Gerfalcon [The Neustrian Cycle #1] Read online

  He had done right. He had done the brave and honourable thing. He had forced Rogier – since Rogier was amenable to generosity – to unsay his words. But the more he thought of the occasion of the quarrel, the clearer the fact became that however kind and dear and splendid she might be, the Countess Adela of Ger had, had, had a face like a horse.

  CHAPTER II

  TOURNEY AT BELSAUNT

  "My lord Count, if Charles may go to the tourney at Belsaunt, why may not I?"

  Raoul spoke beseechingly. He was just seventeen, and had lived three months in wardship to his uncle. To the grief of his grandmother's death had succeeded the pain of leaving Marckmont and the shock of his reception at Ger; a dreamer whose frequent desire was to be alone found little comfort in the castle of the Warden of the Coast March. Outside the spring gales howled along the coast; on hearth and at board the gentle face and manners of Raoul provoked derision. Count and Countess let their contempt of him be seen, and forthwith men-at-arms growled in his hearing that women's care made a wench of him; pages grew insolent, servants moved slowly to do his bidding, and only the Viscount Charles displayed goodwill – Charles, who was far too indolent to bestir himself on behalf of another. Charles it was who told his cousin of the Count's decision; Raoul had never doubted that he, too, would see the tilting at Belsaunt, and genuine astonishment projected him into his uncle's presence.

  Count Armand, closeted in the winter parlour with his brother-in-law, the Count of Barberghe, looked up; in the space of a silent half-minute his hard blue eye reduced his nephew's surprise to discomfiture.

  "Since my lord Baron thus breaks in upon us, Barberghe," he said at length, laying down his pen, "we can only postpone our poor duties to attend upon his pleasure."

  Crimsoning at his kinsman's tone, Raoul flung up his head.

  "It is not my fault that I am a baron," he protested.

  The beginnings of a vulpine Bargerghe grin attested this revelation of youthful insight; the Count of Ger leaned forward and brought a great fist slowly down upon the table.

  "Nor mine, by the blood of the Pope!" he growled. "To my own house, and in this hold, and up and down these coasts, I give no reason for the asking. Yet since you are my brother's son – I had his word for it, or, seeing the whelp you are, it were a matter of sore doubt – I tell you this. Your Marckmont is a barony of sand and water; under my mother its steward was thriftless or a thief. I will not spend its yield of half a year in mounting and equipping one who seems so little likely to benefit by sight of tourney. Do you thing to ride in the squire's mellay – you, whom the wind of a backhanded blow from my son Charles, or from my lord's son Robin, would unhorse?"

  "It is true Charles is too heavy for me, but Robin I will any day–"

  "Begone!"

  The sudden bellow of wrath blew Raoul like a leaf from the room. He climbed to the battlements, and cursed and cried a little in the gust rain.

  "If father were alive he would not dare – they would none of them treat me as they do," he told himself. "Must I stick a dagger in someone before they will leave me alone? Why did grandmother teach me courtesy, knowing what sort of churl I must live among until I am of age? Another year of this … and first, I must learn to kill animals as though I liked it."

  A memory came to him of the cloisters at Sanctalbastre, with the kind eyes of Brother Ambrose peering across the garth as he repeated Raoul's question.

  "Why do men like killing, boy? Because it is an usurpation of the power of God. What God began, they have ended; red with the mortal sin of murder, they feel godlike power, and fall into the mortal sin of pride."

  "But wicked men, Brother, … they must sometimes be slain…"

  "Yes, or the good would perish from the earth. Yet the slaying of men is forever ignoble. When you ride against the wicked, Raoul, let your work be swift and sorrowful. Guard against glee in torment or in killing; for in cruelty is all things most abominable."

  "But animals … the mysteries of woods and rivers … are they cruel?"

  "Only as life is cruel. Call off your hounds, and the boar will one day meet his rival and go down. The crippled wolf is torn by the pack with which he hunted. Children must play unafraid in the village streets. Roads and crops must be guarded. And as for flesh and fish to eat … I know a boy who is inordinately fond of salmon."

  Raoul had laughed, but the old monk's words stayed with him. He had remembered them when, rocking with the hunt through the forest towards Guarenal, he came upon a kill, and saw his cousin Charles dismounted and transfigured – bright-eyed, exultant, with a great splash of boar's blood on his cheek, a reeking spear in his uplifted hand, and a disembowelled dog between his feet. And now, with the breakers surging and spurting far below him, Raoul remembered the words again, and shrugged impatient shoulders.

  "I am a fool, I suppose. But I could never enjoy the chase at Marckmont; falconry is better, but here you must be smothered in blood before they think you are a man."

  With which reflection he turned from the damp embrasure and dived morosely down a turret-stair. Gaining his own small chamber, he bolted the door against intrusion, and dragged from behind the ancient hangings a bundle wrapped in a cloak. This bundle he had hidden when, after his arrival the thin-lipped Countess (a Barberghe of the Barberghes) bade him lay out his clothing for her scrutiny; when sick for Marckmont he had several times unrolled it, finding comfort in these things that came thence and were his very own. A short-sleeved shirt of fine link-mail two sizes too large for him, a plain sword and sheath that had been his father's with a sword-belt of coloured leather and a silver-hilted dagger murderously sharp – these were his principal treasures. There was also a wallet containing a purse and a small ballad-book which the Countess Adela brought with her to Ger when, fifty years before, she fled with the great Count Bors from Hautarroy. And now the ballad-book was come again to Ger; each word in it was copied by the Countess Adela herself, and a faint perfume clung about its mouldering cover of undressed hide…

  Raoul sniffed at it, squatting limply on the great press at the foot of his bed. Immediately he was at Marckmont, gaily picking his way on stilts amid the half-drowned sedges where the marsh-fowl nested … going home to bathe in a noble tub where no daft page would snigger at his scraggy ribs, and no fat, serving-girl would blunder in upon him as though by accident, backing out with a squeal of mock alarm, yet finding time to feast her little pig's eyes on his shrinking body … going home to sup with the Countess Adela, and afterward to sit on a cushion by her chair, plucking at his lute-strings or reading the ballads aloud, pausing to look up into the fierce old face – a face like bronze in candlelight and firelight…

  The embroidered purse clinked as he opened it; its contents, emptied on the dark oak of the press, gleamed and glittered in the dull light of the dreary room. There were two gold rings – a signet bearing the swan of Marckmont, and a thinner loop giving rise to a falcon's claw that gripped and partly covered a cut sapphire. There were a dozen gold nobles and a few silver florins, an amulet or two, a string of amber beads with a little pectoral crucifix – a golden figure on a dross of jet – and a tiny image of Our Lady, carved in ivory, that Raoul's mother had worn around her neck through the heat and dust and agony of Ajetta, Raoul fingered it lovingly, staring down at the smiling ivory face. Its beauty was the same as ever, but life was very different...

  "This Ger is a beastly and barbarian hold," he thought. "If ever the chance came I would startle them … but that is folly, for I am not strong, except a little in my hands and arms, because I was born under the Sign of Gemini the Twins … Sancta Maria, gratia plena, make me strong and brave. Amen.

  "Perhaps my boorish lord intends not, spite, but thrift, for I know nothing of these costs and charges. Still it is hard not to go to Belsaunt, and to live here, where no one will even play chess with me … and my lute will be spoiled at Marckmont, fool that I was to forget it … and now I must go down and hear these Barberghes yelping, and see the pages w
iping their noses on their sleeves in open hall."

  He sighed, and put his gear away, high on the dusty sill of a bricked in window where bed-curtains and hangings hid it. Then slowly, he prepared himself to descend and carve at the board of the Count of Ger.

  * * * *

  On the morning of departure for Belsaunt Raoul stood by the steps of the great hall, watching the last bustle of preparation. Forty feet above him a biting sea-wind drove across the battlements, but sunlight slanted warmly into the inner bailey, meeting everywhere the sable gerfalcon of Ger – on the drooping banner of cloth of gold, on the yellow surcoats of the men-at-arms, on the gaily-painted horse-litters which would carry the countesses and their women, and on the device of tinted stone which capped the arch of the hall doorway. Steel glittered, silk and velvet shone, coat of charger and pack-horse glistened black and bay and chestnut; even the stable-dunghill gave hues of straw and brown and amber, as though for a background to the russet sheen of Robin Barberghe's marvellous new riding-boots, that came up to the thigh and were embroidered with crimson thread and clipped by silver spurs…

  Since Robin learned that Raoul was to stay at Ger his sallow face had lit with malice when the younger boy came near. Raoul knew perfectly that Robin watched from his saddle for signs of disappointment; so he, Raoul, turned a bright and interested face this way and that, admiring the mustering cavalcade. Presently he caught, amid the din, the words which Robin flung over his shoulder to the Viscount Charles.

  "’Ware gosling by the steps as you ride out," called Robin. "Someone left the gate of the poultry-run unlatched this morning."

  Charles grinned, suspecting a jest. Raoul had actually peered among the horsehoofs before he took the allusion to himself and his heraldic swan. His lips tightened; threading his way sedately to Robin's stirrup. He paused and bent with simulated awe above the russet-covered foot. Then, straightening himself, he turned an anxious face to Charles.

  "It is wise and seemly to draw attention from the other end of this chevalier," he cried, "But that tidy glory will never come off, unless it be by family enchantment. And what will the Jew say who lent it to him?"

  Charles grinned again, for a female Barberghe of another branch had fled abroad to escape a charge of sorcery, and part of the Count's plate had been given as Jew's security for moneys to finance this present expedition; but Robin's face darkened, and he drew the tail of his riding-switch across the back of Raoul's neck.

  "Get hence, little stay-at-home," he advised. "Get to your carving, poor little knave."

  For answer, and before Robin could even raise the switch to strike, Raoul caught at the boot beside him, twitched the stirrup-iron from beneath the polished sole, and swung the spurred heel high in air, spilling the startled Viscount of Barberghe from his saddle into the drying edges of the dunghill.

  "Fiend rip you up, you little viper!" screeched Robin, scrambling to his feet and tearing out his new dagger as though to make superfluous the invocation. But dismay at his plight halted him in his second stride; two pages of his father's household flung themselves with shocked faces and flapping hands upon their lord's soiled magnificence.

  Raoul, white-faced and breathing hard, had backed to the steps. Charles rocked in his saddle with glee. A Barberghe man-at-arms took a threatening pace forward, but a tall archer of Ger lounged purposefully athwart his path. Across an eddy of laden pack-horses Raoul caught the eye of gaunt De Castlon, his uncle's chamberlain. De Castlon's long lip twitched; he made an imperative sideways gesture of the head. Raoul took the hint, and was halfway down the great hall before the Counts of Ger and Barberghe came out upon the steps; for those lords lingered in converse with the old Vice-Warden of the March – to whom, as the most-trusted man in Nordanay, and a former comrade of his father, Count Armand relegated such times as these the care of his official duties and the keeping of the hold of Ger.

  From above the main gateway Raoul watched the head of the long column cross the isthmus, pass the barbican, and take the inland road towards the moors. The falcon of Ger, the chevrons of Barberghe, woke to the cold north-easter and danced above the slanting spears: in less than half an hour the last sparkle of steel had disappeared over the brow of the rise above Gramberge.

  "They go by Hastain for the better road," thought Raoul.

  He eyed the heathery wastes, the dip and spread of scurrying cloud-shadows, the tranquil little town across the harbour, the surges smoking in the eastern cove; and presently a great idea shook him. He gasped, caught at the cold iron of a cresset-foot, and glanced along the battlements to where two sentinel men-at-arms leaned on their spears.

  "I am afraid to do it," he said darkly to himself. "I must do it, because I am afraid. Besides, grandmother used to say that I must always welcome a journey, because my birth-sign Gemini is ruled by Mercury, the planet kind to travellers … and if Saturn was high at my birth, yet Mercury will bear me up against too much sadness."

  * * * *

  "But, lad, I cannot give you leave," said the Baron de Guarenal, smiling and pulling at his white goat's beard. 'Your uncle told you nothing of his orders to you – indeed, he did not mention you – but there he is on the Hastain road, and here you are; the inference is plain."

  "But, my lord, he did not forbid me to go to Belsaunt. He only said he would not be at the cost of taking me, because – because my lands are poor, he said…

  The wrinkles deepened round the eyes of the old Vice-Warden. His thin red face was kindly; and he was Raoul's nearest kinsman on the distaff side, though the actual relationship was distant.

  "Ger said that, did he? Well, he is careful of his own affairs, and no doubt extends a similar care to the affairs of his ward … but clearly, my adventurous lording, I cannot sit on your uncle's chair and bid you flatly disobey a command inherent, if not expressed…"

  "Then, my lord, I will not ask for your leave. I will ask you to let me go hunting in the forest."

  "What, alone? No huntsmen, and no dogs?"

  "Well … if you should happen to ride out, my lord, with a falconer or two, and I were to–"

  "God save me from conspiracy when you are of the covenant, lad. You mean you could disappear, and leave me to explain to your uncle's folk that a baron gone astray was no matter for search and outcry?"

  "My lord, I may seem foolish, but I … I beg you…"

  "Grandfather, let him go! It is a shame he should be left behind! A mean man's chair is not the place for you … stand up and tell him he can go!"

  "Hey, now am I in trouble," sighed the old man, rounding stiffly on the newcomer.

  Raoul, too, had turned at the interruption. A brown girl stood by the door. Beneath a round brown velvet cap her thick dark hair was square-cut like a boy's; her eyes were brown and friendly, her face sunburned and vivid – wide-browed, snub-nosed, with a full-lipped mouth and round advancing chin. Her velvet riding-frock was umber-coloured, and shortened to six inches below the knee; beneath it both high boots were spurred, for the new side-saddle was little used in Nordanay.

  "This, lawless one, is Raoul, Baron of Marckmont," said the Vice-Warden, grimly; "and this, my lord, is my – my granddaughter Reine."

  Raoul bowed; the girl inclined her head impatiently.

  "You are cousins in the third degree," added the old man, twitching the lower half of his nose sideways in a fashion twice observed by Raoul before he could believe it.

  Reine sauntered across the room and perched on the table by De Guarenal's chair, looking down on its occupant with a smile that dealt Raoul a pleasurable wound. He was shy of girls, but this one interested him because she was affianced to his cousin Charles.

  "Now why should I look forward this lording's fell design?" inquired the Vice-Warden, eyeing his grandchild with mock severity.

  "Because you would have wanted to go at his age, dear lord and grandpa!"

  "Umph … yes, that should I." Then, turning to the expectant Raoul: "You know the roads are not of the healthiest for solitary t
ravellers?"

  "Till Guarenal the way is safe, my lord; and from Montenair to Belsaunt there are always pilgrims, and the Castellan's archers ride a league this side each day. Only from Guarenal to Montenair is there any risk; and even there, Saint-Aunay divides the journey. If I leave by noon I can make Saint-Aunay by sundown. And to-morrow the Count's people will be on the road."

  "H'm. It could be done. Have you a horse?"

  "Yes. Of my own." (This was Babee, a bay from Marchmont.)

  "Arms and money?"

  "Sufficient."

  "And you are not afraid of Joris of the Rock or of Lorin de Campscapel?"

  "Not until I see them, my lord."

  But the names of the infamous outlaw and the Count of Alanol struck chilly amid Roul's self-conceit.

  "Would you like to examine the view from Chateau Guarenal?" demanded the Vice-Warden gruffly.

  Raoul hesitated, not yet sure of this red-faced old war-captain; and Reine sniffed.

  "Go on, stupid; say yes," she urged.

  "Yes … why, yes, my lord."

  "Then go and look at it," came the command. "Three of my men ride thither in half an hour's time. You will accompany them; and then my steward will have orders to entertain you fittingly, to let you come or go as you desire. To-day is Monday; you must be here again be Saturday noon… No, no, do not thank me; thank this imp here…"

  Raoul seized the girl's hand between his own and wrung it joyously. Reine grimaced and dragged her fingers away.

  "What a grip!" she exclaimed half-ruefully. "Farewell Joris of the Rock, if he tries a fall with you. But truly I had rather have my knuckles ground together thus than kissed by Robin Barberghe."

  "Why, what has Robin done?" asked Raoul.

  "Robin? I do not like him. He asked for my colours to wear at the tourney … after kicking Charlemagne out of the room. Charlemagne is my little dog. He bit Robin, it is true. But I offended Robin by refusing twice. He was very angry, and very polite, and it was like a hot pudding on the back of my hand."