Joris of the Rock [The Neustrian Cycle, Book II] (Forgotten Fantasy Library) Read online

  But Joris interrupted, staring glassily into the fire, deepening his tone until it checked and whelmed the mild flow of edification.

  "So you were at Santloy that midsummer eve? We stood together in a strange hour, Friar."

  Brother Eugenius had paused politely; for a few seconds he waited. Then, meekly acquiescing in the sudden end of his own discourse, he eased the curiosity of Tiphaine by putting a question.

  "How so, Master Joris?"

  "Heard you aught of … a strange rapid fray that evening?"

  "Why, yes. I was a vespers and heard a tumult from the fair ground. Some of those in the church ran out, preferring a vain curiosity to their souls' welfare … and one, so I heard, got a death wound from an arrow in the very porch … but I held my place until the priest had done, and when I went forth the fray was over, and there was only a strange green band of afterglow above the houses, and two dead men in the nearest alley of the fair. For everyone but the stall keepers had run off to a burning barn beside the lodge of the Prior of Dor, and it was long before I understood what had come to pass."

  "Which was, in fine?"

  "As I remember it, some strange wench had lately been found in witchcraft" – Brother Eugenius crossed himself – "and was hastily tried and condemned to burning, that the people might not disperse before example was made of her; for there was grievous talk of magical ill-doing along the river there. And there was muttering among the townsfolk, for the wench was fair and known to many. Her given name was Anne, but she was chiefly called Red Anne, because of her hair, which she wore uncovered like any peasant, although her speech and clothing were burgher at the least – and she, being kept in ward at the prior's lodge, corrupted her warders and broke out, and was taken again, twice-wounded with arrows as she swam the river…"

  "And then?"

  The outlaw's voice as even, and Tiphaine read nothing certain in his still face and stony firelit eye.

  "And then, having cast off much of her clothing to enter the water, she was driven half-naked through the fair ground. But the Devil, her master, defiled and entangled the hearts of many with sight of her body, so that the prior's archers were encompassed and set upon by men of riotous temper – while they fought around her on the river bank armed horsemen spurred across the shallows and broke through the press, trampling alike her guards and those who would have rescued her; and the leader caught her up on his saddle, and they wheeled about and drove off like the wind, not a rider among them being lost. But by their black coats and their silver lions men knew them; one who had fought in the Franconian wars told me he saw the leader lower his visor as he charged; and it was Lorin de Campscapel himself."

  "Ay, it was Butcher Lorin," said Joris sombrely. "And she rode off with him to his great hold above Alanol, and there abides, his mistress to this day."

  "Better for her if the flames had destroyed her body," piped the friar, "for wantonness may be expiated, but commerce with the Fiend may not; it is of all things most four and shameful and accursed."

  Tiphaine saw no change in the face of Joris, but a change was there, for Madoc licked his lips and veiled his quick dark eyes, while Gandulf shuffled uneasily and Herbrand turned a dull incredulous stare on the Franciscan. Then Joris dropped both hands from his chin and bared his left arm to the elbow, showing a great white scar; and when the startled girl glanced higher she saw that his features were inflamed with drink or with some overmastering emotion.

  "Look, Friar," he broke out, in the tone he used to bring the Sieur Gaston out of saddle. "This mark I won from Butcher Lorin's sword in he heart of that three-cornered combat; for I and mine were leaders of your 'men of riotous temper.' Now tell me, did you see this strange wench that occasioned it?"

  "God send he did not," prayed Tiphaine, afraid of traps for holy folly.

  "I saw her on that day's morning," said Brother Eugenius calmly.

  "What thought you of her?"

  "Naught, save that woe is upon them that know not their own misery; for nothing ensnares the soul so much as an impure love of the corruptible body. I also heard her singing; and indeed her voice in speech or song was wonderfully rich and sweet."

  "You are a brave man, Friar," rasped Joris. "Now tell me, where lay the judgement of your God in that skirmish? Who was punished, and why, when Lorin de Campscapel rode through the river?"

  "Master Joris, I know not. The judgements of God – your God as well as mine – are to be feared, not to be discussed by men who lack the power to understand them. But I perceive I have in some sort offended you; tell me how, and if I may I will ask your pardon."

  The outlaw beat his clenched fist in the sand beside him, and seemed to bridle his wrath an instant before it broke from him.

  "A truce to these chirped homilies and godly little courtesies, half-witted eunuch that you are! An hour of your long-suffering company would rouse the fiend in a dead rabbit. Are you God's beater, who would scare the prey from cover for His hunting? Look up, fool; this is the Forest of Honoy and I am Joris of the Rock! Why, by the chimes of hell you are more at ease when I revile you. Praise God for wicked men in that they test the meekness of the good! Nay, without wicked men you would have naught to forgive. Say, Friar, would you forgive me if I named the Blessed Virgin witch and strumpet?"

  "No – but–"

  "What, still a mitigation? Out with it!"

  "But I should pray God and Herself that you might come to know the horror you have spoken. Doubt not it rings through Paradise and wakes a dreadful tumult of applause in hell! Sieur Jesu, through Thee I discern the misery of this man's state … ay, by those words it is revealed to me…"

  "In God's name, Uncle Blaise, be still!" groaned Tiphaine, clutching the gray frock as the friar stumbled up and signed the Cross between himself and Joris.

  "In God's name I will not be still!" he cried in a voice deeper than the girl had ever heard from him, while his thin face glowed and his left hand twitched aloft the crucifix that hung amid his beads. "I may not be still!" Outlaw, you are bewitched – rise up and kneel, for it is written Auferam maleficia de manu tua…"

  "Put no Latin upon me!" snarled Joris; and in her fright Tiphaine swung round toward him, eyes aghast, hands clasped in supplication.

  "Please you, Master Joris," she began, but her kinsman's voice bore down her own.

  "Ay, by the grace of Him who said to the dumb spirit, Ego praecipio tibi, exi ab eo…"

  "Stop his damned Latin, one of you!" roared Joris, groping as though for a missile in the gloom behind him.

  Gandulf bounded to his feet, but Herbrand's upflung hand and skilfully turned wrist were quicker. A hatchet streaked through the thin smoke, with whirl of haft and flash of well-ground edge; and its head thudded hammerwise between the eyebrows of Brother Eugenius.

  Tiphaine, who cowered as the weapon flew, saw her kinsman's face and throat lurch stiffly from the firelight; then his frocked body jarred the sand beside her, and her wild scream went up with Madoc's crackling laugh and a deep oath from Joris of the Rock.

  "Bah, Herbrand, by the bones of Goliath of Gath you are a fool!" he grumbled. "I did not want the man destroyed, at least until – Drop that, you!"

  The last three words he spat at Tiphaine as he bunched himself up and sprang; for the girl had clutched the hatchet and risen with murder in her face. then she was gripped and overborne; one great hand locked her fingers helplessly upon the haft, while the other twisted her left arm behind her back.

  So for an instant Joris held her, his stiff beard brushing her ear, his great ribs bruising her breast; then he tore the hatchet from her numbed grasp, half loosed her, and caught her to him again with a sound betwixt a grunt and a laugh that turned her fury to an agony of dread. When he spoke it was between clenched teeth, while amid his words he sniffed like a dog at her hair, at her straining neck and white averted face.

  "Hey, demoiselle – look up. I meant no harm to that poor magpie – but you were a fool to make me touch you twice – that is
, unless–"

  For a moment Tiphaine bit and fought like a wildcat, wasting no breath on outcry; but when she was flung into the darkness of the turf-and-timber hut she began to shriek. And although there were many to hear, there was none to save; the girl grew aware that all her prayers had gone astray, that God had seen her worthlessness, and that her kind saints slept. Her hands that searched for a weapon found nothing but clothes and a blanket, and when the bulk of Joris darkened the doorway her shrieking was cut off by a dumb horror that was half a swoon.

  In the blackest moment of all, when against her will her body responded to its defilement, four strange words were torn from the ravening bearded mouth beside her ear.

  "Red Anne, my love!" groaned Joris of the Rock.

  * * * *

  In the early morning, with no word spoken, Joris rose and saddled the stolen mare. Striding back to the hut, he stooped with unconcern into the narrow doorway.

  "Come here," he said.

  Tiphaine had kneeled to watch him, her fingers busy with torn clothing and disordered hair. beneath eyelids weighted with fatigue and shame and misery she shot a glance at him, and realized that she was not to be thrown to his men. Dully she got to her feet and emerged into dewy air, while Joris picked up his unstrung bow and drew with one end of it upon the sand.

  "Ride thus and thus," he bade her. "Here is food and a flask – and here your purse, with the ring and money, that fell from the friar's hood. He is buried these seven hours."

  Tiphaine's fingers flinched from contact with his own, and the gold thumb ring fell to the ground/ Joris glanced down at its device – a dagger bendwise between two stars, intaglio in a big cornelian – and curved his lip in loathing as the girl's plump turf-grimed arm and hand reached down to recover it.

  "Mount and begone," he continued. "You should make Ververon in two hours at the most."

  Unaided, she got to the saddle; and Joris led the mare up a tortuous path to the head of the ravine, halting among the pines and loosing the bridle with a gesture of dismissal. When she had ridden a dozen yards alone Tiphaine reined in and gave him a steady venomous stare.

  "God curse you as I curse you," she called thickly. "Your hag of hell betray you as you have betrayed me."

  Then she shook the bridle and fled away; and Joris stood till the faint crash and drumming of her progress faded into the rush of wind-stirred leaves and morning tumult of the birds.

  "Bah!" he muttered, turning toward his encampment, and fingering the lumps beneath his clothes that were swung amulets of iron against enchantment, of silver against cramps and rheumatism, of loadstone against poison, and of turquoise against steel. "That for my mercy! But the silly pigeon's curse is empty of bane, as her prayer of blessing. At least her maiden scorn is quenched. Anne, I would rape and slay until none dared to slur your name from Belsaunt to the sea."

  As he descended the gorge Joris marked his two camp guards of the last watch standing at gaze beyond the smoke of a forest fire. They had seen him release his captive; and a grin twitched the leader's lips, for her knew that none of his band would dare to question any quirk of his behaviour.

  Nevertheless he was faintly ashamed of failure to play through his rescuer's part. Of pity for his victims he had none; rather he blamed them for rousing passions which his strong man's pride would not suffer to go unappeased. Tiphaine owed her release to the spirit with which she had fought him; but after her curse she owed her life to the fact that the outlaw's bow stood by the door of his hut. His shame was self-reguardant; that slight lapse from self-mastery was not quite of the way of Joris of the Rock.

  CHAPTER II. THE TOWER OF ATH

  The son of Joris and Tiphaine was born upon a wild March day when blown rain puddled the flagged passageways and hissed on smoky heaths in the Tower of Ath; and as she laid him first against the breast the ancient midwife chuckled a heartening word in the mother's ear.

  "This lusty rogue would make a pair of my lady's" the midwife said.

  Thereat Tiphaine smiled feebly; for the young chatelaine of Ath, her uncle's second wife, had risen from childbed only a week before. And from the moment of Tiphaine's first entry into the tower the older girl had championed her against the discomfited Sieur de Ath and his loutish son.

  "But Aveline has everything, and I nothing save this ill-fathered imp," she told herself in excuse for that ingratitude; and anxiously, in the months that followed, she scanned the baby's face to find therein a sign of the blond outlaw's share in it.

  What she saw reassured her, for Gilles (as she named him) grew plump and dark-haired and brown-eyed, and Ath of Ath. And Gilles was sullen and intractable, a very child of rape; he had night terrors, and bursts of rage wherein he stiffened at touch of Tiphaine's hand; and sometimes he bit the breast as though he knew his mother's earliest desperate shame of him. In Tiphaine's new home, indeed, that shame was past before the child was born, for none gainsaid the word of the little chatelaine; but outside was another matter, and sometimes when the infant's wail was stilled Tiphaine would lie awake and ponder not his future, but her own.

  "What shall I do when my imp is weaned?" she wondered. "Aveline cannot protect me forever, for her hand brought more honour than gold to my kinsmen. And they would have me wedded or thrust into the Church. A fair nun I, whom an outlaw thief dishonoured because he might not possess a witch! I was a fool to tale my tale outright, and a fool to yield the name of Joris; for thanks to my dolt of a cousin I am cried for stinking fish throughout Basse Honoy. Oh, yes, I am fair, but what proud chevalier will speak for me while dastard Gold-beard is alive to laugh at him? Sieur God, I pray you, blast with leprosy or levin Joris of the Rock."

  Then, rigid in her bed, Tiphaine would send an impulse of black hatred through the forest; she would have had her curse batlike to ride above the outlaw's head in chase and foray – batlike to stoop and flick a blinding wing between the fierce blue eye and arrow mark or leap of hostile steel.

  And in dark days of autumn – when round the Tower of Ath the poplars volleyed leaves along the wind, so that the moat was strewn with yellow, while the creaking windmill sails trapped gusty loads and tossed them aloft again in minor whirls of gold – Tiphaine made a little waxen man whom she capped and clothed with shreds of the old garments torn by the hands of Joris. And although she knew no spell to activate her rite, she stabbed the manikin through with pins and set him to melt before her fire, while the baby watched and bubbled his approval, stretching forth a pink and pudgy hand as though to help in this queer silent game.

  "Ha, imp, you are your mother's son," exclaimed the brooding girl; and she caught Gilles up, and closing the tiny wavering fist upon a bodkin, and guided a slow thrust into the manikin's body.

  "Be mine the blame, fate little parricide," she muttered, aghast and pleased at her boy's first stricken blow. "Let the Sieur God witness, mine the blame; I have had much to bear, but will bear this also. How the good Prior of Ath would goggle if he saw such doings in his neighbour's tower! Belike it would mean the stake … Eh, gilles, that were to set another and a darker seal upon you. What, are you pleased? You shall not lack for a living; Aveline will have you as playmate for her Juhel. Besides, a man is a sword, and there is always room for another sword … but what shall I do when you are weaned?"

  The waxen image drooped, the flames leaped cheerfully upon the bedroom hearth, the baby crowed, and the wind sang shrill in the chimney; but there came as yet no answer to the question of Tiphaine.

  Nevertheless the answer was preparing; and on the following day she encountered a first word of it. Riding abroad at the forest edge, alone save for her uncle's solitary page, Tiphaine came near the ovens of turf wherein the serfs boiled tar from their lord's pine logs; and as she sniffed the resinous reek a sudden whistling cackle broke from amid the trees.

  "So that is she who would rear bastards to rule over you!"

  Tiphaine drew rein; behind her, Briot the page when red and wheeled his mount upon the peasants. Some backed
and cowered at sight of his lifted lash; but among the rest stood squatly forth the hooded woman who had spoken.

  "Lay on, lording!" she jeered, with strange and difficult speech. "You lady would prove your valour – this time by daylight, hey? Nay, never heed the mark of Barberghe; one day yourself shall be as brave as he!"

  But Briot's hand had fallen, and Briot's fair shocked face was turned toward Tiphaine. The hooded head came round, and Tiphaine shuddered; the creature's upper lip had been cut to a ragged inverted V, baring red gums to the nasal septum above.

  "Let be, Briot," she commanded sickly; and the pair rode on, while behind them a gust of ugly words and laughter stirred amid the trees.

  "It is mad Yvonne," grumbled the vexed page.

  Tiphaine looked round at him; and she knew he pitied and admired her, and saw he was ashamed of his late clemency.

  "I am glad you spared her," she said. "But who is she, with her harlot's mark and her scold's tongue?"

  Briot's face cleared as he drew level with Tiphaine.

  "She followed her lord for a month, claiming some justice for her husband's death at hands of a Barberghe man-at-arms. The foxy count – you know his avarice – would neither pay nor listen, and she importuned him in his hall and at his gates, and like a fool she even trailed behind him when he rod in state to Ger. So then he dealt with her as a drab who plagued his men."

  "Foul justice; but what does she here?"

  "I know not. Maybe, now that Barberghe is at open war with Saulte, she would have had short shrift on the count's own land."

  "Men must forever be fighting," thought Tiphaine. "Poor Uncle Blaise – he was wide of the mark when he called us all God's creatures. That Barberghe Fox – wherein is he better than an outlaw murderer, save that the woman was his serf? It is true the peasants grow insolent … and I will not be mocked by them. I will tell Aveline; this hag Yvonne shall not stir up resistance in my lord's domain. There is already stubbornness enough."