Love Among the Ruins by Warwick Deeping
XXXII
The leaguer was drawn that night about the towers of Gambrevault, andthe castle stood clasped betwixt the watch-fires and the sea. Fulviac'srebels, toiling from evening until dawn, banked and staked a rampart toclose the headland. From the north alone could Gambrevault beapproached, precipices plunging south, east, and west to front the sea.Athwart the grassy isthmus Fulviac drew his works, running from cliff tocliff, brown earth-banks bristling with timber. Mortars, bombards,basilics, and great catapults had been brought from Gilderoy to batterthe walls. Redoubts, covered by strong mantlets, were established inthe meadows. Several small war galleys guarded the castle on the sideof the sea.
Nor was this labour permitted to pass unrebuked before the leagueredfolk upon the headland. There were sallies, assaults, bloody tussles inthe trenches, skirmishes upon the causeway. Yet these fiercenessesbrought no flattering boon to the besieged. The knights and men-at-armswere masterful enough with an open field to serve them, but behind theirbarricades Fulviac's rebels held the advantage. The command went forthfrom Modred the seneschal that there were to be no more sortiesdelivered against the trenches.
On the second day of the leaguer the cannonade began. Bombard and mortarbelched flame and smoke; the huge catapults strove with their giganticarms; arbalisters wound their windlasses behind the ramparts. Shotscreamed and hurtled, crashed and thundered against the walls, bringingdown mortar and masonry in rattling showers. The battlements ofGambrevault spouted flame; archers plied their bows in bartisan andturret. A shroud of dust and smoke swirled about the place, the chaoticclamour of the siege sending the gulls wheeling and wailing from thecliffs.
On the very second day Flavian was brought low by a shot hurling afragment of masonry upon his thigh and bruising it to the bone. Stiffand faint, he was laid abed in his own state room, unable to stir forthe twinging tendons, loth enough to lie idle. Modred, bluff, lustysmiter, took the command from him, and walked the walls. Hourly he camein to his lord's chamber to tell of the cannonade and the state of thecastle. Even Flavian from his cushions could see that the man's blackface looked grim and sinister.
"How do they vex us?" was his question, as the thunder came to them fromthe meadows.
Modred clinked his heels against the wainscotting of the window seat,and strove to sweeten his looks. He was not a man given to blandishingthe truth.
"Their damned bombards are too heavy for us. We are dumb."
"Impossible!"
"Sire, we shall have to hold Gambrevault by the sword."
The man on the bed started up on his elbow, only to fall back again witha spasmodic twitching of the forehead.
"And our bombards?" he asked.
"Are toppled off their trunnions."
"Ha!"
"For the rest, sire, I have ordered our men to keep cover. The bowmenshoot passably. The outer battlements are swept."
"And the walls?"
Modred grimaced and stroked his beard.
"There are cracks in the gate-house," quoth he, "that I could lay myfist in."
What goodlier fortune for a man than to lie bruised when Love bears tohim the bowl of dreams! What softer balm than the touch of a woman'shand! What more subtle music than her voice! The girl Yeoland hadbetrayed a new wilfulness to the world, in that she now claimed as herguerdon the care of the man's heart. She was in and about his room, ashadow moving in the sunlight, a shaft of youth, supple and very tender.Her eyes had a rarer lustre, her face more of the dawn tint of the rose.Love stirred within her soul like the sound of angels psaltering on thegolden battlements of heaven.
As she sat often beside him, Flavian won the whole romance from her,gradual as glistening threads of silk drawn from a scarlet purse. Shewaxed very solemn over her tale, was timid at times, and exceedingsorrowful for all her passion. Some shadowy fear seemed to companionher beside the couch, some wraith prophetic of a tragic end. She lovedthe man, yet feared her love, even as it had been a sword shimmeringabove his head. Peril compassed them like an angry sea; she heard thebombards thundering in the meadows.
"Ah, sire," she said to him one morning, as she thrust the flowers shehad gathered in the garden into a brazen bowl, "I am heavy at heart.Who shall pity me?"
He turned towards her on his cushions with a smile that was notprophetic of the tomb.
"Do I weary you?"
"Ah no, not that."
"Why then are you sad?"
She held up a white hand in the gloom of the room, her hair falling likea black cloud upon her bosom.
"Listen," she said to him.
"I am not deaf."
"The thunder of war."
"Well, well, my heart, should I fear it?"
"It is I who fear."
"Ah," he said, taking her hand into his bosom, "put such fears far fromyou. We shall not end this year in dust."
A week passed and the man was on the walls again, bold and ruddy as ayouthful Jove. Seven days had gone, swelling with their hours the greatconcourse in the meadows. Pikes had sprouted on the hills likeglistening corn, to roll and merge into the girding barrier of steel.The disloyal south had gathered to Fulviac before Gambrevault like dustin a dry corner in the month of March. A great host teemed betwixt theriver and the cliffs. Through all, the rack and thunder of the siegewent on, drowning the sea's voice, flinging a storm-cloud over thestubborn walls. In Gambrevault men looked grim, and muttered of succourand the armies of the King.
Yet Flavian was content. He had taken a transcendent spirit into hissoul; he lived to music; drank love and chivalry like nectar from thegods. The woman's nearness made each hour a chalice of gold. Hepossessed her red heart, looked deep into her eyes, put her slim handsinto his bosom. Her voice haunted him like music out of heaven. He wasa dreamer, a Lotos-eater, whose brain seemed laden with all the perfumesof the East. Ready was he to drain the purple wine of life even to thedregs, and to find death in the cup if the Fates so willed it.
And Fulviac?
War had held a poniard at his throat, turning him to the truth with thethreat of steel. Grim and implacable, he stalked the meadows, bendinghis brows upon the towers of Gambrevault. This girl of the woods was nomore a dream to him, but supple love, ardent flesh, blood-red reality.Lean, leering thoughts taunted the lascivious fears within his brain.His moods were silent yet tempestuous. Gambrevault mocked him.Vengeance burnt in his palm like a globe of molten iron.
His dogged temper roused his captains to strenuous debate. Fiftythousand men were idle before the place, and the siege dragged like ahomily. Their insinuations were strong and strident. The countrysidewas emptying its broad larder; Malgo and Godamar of the Fens weremarching from east and west. Ten thousand men could leaguerGambrevault. It behoved Fulviac to pluck up his spears and march onLauretia, proud city of the King.
For a season Fulviac was stubborn as Gambrevault itself. His yelloweyes glittered, and he tossed back his lion's mane from off hisforehead.
"Till the place is ours," so ran his dogma, "I stir never a foot. Seeto it, sirs, we will put these skulkers to the sword."
His captains were strenuous in retort.
"You mar the cause," said Sforza over the council-board, thin-lipped andsubtle.
"Give me ten thousand men," quoth Colgran the free-lance, "by my bones Iwill take the place and bring the Maid out scatheless."
Prosper the Priest put in his plea.
"You are our torch," he said, "our beacon. Malgo is on the march;Godamar has massed behind the creeks of Thorney Isle. The country waitsfor you. Leave Gambrevault to Colgran."
And again the free-lance made his oath.
"Give me ten thousand men," quoth he, "by Peter's blood the place shalltumble in a month."
That same evening, as a last justification of his stubborn will, Fulviacsent forward a trumpeter under a white flag to parley with the besieged.The herald's company drew to the walls as the sun sank over the sea,setting the black tower
Fulviac's trumpeter proclaimed his terms. They were insolently simple,surrender absolute with the mere blessings of life and limb, a dungeonfor the lords, a proffer of traitorous service to the men. Yeoland theSaint was to be sent forth scatheless. The castle was to be garrisonedand held by the rebels.
Flavian laughed at the bluff insolence of the demand.
"Ha, sirs," he said, "we are the King's men here. Get you gone before mygate. Say to yonder traitor in the meadows, 'We quail not beforescullions and at the frowns of cooks.'"
Thus, under the red canopy of the warring west, ended the parley at thegate of Gambrevault. The white flag tripped back behind the trenches;the castle trumpets blew a fanfare to grace its flight. Yeoland theSaint heard it, and her lamp of hope burnt dim.
That night Fulviac paced the meadows, his eyes scanning the black massupon the cliffs. Dark as was his humour, reason ruled him at theclimax, powerful to extort the truth. Primaeval instincts were strongin him, yet he put them back that hour out of his heart. Robust andvigorous, he trampled passion under foot. At dawn his orders went forthto the captains and the council.
"Colgran shall command. Ten thousand men shall serve him. Let himstorm the place, grant no terms, spare Yeoland the Maid alone. Let himbutcher the garrison, and let the ruin rot. When all have been put tothe sword, let him march and join me before the city of Lauretia."