Love Among the Ruins

by Warwick Deeping

  XLI

  The prophecies of the King proved the power of their pinions beforefourteen suns had passed over the Black Wild's heart. Richard ofLauretia had plotted to starve Fulviac into giving him battle, or into aretreat from the forest upon Gilderoy. The royal prognostications werepitiless and unflinching as candescent steel. It was no merebattle-ground that he sought, but rather an amphitheatre where he mightmartyr the rebel host like a mob of revolted slaves.

  Whatever tidings may have muttered on the breeze, riders came in hotlyto the royal pavilion towards the noon of the fourteenth day. There wassoon much stir on the hills hard by Geraint. Knights and noblesthronged the royal tent, captains clanged shoulders, gallopers rodesouth and west with fiery despatches to Morolt and Sir Simon ofImbrecour. Battle breathed in the wind. Before night came, the King'spavilion had vanished from the hills; his columns were winding round thenorthern hem of the forest, to strike the road that ran from Geraint toGilderoy.

  The royal scouts and rangers had not played their master false. A riverof steel was curling through the black depths of the wild, threading thevalleys towards the east. The King's scouts had caught the glimmer ofarmour sifting through the trees. They had slunk about the rebel hostfor days while they lay camped in their thousands about the cliff.Colgran and his small company had passed through unheeded, but they wereup like hawks when the whole host moved.

  That midnight Fulviac's columns rolled from the outstanding thickets ofthe wild, and held in serried masses for the road to Gilderoy. TheKing's procrastination had launched them on this last desperate venture.They would have starved in the forest as Fulviac had foreseen; theirhopes lay in reaching Gilderoy, which was well victualled, throwingthemselves therein, making what terms they could, or die fighting behindits walls. Thus under cover of night they slipped from the forest,trusting to leave the King's men guarding an empty lair.

  The brisk forethought of Richard of Lauretia had out-gamed the rebels,however, in the hazardous moves of war. They were answering to hisopening like wild duck paddling towards a decoy. Ten miles west ofGilderoy there stretched a valley, walled southwards by tall heights,banded through the centre by the river Tamar. At its eastern extremitya line of hills rolled down to touch the river. The road from Geraintran through the valley, hugging the southern bank of the river aftercrossing it westwards by a fortified bridge. Fulviac and his host wouldfollow that road, marching betwixt the river and the hills. It was inthis valley that Richard of Lauretia had conceived the hurtling climaxof the war.

  Forewarned in season, Sir Simon of Imbrecour and his bristling squadronswere riding through the night on Gilderoy, shaping a crescent coursetowards the east. Morolt and the giants of the north were striding inhis track, skirting the southern spires of the forest, to press levelwith the rebel march, screened by the hills. The King and hisLauretians came down from Geraint. They were to seize the bridge acrossthe Tamar, pour over, and close the rebels on the rear.

  It was near dawn when Fulviac's columns struck the highroad fromGeraint, and entered the valley where the Tamar shimmered towardsGilderoy. Mist covered the world, shot through with the gold threads ofthe dawn. The river gleamed and murmured fitfully in the meadows; thesouthern heights glittered in the growing day; the purple slopes of theBlack Wild had melted dimly into the west.

  The mist stood dense in the flats where the Geraint road bridged theriver. The northern slopes seemed steeped in vapoury desolation, theroad winding into a waste of green. Fulviac and his men marched on,chuckling as they thought of the royal troops watching the empty alleysof the forest. Fulviac took no care to secure the bridge across theTamar. With the line of hills before them breasted, they would see thespires of Gilderoy, glittering athwart the dawn.

  The columns were well in the lap of the valley before two light horsemencame galloping in from the far van, calling on Fulviac, who rode underthe red banner, that the road to Gilderoy had been seized. Fulviac andSforza rode forward with a squadron of horse to reconnoitre. As theyadvanced at a canter, the mists cleared from the skirts of theencircling hills. Far to the east, on the green slopes that rolledtowards the Tamar, they saw the sun smite upon a thousand points ofsteel. Pennons danced in the shimmering atmosphere, shields flickered,armour shone. A torrent of gems seemed poured from the dawn's lap uponthe emerald bosoms of the hills. They were the glittering horsemen ofSir Simon of Imbrecour, who had ridden out of the night and seized onthe road to Gilderoy.

  Fulviac halted his company, and standing in the stirrups, scanned thehillside under his hand. He frowned, thrust forth his chin, turned onSforza who rode at his side.

  "Trapped," he said with a twist of the lip; "Dick of the Iron Hand hasfooled us. 'Twas done cunningly, though it brings us to a parlouspassage. They hold the road."

  The Gonfaloniere tugged at his ragged beard, and looked white under thearch of his open salade.

  "Better advance on them," he said; "I would give good gold to be safe inthe streets of Gilderoy."

  Fulviac sneered, and shook his head.

  "There are ten thousand spears on yonder slopes, the lustiest blood inthe land. Count their banners and their pennons, the stuff tells anhonest tale. Pah, they would drive our rapscallions into the river.Send back and bid our banners halt."

  They wheeled and cantered towards the long black columns ploddingthrough the meadows. Far to the west over the green plain they sawspears flash against the sun, a glimmering tide spreading from theriver. The Lauretians had crossed the bridge and were hurrying on therebels' heels. Fulviac's trumpets sounded the halt. He thundered hisorders to his captains, bade them mass their men in the meadows, andhedge their pikes for the crash of battle.

  A shout reached him from his squadrons of horse who had marched on thesouthern wing. They were pointing to the heights with sword and spear.Fulviac reined round, rode forward to some rising ground, and lookedsouthwards under his hand. The heights bounding the valley shone withsteel. A myriad glistening stars shimmered under the sun. Morolt'snortherners had shown their shields; the hills bristled with their billsand spears.

  Fulviac shrugged his shoulders, lowered his beaver, and rode backtowards his men. He saw Yeoland the Saint's red banner waving above thedusky squares. He remembered the girl's pale face and the hands thathad toyed with the gilded silks in the dark chamber upon the cliff.Though the sun shone and the earth glistened, he knew in his heart thathe should see that face no more.

  Richard of Lauretia had forged his crescent of steel. South, east, andwest the royal trumpets sounded; northwards ran the Tamar, closing themeadows. Fulviac and his men were trapped in the green valley. Agolden girdle of chivalry hemmed the mob in the lap of the emeraldmeadows. All about them blazed the panoply of war.

  Fulviac, pessimist that he was, took to his heart that hour the loftytranquillity of a Scandinavian hero. His courage was of that stout,sea-buffeting fibre that stiffened its beams against the tide of defeat.He set forth his shield, tossed up his sword, rode through the rankswith the spirit of a Roland. Life leapt the stronger in him at thechallenge of the Black Raven of death. His captains could have swornthat he looked for victory in the moil, so bluff and strenuous was hismood that day.

  Sforza came cringing to him, glib-lipped and haggard, to speak of aparley. Fulviac shook his shield in the man's white face, set hisruffians to dig trenches in the meadows, and to range the waggons as abarricade.

  "Parley, forsooth," quoth he; "talk no more to me of parleys when I havetwoscore thousand smiters at my back. Let Dick of the Iron Hand comedown to us with the sword. Ha, sirs, are we stuffed with hay! We willrattle the royal bones and make them dance a fandango to the devil."

  His spirit diffused itself through the ranks of the rough soldiery.They cheered wheresoever he went, kindling their courage like a torch,and tossed their pikes to him with strenuous insolence.

  "My children," he would roar to them as he passed, "the day has come, wehave drawn thes
e skulkers to a tussle. See to it, sirs, let us maulthese velvet gentlemen, these squires of the cushion. By the Lord, wewill feast anon in Gilderoy, and rifle the King's baggage."

  As for Richard of the Iron Hand, he was content to claim the arduousblessings of the day. He held his men in leash upon the hills, restingthem and their horses after the marchings of the night. Wine was servedout; clarions and sackbuts sounded through the ranks; the King made hisnobles a rich feast in his pavilion pitched by Sir Morolt's banner. Asthe day drew on, he thrust strong outposts towards the meadows, orderedhis troops to sleep through the long night under arms. Theirwatch-fires gemmed a lurid bow under the sky, with Tamar stringing it, achord of silver. In the meadows the rebel masses lay a black pool ofgloom under the stars.

  Fulviac sat alone in his tent at midnight, his drawn sword across hisknees. His captains had left him, some to watch, others to sleep on thegrass in their armour, Sforza the Gonfaloniere to sneak in the dark tothe King's lines. Silence covered the valley, save for the voices ofthe sentinels and the sound of the royal trumpets blowing the changes onthe hills. Their watch-fires hung athwart the sky like a chain offlashing rubies.

  Fulviac sat motionless as a statue, staring out into the night. Death,like a grey wraith, stood beside his chair; the unknown, a black andunsailed sea, stretched calm and imageless beneath his feet. Life andthe ambition thereof tottered and crumbled like a quaking ruin. Lovequenched her torch of gold. The man saw the stars above him, heard inthe silence of thought a thousand worlds surging through the infinitudesof the heavens. What then was this mortal pillar of clay, that itshould grudge its dust to the womb of the world?

  And ambition? He thought of Yeoland and her wounded heart; ofGambrevault and Avalon; of La Belle Foret smoking amid its ruins. Hehad torched fame through the land, and painted his prowess in symbols offire. Now that death challenged him on the strand of the unknown,should he, Fulviac, fear the unsailed sea!

  His heart glowed in him with a transcendent insolence. Lifting hissword, he pressed the cold steel to his lips, brandished it in the facesof the stars. Then, with a laugh, he lay down upon a pile of straw andslept.