Merlin's Ring

by H. Warner Munn

  “Shoot! Shoot!” he cried. Gwalchmai hesitated. “It is all you can do for her now!” Th& thought of Huon’s courage steeled his heart.

  He pulled the trigger and the sear dipped down into the firing pan. There was no explosion. In his haste, Master Jean had not reprimed, for when he stood the hand-cannon on end to pull the charge, the touch-powder had fallen out.

  In the next instant, the room was filled with shouting men and they were prisoners. He could see nothing from the window as they hustled him away. It was well, for he could not have borne the sight of what he knew was taking place. The saund was terrible enough.

  Yet the single long cry that went up was not a wail of fear, not a scream of agony. It was a jubilant voice holding praise and trust. It was a prayer from one attesting to a great truth—who had been granted a vision in itself a confirmation of a lifetime of belief—an utmost proof of a sublime faith.

  One word was enough, a word that held in it the essence of all man’s hope. “Jesus!” Only that and then the rush and crackle of the rising flames.

  But following it—in the ghastly silence that had fallen over the immense crowd—was another cry receding from the square as though the man who uttered it was running for his life, in blind madness.

  As with the first voice, this too was one Gwalchmaj knew. Gilles of the Blue Beard, Lord of Machecoul, Baron of Rais, Marshal of France, master of many manors and castles—today, at this tragic moment, a man stricken to the heart, who felt his soul was dying, who saw the end of faith and hope and dreams. It was a scream to chill the blood:

  “Ye are all damned! Ye have burned a saint!”

  24 The Tlafs The Thing

  People in high places, we common folk despise,

  And they believe that what we think is nothing much to prize,

  But Ilknow what I saw and I saw it with these eyes— A Princess of God’s Kingdom, going home to Paradise! Now the man who rests on velvet can bleed like other folk . And peasants are not oxen, though they wear an unseen yoke,

  And I for one, do think it time an angry voice be heard To find out why our Saint did die—without a saving word!

  Songs of Huon

  The dungeons of Rouen were cold and grim. Gwalchmai languished there, without news of Master Jean, for many months. The gunner had in fact been slaughtered out of hand, having long been a marked man to the English. Sometimes food was thrown in; sometimes Gwalchmai was neglected for what he was certain was more than a full day. He was left in silence and in ignorance of events.

  He surmised that he was spared torture only because of his white hair. His limp, also, gave him a decrepit appearance he did not feel. The marvelous elixir still held some potency, but it did not cure the cough he contracted, where water was puddled on the stone floor and nitre lay white against the walls. It did not ease the pain of his crushed ribs.

  Upon a day in spring, when his mood was somber in the extreme, his cell door was flung open. His surly guard mo-tioned him out He blinked in the courtyard sun, with rheumy eyes.

  His back was stooped and his bones ached from the damp. He was dirty, gaunt, and unable to recognize the splendid figure before him.

  “Who are you?” he croaked, in a voice rusty with disuse.

  “Ah, Basque, can this poor wreck be really you? Do you not remember old D’Aulon?”

  Gwalchmai reached out and touched his visitor with a grubby hand. More than one phantasm had kept him company in his cell of captivity. There had not even been mouse or rat into which he could insert his spirit as Corenice had taught Mm. Nor had she communed with him at any time. He could not imagine the reason.

  “Intendant? How can you look upon me? We failed your charge. We loved her and we failed her. Do you know that? We tried and we failed.

  “She said to them, ‘I come, sent by God. I pray you, send me back to God from whom I am come,’ and they did, didn’t they, D’Aulon? They sent her back—by the fire! Oh, Intendant, what a poor, gray world it is now without her!”

  Weak tears streamed down his cheeks. D’Aulon put his arm around Gwalchmai. “Come, brother, it is all over. You are free. Your ransom has been paid. We are going to do something about it.

  “The English think the war is over and France is theirs again. They shall see that the Maid still has friends. A Phoenix will rise from those ashes. Come now, where brave knights are gathering. Come home with me.”

  “Where is home, D’Aulon? What home is there for a transient in this world like me?”

  “Where the man lives who bought your freedom. To the Baron De Rais and the castle of Machecoul.”

  D’Aulon supported him to the guardroom. The warder flung down Gwalchmai’s little pile of possessions. His shirt of mail, still bloodstained from the struggle at the inn, which he had worn under his woodcutter’s clothing, Roland’s sword and Jeanne’s, which he had never thought to see again. Often he had regretted carrying it to Rouen, but at the time he could not bear to be parted with it.

  These things held precious memories, but there was one other more ancient than they by far—the leather belt, studded with Roman coins, which his mother had given him when he started on his long futile journey still stretching so endlessly before him.

  He buckled it around him snugly. It felt like her loving clasp. A little of his old confidence and courage came back, but he felt that the arrogance he had once possessed would never return. It had been purged from him by the death of the Maid and the long, dark, sleepless days and Bights in the dungeon.

  It had been a little more than a year since Gwalchmai had seen De Rais. Though still a young man, the Baron seemed to have aged a score of years. His remarkable beard had returned in its vital, electric glory—for hair grows at the rate of half an inch a month—and was as blue-black as ever, but Gwalchmai was shocked to see that the thick locks, cut shoulder-length, were shot with gray.

  His lips were thin, compressed and cruel. His eyes looked haunted, as though dark thoughts peopled the brain behind them. Yet, even as Gwalchmai was wondering what dragons were driving him to distraction, De Rais smiled with genuine pleasure to see the twq enter his study.

  He sprang up from his desk, and threw down his quill. As Gwalchmai limped forward to meet him, his expression changed to one of concern.

  “Ah! They have much to answer for, those Godams! They did not overfeed you, I can see that. Our turn will come. We will drink their blood and warm our feet at their burning towns. Rossignol, bring wine!”

  A handsome mincing boy came in with a silver ewer and goblets of Bohemian glass. De Rais saw Gwalchmai’s glance. He laughed and took the large pitcher.

  “Bah! A pox on pottles! We cannot have our sweet choirboys trotting back and forth every few moments. They will be too exhausted for the other work we expect of them. ”Eh, my love with the nightingale’s throat?“

  The boy smiled and flushed delicately. De Rais pressed his arm, fondled him, and watched him out of the room. When he was out of sight, the Baron filled his friends’ goblets.

  Food was brought to the study. Afterwards there was more wine, dark and rich. Gwalchmai became drowsy with the heat of the fireplace, the heavy meal, and strong drink. It had been long since he had enjoyed any of these luxuries.

  He felt himself surrounded by a thick mist. It pressed like wool against his ears. It impeded his hearing. He was dimly conscious that the Baron was reading from the papers on his desk. The voice droned on and on, changing timbre to indicate various parts in an extremely long play.

  Once he heard De Rais declaim, “Fair she was, like the sweet white rose,” and meant to ask if he spoke of Jeanne, but his tongue had grown too thick. He could not get out the words.

  The next he knew, he was sitting up in a soft bed. He was alone in a dark room and wide awake. Something had shocked him out of a deep slumber. There was a dim remembrance of a high-pitched scream, similar to those he had heard upon battlefields when a horse knew itself to be wounded to the death.

  The hair on his back
and arms thrilled to the horripilation of his skin. He listened. If there had been such a sound, it was not repeated. He lay back in the bed, still listening. It was not long before he slept again.

  When he awoke a second time, bright sunlight was streaming in from a narrow slit in the thick wall. He had been put to bed, by whom he could only guess, in one of the upper rooms of the tower. A serving maid, curtesying to see him awake,, brought him an ewer—water this time—and fair white cloths for his laving and clean garments to wear.

  She curtesied again and departed. The bobbing up and down made his reeling head even more unsteady. He poured some water over it, drank a little—terrible stuff, no wonder the Baron drowns his thoughts in wine—and sloshed the rest over his chest.

  It was a long way down five flights of spiral stairs. He made the trip without falling and came at length to the breakfast room, where De Rais, D’Aulon, and several others were gorging.

  The sight and smell of food gagged Gwalchmai. He made an immediate decision to drink his breakfast, averting his eyes from pork crackling and brawn, from dripping pasty pies and steaming puddings. He helped himself lightly to a small bunch of grapes and a large goblet of wine.

  De Rais said, “Let me introduce you, L’Aiglon, to the others who are working with us, as I told you last night.”

  If he had, this was the first that Gwalchmai knew about it

  “Madame Perrine Martin, our wardrobe mistress, who loves to have children in her care and goes by the name of La Meffraye.”

  The lady in question smiled and bowed, darting the Baron a peculiar, quick glance, with a slight shake of the head. She was of middle age and had evidently once been a notable beauty. There was a stern, tense look about her Gwalch-mai found somewhat disturbing.

  “Gilles de Sille, an old army companion; Roger de Bricqueville, my cousin, and Messer Francesco Prelati, an alchemist of note. These three attend my fortunes and my ambitions, feeling as I do, that the world is out of joint and we must labor to set it right.”

  Gwalchmai acknowledged the introductions cordially, but the fumes of the wine were drifting away and his politeness was forced. He saw them clearly, as people with whom De Rais could easily be congenial. About himself, he was not quite so certain.

  It was not that there was anything about them that he could identify and say, “This is repellant to me.” Rather, he saw in them a tight little group who shared some complicity that shut him out.

  Also, now that it was day and his weariness had somewhat passed, he noticed a bitterness graven deep in De Rais’ expression and a slyness about the others at table that he did not like. They seemed about to snigger at him directly and at De Rais when the Baron’s back was turned. There was a secret here.

  Yet, even in his depressed mood he knew Machecoul was where he must stay. This was part of his destiny. As D’Aulon had said, “Home, now, was where the Baron dwelt.”

  So, in this bleak castle, the web of intrigue was woven that woud capture the hearts and minds of slothful men until they could be inspired to risk their lives once more for an ideal.

  Plays—crass propaganda, it is true—were written and lavishly financed by the Baron’s seemingly inexhaustible wealth; the burden of the theme in each presentation was the message the Maid had so proudly and so humbly borne, the cravenness of her king, and the perfidy of the English. Groups of traveling actors performed pantomimes and morality plays all over the country, and as each free entertainment followed in quick succession, their popularity grew.

  - The citizens began to wonder what could follow to surmount in opulence and interest the magnificent productions to which they flocked in ever-increasing numbers. The traveling troupe of players was anxiously awaited, fervently applauded, and their most quotable lines long remembered.

  The climax came with “The Mystery of the Siege of Orleans,” a vast pageant with hundreds of actors and literally thousands of others attending the long strings of extra horses and mules that carried an immense baggage train of provision wagons bearing the costumes, wines, and the tremendous portable stage with its impressive sets and scenery. Again, there was no charge for all this magnificence. Indeed, feasts and fine wines were provided for the audiences, free clothes given away to those who had need. Largesse streamed from the coffers of the Baron.

  Starting in Nantes, “The Siege” traveled on to Bourges, Angers, Montlucon—a pageant of twelve thousand. Everywhere people came to be amused and went away with full hearts, enthralled with the drama, infuriated by the injustice so newly brought home to them, inspired anew with patriotism. “The Siege” played in Orleans for ten months and the expenditures went on as before. Fresh costumes were worn at every performance. The people arrived as guests, eating and drinking without cost, and they came from all over France. Day after day the performances continued while De Rais’s wealth diminished like snow in the sun.

  Was all her divine and superbly courageous effort to go for nothing? People rose in fury, flocking after every performance to take service where recruiting stations where handily set up for Bands of Free Companions to carry on the dragging stalemate of the war to a definite conclusion.

  The small Bands cohered into small armies, which marched against the hated English wherever they still main-, tained a foothold in the sacred lands of France. The French moved and fought, with or without the sanction of the King —who increasingly began to feel that he wore a shaky crown. Thus, in actuality, the Phoenix arose from the ashes of Rouen, even as D’Aulon had predicted, conceived, financed, and executed by the will and fortune of Gilles de Rais.

  Eventually, feeling dangerous pressure upon him, Charles the Seventh, King of France, and Philip, Duke of Burgundy, formed an alliance. Together, they hurled their combined forces against Paris.

  “Before seven years are out, the English will lose a greater prize than Orleans,” Gwalchmai’s beloved had prophesied from her dungeon. So it came to pass.

  By that time, De Rais’ immense fortune had been spent. There was no more intrigue. There were no more plays. Neither was needed. The troupes of actors, the knights and men-at-arms of his personal forces—even the cortege of servants—all were disbanded and discharged.

  When the Baron and his friends left the hotel where he had been staying until accounts were settled, there was not enough money remaining to pay his bill.

  Gwalchmai, who had long foreseen this event, attempted to express his sympathy. De Rais only laughed.

  “Truly a small matter. Hardly worth our consideration, friend Basque. Be of stout heart. It will all come back tenfold. Messer Prelati will see to the replenishment of my fortunes. If he does not, there is One who will give me all I ask.

  We will go and live at Tiffauges. That, at least, still belongs to me.“

  25 The Jiend of tJkCachecoul

  Now, he, a pilgrimage must start Seeking peace for an aching heart. Nothing like this was in his plan— Thank God, that / am not a man!

  Songs of Huon

  The stronghold of Tiffauges, with its formidable walls, looked to Gwalchmai what it actually was—an almost impregnable fortress. Situated on granite heights, overlooking the Sevre valley, it was surrounded by a harsh and sterile landscape.

  The poor soil and its sparse verdure afforded little luxury for th& people of the valley. Yet, even here, the rust of war had corroded the country and left behind it the burned shells of houses. Here were fields turned sour, dogs gone wild, and wandering orphaned children.

  As many times before, in other places, such as Champtoc6 and Machecoul, it became the Baron’s pleasure to offer hospitality to these homeless waifs. Some were sent on at once to the sanctuary of the Foundation; others remained in the castle for a while, and the grim walls echoed to their happy voices as their hunger was appeased and they felt at home in the charity of their Seigneur.

  Gwalchmai was amazed at their early ingratitude. Here, as at all the other places the Baron had given such children his protection, it seemed that even the youngest soon left h
im to wander again, leaving sometimes during the night without offering him the courtesy of a farewell or tendering him their thanks.

  Many of these children Gwalchmai had himself brought in from their pitiful shelters hi the woods or caves, for he and Gilles de Sille, in company with Messer Prelati, often rode abroad on such errands of mercy and it grieved him to see evidence that De Rais* bounty was received without appreciation.

  He did not realize for some time that these disappearances might have another explanation.

  Not all of the little ones met their would-be rescuers with confidence. Some hid in their holes and had to be dragged out, kicking and screaming. Some ran across the open fallow fields or the wild stony barrens known as “deserts” in the hope of outdistancing the horsemen who hunted them.

  At such times, Prelati and De Sille cantered after them, laughing to see their terror. Gwalchmai was indignant at their callousness and often spurred his own horse ahead to pick up the frightened children and breathe comfort into their ears.

  One such little boy he found himself drawn to mightily. When Gwalchmai scooped him up to his saddle bow and looked into his face, it seemed that he saw himself as a child. The dark skin and hair held great similarity. He thought he saw in the fear-distorted features a likeness also to Nikky as he remembered her and when the pounding heart calmed-under his soothing and the boy smiled, his heart went out to him in love.

  This could have been the small son he had never seen.

  Gwalchmai kissed and fondled away the boy’s fears and soon his pitifully thin arms went about his captor’s neck in trust and growing affection, as they rode back to Tiffauges.

  “I am Gwalchmai. I am taking you to a place where you will never be hungry any more and there will be other boys to play with. What is your name?”

  “Maman called me Jea0.1 like you.”

  He nestled confidingly into Gwalchmai’s arms and they rode on in silence to the castle.