse, where many of the men in the village were gathered, as was their custom in the evening. Giving no heed to their surprise, I thrust open the door, bore Crest into the aleroom, and dropped him there on a table among the tankards. He groaned in his slumber; but to him, also, I gave no heed.
“Hear me well,” I said to the silence about me. “I am Mardik the blacksmith, and if Creet cannot stand against me then no man in this village can hope otherwise. Now I say this: the Lady in White is mine. From this moment forth, no other man will follow her. If your sons see her, lock them in their rooms and stand guard at the door. If your brothers behold her, bind them hand and foot. If your friends are taken with the sight of her, restrain them with shackles of iron. And if you wish to go to her—why, then, tell your wives or your maidens or your mothers to club you senseless. For the Lady in White kills whom she does not keep. And I will be no more gentle to those who dare cross my way. The Lady in White is mine!”
Still there was silence for a moment in the aleroom. Then Pandeler the weaver rose to his feet and met my gaze with his grief for Paoul his son. “Will you kill her, then, Mardik the blacksmith?” he said.
“Pandeler,” I said, “I will do with her whatever seems good to me.”
I would have gone on to say that whatever I did no more young men of the village would lose their lives; but before I could speak, another man came forward to face me, and I saw that he was Gruel the mad priest. His habit was all of black, and his long gray beard trembled with passion, and his boney hands clung to the silver crucifix which hung about his neck. “She is the bride of Satan!” he said, fixing me with his wild eye. “Your soul will roast in Hell!”
“God’s blood!” I roared in answer. “Then it will be my soul that roasts, and not the souls of innocent calves who cannot so much as say aye or nay to their own mothers!” Then I left the aleroom and flung shut the door of the Red Horse so that the boards cracked.
Returning homeward, I found our hut all in darkness; and for a moment there was a fear in me that Festil had gone again into the Deep Forest. But then I recalled that Festil my brother had no need of light. I entered the hut and found him in his bed, awake in the night. When I opened his door, he said, “Mardik,” knowing me without doubt, for in the darkness he was no more blind than I.
“Festil,” I said. “Again I failed.”
“It was very fearsome,” he said; and in his voice I heard two things that surprised me—sorrow and a wish to console me. “Do not reproach yourself.”
“Festil,” I said again. My own voice was stern, There was a great need in me for the knowledge he could give. “What is that creature?”
“A test, my brother,” he said softly. “Only a test.”
“A test,” I echoed. Then I said, “A test you did not fail.”
After a moment, he breathed, “Aye.” And again there was sorrow in his voice—sorrow for me.
“How?” I demanded. My need for knowledge was great.
“I—” he began, then fell silent. But I waited grimly for him; and after a time he brought himself to speak. “I knelt before the creature,” he said, and he was whispering, “and I said, ‘Work your will, demon. I do not fear you, for I love your Lady, and you cannot harm my heart.’ And then the creature was gone, and I remained.” But then of a sudden his voice became stronger, and he cried out, “Mardik, you must not ask these things! It is wrong of me to speak of them. It is not a kindness to you—or to the Lady. You must meet each test in your own way, else all that you endure will have no purpose.”
“Do not fear, Festil my brother,” I said. “I will meet that creature in my own way, be it beast or demon.” That was a promise I made to myself and to the fear which the creature had given me. “Yet I must ask you to tell me of the other tests.”
“I must not!” he protested.
“Yet I must ask,” I said again. “Festil, young men are slain in that cottage, and it needs but little to make even old men follow the Lady to their graves. I cannot prevent their deaths if I cannot gain my way to speak with her.”
“Is that your reason?” he asked; and now the sorrow was thick and heavy in his voice. “Is that why you will return to her?”
Then I answered openly because I could not lie to that sound in my brother’s voice. “For that reason, an
d for the reason of your blindness. But if I lacked such reasons, yet I would go, for I desire the Lady in White with a desire that consumes me.”
Still he was silent; but I knew now that he would tell me all he could without false kindness. And at last he said softly, “There is a woman. You must find some answer to her need. And then there is a door.” Beyond that he could not speak.
But it sufficed for me. The thing I feared was a multitude of those screaming creatures; but now I knew there was but one. Therefore I was confident. Surely I could satisfy one woman. And as to the door—why, one door did not daunt me. I thanked Festil for his help and left him there in the darkness and spent the night planning for the day to come.
And in the dawn I left to carry out my will. I took a satchel of food with me, for I did not mean to return to the village until I had won or lost, and if I failed a test I would perforce remain in the dell until the next day to try again. Bearing the satchel on my shoulder, I went to Leadenfoot and lead him from the stables to my smithy, where I harnessed him to my wagon. Then into the wagon I placed all that I might need—hammers, an anvil, nails, chisels, rope, a small forge of my own making, an urn of banked coals for fire, a saddle and bridle for Leadenfoot, awls, a saw, shears, tongs, an axe, wood and charcoal— everything that need or whim suggested to me. And to all this I added a pitchfork—a stout implement with tempered tines which I had made especial for a doughty farmer who broke other pitchforks the way some men break axehafts. Then I was ready. I climbed up to the wagonbench, took the reins, released the brake, and went out through the village toward the old road and the Deep Forest.
I did not depart unnoticed, though the hour was yet early. My wagon does not roll quietly—it is well known that wheelwrights and blacksmiths do not tend their wagons as well as other men—and the squeal of the single-trees told all within earshot of my passing. Families came from their huts to see me go. But they did not speak, and I did not speak, and soon I was beyond them among the verges of the woods.