Great Britain -- History -- Tudors, 1485-1603 -- Fiction; Historical fiction
"And again in February there was a ship boy that went from Sunderland
with a white falcon his ship had brought from Hamboro’, for the Young
Lovell. Now, upon this voyage, this ship boy had conceived a great love
for that falcon even as boys will that upon ships are beaten by all and
conceive loves for dumb beasts. So that ship boy went pondering with
the white hawk and wondering and almost weeping to think that that
lording might be a cruel master to the falcon. For he loved that falcon
very well. So he was aware of a kind, fair lady with a white horse that
looked upon him as much as to say that the Young Lovell would be a
gentle and kind lord to that fowl. She was a great fair woman in a
German hood of black velvet—such a one as that ship boy had seen and, as
boys will, had conceived an ardent love for, in Hamboro’."
The monk Francis said: "Ah," and then he brought out the words: "Father
in God, I too have seen her—and twice. When I thought of the Young
Lovell."
Then the Bishop groaned lamentably; three times and very swiftly he
walked from end to end of the cell, holding his hands above his head.
Then he ran upon a shelf and with a furious haste pulled out a large
book bound in white skin. He threw it open upon his bed and bade the
monk come look at a picture.
This picture was all in fair blues and reds and greens, going across the
two pages of the book.
"I had this book in Rome," the Bishop said, "of a Greek called Josephus.
Look upon this picture."
The picture showed a mountain with trees upon it. And round the mountain
went a colonnade of marble pillars. In between the central columns,
where it was higher, sat a grey-bearded and frowning man. Naked he was
to the waist and he was upon a throne of gold. At his left hand was an
eagle; in his right the forked lightning of a thunderbolt. Beside him
stood a proud woman in purple with a diadem of gold. In the next temple
was a helmed woman that leaned upon a great spear; next her, a man all
furious, that held up a great round shield and a pointed sword. Over
against him reclined a great man with a lion’s hide who leant upon a
club; beyond him a man all white with the sun in his hair and beyond
that a youth with wings upon his feet, upon his cap and upon a rod,
twined with snakes that he held. All these were in the temple, and many
more, such as a woman in a chariot drawn by oxen, and an old crowned man
rising from the blue waves of the sea.
Then the Bishop laid his trembling imperious fingers upon a place higher
up the mountain, above the temple.
"Look upon this," he said. There, amongst olive trees, the monk
perceived a pink, naked woman. In one hand she held a mirror into
which, lasciviously, she smiled. Her other hand held out behind her a
wealth of shining hair like gold. Above her, clouds upon the blue sky
turned over and let down a rain of pink roseleaves.
"I do not know who these be," the monk Francis said. "I was never in
Rome."
Then the Bishop said harshly:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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