The Black Douglas Part 32

And he kept his eyes upon them with a straight forth-looking glance, palpably embarra.s.sing to the traitors on the dais.

"Earl Douglas," said the Chancellor again, "pray remember that you are not now in Castle Thrieve. Your six thousand hors.e.m.e.n wait not in the courtyard out there. Learn to be more humble and answer to the things whereof you are accused. Do you desire that witness should be brought?"

"Of what need are witnesses? I own no court or jurisdiction. I have heard no accusations!" said the Earl William.

The Chancellor motioned with his hand, whereupon Master Robert Berry, a procurator of the city, advanced and read a long parchment which set forth in phrase and detail of legality twenty accusations against the Earl,--of treason, rebellion, and manifest oppression.

When he had finished the Chancellor said, "And now, Earl Douglas, what answer have you to these things?"

"Does it matter at all what I answer?" asked the Earl, succinctly.

"I do not bandy words with you," said the Chancellor; "I order you to make your pleading, or stand within your danger."

"And yet," said William Douglas, gravely, "words are all that you dare bandy with me. Even if I honoured you by laying aside my dignities and consented to break a lance with you, you would refuse to afford me trial by battle, which is the right of every peer accused."

"'Tis a barbarous custom," said the Chancellor; "we will try your case upon its merit."

The Earl laughed a little mocking laugh.

"It will be somewhat safer," said he, "but haste you and get the sham done with. I plead nothing. I do not even tell you that you lie. What doth one expect of a gutter-dog but that it should void the garbage it hath devoured? But I do ask you, Marshal de Retz, as a brave soldier and the representative of an honourable King, what you have done with the Lady Sybilla?"

The Marshal de Retz smiled--a smile so chill, cruel, hard, that the very soldiers on guard, seeing it, longed to slay him on the spot.

"May I, in return, ask my Lord Earl of Douglas and Duke of Touraine what is that to him?" he said, with sneering emphasis upon the t.i.tles.

"It matters to me," replied William Douglas, boldly, "more than life, and almost as much as honour. The Lady Sybilla did me the grace to tell me that she loved me. And I in turn am bound to her in life and death."

The Chancellor and the tutor broke into laughter, but the marshal continued to smile his terrible smile of determinate evil.

"Listen," he said at last, "hear this, my Lord of Touraine; ever since we came to this kingdom, and, indeed, long before we left the realm of France, the Lady Sybilla intended nothing else than your deception and destruction. Poor dupe, do you not yet understand? She it was that cozened you with fair words. She it was that advised you to come hither that we might hold you in our hands. For her sake you obeyed.

She was the willing bait of the trap your foes set for you. What think you of the Lady Sybilla now?"

William of Douglas did not answer in words, but as the marshal ceased speaking, he drew himself together like a lithe animal that sways this way and that before springing. His right hand dropped softly from his brother's shoulder upon the hilt of his own dagger.

Then with one sudden bound he was over the barrier and upon the dais.

Almost his blade was at the marshal's throat, and but for the crossed partisans of two guards who stood on either side of de Retz, he had died there and then by the dagger of William Douglas. As it was, the youth was brought to a stand with his breast pressed vainly against the steel points, and paused there crying out in fury, "Liar and toad! Come out from behind these varlets that I may slay thee with my hand."

A score of men-at-arms approached from behind, and forced the young man back to his place.

"Bring in the Lady Sybilla," said the marshal, still smiling, while the judges sat silent and afraid at the anger of one man.

And even while the Earl stood panting after his outburst of furious anger, they opened the door at the back of the dais and through it there entered the Lady Sybilla. Instantly the eyes of William Douglas fixed themselves upon her, but she did not raise hers nor look at him.

She stood at the farther side at the edge of the dais, her hands joined in front of her, and her hair streamed down her back and fell in waves over her white dress.

An angel of light coming through the open door of heaven could not have appeared more innocent and pure.

The Marshal de Retz turned towards his sister-in-law, and, with his eyes fixed upon hers and with the same pitiless chill in them, he said in a low tone, "Look at me."

The girl raised her eyes slowly, and, as it had been, reluctantly, and in them, instead of the meek calm of an angel, there appeared the terror and dismay of a lost soul that listens to its doom.

"Sybilla," hissed rather than spoke de Retz, "is it true that ever since by the lakeside of Carlinwark you met the Earl of Douglas you have deceived him and sought his doom?"

"I care not to hear the answer," said the young man, "even did I believe that which you by your power may compel her to say. Unfaith in another is not unfaith in me. I am bound to this lady in love and honour--aye, even unto death, if that be her will!"

"I have, indeed, deceived him!" replied the girl, slowly, the words seeming to be forced from her one by one.

"You hear, William of Douglas!" said the marshal, turning upon the young man, who stood still and motionless, never taking his eyes off the slender figure in white.

The marshal continued his pitiless questioning.

"At Castle Thrieve you persuaded him to follow you to Crichton and afterwards to Edinburgh, knowing well that you brought him to his death."

"It is true!" said the girl, with a voice like one speaking out of the grave itself.

"You hear, William of Douglas!" said the marshal.

"And at Castle Crichton you played the play to the end. With false cozening words you deceived this young man. You led him on with love on your lips and hate in your heart. You kissed him with the Judas kiss. You led his soul captive to death by the drawing of your eyes."

In a voice that could hardly be heard the girl replied, her whole figure fixed and turned to stone by the intensity of her tormentor's gaze.

_"I did these things! I am accursed!"_

The amba.s.sador turned with a fleering triumph.

"You hear, William of Douglas," he said, "you hear what your true love says!"

Then it was that, with the calm air and steady voice of a great gentleman, William Douglas answered, "I hear, but I do not believe."

A spasm of joy pa.s.sed over the countenance of the Lady Sybilla. She half sprang towards her lover as if to clasp him in her arms.

But in the midst, between intent and act, she restrained herself.

"No, I am not worthy," she said. And again, and lower, like a lamentation, "I am not worthy!"

Then, while all watched eagerly, the marshal rose from his seat to his full height.

"Girl--look at me!" he cried in a loud and terrible voice. But Sybilla did not seem to hear him.

She was looking at the Earl, and her eyes were great and grey and vague.

"Listen, my true lord, and then hate me if you will," she said; "listen, William of Douglas. Never before have I found in all the world one man true to the core. I did not believe that such an one lived. Hear this and then turn from me in loathing.

"For the sake of this man's life, forfeit ten times over" (she pointed, as she spoke, at the marshal), "to whom, by the powers of h.e.l.l, my soul is bound, I came at the bidding of the King of France and of this man, my master, to compa.s.s the destruction of the Earl of Douglas. Our King's son desired his duchy, and promised to this man pardon for his evil deeds. I came to satisfy them both. On my guilty head be the punishment. It is true that I cozened and led you on. It is true that at Castle Thrieve I deceived you, knowing well that which would happen. I knew to what you would follow me, and for the sake of the evil wrought by your fathers, I was glad. But afterwards at Crichton, when, in the woods by the waterside, I told you that I loved you, I did not lie. I did love you then. And by G.o.d's grace I do love you now--yea, before all men I declare it. Once for a season of glorious forgetting, all too brief, I was yours to love, now I am yours to hate and to despise. I tried to save you, but though you had my warning you would not go back or forget me. Now it is too late!"

As she spoke over the face of William Douglas there had come a glow--the red blood flooding up and routing the white determined pallor of his cheek.

"My lady," he answered her, gently, "be not grieved for a little thing that is past. That you love me truly is enough. I ask for no more, least of all for pity. I have not lived long. I have not had time allotted me wherein to do great things, but for your sake I can die as well as any! You have given me of your love, and of the flower thereof. I am glad. That you have loved me was my crown of life. Now it remains but to pay a little price soon paid, for a joy exceeding great."

But the Chancellor had had enough of this. He rose, and, stretching forth his hand towards the barrier, he said: "William of Douglas, you and your brother are condemned to instant death as enemies of the King and his ministers. Soldiers, do your duty. Lead them forth to the block!"