The Abbess Of Vlaye

  CHAPTER XII.

  THE PEASANTS' CAMP.

  Something after high noon des Ageaux appeared and, whatever theAbbess's feelings, he was overjoyed to find the three undisturbed. Hedespatched a flying party down the valley that he might have notice ifthe enemy approached, and then he bent himself to remove the Duke insafety to his camp. In this the Abbess had her own line to take, andtook it with decision. She represented the patient as worse than hewas, described the fever as still lingering upon him, and using theauthority which her devotion of the night gave her, she insisted thatthe Duke should see no one. A kind of shelter from the sun was wovenof boughs, and placed over the litter. He was then lifted and borneout with care, the Abbess walking on one side, and her woman on theother. In the open air des Ageaux would have approached and spoken tohim, for between gratitude and remorse the Lieutenant was muchtouched. But the authority of the sick-nurse was great then as it isnow. The Abbess repelled him firmly, and, refusing the horse which hadbeen brought for her, she persisted in walking the whole distance tothe camp--a full league--by the side of the litter. In this way shefenced others off, and the Duke had her always before him. Always theopening at the side of the litter framed her face.

  She gave her mind so completely to him that she took no note of theirroute, save that they kept the valley, which preserving its flatbottom now ran between hills of a wilder aspect. It was only when thetroopers, at a word from the Lieutenant, closed in about the litter,that she observed--though it had been some time in sight--the objectwhich caused the movement. This was a small hill-town, girt by aruinous wall, and buckled with crazy towers, which topped an acclivityon the right of the valley, and commanded the road. The suspicion withwhich her escort regarded the place did not surprise her when sheremarked the filthy forms and wild and savage faces which swarmed uponthe wall. There were women and children as well as men in the place,and all, ragged and half naked, mopped and mowed at the passers, or,leaping to their feet, defied them with unspeakable words andgestures.

  The Abbess looked at them with daunted eyes. There was somethinginhuman in their squalor and wildness. "Who are they?" she asked.

  "Crocans," the nearest rider answered.

  "But we are not going to them?" she returned in astonishment. She hadheard that they were bound for the peasants' camp, and her lip hadcurled at the information. But if these were Crocans--horror!

  The man spat on the ground. "That is one band, and ours is another,"he replied. "All canaille, but--not all like that, or we had somestrange bed-fellows indeed!"

  He would have said more, but he caught the Lieutenant's eye, and wassilent and five minutes later the Abbess saw a strange sight. Theriders before her wheeled to the left, and, bending low in theirsaddles, vanished bodily in the rock that walled the road on thatside.

  A moment later she probed the mystery. In the rock wall which fencedthe track on the left, as the river fenced it on the right, was anarched opening, resembling the mouth of a cave--of one of those cavesso common in the Limousin. Within was no cave, however, but a spaciouscircus of smooth green turf open to the heaven, though walled on everyside by grassy slopes which ran steeply to a height of a hundred feet.There was no entrance to the basin, but neither its defensiblestrength, nor the wisdom of the Crocans in choosing it, was apparentuntil the green rampart cast about it by nature was examined and foundto be so scarped on the outer side as to form here a sheer precipice,there a descent trying to the most active foot.

  A spring near the inner margin of this natural amphitheatre fed arivulet which, after passing across it, and dividing it into twounequal parts, escaped to the river through the rocky gateway.

  The smaller portion of the sward thus divided, a portion raised veryslightly above the rest, had something of the aspect of a stage on agreat scale. About its middle a flat-topped rock rising to a man'sheight from the ground had the air of an altar, and this was shaded bythe only tree in the enclosure, a single plane-tree of vast size,which darkened with its ancient smooth-barked limbs a half-acre ofground. Probably this rock and this tree had witnessed the meetings ofsome primitive people, had borne part in their human sacrifices, andechoed the cries with which they acclaimed the moment of the summersolstice.

  To-day this basin, long abandoned to the solitude of the hills,presented once more a scene of turmoil, such as for strangeness mightrival the gatherings of that remote age. Nor, save for a circumstancepresently to be named, could even the Abbess's sullen curiosity havewithheld a meed of admiration as the panorama unfolded itself beforeher.

  Round the edge of the larger half of the amphitheatre ran a longline--in parts double and treble, of booths open at the front, andformed, some of branches of trees, some of plaited rushes or osier.Under these, swarms of men, women, and children lounged in everyposture, while others strolled about the ground before the sheds,which, crowded with sheep, oxen and horses, wore the aspect of arustic fair. The turf that had been so fair a fortnight before wastrodden bare in places, and in others poached and stained by thecrowds that moved on it. Only the immediate bank of the rivulet hadbeen kept clear.

  The smaller portion of the sward had been given up to des Ageaux andhis band of troopers and refugees. A dozen horses tethered in anorderly row at the rear of the plane-tree, with a pile of gear at thehead of each, spoke of military order, as did the three or four boothswhich had been erected for the accommodation of the Vicomte's party.But as in such a place and under such circumstances it was impossibleto enforce strict discipline, the curious among the peasants, and notmen only, but women and children, roved in small parties on this sidealso, staring and questioning; some with furtive eyes as expecting atrap and treachery, others watching in clownish amazement theevolutions of a picked band of three score peasants whom the Bat wasbeginning to instruct in the use of their weapons and in the simplestmovements of the field. Here and there on the steep slopes about thesaucer were groups of peasants; and on the top of the ridge, which wasforbidden to the crowd, were five sentinels, stationed beside as manycairns of stones piled for the purpose at fixed distances from oneanother. These were of the Lieutenant's institution, for though thesafety of the camp hung wholly on the command of its naturalbattlement, which captured would convert the basin into a death-trap,the Crocans had kept no regular guard on it. He on his arrival hadentrusted its oversight to the two young Villeneuves, and one or theother was ever patrolling the length of the vallum, or from thehighest point searching the chaos of uninhabited hills and glens thatstretched on every side.

  This hasty sketch of the scene leaves to be fancied those worst traitsof the camp, of its wildness and savagery, that could not fail todisquiet the mind even of a bold woman. Many of the peasants were halfnaked, others were clad in cow-skins, in motley armour, in sordid,blood-stained finery. All went unshaven, and many had long, filthyelf-locks hanging about their faces, and ragged beards reaching totheir girdles. Some had squalid bandages on head or limb, and all werearmed grotesquely with bill-hooks or scythes, or with stakes pointedand hardened in the fire, or with knotty clubs. M. de Vlaye and hiskind would have seen in them only a horde to be exterminated withoutpity or remorse. Nor could their looks have failed to startle theAbbess, high as was her natural courage--if a thing had not at thevery entrance engaged her attention.

  For there, under the archway, a group of six men sat on their hams,their backs against the rock. And these were so foul in garb, andrepulsive in aspect, that the common peasants of the camp seemed bycomparison civilised. The Abbess shuddered at the mere look of them,and would have averted her eyes if they had not, as des Ageauxentered, risen and barred the way. The foremost, a tall, meagre figurewith a long white beard, and the gleam of madness in his eyes, seizedthe Lieutenant's bridle and raising his other hand seemed to forbidhis entrance. "Give us," he cried in a strange patois, "our man! Ourman!"

  The Abbess expected des Ageaux to strike him from his path, or bid hismen ride him down. But the Lieutenant cons
idered with patience thestrange figure clad much as John the Baptist is portrayed in pictures,and when he answered he spoke calmly. "You are from the town on thehill?" he said.

  "Ay, and we claim our man!"

  "The man, you mean, whom we took from your hands last night?"

  "Ay, that man!"

  "For what?"

  "That we may burn him," the savage answered, his face lit up by agleam of frightful cruelty. "That we may do to him as he has done tous and our little ones. That we may burn him as he and his have burnedus, from father to son, father to son, by the light of our own thatch.They have smoked us in our holes," he continued with ferocity, "asthey smoke foxes; and we will smoke him. He has done to us that! Andthat!" He turned, and at a sign two of his five fellows steppedforward and held aloft the maimed and ghastly stumps of their arms."And that! And that!" Again two stepped forward and pointed to theireyeless sockets. "And what he has done to us we will do to him!"

  The Abbess turned sick at the sight. But des Ageaux answered withquietness. "Yet what has he done to you, old man," he asked, "that youstand foremost?"

  "He has blinded me there!" the madman answered, and with a strangelydramatic gesture pointed to his brow. "I am dark at times, and boysmock me! But to-day I am whole and well!"

  "I will not give him up to you!" the Lieutenant replied with calmdecision. "But if he has done the things of which you tell me, I willjudge him myself and punish him. Nay"--staying them sternly as theybegan to cry out upon him, "listen to me now! I have listened to you.For all who come in to me, and cease from pillage, and burning, andmurder. I give my warrant that the past shall be overlooked. Theyshall be free to go back to their villages, or if they dare not goback they shall be settled elsewhere, with pardon for life and limb.But for those who do not come in, the burden of all will fall uponthem! The law will pass upon them without mercy, and their gibbetswill be on every road!"

  "Not so!" the other cried, raising himself to his full height andflinging his lean arms to heaven. "Not so, lord, for the time is full!Hear me, too, man of blood. We know you. You speak softly because thetime is full, and you would fain cast in your lot with us and escape.But you are of those who ride in blood, and who trust in the strengthof your armour, and who eat of the fat and drink of the strong, whilethe poor man perishes under the feet of your horses, while the earthgroans under the load of your wickedness, and God is mocked. But thetime is full, and there comes an end of your gyves and your gibbets,your wheels and your molten lead! The fire is kindled that shall burnyou. Is there one of you for ten of us? Can your horses bear youthrough the sea when the fire fills all the land? Nay, three monthshave we burned all ways, and no man has been able to withstand ourfire! For it grows! It grows!"

  The fierce murmurings of the madman's fellows almost drowned desAgeaux' voice when he went to answer. "Your blood be on your ownheads!" he said solemnly. "I have spoken you fairly, I have given youthe choice of good and of evil."

  "Nought but evil," the other cried, "can proceed out of your mouth!Now give us our man!"

  "Never!"

  "Then will we burn you for him," the madman shrieked, in suddenfrenzy, "when you fall into our hands. You and these--women withbreasts of flint and hearts of the rock-core, who bathe in the bloodof our infants, and make a holiday of our torments! Beware, for whennext we meet, you die!"

  "Be it so!" des Ageaux replied, sternly restraining his men, who wouldhave fallen on the hideous group. "But begone!"

  They turned away, mopping and mowing--one was a leper--and liftinghands of imprecation. And the Abbess, while the litter was beinglifted, was left for a moment with des Ageaux. She hated him, but shedid not understand him; and it was the desire to understand him thatled her to speak.

  "Why did you not seize the wretches," she asked, "and punish them?"

  "Their turn will come," he replied coldly. "I would have saved them ifI could."

  "Saved them?" she exclaimed. "Why?"

  "Who knows what they have suffered to bring them to this?"

  She laughed in scorn of his weakness--who fancied himself a match forthe Captain of Vlaye! His cold words, his even manner, had somewhatdeceived her. But now she saw that he was a fool, a fool. She saw thatif she detached Joyeuse there was nothing in this man M. de Vlaye needfear.

  She left him then. She had had no sleep the previous night, and lothas she was to lose sight of the Duke or to give another the chance ofsupplanting her, she knew that she must rest. So weary was she aftershe had eaten that the rough couch in the hut set apart for her--herwomen after the mode of the day slept across the door or where theycould--might have been a chamber in the heart of some guarded palaceinstead of a nook sheltered from curious eyes only by a wall ofboughs. She had that healthiness which makes nerves and evenconscience superfluous, and could not anywhere have slept better orbeen less aware of the wild life about her. The slow tramp of armedmen, the voices of the watch upon the earth-wall, that to waking earstold of danger and suspicion--these were no more to her in her fatiguethan the silent march of the summer stars across the sky.

  When she awoke on the following morning, refreshed and full of energy,the sun was an hour high, and the peasants' camp was astir. In oneplace the Bat was drilling his three score men as if he had neverceased; in another food was being apportioned, and forage assigned.Neither des Ageaux nor her brothers were visible, but hard by her doorthe Vicomte, attended by Bonne and Solomon, sat with a hand on eitherknee, and gazed piteously on the abnormal scene.

  The uppermost feeling in the old man's mind was a querulous wonder;first that he had allowed himself to be dragged from his house,secondly that, even since Coutras, things were suffered to come tothis pass. How things had come to this, why his life and home had beenbroken up, why he had had no voice in the matter, and why his sons,even crooked-back Roger, went, and came, and ordered, without so muchas a _by your leave_ or an _if you please_--these were points that byturns puzzled and enraged him, and in the consideration of which hefound no comfort so great as that which Solomon assiduouslyadministered.

  "Ah!" the old servant remarked more than once, as he surveyed with ajaundiced eye the crowded camp beyond the rivulet, "they are full ofthemselves! But I mind the day--it was when you entertained theGovernors, my lord--when they'd have looked a few beside the servantswe had to supper in the courtyard! A few they'd look. I'd sixty-twomen, all men of their hands, and not naked gipsies like these, to myown table!"

  Which was true; but Solomon forgot to add that it was the only table.

  "Ay!" the Vicomte said, pleased, though he knew that Solomon waslying. "Times are changed."

  "Since Coutras--devil take them!" Solomon rejoined, wagging his beard."There were men then. 'Twas a word and a blow, and if we didn't runfast enough it was to the bilboes with us, and we smarted. Yourlordship remembers. But now, Heaven help us," he continued withgrowing despondency as his eye alighted on des Ageaux, who had justappeared in the distance, "the men might be women! Might be women, andmealy-mouthed at that!"

  The Vicomte laughed an elderly cackling laugh. "You didn't think, man,that the Villeneuves would come to this?" he said.

  "Never! And would no wise ha' believed it!"

  "Who were once masters of all from Barbesieux to Vlaye!"

  "And many a mile further!" Solomon cried, leaping on the profferedhobby. "There were the twenty manors of Passirac"--he began to counton his hands. "And the farms of Perneuil, more than I have fingers andtoes. And the twenty manors of Corde, and the great mill there--thefive wind-mills of Passirac I don't think worth mentioning, thoughthey would make many a younger son a portion. Then the Abbey lands ofVlaye, and the great mill there that took in toll as much as wouldkeep a vicomte of these times, saving your lordship's presence. Andthen at Brenan----"

  Bonne, listening idly, heard so much. Then the Abbess, who, unnoticed,had joined the group, touched her elbow, and muttered in her ear: "Doyou see?"

  "What?" Bonne asked innocently.

  The Abbess raised her
hand. "Why he has dragged us all here," shesaid.

  Bonne followed the direction of her sister's hand, and slowly thecolour mounted to her cheeks. But, "Why?" she asked, "I don'tunderstand."

  "You don't understand," Odette answered, "don't you? It is plainenough--for the blind." And she pointed again to the Lieutenant, whowas standing at same distance from the group in close talk with theCountess. "The Lieutenant of Perigord is a great man while the Kingpleases, and when the King no longer pleases is an adventurer likeanother! A broken officer living at ordinaries," with a sneer, "atother men's charges. Such another as the creature they call the Bat!No better and no worse! But the Lieutenant of Perigord with the landsand lordships of Rochechouart were another and a different person. Andnone sees that more clearly than the Lieutenant of Perigord. He hasmade his opportunity, and he is not going to waste it. He has broughther here, and not for nothing."

  Bonne had an easy retort. "At least he is not the first to see hisinterest there!" lay ready to her tongue. But she did not utter it.She was silent. Her colour fluttered, as the tender, weakling hopethat she had been harbouring, for a few hours, died within her. Ofcourse she should have known it! The prize that had attracted theCaptain of Vlaye, the charm that had ousted her handsome sister fromhis heart--was it likely that M. des Ageaux would be proof againstthese--proof against them when she herself had no prior claim nor suchcounter-claims as beauty and brilliance? When she was but plain,homely, and country-bred, as her father often told her? She had beenfoolish; foolish in harbouring the unmaidenly hope, the forwardthought; foolish now in feeling so sharp and numbing a pain.

  But perhaps most foolish in her inability to await his coming. For heand the little Countess were approaching the group, at a slow pace;the girl talking with an animation that showed she had quite forgottenher shyness. Bonne marked the manner, the smile, the confiding upwardlook, the lifted hand; and she muttered something, and escaped beforethe two came within earshot.

  She wanted to be alone, quite alone, to have this out with herself;and she made for a tiny cup in the hillside, hidden from the camp bythe thick branches of the plane-tree. She had discovered it the daybefore, but when she gained it now, there in the hollow sat Roger,looking down on the scene below.

  He nodded as if he were not in the best of tempers; which was strange,for he had been in high spirits an hour before. She sat down besidehim, having no choice, but some minutes elapsed before he opened hismouth. Then, "Lord," he exclaimed, with something between a groan anda laugh, "what a fool a man can be!"

  She did not answer; perhaps for the word "man" she was substitutingthe word "woman." He moved irritably in his seat. "Hang it!" heexclaimed. "Say something, Bonne! Of course it seems funny to you thatbecause she thanked me prettily the day I tried to cover her retreatto the house and--and because she talked to me the night before lastas we rode--as if she liked it, I mean--I should forget who she is!"

  "Who she is," Bonne repeated quietly, thinking of some one else whohad forgotten.

  "And who I am!" he answered. "As if the Vicomte had not ground it intome enough! If I were Charles, she would still be--who she is, and meatfor my master. But as I am what I am," he laughed ruefully, "would youhave thought I could be such a fool, Bonne?"

  "Poor Roger," she said gently.

  "She clung to me that day, when I ran with her. But, dash it"--rubbinghis head--"I must not think of it. I suppose she would have clung toold Solomon just the same!"

  "I am afraid so!" Bonne said, smiling faintly. It was certain that shehad not clung to any one. Yet there were analogies.

  "I suppose you--you saw them just now?"

  "Yes, I saw them."

  "She never talked to me like that! Why should she--a thing like me."Poor Roger! "I knew the moment I cast eyes on them. You did, too, Isuppose?"

  "Yes," she answered.

  Perhaps Roger had hoped in his heart for a different reply, for hestared gloomily at the swarming huts visible above the tree. Andfinally, "There is Charles," he said, "walking the ridge--against thesky-line there! Why cannot I be like him, as happy as a king, with myhead full of battles and sieges, and the Bat more to me than any womanin the world! Why cannot I? With such a pair of shoulders as I have--"

  "Dear lad!"

  "I should be in his shoes and he in mine! Lord, what a fool!" withgloomy unction. "What a fool! I must needs think of _her_ when apeasant girl would not look at me. I must needs think of the Countessof Rochechouart! Oh, Lord, as if I had anything to give her! Or aughtI could do for her!"

  Bonne did not reply on the instant, But presently, "There is somethingyou can do for her," she ventured. "It is not much, but----"

  "What?" he said. "I know nothing."

  "You can help him."

  "I?"

  "The mouse helped the lion. You can help him and be at his side, andguard him in danger--for her sake. Just as," Bonne continued, hervoice sinking a little, "if you were a girl, and--and felt for him asyou feel for her, you could watch over her and protect her and keepher safe--for his sake. Though it would be harder for a woman, becausewomen are jealous," Bonne added thoughtfully.

  "And men too!" Roger rejoined from the depths of his small experience."All the same I will do it. And I am glad it is he. He won't beat her,or shut her up and leave her in some lonely house as Court people do.I believe," he continued gloomily, "I'd as soon it was he as any one."

  Bonne nodded. "That is agreed then," she said softly, though a momentbefore she had sighed.

  "Agreed?" rather grumpily. "Well, if one person can agree, it is!" Andthen, thinking he had spoken thanklessly to the sister who had beenhis friend and consoler in many a dark hour when the shadow of hisdeformity had hidden the sun, he laid his hand on hers and pressed it."Well, agreed it is!" he said more brightly. "They came from theiroutside world to our poor little life, and we must help them backagain, I suppose. I would not wish them ill, if--if it would make mestraight again."

  "That is a big bribe," she said, smiling. "But neither would I--if itwould make me as handsome as Odette!"

  "No!"

  They sat silent then. Far away on their left, where lay the entranceto the camp from the river gorge, men were piling stones under thearchway, so as to leave but a narrow passage. Below them on the rightthe Bat was drilling his pikemen, and alternately launching his lankform this way and that in a fever of impatience. On the sky-line menwere pacing to and fro, searching with keen eyes the misty distance ofglen and hill; and ever and anon the squeal of a war-horse rang abovethe multitudinous sounds of the camp. On every side, wherever the eyerested, it discovered signs of strife and turmoil, harbingers of painand death.

  But though the two who looked down on the scene neither knew it northought of it, with them in their little hollow was a power mightierthan any, the power that in its highest form does indeed make theworld go round; the one power in the world that is above fortune,above death, above the creeds--or, shall we say, behind them. For withthem was love in its highest form, the love that gives and does notask, and being denied--loves. In their clear moments men know thatthis love is the only real thing in the world; and a thousand timesmore substantial, more existent, than the objects we grasp and see.