That night he raided one of the Butcher's hamlets, telling his strength with tongues of fire above the collapsing hovels. Yet when he had the chance to honour his oath he set it bleakly aside; outrage befell as usual, but Joris watched with no more than a sneer and turned away to direct the loading of plundered fodder.
A week or two later, when he returned to winter quarters beneath the Rock, he was met by Madoc and Herbrand, who had controlled the main force in his absence.
"We have a new recruit," said Madoc softly. "One Rufin, a cutthroat of repute from Ververon. He cut a throat too many, shook off the hue and cry, fled across Varne, and blundered half-starved into my hands n the forest. He says he is by-blow to Jehan de Campscapel, and by his voice and bearing speaks the truth."
"Bring him to me," commanded Joris; and presently a grinning ruffian with a shock of sandy hair strode confidently up to him.
"Your servant, Captain," boomed the newcomer. "May I touch your sword and remain?"
"You would in any case remain," said Joris coldly. "Give me that dagger of yours; in a month, if you show merit, you shall have it again."
Rufin stared, half aware that his manner had earned him indignity; for Joris began to keep state of sort, allowing no equality save that of danger.
"Is that your custom?" Rufin asked, flicking a bright blade out of its sheath.
"No," replied Joris, who had not ceased to gaze at him.
"Here it is, then," rejoined the cheerful recruit, presenting a silver hilt. "Maybe you do well to make an exception."
"Do I so?" queried Joris blandly. "And why?"
"Eh, a wolf's head is always a wolf's head, but half a lion needs time for transformation."
Joris smiled as he took the dagger and proffered his sword point, for the device of Montcarneau was quarterly or and gules, four wolves' heads erased counterchanged, and that of Campscapel, sable, a lion rampant argent. The outlaw chieftain thought too much of his own half-noble birth to grudge this villain a similar pride, but as Rufin nipped the blade and swore to serve its bearer, Joris contrived to drop the dagger and stood looking calmly down at it.
Rufin's grin broadened as he stooped and recovered the weapon; he thrust it deftly behind the leader's belt buckle before stepping back.
"I think we shall agree," said Joris, choosing to disregard that quick familiarity. But in his mind he added: "You are a dead man, Rufin, if ever we do not."
* * * *
The fourth time was famous wherever the names of Joris or Red Anne were known. A long-smouldering feud had quickened between the Butcher of Alanol and his nearest eastward neighbour, the quarrelsome Count of Saint-Aunay; of such strife Joris was swift to avail himself, falling on each lord's villages with the war shout of the other, and once dodging from between black surcoats and white to leave them at blows behind him. Then wintry weather intervened, swelling the bogs and rendering trackless the gorges; in the first softness of spring Joris rounded the mountain Dondunor and hurled his full power into a renewal of that little moorland war.
That day an east wind drummed and thundered in the leafless elms by Capel Conan. Now and again cloud shadows swept blue-gray across the fells, but mostly the sunlight cut sharp shade amid the cottages and barns and remnant stacks, between the stone huts where the Butcher's serfs baked tiles of yellow clay, and in the rain-filled gully of the Conan beck. Joris turned on the narrow road that linked the village with Alanol, and mustered his fourscore ragged wolves in shelter of rowan and thorn and pine.
"Cattle and gear we want," he told them, raising his voice against the headlong clamour of wind. "Use steel if you must, and fire before you finish, but remember these hinds are more used to use to us living than dead. Herbrand holds the path behind us; Gandulf leads the flanking party, falling on when I reach the church. Cattle must be driven through the village, not this way; Madoc goes straight ahead to wait at the turn and guide the beasts uphill to the left. No quean comes with us; wooers, be swift or refrain."
A laugh that was barely a laugh ran gutterally down the ranks. Presently Gandulf and his file had slipped away to the right, while Joris faced about and led the main attack downhill.
Mirth of action was in him after the winter's dullness; this was his way of life, the life of a man for whom the world made. Brain, nerve, and muscle were turned to the sharp note of his swinging sword; to left and right behind him he felt his men break forward, almost as though they were wings that swept from his own strong shoulders. At the edge of the woodland he laughed and bayed his deep Haro! – and with a disorderly roar his followers repeated it.
Blind panic awoke in Capel Conan; a dreadful wavering squall went up from forge and oven and byre and from the first long furrows of the fields, Lorin de Campscapel needed nothing from his serfs save unremitting toil and idiot fecundity; since the Jacquerie he had seen to it that they lacked weapons and spirit to wield them. Nevertheless some snatched up spade and scythe, waiting gray-faced to sell their lives as they might; the rest ran, tumbled, leaped, caught up their own children and trampled on each other's, or cowered and hid, to weep and whine and slaver till steel should find them out.
But never a blow was struck when Joris halted. Midway upstreet to the church he flung aloft his sword point and roared, "Stand fast!" With oath and stamp and clattering collision his rogues obeyed him, staring as Joris stared at the riders galloping furiously upon them round that curve of road where Madoc was to turn the driven kine.
The riders were three, and foremost came Red Anne. Astride a mettlesome gray mare, with silver bells, a-jingle on the bridle, with knee boots under her green frock and purple riding hood blown back, she bore a hooded falcon on her gauntleted left wrist. Behind, her servants swords were out, and their faces set for death, but Anne herself was smiling when she reined in a score of yards ahead of the outlaw throng.
"Hola, Joris!" she belled. "Give me a moment's parley!" And to her men: "Back – back a dozen paces!"
"Gladly," said Joris, unmoved, with a rearward sweep of his blade to hold the gaping horde in place.
Then, as he stepped out alone, his left hand stole to his bonnet. Bareheaded, stony-faced, he strode to Red Anne's silver stirrup, exulting that at least she found him red-eyed in act of rapine.
"Flourish your runes to-day?" asked the woman, nowise abashed by his fighting mien; and added, before he could answer: "I like you better with your own colour of beard."
"That is as well," said Joris, looking her straight in the face. "You have mocked me too long, Red Anne. My runes go well enough. To-night at least you are mine."
Something leaped in the pansy-blue eyes that met his own so steadily; but Joris could not read its meaning.
"So be it – on one condition," Anne rejoined, glancing over his head at the muttering men.
"So be it on no condition," amended Joris. "We are not now in Alanol. What bargain would you drive?"
"This. Leave Capel Conan at peace, and I will come with you and give you what joy I may."
"But by the chimes of hell, what else can you do than come?"
His words and gaze were harsh enough, but behind them the iron seemed thinned in his blood. Red Anne smiled again, at this rogue and that behind him. Silence fell in the road and spread across the village; only the rooks, disturbed by the shout of attack, came wheeling back to their elms in a raucous flight. And lest the hush betray the bale of her coming words, the Butcher's lovely mistress leaned from her saddle.
"Talking of old Troy Town," she whispered, "more than patience went to its fall. What if I offer your joy to that man who lays his captain dead in my sight?"
Joris, still staring at her, grew white with controlled rage.
"Offer it, then," he growled, as she sat upright again. "Offer it now, and I lay you dead as you speak. But think you I cannot deal with any man behind me?"
"Ay, with one. Not with seven or seventeen. You wonder how I should fare? Well enough, maybe – and if ill, no matter to you, who by then were carrion."
"We are always so sure, you and I," Red Anne responded; and Joris saw her eyes lift calmly to the hill track winding toward Alanol.
A chill struck through his fury and fascination.
"What is Capel Conan to you?" he demanded. Then, giving no time for reply, he went on: "No matter, you shall not save it. Bid your servants drop sword and dismount, or I fill them with arrows."
"Wooers be swift or refrain!" mocked an oaf well back in the press, but Joris paid no heed to give or following laughter, for Red Anne let fall her bridle and plucked at the lace knot of her hunting frock. Meeting his eyes with her own, she parted the green cloth and plucked at link mail gleaming blue beneath it; behind him oaths and sniggering died down to little startled beast noises, and Joris was starkly aware that Anne dared more than he did.
"Hold, tiger cat!" he grated, as flap of mail fell forward and showed white tunic linen. "Have you then no–"
"Shame" was the word he wanted, and shame the sickness he felt; but instead of ending that speech he caught at the mare's bit and wheeled her in the track. Anne's knee jostled his shoulder; Anne chuckled deep in her throat and caught up the jingling bridle.
"In faith," she jeered quietly, "are you only brave in the dark? I but made way for your sword point – sometimes I wear mail in the hills. See now, your men are impatient – you must not disappoint them, Joris. Where is all your greatness gone, if you do not cleave your enemy? Will you hold me captive here while they sack Capel Conan? Indeed you are not so different from those who shuffle in the rear!"
"Am I not, then?" breathed Joris, glancing before and backward and lifting a sudden grin; for vanity leaped to his rescue in this emergency. "Am I not? You shall see. Ride you and your men out of bowshot, and watch what shall befall."
"But if instead we fled?"
"I think you will wait to see."
"By Mahound you are right … yet if we fled thereafter?"
"Flee, then, and farewell. Rot your terms and conditions; there shall be no harm done in Capel Conan – at least to those who dwell there. Go – go to the Devil!"
He dropped the bit of chain and stepped back. Red Anne reached out with the riding switch that dangled from her right wrist and tapped him on the shoulder.
"Accolade for Chevalier Joris," she jested imperturbably. "This time I will not wait to hear the runes. Be what they may I have now a respect for them. Fare you well – and not too slowly."
With a stamp and a clatter she was away. Her servants reined about and spurred after, and Joris turned to confront a score of bended bows.
"Ai, Captain, let us shoot!"
"By God's bones, three good horses lost, to say nothing of – er – hum!"
"Arch, now, before it is too late!"
"But what the foul fiend ails him?"
"The foul fiend himself, I say. He is bewitched or–"
"Who but a half-wit would allow–"
"Down bows and silence!" roared Joris in their faces. "Madoc, bear so across the fields and bring back Gandulf and his party. Let the rest of you face about and return the way we came. For once I follow behind. No plunder here this day. Out of it – move – Haro!"
Shufflings and stirrings, evil regards askance, grimy paws lifted to hung charms – Joris observed them steadily, hands crossed on his sword pommel. Many might have braved him if one had given a lead, but the boldest among them remembered Ursin's death scream on the Rock, and none ached to be first or even second or third to cross steel with his leader. Also the men had seen Red Anne; and the gesture of Joris in sending trusted Madoc from his side bore some weight. At all events they moved, with bewildered oaths and growling; Joris, pacing last of all, turned and saw the riders halted just in sight.
Red Anne waved a hand above her head.
Half an hour later he paused, far up on a heather lip of the moors, and summoned by name three or four who had scowled the blackest at losing sport and booty.
"Look there," he bade them briefly, pointing to where the hill road wandered beyond the ravine.
They looked, and their faces altered. Hundreds of feet below in the windy sunlight, three-score horsemen were spurring eastward upon Capel Conan – horsemen in black and steel, the dauntless and infamous Riders of Campscapel.
"Perish my beard," said one hair ruffian, blowing a gap-toothed guffaw. "Why did you not tell us, Joris? We thought you moonstruck in daylight – but there was sense in that!"
Joris turned on his heel, vouchsafing no answer. He, no more than his men, had known the cost of delay; and his warrior's mind, that half-despised witchcraft as well as priest-craft, wrestled uneasily with the problem of Red Anne's searching westward glance and casual warning of danger.
"A strange name I shall henceforth bear in Capel Conan," he reflected.
And he led his chastened band to burn two farms of the Count of Saint-Aunay instead.
* * * *
But the ten years went by. The last of them found Joris with more than a hundred men, raiding ever farther southward, returning from time to time to the moors of Nordanay to profit by the dragging strife of Saint-Aunay and Campscapel. Joris himself looked much the same as on the day when he flouted Gaston de Volsberghe and offered up murder and rape at the altar of his love. True, there was gray in his golden beard, but his powers were if anything greater; still he outshot his surest bowmen and winded his sturdiest runners. In foray his life seemed charmed, and the outlaws believed in his luck and craft. Herbrand was slain in a forest scuffle soon after the encounter at Capel Conan, but Gandulf and Madoc were still his chief lieutenants; and to them was presently added Rufin, whose dagger had long been returned to its scabbard according to the promise made by Joris.
Rufin proved brave and discreet, and Rufin it was who skulked on the crags and watched Saint-Aunay outwit red Jehan de Campscapel in a galloping fray beneath the shoulder of the mountain Dondunor.
"Sore snouts above Alanol to-night," chuckled Rufin, gulping his ale. "And my daddy's among the sorest. His visor point was flattened like the heel of an empty wine skin. A score of the Riders were down – short shrift they had, you may be sure. The Butcher lies sick, they say; he would never have risked such a charge."
Joris grunted assent and then was silent. Presently he was alone on the flat of the Rock; it was the sunset hour, and fires glowed in the limestone chasm. By one of them a man was playing on a little reed pipe; the thin inconsequent sound of it drifted up to the chieftain as he sat humped and brooding in face of tranquil sky and many-coloured hills. When he was twelve Joris played on such a pipe, gazing over treetops at the towers of Montcarneau, wondering what it was like to live in a castle. Now he was thirty-five, and still he wondered; for the moated grange of Medrincourt, whose hall and kitchen and stables he once knew well, could not compare with the great holds of Montenair and Olencourt, of Hastain and Guarenal and Ger. Campscapel, too, that sat above frightened Alanol ... the thoughts of Joris slanted heavily along pain-darkened ways, and his runes, once so comforting, clacked idly in his mind against the cheerful folly of the piper's airs beneath the blood-stained rock.
Joris, as has been earlier said, knew no self-pity, but he was conscious of talent in him that outlawry had wasted. Set in a frontier tower, with lands of his own to guard, he would soon bring credit on his banner – that banner he sometimes pictured in fancy, with its silver baton sinister across the red-and-yellow wolves' heads in quarters yellow and red.
"A frontier would suit me best," he mused, with a twitch of his firm lips. "I doubt not I should find some irk in having an overlord again. But only a war will right me now, and there is none insight save these blind skirmishes of counts among their villages. Give me a war, a real war, wherein men may find their worth. Then, with a hundred swords to sell, there might be amnesty and reversal. And Anne's mock title of 'chevalier' could yet belong to me in truth. The Church, too, should have its say – oh, I would kneel till my marrow bones ached, and drone what folly they a
sked of me. if any of these rats below bear crimes beyond absolution, let them stay in the hills; they would be welcome to this my twelve years' home."
After a while he stirred aloud:
"'Black shall be riven, and gold given to red new-shriven,'" he quoted. "By the blood of the Pope, I have said the words a thousand times and never seen that gold, not red, might be the shriven one. Likelier outlaw than witch, indeed, to gain the bishop's blessing. 'And gold given (to red) new-shriven.'"
And for some minutes longer he sat dreaming in face of tranquil hills and many-coloured sky. At length he yawned, and stretched his powerful limbs, and rose to descend from his eyrie.
"It is long since my runes gave me relish for supper," said Joris of the Rock.
* * * *
Saint-Aunay pressed his advantage, and in the following June his raiders nearly captured Red Anne in Capel Conan; but the villagers fought the men-at-arms, having her in their midst, and the Butcher himself got wind of the leaguer in time to rise from a sick bed and spur to the rescue. Joris, hearing of that fray, altered his plans for summer raiding; if the Butcher were out again it was safer to plunder the southern edges of the Forest of Honoy.
Yet summer passed into autumn, and the Butcher seemed holding his hand. Joris sent Gandulf northward alone, and thought mischance had befallen him; for dry October dwindled and dull November came, and the forests filled with mist and gloom and yielded up no Gandulf. Finally, Joris assumed his old disguise as a peddler and haunted the wayside taverns on the roads to Hautarroy; and there, on a noon of drizzling rain, he held a merchant's bridle at the door of an abbey guest house, and heard the direful rumour that shook down from the north.
The Butcher had taken his enemy hunting, to eastward of the hold of Saint-Aunay. Count and countess and half their household were prisoners; by setting the lady on horseback in front of them, and holding lances to her back, the laughing Riders of Campscapel had ridden across the lowered drawbridge and made a dreadful slaughter, leaving the dark towers belching smoke before they rioted westward. That was all the merchant knew, and when he had told it he stared, for the hulking peddler dropped his bridle and made off through the abbey hamlet without a glance behind him.
Joris of the Rock [The Neustrian Cycle, Book II] (Forgotten Fantasy Library) Page 8
