Читать книгу The Man on the White Horse - Warwick Deeping - Страница 17

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At Fontes, Geraint found old Aquila in the meadow above the mill watching a young horse being broken in by a groom. The young Aquilas—Constantine and Chlorus—had gone hawking. The Fontes folk were great hawk-trainers, horse-masters, and hunters, and the old man could still stand to his boar. He was a fierce old gentleman with a face like an eagle's, a patch of bright colour on either cheek, his eyes brittle and bright under bristling eyebrows.

"Ha, my friend, are you going to the wars?"

Geraint dismounted.

"I will ask you another question. Should war come to us, or should we meet it—over the hill?"

Old Aquila watched the young horse going round the grass. The groom had him in hand; his wildness was chastened.

"War—and rumour of war, Geraint. My youngsters are out with their hawks."

"I want you and your young men, Aquila."

"The devil you do."

"And I think you know it. Is any man wiser in telling the weather than you?"

The lord of Fontes nodded.

"Those hunters of men and wenches beyond the Wall, what! And those damned cousins of ours, the Cymri.—Well, what's in the wind?"

"It blows—or may blow—from every quarter, Aquila. Shall we talk here, or—?"

"No, come to the house. Ten miles is worth a drink."

Fontes was a rugged place, all thatch and timber, and as Geraint looked at it he thought how the house and its outbuildings would burn. It had no defences, not even a stockade. It was the house of a man who had ridden and hunted where he pleased, and neither man nor beast had said him nay. But he did not talk velvet to Aquila. He gave him the bearskin, the lore of the wolf-pack, and old Aquila understood such language.

"How many men could I raise? Twenty. Six of them can use the bow. Yes, we are horse-people. My lads—"

He looked fierce.

"Seventeen and nineteen, Geraint. Mere whelps. But if I told them to stay at home, they would fly in my face like a couple of hawks."

"We may not need the lads."

"What needs be needs be. They're not soft."

"Have you arms?"

"Boar-spears, bows, an old sword or two."

"You have a smith."

"And no metal."

"I can give you metal. I have my smith at work, and Malgo is sending me an old armourer from his village. I go on to see Gawaine. He has men who can ride."

Old Aquila looked hard at Geraint.

"It will come, you think?"

Geraint was slow to answer.

"I feel it in the wind."

"And when—?"

"It might come—tomorrow. In the spring of the year, my friend, when men make love."

"Hot blood."

"And the spilling of blood. Man lusts after three things, Aquila."

"I'll name them. Women, plunder, god."

Geraint nodded.

"And the gods of the wild men are bloody gods."

From Fontes Geraint rode north-west into the Black Valley. It was called the Black Valley because there was much moorland here, heather and pines and gorse, with scattered birch trees and dwarf oaks. He found Gawaine and his people keeping the festival of Mel, a country goddess who was worshipped in the valley. Mel dealt with the bees, and the setting of fruit, and betrothals, for in the country men clung to the old gods. In the cities they crowded to the new. Geraint's horse was taken from him, and he sat in an arbour of green boughs with Gawaine and his lady and drank honey-ale and ate new bread and venison. The valley danced round the Pole of Mel, a young pine tree topped with a bee-skep and hung with flowers. And to Geraint it seemed to him graceless to speak of violent and unhappy things on such a day, but when he mounted his horse, Gawaine walked with him up the hill. Geraint spoke to Gawaine of what was in his heart, and Gawaine listened. He was wiser than Geraint knew.

Gawaine said: "Had you not come to me, I should have come to you. My men know what I know. They may dance today, but they will stand and fight tomorrow—if needs be."

It was agreed between them that if bad news should come from the north or the west, Geraint, Gawaine, and the Aquilas would get their men together and join forces, and if any warning reached Geraint, he would light a fire on the hill where the old earth fort stood. They would rally there.

Geraint rode home, and entering the White Valley from the west he saw it with the sun behind him—very sweet and peaceful. Cattle were grazing. A girl was driving cows home to be milked. Three hinds were hoeing wheat in a field. Well, tomorrow Malgo was to ride over and begin drilling these fellows. He found himself listening for the sound of Caradoc's hammer, and presently he heard it, but Malgo could have told him that Caradoc was not hammering sword-blades.

Geraint came to the smithy, and dismounting, he left the white horse standing and went in. The smith was at his furnace, heating a bar of iron, and on the bench lay two iron candlesticks and a cross.

"What is this, Caradoc?"

The smith looked glum.

"The lady's orders, lord. I obey."

With the tongs Caradoc withdrew the red metal from the forge.

"Four candlesticks for my lady's chapel, and a cross for the gable. She came, lord, soon after you had ridden out."

Geraint was angry.

"And you put the swords aside?"

"I did what I was bid."

Geraint went straight to the house, for a servant had run out to take his horse, but Placida was not in the house. He found her in the chapel. She was kneeling, but he was in no temper to humour a woman on her knees.

"My orders to Caradoc are my orders. Leave well alone."

Placida was pert with him.

"I must have lights here. And why does the man make swords?"

"By my orders, wife."

"Swords! How silly! What do we need with swords?"

He looked at her darkly.

"You do not understand. Let that suffice. No more orders to Caradoc or any other of my men. Remember."

She got to her feet and flounced past him out of the chapel.

"Am I a child or a fool, my lord?"

Geraint let her go in silence. She was most certainly a fool, and that worst sort of fool, a pious one.