III
THERE was in Tintagel a certain man named Mark, a legionary of the guard. The castle had known him two months or less, when he had come south into Cornwall with Gorlois's troop from Caerleon. He was an olive-skinned mercenary, black of beard and black of eye. In the guard-room he had become vastly popular; he could harp, tell a tale, hurl the bar, with any man in the garrison. He was strong and agile as a panther, and as ready with his tongue as he was with his sword. His comrades thought him a merry rapscallion enough, a good fellow whose life was rounded comfortably by the needs of the flesh. He could drink and jest, eat, sleep, and be happy.
Women have quick instinct for a man of mettle, one whose capabilities for pleasing are somewhat of a perilous kind. Malmain of the Forest had taken note of Mark's black eyes, his olive skin, the immense self-control that seemed to bridle him. He had a fine leg, and a most gentlemanly hand. Moreover, his inimitable impudence, his supple wit, took her fancy, seeing that he was a man who professed superb scorn for petticoats, and posed as being wise beyond his generation. There was a certain insolent independence about him that seemed to make of him a philosopher, a person pleased with the puerilities of others.
It came about that Malmain--clumsy, lumbering creature--took to heaving stupendous sighs under the very nose of Mark of the guard. She had not been bred to reservations. If she liked a man, she told him the truth, with a certain admirable frankness. If she hated him, he could always rely upon her fist. Any ethical principle was like a book to her--very curious, no doubt, but absolutely beyond her understanding.
Now the man Mark was a person of intelligence and discretion. He needed the woman's friendship for diplomatic reasons snared up in his own long skull, and since such partisanship could be won by a look and a word, he soon had Malmain very much at his service. Shrewd and cunning wench that she was in the course of nature, she was somewhat easily fooled by the man's suave impudence. She haunted Mark like a shadow when off her duty,--a very substantial shadow, be it noted,--and made it extravagantly plain that she was blessed after all with some of the sentiments of a woman.
One evening, being in the mood, she caught him in bye-passage as he came off guard. He was in armour, and carried a spear slanted over his shoulder. His burnished casque seemed to give a fine setting to his strong, sallow face.
Malmain, generous creature, filled the passage like a gate. Her face matched her scarlet smock, and she was grinning like some grotesque head from the antique. Mark came to a halt, and leaning on his spear, looked at her in the. most bland manner possible. He did not trust women overmuch and he mistrusted Malmain in particular. More-over, she smacked of the wine-cask.
The woman edged close, and shook a fist in his face with a certain bluff enthusiasm.
"A bargain! a bargain!"
The passage was open to the west, and a glare of sunlight shimmered into Mark's eyes. He could only see the woman as a great blur, a mass of trailing hair, a loose, exuberant smock haloed with gold.
"Ha! my cherub, you seem in fettle."
The fist still flickered in his face.
"A bargain! a bargain!"
"Mother of mercy! you are in such a devil of a hurry."
"A kiss for what's in my hand."
"A buffet--big one--a rush-ring, or a garter? "
"That tongue of yours; look and see, look and see ! "
Malmain spread her fingers. The man saw a ring of gold carved in the form of a dragon, with rubies for eyes, and a collar of emeralds about its throat. Lying in the woman's moist, fat palm, it glimmered in the slant light of the sun. Mark's eyes glittered as he looked at it.
"I had the thing from the woman above," quoth Malmain, jerking her thumb over her shoulder.
"A bribe?"
"Who'd bribe me? Not a woman!"
"Honest soul."
"That ring looks well on your finger,' said I. 'I shall have it.' 'Never!' said she. 'That's too big a word,' said I. So I forced it off, for all her temper, and broke her finger in the doing of it."
A transient shadow seemed to pass across the man's face, the wraith of a ghost-wrath insensible to the world.
"Close the bargain, cherub."
"A buss for it."
"Twenty kisses in a week, and my mug of supper beer." He had the ring.
Malmain did not stand alone in her devotion to Mark of the guard. The man had come by another friend in Tintagel, a friend without influence, it is true, but one, at least, who possessed abundant individuality, and the charm of in ingenuous nature. Mark was no mere bravo when he turned partisan to the lad Jehan, and took him within the pale of his mothering wit. He had a profound knowledge of men, and a philosophic insight into character that had not been gained solely on the march or in the ale-house. By profession he appeared a devil-may-care gentleman of the sword, a man of bone and muscle, the possessor of a vigorous stomach. These attributes were mere stage properties, so to speak, necessary to him for the occasion. For the rest, he knew what he knew.
Mark had seen more than cowardice in the sensitive face of the lad. He had discovered the soul beneath the surface, the warmer, bolder personality behind the deceit of the flesh. Jehan appealed to him as a friendless thing, a vial of glass jostled in the stream of life by rough potsherds and sounding bowls. Mark took the lad in hand and made a disciple of him in less than a week. He humoured the lad, encouraged him, treated him like a comrade, drew the soul out of his limp, starved body. Jehan had never fallen upon such a friend before. He was bewitched by the man's personality. This Mark with the strong face and the falcon's eye seemed to see deep into the finer sentiments of life, to think as he thought, to conceive as he conceived. Jehan, unconscious little idealist that he was, bubbled over into innumerable confidences and confessions of feeling. This dark-eyed man, who never laughed at him, whose voice was never blatant and threatening, seemed to exert a magnetic influence upon his spirit. Jehan throned him a species of demigod, and idolised him as he had idolised few living things on earth before.
There was more method in Mark's friendship than his comrades of the guard ever dreamt of in their thick noddles. They had many a laugh at Malmain and many a jest at her expense, but their wit never worked beyond vulgar banality. As for Jehan, his existence certainly seemed to better itself so far as they were concerned, though what the man Mark could see worth patronising in the lad, they were at a loss to discover. Jehan grew less servile, less diffident, more open of countenance. He hided a cook-boy of his own age in a casual scuffle. Mark had used a strong arm and a stronger wit for him on occasion, and the little bastard was no longer cuffed at the random pleasure of every gentleman of Gorlois's guard.
Jehan often spoke to Mark of the lady of the tower whose hair was like the red-gold cloak of autumn. The man seemed ready to hear of her beauty and her distress, and all the multitudinous tales concerning her given from the guard-room. He kindled to the romantic possibilities of the affair, and was as full of sentiment as Jehan himself could wish. Saying little at first, he watched the lad with keen, discerning eyes, as though tracing out the trend, depth, and sincerity of his sympathies; nor was he long ignorant of the strain of chivalry that was sounding in the lad's heart. The more generous sentiments leapt out in a look, a word, a colouring of the cheek. Given inspiration, it was possible to make a fanatic of the boy, a hero in the higher rendering of the term.
In due course the man grew more communicative, less of a listener. Jehan heard of Avangel, of the island manor in Andredswold, of Pelleas, and of the days in Winchester. The whole tragedy was spread before him like a legend, some mighty passion throe of the past. He listened open-mouthed, with blue eyes that searched the man's face. Mark had taken to himself of a sudden an air of mystery and peril. Jehan knew by intuition that these matters were to be kept secret as the grave. Great pride rose in him at being held worthy of such trust. He felt even aggrieved when Mark spoke to him of discretion, with a finger on his lip. Such a secret was like a hoard of gold to the lad. It pleased him with a sense of responsibility and of faith, and Jehan loved honour, for all his novitiate amid the morals of the guardroom.
He had drunk deep of old songs, and of the heroics of the harp. Such things were like moonlight to him, touching his soul with a lustre of idyllic truth. He began to dream dreams, and to speculate extravagantly as to the things that were yet hid from his knowledge. It was borne in upon his mind that Mark was this Pelleas in disguise, come to save Igraine from Gorlois and the towers of Tintagel. The notion took his heart by storm, and his sympathies hovered over the woman like so many scarlet-winged moths. He desired greatly to speak to Mark of that which was in his heart, but feared to seem mischievous and lacking in discretion.
Some three days after Malmain had given Mark the Lady Igraine's ring, Gorlois rode hunting with Morgan la Blanche and a train of knights and damsels. Half the castle turned out to see them sally with their ten couple of hounds in leash, and a goodly company of prickers and beaters. Gareth the minstrel rode with the company on a white horse and sang to the harp a hunting song, and then a chant d'amour. Morgan's laugh was as clear as a bell pealing over water as she rode at Gorlois's side in the sunlight, her silks and samites and gold-green tissues fluttering in the wind.
Jehan ran over the bridge to see them go down into the valley. The dogs tugged at the thongs, the boar spears glittered, the dresses threaded the maze of green as roses thread a briar. Jehan climbed a rock, exulting in the life, the spirit, the colour of it all. Gareth's strong voice came up from the valley as he sang of love and of the fairness of women. Jehan envied him his harp and the honour that it won him. It was his own hope to sing of the beauty of the world, the green ecstasy of spring, of autumn forests flaming to the sky, the eternal sorrow of the tortured sea. He came by this same desire in later years when be sang to Arthur and Guinevere and Launcelot of the Lake in the gardens of Caerleon.
A hand plucked him by the heel as he lay curled on the rock watching the cavalcade flickering away into the green. Looking down, he saw the strong face of Mark of the guard. There was a smile on the man's lips, and to Jehan there seemed something prophetic in his eyes. He climbed down and stood looking into the other's face, the mute, trusting look of a dog.
Mark took him by the shoulder.
"The sea is blue and gold, and the 'Priest's Pool' like a violet well."
"There is time for a swim."
"We will watch for a sail from the cliffs."
"And you will tell me more of Pelleas and Igraine."
Mark was in a visionary mood; he used his spear as a staff and talked little. A sleepy sea bubbled a line of foam along the shore. Bleak slopes rolled greenly against an azure sky, and landwards crag and woodland stood steeped in a mist of sunlight. Jehan, sedulous and reverent, watched the passionless calm of thought upon the man's face. His eyes were turned constantly towards the sea with the hope of one waiting for a white sail from the underworld.
When they had gone a mile or more along the cliffs, they came to a path leading to a bay whose lunette of sand shone red gold above the foam. It was a place of crags and headlands, poised sea billows, purple waters pressing from the west. Jehan sat on a stone and waited. Mark took his cloak and bound it to the staff of his spear. Jehan watched him as he stood at his full height like a tall pine on the edge of the cliff and lifted his spear at arm's length above his head. Seawards, dim and distant like a pearl over the purple sea, Jehan saw a sail strike out of the vague west. Mark still held the cloak upon his spear. Jehan understood something of all this. His mind, packed with plots and subtleties, shone with the silvery aureole of romance.
The sail grew against the sky, and a ship loomed gradual out of the west. Mark shook the cloak from his spear, and climbed down the path that curled from the cliff with Jehan at his heels. Below, the waves swirled in amid the rocks and ran ripple on ripple up the yellow sand. The whole place seemed filled with the hoarse underchant of the sea.
In a narrow part of the track Mark stopped suddenly, and stood leaning on his spear. Jehan nearly blundered into him, but saved himself by the help of a tuft of grass. The man's face was on a level with the lad's, and his eyes seemed to look into Jehan's soul.
He pointed to the distant headland where the towers of Tintagel rose against the sky.
"Death waits yonder," he said.
"For whom?"
"Igraine,--Gorlois's wife."
Jehan looked at him with all his soul. The man was no longer the quaint, vapouring soldier, but a being of different mould, keen, solemn, even magnificent. Jehan felt himself on the verge of romance the man's face seemed to stare down fear.
"And Pelleas!" he said.
"Pelleas?"
"Art thou not Pelleas?"
Mark smiled in his eyes.
"Your dreams fly too fast," he said.
"And yet--"
"You would see some one play the hero. Who knows but that a bastard may save a kingdom."
Mark moved on down the path, stopping now and again to watch the ship at sea; Jehan followed at his heels. They reached the beach, and saw the waves rolling in on them from the west, with the white belly of a sail showing over the water. Mark made no further tarrying in the matter. Standing on a stretch of sand levelled smooth by the water, he traced a cross thereon with the point of his spear.
"Swear by the cross."
Jehan's face was turned to the man's, eager and enquiring.
"To whom shall I swear troth?" he said.
"To Gorlois's wife."
"Ah!"
"And to the King."
"The King!"
Jehan crossed himself with great good-will.
"By the blood of the Lord Jesu, I swear troth."
They went down close to the waste of waters, and let the spume sweep almost to their feet. A vast blue bank of clouds mountained the far west; the sea seemed deep in colour as an amethyst. Gulls were winging and wailing about the cliffs. Tintagel stood out in its strength against the sky, and they could see the waves white upon its rocks.
Mark took the ring Malmain had given him from a pouch at his belt, and held the gold circle before the lad's eyes.
"From the hand of Gorlois's wife," he said.
Jehan nodded.
"This ring was given her by that Pelleas."
"Yes."
"Who is Uther Pendragon, the King."
Jehan's blue eyes seemed to dilate till they looked strangely large in his thin white face.
"The King! " he said, in a kind of whisper.
Mark made all plain to him in a few words.
"The Lady Igraine loved Pelleas, as well she might, not knowing him to be Ambrosius's brother. It was this same great love that brought her in peril of Gorlois's sword. It is this same love that draws her down to her death--there in Tintagel. Uther Pendragon is at Caerleon; her hope is with him. You, Jehan, shall carry word of this to the King."
The lad's heart was beating like the heart of a giant. The world seemed to expand about him, to grow luminous with the glory of great deeds; he had the braying of a hundred trumpets in his ears. He heard swords ring, saw banners blow, and towers topple like smitten trees.
"I am the King's servant," he said.
"You have sworn troth; so be it. You shall go to the King, to Uther Pendragon, at Caerleon. Tell him you had this ring from a soldier, bribed to deliver it by the Lady Igraine. Tell him the evil that is done to her in the castle of Tintagel. Tell him all--withhold nothing."
Jehan flushed to the temples; his lips moved, but no words came from them. He stood stiff and erect, looking out to sea, following with his eyes the sweep of Mark's spear.
"I am the King's servant," he said.
The ship had drawn in towards the shore. She was lying to with her sails put aback, her black hull rising and falling morosely against the tumultuous purple of the clouds. Nearer still a small galley came heading for the shore with a gush of foam at her prow as the men in her bent to the oars. The galley came swinging in on the broad backs of the sluggish waves, and shooting the surf, grounded on the sands, the men in her leaping out and dragging her beyond the reach of the sea.
There was a more mellow light on Mark's face as he pointed Jehan to the boat, and the ship swaying on the sun-gilded waves.
"They will carry you to Caerleon," he said.
"And you, sire?"
"There is need of me at Tintagel."
"I have sworn troth."
Jehan stood and looked into the west at the clouds gold-ribbed, domed, snow, and purple. His face might have been lit by the warm glow of a lamp, so clear and radiant was it. He had thrust the King's ring into his bosom.
"The Lord Jesu speed me," he said; "through the Lady Igraine's face I am no longer a coward. God speed me to save her!"
Mark kissed him on the forehead.
"You have a soul in you," he said.
The man stood on the strand under the black cliffs and watched the boat climb the waves. He saw the galley hoisted up, the sails flapping in the wind as the ship sheered out and ran for the open sea. Her sails gleamed white against the tumultuous west, and the ridged waters hid her hull. Overhead, the gulls screamed and circled. Mark, shouldering his spear, turned back and climbed the cliff, with his face towards the towers of Tintagel.