The Perilous Gard (2 page)

" 'But — ' " the Princess went on, "(and did you ever hear the like of this for a piece of good logic, Master Roger?) — '
But
I am not yet so dull that I cannot perceive she is too sweet and fair a child to have thought of such mischief for herself; and I have no doubt at all that if one of them contrived that letter, the blame should be laid chiefly on that sister of hers, who I did very well note to be of a cold, hard, and secret countenance, like her father; and he is a man whose face I could never bring myself to trust.' "

"There, Kate!" said Alicia, triumphantly, quite forgetting where she was. "I
told
you she wasn't going to be angry with me!"

"Her Majesty's powers of reason are extraordinary," observed Master Roger, looking up from his book.

The Lady Elizabeth's eyes were still on the letter in her hand.

" 'It remains now,' " she read on, " 'only to make an end of this wickedness and folly. I have therefore determined to take Alicia Button and place her here among my own ladies at the court, where with good company and maidenly pastimes she can shake off the infection of your household. As for Katherine Sutton — '"

The clear voice hesitated for a fraction of a second.

" 'As for Katherine Sutton,' " it continued, " 'she is young; and I am not a cruel or a hardhearted woman. My command for her is only that she shall be put into the care of Sir Geoffrey Heron, a man I
can
trust in wholly, and kept by him under strict guard at his house called Elvenwood Hall in Derbyshire; and so let me hear no more of the girl, I have done with her.' "

There were two or three other sentences — something about "he is to fetch her away within the week," and "deliver her promptly into his hands," but Kate did not really hear them. She could see the Lady Elizabeth's lips moving, and the paper in her hand, but the words made no sense to her. She had never heard of Geoffrey Heron or of Elvenwood Hall. She knew nothing of Derbyshire except that it was in the north somewhere, forest and mining country, very wild, full of streams and caves. There was a castle in Derbyshire that had a great cave underneath it, Peak Castle, and other places — the Blue John Cavern at Treak Cliff where the purple spar came from, High Tor, Great Matlock: but the names only darted and tumbled about her mind like a scatter of loose beads in a box-lid. They had no meaning. The one thing that seemed clear and fixed was that Alicia had been right after all. Whatever happened, the Queen was not going to be angry with
her
.

Alicia had begun to realize that something was wrong. "But, Your Highness!" she protested. "It wasn't Kate's fault. What is she sending her away for?"

"Because she is not a cruel or a hardhearted woman."

"Then how can she? She mustn't! Our father won't let her!"

"Your father can do nothing to stop her," said the Lady Elizabeth gravely. "Nor can I. We would only make the matter worse if we tried."

"But it wasn't Kate's fault! It wasn't!" repeated Alicia, springing up and burying her face on Kate's shoulder in a storm of tears.

"Alicia!" Kate came back to her senses with a jerk. "Alicia, for the love of heaven! Be quiet!"

"I won't be quiet!" wept Alicia. "And if the Q-queen thinks I I want any mm-maidenly pastimes when my poor sister is chained up eating dry bread in a black dungeon full of snakes and toads — "

"Who said a word about chaining me up in a dungeon? She only means I'll have to keep within a mile of the house, or something — you know, like Her Highness here at Hatfield. I'm not being sent to the Tower, you little goose! Sir Geoffrey won't hurt me."

"He-he won't?"

"Didn't you hear the Queen say he was a man she could trust?" Kate demanded, hoping that nobody would raise the question of exactly what the Queen thought she could trust Sir Geoffrey to do. The Lady Elizabeth was looking down at the letter again, her face troubled. It was, unexpectedly, Master Roger who spoke.

"Your sister's right, Alicia." He gave Kate a reassuring nod. "No, I'm not trying to comfort you. It's true."

The Lady Elizabeth turned to him. "Do you know the man, then?" she asked eagerly.

"Not to say know him, Your Highness. My old pupil, Thomas Corget — a good lad, though no great hand as a scholar — told me once that he was of some estate in the fen country about Norfolk, and had a great reputation there for his honesty and fair dealing. He was one of the gentlemen who came to the Queen's help at the time of a Somerset rebellion; and it seems she took a liking to him, for she gave him a high post in Ireland and he was there for some years, never returning to England until last winter, after his wife died. Elvenwood Hall must have come to him from her. She was Lord Warden's daughter, and her father's only heir."

"Warden?" the Princess interrupted him. "I have heard of Wardens in Derbyshire, but Elvenwood Hall was not the name of their house. It had another name, and there used to be some curious tale about it."

"Tom Corget said there were so many curious tales about the Perilous Gard running about in Derbyshire that after a time he did not trouble himself to listen to half of them."

"The Perilous Gard?"

"That was the other name, my lady. The last Lord Warden tore down much of the house and rebuilt it when he came into the title, and would have changed the name too, if he might have; but country folk all call it by the old one still. Tom Corget and I were disputing about the name: it was so that we came to speak of Sir Geoffrey."

"Sir Launcelot had a castle called the Joyous Gard," remarked Alicia, in a rather muffled voice from Kate's shoulder.

Master Roger's bushy eyebrows twitched together ominously. As a classical scholar and a defender of the New Learning, he held the tales of King Arthur and his knights in the deepest contempt, and was always doing his best to root them out of the Princess's household.

"Since the word 'gard' signified a 'castle' in the old days, I have no doubt it was a castle once," he observed severely. "Tom Corget and I were disputing about the 'perilous.' Tom (no scholar) held that it was nothing but a by-name meaning that the place was a strong one — hard to attack, or dangerous to meddle with. It was my contention," went on Master Roger, now well away and settling briskly into the stride of his argument, "that the word 'perilous' was often given in the former age to such places as foolish and superstitious persons chose to believe were of a magical nature. Like the Perilous Chapel in the monkish legend of the Holy Grail; or the Perilous Seat in King Arthur's court where no one except the best knight in the world was able to sit. When I was a boy there was a hill near my cousin's house in Northumbria that was always called the Perilous Hill because it was said that the Fairy Folk used to live underneath it. The story went that they had all been driven away long since; but the country people still go in terror of the place, and the bravest of them would not set foot on it after dark for a hundred pounds. As I told Tom Corget, it was my belief — "

The Lady Elizabeth stirred restlessly in her chair.

"Master Roger," she said.

"Yes, my lady?"

"I was asking you about this house of the Wardens. What were the curious tales Thomas Corget spoke of?"

"Yes, my lady. I am coming to them. As I told Tom Corget, it was my belief that places like the hill near my cousin's house must once have been the centers of some heathen worship in ancient times now forgotten; and the stories of the Fairy Folk living there were only memories of the old heathen gods, overlaid with fantasies and superstitions. When I was young, the country women all believed that the Fairy Folk would steal children away with them if they could; and this — so I told Tom Corget — goes back to the days when the old pagans did take human beings to offer in sacrifice to their gods, like the Druids of Britain and France according to the report of Julius Caesar. Then also the Fairy Folk are said to deck themselves out with gold, and live in great ceremony, dancing and singing, as the heathen gods were accustomed to do. I have never learned the truth of the matter; but certainly, the people near my cousin's house still dreaded the very name of the hill, and thought it was unlucky to go near the place, even by day. Now it came into my mind when I was disputing with Tom Corget that the Perilous Gard might likewise stand near some old center of heathen magic, such as I considered the hill to be. That would account for the name, and also for the curious tales that are told of it. It is a very remote and solitary place, and the Wardens were a strange family, or so Tom said to me. I saw myself when I was a boy what country people can believe in with no more than old rumors and idle tongues to set them going."

"And what were the curious tales they believed in?"

It seemed to Kate that Master Roger glanced at the Princess before replying and very slightly shook his head.

"Oh, much the same foolishness," he answered quickly; "no need to weary you with the ins and outs of the matter. The Wardens are all dead and gone now — Lady Heron was the last of them — and Sir Geoffrey is an honorable man. You may take Thomas Corget's word for that, Your Highness. Mistress Katherine here should find nothing to trouble her at Elvenwood Hall."

"Very well, then." The Lady Elizabeth let the Queen's letter drop from her hands to the floor, and glanced across the room at Kate. "Come here, girl."

Kate detached herself from Alicia and knelt down cautiously by the arm of the great carved chair. Her knees were still shaking, and she was afraid that she might trip over her skirts again.

"This is a hard business," said the Lady Elizabeth. "I will not make it harder with more talking."

"No, Your Highness," Kate replied thankfully. She knew she ought to say something about suffering gladly for the Princess, or acting like a true sister to Alicia, but she could not think of anything to say. She was not suffering for the Princess, and she did not want to be a true sister to Alicia. She was conscious only of a furious irritation at the maddening senselessness of the whole affair.

"You heard what Thomas Corget said of Sir Geoffrey?"

"Yes, Your Highness."

"I shall see that your father hears of it, too. And if I ever have the power I give you my word — " her eyes met Kate's in a long, grave, deliberate look, "I give you my word that I shall send him at once to bring you away."

"But I don't see why Kate should have to go at all," Alicia's voice broke in on them. "Listen, Your Highness! Listen, Master Roger! All I have to do is write to the Queen again and tell her — "

"No," said Kate and Master Roger and the Lady Elizabeth simultaneously.

Chapter II

The Elvenwood

Katherine Sutton reflected gloomily that here she was, like a lady in a romance, riding through the forest on her white horse with a good brave knight to take care of her. At least the horse was white — or as much of the horse as she could see for the mud splashes that covered its hide — a big, lumbering beast of a mare with an infuriating habit of chewing the bit like a cow on a cud. She pulled it up for the fortieth time as it stumbled over a root, and then, straightening her back, lifted her face to look for a break in the sky.

It was raining again, a thin, cold, misty rain that penetrated to the bone. Even under the huge trees there was very little shelter. The rain threaded and beaded every branch and leaf and twig, dripping mournfully at the jarring thud of the horses' hoofs. It clung to the shoulders of Kate's heavy cloak and glistened in the long gray folds of her riding skirt. The instant she raised her head it began to gather on her lashes like tears.

The narrow, leaf-strewn track of a road was thick and sodden with water. The twelve mounted men and the four heavily loaded pack-carts behind her must be beating it into a mire. She was almost the first in line. Ahead of her, there was only the square back of Diccon carrying his master's pennon on a short lance. He and most of the others had soldiered in Ireland with Sir Geoffrey, and even now they looked far more like an armed guard than a troop of ordinary household serving men.

Kate glanced over her shoulder for a moment at the long file of riders, with their heads bent against the rain, and then turned back to watch the clouds again. But it was no use. She could not get even a glimpse of the sky. The great arching boughs of the trees had met overhead and shut it out completely.

Kate had never seen such trees. In her part of the country, the last of the forests had been cleared long before she was born, and there was nothing left of them but open woodlands and hunting parks. This was different. It might have been the wild forest of another age, centuries ago. Except for the sound of the horses' hoofs lifting out of the mud and the faint shivering drip of the rain, it was utterly silent. In the silence, immense, dark, overwhelming, shouldering over the road, towering like castles, the great trees rose and pressed about the horses and their riders, melting away on every side into depth on depth of green shadow that opened a little to let them through and then closed in behind them again.

"They look taller because the road is so low," Kate told herself. "It must be very old." The road could never have carried much traffic — it turned and dodged among the trees like a footpath — but over the years the passing of men and horses had little by little worn it away until now it was far beneath the level of the ground. The bank on her right was nearly as high as the wall of a house, laced and knotted with enormous twisted roots all overgrown with moss and little dripping tongues of fern.

There was a sudden crash and a warning shout behind her, and she reined up. Something was wrong with one of the pack-carts at the end of the line. Heads were turning and shadowy figures running through the mist; she heard the shrill neighing of a frightened horse, and then, riding over the confusion, the clear stern voice of Sir Geoffrey: "Let be! Give them room: it's only the rope broken. Dirk and Ned, lash those boxes again. Quickly now! We can't spend the night roosting here in the forest. Dismount and rest, you others. There's no harm done."