Leatherface: A Tale of Old Flanders

"Not till yesterday, noble lady … not till the men spoke of it and said that the mysterious Leatherface was the leader of the rebels … and that he was the son of the High-Bailiff of Ghent, Messire Mark van Rycke…"

"Thou didst know him, too, then as Leatherface?"

"Aye, noble lady," said Grete quietly, "he saved my life and my sister's. I would give mine to save him now."

"Saved thy life? How? When?"

"Only a few days ago, noble lady," murmured the child, speaking with a great effort at self-control. The recollection of that awful night brought fresh terror to her heart.

But Lenora's brows contracted now in puzzlement. A few days ago? Mark was courting her then…

"I do not understand," she said impatiently, "a few days ago Leatherface … Messire Mark van Rycke … was in Ghent … I was betrothed to him on the seventh day of this month…"

"And 'tis on that night he saved my life … and Katrine's … aye! and saved us from worse than death…"

She paused abruptly; her round, young cheeks lost their last vestige of colour, her eyes their clear, childlike look. She cast a quick, furtive glance on Lenora as if she were, afraid. But Lenora was unconscious of this change in the girl's manner, her very senses seemed to be on the alert, hanging upon the peasant girl's lips… The night of her betrothal was the night on which Ramon was murdered … the tavern of the "Three Weavers" was the place where he was found. This girl then knew something of that awesome occurrence, which, despite outside assurances, had remained vaguely puzzling to Lenora's mind. Now she would hear and know, and her very heart seemed to stand still as her mind appeared to be waiting upon the threshold of a mystery which was interwoven with her whole life, and with her every hope of peace.

"But what?" she queried with agonised impatience. "Speak, girl! Canst not see that I only live to hear?"

"Our father was taken," said Grete quietly, "he was hanged eight days ago."

"Hanged?" exclaimed Lenora, horror-struck. "Why? What had he done?"

"He was of the Protestant faith … and…"

Lenora made no comment, and the girl wiped her eyes, which had filled with tears.

"Thou and Katrine were spared?" asked Lenora, after awhile.

"We were spared at the time," said Grete, "but I suppose," she added with quaint philosophy, "we remained objects of suspicion. The soldiers would often be very rough with us, and upon the seventh day of October the commanding Spanish officer in Ghent…"

Once more she paused timidly, fear of having said too much, fighting with the childish love to retail her woes, and pour her interesting story into sympathetic ears.

"Well?" queried Lenora, more impatiently, "go on, child. What did the commanding Spanish officer in Ghent do to thee on the seventh day of October?"

But at this Grete burst into a flood of tears. The events were so recent, and the shock of horror and of fear had been so terrible at the time, that the recollection of it all still had the power to unnerve her. Lenora, whose own nerves were cruelly on the rack at this moment, had much ado to keep her impatience in check. After a few moments Grete became more calm, and dried her eyes.

"There was a big to-do at the Town House," she said more quietly, "and the whole city was gaily decorated. The apprentices had a holiday in the evening. They were very hilarious, and so were the soldiers."

"Well? And-"

"The soldiers came to the 'Three Weavers.' They had been drinking heavily, and were very rough. The commanding Spanish officer came in late in the evening… He encouraged the soldiers to drink, and to … to make fun of us … of Katrine and of me… We were all alone in the house, and we were very frightened. The Spanish officer ordered Katrine to wait on the soldiers, then he made me go with him to a private room…"

The tears were once more very near the surface, and a hot blush of shame for all that she had had to endure overspread Grete's face and neck.

"Go on, child," queried Lenora. "What happened after that?"

"The Spanish officer was very cruel to me, noble lady. I think he would have killed me, and I am sure the soldiers were very cruel to Katrine… Oh! it was horrible! horrible!" she cried, "and we were quite alone and helpless…"

"Yes. I know that," said Lenora, and even to herself her own voice sounded curiously dull and toneless; "but tell me what happened."

"I was crouching in a corner of the room, noble lady. My back ached terribly, for I had been thrown across the table, and I thought my spine must be broken-my wrists, too, were very painful where the noble officer had held them so tightly. I was half wild with terror, for I did not know what would become of me. Then the door opened, and a man came in. Oh! I was dreadfully frightened. He was very tall and very thin, like a dark wraith, and over his face he had a mask. And he spoke kindly to me-and after awhile I was less frightened-and then he told me just what to do, how to find Katrine, to take some money and run away to our kinswoman who lives in Dendermonde. I thought then that he was no wraith…" continued Grete in an awestruck whisper, "but just one of the archangels. For they do appear in curious disguises sometimes … he saved my life and Katrine's, and more than life, noble lady," added the girl with a note of dignity in her tone, which sat quaintly upon her timid little person, "do you not think that it was God who sent him to protect two innocent girls from the cruelty of those wicked men?"

"Yes; I think so, child," said Lenora quietly. "But, tell me, dost know what happened after that?"

"No, lady, I do not. I went to look for Katrine, just as the stranger ordered me to do. But," she added under her breath, and still under the spell of past terrors, "we heard afterwards through Pierre Beauters, the butcher, that the noble seignior commandant was found killed that same night in the tavern of the 'Three Weavers.' The provost found him lying dead in the same room where the archangel had appeared."

"Stabbed, child, didst thou say?"

"No, noble lady. The provost told Pierre Beauters that the noble Spanish commandant had been felled by mighty hands in a hand-to-hand fight; he had no wound on him, only the marks of powerful fingers round his throat. But his own dagger, they say, was covered in blood. Pierre Beauters helped to place the body in the coffin, and he said that the noble Spanish commandant had been killed in fair fight-a fight with fists, and not with swords. He also said that the stranger who killed him was the mysterious Leatherface, of whom we hear so much, and that, mayhap, we should never hear of him again, for the Spanish commandant must have wounded him to death … the dagger was covered with blood almost to the hilt. But," concluded Grete, with a knowing little nod of the head, "this I did not believe at the time, and now I know that it was not so; the stranger may not have been one of the archangels, but truly he was a messenger of God. When the noble lady brought me back with her to Ghent I heard the men talking about the mysterious Leatherface. Then the day before yesterday when the cavalrymen flew helter-skelter into the castle-yard, they still talked loudly of Leatherface; but I guessed then that he was not a real archangel, but just a brave man who protects the weak, and fights for justice, and…"

She paused, terrified at what she had said. Ignorant as she was, she knew well enough that the few last words which she had uttered had caused men and women to be burned at the stake before now. Wide-eyed and full of fear she looked on the noble Spanish lady, expecting every moment to see a commanding finger pointed on her, and orders given for her immediate arrest.

Instead of which she saw before her a pale, slim girl scarce older than herself, and infinitely more pathetic, just a young and beautiful woman with pale face and eyes swimming in tears, whose whole attitude just expressed an immense and overwhelming grief.

The veil of mystery which had hung over Ramon's death had indeed been lifted at last by the rough, uncouth hands of the innkeeper's daughter. Lenora as yet hardly dared to look into the vista which it opened up before her: boundless remorse, utter hopelessness, the dreary sense of the irreparable-all that lay beyond the present stunning blow of this terrible revelation.

God in Heaven! she cried out mutely in her misery, how could she ever have thought-even for a moment-that those grey eyes, so merry and yet so tender-could mask a treacherous and cowardly soul? How could she think that those lips which so earnestly pleaded for a kiss could ever have been framed to hide a lying tongue? Would to God that she could still persuade herself that all this new revelation was a dream; that Grete-the unsophisticated child-had lied and concocted the whole story to further some hidden schemes of her own! Would to God she could still believe that Mark was vile and false-an assassin and a perjurer-and that she could hate him still!

She met Grete's eyes fixed so fearfully upon hers-she met them at the moment when she was about to give herself over to the transient happiness of a brief day-dream … dreams of two unforgettable hours when he sat beside her with his hand shading his face … his eyes resting upon her … dreams of his voice when he said: "When I look at you, Madonna, I invariably think of happiness."

IV

But Grete recalled her to herself, and to the awful present. Despite her great respect for the noble Spanish lady, she suddenly put her arms round her shoulders, and tried to draw her away from the open window.

"His Highness!" she whispered hurriedly, "he will see us."

"What matters, child," murmured Lenora, "he will not harm us."

Instinctively, however, she did yield to Grete's insistence and drew back slightly from the window. From the balcony down below there came the sound of measured tramping. Two or three men were walking there slowly up and down and talking confidentially together while they walked. Whenever they were close to the window their voices came up quite distinctly, but it was impossible to hear all that they said, but one or two disjointed sentences gave a faint clue to the subject of their conversation. Lenora now leaned closer to the window-frame trying to hear, for she had recognised her father's voice as well as that of the Duke of Alva, and they were speaking of their future plans against the rebels and against the city, and Lenora felt that she would give her life to know what those plans were.

After a moment or two she heard the voice of Captain de Avila; he was apparently coming up the iron stairs from the yard and was speaking hurriedly:

"A runner, your Highness," he said, "straight from Dendermonde."

"What news?" queried the Duke, and his voice sounded almost choked as if with fierce impatience.

"One of Captain Lodrono's messengers reached Dendermonde last night," replied de Avila, "he was lucky enough to get a horse almost at once."

"Well…? and…?"

"This man came running straight back to bring us the news! Captain Bracamonte started at break of day: he should be well on his way with the reinforcements by now."

There was a hoarse exclamation of satisfaction and a confused murmur of voices for a moment or two. Then de Vargas spoke:

"It was a bold venture, Monseigneur," he said.

"This truce, you mean?" retorted Alva. "Well! not quite so bold as it appeared. Those Netherlanders are such mighty fools that it is always easy to make them believe anything that we choose to tell them: do they not always fall into our traps? I had only to swear by my immortal soul that we had not sent for reinforcements and the last of their resistance was overcome."