The Goose Girl and Other Stories (38 page)

‘Do you know these men?' asked Gilles.

‘One is my husband's squire,' she said, and spoke in a queer breathless voice. They waited uncomfortably, saying nothing, and heard him climbing the tower stairs. He came in. He was a boy in years, but older than his years, brown-faced, and with a certain grimness stamped on his youth.

‘Where is he, Piers?' asked Jehane. ‘My lord, I mean. Your lord and mine, Piers?'

‘Have courage, madame,' he answered. ‘The Knights Templar never showed more gloriously. It was at Damietta. We were the first to attack and the last to retreat. But for us the Christian army had been destroyed.'

‘He is dead?'

‘Yes, madame.'

‘Ah, God, God!' she cried, and for a little while stood blank of face while the grim young squire told his story. Then she said, ‘Tell me again, for I did not hear you.

When he had told the whole tale again he fumbled in a pouch, found a key tied to a cord, and gave it to Jehane. ‘My lord took that from his neck a little time before he died,' he said, ‘and bade me bring it home to you.'

Jehane took the key and wept, wildly at first and with great sobs. The squire left her then, being given leave, and de Mercadet stood silent. But after a while he said softly, ‘Love lives though many die.'

Jehane looked at the key. ‘Go now' she said, ‘and leave me alone. I must be alone,' she repeated, and thrust de Mercadet to the door.

‘I also will say a prayer,' he said.

Jehane sat for a long time, holding the key in her hand, and many thoughts came into her head, but into her heart came slowly a feeling that, she was horrified to find, seemed very like relief. Shocked by this discovery she conjured up a picture of Bertran on their wedding day, another of Bertran bleeding to death at Damietta, and contrived to squeeze out a few more tears. But they came reluctantly. Only under the shock of foreign news, the sudden wound made by the word of death, had the fountain of misery truly opened, and now its small store was shed. For though she had loved Bertran once, her love had not flourished since he tried to make it prisoner and lock it up; and so she thought of his death coolly enough when the shock of its announcement had passed. But she did not like to admit this, even to herself, and preferred to think she was truly grief-stricken and most tragically bereaved. And now came creeping a cunning thought, a sly round-the-corner thought, that here, in new widowhood, was an excuse for getting rid of de Mercadet, ‘How dare he talk of love at such
a time as this,' she thought. ‘Grief for poor Bertran is my only interest now, and little Aélis orphaned now!' She sniffed and sighed, and three small tears fell slowly. The key was pressed between her hands. ‘To send it back was a kind and noble thought,' she cried, ‘but how lonely and insecure it makes me feel to have it.' And then she thought, ‘It is my duty to requite that last kindness, and if I sacrifice my liberty again it will be well requited—I can be as noble as you, Bertran—and also I should feel secure again, and Gilles can fret and plead as he pleases then. But that is not why I shall do it. I shall do it to show my grief for Bertran's death, and because I am widowed now, cut off from joy.—And Gilles can think what he likes.'

The next day de Mercadet came to talk with her in the room in the tower. She said, ‘You have served me well in your love for me, Gilles, and I had not meant to leave you unrewarded. But now this news has come that drives love from my heart, and all joy from this castle, and our love is no longer possible. Bertran's death made it impossible, and I have made it doubly impossible.'

‘What have you done?' he asked.

‘My lord sent me a key to unlock the belt he clasped me with. As things have come about there was no need for that. And yet I have made use of the key.'

‘You have put on the belt again?'

‘I put it on again, and pulled it tight, and locked it,' said Jehane, ‘and now I have no more need of the key.'

She went to that window that overlooked the moat, and threw it out. They heard the tiny splash it made as it struck the water.

‘You did that because of the great love you had for your husband? You did it in sorrow, renouncing the joys of this world?' asked the troubadour.

‘Yes,' said Jehane.

De Mercadet laughed. ‘Little liar! Little prude!' he said. ‘Yes, weep if you like, for your tears mean little enough to you and nothing at all to me. Yet I do not bear you ill will. Not now. Were I as other men I might, but I am not like other men. For I am a poet. Other men would complain at spending a barren year in your service, but my year has not been barren, for I have made some good songs. It often happens that the women for whom one writes the best poetry do least to deserve it—but what does that matter? The poems are there, and will serve to praise and thank less prudent ladies, whose kindness comes so quickly there is no time to write well in their honour. Were it not for prudes like you, little prude, the generous ones would scarce get a verse at all to praise their sweet lips and lovely eyes. This most
wise thought came suddenly to me in the night—for I guessed what you might be doing—and so I bear you no ill will, for you have done me no wrong. But neither do I love you, Jehane. My love was put away in the cupboard for too long, and when you cracked it I found it was like a rotten nut. There was nothing in it, Jehane. So do not eat too much, for the old woman's medicine is done and I shall not be at your service another year to ride to Brittany.'

Having uttered this rude and abominable speech de Mercadet took leave of Jehane and went to his own chamber. With no sign of sorrow or distress he made speedy preparations for departure, and a little after noon rode out of the castle, singing as he went, to the scandalising and horror of all who heard him. Nor did Jehane ever see him again, though for the rest of that year he lived in the castle of Hauterive, that was no more than forty miles away. And there he sang again the songs he had made for Jehane, and had by them great honour, and also, it is said, the favour of the Lady Saill, who dwelt there.

And one day de Mercadet was talking to a soldier on guard at the gate when a bowman, a mercenary from Italy, came and asked if he could find employment there, for he had just been thrown out of the castle of Caraman for drunkenness—though he had not been so much drunk as smitten with a sudden fever, he explained. De Mercadet asked him what news he had from Caraman.

‘The Lady Jehane has been out of sorts this last week or two,' said the archer. ‘She is a lady who likes to eat well—and who shall blame her for that?—and now whenever she takes a heavy meal she experiences, it is said, a feeling of pressure round her middle. And for that reason she is looking somewhat unhappy. Nor is that all, for she says that she suffered a loss one day while walking by the moat. And the moat has been drained and everybody is paddling in the mud seeking what she let fall there.'

‘And what was that?' asked de Mercadet.

‘A key; a key tied to a piece of cord,' said the archer.

One. the Finders

There Was A Man called Bearne, who was more fond of his father than is commonly the case with young men. He sailed out of Norway one summer with the intention of spending the winter at home, in Iceland, but found when he came there that his father had gone to Greenland. Bearne at once said he would go there too, and made his crew agree to sail with him, though neither he nor any of his men had ever been in the Greenland sea. They ran into bad weather, fog and north winds, and were carried out of their course. They drifted about for many days, and were wholly lost. Then, far to the west, they saw land. It was new land, that no one had ever heard of before, and the men wanted to go ashore. But Bearne would not let them, saying he meant to go to Greenland and nowhere else. They saw more unknown land, and turned away from it. Then they had a favourable wind and ran eastwards, and came at last to the south part of Greenland, where Bearne spent the winter with his father as he had intended.

There was a lot of talk about his lack of interest in the new country he had found, and no one thought any the better of him for not having gone ashore to see what it was like and what people lived there. The unknown land was much spoken of, and many thought hopefully of sailing westwards to seek it out either for gain or to show themselves men of mark. But the Norsemen who were settled in Greenland were few in number and not great in wealth, nor were there many ships there large or seaworthy enough to make the voyage, so for some time nothing was done, though the talking went on.

But Eric the Red, who was the man of most note in Greenland, had a son called Leif, who was afterwards called Leif the Lucky. He was a tall man, stronger than others, but gentle in his behaviour, wise in counsel and noble in appearance. He went to see Bearne and asked if he would sell him his ship. Bearne said he would if he got a proper price, and Leif did not haggle with him. Then Leif gathered a crew and chose good handy men, well used to seafaring, though not famous for weapon-skill or great deeds. They were thirty-five in number.

There was a southern man called Dirk, who had been for many
years with Eric the Red, and had fostered Leif. He was too old for such a voyage, but he was so fond of Leif that he would not willingly let him go out of his sight, and he had grown tired of living in Greenland. He told Leif, ‘I am coming with you on this voyage, and that for two reasons. You're not to be trusted by yourself, and I'm not going to put up with living in this dreary country any longer. There's nothing here but the sea at your doorstep and snow-mountains over your roof. There's neither wood nor warmth in the whole land, and before I die I want to see something better than fields not big enough to patch my breeches and trees not thick enough to shelter me when I take them down. In my own country there is everything a man needs to make him happy, and why I ever left I can't think, except that I was young at the time, and being young was a fool. But that's an old story now, and what I want to say is that no land can be worse to live in than Greenland—my belly is dried up with eating salt fish and bad cheese, and I would give all I own for a horn or two of wine—so I am coming with you, to look after you and because these new lands, if we ever get to them, cannot fail to be better than this.'

Leif let him have his way, and Dirk gathered his goods together and brought them on board. He was a High German from the Rhine, and while he had been in Iceland with Eric he had grumbled a good deal about the poorness of life there. But when Eric went to Greenland Dirk grumbled more and more, because barley would not grow there, and the cattle were thin, and there was nothing to drink. On the Rhine, said Dirk, every man had his own vineyard, and made his own wine and plenty of it. ‘And we drank it too,' he would say, ‘and that was a proper return for our labour. But here a man might as well be a horse for all the good he gets out of his work.'

Now Leif got his ship ready, and put to sea when they were bound, and had good weather. They first found the land that Bearne had found last, an island with high mountains and snowfields on them, and went ashore there. But they did not stay long, for it was barren. Leif called it Slate-land.

They set sail again, and came next to low-lying country, with bushes growing, and long white beaches. Leif called it Markland, but said they must go farther yet. So they put to sea again, with a strong north-east wind behind them, and after some days they saw land, and to the north of it an island. They went ashore there, and looked about them. The weather was fine, and there was dew on the grass. They put their hands to the dew and tasted it, and it was sweeter than they had ever tasted before.

Now they sailed a little south of the island, and rounding a ness
they came into a firth, and ran aground there. They were so eager to go ashore that they did not wait for the tide to turn and float the ship, but put off in their small boat. Then they came back, at high water, and towed the ship into the river, and up the river to a lake, and anchored it there. They took their hammocks out, and slept ashore. It was a good land they had come to, green to the eye, and warm and comfortable.

They made up their minds to spend the winter there, and built a large house with a stockade round it. There was self-sown wheat, and such good pasture that cattle might graze all through the year. There were tall trees, and salmon in the river and the lake bigger than they had ever seen before. The day and the night were more equal than in Greenland.

When they had closed the house all round with a stockade, Leif said to his crew, ‘Now I am going to divide you into two watches, one to stay at home, and the other to search out the land and see what it holds. The homeward watch will fish or do work within the stockade, and the outward watch will go as far as they can by daylight, now in one direction, now in another. But the outward watch must be home before darkness, and they must keep together.'

The watches were chosen, and the work began of exploring all the country near by. But one evening the outward watch came home, and there was a man missing. This was Dirk, the Rhinelander. Leif was more angry than any had seen him before, and spoke so harshly to his crew that they were taken aback, for he had always been mild in his ways, though firm enough when it was needed. But Dirk, he said, had been his foster-father, and he valued him more than any man there. He was moreover so clever with his hands, and skilled in all kinds of wood work, that he had been the most useful of them all in building the house and the stockade. So Leif said they must go and look for him, though darkness had fallen, and he took twelve men and set out from the house.

But a little way from the stockade they saw Dirk walking towards them, and Leif shouted to him gladly. But Dirk did not reply, though he was muttering to himself and laughing. They took him into the house, and torches were lighted, but still he would not speak in any tongue they could understand.