“God helping me, I could sit a horse,” he said. “This must be looked to. Oswald, my son, you had a fat pony. Bring the beast here to-morrow, at dawn.”
“It shall be done, Father.”
And they departed with his blessing, but Grimbald was awake all that night, troubled lest any harm should have befallen Denise.
“Devil!” thought he. “Oswald’s devil was one of good human kidney, or I have no sense of smell. Satan need not heat himself with galloping in these parts. We have enough of him in the flesh.”
Meanwhile at Pevensey, Aymery of Goldspur had thrown the preaching part of himself aside, for that which Gaillard had thrust under his door had stung the manhood in him, and left the poison of a great fear in his blood. The hair was Denise’s hair; he could have sworn to that on the relics of the Cross. How had they come by it, here in Pevensey? Was Denise also a caged bird, and if not, what had happened in that beech wood, where the great trees built dark winding ways with the sweep of their mighty branches? Aymery’s thoughts plunged in amid those trees, grimly and passionately, yet with the sheen of a woman’s hair luring him on like the mystic light from the Holy Grael. Had evil befallen her because of him? What devil’s mockery might there be in the way the truth had been thrust into his ken! Had Gaillard any hand in it? And at the thought of Gaillard, Aymery twisted Denise’s hair about his wrists, and yearned to feel those hands of his leaping at the Gascon’s throat. God! What did it avail him to pretend that he feared for Denise as he would have feared for a sister? She was the ripe earth to him, the dawn of dawns, the freshness of June woods after rain. He could cover his eyes no longer as to what was in his heart.
To break out into the world, to gallop a horse, to feel his muscles in their strength, that was the fever in him, the restless fever of a chained hawk beating his wings upon a perch. To be out of this hole in a stone tower, but how? He had no weapons, not so much as a piece of wood, or the rag of a linen sheet. They had taken his leather belt, but left him his shirt, tunic and shoes, and he laughed despite his grimness, for they might as well have left him naked. The man who brought him bread and water, filled a cracked flask for him, and took the water-pot away. And what a weapon that great earthen jar would have made, swung with the verve and sinew of a young man’s arm.
Impatient with his own impotence, he stood at the narrow window looking seawards, drawing Denise’s hair to and fro between his fingers as he would have drawn a swath of silk. A thought came to him, but at first he revolted from it as from a piece of sacrilege. His sturdy sense saved him, however, from being fooled by a shred of sentiment, and he twisted the strands of hair till he had wound them into a fine and silken cord. Wrapping the ends about his wrists he looped the cord over his bent knee, tried the strength thereof, and smiled as though satisfied.
That evening there was the sound of a scuffle when the bread bringer drew back the bolts and pushed the heavy door open with his foot. The fellow had made light of his duty of late, for Aymery had seemed quiet and tame, and still feeble after his wounds. He had marched in perfunctorily while Aymery waited for him behind the door. There was the crash of the pitcher on the stones. The jailer’s knees gave under him; he sank sideways driving the door to with his weight.
Aymery had no wish to end the poor devil’s life, so he left him there to get back breath and consciousness, after robbing him of his rough cloak and the knife he carried at his girdle. Pushing the body aside, he swung the door to cautiously, and shot the bolts. Almost instinctively he had wound Denise’s hair about his wrist, and as he descended the winding stair he tossed the man’s cloak over his shoulders, turned up the hood, and kept the knife hidden but ready for any hazard. Going down boldly he came out into the inner court, crossed it and reached the gate without being challenged by any of the men who loitered there.
Aymery’s heels were itching for a gallop, but he held himself in hand, and walked on coolly, whistling through his teeth. He was under the gateway, through it, and crossing the bridge. Someone called to him, but he laughed, crowed like a cock, and gave a wave of the hand.