Ellis Peters - George Felse 06 - Black Is The Colour Of My True Love's Heart (20 page)

The most distant of the long windows, down there at the back of the room, stood ajar. A while ago they had all been closed. The last chair at the end of that row, certainly empty then, was occupied now. Someone had come in by the window, and moved the chair aside into the embrasure, drawing a fold of the heavy curtains round it to screen her from at least half the room. A dead black dress, the sheen of pale, piled hair.

Edward Arundale’s widow, still chatelaine of Follymead, had come to the final concert. They were there in the same room together, there was only about fifteen yards of air between them, and yet they could not communicate.

Or was there still a way
? That curious conversation with Felicity had started a tune running in Liri’s head, and it would not be quieted. It plagued her with reminders of the rogue page who tossed just such an apple of discord in among Lord Barnard’s household “where they were sat at meat.” The verse ranged through her head, in the light of what she had just learned, with a new and terrifying aptness. If they talked to her, they could talk to another person, one, the only one except George Felse and Lucien Galt, who knew the whole story, and would recognise only too well the full implications. She might still misunderstand; but that had to be risked. Liri could not leave her to step over the edge of the pit without so much as reaching a hand to her. Whatever her own wrongs, she owed Audrey that and more. She was indebted to her for a world, and she could make so little repayment now.

Liri folded her hands on her guitar, and waited. She knew now what she had to do.

PAST SIX O’CLOCK. The darkness was purplish, thundery, the air still as before a storm. It must be her turn soon. Why had the old man kept her until last?

“And now for Liri. She promised to sing us ‘The Queen’s Maries’ in the full text, which is by way of being a marathon performance, so I’ve reserved enough time for her to do herself justice. But now she’s whispering in my ear that she’d like to change her choice. It’s a woman’s privilege. So I’ll leave any introduction to Liri.”

“I thought,” she said, clearly and quietly, “that everyone knows the story of Mary Hamilton, and there are so many fine stories that very few people know. I warn you, this is a marathon performance, too, but I hope you won’t find it dull. I’d like to sing the ballad of ‘Gil Morrice.’ Anybody know it?”

Thank God, nobody did. She knew the proud, proprietary emanations of those who find themselves one up on the rest, and here there was nothing like that, only pleased expectancy. It’s still true, people love to be read to, to listen to stories. Even those kids who are so with it that they’ve completely lost contact with most of it – “it” being the total body of mental and spiritual fulfilment and delight, the mass of music, the body of books, the entire apparition of art – even they will shiver and thrill to this blood-stained tragedy, though they won’t recognise their excitement as something dating back into prehistory. They’ll think it’s because this is “folk,” of all the odd labels. This is human, which is more than being folk.

“Here goes then. ‘Gil Morrice’.”

She curled over the guitar, felt along its strings with a sensuous gesture, and raised her face, filling her lungs deep. The guitar uttered one shuddering chord, and that was all. She began in the story-teller’s level, lilting voice:

“Gil Morrice was an Erle’s son.

His name it waxed wide;

It was not for his great riches

Nor for his mickle pride.

But it was for a lady gay

That lived on Carron side.”

So much for the introduction, and straight into the story. The guitar took up a thin, fine line of melody, low beneath the clear voice, that had as yet no passion in it, but remained a story-teller, uninvolved, unwrung:

“ ‘Where shall I find a bonny boy

That will win hose and shoon.

That will go to Lord Barnard’s hall

And bid his lady come?

‘And you must run my errand, Willie.

And you may run with pride.

When other boys gae on their feet

On horseback ye shall ride.’

‘Oh, no, oh, no, my master dear.

I darena for my life

I’ll not go to the bold baron’s

For to tryst forth his wife.

‘But oh, my master dear,’ he cried.

“In greenwood ye’re your lane.

Give o’er such thoughts, I would you rede.

For fear ye should be ta’en.’ ”

The guitar had enlarged its low comment, the thick chords came in rising anger. A stillness began to bud in the centre of the audience, and opened monstrous petals in the gloom. A little more, and she would know she had them; but whether she had Audrey she had no way of knowing. The pulsing excitement of the telling took her like a trance. She heard her own voice deepen and grow harsh, and she had done nothing at all, issued no orders:

“ ‘My bird Willie, my boy Willie.

My dear Willie,’ he said.

“How can ye strive against the stream?

For I shall be obeyed.

‘Haste, haste, I say, go to the hall.

Bid her come here with speed.

If ye refuse my high command

I’ll gar your body bleed.’

‘Yes, I will go your black errand.

Though it be to your cost.

Since you by me will not be warned.

In it ye shall find frost.

‘And since I must your errand run

So sore against my will.

I’ll make a vow, and keep it true.

It shall be done for ill.’ ”

The guitar came crashing in now with the dark themes of the page’s hate and love, and the rapid, rushing narrative of his ride to Lord Barnard’s castle. He swam the river and leaped the wall, and burst in upon the household at table. She had them in her hand, and the instrument sang for her, passionate and enraged beneath the far-pitched thread of her voice stringing in the words like pearls. Oh, God, let her understand what’s coming before
he
does, let her listen with every nerve. All I want is that she should have time to get her armour on, and be ready for him.

The page was in the hall now, striding in upon the assembled company. The voice sang full and clear, almost strident to ride over the meal-time talk:

“Hail, hail, my gentle sire and dame.

My message will not wait.

Dame, ye maun to the good greenwood

Before that it be late.

‘See, there’s your sign, a silken sark.

Your own hand sewed the sleeve.

You must go speak with Gil Morrice.

Ask no bold baron’s leave.’

The lady stamped with her foot

And winked with her ee.

But for all that she could say or do.

Forbidden he wouldna be.

‘It’s surely to my bower woman.

It ne’er could be to me.’

‘I brought it to Lord Barnard’s lady.

I trow that you are she.’

Then up and spake the wily nurse.

The bairn upon her knee:

‘If it be come from Gil Morrice

It’s dear welcome to me.’

‘Ye lied, ye lied, ye filthy nurse.

So loud I heard ye lee.

I brought it to Lord Barnard’s lady.

I trow you are not she.’

Then up and spake the bold baron.

An angry man was he.

He’s thrust the table with his foot.

So has he with his knee.

Till silver cup and mazer dish

In flinders he gar’d flee.

‘Go bring a robe of your clothing

That hangs upon the pin.

And I’ll go to the good greenwood

And speak with your lemman.’ ”

Her mouth, as always when she attempted these appalling feats, was sour and raw with the myriad voices that spoke through it, and the bitterness that century upon century could not sweeten or abate. There was sweat running on her lips, and until this moment she had not been able to raise her head and rest, letting the guitar speak for her again. Now it sang softly, unalarmed, waiting in serenity, and she cast one urgent glance towards where Audrey sat beside the open window. There was a tension there, something braced and ready and wild, to which her own heart rose with answering passion; but whether it was really more than the tension that held them all was more than she could guess. There was so little time, because the thread of this compulsion rested in her, and she must not let it flag. The sylvan song had been prolonged enough, and here came the ultimate test of her powers, the key verse that must reach Audrey before the rest had time to aim at understanding:

“Gil Morrice sat in good greenwood.

He whistled and he sang…

It had dawned upon George already that for some reason of her own Liri was re-telling the whole story of what had happened here. Perhaps not to the end, for how could any ballad encompass everything that had happened? And this was genuine, no doubt of that. The effort he had to make to tear himself out of its spell for an instant was like tearing the heart out of his body. This girl was marvellous. Listen to her now, the voice light and careless again, and yet with an indescribable overtone of premonition and doom disregarded:

“ ‘Oh, what mean all these folk coming?

My mother tarries lang.’

The baron came to the greenwood

With mickle dule and care.

And here he first spied Gil Morrice.

Combing his yellow hair…”

The word, the unexpected, the impossible word, had passed George as it had been meant to do, drawn away before his mental vision in the tension of the story. But suddenly as it slipped away from him he caught it back, and the stab was like a knife-thrust into his consciousness. “My mother…”

My mother
!

What did she know, and what was she about? How
could
she know? This couldn’t be accidental, it couldn’t be purposeless, and it couldn’t be wanton. What Liri Palmer did was considered and meant, and he doubted if she ever took anything back, or regretted much.

He cast a quick glance round into every corner of the room, but everywhere the tension held. She had them all in her hand.

“ ‘No wonder, no wonder, Gil Morrice.

My lady loved thee weel.

The fairest part of my bodie

Is blacker than thy heel.

‘Yet ne’er the less now, Gil Morrice.

For all thy great beautie.

Ye’ll rue the day ye e’er were born.

That head shall go with me.’ ”

The rage and grief of the accompaniment remained low and secret, hurrying bass chords suppressed and stifled. For a few moments she let her instrument brood and threaten, and looked down the room. Inspector Felse was sitting forward, braced and aware. Beside him Lucien was shadowed and still, very still; there was no way of knowing, with all her knowledge of him, what he was going through now. After all, it was not Lucien she was trying to reach.

But there was a movement now in the folds of the half-drawn curtain at the last window. Audrey’s little solitude lay in comparative light, but the curtains were of heavy brocade, and lined, there would be no shadow to betray her. Softly she got up from her place, and softly, softly, with infinite caution, she slipped back step by silent step from her chair, towards the unlatched window. Audrey had understood.

Now cover her, whatever happens. Don’t let any of them look round, don’t loose their senses for an instant. Cry out and cover her with the steely shriek of murder and the savagery of mutilation:

“Now he has drawn his trusty brand

And whatt it on a stone.

And through Gil Morrice’ fair bodie

Has the cauld iron gone.

And he has ta’en Gil Morrice’ head

And set it on a spear.

The meanest man in all his train

Has gotten that head to bear.

And he has ta’en Gil Morrice up.

Laid him across his steed.

And brought him to his painted bower

And laid him on a bed.

The lady sat on castle wall.

Beheld both dale and down.

And there she saw Gil Morrice’ head

Come trailing to the town…”

The clamour of violence died into the lamentable threnody of death. The guitar keened, and the voice extended into the long, fatal declamation of that which can never be put right again. The tension, instead of relaxing, wound itself ever tighter until it was unendurable. The singer’s face, sharpened in the concentrated light upon her, was raised to look over the heads of her audience. The lady was at the window, easing it silently open, melting into the outer air.

And this might well have been her voice, if things had gone differently, high, reckless and wild, as she came down from her tower to welcome her lover, her life laid waste about her for ever:

“ ‘Far better I love that bloody head.

But and that golden hair.

Than Lord Barnard and all his lands.

As they lie here and there.’

And she has ta’en her Gil Morrice

And kissed him cheek and chin.

“I was once as full of Gil Morrice

As the hip is of the stane.

‘I got ye in my father’s house

With mickle sin and shame…’ ”

To the last moment Audrey kept her face turned towards the singer; and as she slipped back through the window the freer light found her face, and showed Liri its white and resolute tranquillity, and the already irrelevant tears on her cheeks. The two women who loved Lucien exchanged one first, last glance of full understanding and acceptance, that paid off all the debts between them.

The spell-binding voice soared in fearful agony to cover the moment of departure:

“ ‘I brought thee up in good greenwood

Under the frost and rain… ’ ”

Audrey was gone, lost to sight at once, across the blind end of the terrace, and down the steps.

George felt the boy beside him strung tight to breaking point. He saw the bright lines of Liri’s face drawn silver-white in the light of the lamp on the dais, the huge eyes fixed and frantic. Something was happening, and yet nothing was happening, not a movement anywhere in the room, she wouldn’t let them move, that long, strong hand of hers that plucked the strings was manipulating them all like marionettes, the generous, wide-jointed fingers that drummed a funeral march on the body of her instrument held them nailed in their places.