Читать книгу The Man on the White Horse - Warwick Deeping - Страница 22

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Night and a full moon.

Guinevra would have gone to bed supperless had not Pia, who was less bitter against beauty than her fellows, brought to the upper room bread, honey, and half a bowl of milk. A little earthenware lamp was burning, and Guinevra drank and ate. She was hungry. Pia, sitting on the bed, began to loose her hair. It was not like Guinevra's, but the colour of pale sand. Life and her heritage had not been kind to Pia.

And suddenly Guinevra spoke.

"Why do they keep me here?"

"For your good."

Guinevra dipped a spoon in the honey.

"Is it because Cornelia was kind to me?"

Pia nodded.

"That old harlot. She used to dye her hair red."

"Oh," said Guinevra, "I never saw it. You women seem fond of hard names."

Pia pulled off her stockings.

"Make the most of the honey, my dear, you won't get it tomorrow. You are to be disciplined."

Guinevra dissembled.

"But I do not understand. I am a free woman, not a slave. No one can say to me: 'Stay here' or 'Go.'"

"This is a new world, my dear, a new city."

"Indeed?"

"And God rules it—through his vicar."

"Ah," said Guinevra, "is that so?"

She was to sleep on the floor, Pia in the bed, and it was Pia who put the light out, but before she quenched it, Guinevra saw Pia pull her bed across the door. So Pia had been put here as her keeper. Guinevra said nothing. She lay down and gathered the clothes round her and pretended to go to sleep. She listened to Pia's breathing, and when she thought that Pia was asleep, she sat up, put the clothes from her, and crept to the window.

She saw the face of the full moon and glimmering roofs and Cornelia's privy garden below with its grass and paths and clipped trees. The shadows were as sharp as the shadows cast by a gnomon. How high was the window from the ground? She was young and supple—should she dare the drop? She leaned out, and then suddenly she drew back.

Someone was walking in the garden. One of the women on guard there? She peered. No, the thing in the garden was a man, robed, hooded, stalking up and down the grass. It was a strangely noiseless figure: it went to and fro, to and fro—striding, turning, striding—like some creature to whom the night was anguish, hunger, and unrest. Once the figure paused and seemed to look up at her window, but its face was hidden by the hood. And again it went on walking.

Guinevra turned sharply. She had heard a sound from Pia's bed. Was Pia awake? She was soon to learn that Pia was.

"You are wasting your time, my dear. I sleep too lightly. Much better come away from the window."

Guinevra fell back into the shadow.

"There is a man in the garden, Pia."

"Nonsense."

"Can't you hear his footsteps on the grass?"

Pia turned over in bed.

"One of the vigilants, girl. Go to sleep. And remember, the garden walls are ten feet high, and all the city gates are shut."

Guinevra lay down on the hard floor and covered herself up. She lay and listened. Whatever Pia might say, she was sure that the thing walking in the garden was a man.