The King in Yellow
As I listened to her lovely voice a grey mass which rapidly grew more
distinct loomed up in front, and the horn rang out joyously through the
tumult of the hounds and falcons. A torch glimmered at a gate, a light
streamed through an opening door, and we stepped upon a wooden bridge
which trembled under our feet and rose creaking and straining behind
us as we passed over the moat and into a small stone court, walled on
every side. From an open doorway a man came and, bending in salutation,
presented a cup to the girl beside me. She took the cup and touched it
with her lips, then lowering it turned to me and said in a low voice,
“I bid you welcome.”
At that moment one of the falconers came with another cup, but before
handing it to me, presented it to the girl, who tasted it. The falconer
made a gesture to receive it, but she hesitated a moment, and then,
stepping forward, offered me the cup with her own hands. I felt this
to be an act of extraordinary graciousness, but hardly knew what was
expected of me, and did not raise it to my lips at once. The girl
flushed crimson. I saw that I must act quickly.
“Mademoiselle,” I faltered, “a stranger whom you have saved from
dangers he may never realize empties this cup to the gentlest and
loveliest hostess of France.”
“In His name,” she murmured, crossing herself as I drained the cup.
Then stepping into the doorway she turned to me with a pretty gesture
and, taking my hand in hers, led me into the house, saying again and
again: “You are very welcome, indeed you are welcome to the Château
d’Ys.”
II
I awoke next morning with the music of the horn in my ears, and leaping
out of the ancient bed, went to a curtained window where the sunlight
filtered through little deep-set panes. The horn ceased as I looked
into the court below.
A man who might have been brother to the two falconers of the night
before stood in the midst of a pack of hounds. A curved horn was
strapped over his back, and in his hand he held a long-lashed whip. The
dogs whined and yelped, dancing around him in anticipation; there was
the stamp of horses, too, in the walled yard.
“Mount!” cried a voice in Breton, and with a clatter of hoofs the two
falconers, with falcons upon their wrists, rode into the courtyard
among the hounds. Then I heard another voice which sent the blood
throbbing through my heart: “Piriou Louis, hunt the hounds well and
spare neither spur nor whip. Thou Raoul and thou Gaston, see that the
_epervier_ does not prove himself _niais_, and if it be best in your
judgment, _faites courtoisie à l’oiseau. Jardiner un oiseau_, like
the _mué_ there on Hastur’s wrist, is not difficult, but thou, Raoul,
mayest not find it so simple to govern that _hagard_. Twice last week
he foamed _au vif_ and lost the _beccade_ although he is used to the
_leurre_. The bird acts like a stupid _branchier_. _Paître un hagard
n’est pas si facile._”
Was I dreaming? The old language of falconry which I had read in
yellow manuscripts—the old forgotten French of the middle ages was
sounding in my ears while the hounds bayed and the hawks’ bells tinkled
accompaniment to the stamping horses. She spoke again in the sweet
forgotten language:
“If you would rather attach the _longe_ and leave thy _hagard au bloc_,
Raoul, I shall say nothing; for it were a pity to spoil so fair a day’s
sport with an ill-trained _sors_. _Essimer abaisser_,—it is possibly
the best way. _Ça lui donnera des reins._ I was perhaps hasty with the
bird. It takes time to pass _à la filière_ and the exercises _d’escap_.”
Then the falconer Raoul bowed in his stirrups and replied: “If it be
the pleasure of Mademoiselle, I shall keep the hawk.”
“It is my wish,” she answered. “Falconry I know, but you have yet to
give me many a lesson in _Autourserie_, my poor Raoul. Sieur Piriou
Louis mount!”
The huntsman sprang into an archway and in an instant returned, mounted
upon a strong black horse, followed by a piqueur also mounted.
“Ah!” she cried joyously, “speed Glemarec René! speed! speed all! Sound
thy horn, Sieur Piriou!”
The silvery music of the hunting-horn filled the courtyard, the hounds
sprang through the gateway and galloping hoof-beats plunged out of the
paved court; loud on the drawbridge, suddenly muffled, then lost in the
heather and bracken of the moors. Distant and more distant sounded the
horn, until it became so faint that the sudden carol of a soaring lark
drowned it in my ears. I heard the voice below responding to some call
from within the house.
“I do not regret the chase, I will go another time. Courtesy to the
stranger, Pelagie, remember!”
And a feeble voice came quavering from within the house, “_Courtoisie_.”
I stripped, and rubbed myself from head to foot in the huge earthen
basin of icy water which stood upon the stone floor at the foot of
my bed. Then I looked about for my clothes. They were gone, but on a
settle near the door lay a heap of garments which I inspected with
astonishment. As my clothes had vanished, I was compelled to attire
myself in the costume which had evidently been placed there for me to
wear while my own clothes dried. Everything was there, cap, shoes, and
hunting doublet of silvery grey homespun; but the close-fitting costume
and seamless shoes belonged to another century, and I remembered
the strange costumes of the three falconers in the courtyard. I was
sure that it was not the modern dress of any portion of France or
Brittany; but not until I was dressed and stood before a mirror between
the windows did I realize that I was clothed much more like a young
huntsman of the middle ages than like a Breton of that day. I hesitated
and picked up the cap. Should I go down and present myself in that
strange guise? There seemed to be no help for it, my own clothes were
gone and there was no bell in the ancient chamber to call a servant; so
I contented myself with removing a short hawk’s feather from the cap,
and, opening the door, went downstairs.
By the fireplace in the large room at the foot of the stairs an old
Breton woman sat spinning with a distaff. She looked up at me when
I appeared, and, smiling frankly, wished me health in the Breton
language, to which I laughingly replied in French. At the same
moment my hostess appeared and returned my salutation with a grace
and dignity that sent a thrill to my heart. Her lovely head with its
dark curly hair was crowned with a head-dress which set all doubts
as to the epoch of my own costume at rest. Her slender figure was
exquisitely set off in the homespun hunting-gown edged with silver,
and on her gauntlet-covered wrist she bore one of her petted hawks.
With perfect simplicity she took my hand and led me into the garden in
the court, and seating herself before a table invited me very sweetly
to sit beside her. Then she asked me in her soft quaint accent how I
had passed the night, and whether I was very much inconvenienced by
wearing the clothes which old Pelagie had put there for me while I
slept. I looked at my own clothes and shoes, drying in the sun by the
garden-wall, and hated them. What horrors they were compared with the
graceful costume which I now wore! I told her this laughing, but she
agreed with me very seriously.
“We will throw them away,” she said in a quiet voice. In my
astonishment I attempted to explain that I not only could not think of
accepting clothes from anybody, although for all I knew it might be the
custom of hospitality in that part of the country, but that I should
cut an impossible figure if I returned to France clothed as I was then.
She laughed and tossed her pretty head, saying something in old French
which I did not understand, and then Pelagie trotted out with a tray on
which stood two bowls of milk, a loaf of white bread, fruit, a platter
of honey-comb, and a flagon of deep red wine. “You see I have not yet
broken my fast because I wished you to eat with me. But I am very
hungry,” she smiled.
“I would rather die than forget one word of what you have said!” I
blurted out, while my cheeks burned. “She will think me mad,” I added
to myself, but she turned to me with sparkling eyes.
“Ah!” she murmured. “Then Monsieur knows all that there is of
chivalry—”
She crossed herself and broke bread. I sat and watched her white hands,
not daring to raise my eyes to hers.
“Will you not eat?” she asked. “Why do you look so troubled?”
Ah, why? I knew it now. I knew I would give my life to touch with my
lips those rosy palms—I understood now that from the moment when I
looked into her dark eyes there on the moor last night I had loved her.
My great and sudden passion held me speechless.
“Are you ill at ease?” she asked again.
Then, like a man who pronounces his own doom, I answered in a low
voice: “Yes, I am ill at ease for love of you.” And as she did not
stir nor answer, the same power moved my lips in spite of me and I
said, “I, who am unworthy of the lightest of your thoughts, I who abuse
hospitality and repay your gentle courtesy with bold presumption, I
love you.”
She leaned her head upon her hands, and answered softly, “I love you.
Your words are very dear to me. I love you.”
“Then I shall win you.”
“Win me,” she replied.
But all the time I had been sitting silent, my face turned toward her.
She, also silent, her sweet face resting on her upturned palm, sat
facing me, and as her eyes looked into mine I knew that neither she nor
I had spoken human speech; but I knew that her soul had answered mine,
and I drew myself up feeling youth and joyous love coursing through
every vein. She, with a bright colour in her lovely face, seemed as
one awakened from a dream, and her eyes sought mine with a questioning
glance which made me tremble with delight. We broke our fast, speaking
of ourselves. I told her my name and she told me hers, the Demoiselle
Jeanne d’Ys.
She spoke of her father and mother’s death, and how the nineteen of
her years had been passed in the little fortified farm alone with her
nurse Pelagie, Glemarec René the piqueur, and the four falconers,
Raoul, Gaston, Hastur, and the Sieur Piriou Louis, who had served her
father. She had never been outside the moorland—never even had seen a
human soul before, except the falconers and Pelagie. She did not know
how she had heard of Kerselec; perhaps the falconers had spoken of it.
She knew the legends of Loup Garou and Jeanne la Flamme from her nurse
Pelagie. She embroidered and spun flax. Her hawks and hounds were her
only distraction. When she had met me there on the moor she had been
so frightened that she almost dropped at the sound of my voice. She
had, it was true, seen ships at sea from the cliffs, but as far as
the eye could reach the moors over which she galloped were destitute
of any sign of human life. There was a legend which old Pelagie told,
how anybody once lost in the unexplored moorland might never return,
because the moors were enchanted. She did not know whether it was true,
she never had thought about it until she met me. She did not know
whether the falconers had even been outside, or whether they could go
if they would. The books in the house which Pelagie, the nurse, had
taught her to read were hundreds of years old.
All this she told me with a sweet seriousness seldom seen in any one
but children. My own name she found easy to pronounce, and insisted,
because my first name was Philip, I must have French blood in me. She
did not seem curious to learn anything about the outside world, and
I thought perhaps she considered it had forfeited her interest and
respect from the stories of her nurse.
We were still sitting at the table, and she was throwing grapes to the
small field birds which came fearlessly to our very feet.