Long Will

by Florence Converse

  CHAPTER II

  In Malvern Chase

  The porter at the gate of Malvern Priory was a very old man, but hehad good eyes, and he knew a pretty thing when he saw it.

  "Thou wilt speak with Brother Owyn, wilt thou?" he said to Calote inhis toothless voice. "By my troth, I 'll have thee to know, hussy,that this is no household of gadding friars, but a sober andwell-conducted priory. Our monks do not come and go at the bidding ofwenches."

  "Good brother, I come not of myself," said Calote, "I am sent amessage of my father."

  "And thy father, I make no doubt, is the Father of Lies,--Christ givehim sorrow!"

  "My father was put to school one while in Malvern Priory," answeredCalote. "Brother Owyn was his master and loved him well."

  "Sayst thou so?" the porter retorted, yet with something of curiosityawaking within his bright eyes. "Is no lad hath gone in and out thisgate in forty year, but hath one day or other tasted my rod for atruant. How do they call thy father?"

  "In London men call him Long Will, and Will Langland 's his name."

  The porter opened wide his mouth, and, "By Goddes Soul!" quoth he,"Will Langland!--Let me look on thee,"--albeit he had done naught butlook on her for ten minutes past. "Yea, 't is true; I 'd know thee bythine eyen, that are gray, and thoughtful, and dark with a somethingthat lies behind the colour of them,--and shining by the light of alamp lit somewhere within.--So! Will Langland hath got him a wench! 'Tis a hard nut to crack. Moreover, eyen may be gray as glass, and yetspeak lies. What for a token hast thou that thou 'rt true messenger?"

  "I have a poem," she answered.

  "Let 's see it."

  "Nay, 't is for Brother Owyn."

  "And how shall Brother Owyn have it, if not by me?" rejoined theporter testily.

  "Wilt thou get me speech of him if I show it thee?" asked Calote.

  "Shall a lay-brother of Malvern stoop to play handy-dandy forfavours?" said the porter, casting up his chin in a way feebly toimitate his prior; yet his curiosity overcame his pride and he added:"Do thou show me first the poem. After, I 'll think on 't."

  Whereupon Calote drew forth the parchment from her breast, and heunrolled it and spread it upon his knee, and "H-m-m, h-m-m!" said he.But he could not read a word, being no scholar.

  "Find me a pretty passage," he bade her presently, "and say it me, thewhile I follow with my finger."

  So she began;--and neither one of them knew the place in theparchment:--

  "'Right so, if thou be religious run thou never further To Rome, nor to Rochemadour, but as thy rule teacheth, And hold thee under obedience, that highway is to heaven.'"

  "Tut chut! Thou 'rt a bold wench! Wilt teach thy grandmother to suckeggs?" cried the porter.

  Calote laughed, but began anew:--

  "'Grace ne groweth not but amongst the low; Patience and poverty is the place where it groweth, And in loyal-living men, and life-holy, And through the gift of the Holy Ghost as the gospel telleth'"--

  "Lord, Lord, enough!" cried the porter. "'T is very true that nevernone but Will Langland writ such-like twaddle."

  "But thou wilt bid Brother Owyn to the gate?" said Calote, rolling upher parchment.

  "How may I bid him to the gate when he 's gone forth yonder in theChase with hook and line and missal to catch fish for supper?"

  "Ah! good brother, gramerci," laughed Calote.

  "Then kiss me," said he. "Nay, what harm? An old man that might be thyfather twice over!"

  But she shook her head and sprang swiftly from him.

  "I 've a long journey afore me," she said, "and if I kiss every manthat doeth me service, there 'll be no kisses left for my True Love."

  So she ran away among the trees, and the old man went into thegate-house and sat chuckling.

  All about Malvern Priory was forest, and a part of this was the King'sChase. The woodland climbed the hill part way, thinning as it climbed.

  "'I was weary with wandering and went me to rest Under a broad bank by a burn's side.'"

  hummed Calote as she went upward. "Belike he 's there catching hisfish."

  The day was mild; Saint Martin's summer was at hand; all around treeswere yellowing, leaves were dropping. The little haze that is everamong the Malverns dimmed the vistas betwixt the tree-trunks tofaintest blue. The voices of the hunt floated upward from the levelstretch of forest in the plain,--bellowing of dogs, a horn, a distantshouting.

  "Please God I may not meet the King, nor Stephen," said Calote. "Theydo say he came hither last night to hunt."

  Even as she spoke, a roe fled across her path, and immediately after,two huntsmen came riding.

  "Which way went the--Coeur de joie!" cried a boy's voice.

  The other huntsman sat dumb upon his horse. Calote, rosy red, her lipsa-quiver, stood with her hands crossed on her breast, that frightedbut yet steadfast way she had. Then:--

  "Light down, Etienne, thou laggard lover! 'T is thy true love hathfollowed thee from London town these many miles," laughed Richard, andflung himself off his horse.

  "Oh, me, harrow, weyl a way!" said Calote, covering up her face. "'T isnot true! I am not so unmaidenly; my heart is full of other matterthan light love." She turned to Stephen, who was also lighted off hishorse, and "Dost thou believe I followed for love of thee?" she cried.

  "Alas and alack!--but I would it were so!" answered Stephen.

  "Yet thou didst follow," said the King. "Wherefore?"

  She turned her eyes away from Stephen and looked on Richard, and asshe looked she sank down on her knees before him.

  "Thou art the King!" she gasped, "and I knew thee not!"

  In very truth, here was not the little lad she had known. The grace ofchildhood was gone from Richard. Some of the mystery had gone out ofhis eyes, though they were yet, and would ever be, thoughtful; all ofthe shyness had gone out of his manner, albeit none of the courtesy.He was well used to being a king; he was already, at thirteen years ofage or thereabout, the most of a gentleman in his very foppish andgentleman-like court. Calote had sat still in the window-seat thattime he came to the crown by his grandfather's death, but to-day,before she knew wherefore, she was on her knees. Then only were hereyes opened, and she knew that this was the King.

  He looked upon her friendly-wise, half-laughing. Kingship andcomradeship were ever a-wrestle in Richard's heart to the end of thechapter. He liked to be a king, none better; he kept his state asnever king kept it before in England,--as few have kept it since. Butalso, he loved to be loved, not from afar and awesomely as subjectslove, but in the true human fashion that holds betwixt friends,betwixt kindly master and friendly servant.

  Now, he put out his hand to Calote and lifted her up, and when theystood face to face, his eyes were a-level with hers, so big washe;--or haply she so small.

  "I am grown tall; is 't not so?" he said. "Very soon I shall be tallas Etienne. No wonder thou didst not know me. But now, see thou tellme true wherefore thou art so suddenly come to Malvern, and I 'llforgive thy forgetting. Nay,--not on thy knees again."

  "Sire, hast thou forgot that I told thee--of a plot? And whether thouwouldst be King of all the people of England, or only puppet to thenobles?"

  "I am not so good at forgetting as thou," he made reply, and she couldnot but marvel to hear him so froward of speech. She was aware thatthis was no little child, but a boy that had listened, perforce, ayear and more, to the counsels of grown men, some of them wise, all ofthem shrewd.

  "This plot moveth on," she continued, taking up her tale. "There isforming, and shall be formed, a great society of men over all England.I, and others, we go out across the land, one here, one there, north,south, east, and west, to bind the people into brotherhood. And it ismy task to tell the people that the King is one of thisbrotherhood,--if so be 't is true."--She paused, but Richard did notspeak, so she went on: "It is my task to tell the people that the Kingapproveth this gathering together of the peopl
e. And, when the timecometh, he will stand forth and be their leader,--against those thatoppress them. If so be 't is true."

  "And the people want?"--

  "Freedom, sire! Not to be a part of the land, like stocks and stonesand dumb cattle. Not to be villeins any longer, but freed men, withleave to come and go of their own will."

  "But noblesse,--villeinage,--these are fixed,--may not be overthrown."

  "Not by the King?" asked Calote.

  Richard looked on her uncertain, then his face flushed and he struckhis long-bow vehement into the earth:--

  "The King may do what he will!" he cried; "else wherefore is he King?Tell me, will they aid me to put down mine uncle, John of Gaunt, andall these that tie my hands, and the Council that now is the verraygovernor of this realm? Will they do all these things for me, if Imake them free men?"

  "This and more than this, sire!" Calote exclaimed; "For they 'll buildup a kingdom whereof the foundation is love, and the law will be notto take away by tax, but to see that every man hath enough."

  "Shall it be soon?" asked Richard.

  "That I cannot tell. The realm of England is a wide realm, not easy totraverse."

  Richard turned hesitating to his squire: "I would it were wise, thisthat the maid telleth. In verite, is 't so? What dost say, Etienne?I--I fear mine uncle and Sudbury would laugh."

  "I say, 't is a wicked and evil counsel that sendeth forth a youngmaid to encounter perils. No love ruleth the hearts of them that sendher."

  "Art thou my true lover, in good sooth?" cried Calote, "and would undothat I have most at heart?"

  "Moreover, 't is beside my question," Richard added fretfully. "Iwould know but only if an uprising, like to this Calote stirreth, isof power to succeed against nobilite?"

  "I am no prophet, sire."

  "Thou thinkest not of thy King, neither of his kingdom, but of thineown self only," said Richard, in the sulks, driving an arrowspear-fashion into the earth and wrenching it forth with a jerk thatsnapped the shaft.

  "I think of her," Etienne answered him sadly.

  "There is more kinds of love than one," Calote protested. "Is therenot a love for the whole people that is as worthy as the love for onewoman? Yea, and more worthy, for 't is Christ's fashion of loving.What matter if I lose my life, if so be the people is free?"

  Richard kindled to her words. "So must the King love!" he cried. "Fie,for shame, Etienne! But only yesternight thou wert persuading me howhonourable 't is when a man lose his life for the world's sake andChrist Jesu--as crusaders and such."

  "And what is this I preach, but a crusade," demanded Calote, "to freethe people?"

  "A crusade?" the King questioned. Then his face came all alight. "Acrusade!--And when the preaching 's done I 'll be the leader of thecrusade.--And I 'll make all England my Holy Land!"--For if Richardhad not been a king, he might have been a poet.

  "Now praise be to Christ and Mary Mother!" said Calote joyously. "Andwhat for a token dost give me, sire, that the people may know me atrue messenger?"

  "A token, parde!" and he looked him up and down hastily. He had on agreen jerkin all embroidered over with R's entwined in a pattern ofgold threads, and buttoned with little bells of gold. His one leg wasscarlet, his other was green. About his neck, at the end of a longjewelled chain, hung a little hunting-horn of silver, with his badgeof the white hart graven upon it and set round with pearls.

  "Take this!" he said, and flung the chain over her head.

  "By God's will, I 'll call the King's menye to him with this horn,"quoth Calote, a-kissing it.

  The King laughed merrily then, and went and cast himself upon hissquire's neck:--

  "Etienne, cheri, mignon,--be not so glum! When Richard is King in theKingdom of Love, not Dan Cupid's self shall dare to cross thy suit tothy lady. Thou shalt be married to Calote, and I 'll make thee chiefcounsellor. I 'll take mine Uncle John's land and richesse in forfeitand give them to thee."

  "Ah, no, no!" Calote exclaimed.

  "But I will if I 'm King?" said Richard.

  And then did Stephen laugh.

  "Now wherefore so merry?" Richard asked, eyeing him in discontent.

  "Beau sire, you bade me be merry," Stephen made answer, and to Calotehe said "When dost thou start a-preaching, and whither?"

  "When Parliament is departed,--I go about in the villages to the southand west of Gloucester. Meanwhile, I 'll lodge with a kindlyforester's wife in Malvern here. But now I must away to find an oldmonk, my father's schoolmaster. My father was put to school in MalvernPriory."

  "Why, 't is very true!" cried the King. "The Vision maketh a beginningin the Malvern Hills."

  "I bring the Vision to this monk; and he 's a-fishing hereabout inthe Chase, the porter saith. Saw ye a burn as ye came hither?"

  "Yea, verily!" Richard answered her. "We crossed it but fifty pacesback, and 't was there the dogs went off the scent and back to thepack and the other folk, in the lower chase. Hark to them now! We 'velost the hunt; let us go with the maid, Etienne. If her father'sschoolmaster is the same that sat at my side yestere'en and told metales, he 'll wile an hour right prettily for us. He said Dan Chaucer,our Chaucer, came hither a little lad years agone, afore mine UncleLionel died. I 'd rather fish than hunt. Leave Robert de Vere and mybrother John Holland to slay the deer."

  So they went through the wood leading their jennets; and Calote, withthe King's horn about her neck, walked by the King's side.