robert le débonair was king of france, robert le diable duke of normandy, john xix pope in rome, héribert bishop of a diocese taking name from a certain town between orléans and paris, rothalind abbess of a great house of benedictine nuns, rainulf the red, baron holding a wide fief and dwelling, when he was not hunting or ravening in war or gone upon some visit with an errand of his own, in the castle above the river. rainulf was a tiger, a stream in flood, a devastating flame. mellissent was his wife. isabel his sister, was gone to be a nun, and was the happier. gerbert was a music-maker who ate in rainulf’s hall.
black martin was not king nor baron nor bishop, but he ruled his own that was a troop of entertainers of the time. the time knew much wretchedness and clamoured for crude forgetfulness. black martin sold that by the hour, whether in market-place or castle hall or at crossroads when travellers enough gathered themselves together. he was seventy years old and yet strong as an ox. he was dour as an old wolf in winter, and in fight as bad to meet, and he had the cunning of sire reynard. he ruled the score of human beings composing his band with more absoluteness than king robert ruled france. four of the number were his sons, and four the women with his sons. two of these were lawful wives, two were not. there were five children{314} in the band. the remainder, all but one, were kindred only because of adam and eve, and because their common occupation was to lighten the heart or impart motion to the mind. the remaining one was gersonde, black martin’s granddaughter, child of a dead eldest daughter and some man somewhere. black martin’s band included buffoons, tumblers and wrestlers, a dwarf, a dancer, two singers of ballads and players of harps, a man with an ape and a fortune-teller or soothsayer.
that last was the part of gersonde. she was a dark woman in a red gown with a blue mantle. now black martin beat her, and now he listened to what she said when it came to points upon which he was perplexed. he never listened to her when she wished to stop soothsaying and play and sing with bageron and rosamund, or to dance with maria. if she was insistent he beat her. he was not perplexed here; coin came into the soothsayer’s lap when the singers and players and even the dancer made no collection.
it had been a year of greedy staring, but small, small collections. the lesser folk, serfs and villeins and craftsmen in mean villages or towns, gave nothing at any time unless it were coarse food, or a turn of their trade, or a night’s rest in a dark and crowded hut. this year they did not give the food for it was a famine year. and the burghers in the larger towns gave little, the landed folk gave little, castle court and hall proved saving.
black martin spoke to gersonde. “soothsay for me! we have had famine years before—”.
“they told us in that monastery, ‘the end of the world is coming.’ the priest we met on the road said, ‘the end of the world is at hand.’ three days ago, in that{315} town, the church bells rang and our crowd left us, and gave their money into the bag at the door.”
“the end of the world—! i would i might give it a rope’s end! the world ends if i starve! hark you! soothsay that the world does not end—at least not in our time! soothsay along this road so that we get money! get money or get thy ribs broken!”
the road that they were travelling proved villainously muddy and uneven. toward noon they found sitting by the wayside a man who led in a chain a brown bear. “this road is most fearful—plain bog and mountain! but never will it be mended, because presently comes the end of the world!”
black martin shook his bull shoulders and scraped the mud from a torn shoe. “we have been south. i heard a little talk of that, but nothing in a month to what is heard now in a day! is it coming to an end in france before it comes in aquitaine?”
“only the learned knew much about it,” said the bearward. “then, all of a sudden, comes a word from the bishops that has to be read in all the churches. and it begins, ‘as the end of the world is at hand—’ so it began to run from mouth to mouth.—the road is muddy and it is raining? well, the earth sweats with terror!”
it was yet raining when the troop of entertainers came into the town between orléans and paris. they came through a narrow street that turned and wound upon itself to the market-place, and all the way jouel and baudwin beat drum and played viol, and black martin at the head cried in a bull’s voice. “choice entertainment! my masters! my masters! choice entertainment!” they brought into the market-place a queue of followers and{316} attracted certain folk already there. but the rain came down hard, and the entertainers were dead tired and downhearted and all went spiritlessly. even fear of black martin could not keep it up. the crowd felt the chill rain and dissolved. the individuals that stayed, having no better place to go, were not the kind that scattered gain.
there was a black, tangled knot of lanes and alleys like frozen serpents. mean houses cowered on either side. the entertainers bargained for night’s lodging in certain of these, and fire to cook food by. dusk shut in, with a great monastery bell booming overhead. pastourel the wrestler and his wife jeanne and their three children and gersonde the soothsayer had a hut-like place with a hearth in the middle and the smoke going out through a hole overhead. pastourel was black martin’s son, gersonde’s uncle. if he had not had a black temper he would have been by no means a bad giant. jeanne was younger than he, not much older than gersonde. gersonde loved jeanne and the children.
outside poured the rain. the smoke within the hut circled acrid and heavy. jeanne, bringing pastourel his supper, let fall the wooden bowl and spilled the stew of little-meat and fragments of vegetables. pastourel had a stick which he used in vaulting. he took it now and beat jeanne, beat her much worse than he usually did, since the rain and ill-luck were in his temper. jeanne began to cry out loudly; his hand was twisted in her long hair, and he flung her to the floor and still beat her. the children cried, huddled in the corner. gersonde dragged at pastourel’s arm, caught at the stick. he was strong as a bull, he flung her to the other side of the hut and kept on beat{317}ing jeanne. the hut stood in a populous alley; now came folk striking at the door to know if there was murder.
pastourel flung the door open. “i am beating my wife who spoiled my supper! cannot a man beat his wife in peace and quietness?”
the people left the door. “it is nothing! there is nothing unlawful. he is beating his wife.”
pastourel gave jeanne half a dozen more blows, upon the sides, the shoulders and the head, then set his stick in the corner, and flinging himself down upon the straw ate the meat and black bread without the broth. the night set in, dark, wet and chill.
yet the next morning showed a bright sky with sunbeams that pierced even those lanes. black martin’s band took station betimes in the market-place. that was a large, unpaved space, muddy this morning under foot, but roofed by a sky of sapphire. the great buildings that showed above intermediate structures were the church and monastery. above them in turn, upon the rock above the town, struck against the blue bishop héribert’s house that was nothing less than a castle. coming back to market-place, there were found a storehouse, a guild house, other buildings rude and small, a few better houses belonging to the principal burghers. down the opening of a street showed the peaked roof of a béguinage, and nearer yet to the market-place the long front of the brothel licensed by the town. the market cross rose in the middle of the market-place, and all around were the hucksters’ booths.
rude was the time and place, and rude the folk, clergy and laity, country and town, fief-holding noble, man-at-arms and servitor, serf and villein, monk and pilgrim, stroller, beggar, outlaw, leper, jew, saracen, and christian.{318} such as they were, samples of all skirted or traversed the market-place of this town.
it should have been a good day. but though a crowd gathered, it was nothing like so good a crowd as it should have been. its units looked hungrily for a turn or two, then drifted away. others took their places, but these also proved unstable. there was little real applause, hardly any loud jocularities tossed back to the entertainers. these, like all entertainers, had the quickest ear for any drop or hollowness in applause. such communication received, the ray what’s the use? saw to it that their own movements became dispirited. the people of this town had been taxed of all their money or had given it all away. at least, none of the booth people seemed to have it, for their faces, too, were long, and on the other side of the place the man with the brown bear did not seem to have it. the bells clanged noon; the folk were streaming into the church. a palmer crossed the market-place. he held up his staff that had tied to it a bit of dried palm. “it is almost one thousand years since he suffered! almost one thousand years! be not taken buying and selling, ploughing and building, laughing and clapping of the shoulder as though ye did not believe! almost one thousand years!” the bell clanged again. up in the sky was a cloud. now it floated so that it came between the sun and the town. shadow wrapped the place. half the people took panic fright. “signs and signs! the end of the world—!”
rainulf the red rode into town with a train of twenty. he had a quarrel with bishop héribert; he came to make it lighter or make it darker. to the sound of ringing bells he came into the market-place on his way to the bisho{319}p’s house that was in every aspect a castle. he knew the town well, and the castle and the bishop—at least he thought that he knew the bishop. there came in the only doubt—doubt as to whether the quarrel’s shade was solely a matter of red rainulf’s will.
he rode his huge grey horse across the market-place, caring not at all that he and his men thrust against booths, made goods to fall in the mire, threatened to trample children and the old and unwary. “rainulf the red!” cried the people, men and women, and ducked and cringed.
“come laugh at baudwin buffoon! come marvel at pastourel and rayneval the wrestlers! come listen to barnabo’s song, a circumcised jew that became a christian! will you see the dwarf seguin?—maria the dancer that danced before the soldan of paynimry! a soothsayer, a soothsayer! gersonde the soothsayer, who can taste what the king has for dinner, and hear the bells in rome!”
black martin’s bull voice burst its way from the other side of the market cross. rainulf the red rode on, then turned his horse’s head. his men turned with him, gerbert the music-maker, whom, for some whim, he had brought with him, turned—black martin, seeing them coming, felt as though he had swallowed a stoup of wine. he spoke in an undervoice to the entertainers, that, for this reason and that and another, he dominated as though they were his fingers: “do your best—each one of you! get bright coin from him—or answer to me—or answer to me!”
rainulf the red said, “where is your soothsayer?”
black martin indicated gersonde where she sat upon a{320} stone, her mantle about her. “lord, will you have her come to your bridle-rein?”
soothsayers, more than ordinarily, had left their youth behind them. but this one was yet young, and she had, if you chose to see it, beauty....
pastourel and rayneval were tumbling marvellously upon the carpet they had laid. baudwin buffoon strutted from corner to corner. one of rainulf’s men laughed loudly, then another; baudwin had caught them. pastourel, planting the stick with which he had beat jeanne, vaulted high over it. a man-at-arms clapped his hands, watched for the next trick. maria the dancer began to bend and whirl.
“soothsayer,” spoke rainulf, “if two fiefs quarrel, my fief and another fief, shall my fief win? will we get it done before christ comes, and will there be time in which i may get absolution if there has been sacrilege committed?”
the soothsayer stood still with folded hands. all light in her face seemed to go inward, and though her eyes did not close they appeared to rest from use in vision. she stood so for a span of time, while the bells yet rang and the cloud passed from overhead so that the market-place lay in sunshine. she spoke in an inward and murmuring voice. “why do the folk dread the end of the world? that would be a fair sight, to see christ come!—but have no fear, lord! long, long, long will it be ere you see him coming!”
“i will get clear before the end of the world?”
“yea. the end of the world is not yet.”
her face became as usual. she sighed, then smiled as was the rule, and made her reverence and cupped her outstretched hand for the piece of money.{321}
rainulf the red stooped from the saddle, put the coin in her hand and closed his own over it. “what is your name?”
“gersonde, lord.”
she went back and sat upon her stone. rainulf the red spoke to black martin, standing cap in hand. he spoke in a somewhat lowered, but not greatly lowered voice. he was a strong baron, and these were strollers, and it was nothing extraordinary that which he proposed. he drew his horse aside, but not much aside. he looked at the soothsayer in her blue mantle, then bargained with the head of the band. black martin pursed his lips, then named a sum. the baron halved it; they finally agreed upon three fourths of the first amount. black martin sold his granddaughter’s body and agreed that it should be found at such an hour in such a place.
rainulf the red and his men rode on to the bishop’s castle, whither presently followed black martin’s band of entertainers. these gained some recompense in the great court, with dinner in the kitchens, and a night’s lodging in a loft. but black martin gave gersonde to the man sent for her.... it was not the first time he had sold her. he gave her, as before, a beating and pushed her out. she followed gerbert the music-maker, to whom his lord had given the order to bring her to the tower in which héribert had placed his guest.
rainulf abode three days with the bishop; then, having made up his mind to declare war, rode away to reach safety before he did so. among his various determinations was one in regard to the soothsayer gersonde. at one moment he thought that she was not fair, and at another that she was so. twice in the three days he had demanded sooth{322}saying and had found a value in the words that came from behind still face and wide eyes.
he sent one to bring to him black martin. “the woman your granddaughter. she will be cared for. here are three pieces of gold.”
“sire, sire, the gain she brings me—”
“three pieces of gold. when you have quitted bishop’s land you are in my land. merchants who do not like my buying meet ill luck.”
“lord, when you have done with her—”
“i do not buy with conditions.—are there not granddaughters enough in every land? find yourself another!”
black martin returned to his band. he had not gersonde, but he had gold in his purse. “that lord will throw her from him when his mood changes! then will she feel her way back to us who are all she knows—for what better, christ, can a woman do?”
jeanne and the children wept, but that made no difference.
rainulf the red and his men took the road to his castle. there were several led horses, and on one of these was placed the soothsayer.
the day was cloudy, the road bad. rainulf rode well ahead, with two or three. the body of his train, loath to leave the town, grumbled, swore, was quarrelsome among its members. under the grey sky the country wore a desolated look. there was a field in which, earlier that morning, there had been reapers. it lay half cut, and the sickles upon the earth among the corn. farther on, they came to the reapers themselves, hurrying along the wayside. “where are you going, you hinds?” a young man an{323}swered: “to st. martin’s shrine. it is the end of the world!”
farther on were other folk, men and women. a priest harangued these. “holy church tells you, it draws nigh to a thousand years since he suffered! if the sky be not rolled back and the earth does not perish it will be because of church’s prayers. so pray to church to pray for you! believe, give, amend your lives! but do not leave your fields and your smithies, your tending of flocks and diking and ditching—”
the country grew wilder and more unkempt. the sky hung leaden grey. rainulf was well ahead; depression took his followers. one turned in his saddle. “gerbert there, with your viol! for holy virgin’s sake, make us music!”
gerbert dropped the reins of his horse. the beast plodded on, no fiery war-steed. gerbert himself was little thought on, of little importance in red rainulf’s demesne. the music-maker drew bow across strings. he played well, loving his art. he made the music that he played, and now it was merry and now it was sad. to-day he made a music that was swift and wild. “gay, gay!” cried the men. “fast and sweet!”
gerbert’s bow danced upon the viol strings. then a string snapped. “mute—mute!” he said. “the end of the world for this music!”
the old horse that he rode had fallen back, was going with the hindermost. gerbert found himself beside gersonde the soothsayer. she had been listening to the music. now she spoke. “the world ends, the world begins.”
gerbert said, “to-morrow, doubtless, i shall mend the viol and play again.{324}”
they were riding side by side, and none giving them heed. “why is it,” said gerbert, “that i feel greatly at home with you? there is here something strange, that i cannot understand. it is as though a light and warmth went from me to you and you to me.”
“some strings are stretched alike and give the same sound.—your name now is gerbert?”
“gerbert. and your name is gersonde.... in the red castle if you need help.... but i am only gerbert who thinks at night, and in the daytime plays before the baron! as little as if i were a woman can i give help!”
as he spoke they came in sight of the red castle. rainulf’s hold was a rude, great place, moat and bridge and wall, towers and keep. it crowned a hill and looked down upon a river, and by the river cowered a wretched village of huts. around stretched field and forest, and more forest than field. the sky hung grey. ravens were flying above a wood, and the hill, when rainulf’s horn was blown, threw back a sullen echo.
mellissent, rainulf’s wife, watched from the wall the troop come up the road. she had two tire-maidens with her, and she spoke to them. “is not that a woman?”
“yea, mistress.”
“ever he nets new birds! well, i would i were a man!”
that was one day. mellissent waited two days, then, rainulf riding on business to the north, sent and bade to her presence the new-caught bird. “stand there!... you soothsay?”
“falsely when i am paid, lady, and sometimes truly when i gain naught.”
“then soothsay as to yourself.”
“i cannot.{325}”
“then will i for you,” said mellissent. “rainulf will hold you in liking for a month, then will he wish other food. most women have no other claim than being women; whether that is their fault or sorrow or mournful plight put upon them, i cannot say. you can tell what fortune will befall, so you may not be thrust out at gate. so long as your fortune-telling pleases rainulf you shall have your hole in the wall and your crust of bread. ’ware any soothsaying that does not please him!—for then you will be only woman again.”
“i shall not stay the month, dame,” said gersonde.
mellissent regarded her, chin in hand. “have you fondness for rainulf?”
“no.”
“i will tell you some things,” said mellissent. “there forms a wish in me to speak to you.... i was a girl in this castle, but it was brighter then than it is now. my father and his sons were slain in battle, and count odo was my overlord. he would give this fief to one who fought hard and ruled hard, so one morning there rode here rainulf to be my husband. now i loved a man whose castle was not far away, and he was noble, and in all ways fit to carry this fief. so i stole from this castle and rode to find count odo, and kneeling before him begged him to give me that one for my husband. but he would not, and he held me there in his town, and sent for rainulf, and married me to him, there in the church, and the next day we rode back to red castle. that was summer, and when winter came rainulf picked quarrel with that man whom i loved. war was between them, and red rainulf slew my man.... soothsay to me if a woman is ever and always to marry only as says father or brother or suzerain! they say that{326} the end of the world is coming. i care not how soon it comes if things change. if they change not, it is nothing, coming or going!”
“i cannot soothsay to-day,” said gersonde. “i only know that the world does not end and much is yet to happen.”
what should happen immediately with herself was to leave the castle. she was homesick for jeanne and the children.
but a month passed before she might win away. then the quarrel between bishop and baron flamed from earth to zenith. out at gate, over bridge, down the road clattered rainulf the red and his men. they went to the bishop’s lands there to harrow, burn, and slay. the red castle stood emptied of fighting men.
the sun set; there followed a chill night of clouds with a few stars in between. the soothsayer crept out upon the wall, the great and small gates being fastened. she had a rope which she had made of many different woven things. this she tied about a jutting stone and flung the loose end clear. resting upon her hands she looked over the wall and saw that it hung not far from earth. trusting her weight to the rope she came down the castle wall. at hand was the moat, cold under the stars. she entered the water, finding it rise not higher than her bosom. over moat she went, climbed the bank, and presently was upon wild hillside. below were the huts of the serfs of red castle; these she avoided, and went her way by a cart track that took her by meadow and forest. she did not know how she should find jeanne and the children, but she trusted to find them.
after walking for a long while she saw to the right in the{327} woods a red star. going toward it she came to a woodcutter’s hut, and peering in at the crack that did for window saw that it held none but women and a babe. she saw that the fire had been lighted because there was birth. she knocked at the door, and when at last, after consultation within, it was opened a little way, asked for shelter and warmth. “naught but a woman alone?” asked she who held the door. “sit quiet then by the fire.” she entered and sat by the fire and dried her clothing.
in a corner, upon a sheepskin and some straw, lay sleeping the mother of the two-hour-old babe. an old woman sat in the red firelight, the child in her lap. the woman who had opened the door took again her seat upon a billet of wood on the other side of the hearth. she rested her elbow upon her knee, her cheek in her hand. gersonde sat upon the earthen floor, between the two. the fire of faggots danced and glowed. the thin smoke wandered and circled in the hut before it found and went out at the hole in the roof.
“who are you, and why are you so wet?” asked the younger woman.
“i forded a stream. i am a soothsayer, black martin’s granddaughter.”
they were not curious, or it seemed to be enough. they stayed silent and gersonde with them. the mother and the babe slept; the old woman and the two younger ones sat somewhat huddled over the fire. now and then one put out a hand, took a faggot from the heap, and fed the flame. the hours went by. somewhere a cock crew.
gersonde lifted her head, then rose to her feet. “it is time to go. i thank you all.”
said the younger woman: “guyot and simon have gone{328} with the baron. you may stay if you wish and help with the woodcutting.”
the old woman spoke. “what do they say outside about the world coming to an end?... what i do wish to know is this: is there to be turn and turn about in heaven? will the baron be the woodcutter, and the woodcutter the baron? will man be woman, and woman be man?”
“that is not the way they manage,” said gersonde. “for then still would be unhappiness.”
she drew her cloak around her, said good-bye, and left the hut. it was pink dawn, and the birds were cheeping in the trees. as she went she ate the black bread they had given her.
at noontide a man, travelling the same narrow road from the castle, came by the woodcutter’s hut. he carried a viol strung over his shoulder, and a lean hound padded before him. the younger woman was chopping a felled tree, the old woman gathering faggots. they rested from their work to look at the music-maker.
“did a woman come by here—a dark woman with a red dress and a blue mantle?”
“no woman, sir.”
but the hound kept on, and gerbert.
the abbey of the blessed thorn had for abbess a count’s sister, a woman more able than the count, able, determined, genial, no more religious than bishop héribert or abbot simon, but a good ruler of her nuns, a highly competent wielder and manager of the wide fief of blessed thorn. the abbess rothalind rose early, and was a dear lover of hawking. now, the day being fine, she was out with several of her nuns, with two falconers and a groom, and with ermengarde, a lady accused of evil, who, pend{329}ing judgement in her case, had taken sanctuary with blessed thorn. the morning’s sport over, the train came, under blue sky and with a jingling of bells at bridle reins, to a crossroads on a bit of heath. here it overtook a woman in a blue mantle.
the abbess checked her horse. “who are you, wandering here?”
“gersonde the soothsayer. i try to find my people from whom i was parted.... i am tired with walking and wasted with hunger.”
“do you see the roofs of blessed thorn?” said the abbess. “go there, and you shall be fed and have your night’s rest in the dormitory of the poor. to-morrow morn we may try your art—so that you in no wise make black magic!”
blessed thorn had a fair parlour, giving through an arched door upon grass and flower beds and fruit trees in a double row, and one huge linden, the resort in blossom time of nations of bees. under this great tree, the next day, sat the abbess, beside her a table with books and writing materials and before her a frame on which was stretched the cope she was embroidering with coloured silks and gold thread. the lady ermengarde likewise embroidered, and five or six nuns, all sisters or daughters of noble houses, held among them a long and narrow web which they embroidered with green and blue and scarlet. a nun seated under a pear tree read aloud the recorded lives of saints. when she came to an end of a half-hour by the water glass, the abbess, who would rather talk than read, motioned her to close the book. this was the abbess’s hour of refreshment from a forenoon of hard work with accounts, with orders of the executive extending{330} to mill and forge and ferry, outlying hamlets, forest and field, with details of abbey discipline and with correspondence. rest from the immediate and particular stretched its limbs naturally in the field of the somewhat removed and general.
the abbess leaned back in her chair, drew an ample breath and looked around upon her spiritual daughters. her eyes passing the nuns and lighting upon ermengarde marked a tear coursing down that lady’s cheek. “saints! saints!” spoke the abbess. “i would save my tears till cause was fairly upon me! here is the sun shining and poppies blooming. the lord who accuses you of first beseeching his love and then striving to poison him may be struck by god’s bolt of repentance. here is one ‘may’! if he be iron to the bolt your herald may return, and with him the noblest, most valiant, strongest, and skilfullest champion in france, normandy, aquitaine, chartres, or burgundy—one that this lying lord will eat dust before! there is another ‘may’! perchance such an one will not present himself and you must take one unfamed, weak, or dull in the fight, while the accuser is strong and famed. yet are we told that the angels protect the weak, and michael himself may guide your champion’s arm and pierce torismond’s shield and shiver his spear and avoid him from his horse and break his neck and declare him a lying, false lord! here is a third ‘may’! consider also that you may die, my daughter, before your cause comes to combat. and again, and lastly, that the innocent who is wrongly judged and doomed and given to death is truly a martyr, and rises swiftly through purgatory to christ and the blessed virgin!”
ermengarde folded her hands from her embroidery. she{331} had a strong, young frame that even this dire trouble had not made weak, and an apple cheek that was, however, fast paling. “reverend mother, i ask myself, ‘is it a bad dream?’ i pinch myself, so mad and unreal does the world seem! i have no great wealth to pay with; i shall not get a strong champion! that is a fair flower, the fancying it, but it has no root. i know that you, yourself, think i shall have good fortune if i find one who can strike a good blow, and is likewise fool or reckless or knows not lord torismond! now, as to the angels and the angel michael. i know what we say, reverend mother, but do we think lord torismond will go down before a champion who will come to my piping, who have small dowry and no mighty kindred?... my case is so hard, my need is so sharp, that my eyes are clear. that miracle may happen, and i ask the prayers of blessed thorn that it may! but if it happens not? true it is, i may die before whether i die or live comes to be decided by combat. truly, i grieve and madden enough to die! but i seem not to be able to do so, and, indeed, reverend mother, i like the sunshine and the poppies blooming. and if i get no champion, or, getting one, he cannot stand before torismond, and if i am put to death with a cruel death, truly, though the world will say i guiltily besought torismond’s love and guiltily put poison in wine that i gave him, i shall be innocent! and i shall hope that my purgatory may be short and that i shall swiftly rise to christ and the blessed virgin. but i am young, reverend mother, and i might be happy yet awhile here on earth, and see and learn a-many things.... i dig again my nails into my flesh, and i say, ‘it is an evil dream!’”
“blessed thorn,” said the abbess, “will pray the saints{332} and the blessed virgin and our lord her son that the right may prosper and the truth be shown—”
“blessed thorn, giving sanctuary to one oppressed, helps right and truth,” said ermengarde. “and yet i may be slain, and i am told that no more may be done here, and we know not the mind of the saints to meward. o blessed mother of god, i shall be foully slain!—this, this it is that makes it all dream-like or mad-like, and makes me to wonder how all things are turned and twisted!... i am strong: i am let to ride, to hawk, to dance. were i daughter of serf or villein, where is the work in field or house, the ditching and digging, the drawing and carrying, the mending and making, the cutting of wood, the swinging a reaper’s sickle i should not be given, yea, made to do?... this is my plaint, reverend mother! i can mount and manage a horse. i might have been taught to thrust with the lance, or strike with the sword. i was not so taught—no! but with long watching men at feats of arms i think that i could make some show at doing both. saints my witness, i think that i might acquit me better than any champion i am likely to get! my quarrel it is—i have no weight of guilt upon my heart—and through me runs a white, a steadying, flame of wrath against torismond and his lie! o god! i could do better, my own champion! if i had thy michael to fight for me! but few have him, and i am not of those who are so near thy heaven! i am of the many, like the leaves in the forest, who could do better by their own quarrel.... perchance i find no champion at all, and since none fight for me i am judged guilty and perish. should i not do better for myself than none at all? o god, i think that fighting for the truth would pour a wine into me that{333} should give me brute strength to slay the brute lie! why am i not let to choose, some great angel failing, to fight in my own defence, in my own quarrel? does the lie slay me then and there in the place of combat? is that worse than being slain by the lie a day after, two days or three, mayhap, judged worthy of death, because no champion came, or, coming, was too weak? o god! rather should i that torismond’s lance pierced me through in the place of combat!—” she dropped her head upon her folded arms, her folded arms upon her knees. “i am young and strong! why do they bind my hands behind me, not letting me keep my own honour?—”
the abbess cleared her throat. “my daughter, we are women—”
but ermengarde was not comforted by that.
the six nuns plied their needles. the blue, the green, the scarlet went into the long, narrow web. the linden flowers sent out a sweet odour; the multitude of bees shaped a sound as continuous as a fountain. the sunshine through the leaves made a net of gold. the abbess rothalind turned the gold thread in her fingers.
she was moved—the stitching nuns were moved. because law and custom were what they were, it was true enough that ermengarde might very soon be put to death as harlot and poisoner. and none in the garden believed in their heart that she was such. that perception had somehow to be squared with the time’s belief as to the manifested “judgment of god.” as it would take great trouble to square the two, they were able simply to decline the trouble. if ermengarde’s cause met defeat, they and all people must say, under penalty of sin, that she was justly doomed and punished. but already was in use with{334} them and all folk the mental reservation—though it was not capitalized and was given a hidden cell up a winding twilight stair. at the moment, it was allowable still to believe that ermengarde might find a champion and that the champion might slay torismond.
the abbess pushed aside the gold thread and coloured silk cope and talked. it was always a relief to her to talk and not to listen, though she had that self-control that she could listen by the hour if that better served her plans. “freedom, my daughters, is in the nunnery—” the bees hummed in the linden tree, hummed and hummed.
her homily drew to a close. “at the world’s end, how well then to be found in the shade, in the fold, about the knees of blessed thorn!”
cried one of her nuns, a favourite and a bell for the thought of the others: “reverend mother, it grows that we cannot sleep at night for thinking that the end of the world is nigh—and how we shall meet it—”
the abbess threaded her needle with gold thread. “it is just, my daughter, that ‘how shall we meet it?’ which makes so excellent a broom of this news of the end of the world—”
a lay sister came to the garden door and with her the soothsayer gathered yesterday from the heath.
the abbess nodded. “come, you, and tell us what you know! soothsaying is an idle thing, but like a sandalwood box or a curious flower it passes the moment!”
gersonde stood in the garden before the embroidering women.
“whence do you come, and where do you go, and what is your name?” questioned the abbess.
“please you, i know many times less than all that,{335}” said gersonde. “but i lately left a hut in the forest, and i hope erelong to find a band of entertainers into which i was born, and i am called gersonde the soothsayer.”
“soothsay, then,” said the abbess. and, “ah, reverend mother,” cried ermengarde, “if she could tell me—”
“i cannot tell sooth every day,” said gersonde. “i would that i could!”
“look at this lady,” said the abbess, who was good-natured because she was fearless. “tell her if she shall find a strong champion.”
gersonde obeyed. “her champion is in herself.”
“o god, i am lost!” cried ermengarde, and covered her forehead with her hands.
“no, no, you are not lost,” said the soothsayer. “you are not lost—you are not lost. such little words go little ways!”
“say more,” said the abbess. “you soothsay darkly.”
but gersonde shook her head. “that is all the light that is in the dark.... may i go now to look for black martin’s band where are jeanne and the children? i thank you truly, mother, for harbour and kindness.”
however they tried, no more was to be had from her, and so she was let to go. blessed thorn’s grey walls sank behind her.... she was tracing a circle, and before her, now not many leagues away, stood the bishop’s town where she had left jeanne and the children.
the day was bright, the summer dressed in green and gold. she passed a grove of slender trees, a dog ran a little way beside her, far away and veiled she heard a crowing cook. the rays of light grew slant and golden. the footpath mounted, an old hound came to meet her, in a bare{336} field beneath a thorn bush she found gerbert the music-maker.
“gersonde, i, too, was tired of the castle!”
“now know i that it was music that i have been missing out of the world!”
they sat beneath the thorn, and gersonde’s arms were about gerbert and gerbert’s arms about gersonde.
the sun set. the music-maker had his cloak and the soothsayer hers. the grass was short and dry, the earth held summer warmth, the air was still. the field covered a rise of earth, islanded presently by faint streamers of mist. the moon pushed up round and golden, as though it rose above marsh, above a great river. the man and woman who had come so far lay asleep.
morn came. they waked; he had bread in his scrip; they ate, then left the thorn tree and the islanded field. their part of the earth turned full to the glory of the sun. they walked amid glories and splendours and blisses.... what they determined to do was to walk always thus together among glories and splendours and blisses.... when they came to consider the immediate pathway, that took them through wandering the earth together, earning and spending together. jeanne and the children? sooner or later they would find jeanne and the children. splendours and glories and blessedness....
it seemed wise, when they considered it, to keep on this road of france that led again to the bishop’s town. rainulf the red and the bishop were at war. it was a strong town. rainulf was not likely to take it, though he might furiously plough and harrow the earth around. nor could he reach two sparrows, flying there in the bishop’s shadow. it was not likely that black martin was still in{337} this town. he would have moved on, going toward paris. yet was the town on the way to jeanne and the children.
so gersonde and gerbert kept on to the bishop’s town.
they went through a country filled with misery. men and women, children, animals that worked for humanity and depended upon it—everywhere was misery and misery. it put out cold fingers and touched gersonde and gerbert. “we cannot keep our glory and splendour and bliss!”
out of the misery rose a hectic enthusiasm, bred of misery and superstition. every third person now struck hands together and cried, “the end of the world!” gaunt and tattered bands went about, from hamlet to hamlet, crying, “throw by the things of every day! it is the end of the world!” there came monks who said, “not yet—not yet awhile, good folk! there are two years yet before the thousand years is spent! go back to your fields and your houses!” but by now the pale excitement had mounted into a fanatic wish to believe in terror. a monk was stoned who said, “it is not yet!” the contagion spread.
gersonde and gerbert saw in the distance the bishop’s castle on the hill, then the church roof and other roofs and the town wall. they came close to the town, and here were certain huts, clustering under the shadow of the wall, ready to pour their inmates through the gate, at the first breath on the wind of rainulf’s coming. it was evening. gerbert and gersonde thought to enter the town in the morning; in the meantime, by a cast of art, to gain here bread and night’s lodging. she knew the songs of rosamund; he could play far better than did bageron.
they played and sang, they gained supper and nigh{338}t’s rest, under the shadow of the wall.... in the middle of the night came rainulf the red, an evil whirlwind out of the darkness, strong, with five hundred men behind him. he came to strike like a battering-ram against the bishop’s gates; perchance, with splendid luck, to find them weak, ill-guarded. to do that he overran, like a care-naught tempest, the huddle of houses without.... all was sudden waking, crying, confusion, blows, wounding, and death.
the bishop’s gates were strong; the bishop was baron before he was bishop. he had a strength at hand within the town. red rainulf did not break the gates. instead, they opened against him and the host the bishop had gathered poured in torrent. it whelmed red rainulf’s men; there was a clashing as of opposing waters, a scattering and bearing back. many on both sides were killed or hurt, some borne off prisoners. rainulf, giving back in the night, cursing the foulness of his luck, drew off at last his diminished host.
héribert was not ready to pursue. with shouting and flaring of torches those from town and castle went back through gate, behind wall. they took with them their wounded. likewise there surged into the town with them the folk of those huts that now were burning, burning, fired by rainulf’s men that had fought from hut to hut, trampling, hurting, slaying, driving apart the inmates, men, women, and children. all of the bishop’s folk hasted now, or were pressed and driven, one part by another, through the gates, into the town.
with them was pushed gersonde, looking this way, that way, in the alternate glare and darkness, for gerbert. she saw him not; gerbert was swept away with red rainulf’s men. hurt, stunned by a blow from a mace,{339} fallen across a doorstep, he had been seen by one from red castle. this one knew not why the music-maker was there, but having a liking for him, called to a fellow. the two lifted gerbert and laid him upon a horse, and bore him away with them.
gersonde found him not; nowhere could she find him. when morn came and, with others who sought also for missing ones, she returned to the charred heaps where had stood these huts, still she found him not. here the slain had been left in the road, and the bishop, riding forth at dawn, had seen that the bodies were flung in the river that ran past. gersonde said, “he is dead! o end of the world, he is dead!”
hours passed, days passed, though they passed so slowly. gersonde, to keep her body fed and sheltered, must earn. black martin and his band were not here; they were gone on toward paris. she thought of jeanne and the children, but she thought dully, not caring greatly for any on earth. yet she gave her body food as she could get it, and she found a kennel-like place in a black lane where the people in the house above let her sleep. she tried to sing, but the songs of rosamund would not come, with the music-maker dead.... she fell back upon soothsaying. she sat in a corner of the market-place, her blue cloak drawn about her and her hand outstretched. but the bells were ringing and men and women streaming by to hear the chanting monks. “the end of the world! presently will the moon fall and the sun go out!”
then came a black-eyed, anxious-faced youth who said: “you are the soothsayer who was here with those wrestlers and singers.... tell me if i shall have time before world’s end to get to my mother in tours?{340}”
gersonde’s face became still. with her hands she made the passes that were not at all necessary to soothsaying, but which black martin had taught her to make to impress the questioner and those gathered around. she made them now without thought; they had become old habit, what her body did while the inner woman reported what dim, veiled things she might perceive.... the youth’s stopping had stopped others. said one, “those are witch’s passes!”
gersonde spoke. “you shall have time—you shall have time—but you shall meet your mother on the road. she comes to find you who are herself straying afar. for all that she is crippled, she will meet you before world’s end.”
“how,” cried the youth, “did you know that she was crippled?”
he spoke, spreading his hands, to the increasing crowd: “this is that soothsayer who was here before. she can tell when god is going to shake the stars like apples upon the earth—”
a current had set toward this corner. with it came the palmer who had crossed this place before. he came, tall and burning-eyed, holding his staff with the dried bit of palm. “what do you here who should fill the church porch? what do you here, gathered about a woman?”
one cried out of the throng to gersonde: “tell us when will god shake the stars like apples upon the earth?”
gersonde made her passes in the air. “when the stars grow on an apple tree.”
“when comes the end,—this week—next week?”
“know you not,” cried the palmer, “that these soothsaying women are sorceresses, leagued with the fiend?”
“when comes the end?{341}”
gersonde pressed her hands against her eyes. she was weary, she wished to find heaven, she and gerbert and jeanne and the children. “that end of the world that some of you dread and some of you lust for is not coming. you are not ready for the end of the world! world ends when we rise to the truth, melting into it because we are ready. your end of the world is not at hand—no, it is not at hand!”
“soothsayer, the thousand years is over—”
“a thousand years, and then a thousand, and it will not be!”
the palmer rent his robe and cried aloud: “she blasphemes!” he found a second in the throng. “she is a sorceress! was she not seen, a month ago, to go out of gate, riding with red rainulf’s men?”
at that many voices joined in. “right—right! she was with red rainulf—”
the palmer cried again: “like eve she eats of the tree of knowledge—eats and betrays! evil—evil! where is woman there i taste evil!”
“age, brother, aye! save when women are in a nunnery, or under roof with children—”
“or yonder in the brothel—”
“red rainulf—she would spy and betray the town—”
“‘the end of the world comes not’—o blasphemer!”
“still is she sib to the fiend and the serpent!”
“witch!”
“witch!”
“have her before the bishop!”
it was so that they had her—a throng haling her up the hill. now héribert had had that morning evil news of the ravening of that baron with whom he was at war. his{342} thoughts followed rainulf, he contemplated putting him and all who held from him under ban, obtaining from rome an interdict. he hardly glanced at the woman they brought. “blasphemy and sorcery and betraying?—put her in the prison—here is not time to judge the matter! have her in chains till the next day of hearing!”
they brought her down into the town and put her in the black and strong place that did for town prison. she sat in the dark and thought of flowers and heard a tinkling, rippling music.
the bishop divided his fighting men into two forces; left one within the town, and with the other went forth to burn and slay in red rainulf’s territory....
in the crowded town broke forth pestilence. now there were famine and pestilence and a wild superstition and fanatic longing for prodigies. without the walls it was harvest-time, but few harvested. here red rainulf’s iron scourge prevented, and here mere willingness not to labour further, seeing that harvest-fields and all were presently to see the end! the country poured its folk into the town. all wanted company; all wished to dream of, to talk of, to await the end in company.
there came news that the bishop was worsted in fight. the church bells rang, priest and monk made all day long prayers and chanting. the pestilence was not worsted—from the crowded alleys were brought forth that day many dead. children, too, were crying with hunger. that night, just after dusk, a great, bearded meteor passed over the town. plain sign was that of god’s early coming—of a coming in wrath! the palmer’s voice was heard like a tolling bell. “prepare your house—make clean this place! if there is evil among you, cast it to the fire!{343}” when morning came the people crowded into the market-place, all who might coming together to bear one another company.... in sight of all, one of the towers of the church fell.
“that woman who prophesied against high god and his ways—”
they beat down the prison door and brought forth gersonde. there was in the market a long shed where faggots were sold. near the cross, rising from a mound of hardened earth, stood a column of stone to which at times offenders were bound. they brought a chain from the prison and chained the soothsayer to this. then men and women ran to bring the bundles of faggots. there were enough of these to make a great pyre.
in the distance, down the street that led from the gate, began the music of a viol, a tune rich and sweet, well played. the market-place, given now to the frenzy of the frightened lower nature, paid it no heed; there was but one there who gave it heed and that was the bound soothsayer.
the music came nearer, but it did not come fast; it grew fuller and louder by littles. the music-maker came leisurely, not knowing that the wrong in the world was more immediate to-day than it had been yesterday. he walked, playing, revolving in his mind ways to find gersonde. he played because he thought that if she were in this town that was a way to draw her. in the market-place they struck a torch among the faggots.
gerbert came, playing, up the gate street toward the market-place. the street was empty of folk; he must go, playing, to the market-place. he played old folk-music, old airs that bageron might have played. then he played a new air, making it as he played, and it had in it music{344} of the earth and air, and the leap of fire and the flow of light and the dance of thought and the spread of the soul. so, after a while, he came to the market-place.
“what are all the people doing?”
“they are burning a sorceress who said the end of the world is not yet!”
the bow still touched the viol strings, the hand working on though the head said nought. then within the market-place the head spoke and the hand dropped. gerbert came to the pyre by the cross and saw that there was an end. as the strings of the viol drawn too tightly might snap, so snapped the cords of his heart. the throng, now silent, listening to the bells from the standing tower of the church, saw only that a musician fell dead, his hands closed upon the ashes of that pyre. the bells rang and rang. a monk, standing upon the steps of the market cross, began to preach. “the world ends—the world ends! in eden garden the woman leagued herself with sin, that old serpent! then did she tempt our father adam who fell. then came death and evil. then was planted the vine of the world’s ending, whose grapes are ripe to-day. ”