The Black Douglas Read online

  CHAPTER III

  TWO RIDING TOGETHER

  "Joyous," she cried, as they went, "Oh, most joyous would it be to seethe noble castle and to have all the famous two thousand knights tomake love to me at once! To capture two thousand hearts at one sweepof the net! What would Margaret of France herself say to that?"

  "Is there no single heart sufficient to satisfy you, fair maid?" saidthe young man, in a low voice; "none loyal enough nor large enough foryou that you desire so many?"

  "And what would I do with one if it were in my hands," she saidwistfully; "that is, if it were a worthy heart and one worth thetaking. Ever since I was a child I have always broken my toys when Itired of them."

  The voices of the singing children on the green came more faintly totheir ears, but the words were still clear to be understood.

  _"Off to prison you must go, you must go, you must go, Off to prison you must go, My fair lady!"_

  "You hear? It is my fate!" she said.

  "Nay," answered the Earl, passionately, still looking in her eyes."Mine, mine--not yours! Gladly I would go to prison or to death forthe love of one so fair!"

  "My lord, my lord," she laughed, with a tolerant protest in her voice,"you keep up the credit of your house right nobly. How goes thedistich? My mother taught it me upon the bridge of Avignon, where alsoas here in Scotland the children dance and sing."

  "First in the love of Woman, First in the field of fight, First in the death that men must die, Such is the Douglas' right!"

  "Here and now," he said, still looking at her, "'tis only the first Icrave."

  "Earl William, positively you must come to Court!" she shrilled intosudden tinkling laughter; "there be ladies there more worthy of yourardour than a poor errant maiden such as I."

  "A Court," cried Earl William, scornfully, "to the Seneschal's court!Nay, truly. Could a Stewart ever keep his faith or pay his debts?Never, since the first of them licked his way into a lady's favour."

  "Oh," she answered lightly, "I meant not the Court of Stirling nor yetthe Chancellor's Castle of Edinburgh. I meant the only greatCourt--the Court of France, the Court of Charles the Seventh, theCourt which already owns the sway of its rarest ornament, your ownScottish Princess Margaret."

  "Thither I cannot go unless the King of France grants me my father'srights and estates!" he said, with a certain sternness in his tone.

  "Let me look at your hand," she answered, with a gentle inclinationof her fair head, from which the lace that had shrouded it nowstreamed back in the cool wind of evening.

  Stopping Darnaway, the young Earl gave the girl his hand, and thewhite palfrey came to rest close beneath the shoulder of the black warcharger.

  "To-morrow," she said, looking at his palm, "to-morrow you will beDuke of Touraine. I promise it to you by my power of divination. Doesthat satisfy you?"

  "I fear you are a witch, or else a being compound of rarer elementsthan mere flesh and blood," said the Earl.

  "Is that a spirit's hand," she said, laughing lightly and giving herown rosy fingers into his, "or could even the Justicer of Gallowayfind it in his heart to burn these as part of the body of a witch?"

  She shuddered and pretended to gaze piteously up at him from under thelong lashes which hardly raised themselves from her cheek.

  "Spirit-slender, spirit-white they are," he replied, "and as for beingthe fingers of a witch--doubtless you are a witch indeed. But I willnot burn so fair things as these, save as it might be with thefervours of my lips."

  And he stooped and pressed kiss after kiss upon her hand.

  Gently she withdrew her fingers from his grasp and rode further apart,yet not without one backward glance of perfectest witchery.

  "I doubt you have been overmuch at Court already," she said. "I didnot well to ask you to go thither."

  "Why must I not go thither?" he asked.

  "Because I shall be there," she replied softly, courting him yet againwith her eyes.

  As they rode on together through the rich twilight dusk, the young manobserved her narrowly as often as he could.

  Her skin was fair with a dazzling clearness, which even the gatheringgloom only caused to shine with a more perfect brilliance, as if ahalo of light dwelt permanently beneath its surface. Faint responsiveroses bloomed on either cheek and, as it seemed, cast a shadow oftheir colour down her graceful neck. Dark eyes shone above, fresh anddewy with love and youth, and smiled out with all ancientestwitcheries and allurements in their depths. Her lithe, slender bodywas simply clad in a fair white cloth of some foreign fabric, and herwaist, of perfectest symmetry, was cinctured by a broad ring of solidsilver, which, to the young man, looked so slender that he could haveclasped it about with both his hands.

  So they rode on, through the woods mostly, until they reached a regionwhich to the Earl appeared unfamiliar. The glades were greener anddenser. The trees seemed more primeval, the foliage thicker overhead,the interspaces of the golden evening sky darker and less frequent.

  "In what place may your company be assembled?" he asked. "Strange itis that I know not this spot. Yet I should recognise each tree byconning it, and of every rivulet in Galloway I should be able to tellthe name. Yet with shame do I confess that I know not where I am."

  "Ah," said the girl, her face growing luminous through the gloom, "youcalled me a witch, and now you shall see. I wave my hands, so--and youare no more in Galloway. You are in the land of faery. I blow you akiss, so--and lo! you are no more William, sixth Earl of Douglas andproximate Duke of Touraine, but you are even as True Thomas, theBeloved of the Queen of the Fairies, and the slave of her spell!"

  "I am indeed well content to be Thomas Rhymer," he answered,submitting himself to the wooing glamour of her eyes, "so be that youare the Lady of the milk-white hind!"

  "A courtier indeed," she laughed; "you need not to seek your answer.You make a poor girl afraid. But see, yonder are the lights of mypavilion. Will it please you to alight and enter? The supper will bespread, and though you must not expect any to entertain you, save onlythis your poor Queen Mab" (here she made him a little bow), "yet Ithink you will not be ill content. They do not say that Thomas ofErcildoune had any cause for complaint. Do you know," she continued, afresh gaiety striking into her voice, "it was in this very wood thathe was lost."

  But William Douglas sat silent with the wonder of what he saw. Theirhorses had all at once come out on a hilltop. The sequestered boskageof the trees had gradually thinned, finally dwarfing into a greendrift of fern and birchen foliage which rose no higher than BlackDarnaway's chest, and through which his rider's laced boots brushedtill the Spanish leather of their gold-embossed frontlets was alljetted with gouts of dew.

  Before him swept horizonwards a great upward drift of solemn pinetrees, the like of which for size he had never seen in all his domain.Or so, at least, it seemed in that hour of mystery and glamour. Forbehind them the evening sky had dulled to a deep and solemn wash ofblood red, across which lay one lonely bar of black cloud, solid asspilled ink on a monkish page. But under the trees themselves, blazingwith lamps and breathing odours of all grace and daintiness, stood alighted pavilion of rose-coloured silk, anchored to the ground withropes of sendal of the richest crimson hue.

  "Let your horse go free, or tether him to a pine; in either case hewill not wander far," said the girl. "I fear my fellows have gone offto lay in provisions. We have taken a day or two more on the way thanwe had counted on, so that to-night's feast makes an end of our store.But still there is enough for two. I bid you welcome, Earl William, toa wanderer's tent. There is much that I would say to you."