Brion

“ But long before this evil had become a thing to whisper and remark on, Brion had learned all that he was destined to learn about his own history. He was with his Uncle one day, reading, at the table (to love both books and sport is to be the admirable youth) from Melancthon’s Confession, and looking up occasionally to ask the other, who sat in his big chair by the escritoire, to expound for him some knotty passage from the gentle Reformer, when suddenly a look came into his eyes, and a thrill to his heart, with the knowledge that he had reached the way. ”

“ There are those—the fortunate ones, perhaps—who, looking like wizened age in youth, in age come to look youthful. What Brion saw before him was a little undersized creature, with a sharp unhealthy face and ferrety eyelashes. She was all hung and sown with gems, after the fashion of a royal model. Her head-dress was as monstrous as was her farthingale, over which a jewelled stomacher came down so deep as to give to her already short lower limbs an aspect of quite grotesque stubbiness. ”

“ Long hair fell to his shoulders, and startlingly blue eyes stared back at Brion from deepset sockets. The heavy kilt around his loins was the only garment he wore. Once more the vaede rested over his shoulder, still stirring unhappily. Around his waist was the same collection of leather, stone and brass objects that had been in the solido. Two of them now had meaning to Brion: the tube-and-mouthpiece, a blowgun of some kind; and the specially shaped hook for opening the vaede. He wondered if the other strangely formed things had equally practical functions. ”

“ THE APPARITION Thenceforth Brion avoided the neighbourhood of the old well-house; he kept that dark cloud of ilex trees at a nervous distance, and did not even care to let his glance wander their way. This mood of superstitious fear haunted him for some time, and then began to weaken, or to change in its constitution. The eternal spirit of curiosity crept back, like a scared sheep, to examine the cause of its own panic. ”

“ And Brion understood without resentment. He had long decided his own attitude towards that question: for one thing to accept it as, virtually, an open secret; for another, to refuse to suffer for it in any way to himself, since honour was a matter of conscience, and not of arbitrary bestowal. But he only thanked his new friend, and answered that, like that friend himself, he must win his spurs before he took his reputation to market.
‘And so thou shalt,’ said the other admiringly. ‘Thou shalt carry thy quest knight-errantly, and strike for England’s name. ”

“ This creature’s hugeness hits the eye like a battering-ram. He hath evidenced, and may be dismissed. Hence, porter—ha! and ruminate, like a vast ox, on the condescension shown thee.’
He led Brion away, while the other backed, bobbing and grinning, into the lodge. ‘Now,’ said he, stopping once more to look admiringly in the boy’s face, ‘let me gaze on thee my fill. Art grown, I swear, and to an aspect something graver than thy wont. ”

“ He is my friend, Granton.’
And so it was that Brion, a man escaped from a deadly hazard, yet keeping for ever in his mind the picture of that tragic hour, the gloomy building and the room set like a lustrous shrine in its midst, found himself once more in the free and open street, an exultation at his heart, but also a wistful pain. That, in a measure, was never to leave him; yet even so it was as balsam on an ancient wound, the amelioration of one hurt by another. ”

“ Brion did not answer, pursuing his own train of thought.
‘Clerivault,’ said he in a little, ‘it must be long since my Uncle dwelt here.’
‘How?’ asked the other.
‘Why, if this Fulk was twenty years a tenant?’
‘Was he? Well, we’ll not quarrel to a hair. But ’tis long as thou sayest—since he was a boy, in truth.’
‘A boy!’ Brion actually laughed. It seemed so impossible that that tremendous being could ever have been a boy—like himself.
‘The Bagotts,’ went on Clerivault, ‘were big people here in the past, portreeves, and lords of the Stannary Court in Ashburton. ”

“ She walked like a proud little lady, and, turning her head over her shoulder, bade her assailant a stiff good-morrow.
‘May I not see you from the dark wood?’ said Brion; and ‘I forbid you to come with me,’ she answered, and walked on.
Nevertheless, he followed her at a distance; when, nearing the fringe of the copse on its east side, what was his surprise to see her already mounted and riding away upon a little ass, which had apparently been tethered there awaiting her return all the time. She never once looked round, but, skirting the moat, vanished in the direction of the moor. ”

“ And so had Brion grown in content of ignorance, regarding his adoption as permanent, and never dreaming that there existed one on whose favour he continued, and to whom he owed duty and obedience as the solitary kinsman surviving to him, it seemed, in all the world. Out of the amazing dark had this figure risen, to claim and appropriate him—a great man, a Judge, as Mr Angell, though with some seeming reluctance and agitation, had whispered when he came to fetch him—and henceforth through this apparition was he to approach so much nearer the mystery of his own being. ”

“ Perhaps that impression may have been partly due to his regarding it, during these first days, through a luminous mist of expectancy touching the person of her whose golden shrine it contained hid somewhere in the depths of its labyrinthine mysteries. But indeed it was a fair town; built up of colour and picturesqueness; beating with a fierce and palpitating life; full of a sort of dashing merriment which reminded Brion somehow of late-fallen raindrops on eaves, dancing and sparkling and shaking off under a race of wind and brave opened sky. ”

“ If reason could not explain a horror, it could master by facing it.
In and about the trees went the ghostly chase: one and the other, phantom and mortal, they took either side of a writhed trunk and met beyond. With a savage cry, Brion flung out his arms, and something dropped beneath them. He stooped, and his hands touched warm and throbbing flesh.
‘God’s ’slid!’ said the boy, taking his oath from Clerivault: ‘Say what art thou!’
He was panting, with set teeth: in the gloom and the wild flurry of his mood he could distinguish nothing clearly. ”

“ Brion said, holding the dead weight of the magter against the truck's side. "I thought you meant it."
"Ahhh—" Telt grumbled. "You're as bad as Hys. Take things too seriously."
Brion suddenly realized that he was wet with blood, his clothing sodden. His stomach rose at the thought and he clutched the edge of the sandcar. Killing like this was too personal. Talking abstractedly about a body was one thing. But murdering a man, then lifting his dead flesh and feeling his blood warm upon you is an entirely different matter. Yet the magter weren't human, he knew that. ”

“ Brion, who with his friend and Clerivault was present at that deed of wanton destruction, had the sense and the humanity to deplore its folly as much as its wickedness.
‘It is not so,’ he said, ‘that we shall establish our lady’s fame for reason and sweet justice. He wrongs us as much as the land he misrepresents.’
‘We shall leave but footprints of sorrow where we came with palms of love,’ said Clerivault, in a melancholy voice. ”

“ What was there to say, since the past could not be redeemed, unless and until, after Clerivault’s thought, Death should come presently to roll it up backwards, like a long stretched drugget, obliterating all its dusty footprints? Brion put his hands on the shoulders of the faithful servant, and, looking affectionately into his eyes, ‘Ah, Nol!’ said he, ‘big as thy body is, thy great soul must find in it but narrow house room. ”

“ My home is Fardel in Cornwood, east of Plymouth; and even so I am but late returned to it, having been long in France and the Low Countries.’
And then Brion told him all his secret, for what was the use to withhold the rest, when he had confessed so much. And as he spoke, the glamour of that sweet time returned upon him, so that his voice grew husky with passion and grief, and the recognition of that loss which could never now be made good.
‘Nay,’ said his comforter at the end: ‘never’s no word for love. A City knight, and I for London! ”

“ On thy life never breathe his name in choler. The air is as full of ears as he of power. Have I not reason to hate him too; yet for thy sake will I put him and his misdeeds from my mind.’
Brion did not answer; but after a moment he rose to his feet, and stood erect before the seated figure. He would keep his own proud counsel thenceforth, in all matters affecting his honour and duty. His head was lifted, his eyes shone; before their authority the other’s blinked and were lowered.
‘Uncle,’ he said: ‘what for my sake thou mayst do I might not for my own. ”

“ Brion gasped, and stood as if stricken. What was this wonder—this delirious wonder? A sob—laughter—were in his throat together. As the vendee, having received her gingerbread ship and placed it in her basket, went off down the alley, he followed in pursuit, stumbling, half blind. She passed out into the sunlight and he after. He had not yet seen her face, but he looked for tell-tale characteristics, agonised for them, and, identifying them, as he believed, felt a very sickness of joy. She walked like one who did not love violent exercise for its own sake ”

“ He unwrapped the tarpaulin and the sightless eyes stared accusingly up into his.
Using his knife, Brion cut away the loose, blood-soaked clothing. Strapped under the clothes, around the man's waist, was the familiar collection of Disan artifacts. This could have significance either way. Human or humanoid, the creature would still have to live on Dis. Brion threw it aside, along with the clothing. ”

“ They’re long ridden off together.’
Brion heard in dismay. His superstitious tremors of the night had owed, then, to woefuller presage than any imagined hauntings. To lose his friend, thus, without warning, without a word! it was grievous. Something swelled in his breast. How could Clerivault have left him so? And yet he might have had no choice. Who was he to cross the will of that dark masterful spirit who controlled his destinies? It must have been his Uncle, the boy was now convinced, who had come into his room in the night, and looked down upon him. ”

“ Once, twice, above the swell rose a mightier crest crowned with stone, and a level cold sky roofed all. But, though wide and liberal, it was desolate—no chimney or rising smoke to be seen above the green anywhere.
Brion opened the casement, and looked down. The click of the latch caught the attention of a man standing on a sward below, and their eyes met.
‘Clerivault!’ cried the boy. ”

“ No one who had reached the finals in the Twenties could possibly be a weak opponent, but this one, Irolg, was the pick of the lot. A red-haired, mountain of a man, with an apparently inexhaustible store of energy. That was really all that counted now. There could be little art in this last and final round of fencing. Just thrust and parry, and victory to the stronger.
Brion closed his eyes again and knew the moment he had been hoping to avoid had arrived.
Every man who entered the Twenties had his own training tricks. Brion had a few individual ones that had helped him so far. ”

“ It was only on her near approach that Brion perceived these to be a sort of fantastic clogs, half a yard in height, which she wore to the soles of her embroidered slippers, over which they were strapped; but so little gravity did they afford to the poor body that she needed the prop of a walking cane on the one side, and on the other of a sweet ape of fashion in a French doublet, who was her cicisbeo, to hold her up; in despite of which buttresses, she had a hard ado to keep her equilibrium as she passed, smirking and ogling. ”

“ To this end simplicity was the first and surest of means, combined with a perfect instinct for the hypostatic union of flavours, and for that psychologic moment reached by the revolving spit when ‘done to a turn’ was inaudibly announced from its well-basted burden. There was none could make plain roast and boiled more delectable than Phineas; as indeed Brion and his companion had good reason to know. ”

“ THE FUGITIVE It was March, 1585, and but a few weeks remained to Brion before starting on the great adventure. All his and Clerivault’s preparations were made, and they only awaited the signal to join the fleet at Plymouth, and launch upon whatever destiny the unknown might have in store for them. Some anxiety may have been his: misgivings, none. He was now twenty-six—the age of fully matured strength and reason and the fearless confidence that goes with both—and ripe manhood in him peremptorily demanded its employment and enlargement in scenes of vigorous action. ”

“ If there was hurt in it, my ignorance, not my will, was to blame.’
‘Fool, fool!’ muttered Clerivault, slapping his brow. ‘To quarrel with the lamb because it bleats!’ He passed a trembling hand across his mouth; his features stiffened into a mirthless smile. ‘God assoil thee,’ he said: ‘but never ask me so again. I not English! Then England exists not save for curs and hybrids. Will it please you to rise, Sir?’
His voice sunk from high protest to the civility of a servitor; and indeed Brion knew not what he was nor how to treat him, his office seemed so menial yet his soul so great. ”

“ I have done no wrong: for God’s sake, if you are a Christian man, help me to escape.’
A moment Brion sat looking at him: it was not in his heart to deny a fellow-creature in such straits, and appearing so spent and broken. He was not of those, moreover, who in an emergency argue before they act. With a curt word he slipped his left foot out of the stirrup, and bent over. ‘Mount behind,’ said he, and as the fugitive struggled exhaustedly to heave himself to the horse’s crupper, fetched a strong hand under his armpit and helped him into place. ”