The Seven Streams

by Warwick Deeping

CHAPTER XXVI

In Agravale there was much blowing of trumpets, much burnishing of arms. The women of the city had drawn forth all their gay stuffs, their gold tissues and fripperies, and much scarlet cloth. The streets teemed with soldiery gathered from all the southern baronies, and there were many knights and nobles in Agravale, the city was full of the clangour of war. The hostels were full to over-flowing; each house was a tavern where the wine ran red.

The dragon of Heresy had lifted its head once more out of the dust, and the Papal spies had come in from the Seven Streams, telling how Samson was gathering men at Tor’s Tower by the sea. The tidings had gone out through the Southern Marches that a second crusade had been ordained by Heaven against these whelps who blasphemed the Church. The Pope had despatched his legates through the duchy, threatening the half-hearted, blessing the zealous. The Great Father had sent a sacred banner to Agravale, consecrated to the cause of the soldiers of God. The Golden Keys of Heaven flew thereon. Jocelyn, who had been ordained Bishop of the Crusade, had set the banner in St. Pelinore’s great church, where the people might gaze on it and bless God and the Pope.

One winter noon Jocelyn walked in the cloisters of the abbey of St. Pelinore, with Christopher the Canon at his side. For an hour they had been stalking to and fro on the sunny side, with the carved heads on the corbels grinning one against another. Jocelyn and the Canon were alone in the cloisters; more than once a deep chuckle had seemed to answer the grinning faces above.

“Brother, we must prevent the ignorant from blaspheming,” said the Bishop, with a mobile smile upon his mouth.

Christopher sniggered.

“Ah, my lord, I have had such troubles myself. The man must be muzzled, in the cause of the Church.”

“Drink the wine and break the pitcher, eh?—such is the fable. This watch-dog of mine has come crawling to my feet. I can spurn him anon, when the truth is out.”

Christopher comforted his superior with the ready glibness of an underling. He was a man of the world in the broader sense, had the wit to ignore unflattering veracity.

“David, my lord,” he said, “I regard as one of the most comforting figures in all history. As for St. Augustine, he enjoyed his youth. ’Tis the main purpose of a man’s life that tells. Many a river errs right and left before it finds the sea.”

“A beneficent doctrine,” quoth the other, with a glint of the eye.

Pandart had come through the wilds to Agravale, and had claimed private audience of the Bishop that day. The man had waited these three months in the island hermitage for Jocelyn and his men—who never came. The Bishop had sojourned over long in the madhouse in the mere, and had returned to Agravale without riding to speak with Rosamunde of the Seven Streams. He had sent a servant to warn Ogier and Tristan of his return, but the man had lost himself in the woods, and had trudged back to Agravale, weary and half-starved. Each day Jocelyn had thought to hear Ogier’s deep voice thundering through the court. Later he had scented treason, and had sent a company of “spears” to seek out the river hermitage and to bring Pandart to Agravale.

That same noon, Jocelyn, returning from the cloisters of St. Pelinore, found Pandart awaiting him in the private oratory of the palace. Sable curtains shut out the daylight. The coloured mosaics on floor and wall glimmered in the light of a brazen lamp. Jocelyn barred the door so that he should be alone with his minion before the little altar. He seated himself in a carved chair, so that his face was in the shadow.

“Come, whelp, what have you to tell?”

Pandart prostrated himself, kissed the Bishop’s shoe, remained kneeling with his clumsy head bowed down between his shoulders. He dreaded the truths that were upon his tongue, and it was only when Jocelyn spurned him that he began to speak.

“Ogier is dead, my lord,” he said.

Jocelyn started in his chair, held out a quivering arm, half in wrath, half in dismay.

“Ogier dead!”

“Sire, I found his carcass in the woods; wolves had mangled it, but I knew the face.”

“Whose hand did this?”

“Tristan his comrade, who served in the guard.”

Jocelyn fingered his smooth round chin. The natural cunning had crept into his face; he hid his wrath and dissembled fear, and for the moment his voice lost its priestly drawl.

“What of the woman Rosamunde?” he asked.

Pandart grovelled on the stones.

“This same Tristan took her from us.”

“Ye gods, man, did you not fight?”

“My lord, this Tristan slew Ogier; he was too great for me. He would have slain me also had not the Lady Rosamunde held his hand.”

Jocelyn remained silent, staring down at Pandart’s face with its heavy servility and gaping fear. The man’s words had an import he could not ignore. Ogier, venal champion of the Church, was dead, and Rosamunde had escaped with Tristan into the woods.

“What more?” he asked anon, his black eyes gleaming in the light of the lamp, as he saw that Pandart had not ended his confession.

“My lord, concerning Columbe, whom Ogier slew——”

Jocelyn twisted in his chair, for the theme was bitter, and beyond his dignity. The realisation of Pandart’s knowledge was no pleasant draught to the episcopal palate.

“Whelp, what of Columbe?”

“This same Tristan was the girl’s brother.”

“Her brother?”

“He had tricked you in Agravale that he might learn the truth.”

Jocelyn started up and began to stride to and fro within the narrow compass of the walls. His hands played with the gold cross at his breast, and he frowned often, worked his white teeth upon his full red lip. Pandart knelt before the empty chair, watching his master with furtive awe. He had dreaded this truth-telling for many weeks.

“Well, fool, what else?”

Jocelyn stood and scowled at Pandart, evil prophet that he was. It was in his mood to vent his viciousness upon the man, since he was impotent to harm those who had baulked his passions.

“What more would my lord know?”

“Ape, what followed? Where is this Rosamunde?”

“The man Tristan rode with her into the woods.”

“Whither?”

Pandart spread his hands; his broad mouth twitched.

“My lord, I overheard certain words of theirs,” he said, “while I played eavesdropper in the garden. The woman spoke of the abbey of Holy Guard by the sea. She would turn nun. The man Tristan vowed to guard her thither.”

“To Holy Guard, eh?”

“Sire, so they said.”

Jocelyn stood awhile in thought, biting his nails, staring at the wall. He dismissed Pandart with certain grim words of warning, scanning his face narrowly for signs of treachery. When the man had gone to the scullion quarters, Jocelyn sent for Nicolon his chamberlain. He told him that Pandart was a spy and a traitor, sent to search out Agravale by the heretics of the Seven Streams. Nicolon understood from the Bishop that he was to poison Pandart that same night.

It was the day of the gathering of the nobles of the Southern Marches at the Duchess’s house, to hear the reading of the Pope’s letter concerning the conduct of the crusade. Jocelyn went thither in his robes of state, his pastoral staff borne before him as he was carried through Agravale on an open litter with a canopy of purple cloth above. The canons and priests of Agravale followed in his train. Behind the clerics came the knights and retainers of the episcopal palace, with the Pope’s sacred banner blowing in their midst. The townsfolk crowded the streets, as the nobles marched through with full panoply of arms, trumpets blowing, spears agleam. The women knelt as Jocelyn was carried by; the men crossed themselves and bared their heads.

“God save the Scourge of the heretics,” ran the cry.

“God save Bishop Jocelyn.”

“God help the south.”

With unctuous sanctity upon his face, Jocelyn was borne through the streets of Agravale. Pomp and colour played around; the iron men of war followed hard on his heels. Yet Jocelyn was deaf to the shouts of the mob, and their superstitious homage failed for the nonce to fire his vanity. A woman’s face shone before the churchman’s eyes, splendid with scorn and unconquerable beauty, and he licked his lips over his unclean thinking.

In the great hall of Dame Lilias’s palace Jocelyn took his episcopal chair beside the Duchess on the dais. His clerks and canons thronged the table below. The benches were crowded with knights and captains, iron men in hauberk and helm. As for Lilias, her vanity had climbed to the occasion, and she had clad herself in a silver hauberk, with a coronet of steel cushioned on her fair hair. A dwarf sword was laid across her lap, as she sat under her canopy, with green lilies blazoned on the scarlet drapings of her chair.

Jocelyn, by sudden inspiration, had moulded the future to his schemes. The plan had come to him as he was carried through the streets of Agravale. Had not the Pope made him the Priest of the Crusade, upon whose prophetic guidance the barons should rest? While his priests sang a psalm, their deep voices pealing to the roof, Jocelyn sat in his splendid robes, facing the nobles. His countenance was as serene as a little child’s.

At the end of the blessing Jocelyn kissed his cross, and began to speak to those assembled of the righteousness of the cause. The Pope’s letter was read aloud by one of the clerks, wherein the Pontiff blessed the sons of the Church. Jocelyn spoke eloquently, with burning words. A full pardon for all sins would be given to those who fought in the war. Those who died would be translated to heaven. The province of the Seven Streams was to be divided as spoil, and each common soldier was to have his share.

When this holy bribery had been made plain, Jocelyn diverged to schemes of his own. His tongue was clever enough to sustain the test, for it was the very boldness of his hypocrisy that had ensured men’s trust. He told the knights and nobles assembled before him how he had been blessed with a vision concerning the Crusade against the Seven Streams. The men listened with superstitious faith, for it was an age when Christendom had pledged its reason to the Church.

“My brothers,” he said, speaking with a loftiness that seemed to scorn deceit, “unworthy though I am of Heaven’s favour, I have been counselled strangely in a dream. St. Pelinore stood by me in the midst of the night, even as he has stood by me in the woods and the mountains. ‘Son,’ he said, ‘the Good God shines on the Golden Keys. He shall deliver the heretics into thy hands. First, thou shalt purge me an evil place, even Holy Guard set above the western sea. With shame I speak it—the nuns are wantons, its Abbess a witch. First destroy Holy Guard, then shall God deliver unto you the province of the Seven Streams.’ ”

The man’s hypocrisy kept pace with his theme, and none would have suspected the baser passions that worked beneath. Jocelyn’s eyes flashed as he spoke, his face was transfigured as by some heavenly purpose. The vision served him that night with the assembled barons, for who so impious that he should deny the saint who had pointed out Holy Guard as doomed to ruin? It was agreed among them before they dispersed that they should march on Holy Guard as St. Pelinore had said.