The Young Lovell Page 3

  III

  So there they all sat at the chequered table and the Lord Lovell watchedthem with his cunning eyes and speculated upon the dissensions that laybeneath all their fair shew of courtesy. And he wondered how, from oneor the other, he might gain advantage for his son Decies. It was notthat he hated the Young Lovell, but he wished Decies to have all that hemight and something might come of these people's misliking of eachother.

  For all Bishop Sherwood's praising of the security of the times under abeneficent vice-gerent of God, he knew that the Bishop little loved KingHenry the Seventh, and the King trusted him so very little that neveronce would that King send to the Bishop the proper letters of array thatshould empower him to raise forces along the Borders. Thus the Bishopcould raise men only in his own dominions between Tees and Tyne andwestward into Cumberland.

  The Bishop had made his speech and shewed great courtesy only for thebenefit of the Earl of Northumberland, whilst for that Border Warden hefelt really little but contempt and some dislike. For this Henry, EarlPercy, Warden of the Eastern Marches and Governor of Berwick Town, haddeserted King Richard very treacherously on the field of Bosworth, forall he spoke and posed as a bluff and bloody soldier who should be atrusty companion.

  Thus the Bishop feared the Percy, regarding him as a spy of the King's,for King Richard was much beloved in the North and the Bishop of Durhamhad been one of the only two Bishops that had upheld him at thecoronation, which was why his banner of the dun cow upon a field ofgreen sarcenet had then been carried before that King. And afterBosworth where King Richard was slain, the Bishop had fled to France,from which he had only ventured back the August before. There had beenmany rebellions in the North and they were not yet done with;nevertheless the Bishop feared that the cause of the King Usurper wouldprevail.

  The Earl Percy, on the other hand, distrusted the Bishop, since, unlikethe Duke of Gloucester, he knew himself to be hated by gentle and simplein those parts, and more by simple than the others. Many poor men--evenall of the countryside--had sworn to murder him, for he was veryarrogant and oppressive, inflicting on those starving and disturbedparts, many and weary taxes for the benefit of his lord, King Henry theSeventh, and the wars that he waged in other places. This was a thingcontrary to the law and custom of the North. For those parts consideredthat they had enough on their hands if they protected their own landsand kept the false Scots out of the rest of the realm. Nevertheless,the Lord Percy continued to impose his unjust taxes, taking even thehorse from the plough and the meat from the salting pots where there wasno money to be had. The Lord Percy knew that he went in great danger ofhis life, for when, there, a great lord was widely hated of thecommonalty his life was worth little. Nay, he was almost certain, oneday, to be hewed in pieces by axes or billhooks, since the commonpeople, assembling in a great number would take him one day, when herode back ill-attended from hunting or a raid.

  Thus the Percy desired much to gain friendship of the Bishop and hispartisans to save his life. So he shewed him courtesy and spoke in apious fashion and had invited him, as if it were his due, to ride onthis numbering of the men-at-arms in Northumberland, although, since theKing had sent the Bishop Palatine no letters of array, it was, strictlyspeaking, none of the Bishop's business.

  The Lord Lovell himself had taken no part at Bosworth Field, and gladenough he was that he had not, for he would have been certain to havebeen found on the losing side. But he had been sick of a quinsy--amalady to which very stout men are much subject--and, not willing thatthe Young Lovell should gain new credit at his cost--for he must havegone with his father's men-at-arms, horses and artillery--the LordLovell bade his son stay at home and not venture himself against thepresumptuous Richmond.

  And, looking upon the people there, the fat man chuckled, for there wasnot one person there who had not lately suffered from one side or theother. The Lord Percy had spent many years in the Tower under EdwardIV; Henry VII had taken from the Bishop many of his lands and had madehim for a time an exile. His haughty wife had suffered great grief atthe death of her best brother whose head came off on Tower Hill toplease the Duke of Gloucester, and Edward IV had had Sir Symonde Veseyfive years in the Tower and had fined Limousin of Cullerford fivehundred pounds after Towton Field. The proud Lady Margaret had lost herfather and all his lands after the same battle, the lands going to thePalatinate.

  The Lady Margaret and her mother--they were Eures of Wearside--hadsheltered in farms and peel towers, lacking often sheets and bedcovering, until the mother died, and then the Lady Rohtraut had takenthe Lady Margaret, to whom she was an aunt. All these Tyne and Wearsidefamilies were sib and rib. The Lady Rohtraut had had the Lady Margaretthere as her own daughter and kinswoman, and the Lord Lovell had hadnothing against it. For the Eures and Ogles and Cra'sters and Perciesand Widdringtons and all those people, even to the haughty Nevilles andDacres of the North, were a very close clan. He himself had married aDacre to come nearer it, and it made him all the safer to shelter anEure woman-child. And then, in his graciousness at coming into theNorth, and afterwards, after the battle at Kenchie's Burn, the Duke ofGloucester, at first making interest with his brother, King Edward IV.,and then of his own motion, had pardoned that Lady the sins of herfather, had bidden the Palatinate restore, first the lands on Wearsideand then those near Chester le Street, and also, at the last, those nearGlororem, in their own part, which were the best she had. And, finally,King Richard had made the Lady Rohtraut her niece's guardian, which wasa great thing, for since she was very wealthy, the fines she would payupon her marriage would make a capital sum.

  So they had found the Lady Margaret on their coming back from Rome,wealthy and proud, sewing or riding, hawking, sometimes residing intheir Castle and sometimes in her tower of Glororem which was in sight.The young Lovell had lost his heart to her and she hers to him betweenthe flight of her tassel gentle and its return to her glove, so that itlooked as if the name of Lovell bade fair to be exalted in those parts,by this marriage too, and if the Lord Lovell had anything against it, itwas only that she had not chosen his other son Decies. But there itwas, and he must content himself with paring what he could from hergear, and his wife's and young Lovell's while he lived, for he intendedto buy Cockley Park Tower of Blubberymires from Lord Ogle of Ogle--andto set the Decies up in it. And his wife had some outlying land atMorpeth that he would make shift to convey to his son, so that Decieswould have a goodly small demesne and might hold up his head in thatregion of the Merlays, Greystocks and Dacres.

  His son should have the lands of Blubberymires and part of Morpeth;furnishings for his tower to the worth of near a thousand pounds, jewelsworth nine hundred and more, fifty horses and the arms for fifty men,and for his sustenance firstly his particular and feudal rights, marketfees, tenths, millings, wood-rights, farmings, rents and lastly suchprofits of the culture of his lands as it is proper for every gentlemanto draw from them. And, considering what he could draw from his ownCastle, he thought that the Decies should have such beds, linen, vesselsof latten and of silver, chests and carvings in wood, tapestries,utensils, and all other furnishings as should make him have a veryproper tower. From his wife's castle at Cramlin, or her houses atPlessey and Killingworth, he could get very little. Upon his marriageand since, he had stripped them very thoroughly, and when he last rodethat way, he had seen that at Cramlin, the rafters, ceilings, and eventhe very roofs had fallen in, so that it had become very fittingharbourage for foxes. And this consideration grimly amused him, to thinkwhat his lady wife should find when he was dead and her lands came toher again. For she had not seen them in ten years, and imagined herhouses to be in very good fettle, but he had turned the money to otheruses. It was upon these things that this lord's thoughts ran, since hehad nothing else for their consumption. He was too heavy to mount ahorse in those days; he could read no books, and talking troubled him.Even the lewd stories of his son Decies in his cups sent him latterly tosleep; he could get no
more much enjoyment from teasing his proud wifeby filthy ways and blasphemy, and he hated to be with his daughters ortheir two husbands. Thus, nothing amused or comforted him any longersave watching contests of ants and spiders, and even these were hard tocome by in winter, as it was then in those parts where spring comes everlate.

  There penetrated into the babble of their voices slight sounds from theopen air, and a hush fell in the place. Without doubt they heardcheering, and quickly the pages of all the company ranged themselves ina parti-coloured and silken fringe before the steel of the men at armsthat held the commonalty behind the pillars. The great oaken doorswavered slowly backwards at the end of the hall, and they perceived theroad winding down from them through the grass on the glacis, thegreyness of the sea and sky, and the foam breaking on the rocks of theFarne Islands. A ship, whose bellying sails appeared to be almostblack, was making between the islands and the shore. At times she stoodhigh on a roller, at times she was so low amongst the tumble that theycould hardly see more than the barrels at the mastheads and the redcross of St. Andrew on her white flag. The Border Warden said that thiswas the ship of Barton, the Scots pirate, and some held that this was agreat impudence of him, but others said that the weather was so heavyoutside that he was seeking the shelter of the islands, and certainlynone of their boats could come at him in the sea there was. And thistopic held their attentions until the sound of a horn reached them.This was certainly the Young Lovell's page seeking admission to theCastle, so that he was near enough.

  The monstrous head of a caparisoned horse, held back by ribands of greenand vermilion silk, came into view by the arch. It rose on high anddisappeared, so that they knew it was rearing. Then it came all downagain and forged slowly into view, the little page Hal and YoungLovell's horse boy, Richard Raket, that had lost his teeth at Kenchie'sBurn, holding the shortened ribands now near the bit on either side.The common men threw up their bonnets and took the chance of findingthem again; the ladies waved scarves, the Bishop made a benediction.The man in shining steel was high up in the archway against the sea.Such bright armour was never seen in those parts before, the lightpoured off it in sheathes, like rain. The head was quite round, thevisor fluted and down, at the saddle bow the iron shaft of the partisanwas gilded; the swordbelt and the scabbard were of scarlet velvet setwith emeralds. This was the gift of the Lady Rohtraut, and those werethe Lovell colours. The shield showed a red tiger's head, snarling anddimidiated by the black and silver checkers of the Dacres of Morpeth;the great lance was of scarlet wood tipped with shining steel.

  Those of them who had never seen the Young Lovell ride before, said thatthis vaunted paragon might have done better. For, when the horse wasjust half within the hall, and after the rider had lowered his lance atonce to salute the company, and to get it between the archway, and hadraised it again, the horse, enraged by the shout that went up from thatplace like a cavern, sprang back so that its mailed stern struck therabble of grey fellows and ragged children that were following close on.The steel lance-point jarred against the stone of the arch, and theround and shining helmet bumped not gracefully forward over the shield.This was held for no very excellent riding, and some miscalled thehorse. But others said that it was no part of a knight's training tomanage a horse going rearwards, and no part of a horse's to facefestivals and cheers. A knight should go forward, a horse facewar-cries and hard blows rather than the waving of silken scarves.

  But they got the horse forward into the middle of the hall, where itstood, a mass of steel, as if sullenly, on the great carpet of buff androse and greens. This marvel that covered all the clear space hungusually on the wall to form a dais, and the Young Lovell had bought itin Venice with one half of the booty that he had made in the little waragainst the Duchess of Escia. It weighed as much as four men and fourhorses in armour, and had made the whole cargo of a little cogger fromCalais that brought it to Hartlepool harbour, whence, rolled up, it hadbeen conveyed to the castle upon timber-trugs. Few men there had seenthe whole of it. It had been taken by Venetians from a galley of theSoldan's, and was said to be a sacred carpet of Mahound's. Some menwere very glad to see it, but some of the monks there said that itfavoured idolatry and outlandish ways. But these were the very learnedmonks of St. Cuthbert that had a monastery at Belford, near there. Theystood to the number of forty behind the Bishop and had habits of undyedwool. But the young monk, Francis, who had befriended the Young Lovellbefore, maintained now stoutly that it was a very good thing that thegear of Mahound should first be trampled underfoot and then coerced intoa Christian office such as that of the creation of a good knight. TheLady Rohtraut heard his words, and looking round at him said that heshould have a crucifix of gold for his inner chamber at Belford, if therules allowed it, or if not, five pounds of gold and ambergris to anointthe feet of his poor and bedesmen at Maundy tide. The young monklowered his eyes and thanked her. He was a Ridley that had killed hiscousin by a chance arrow sent after a hare, and so he had gone into thismonastery to pray perpetually for his cousin's soul.

  That man in armour now delivered his lance to his little page, hisshield to the page of a friend of his, a Widdrington; his sword toMichael Eure, a cousin of the Lady Margaret, to be an honour to her, andRichard Raket and other grooms came round the horse while the riderdescended and then they led the horse away. But he never raised thefluted steel of his visor. And when he was kneeling on high cushions ofblack velvet, since his steel shoes of tapering and reticulated ringswere near two foot long, as the fashion was, the Bishop asked him if hewould not uncover his face. But he whispered in the ear of the littlepage, and presently that boy said without fear in a high voice that theworshipful esquire had sworn an oath in the chapel that no woman shouldlook upon his face or hear his voice until he was both knighted andbetrothed. Those who upheld pure knight errants said that this was avery good vow, but the Percy laughed till his tears came.

  Then, in a high voice, but in an Italian accent, for he had been manyyears the King's Advocate and Ambassador at Rome and had there learnthis latinity and love for the profane poets, Ovid, Vergil the Magician,and many others--the Bishop recited the words of the oath that thisesquire should take. There was his duty to the Bishop Palatine to findfor him, when he came to be a baron, sixteen knights when letters ofarray were sent out, and, by the year, sixty bushels of wheat, onehundred of oats and peas, ten carts of oat straw and ten of wheat whenthe Bishop and his men harboured within ten miles of the Castle, and theBishop to have the rights of infangthef throughout his lands. Also hewould observe the privileges of all clerks and of Durham sanctuarywithin those lands. The Bishop read also the oath to the King, for theLord Percy had little Latin. The Knight, when he came to be a Baron,should find for the King's service, north of the Humber when the King'sletters of array were read, twenty-two knights, or six only if theBishop had before sent his letters calling for sixteen. For such landsas he should get from his mother he should pay the King four horseshoesof gold whenever the King lay at Morpeth, and for the Lovell lands agold cup filled with snow whenever the King lay within the Cheviotcountry. The goods of all those convicted of treason within histerritories at Morpeth should go to the Bishopric; those from the otherparts one-tenth to the King, six-tenths to the Bishop, one-tenth to themonastery of St. Cuthbert at Belford, and the remainder to himself.

  These oaths having been recited, a page of the Bishop's brought aferetory that had lain on the coffin of St. Cuthbert, and a Percy page atestament; the esquire laid his right hand first on one and then on theother, being still on his knees, and then held up his hand whilst thepage recited that that good esquire vowed faithfully all these things.Then the Bishop drew his sword and touched the steel left shoulder ofthe esquire with the hilt that had the form of the cross, this being thesymbol that he would be a good knight and soldier of Christ and OurLady. Then all the people cheered and cried out and the Bishop saidloudly--

  "Surge et vocabitur in nomine Dei et Regis nostri Sir Paris LovellCastelli." r />
  The Percy laughed and asked what those words were, and when the PrinceBishop had told him, still laughing, he smote the metal in the sameplace with the flat of his sword and mocked the Bishop with the words--

  "Stand up in the name of God. And in the King's name be calledhenceforth, Sir Paris Lovell of the Castle." To name her son Paris hadbeen a whimsy of the Lady Rohtraut since Paris of Troy was a goodlyknight, and also it stood for a symbol that he might retake Paris Townif the English had it not at the time when he was a man, and so thatname had pleased the great Talbot which was a good thing at the time ofhis birth.

  Then the good knight stood up upon his long feet and the Percy cried outthat they should get the business of the betrothal over with speed, andso they did, the knight and the Lady Margaret who came out, kneeling onblack cushions before the Prince Bishop. She was wearing a great andlong green gown, to the making of which there had gone twenty-six yardsof patterned damask from the city of Bruges. It was worked with leavesand birds and pomegranates, so that it was very rich in folds. Herribbons in her shirt were of scarlet silk and her fur edgings of the redfox. Her hood was of white and red velvet, the gables at the frontbeing of silver set with large pearls, and her hair fell in two blackplaits to her heels where she knelt. So when the Bishop had recitedtheir oaths they stood up and the knight pushed up his visor and lookedat the lady. Those few that could see his face cried out as if they hadseen a ship strike on a rock, so they raised their hands. The othersonly marked that haughty lady shrink back upon her feet, with a greatflowing of her garments as she drew them together towards her. She criedout some words of detestation that no man heard but he, and then withher fist she struck him in the face.

  Then he turned upon the high table, grinning and unashamed, the darkeyebrows that seemed to have been painted in with tar, the red cheeksand the lascivious lips of Decies of the South.

  All those at the high table stood up on their feet, lifting their handsabove their heads and crying out. The Decies cried towards his father,lifting also his mailed arm to heaven--

  "See justice done to me. My half-brother is gone upon a sorcery. Hislands and gear are forfeit to me that inform against him and his nameand bride have been given me by the Prince Bishop."

  Then the lawyer, Magister Stone of Barnsides by Glororem, ran across thehall from the little door in the great ones. He began, as it were, asort of trafficing between the Knight and the Bishop, not neglecting theLord Percy and the Knight's father, but running backwards and forwardsbetween the one and the other, raising his hands to their breasts andsqueaking, though there was no hearing what he said. His weazened face,his brown furred gown, his chattering voice and his long jaw workedincessantly so that he resembled a monkey that was chewing straws withvoracity and haste. A Widdrington, a Eure and a Selby, desperate youngmen and fast friends of the young Lovell, rushed upon the Decies withtheir daggers out. But the Bishop pushed them back and cried out forsilence. And because all there saw that the Lady Rohtraut, upon herfeet, was pointing down at the Lord Lovell and calling out to him, theyheld their tongues to hear what she was saying. They caught the end ofa sentence calling upon the Lord Lovell to have that filthy andblaspheming bastard cast from the top of the White Tower. Then all eyessaw that the Lord Lovell was laughing.

  He had begun with a slow grin: by little and little he had understoodthat his son at last had made a fine, impudent stroke. He had struckhis thigh with his hand; he had tried to cry out that this was thefinest stroke of all and that his son had got up early enough, at last.But he could get no words out.

  Then he had begun his laughing. He laughed, rolling from side to side:he laughed, shaking so that his leathern chair cracked beneath him. Hisstomach trembled in an agony of laughter, his eyes gazing painfully andfixed at the scarlet and green chequers of the tablecloth. Betweentornadoes of shaken laughter he gasped for breath, and all the while theLady Rohtraut stood gazing down upon him as if he were a loathsome dogstruck with a fit. All men there stood still to watch him laugh.

  And suddenly he threw his arms above his head, his face being purple andhis eyes closed like a drunkard's. With the passion and strength of hislaughter the blood gushed from his mouth and nose like falling scarletribbons. His body came forward on the tablecloth; monks and doctorscraned forwards over him. The Percy moved disdainfully away as if froma sick and filthy beast, and over the table the body shook and quiveredin the last gusts of laughter.

  The Decies, with his sword drawn, moved backwards to the arch at thedoor, and first the Lady Isopel of Cullerford, the Lord Lovell'sdaughter, came round to speak to him, and then the Lady Douce ofHaltwhistle, her sister. They stood looking back at their mother, andthen they called to them their husbands, Sir Symonde and Sir WalterLimousin. They stood at talk, Sir Symonde shrugging his shoulders andCullerford grunting whilst the ladies caught them earnestly by the arms,leaning forwards. Then they called to them the lawyer, Magister Stone,who was no great distance away, and he brought with him the PrinceBishop's Almoner, a dry man with but one eye who had a furred hood up,to keep away the draughts, since he suffered from the earache. Thenthey beckoned to them certain of their armed men and Sir Henry Vesey ofWall Houses, a knight of little worth in morals but a great reiver. Andso, by little and little, they had a company, mostly ill-favoured butviolent around them. So they perceived that the Lady Rohtraut hadfallen in a swoon, and the knight of Cullerford went forward and beggedthe lords and lordings and the company to avoid that hall and go upontheir errands, since there was sorrow enough, and his brothers-in-lawand their wives would take it kindly if they could be left alone withtheir mother. And, since he was the husband of the lady's daughter,they listened to him and went out, and the Vesey of Haltwhistle saw toit that they had their horses, and soon there were few left in the hallbut the Lord Lovell, who had a leech, bending over him. The LadyRohtraut, having fallen back in her chair, was being tended by the LadyMargaret and an old woman of seventy called Elizabeth Campstones. Thenthe daughters and the Decies went about in the Castle and were verybusy.