第9章 HOW THIS BOOK WAS WRITTEN,AND HOW NORMAN LESLIE FL

This other hellish art he had,by direct inspiration,as I hold,of his master Behemoth,that he could throw his voice whither he would,so that,in all seeming,it came from above,or from below,or from a corner of a room,fashioning it to resemble the voice of whom he would,yet none might see his lips move.With this craft he would affray the peasants about the fire in the little inns where we sometimes rested,when he would be telling tales of bogles and eldritch fantasies,and of fiends that rout and rap,and make the tables and firkins dance.Such art of speech,I am advised,is spoken of by St.Jerome,in his comment on the holy prophet the saint Isaiah,and they that use it he calls "ventriloqui,"in the Latin,or "belly-speakers,"and he takes an unfavourable sense of them and their doings.So much I have from the learned William de Boyis,Prior of Pluscarden,where now I write;with whom I have conversed of these matters privately,and he thinks this art a thing that men may learn by practice,without dealing in nigromancy and the black magic.This question I am content to leave,as is fitting,to the judgment of my superiors.And indeed,as at that time,Brother Thomas spake not in his belly except to make sport and affray the simple people,soon turning their fears to mirth.

Certainly the country folk never misdoubted him,the women for a holy man,the men for a good fellow;though all they of his own cloth shrank from him,and I have seen them cross themselves in his presence,but to no avail.He would say a word or two in their ears,and they straightway left the place where he might be.None the less,with his tales and arts,Brother Thomas commonly so wrought that we seldom slept "e la belle etoile"in that bitter spring weather,but we ordinarily had leave to lie by the hearth,and got a supper and a breakfast.The good peasants would find their hen-roosts the poorer often,for all that he could snap up was to him fortune of war.

I loved these manners little,but leave him I could not.His eye was ever on me;if I stirred in the night he was awake and watching me,and by day he never let me out of a bolt's flight.To cut the string of his wicked weapon was a thought often in my mind,but he was too vigilant.My face was his passport,he said;my face,indeed,being innocent enough,as was no shame to me,but an endless cause of mirth and mockery to him.Yet,by reason of the serviceableness of the man in that perilous country,and my constant surprise and wonder at what he did and said,and might do next (which no man could guess beforehand),and a kind of foolish pride in his very wickedness,so much beyond what I had ever dreamed of,and for pure fear of him also,I found myself following with him day by day,ever thinking to escape,and never escaping.

I have since deemed that,just as his wickedness was to a boy (for Iwas little more),a kind of charm,made up of a sort of admiring hate and fear,so my guilelessness (as it seemed to him)also wrought on him strangely.For in part it made sport for him to see my open mouth and staring eyes at the spectacle of his devilries,and in part he really hated me,and hated my very virtue of simplicity,which it was his desire and delight to surprise and corrupt.

On these strange terms,then,now drawn each to other,and now forced apart,we wended by Poictiers towards Chinon,where the Dauphin and his Court then lay.So we fared northwards,through Poitou,where we found evil news enough.For,walking into a village,we saw men,women,and children,all gathered,gaping about one that stood beside a horse nearly foundered,its legs thrust wide,its nostrils all foam and blood.The man,who seemed as weary as his horse,held a paper in his hands,which the priest of that parish took from him and read aloud to us.The rider was a royal messenger,one Thomas Scott of Easter Buccleuch,in Rankel Burn,whom I knew later,and his tidings were evil.The Dauphin bade his good towns know that,on the 12th of February,Sir John Stewart,constable of the Scottish forces in France,had fallen in battle at Rouvray,with very many of his company,and some Frenchmen.They had beset a convoy under Sir John Fastolf,that was bringing meat to the English leaguered about Orleans.But Fastolf had wholly routed them (by treachery,as we later learned of the Comte de Clermont),and Sir John Stewart,with his brother Sir William,were slain.

Wherefore the Dauphin bade the good towns send him money and men,or all was lost.

Such were the evil tidings,which put me in sore fear for my brother Robin,one that,in such an onfall,would go far,as beseemed his blood.But as touching his fortunes,Thomas Scott could tell me neither good nor bad,though he knew Robin,and gave him a good name for a stout man-at-arms.It was of some comfort to me to hear a Scots tongue;but,for the rest,I travelled on with a heavier heart,deeming that Orleans must indeed fall ere I could seek my brother in that town.