The Young Lovell: A Romance

by Ford Madox Ford

When they had walked from the walls of that Castle over the bridge and two good gunshots beyond and the day was beginning to break, they all stood together upon a little mound, and the Lady Margaret sent a little boy called Piers, that was her kinsman and page, back to the Castle to ask for their horses. For they could not have taken horses out by the postern way which went narrowly down twisting steps. She did not think that the Earl would dare to come and take her there. It would have been too great an outrage, to set upon a lady of her quality in the open; besides, being thirty and more, they would be able to give account of themselves and no doubt get away by tracks that John Bellingham knew very well. So the ladies sat down upon shields of the men-at-arms, for the grass was wet with the night's dew, and they watched the dawn come up over the sea and across the wide stretches of the Coquet river. The Lady Margaret and her handmaidens made merry and played a game with white stones that they picked up; but the old lady Bellingham moaned and grumbled a great deal, for she was weary with having watched and stiff with the rawness of the air.

So, after a time, when it was quite light, the page called Piers came back. He reported that at first the Earl had been in a great rage and had threatened to hamstring all the Lady Margaret's horses; but, afterwards, he had seemed to change his mind and had given orders that all the horses should be sent out to her. Moreover, he sent her word that, if she would come back into the Castle he would give her news of the Young Lovell, for his receiver, John Harbottle, had sent him, through the night a messenger from Alnwick with very certain tidings, and these she should have and might make a treaty with the Earl if she would go back.

But she believed this to be more lying in order to get her back into his power; so she sent ten of her men to fetch the horses from the Castle gate and very soon they perceived all the horses come round the Castle wall, to the number of thirty-two with eleven mules. The Lady Margaret rode a tall horse called Christopher, a brown, that she loved, and John Bellingham had another tall horse. But the old lady and the three maids had mules, and there were seven pack mules that carried the Lady Margaret's hangings, furnishings for her room if she slept in an inn, her dresses and much things of value as she would not willingly leave in the Tower of Glororem. The men-at-arms rode little, nimble horses, such as the false Scots had, very fit for picking their way amongst springs, heather and the stones of hillsides. This lady could not bring herself to believe that her true love was not dead, so that, although she laughed and jested to keep up the hearts of her maids, as her plain duty was, within herself she was a very sad woman.

When the sun was off the horizon they broke their fast with small beer and cheese that they got from a husbandman's tower near Acklington, for they were sticking inland. This husbandman advised them to go by way of Eshot Hill and Helm, for, by reason of the dry weather, the road from this latter place to Morpeth was very good travelling, and it ran straight. The Lady Margaret was minded to sleep that night at Newcastle, which would be twenty-four miles more or less, for she had no haste to be in one place more than another. She had little pleasure in life; although she wished to rescue the Lady Rohtraut she thought this could only be done by means of the Lady Dacre, her mother, that had been a Princess of Croy. And, from the news she had, it was very unlikely that that ancient lady would reach her house in the city of Durham before that night or the next day.

So, as they rode between the fields, the sun rose up—its rays poured down fiercely and smote on them. It was marvellously hot weather, so that those ladies must at first lay off their gray cloaks and then open their shifts at the neck and fan themselves with their neckerchers. A great langour descended upon the Lady Margaret; her head ached sorely and her sadness grew unbearable.

And all, even to the men-at-arms and the page Piers, complained of the great heat and because they had had little sleep the night before, and the ladies yawned and half slept upon their mules. So, when they came to a little green hill where ash trees climbed to the top, the Lady Margaret said, out of compassion to them, that when they were at the top of the hill, so that they could see the flat country all round, they might get down from their horses and mules and sleep the noontide away in the shade. And so they did.

The men-at-arms got down from the sumpter mules mattresses that the ladies might lie upon them, and there, in a shady grove, they lay and slept. The men set their backs against trees and let their heads fall forward between their knees. One or two were set to walk as sentries outside that wood, to watch the flat country below, so that no sound was heard in that little wood save the light noises of steel and of buckles clinking as the watchmen walked. And so they lay a long time, all recumbent, some covering their faces with their arms, some casting them abroad.

The Lady Margaret awakened from a slumber, and the sun had climbed far round in the heaven. Then she perceived a lady watching her through the trees and smiling. So beautiful and smiling a lady she had never seen. She stood between the stems of two white birch trees and leaned upon one, with her arm over her head in an attitude of great leisure. The Lady Margaret rose from her mattress and went towards that lady; she had never felt so humble, nor had her eyes ever so gladdened her at the sight of the handiwork of God.

Then that lady walked through the wood, very light of foot, so that the long grass was hardly trampled at all, and no briars caught at her gown. Yet the Lady Margaret could not overtake her. So that lady came to the edge of the wood and the hill to the west, looking over the tower called Helm, where the white road ran southward and the green lands swung up towards the distant hilts. And here there was a white charger and a great company of ladies-in-waiting, all very beautiful, in gowns of sea-blue silk with girdles of silver and gold. The Lady Margaret had never seen so fair a company, though she had seen the Queen of Richard Crookback with all her court. Then it seemed to her that that lady pointed down into the plain as if she wanted to show her lover and her lord. On the road that came from the North, the Lady Margaret perceived one that she knew for a knight, by the sun upon his armour, and a monk that walked beside him. And a mile behind, by the cloud of dust that rose, she knew there were men-at-arms, and perceived their spears above the dust. The Lady Margaret knew that this must be the other lady's husband, for certainly such a troop of fair women would never ride abroad in that dangerous country without men to guard them.

Then she saw that lady riding down the hill, with all her many, towards the little figures in the plain; but they went so quickly that it was like a flight of blue doves in the sunlight below her. Then the Lady Margaret wondered who that lady must be, for she knew of none in that neighbourhood that could keep up so fair a state, except it were the King of Scots, and not even he, and that could not be the Queen of Scots, for she was a stout, black lady, whereas this one had been a tall woman with red-gold hair, such a one as she could have loved if she had been a man. And, at the thought that that woman was going to her lover and her lord, the Lady Margaret wept three or four tears, for that she would never do herself, and going back to her guards, she upbraided them for that they had let that lady pass unchallenged. But they said they haD seen no one.