The Young Lovell Read online

  II

  The Warden of the Eastern Marches, who was Henry Percy, fourth Earl ofNorthumberland, said that there was too much of this silken flummery. Hedesired to get back to the affairs of King Henry VII and a plain worldwhere there were too many false Scots. The Lord Lovell of the Castleagreed with him, but said that the women would so have it. He was animmense, gross man, the rolls of fat behind his head, growing blackcurly hair that ran into his black and curly beard, mantled high up onhis neck. His eyes were keen, peeble-blue, sagacious and mocking. TheLady Rohtraut, his wife, a fair, thin woman of forty-three, one of theDacres of the North, leaned across the Bishop Palatine to disagree withthe Warden. Thin as she was she wore an immense gown of red damaskworked with leaves, birds and pomegranates. Her sleeves brushed theground, her hood of black velvet had a diamond-shaped front, like thegable of a house, and was framed in yellow gold set with emeralds thather lord had brought from Venice to get her back to a good temper,though he never did. The broad edging of brown fur from her sleevescaught in a crochet of the gilded steel on the Bishop Palatine's armourwhich had been taken from the Saracens in the year 1482, they havingrieved it from the Venetians.

  The Lady Rohtraut said that these things had been ordered after theleaves of a written book that had been sent her by her cousin Alice fromthe King's court in London. This book was called "Faicts of Arms," andthe King himself who loved good chivalry had bade it be printed tho'that would be long in doing. There the order of these things had beenset forth, and she had done her best to have fashion of it right, thoughwith only men to help her, she imagined that Messire de Montloisir wouldlaugh if he did not happen to be on his bed of sickness.

  But she had them there to the number of eleven score, gentry, priestsand commonalty with many men-at-arms to hold the herd back with theirpike-staves. The great stone hall she had had painted with vermilion,green and gold. Enormous banners with swallow-tails fell from thegilded beams of the roof. They displayed the snarling heads of redtigers, portculles, two-hued roses, and a dun cow on a field of greensarcenet in honour of the Bishop Palatine. The table at which they sat,the men divided from the women, had its silken cloth properly tabled outin chequers of green and vermilion. The pages with their proper badgeswalked to and fro before the table as they should do, and, as theyshould be, the people of no privilege were penned in behind the columnsof the hall where they made a great noise. She would not have anythinglacking at the sacring of her one son.

  Sir Walter Limousin, of Cullerford, who had married her daughter Isopel,sneered at these words of his mother-in-law. He sat at the right handof his father-in-law. Sir Symonde Vesey, of Haltwhistle, who hadmarried the daughter Douce, and sat beyond Sir Walter, said loudly thattoo much gear went to waste over these Frenchifications of the YoungLovell and his dame. Their two wives said that indeed their mother wasover-fond.

  Their mother, who was a proud Dacre with the proudest of them, flushedvicious red. She said that her daughters were naughty jades, and iftheir husbands had not three times each been beggared by Scots raidersthey might have had leave to talk so. But, being what they were, itwould be better if they closed their mouths over one who had paid allhis ransoms, whether to the Scots or on the bloody field of Kenchie'sBurn, with sword-blows solely. She had paid one thousand marks toartificers of Brussels for stuffs to deck that hall and the street ofthe township where it led from the chapel whence her fair, brave sonshould come; so that banners and carpets hung from the windows, theouter galleries, stairways and the roofs where they were low. And shewished she had spent ten thousand on her son who had won booty enough topay all she had laid out on him and her daughters' husbands' ransomsbesides--after the day of Kenchie's Burn.

  The Warden said that he wished by the many wounds of God that thestripling would come. There was too much babble of women there. Theyhad come into these parts, the Bishop of Durham and he, to see whatlevies might be made from castle to castle and so to broom all falseScots out of the country from thereaways to Dunbar. And there they satewho should have been on the northward road before sunrise listening tothis clavering of women. The young Lovell was a springald goodly enow,and the knights of Cullerford and Haltwhistle were known to blow ontheir fingers when they should be occupied with the heavy swords.

  Sir Walter Limousin looked down his nose. He was a grim and silentcraven that did little but sneer. Sir Symonde, who was brave andbarbarous enough, but unlucky, smote so heavily the silver inkhornstanding before him that it flattened down its supports and stained thechequered fairness of the table.

  The Percy cast his old glance aside on Sir Symonde.

  "Aye, Haltwhistle," he said drily, "ye will break more than ye willtake." And he went on to say that, in his day, he having been dubbedknight on the field, it had been done with a broken sword and the wet onit wiped across his chops to blood him the better. And he wished thatYoung Lovell would come.

  The Lady Rohtraut said that without doubt her son was saying some verylong and very precious prayers. The Warden said that belike, and morelikely, the young fellow was unable to fasten the whimsy-marees of hisnew-fashioned harness and was stuck up there in the old chapel like afool amid the evidences of his folly. The Lord Lovell said nay then,that a band of youngsters had gone up to the chapel, and the little Halhis son's page had reported that his master would soon be there, thepage having run, whilst the Young Lovell was riding at a foot pace.

  "He had better have kept his page to buckle his harness," the BorderWarden harped on.

  "Nay then," the Lady Rohtraut said with a flushed and angry face--noperson nor page could enter into the sacred chapel till her son shouldbe issued out in his panoply least they should disturb the angels of Godwho would invisibly assist her son at his harnessing.

  The Bishop, whose dark head came out of its steel armour like acormorant's out of a hole, looked all down that board to find asympathetic soul. He had a lean, Italianate face, and had pleased theKing Richard the Third--then Duke of Gloucester--rather because of acomplaisance than a burly strength. He was very newly come to thePalatine Country. For he had been the King's Friend in Rome many yearsand, in fear of King Henry the Seventh--because the Bishop was reputed afriend of Richard Crookback after Bosworth--he had gone across the seasuntil now.

  So that what with the clerkly details of his coming into the bishopric,this was his first tour of those parts and he did not well know thosepeople. Therefore he had spoken very little.

  This John Bishop Palatine was, in short, a cautious and well-advisedchurchman, well-read not only in the patristic books but in some of thepoets, for in his day he had been long in Rome and later dwelt inWestminster, where the printing was done, though the King was even thenpulling down Caxton's chapel to build his own more gorgeous fane.

  This bishop then, set first the glory of God, good doctrine and his see,as his duty was. And after that he hoped that he might leave renown asa great clerk who had added glory, credit, power and wealth, whether ofcopes of gold or of lands, to his most famous bishopric.

  That was why, throughout this discussion he had observed the face of ayoung woman that sat beyond the ladies Rohtraut, Isopel and Douce. Shewas the Lady Margaret of the Wear, coming from the neighbouring tower ofGlororem, and that day he was to bless her betrothal to Young Lovell ofthe Castle. She was a dark girl, rising twenty, and with brownishfeatures, open nostrils, a flush on her face and dark eyes of acoaly-sheen, all of one piece of black, so that you could not tell pupilfrom iris.

  She had never spoken, as became her station, since she was the youngestwoman there. But the Bishop Palatine had observed her looks as eachuttered his or her thoughts, and from this he knew that she regarded theLady Rohtraut with tender veneration, and the lower classes behind thepillars with dislike and contempt, for when their voices became loud shehad lowered her black brows and clenched her hand that lay along thetable.

  Upon the Border Warden and upon the gross Lord Lovell she had gazed w
itha tolerant contempt, upon the Knight of Cullerford with a bitter scorn,upon Haltwhistle with irony, and upon their two wives that should be hersisters-in-law, with high dislike. He perceived that, like the LadyRohtraut, she had read the book called "Faicts of Arms," for, when thelady Rohtraut had been speaking of it, she had leaned sideways over thetable, her lips parted as if she could hardly contain herself. He sawalso that she was of great piety, since every time Our Lady wasmentioned in that debate she inclined, and when it was Our Lord, she didthe like and crossed herself. And this pleased the Bishop Palatine, forthese observances were not so often seen as could be done with.Moreover, he knew that, plainly to the eye she had given all herheart--and it was a proud and hot one--to the Young Lovell. At eachmention of his deeds her dusky cheeks would flush up to her whiteforehead and she would pass her gemmed hands before her eyes as if theysaw a mist of gladness.

  The Bishop was glad that the will of God and the bent of his own mindcould let his speech, that he was thinking upon, jump so well with thatlady's desires, and so he addressed himself at first to the LadyRohtraut, young Lovell's proud mother.

  He had not, he said, spoken before in that high assembly because he wasso newly come among them that, although he well knew that he was theirfather in God and in a sense their temporal protector, yet he did notwish to show himself to them as a rash and ardent fool by dictating uponmatters that he might well know little of.

  But still, having listened a decent while to their minds he would saysomething. Of facts and the practice of arms he would not declarehimself all ignorant. He was a churchman, but he was of that churchmilitant that should one day be the Church Triumphant--triumphant therein Heaven, but here in Northumberland, militant very fully. It was truethat it would not much become him in those days of comparative peace tostrike blows with the iron mace. It was rather his part to stand upon ahigh place observant of battles and sieges. And, if he wore arms, itwas rather as a symbol than as of use. He hoped that, as his reverendand sainted predecessors in the see had done, he might confer on sucharms a grace of holiness, and therefore with much travel and research,he had arms as golden as might be found for him by his trustymessengers, that their fair richness might shine to the greater glory ofGod. For himself he would as lief wear sackcloth and rusty pots.

  In most things he must bow to the wiseness of the Earl ofNorthumberland. Being blooded upon a hot field with spurs gilded withthe tide from the veins of men had produced very good men. It haddoubtless produced better men than to-day might see the doubles andcounterparts of. Those days before had been simpler and better. Thesedays were very evil. There was in the land a spirit of luxury, sinfulunless it had guidance, bestial unless it had control, and for want ofcounsel horrid, lecherous and filthy by turns. Theirs, by the will andblessing of God and by the wise rule of His vice-gerent--for so he wouldstyle their good King, though it was not the habit--theirs were days ofnear peace. The kingdom was no longer rent by dissensions; famine andpestilence came more seldom nigh them than in the days of their fathersof which they had read. In consequence, they had great wealth such ashad never before been seen. Where their fathers had had woollens theyhad silks, satins and patterned damasks beyond compare for lasciviousallurements; where their fathers had eaten off trenchers of bread, theyhad plates of silver, of gold, of parcel gilt or at the very least oflatten.

  Now all these things were the blessing of God in the highest, but theymight well become the curse of Satan that dwelleth in the Pit. God hadgiven them bread, but they might turn it to bitter stone; He had giventhem peace, but it might turn to a sword more sharp than that ofApollyon or Geryon. Arma virumque cano, the profane poet said, but theman he sang of was blessed and so his arms.

  Therefore he, the Bishop Palatine, since he would not see all thissplendour of God go down, as again Vergil saith, sicut flos purpureaaratro succisa, leant all his weight in the scale for the blessing andthe sacring of arms. In the books of chivalry they should read not ofvain pomps, but of how arms should be laid upon altars; not of luxuriousfeasts, but of how good knights held vigils and fasts and keptthemselves virgin of heart to go upon quests that the blessed angels ofGod did love. So they might read of the blessed blood in its censor andof the lily-pure knights that sought it through forest and brake. Andthese books were very good reading.

  The Warden suddenly laughed aloud.

  "God keep your washed capons from a border fray!" he exclaimed, andshook his lean sides. The Bishop looked sideways upon him.

  "I have not heard that Sir Artus of Bretagne slew the less pagansbecause he was of a cleaned heart, nor Sir Hugon of Bordeaux neither."

  "I do not know those knights," the Percy said grimly. "Maybe they wouldhave slain less if it had been Douglases and Murrays and other homelynames."

  "Nay, it was fell pagans," the Bishop said seriously. "You may read ofit in virtuous and true histories it were a sin to doubt of, so greatlydoes the virtue of God and His glory shine through them."

  "Well, if it be matter of doctrine my mouth is shut," the Warden saidgood humouredly. "I did not know it had been more than a matter offashion. Yet I think it is early days to prate of our peaceful times.It is but three months since Kenchie's Burn and not three years sincethe false Scots had their smoke flying over the walls of Durham."

  The Bishop bent his head obediently before the Warden.

  "In these matters I will learn of you," he said; and the Wardenanswered:

  "They are all I have to teach you. In my high day there were none ofyour books and stories."

  It was agreed that the Bishop and the Warden came off with level arms,the Bishop having spoken the more, but the Warden had sent in heavierstone shot. And all people were agreed that the Bishop was a worthy andproud prince.

  At that moment the Almoner whispered in the Bishop's ear and laid aparchment before him. He begged the Bishop to sign this appointment. Forthe day drew on, they must ride very soon and might not again be inthose parts for a year or more. It was to make the worthy MagisterStone, of Barnside, bailiff for the Palatinate in those parts, this sideof Alnwick to the sea. This lawyer was a very skilled chicaner andthere were suits to come very soon between the see and the Lords Ogleand Mitford, touching the Bishop's mills at Witton and on Wearside. TheBishop was aware that one of the Almoner's clerks must have had money ofthe lawyer; nevertheless he signed the appointment, for he knew theywould never let him have any other man. A Prince Bishop cannot gosearching for scriveners of honesty like Diogenes lacking a lanthorn.

  The dispute as to the rules of chivalry went on in spite of the Bishop'sabstraction from it. Indeed, the Lord Lovell of the Castle, who had notmuch reason for loving churchmen, spoke the more loudly because theBishop was occupied with his papers. He was a jovial man, not much lovedby his wife whom he delighted to tease. If he had any grief it was thathis natural son, Decies of the South, had never shown himself a lad ofany great parts. This lad was reputed to be his natural son, though hewas called Young Lovell's foster brother. Nevertheless who was hismother no man knew.

  What was known was this.

  Six years before the Lord Lovell did some grievous sin, but what thattoo was, no men knew. He had been called before the former Bishop ofDurham; the Lady Rohtraut had, then and afterwards, been heard to ratehim soundly. He had given five farms to the Bishopric and had then goneon a Romer's journey, by way, it was considered, of penance. At anyrate, he had gone to Rome in sackcloth, taking with him his son, theYoung Lovell, who travelled very well appointed and, on the homewardway, had acted as his page. They had taken ship from the New Castle toBordeaux and from Bordeaux to Genoa, where, falling in with a party ofEnglish _Condottieri_ in the pay of the Holy Father, they had travelledin safety to the city of the seven hills.

  On the homeward road they had travelled more like great lords, havingenlisted a train of followers, and staying in the courts of Princes ofItaly until they came again to Marseilles. The Young Lovell, who wasthen sixteen, had been permitted, by
way of fleshing his sword, to fightwith the captains of the Prince of Fosse Ligato against the men of thePrincess of Escia. He had slept in pavilions of silk and saw the sackof two very rich walled cities whilst his easy father, who had seenfighting enough in his day, dallied over the sweet wines, lemons and thewomen with dyed hair of the Prince's Court.

  In Venice, whilst his father had toyed with similar cates, the youngLovell had been present at a conclave, between the turbaned envoys ofthe Soldan and the Venetian council, over the exchange of prisonerstaken in galleys of the one side and the other.

  Therefore as travelling went, the young man had voyaged with his eyesopen, having made friends of several youths of Italy and learned somepretty tricks of fence as well as sundry ways of dalliance.

  The father regarded his son with not disagreeable complacency, like acarthorse who had begotten a slight and swift barb. The boy's soft waysand gentle speeches amused him till he laughed tears at times; hisdaring and hot, rash passions pleased his father still more. He hadchallenged six Italian squires on the Lido to combat with the rapier,the long sword, the axe and the dagger, and only with the rapier had hebeen twice worsted--and this quite well contented his father, whoregarded him as a queer, new-fangled growth, but in no wise adisgraceful one. He set the boy, in fact, down to his mother's account.And this he did with some warrant, for the boy was the first blond childthat had been born to the Lovells in a hundred years.

  Further back than that the Lovells could not go. They were descendedfrom one Ruthven, a Welsh brigand of whom, a hundred and twenty yearsbefore, it was written that he and his companions kept the countrybetween the Rivers Seine and Loire so that none dare ride between Parisand Orleans, nor between Paris and Montargis. These robbers had madethat Ruthven a knight and their captain. There were no towns in thatdistrict that did not suffer pillage and over-running from them, notSaint Arnold, Gaillardon, Chatillon or even Chartres itself. In thatway Ruthven had amassed a marvellous great booty until, the country ofFrance having been submitted to the English, he had set sail, with muchof his wealth, for Edinburgh, but liking the Scots little, after he hadmarried a Scots woman called Lovell, he had come south into the Percies'country. It had happened that the Percies had at that date five squiresof their house in prison to the Douglas and had little money for theirransoming. So this Ruthven had bought of them seventy farms and land onwhich to build an outer wall round the fortress that, boastfully, hecalled the Castle, as if there had been no other castle in that land.And indeed, it was a marvellously strong place, over the sea on itscrags of basalt.

  Thus had arisen, from huge wealth, the great family of the Lovells ofthe Castle. For Ruthven had not wished to be known by his name, andindeed King Henry V swore that none of that name should have Lordshipnor even Knighthood, though the Ruthven of that day fought well atAgincourt, losing three horses, two of which he had taken from Frenchlords. So, since that day they had been the Lords Lovell of the Castlewith none to gainsay them, though till latterly they had been held forrough lords and not over-reverend. The Percies looked down their noseswhen they met them, and so did the captains of Bamburgh and Holy Island.However, in the year 1459 the Lord Lovell had found the Lady Rohtraut ofthe Dacres to marry him and, having had three daughters, she bore himthe Young Lovell though one of the daughters died.

  At any rate; they had travelled home from Marseilles, father and son,very peaceably together, going from castle to castle of the French lordsand knights, under a safe-conduct that had been granted them by theFrench envoy to the Holy Father in Rome, though there was war betweenthe countries of France and England, the King Edward the Fourth havingsuddenly made a raid into the country of the lilies. And the courteousway with which the French lords treated them made them much wonderbecause they did not think a Scots lord would have so easily travelledthrough the Border Country or a Border lord through Scotland.

  Therefore, when they came to Calais, they went quietly home to Englandwithout turning back to war in France. That was according to their oathto Messire Parrolles at Rome, though some of King Edward's lords andcourtiers mocked at them and it was said to be in the King's mind tohave fined them, not for having observed, but for having taken such anoath. However, when they came into the North parts, at Northallerton,they met with the Duke of Gloucester, the King's brother, who treatedthem very courteously and absolved them of ill intentions because at thetime they had taken the oath peace had been between England and France,or at least no news of the war had reached Rome. This Richard, Duke ofGloucester, brother of King Edward, was much loved in the North, ofwhich region he was then Lord-General. He dealt with all mencourteously, giving simple and smiling answers to simple questions andnever failing to answer favourably any petition that he could grant, orrefusing others with such phrases of regret as made the refusal almost aboon of itself. He inflicted also no harsh taxes and took off manyothers, so that in those parts he was known as the good Duke ofGloucester.

  He treated the Lord Lovell and his son with such smiling courtesy thatthey very willingly went with him, before ever their home saw them, on ajourney that he was making towards Dunbar, and it was in the battle thatsome Scots lords made against them on the field of Kenchie's Burn thatthe Young Lovel did such great things. He took prisoner with his ownhands a great Scots lord, own cousin to Douglas, in a hot melee, where,before he was taken, the Scots lord, being otherwise disarmed by theYoung Lovell, knocked with his clenched fist, nine teeth down the throatof Richard Raket, that was the Young Lovell's horse boy. And this lordhaving cried mercy, the Young Lovell pursued so furiously against theScots that he slew many of them before nightfall and was lost in a greatvalley between moors and slept on the heather. There he heard manystrange sounds, such as a great cry of dogs hunting overhead, which wassaid by those who had read in books to be the goddess Diana chasingstill through the night the miserable shade of the foolish Actaeon. Andbetween two passages of sleep, he perceived a fair kind lady lookingdown upon him, but before he was fully awake she was no longer there,and this was thought to be the White Lady of Spindleston, though it wasfar from her country. But still that spirit might have loved thatlording and have sought his company in the night for he was very fair ofhis body. And it was held to be a sign that he was a good Christian,that this lady vanished upon his awakening, for in that way spirits havebeen known to follow Good Knights from place to place for love of them,and in the end to work them very great disaster.

  So at least that was interpreted by the young monk Francis of the orderof St. Cuthbert who was with the army when, in the morning, Young Lovellcame to it again after he had been held for dead. But the monk Francishad read in no books, having been an ignorant rustic knight of thatcountry-side, that had become a monk for a certain sin. The YoungLovell found, indeed, that, whilst he had been so held for dead thisyoung monk had much befriended him. For his father, the Lord Lovell,had shewn a disposition to adopt that Decies of the South and to givehim the fruits of the young Lovell's deeds, such as the ransoming of theScots lord and the knighthood that the Duke should have given him had hebeen found on the field at the closing of the day. The young monk hadhowever protested so strongly that the Young Lovell was not dead, buthad in his face the presage of great and strange deeds, whether of armsor other things--so hotly had the young monk made a clamour, that theold lord was shamed and had for the time desisted.

  That Decies of the South was a son much more after the old lord's heartthan ever the Young Lovell, for all his prowess, could be. He loved theone son whilst he dreaded the other, since he was too like his motherthat was a Dacre and despised the Lovells or the Ruthvens.

  This Decies the Lord Lovell had picked up at Nottingham on theirhomeward road, and, finding him a true Lovell, had made no bones aboutacknowledging him for a son though he never would say who his mother wasor how he should come by the name of Decies. But he was risingtwenty-one, like the Young Lovell, heavy, clumsy, very strong and animmense feeder. He was dark and red-cheeked and cunning and he fi
ttedhis father as a hand fits a glove. Nevertheless he had done little atKenchie's Burn, he had slept so heavily. It had been no man's affair towaken him, he having drunk very deeply of sweet wines the night before.That battle began at dawn and travelled over many miles of land, so thatwhen Decies of the South came up the Scots were already fleeing.

  The old lord did no more than laugh, but he felt it bitter in his heart.And, as it had been on that day, so it continued, the one half-brotherbeing always up in the morning too early for the other. They made verygood companions hunting together, though it was always the Young Lovellthat had his dagger first in the throat of the grey wolf or the reddeer, and the Decies who came second when outlaws, or else when thefalse Scots, must be driven off from peel towers that had the byresalight beneath them and the farmers at death's door above, for the smokeand reek. Nor was it because the Decies lacked courage, but because hewas slow in the uptake and, although cunning, not cunning enough.

  Or it may have been that he was too cunning and just left the honours tothe Young Lovell who was haughty and avid of the first place. For theLady Rohtraut took very unkindly to the Decies and made him suffer whatinsults she could; only the lower sort of the castle-folk willingly hadhis company, and the old lord was growing so monstrous heavy that it wasconsidered that his skin could not much longer contain him. He had leda life of violence, sloth, great appetites and negligent shamelessness,so that the Decies considered that he would soon have need of protectorsin their place. The old lord might leave his lands, but much of hislands were the dower of his wife and upon his death would go back to herhands alone. For the lands of the Castle and the gear and gold andsilver that were in the White Tower under the night and day guard ofJohn Bulloc, the old lord might leave the Decies what he would, but theYoung Lovell could take it all.

  The Decies would find neither lord nor lord bishop nor lawyer to espousehis cause. Moreover, though his father might give him gold and gearwhilst he lived, the Decies had no means whereby to convey it to adistance and no place in the distance in which to store it, besides itwould surely be taken by moss-troopers and little cry made about it.For in those days all the North parts were full of good, small gentryrobbing whom they would, like the Selbys of Liddell, the Eures of Wittonor Adam Swinburn.

  For the times were very unsettled, and no man could well tell, inrobbing another, whether he were a knight of King Richard's despoilingthe King's enemies or a traitor to King Henry robbing that King'slieges, and there was little for the livelihood of proper gentry butharrying whether in the King's cause or in rebellion. So that if theDecies' money on its way to safe quarters should be taken, there wouldbe little or no outcry since he was nothing to those parts. So he was avery good brother to the Young Lovell and followed him like his shadow.