“Assuredly,” said he, “you are a devil. And to win a devil I will rob a saint.”
Denise’s inward vision helped her so little those days that she had no foreshadowings of Gaillard’s treachery. He had shown none of his rougher nature to her when he had ridden through the beech wood to her cell. And Denise had let him talk to her once or twice, intent on discovering all that had befallen Aymery since he had fallen into the hands of Peter of Savoy. Only when Gaillard had tried to come too near had she closed the door on him, frightened by the look in the man’s eyes, and yet feeling herself very helpless in that solitary wood. For some days she had seen nothing of the Goldspur folk, nor did she know whether Grimbald was dead or alive. Gaillard had gone off sulking from the frost that she had thrown out on him. Denise believed herself rid of the man. And yet in her unrest, and loneliness, she thought of what Dom Silvius had said to her, and was half persuaded to put herself within sanctuary at Battle.
Gaillard had told her nothing about Aymery, save that he was alive, and waiting the King’s pleasure. And of all these happenings Aymery knew nothing as he lay on the straw in a tower room at Pevensey. His wounds were mending, for Peter of Savoy had some of the instincts of a Christian, and had sent his own barber surgeon to minister to Aymery’s needs. Yet the lord of Goldspur manor thought little of his own wounds those days.
Though Aymery’s flesh was free from fever, the spirit chafed in him, tossing and turning with an unceasing flux of thought. Those happenings at the hermitage haunted him, and in the spirit he drank wine that was both bitter and sweet, cursing himself for the helplessness that had brought such things to pass, and laying to his own charge all the shame that had fallen upon Denise.
Yet Aymery had other thoughts to trouble him, for those hours at the hermitage came back more clearly and vividly, as though they had happened in the twilight, and been remembered in the day. He felt again the touch of Denise’s hands, saw the gleam of her hair, and caught the mystery of tenderness that had flashed and faded in the deeps of her eyes. Aymery would be very still in the narrow room, still as one who lies dead with a smile on his lips, and in blind eyes a vision of things splendid.
Sometimes Aymery would take to preaching to himself, growing sensible and almost prosy, like a merchant looking methodically into his ledgers. Without doubt Grimbald would be at Goldspur, the people would come back to the village, they would think no shame of Denise, even if they heard of the thing that she had attempted. The quiet life would begin again, for there was no cause now for my Lord Peter to harry the countryside. No harm might come of all these adventures, and to insure that end, Aymery preached to himself still further.
“Heart of mine,” said he. “Denise is for no such worldly desires. True, she has taken no sworn vows, but for all that, my friend, she is as good as a nun. Take heed how you tempt sacrilege. For to the people Denise is a lady of many marvels. She is not of mere clay, there is mystery yonder—and her love is the love of the angels and the saints.”
In some such simple and sturdy fashion Aymery spoke often to his own heart. Yet there was always an enchanted distance shining beyond these vows of his like a sunset seen through trees. Flashes of passion lingered that should not linger. A look of the eyes, a touch of the hand, such things are not forgotten.
As for his own fortune, Aymery had no grip thereon; he could only eat his food and shake up the straw of his bed for comfort. He was mewed there, “waiting the King’s pleasure,” a useful phrase in the mouth of a lord who shared with others in persuading the King. Aymery might have stood at his window and shouted “Charter” till the barber surgeon decreed that he was turgid and feverish, and should be bled. There was no such thing as a rescue to be thought of. Presently he might scheme at breaking out in other and grimmer fashion if they did not release him. For there was still much talk in the land of “Stephen’s days,” and it was said that when the saints saved a soul, the devil erected a castle.