第80章 The Tree of Justice(2)

And atop of their misery the old rumour waked that Harold the Saxon was alive and would bring them deliverance from us Normans. This has happened every autumn since Santlache fight.'

'But King Harold was killed at Hastings,'said Una.

'So it was said, and so it was believed by us Normans, but our Saxons always believed he would come again. That rumour did not make our work any more easy.'

Sir Richard strode on down the far slope of the wood, where the trees thin out. It was fascinating to watch how he managed his long spurs among the lumps of blackened ling.

'But we did it!' he said. 'After all, a woman is as good as a man to beat the woods, and the mere word that deer are afoot makes cripples and crones young again. De Aquila laughed when Hugh told him over the list of beaters. Half were women; and many of the rest were clerks - Saxon and Norman priests.

'Hugh and I had not time to laugh for eight days, till De Aquila, as Lord of Pevensey, met our King and led him to the first shooting-stand - by the Mill on the edge of the forest. Hugh and I - it was no work for hot heads or heavy hands - lay with our beaters on the skirts of Dallington to watch both them and the deer. When De Aquila's great horn blew we went forward, a line half a league long. Oh, to see the fat clerks, their gowns tucked up, puffing and roaring, and the sober millers dusting the under-growth with their staves; and, like as not, between them a Saxon wench, hand in hand with her man, shrilling like a kite as she ran, and leaping high through the fern, all for joy of the sport.'

'Ah! How! Ah! How! How-ah! Sa-how-ah!' Puck bellowed without warning, and Swallow bounded forward, ears cocked, and nostrils cracking.

'Hal-lal-lal-lal-la-hai-ie!' Sir Richard answered in a high clear shout.

The two voices joined in swooping circles of sound, and a heron rose out of a red osier-bed below them, circling as though he kept time to the outcry. Swallow quivered and swished his glorious tail. They stopped together on the same note.

A hoarse shout answered them across the bare woods.

'That's old Hobden,'said Una.

'Small blame to him. It is in his blood,' said Puck. 'Did your beaters cry so, Sir Richard?'

'My faith, they forgot all else. (Steady, Swallow, steady!) They forgot where the King and his people waited to shoot. They followed the deer to the very edge of the open till the first flight of wild arrows from the stands flew fair over them.

'I cried, "'Ware shot! 'Ware shot!" and a knot of young knights new from Normandy, that had strayed away from the Grand Stand, turned about, and in mere sport loosed off at our line shouting: "'Ware Santlache arrows! 'Ware Santlache arrows!" A jest, I grant you, but too sharp. One of our beaters answered in Saxon: "'Ware New Forest arrows! 'Ware Red William's arrow!" so I judged it time to end the jests, and when the boys saw my old mail gown (for, to shoot with strangers I count the same as war), they ceased shooting. So that was smoothed over, and we gave our beaters ale to wash down their anger. They were excusable! We - they had sweated to show our guests good sport, and our reward was a flight of hunting-arrows which no man loves, and worse, a churl's jibe over hard-fought, fair-lost Hastings fight. So, before the next beat, Hugh and I assembled and called the beaters over by name, to steady them. The greater part we knew, but among the Netherfield men I saw an old, old man, in the dress of a pilgrim.

'The Clerk of Netherfield said he was well known by repute for twenty years as a witless man that journeyed without rest to all the shrines of England. The old man sits, Saxon fashion, head between fists. We Normans rest the chin on the left palm.

'"Who answers for him?" said I. "If he fails in his duty, who will pay his fine?"

'"Who will pay my fine?" the pilgrim said. "I have asked that of all the Saints in England these forty years, less three months and nine days! They have not answered!" When he lifted his thin face I saw he was one-eyed, and frail as a rush.

'"Nay, but, Father," I said, "to whom hast thou commended thyself-?" He shook his head, so I spoke in Saxon: "Whose man art thou?"

'"I think I have a writing from Rahere, the King's jester," said he after a while. "I am, as I suppose, Rahere's man."

'He pulled a writing from his scrip, and Hugh, coming up, read it.

'It set out that the pilgrim was Rahere's man, and that Rahere was the King's jester. There was Latin writ at the back.

'"What a plague conjuration's here?" said Hugh, turning it over. "Pum-quum-sum oc-occ. Magic?"

'"Black Magic," said the Clerk of Netherfield (he had been a monk at Battle). "They say Rahere is more of a priest than a fool and more of a wizard than either. Here's Rahere's name writ, and there's Rahere's red cockscomb mark drawn below for such as cannot read." He looked slyly at me.

'"Then read it," said I, "and show thy learning." He was a vain little man, and he gave it us after much mouthing.

'"The charm, which I think is from Virgilius the Sorcerer, says: 'When thou art once dead, and Minos' (which is a heathen judge) 'has doomed thee, neither cunning, nor speechcraft, nor good works will restore thee!' A terrible thing! It denies any mercy to a man's soul!"

'"Does it serve?" said the pilgrim, plucking at Hugh's cloak.

"Oh, man of the King's blood, does it cover me?"

'Hugh was of Earl Godwin's blood, and all Sussex knew it, though no Saxon dared call him kingly in a Norman's hearing.

There can be but one King.

'"It serves," said Hugh. "But the day will be long and hot.

Better rest here. We go forward now."

'"No, I will keep with thee, my kinsman," he answered like a child. He was indeed childish through great age.

'The line had not moved a bowshot when De Aquila's great horn blew for a halt, and soon young Fulke - our false Fulke's son - yes, the imp that lit the straw in Pevensey Castle [See 'Old Men at Pevensey' in PUCK OF POOK'S HILL.] - came thundering up a woodway.