The Fool

Front matter

THE FOOL

bc|BY THE SAME AUTHOR

BY H. C. BAILEY

Chapter 1

CHAPTER I

PLAYING KNUCKLE-BONES

THERE were dead in the courtyard and a noise. Across the morning twilight men shouted from tower to tower and blade clashed on mail where the last of the garrison sold blood for blood, and from the bowels of the castle came already the yells and crash of plundering. And the bells of the Abbey beyond the wall were ringing to matins.

Only one man was alive among the dead in the courtyard, and he sat on his heels in a corner and played knuckle-bones. He flared in the greyness, one lean thigh scarlet and one grass-green, his doublet a patchwork in all colours, about his neck and his big head a hood like a monk's cowl, but yellow, and the crest of it was red and fashioned as a cock's comb, and out of the sides came the grey rough ears of an ass. While his big hands tossed and snatched the bones he was singing a Latin hymn. From the battlements a man was thrown and fell beside him and lay with blood oozing through the rings of the hauberk. But he did not move or look; he tossed the bones still and still sang.

The storming party mustered again, a sturdy, swaggering company, begrimed and with many a gap hewn in their mail coats. For their armour was rings or little scraps of steel, like a fish's scales sewn upon cloth—that a man could wear steel plates no man had yet found out. It was the year of the Lord 1140. You remember that Stephen was fighting to be King of England then, and his cousin, Matilda, who had been an Empress in Germany when she was a child, fought to be Queen, and all the country was ravaged by their wars and the barons who throve upon their wars. From sea to sea in England there was no law: what a man could not hide the sword took from him; what could be hidden torture dragged from him; and over many a shire there was no meat nor milk nor corn for common folk, and they lived in holes upon acorns and beech-mast like swine, more wretched than the first men who crawled upon our world. For they had known a better life.

Odo le Veneur was made to prosper in such a time. You see him, a hulking big-bodied man in bright mail, the long nose-piece of his helmet shadowing all his face but the fat jowl. He came down to the courtyard and roared at his men: "Splendour of God!" (He gave out that he was a base-born son of the Red King, he liked to swear the Conqueror's oath.) "You grow slow, dogs!" He strode past looking them over and laughed. "The boars have gored you. Go to, do your will," and they scattered to plunder. Odo took off his helmet and showed a bloated red face and lank black hair and shouted for wine. The man in the corner still played knuckle-bones.

Odo put out a foot to kick him over, but the man fell on his hands and threw a somersault. "Why, cousin Odo," says he with a wide grin, "Cousin Odo, we have stormed Heaven this morning and I bring you the keys of the gate," and he held out his knuckle-bones.

"Bones, fool?"

"Why yes, cousin, man's bones, woman's bones. Nought else will open Heaven to any man."

"Out on you, do you play with man's bones?"

"Even as you, cousin. What else are they good for in this world?" He threw a somersault backwards and sat down on his heels and went on playing.

Hours after he was there still, when from the h;ill Odo shouted: "Bran! Bran!" He picked himself up, he picked up a shapeless thing beside him which, being blown out, revealed itself as a small bagpipe and playing upon it a jerky tune he danced into the hall, an odd sight, for his fool's habit clothed a frame very lean and very short yet with broad shoulders, a huge head, big hands and big feet, and he showed them off in a jig. This vastly amused Odo and his men, who stopped their eating and bade him do it again and again, till he fell upon hands and knees and ran about like a dog, and like a dog whined for food and scraped at Odo's knees, and, putting his head on one side, looked up at him plaintively and licked his chops and dribbled and made more queer dog's noises.

Then Odo, swearing that he was the king of fools, flung him a bone, and he ran after it and growled and thereafter picked himself up and sat down by the little table on Odo's left-hand. He cut himself a trencher of bread like the rest, and snatched slices of meat which another had cut, and began to eat, using all his fingers. Then, "Welcome to our castle of Malmesbury, cousin Odo," he said, and giggled. "Welcome to my shell, quoth the oyster, as I ate him. But he had no wits, the fool. How does your entertainment like you, cousin?"

"It likes me well enough, fool."

"Pledge me in a cup of wine, cousin. What, knaves, wine for my lord!" And when the steward came with a pitcher he snatched it. "The cup for the lord, but the jug for the fool," he cried, and drank. Odo cuffed at him and he fell over and waggled his great feet in the air. Then he sat down and ate again, and after a while, humming a glee, began to make his bread-platter into little dolls.

"What are you at, fool?" says Odo after a while.

"Why, cousin, I am like the good God. I make men and women for man to eat." He swept up the dolls and gulped them all down. "God rest their souls, quoth the fool."

Then they made him dance again and juggle with knives till at last he seemed to stab himself and fell backwards out of the door and made the death rattle and was gone.

Out of the castle and down the hill he went. The fool was fool enough to like to be alone. See him, if you please, throwing back his hood and dipping his shaven head in the river; see him wandering in the green desert of the country-side, laughing to himself, preaching to the willow herb and the ragged robin and barking like a fox till a fox answered him and he found a litter of cubs at play. But the next thing that matters is that scrambling down a hill he came upon a cave in the and a boy looking out of it, a sturdy bold boy, young in his teens, who laid hold of him and said, "Whose man are you, fellow?"

He giggled. "Bran does not know that. Bran is a poor fool. But we are all God's people, lord."

A girl came up behind the boy, little his elder by the look of her body, but with a wiser sterner face. "He lies, Jocelin. All fools lie."

"Na, na, na," said Bran. "None but fools tell truth. None but fools keep troth. An alms for the fool, great lady," and he fell on his knees and put out his hands.

She dashed them aside. "Rogue, you are some rich lord's man. See his silver chain, Jocelin."

"Chains are chains. God save all. Pity the poor fool. Sir Odo le Veneur is my lord, lady."

"Jocelin!" she plucked out the knife from her girdle. The boy held her hand. "He will tell of us. He must not go back."

"It were shame to kill a fool," the boy said.

The fool laughed. "Mercy was ever a man," said he, "and wisdom is a woman. Strike, and I give you my blessing." He flung back his head and opened his arms—then sprang up. "No! God forgive me, who tempted a child." And he crossed himself and muttered a prayer. "Do I believe that? Why, care killed the cat." And he laughed so queerly that the girl shrank away and made the sign against the evil eye. "Na, na, never fear, Bran is not a wicked one. The more fool Bran."

"Swear that you will not tell on us," says the boy, catching his wrist.

"By oak and ash and thorn I swear, yea, and by the blood on the Holy Crown."

"That is a great oath."

"A great and terrible oath, lord. And thereafter a man must eat and be strong again." Into the cave he came, past the bewildered boy, and squatted down and took from his scrip a gammon of bacon and bread and cut. "Bran's pouch never goes empty till Bran's paunch is back by the larder. Eat, lady."

"I am not hungry, fool."

His long finger shot out. "Swear it! Na, na. Bran knows when a body is hungry. Bran has seen."

Eat they did then, and eating loosed tongues. They wanted to know if the Castle of Malmesbury was taken; what had befallen the garrison. "It is well with them. They are dead," said Bran, and saw the children look at each other with fierce eyes. "Whose kin are ye?" And they told him. They were the children of Sir Jocelin Longuemain who had held the castle for the Bishop of Salisbury, but he died in his bed in the spring. When Odo summoned the castle at nightfall, their father's steward had thrust them out by the postern and bade them take sanctuary in the Abbey. But the Abbey would not open to their knocking, and they ran away to hide. "The drowsy knave monks," said Bran; "eh, eh, cousin Odo will wake them. Not a saint sleeps sound with Odo to neighbour. Patience, patience, my lord and my lady, the monkery will pay." So they asked him what his lord Odo was like. "Saw ye ever a pig loose in a garth? What does he do? He eats the herbs, yea, and what he does not eat that he roots up and defiles. Even such is my cousin Odo."

"And you serve such a one!" says the girl.

"Pity the poor fool, Lady Judith," Bran whined.

"A man may be a fool yet have a man's spirit," and she rated him fiercely for serving a robber lord, a knight unknightly, a hunter of the weak, a foreigner—till the fool broke out in that queer laugh of his.

"Foreign? Nenny, nenny, foreign are you all. The Saxon was before the Norman, and the Briton was before the Saxon, and before the Briton was my folk, yea, before Sir Brut the Trojan came. For we are the living earth, the clay and the chalk, and the old, old stone, and it was a Saxon churl slew my mother with his spear in the thicket above Monken Risborough, and I only am left that I know. Bran the fool. Only the land, the old land and I." He thrust at them with his big feet and laughed again. "Away, new folk!"

The children drew together: "You—that knife is iron?" the boy said.

"Aha! Yea, lord, iron; and, yea, there is salt in the meat. Both the salt and the iron are my friends. No goblin I am, no fairy man. Born of woman I was and body of man I am. Naught but a fool, lord."

Perhaps they did not thoroughly believe him; they became curious about him yet with a certain reverence, and talk came fast. They asked him a thousand things and his advice. Odo was King Stephen's man, but it was no order of Stephen's to seize on Malmesbury. That was lord Odo's private venture. He was sent forth to watch the roads for the Empress. What should they do, the children? Lie close, close. The castle was a bishop's castle, and no arm so long as the arm of Holy Church. Wait awhile. And while they talked and the light waned came from the valley the call of a woman, a long, despairing cry. The boy started up and ran out. "Oh, the mass! Lie close, say I, and off goes he. Who hath trouble enough ever goes to seek it."

"It was a woman," said Judith.

"What is the worth of a woman when men are born to be killed?"

Up the steep in the twilight came Jocelin, tottering, panting, so heavily the woman leaned upon him, and as they drew near the cave she swayed and stumbled and fell upon her face and lay still. The fool rolled her over and the children stood aghast. "She had ridden her horse to death," Jocelin gasped. "She asked food for the love of God."

"Now God have mercy," the fool muttered, peering at her.

"Why, is she dead?" Judith cried.

"Nenny, nenny," says he, and tweaked the woman's nose and laughed wildly and tweaked it again and fell to beating her hands. She sneezed, she grasped at the air and sat up, and he slipped his knee behind her.

"Wine, a cup of wine," she said faintly.

"Water is our wine, goody," he laughed.

"Who speaks?"

"A poor fool, goody."

"I am well served," she said. She was tall and largely made. Years and passion or care had furrowed her brow. Her cloak was deep in dust, but of rich blue cloth with broideries, and in it the gleam of a golden chain.

The boy brought her water in his cap and she made a wry face and drank, and they fed her on bread and bacon, and though she looked at it queerly she said grace for it.

"As dark as it is, a fool can tell you have an eye, goody," Bran said.

She was pleased and laughed. "Whose folk are ye?"

"Na, na, goody. You are upside down."

"How, fool?"

"Thus, by mine honour: 'tis the guest gives a name not the host."

"Here is deep policy! Why then, sirrah, men call me Grandam Mold, and I am a landless woman this day."

Bran lay back against the rock and looked at the children and laid his finger on his lip. Then, making a chant of it, he droned out, "And well met then, and very well met, are Grandam Mold and we, for these be orphans and outcast and I am a fool, you see."

"Aye, now am I come to my kingdom," she said. "You are right to be merry, fool."

"Why yea, goody, even as thorns do right to crackle in the fire. What now? What now?" There were horsemen riding in the valley and not keeping the track, but ranging wide and calling to each other. "Keep close now, you, or you are sped."

"Close, quotha? I could not move a yard to shun the fiend," the woman said, but Bran was gone.

It was not yet quite dark and a full moon rising red above the hills. So in the valley all things looked vague and treacherous, and the horsemen came on slowly, beating hither and thither. Then rose a long-drawn howl, a howl as of a creature in pain, yet with some wicked mirth in it, and it echoed from hill to hill, and while still the echoes rang came another that seemed to answer it and another.

The shouts of the horsemen were hushed, and they drew together and halted, and through the stillness came the murmur of an anxious parley. Then keeping close they pushed on. Again the howling echoed, there was cawing and screaming and a rustle of wings as a pair of ravens, roused from their nest, hurtled through the air in angry fear. If they were ravens and not more evil things, for there on the lump of rock above the river was some creature neither human nor beast, a strange, shapeless sight, grey as the twilight, grey-white all over, without head, without tail, now dancing on all fours, now on its hind legs, now on its fore legs, and either way waving great hoofs in the air. Whence came the howling that mocked and gibbered no man could tell, whether from the dancing beast, whether from the hills.

The horsemen saw fiends on earth and air, and turned and fled the haunted valley.

When he heard the panic, Bran scrambled down from his rock and brushed the dust out of his face and his clothes. "It is a good Bran," he said, and for his own satisfaction performed another little dance. "A good Bran, yea. The trick was featly done. But oh, my wits, my wits, what a poor soul hath a man! As often as I play me that trick, under the roof, under the sky, never it fails me. Conjure up a fiend for them, and their souls cower and their joints are loosened. Yet what fiend could be more a fiend than man? I will believe in Mahound, ere I believe that any world hath worse than this. But Bran is a fool."

So he went lustily for the castle, and making a straight line passed those anxious horsemen, who kept to the track, and coming into the huddled little town of Malmesbury he hit upon some of Odo's men who had been drinking there, and mingling with them he entered the castle by the postern. Then he sought the hall and curled himself up on the rushes among the dogs and slept careless as they, yet like them not without dreams that made him start and moan.

Chapter 2

CHAPTER II

THE EMPRESS GOES RIDING

IN the morning, prowling, as his wont was for news, he heard that in the night a party of horsemen had come to the main gate and asked lodging, swearing that they were the King's men. But the guard made them out a large party, and according to the custom of that troubled time bade them draw off till morning. And when Sir Odo was told: "Splendour of God," says he, "you did well, Walter. And if you had done other you should hang. No man, not the King's self, comes into hold of mine by night." Whereat a dog barked and Odo kicked him and the fool laughed. "How now, rogue?"

"Why thus, cousin. The fool treads on the hound's tail, the hound yelps and Lord Odo kicks the hound. And so the world goes on—and on—and on," and he flung himself on his hands and turned round and round like a wheel.

Odo kicked a stool into him and brought him down with a crash and laughed at him, and laughed the louder as he huddled himself together and hugged his elbows and whined. "Up with you rogue, up," he lashed out with his riding whip, and the fool yelled and scrambled up and ran limping out. Whereupon Sir Odo mounted and hunted him round the courtyard, flogging him till he fell.

So the fool did not go hawking with Sir Odo that day. He was in the kitchen rubbing his bruises with fat and thinking after his fashion; thinking that if only pain did not hurt him he would be a very great man, thinking that whatever happens there are always a thousand other things to happen, thinking that the finest song in the world is the Magnificat.

But when Sir Odo and his troop came back he saw and shaded his eyes to see tied to the stirrup of Hugues le Roux the girl Judith. So he bustled up to help old Robert the falconer. "What sport, brother?"

"Spavined sport, fool."

"You have struck one gay heron, at least."

"That piece?" he scowled at the girl. "Your right sister, fool. Do you know how we took her? The churl which Odo pinned to the oak at the cross-roads yesterday, he is there yet, and the spear in him and the tree. None of his folk were fools enough to dare loose him. But by my faith, when we came there this morning, this witless wench is pulling at him and calling for help. And Odo must needs put her in the bag. St. Joseph, it was empty enough! But an unfledged woman! Sport! And young Hugues, the soft lad, must needs stick the churl's throat, he screamed so to die. Odo knocked a tooth out of him for that."

"You have been merry, brother," said the fool, and turned away to the hall.

Odo sat there sprawling his bulk, and the girl, her hands tied behind her back, stood in front of him, straight and still. She was unkempt, her fair hair and her clothes covered with dust, but something in her puzzled him. "Who in the fiend's name?" he roared out. "You are no villein's brat. Who are you, wench?"

"Untie my hands, churl," she said, and her eyes met his, fierce and proud.

"Churl?" That was startled out of him.

"Churl and coward and naught. No knight uses a woman so."

"Woman? Say wild cat. All one. I know how to deal with women, be sure. Splendour of God, I can tame you, girl. Come, save your hide. Who are you?" She did not answer. "What knave set you on to meddle with my man?"

"Your man? You lie. You are a robber and a villain. A landless man."

Sir Odo started up and swore at length. "There is only one way with women all. Go think on it. Keep her hungry and thirsty, Walter. Put her in the chest. You will speak me fair before I have done with you, wench."

So she was dragged out, and into the chest she was thrust. Now the nature of the chest was this: a box which would hardly hold the body of a man doubled up was lined with iron wrought into points and rough edges, and the prisoner being put in the lid was shut down upon him and bolted so that he was tortured by the pressure and bruised and pierced. The girl Judith, being smaller than a man, suffered less, yet enough. But when Odo and his band were at dinner into the cell where the chest stood the fool came limping and he pulled back the bolt and threw up the lid.

She lifted her head and through the tangle of hair he saw her face flushed dark and damp with sweat. She stared at him and her eyes were wild and empty of thought. Then she groaned. He put a pewter cup to her lips and she drained the broth. Then passionately, "Holy Christ, I hoped it was water," she cried. "Oh fool, fool."

"Oh woman, woman. Woman every way."

She began painfully to get out of the chest.

"Nenny, nenny," said the fool, and put his great hands on her and thrust her down again. "Thus bad were worse. If they find you loose, you were better dead." Then the child bade him go, and cowered down and fell a-weeping. "Help the poor fool, lady," says he in a most piteous voice. She looked up then: "Tell poor fool what brought lady into Malmesbury. Oh, Holy Cross, to come back into the jaws of the fiend!"

"The Empress sent me to buy her a flask of wine."

The fool gaped. "Empress? God ha' mercy, lady. Bran knows no Empress. Bran knows Goody Mold."

"She is the Empress."

"The foul fiend fly away with her and burn her in hell," says Bran, and the girl stared at him he spoke so like a natural man. "She will send a child to death lest her proud stomach should drink water."

"She is ill," the child said.

"Nenny, nenny, lady. Empresses and queens they cannot be ill, they are great ones. It is poor you and poor I who are ill and very ill. Yea, faith, and so Goody Mold is Goody Empress! Now who had thought on that?" he giggled. "Why, but that is the end of the cord that is tangled. Here is Sir Odo hunting Madame Empress, and would give his soul to have her. And Sir Odo hath caught you and will torture your life away. Why then, tell him where he may find Madame Empress and you go free."

"Oh, base!" the child cried. "It is a treachery. You—you are a mean thing and naught."

"Yea, yea. Yet think, child. He means the worst that a man can. But you have a way of deliverance, and it is no virtue to give yourself to suffer sin. Save yourself, then, for blessed Mother Mary's sake."

"It is you who are like the fiend," the child cried.

"Not Bran, no. God help poor Bran, who means you well. Bran is but a fool. What is that gold about your neck, lady?"

She stared at him and put her hand to her bosom. "The Empress gave it me. It is her own chain."

The fool's big hands shot out. He tore it from her, pressed her down again into the chest and shot the bolt and ran away.

But he found the castle in a commotion. A great company of horsemen were before the walls, and among them a banner which bore gold upon red, a Sagittarius, the banner of King Stephen. Sir Odo heavy with wine would not believe, though one and another bore him news, and when he heard the trumpets must needs climb the gate tower to see for himself, and the while a herald summoned the castle in the King's name, yet no man dared open without Odo's word. So the King was left to wait.

Down from the tower, his bloated face bowed and wrought in perplexities, came Sir Odo, and cursing bade undo the gate. The first of the horsemen rode in and formed up on either side the courtyard while Odo's men scurried out of the way. The King's banner advanced, and Odo came heavily forward to meet the King.

"Sir, I give you loyal welcome to this hold of mine."

"You, aye, I swore it was you," the King said. "What brought you here?"

"Please you enter my hall, sir."

"Your hall!" the King muttered, but swung down and strode on before.

The hall was littered and foul with the mess of dinner. Dogs were growling over the broken meat. "Pardieu, you keep high state for me," said the King, curling the nostril, and serving men scurried out. But the fool, huddled on a stool by the cold hearth, stayed.

"I promise you good cheer, sir," Odo leered. "There is old wine in Malmesbury."

"Good cheer for swine in a sty. God's body, sirrah, why do I find you wallowing here?"

Odo stared at him and the fool looked sideways. King Stephen had the body for a king, tall and strong and stately; he had the face of a king in a picture-book, handsome, benign, but weak.

"Sir, you do me a wrong. Do me reason," says Odo, glowering at him. "Splendour of God, I am worth what I take."

"Who bade you take Malmesbury?"

Odo shrugged. "The place was fair game, sir. The Bishop of Salisbury had it in hold. Your friends must live upon your enemies."

"God have mercy, what are you to set Holy Church against me?"

"The Church?" Odo laughed. "By my faith, a king may laugh at the Church while such men as I am ride with his banner."

The King swore and checked himself and shifted his feet, and the fool looked at him and rocked to and fro. "You have done a great wrong," says the King. "Let it go. God's body, man, who sent you to Malmesbury? You were sent to watch the roads."

"I am not a boy to be schooled. I must ride my hunt my own way. I have won Malmesbury for you. That is my answer to all."

"Is it so?" the King flamed out again. "Are you fool, or are you rogue, sirrah?" And Odo flinched as the big man strode upon him. "While you waste time plundering here the Empress slips by. And you, you keep no guard of the roads. You turn my men away when they come here for word of her."

"They came by night. I open no gate o' nights. For the rest, it is false, sir. Madame Empress has not come by this way."

"Oh, the lady, the great lady, the tall lady with the gold lilies on her cloak," the fool giggled.

They both turned on him. "Out, you dog!" Odo roared.

"What said he?" said the King.

The fool grinned at Odo, and nodded and began to shuffle out muttering to himself, "The lady, the tall lady with the gold lilies on her cloak and the black Barbary mare."

"By the rood, it is she!" the King cried. "Come hither, lad," and he turned upon Odo. "So, my lord! She has not come by this way!"

And Odo had not words in his surprise, and then they tumbled over each other. "The fellow is a fool, my lord, the veriest fool. He knows not what he says. There is no drain of wit in him. He means nothing. He knows not how to mean. He2"

"Be silent, you. Come, lad; when did you see the lady?"

The fool, watching Odo's furious brow, shrank away, putting up a hand to guard his head: "Na, na, Bran is a poor fool. Bran said naught. Bran has seen naught. Bran sees naught but what lord Odo wants. Bran is a good fool."

"No man shall hurt thee, lad," the King said.

"Yea, yea. No one hurts Bran when Bran says naught," and he fell to talking gibberish.

Odo wiped his face. "Will you listen to a fool, my lord?" he said, and tried to laugh heartily.

"I have listened to a knave," said the King.