Igraine

“ Igraine soon had no doubts as to its nature. It was the steady smite of hoofs on the high-road, the rhythm of a horse walking.
Now was her chance if she dared risk the character of the rider. Doubts flashed before her a moment, hovered, and then merged into decision. Better to risk the unknown, she thought, than tempt starvation tied to the tree. She made her choice and acted. ”

“ Queer phantastic shapes showed amid the trees, and the great circle grew wide with light, and the grey cromlechs surprised in sleep by the glare and piping. At that very moment Igraine had a thought of some one looking deep into her eyes, of a will, a power, streaming in upon her like sunlight into a sleepy pool. Her desire went from the man on the black horse into the square shadow of the great central cromlech, where an indefinite influence seemed to lurk. ”

“ To Igraine the ride was life indeed, bringing back many a whistling gallop from the past. She felt her heart in her leaping to the horse's stride. Now and again she took a sly look at Pelleas's face, finding it calm and vigilant--the face of a man whose thought ran a silent course unruffled by the breeze of peril. She felt his bridle-arm staunchly about her like a girdle of steel. Although she could see the dust gathering thickly on the distant road, she felt blithe as a new bride in the man's company, and there was no fear at all in her thought. ”

“ Igraine, a different woman in a moment, had started up and taken her shield and helmet from the wall. Her sword was girded to her. Quick as thought, she gathered up her trailing hair, thrust on the casque, strapped it to the neck-plate under her surcoat. Garlotte, vastly puzzled, but inspired by Igraine's earnestness, had hurried out with saddle and bridle over her shoulder. As she ran through the garden, she looked up to the woods and saw the reason of Igraine's flurry. A knight had come out from the forest on a white horse, his armour flashing and blazing in the noonday sun. ”

“ His eyes seemed to grow large, like the eyes of an angry dog. Never had folk seen him look so black. He stared up a moment at Igraine, shook his spear, and trampling the green sleeve under the hoofs of his horse, rode away without a word through the glum and gaping crowd.
Igraine had thrown down the glove with a vengeance. It was a mad enough method of beating off the pride of a man such as Gorlois whose temper grew with the blows given, and who knew no moderation in love or in hate. ”

“ Igraine had never seen such timid folk as these nuns from Avangel. If a stick cracked they would start, huddle together, and vow they heard footsteps. They mistook an owl's hoot for a heathen cry, and a night-jar's creaking note made them swear they caught the chafe of steel. Once they suffered a most shrewd fright. They drove a herd of red deer from cover, and the rush and tumultuous sound of their galloping created a most holy panic among the women. It was some time before Igraine could get them on the march again. ”

“ Igraine's hair had fallen from its band, and now hung in bronze masses well-nigh to her knees, covering her as with a cloak. Her habit, shift, and sandals lay close beside her on the grass. The barbarians had robbed her of nothing, according to their old earl's wishes. ”

“ Pushing on as fast as the forest suffered, the din became more definite, more human, more sinister in detail. It stirred the blood, challenged the courage, racked conjecture with the infinite chaos it portended. Victory and despair were trammelled up together in its sullen roar; life and death seemed to swell it with the wind-sound of their wings; it was stupendous, sonorous, chaotic, a tempest-cry of steel and many voices merged into the grand underchant of war.
Igraine's face kindled to the sound like the face of a girl who hears her lover's lute at night under her window. ”

“ Pelleas, take me body and soul; take me and let me be your wife."
"How can I sin against your soul, Igraine?"
"Is it sin, then, to love me?"
"You are Gorlois's wife before God."
"There is no God."
"Igraine!"
"I will have no God but you, Pelleas."
The man took his hands from his face and looked into Igraine's eyes. A strong shudder passed over him, and he seemed like a great ship smitten by a wave, till every fibre groaned and quivered in his massive frame.
A green calm covered the valley, and the whole world seemed to faint in the golden bosom of the day. ”

“ The girl Igraine led with a keen gleam in her eyes and a queer cheerfulness upon her face, as she stepped out blithely for the dark mass where the wold began. Her sojourn in the abbey had been brief and stormy, a curt attempt at discipline that had failed most nobly. One might as well have sought to hem in spring with winter as to curb desire that leapt towards greenness and the dawn like joy. She had ever thought more of a net for her hair than of her rosary. ”

“ The storm seemed to enter into her soul with its blustery vigour, crying to her with the multitudinous echoes of the night. What was the mere peril of the flesh to one who had faced spiritual torture more keen than death!
Creeping round under the shadow of the wall with quick glances darted into the dark she made her way round the court to the great gate. The gate-house was dark as the sky, and there was no tramping of sentinels from wall to wall. Igraine crept into the yawn of the archway, brushing along the stones. ”

“ With the peril past, Igraine could not forego the sly scrap of mischief that the occasion offered; her white teeth gleamed in a smile under her helmet, as she wiped her sword on the horse's mane, before sheathing it.
"Give Heaven thanks," she said, with a quaint sententiousness of gesture. "Be sure in thy heart that it was a mere providence of God that I heard thy screaming. As for yon clod of clay, we will bury it later, lest it should pollute so goodly a pool. For the rest, child, I am an old man, and hungry, and would taste bread." ”

“ When persuasion and comforting had quieted her some-what, she sat on the floor at Igraine's feet, her round eyes big with an unstinted wonder. Even Igraine's hunger and the devoir done upon the new milk could hardly persuade the girl that this being in armour was no saint, but a very real and warm-blooded woman. She even touched Igraine's fingers with her lips, to satisfy herself as to the warmth and solidity of the slim strong hand. She had never heard of such a marvel, a woman, and a very beautiful woman, riding out as a man, and doing man's bravest work with courage and cleverness. ”

“ Igraine, halting on the brink of the meadowland, looked down over wood and water. The quiet of the place, the clear glint of the pool, the scent of the meadows, brought back the valley in Andredswold, and the manor in the mere. She loved the place on the instant. Even a blue plume of smoke rising straight to the sky, and the grey-brown backs of a few sheep in the meadows, evidencing as they did the proximity of man, failed to disenchant the solitary grandeur of the scene.
There is no stable perpetuation of peace in the world ”

“ Igraine had feared his honour. Pelleas feared for it in another sense as he looked at the woman, and felt his pity clamouring for life. He could have given his soul to comfort her if no shame could have come upon her name thereby. As it was, some spiritual hand seemed at his throat stifling aught of love that found impulse on his lips. A superhuman sincerity chilled him into silence, and held him in bondage to the truth.
A face stared up from the bracken, wan, tearless, and tragic. The wistfulness of the face made him quail within his harness. ”

“ Presently as the day died the wood went black as the winter night, and Igraine kept close by the man, with his armour giving a dull gleam now and again to guide her. They were passing up what seemed to be a great arcade cut through the very heart of the wood, as though leading to some shrine or altar, relic of Druid days, or times yet more antique. The tunnel ran a curved course, bending deeper and deeper as it went into the dense horde of trees. So dark was the wood that it was possible to see but a few paces in advance, and Igraine wondered how the man kept the track. ”

“ One morning Igraine had bathed, tied her hair, and had passed out into the garden alone. The place was of some size, boasting twenty acres or more, full of winding paths, grass glades, and knolls of bushy shrubs, where one might lose one's self as soon as think. Children often played hide-and-seek there, and idling up some green walk you might catch a giggling girl, with hair flying, bursting out of some thicket with a lad in full chase. Or in some shady lawn you might come upon a company of children dancing as solemnly as little elves to the sound of a pipe. ”

“ The east was forging day fast in its furnace of gold. The glare touched the clouds and rolled them into wreaths of amber fire.
A sigh from the couch brought her to her feet like magic. She went and knelt by the bed in quite a tumult of expectation. Pelleas's hands were groping feebly over the coverlet like weak, blind things. Igraine caught them in hers, thrilled as they closed upon her fingers, and, bending low, she waited with her lips almost on the man's, her hair on his forehead, her eyes fixed on his closed lids. All her soul seemed to droop above him like a lily over a grave. ”

“ It was borne in upon Igraine's reason as she ran that the trees would barely save them from the purpose of pursuit. The women--limp, witless, dazed by danger--could hardly hold on fast enough to gain the deeper mazes of the place, and the sanctuary the wold could give. Unless the pursuit could be broken for a season, the whole company would fall to the net of the heathen, and only the Virgin knew what might befall them in that solitary place. Sacrifice flashed into the girl's vision--a sudden ecstasy of courage, like hot flame. These abbey folk had been none too gentle with her. ”

“ It was Garlotte who broke into tears, and hid her face in the other's bosom. Igraine's eyes were as dry as a blue sky parched with a summer sun, and her voice failed her like the slack string of a lute. The moonlight slanted down upon them both. Before dawn they had fallen asleep in each other's arms.
How many a heart trembles with the return of day; what fears rise with the first blush of light in an empty sky! The cloak of night is lifted from weary faces, the quiet balm of darkness is withdrawn from the moiling care of many a heart. ”

“ Never had the vaults seemed greener, the half light more mysterious under the massive trees. The far world was out of ken; they alone lived and had their being; the toil of man was not even like the long sob of a moonlit sea, or the sound of rivers running in the night.
The infinite strangeness of beauty shone over them like a wizard light out of the west. Igraine's lips were very red, her face white in the shadows, her eyes deep with mute desire. Hand held hand, body touched body. Often she would lie out upon Pelleas's arm, her head upon his shoulder, her hair clouding over his red harness. ”

“ Pelleas spoke his first word during the gallop.
"Courage," he said. "Southwards lies our refuge."
Igraine looked over his shoulder, and saw how their flight tended down the flank of a gentle hill into the lap of a fair valley. The grass stretch was broken by great trees--oaks, beeches, and huge, corniced cedars. Down in the green hollow below them a mere shone with the soul of the sky steeped in its quiet waters. It was ringed with trailing willows, and an island held its centre, piled with green shadows and the grey shape of a fair manor. ”

“ The interlude was as considerate as courtesy had intended. Igraine darted for her habit with a rapturous sigh. When the man turned leisurely again, a tall girl met him, cloaked in grey, with her hair still hanging about her, and sandals on her feet. ”

“ Igraine understood that she was to be pleased with the name, whether she liked it or not.
"Then for Sir Pelleas I will pray," she said, "and may my gratitude avail him."
There was silence for a space, broken by the rhythmic play of hoofs upon the road, and the dull jar of steel. Igraine was meditating further catechism, adapting her questions for the knowledge she wished for.
"You ride errant," she said presently.
"I ride alone, madame."
"The wold is a rude region set thick with perils."
"Very true," quoth the man. ”

“ Men had come pike to pike, shield to shield, upon the ridge. Mass rushed upon mass, billow upon billow. From the mountains to the forest the sweat and thunder of strife rolled up from the long line of leaping steel, from the living barrier, steady as a cliff. It was one of the many Marathons of the world where barbarism clawed at the antique fabric of the past.
Igraine's glance was stayed on Gorlois and the southern levies about the banner of Tintagel. ”

“ It was not the physical alone that oppressed her; Gorlois had imagination, ingenuity; he made her moral sufferings keener than the lash, and subordinated the flesh to the spirit. Igraine withstood him through it all. She felt in her heart that she was going to die.
As she sat at the window, the sound of laughter came up suddenly from the garden, glowing in the sunlight. Mere mockery might have been its inspiration, so light, so merry, and so mellow was it. Igraine heard it, and leant forward over the sill to gain a broader view of the tiled walks and flower-beds below. ”

“ Igraine watched the light faint above the trees, wondering in her heart what might befall her before another sun could set. She had tried her bonds, and had found them lacking sympathy in that they were staunch as strength could make them. She was cramped, too, and began to long for the hated habit that had trailed the galleries of Avangel, and had brought such scorn into her discontented heart. There was no hope for it. She was pilloried there, bound body, wrist, and ankle. Philosophy alone remained to her, a poor enough cloak to the soul, still worse for things tangible. ”