'Seest thou yon star shining between two bars of cloud, n.o.ble Emma? It reminds me of one who bore a painted star between two clouds for his cognisance. A dire doubt haunts me lest he be in the ranks of the foe; for I well remember his heart was always with the Duke of Normandy.'

'Sir Aimand de Sourdeval? Nay, surely he would not lift his hand against his lord. Besides, the earl told me that he had sent him on a long journey.'

Through Eadgyth's heart pa.s.sed a quiver of pain.

'Not surely the longest journey of all,' her anxious affection whispered, but she was silent.

'Poor child, I feel for thee!' said the countess, laying her hand caressingly on the flaxen head of the Saxon, which her elevated position on the stone steps enabled her to do comfortably. She had a.s.sumed a very matronly manner since the gold ring had been slipped upon her finger by her heart's chosen, and, in truth, she felt as if years of experience had gone over her head since the day when her brother had come to her and told her 'that her broken troth should soon be mended.'

Sir Alain de Gourin approached with an obsequious air, and the countess said to him gaily, 'I hope, fair sir, the gentlemen yonder are well satisfied with the quarters they have chosen, for methinks it will be somewhat long e'er they change them for the hospitable shelter of Blauncheflour.'

At which De Gourin laughed applaudingly, and swore that if the garrison had half the spirit of their Castellan, they would send them to bide still farther from their doors.

Then the countess led her ladies down to the chapel, where the chaplain performed a special ma.s.s, praying the protection of the heavenly powers for the beleaguered garrison and for all who fought on their side, at home or abroad, and offering prayers for the safety and success of the earl.

The tears rolled down Emma's cheeks as she repeated these last, and many of the ladies sobbed audibly, partly for the woes of their countess and partly through fears or sorrows of their own.

When the service was over, Emma dismissed her attendants, even Eadgyth, and followed Father Pierre into his sacristy.

'I would have a ma.s.s performed, father,' she said, 'for the soul's welfare of a knight whom I regard for the sake of one who loves him well, and also in that he did always seem to me an honest wight, but of whom I know not whether he be fighting for my dear lord, or if he be in the opposing host without. There is no reason why I should make mystery of his name--Sir Aimand de Sourdeval.'

'Sir Aimand de Sourdeval!' repeated Father Pierre, gazing at the lady with startled eyes. 'Knowest thou not, n.o.ble countess, that he is a prisoner in the dungeons of this keep?'

CHAPTER XIX.

'STONE WALLS DO NOT A PRISON MAKE.'

'Sir Aimand de Sourdeval a prisoner in this castle?' repeated the countess in a tone of the most complete surprise, and her cheeks grew white with a sudden horror, for, to explain this thing, either, it seemed to her, the young knight, whose honest face and n.o.ble bearing had won her respect and the heart of her best-loved bower-maiden, must be unworthy; or--and the thought gave her a keener pang than even she had suffered from the rumour of his death--the master of the castle had made evil use of his power.

'Wherefore is this? Knowest thou his offence, father?' demanded the countess.

The young priest bowed his head. 'Daughter, if thou wilt know the truth, the offence of a too great fidelity to his suzerain, William of Normandy,' he answered in a low voice.

A spasm of pain crossed Emma's face at this objective presentment of her worst fear, and the terrible heart-searchings with which she had entered into the struggle against the Conqueror returned with renewed force.

'I would hear this prisoner's defence from his own lips, and judge for myself of his guilt,' she said, turning to Father Pierre with quick decision, and a pale, set face. 'Lead me to him.'

'n.o.ble Emma, the dungeon in which he is chained is no seemly place for gold-embroidered slippers and ermined robes.'

'Less seemly still, then, for an innocent man, if innocent he be,'

cried Emma, each syllable sounding like a challenge thrown at a foe.

'Show me the way. I will see myself to the lodgment of all under my roof.'

Then a satisfied light gleamed from Father Pierre's unworldly dark eyes, and his thin, ascetic features relaxed into a smile. 'The Holy Mother reward and sustain thee, my daughter!' he said softly. 'Come then at once!'

Emma followed him; outwardly calm, but in reality deeply moved, and not without terror at thought of entering those terrible dungeons, which, although she had pa.s.sed her life in castles, had hitherto been known to her only by name.

He led her through winding pa.s.sages secured by more than one heavy, clangorous portal--the vaulted walls echoing to the creak of their hinges--into the silence and the darkness of the bas.e.m.e.nt.

The chaplain was free to penetrate at will into these halls of suffering and despair in the prosecution of his sacred office, but the warders who guarded the various portals half forgot to make their reverence to the priest, as they stared with open-eyed surprise at the lady, till, on recognising her, they saluted with clumsy haste, and strove to atone for momentary negligence by quick opening of the door which formed their ward.

Emma shuddered as the torch with which Father Pierre had provided himself gleamed on the damp, ma.s.sive walls. It seemed to her that imprisonment between them would of itself bring death to her, and she marvelled how any human creature should sustain life under such conditions.

'In sooth, n.o.ble Emma,' said Father Pierre, as the countess gave expression to this feeling, 'the holy saints have sent thee hither this night, because time grew pressing. A little while, and the man who is the object of thine errand of mercy would be released by a sterner liberator--death. If thou shouldst deem him worthy of his dungeon, he will not need guarding long!'

'Ah!' sighed Emma, with a sharp pang of horror, and instinctively quickening her steps, as if a moment might be fatal.

They had reached a narrow, ponderous door, studded with huge nails.

Father Pierre produced a key which he had taken from a warder who stood at the end of the pa.s.sage. He turned it in the lock, and, drawing back their solid bolts, pushed open the door and entered the cell into which it gave access, the countess following with shrinking steps.

The cell was small, for it was hollowed in the wall of the keep, some thirteen feet in thickness at the outside; it was, perhaps, eight feet square. The walls were running with moisture, and the air was dank and foetid. On a stone ledge raised a little higher than the ground, the prostrate figure of a man was revealed by the fitful gleam of the torch, and Father Pierre went forward and bent over him.

'Awake, my son!' he said gently, holding the torch so that the light fell upon the slumberer's face.

Emma's hands clung together in anguish as she saw the gaunt, cadaverous features, the paled skin, and the wild matted hair and beard of the prisoner, and marked the fleshlessness of the limbs that were extended in uneasy length upon the inhospitable couch. His appearance might have moved the hardest-hearted to pity, and seemed all the more terrible in contrast with the image that was in Emma's mind, of the young knight as she had last seen him, in all the bravery of the harness of the jousting-field, neat-shaven and close-cropped as any modern English gentleman, according to the fashion of the Normans.

The unhappy knight opened his eyes with a nervous start, and sprang into a sitting posture; the rattle of chains that accompanied his movement revealing to the ruthful eyes of the countess that his ankles were loaded with heavy rings of iron, attached by chains to a stanchion in the floor.

'Fear nothing, Sir Aimand,' said the priest rea.s.suringly. 'It is I--Father Pierre; and I have brought thee hope, and at least the surety that thy case will be inquired into and sifted to the ground. See, the n.o.ble Countess Emma has herself deigned to visit thy prison. St.

Michael has answered thy prayers!'

The captive stared round him with haggard eyes, which seemed almost supernaturally large and bright, and Emma quailed as they rested at length upon her, with an expression of wonder and inquiry.

'The Countess Emma?' he repeated in a faint voice,--'the bride?'

Time for him had been standing still since the day of that fatal bride-ale, which brought evil in some form to all who partook of it!

'Art thou indeed Sir Aimand de Sourdeval?' said Emma, crossing the cell and standing before the prisoner, her beautiful face full of pity, yet not all softness. 'Unhappy knight,' she added almost sternly, her clear, decisive utterance ringing round the cell, 'what crime hast thou committed against my lord, that thou art subject to such durance?'

De Sourdeval threw back his head with a gesture of indignation; then his expression changed to one of sadness, and he threw himself on his knee before the countess.

'n.o.ble Emma,' he said, 'the only crime I have committed against thy lord and mine own liege, was that of being faithful to his suzerain and mine, nor can I believe the kind and generous De Guader knows my fate.'

'Thank G.o.d!' cried Emma, with a sudden sob.

'Thou hast been good to me always!' exclaimed De Sourdeval, with intense excitement, his breast heaving and his eyes shining as he spoke. 'Oh, gracious countess, bear my pet.i.tion to thy lord, and tell him that Aimand de Sourdeval was never unfaithful to him in word or deed, and pray him to sift this matter to the bottom, for if he knoweth aught, 'tis most like that his ears have been abused by the untrue malignities of my enemies.'

'Knowest thou not that the earl is sped to Denmark, there to collect fresh forces wherewith to relieve us from the beleaguering host that now sits before the castle walls?' asked Emma, with less firmness, feeling for the first time the full weight of the responsibilities she had undertaken. 'In my hands is the ruling of the castle; tell me, therefore, the burden of thy pet.i.tion.'

Then Sir Aimand related to her the story of his adventures on the night of her bridal, and how Sir Alain de Gourin had foully entreated him, a narrative broken by terrible fits of coughing, showing how deeply the chills of his prison had wrought upon his frame, and by exclamations of surprise from the countess, who was much startled to discover the conduct of the Breton knight, and in great perplexity, for she felt keenly that Sir Aimand had but acted the part of an honourable man, and that to offer him a pardon under such circ.u.mstances would be but an insult. Moreover, he seemed to ignore the earl's present position of active rebellion, and she could not gather how far he was aware of the position of affairs.

'Doubtless, Sir Knight,' she said, 'thine impulse to be faithful to thy suzerain was that of a true and loyal soul, and none can blame thee; but William of Normandy has made the land groan under his tyranny, and so haught and overbearing was he, that, for the mere delight of showing his power, he crushed his most loving peers under his heel. Thou knowest that he strove to part my lord from me, and forbade our marriage; and so wroth was he at the breach of his capricious mandate, that, in self-defence, my lord was driven to take arms. Let the past be forgotten. Thou shalt be reinstated in all knightly honour, and shall prove thy faith to the earl thy lord, by defending his lady in his absence.'

She held out her white jewelled hand to the gaunt, unkempt prisoner, looking in his face with a persuasive witchery that might have tempted a man to leave a palace for a dungeon. But De Sourdeval kept back his meagre, unwashed hand.