Читать книгу The Black Rose - Thomas B. Costain - Страница 11

He stumbled twice in climbing the stairs to gather up his few belongings. The solar bedroom was empty when he reached it, and sitting down on the nearest bed, he let his head rest in his hands. His father was dead! It should have meant little because he had seen his father very seldom and he had been taught to hold him in scorn and hate. He began to think of the times they had met, realizing with a dull sense of wonder that he could still remember every word which had passed between them.

He had been quite young the first time, no more than five or six years old. Gurnie was then a broad and fruitful domain, and his grandfather, although of the purest Saxon stock, was a powerful figure in their part of the country. A servant had taken him in to Cencaster, riding him on the pommel of his saddle. It was the longest journey he had yet been permitted to make, and he had been very much excited. The servant went into a tavern for a drink of ale, leaving him on a corner of the mounting-stone in front. He was kicking his heels against the side and wondering how long it would be before his legs would touch the ground when a group of horsemen came galloping down the road with a great jingling of spurs and creaking of leather. The rider in the van sat so straight in his saddle and was so handsome that the boy watched him with eyes rounded in wonder, thinking he must be one of the Saxon heroes of old that the servants at home told stories about. He had golden hair hanging to his shoulders in long ringlets, and his eyes were a bright blue and as bold as those of a hawk.

Cantering up to the mounting-post, the stranger reined in and looked down at the small figure there with so much interest that Walter kept his head lowered and clutched the dagged edge of his blue tunic with nervous fingers.

“The spreading red oak of Gurnie,” said the stranger, looking at the felt sewed on the boy’s arm. “My lad, what is your name?”

“Walter of Gurnie, my lord.”

There was a pause. The stranger was studying Walter with a smile. “So you are Walter of Gurnie,” he said finally. “You are large for your age, Walter. But that, after all, is what might be expected. I think you are inclined to favor—— But, come, I must say no more about that. You look a pleasant enough boy, Walter of Gurnie.”

Walter was so abashed by all this attention that he continued to keep his head down. All that he could see, as a result, were the boots of the resplendent horseman. They were high and handsome, made of fine black leather and with toes that curled up into a point. The most interesting thing about them was that they were divided into a pattern with the figure of a yellow leopard in each square of the frets. It was a lively leopard, snarling angrily and with a paw raised to strike. Walter made up his mind he would have a pair exactly like them when he grew up.

“Would you care to ride with me?” the stranger asked suddenly.

The boy looked up at that. The rider was smiling and patting the pommel in front of him invitingly. Shy as he was, Walter knew that a ride on such a fine horse was a chance not to be missed. He nodded his head. The horseman leaned down from his saddle and drew the boy up with one arm, and with a sweep which left Walter almost breathless.

They cantered off down the road, Walter thinking, “He is very strong. Can it be King Arthur, coming back to sweep the Normans into the sea?” He had been told this would surely happen some fine day.

“Do you have a horse of your own, my boy?”

“No, my lord. But I have been promised one as soon as I am old enough. Wilderkin says I shall.”

“Wilderkin? Oh yes, your grandfather’s seneschal.” There was a long pause. “Is your mother well?”

“Sometimes she is well, my lord. But often she is quite ill and I am not allowed to see her for days.”

“That makes sorry hearing, Walter.” There was quite a long pause then. The tall man was deep in thought, and when he spoke again it seemed for the sole purpose of filling in the silence. “Have you dogs?”

“Yes, my lord.” This was a subject on which the boy had much to say. “There are many fine dogs at Gurnie. Hundreds of dogs. I have one of my own. He is quite old now. Once he was called Bede, but I did not think that a very good name. I call him Slub.”

“And does he answer to that name?”

“Of course, my lord. I would beat him with a stick if he didn’t. He is a very obedient dog.”

“Do you play games like Grimshanks-found and Crumpy-go-down?”

“No, my lord. I have no other boys to play with.”

Other questions followed. Did he say his prayers? Did he have lessons to learn? Finally the stranger asked, Was he happy? Walter replied that he was, but that he would be much happier if his grandfather would speak to him. The arm holding the reins drew in so suddenly at this moment that the horse reared up. The boy would have been thrown off if the rider’s other arm had not clasped him tightly. It was a full minute before their talk was resumed.

“He is a very stern man, your grandfather. He does not speak to me, Walter.”

That seemed very strange. “Why does he not speak to you, my lord?”

“He feels I did him a great wrong. And—well, I am afraid he has justice on his side.”

Walter was thinking, “He cannot be King Arthur, for the good king never did any man a wrong.” Aloud he said: “He never speaks to my mother. The servants say he took an oath never to speak to her or to me. They say he is sorry now that he did, but of course he cannot break an oath. It makes me glad to think he would like to speak to me sometimes. I would like to talk to my grandfather about the horse I am to have. And I want a new bow.”

When the stranger spoke again, it was in a low tone which suggested that he was unhappy. “I had heard he was not on speaking terms with your mother, but I hoped it wasn’t true. I am very sorry to hear, Walter, that it is true, after all.” He sighed. “Well, I see that your man has finished his pot of ale and is staring after us as though he thinks I plan to steal you. I think I would like to steal you; but instead we must ride back now.”

Walter was beginning to feel quite at home with him and was sorry when they reached the mounting-post. The stranger lowered him carefully and then smiled down at him.

“Good-by, my boy,” he said.

“Good-by, my lord.” Walter did not want him to go until he had learned something about those handsome boots. “You have very fine boots, my lord. They are leopards, are they not?”

“Yes, Walter. These boots came all the way from Spain. Where the queen of our good Prince Edward lived.”

“When I grow up, I am going to have a pair exactly like them.”

“When you grow up and are big enough for boots like these,” said the horseman in a repressed tone, “I will send you a pair, Walter. With my love.”

It was several years later when Walter saw him for the second time. It was on June the fifteenth and the boy had been soundly beaten by Wilderkin on his grandfather’s orders. He had done nothing wrong, but it was the general custom for boys to be whipped on certain days to impress things on their memories. June the fifteenth was the day when the Great Charter was agreed to, and so at nine o’clock Wilderkin always took him out behind the kitchen midden and gave him fifteen strokes with a hawthorn stick.

Generally he did it lightly, not believing that boys should be whipped for no fault, but this time he had laid it on heavily, saying: “After all, Master Walter, you did steal the simnel bun from the bakehouse. And who put the fenny snake in Old Will’s bed a week agone?”

Walter had run away in a rebellious frame of mind. In his anger he paid no attention to boundaries and, before he realized it, he was a full mile within the domain of Bulaire. What he was feeling must have shown in his face, for when he met his father—he knew by that time who the handsome stranger was, for there was always a lot of sly talk among the servants at Gurnie—the latter stopped and asked, “What’s wrong, Wat?”

“Nothing, my lord,” he answered stiffly.

The blazing blue eyes smiled at him understandingly. “Nothing? Come, Wat, do you expect me to believe you always wear such an angry face? Who has offended you?”

“No one has offended me, my lord.” He knew enough of the story by this time to feel the deepest bitterness toward his father, and he allowed it to show in his face.

The lord of Bulaire understood at once. His eyebrows raised, and his lips widened in a wry smile.

“It is clear you know the story of my iniquities,” he said. “No doubt you are being taught to think hardly of me. Well, it is no more than fair. I have done a great wrong, and I must take the consequences. But I am sorry we cannot be friends, Wat. I had some plans.” He paused and then asked in a tone which had almost a suggestion of entreaty in it, “Is there anything I can do for you?”

“Nothing, my lord. My needs are well attended to always.”

“Is your grandfather more kind to you—and to your mother?”

“I am not to discuss such matters with strangers.”

“But, Wat, we are not strangers.” His eyes were fixed on the boy intently. “You know that I am your father?”

Suddenly Walter felt a wild inclination to cry, and he had to fight hard to keep back the tears. He nodded his head. “Yes, my lord. It is a matter of great shame and is never mentioned at Gurnie.”

“You are almost big enough for the pair of boots I promised you, my boy.”

Walter drew himself up stiffly, and yet at the same time he had to rub a knuckle across his eyes. “I have decided I don’t want them. When I am old enough, my grandfather will buy me a pair much finer. A red pair.”

“So that is the way it must be.” The Earl of Lessford laughed shortly and proceeded to draw on his gloves. As they talked, Walter had been looking him over, being old enough now to take a very real interest in the matter of fine clothes. The gloves were of the very latest kind, of soft leather and divided into fingers. Walter had never seen such a pair before. His father’s cloak was of a rich fabric known as baldekin (because it came from Bagdad which some people called by that name), and his baldric was so beautifully chased and embroidered that the boy had found it hard to take his eyes from it. The plume in his velvet hat was blue, and it stood up as proudly as a king at his coronation.

After a moment the earl began to speak in a slow and hesitating way. “Walter, it is only by the merest chance that I see you. Who knows, I may never see you again! There is something I want you to know, and so I must speak of it now.” He paused for a long time. “You are too young to understand fully what I am going to say, and for that reason I must ask a favor of you. I want you to listen carefully and remember every word. Will you make me that promise?”

“Yes, my lord.”

“My son,” said the earl, keeping his eyes studiously fixed at a distance, “I think it is no boast to say that I am a brave man. I took the Cross and I fought well against the Unbelievers. No one can deny that in the tilting yards I have borne a stout lance. But,” he was finding it hard to continue, “in other matters it seems that I lack resolution. When you grow older you will understand what I am trying to tell you. It is often the case, I think, that a strong man is weak in matters that concern the people around him. It is true, and I say it with much inner regret, that I cannot stand out against the wishes of those who beset me day after day. I am as wax in more determined hands. I have done things I regret because I lacked the will to say no and to keep on saying it. I have—I have weakly refrained from doing what I knew to be right and just and honorable.” There was so much self-reproach in his voice that Walter looked up, half expecting to find tears in his eyes. His father was still looking away, however, and it was impossible to read the expression of his face. “I have not done the things I wanted to do for you, my son. I have been weak, weak!”

After several long moments, the penitent voice went on. “All this must sound like arrant nonsense to you, Walter. But you must keep the promise you made me. Remember the words I have said. When you are older, and have seen things for yourself, perhaps you will understand better and not feel too hardly about me. That is what I hope, Walter, my son. And now, good-by.”

The last time Walter had seen his father was just before he had left for Oxford. Word had reached Gurnie that the good Bishop Anselm was to say Mass at Cencaster. Thinking that Engaine was likely to be there, Walter had decided to attend the services.

From Gurnie to Cencaster is a long walk. Walter cut through the woods where the grass was springy to the feet, and so he did not mind the distance. Still he was dusty when he reached the town, and he found it necessary to spend some time washing his face in a brook and whipping the dust from his shoes and hose with a hazel twig.

It was late when he entered the church. The attendance was large, as was to be expected, and he ran an eye over the high oak stalls before seeking a seat for himself. Engaine was not there. This was a disappointment, but there was some compensation in the fact that the family from Bulaire had come. Beside the high poppy-head of the Lessford stall, he could see his father’s yellow curls. The gold-mesh crestine of his Norman wife came barely to his shoulder. On her other side sat Edmond, their son and heir.

Walter had not seen Edmond for several years, and he watched the back of the boy’s head with an absorption that lasted through a good part of the service. Edmond had been a sickly boy, as unlike his father as could be conceived: dark and sallow and thin, with the calculating look in his eyes that told of his Norman blood. Now he was shooting up with the promise of attaining a man’s proper stature after all, but Walter noted, with some satisfaction it must be said, that he was scrawny still and of an unhealthy complexion.

As the minutes passed, Walter became uncomfortably aware that he was attracting attention. People in the seats ahead were craning back to look at him and smiling and whispering among themselves. He could think of no reason for this ill-timed amusement unless they thought the new blue tunic his mother had made for him a poor fit. This explanation he could not accept, for he had been proud of his finery and anxious that Engaine should see him in it. Had he, then, left streaks on his face after washing? Or did they think it a matter for levity that the illegitimate son of the great earl sat so close behind him?

Then the lad sitting beside him turned his head, and the reason for the attitude of the congregation became clear at once. He was a thickset youth, wearing the breastplate and sollerets of the castle men-at-arms and with the gules crosslet on his arm. His hair was a disorderly yellow mop, his nose had an unmistakable arch to it, and his eyes were the blue of the midday sun! His paternity was stamped so indelibly on his outer shell that Walter realized at once, and for the first time, that he was not the only son Earl Rauf had begot out of wedlock. Fit reason indeed for laughter, the two bastard sons of one father sitting side by side and neither of them aware of the other! Walter sank back in his seat in such abject misery that he heard not another word as long as he remained in the church.

He did not look again at this newly discovered half brother. As soon as there was a stir of leaving in the seats, he was up on his feet and the first to walk down the aisle. He found it hard not to run, so intense was his desire to escape this fresh humiliation.

Once on the outside, however, he lingered, stationing himself behind the yew hedge where he could see without being seen. Here he stayed until the family from the castle, and all their dependents, had passed him on their way out. His father looked preoccupied, he thought, keeping his eyes on the sky above the treetops as though more concerned with the prospect of a day’s sport with his hawks than with the Mass he had just heard. The Norman woman, as most people called the wife he had brought back from the Crusades and whose wealth had made days of unwonted prosperity at Bulaire Castle, walked beside him with a possessive air. She was short and a little squat, with black brows and a nose that bulked too largely in her face for any claim to beauty. Edmond, three years younger than Walter, carried himself with an air of pride that was doubly galling to the illegitimate son. The boy was dressed in rich brown samite, and his hose wrinkled at his gangling knees.

“Well,” said Walter to himself, as he watched them mount their horses and canter off, “the bastard son has straight legs, at any rate, and a man’s shoulders. Does my father know that his lawful whelp is a scrawny, bandy nidering?”

He struck out at once on his return trip, feeling sick at heart and cheated of his object in coming. He had not seen Engaine, and he had suffered a humiliating blow to his pride. The eighteen miles back would be a tiring walk. He had a blister on each heel already.