Chapter XXV
John Falconer of Badger Hill was too shrewd a gentleman to betray himself or his affairs to the lurkers whom John Rich had left in the woods to watch him. Falconer made no stir about the place, left his men working in the fields, and kept his own counsel.
“If the dogs have been busy about here,” he said to himself, “we will give them no cause to hunt us. There are other parts of the Forest where men can muster and march to help Mellis Dale.”
Yet he was much troubled about Mellis, and what might have happened at Woodmere in her absence. Roger Bland’s men might have seized the place and made it a trap for her. John Falconer had no faith in any runaway monk, even though he happened to be old Valliant’s son.
When night came he went quietly to the stable with a wallet full of food, saddled and bridled his horse, and rode out by the way of the pine woods. The moon would not be up for an hour; the woods were dark as a pit; he saw nothing of Rich’s men, nor did they see anything of him. When he was well away from Badger Hill, John Falconer tied up his horse and sat down to wait for the moon.
Old forester though he was, Falconer missed his way that night, and the sun had been up an hour before he reached the hills above Woodmere Vale. Martin Valliant had been up and stirring before the dawn, for love and his harness had left him but little sleep.
Mellis had taken the watch, and had bidden him unbuckle his harness and sleep in the upper room; but Martin had refused to take off his breast and back-plates, gorget and cuishes, lest Roger Bland’s men should try to steal into the place at night and catch him unprepared.
“When your friends rally here,” he had said, “then I can rest out of this iron skin.”
He was minded to better his footbridge, and broaden it with two lighter pieces of planking so that a horse could be brought across. His forethought proved prophetic, for when the first grayness of the dawn spread over the valley he saw three horses quietly cropping the grass not fifty yards from the bridge-head. One of them was Swartz’s roan; the others had been lost by the five men in the flurry of their flight.
Swartz’s roan seemed to be a companionable beast. He came down to the bridge-head, and stood there whinnying and watching Martin at his work. He was still saddled and bridled, as were his two comrades who went on cropping the grass.
Martin Valliant looked at Swartz’s horse as he had never looked at a horse before. The creature had a new meaning for him; it was no ambling pad, no fat palfrey, but a beast built to carry a man to battle, one of the strong things of the earth whose strength had to be mastered. Martin left his bridge-building for something more knightly. He wanted to ride Swartz’s horse, to feel himself astride of that brown body, to know himself the creature’s master.
The roan seemed as ready as Martin Valliant. He was playful, full of zest, and went off at a canter directly Martin was in the saddle. But the man was the lord. He made the beast drop to a trot, and then worked him to a gallop over the dew-wet grasslands between the water and the woods.
So when John Falconer came to the edge of the beech wood he saw a young man in half armor galloping a horse furiously up and down the valley, and handling him like no novice. Horse and man were in excellent temper, the one delighting in riding, the other in being ridden.
John Falconer kept himself in the shade, and looked down on Woodmere. He noticed the two horses feeding by the mere, that the bridge was down and the gate open, and for the moment he had good cause to fear that the Lord of Troy’s men had taken the place, and that this galloper on the horse was one of them. Then he saw a woman appear on the leads of the tower, and knew her to be Mellis.
She watched Martin Valliant and the roan horse, and waved a hand to him as he came cantering back from the lower end of the valley. Falconer tugged at his beard with thumb and forefinger.
“So this is our outlaw monk! The fellow has learned to sit a horse.”
He rode out from the beech wood, and the two horses converged upon the bridge, Martin feeling for his sword and calling himself a fool for galloping about unarmed, with the bridge down and the gate open.
He saw Mellis waving a scarf at the new-comer, and guessed that all was well. Falconer had reined in by the bridge-head and was waiting for the man on the roan horse. The master of Badger Hill had a shrewd eye for the shape of a man, the color of his eyes, and the set of his head. He could look inwards, judge without favor; and though he had no desire to be pleased, Martin Valliant pleased him.
These two men stared into each other’s eyes with a certain searching and haughty curiosity.
“So this is Roger Valliant’s son? You are overtrustful, young man, to go galloping up and down with that gate open. Had I been an enemy, I could have put a shaft into you.”
Martin flushed.
“I have called myself a fool for it,” he said bluntly, “but the horse came and whinnied at me, and I had to ride him.”
“Then it is no horse of yours?”
“No, Peter Swartz’s.”
“Peter Swartz’s! Such a tale hangs crooked!”
“He is wounded and a prisoner.”
Then Mellis came out to them with eyes that smiled at old Falconer’s grim and puzzled face. He had to be told everything, how Martin had fought with Peter Swartz and his men, beaten them, and taken Swartz prisoner. And still John Falconer was not pleased. He had ridden out with a fixed distrust of Martin Valliant in his heart, and being an obstinate and dogged gentleman, he was in no hurry to surrender his distrust. Martin had tied up Swartz’s horse and gone back to his bridge-building.
“Very pretty—very pretty. But the fat’s in the fire, thanks to our champion’s valor. ’Twould have been almost better to have played fox and let them have the place.”
“And what would you have said of Martin Valliant if he had made no fight for it?”
“Praised his cunning, no doubt!”
“No; you would have called him a coward and a traitor.”
She was smiling, but there was a glitter of hot partisanship in her eyes, and she was ready to stand by her man and speak for him.
“This is not like you, John Falconer, to quibble and sneer!”
“Mistress, when our heads depend on the adventure, our wits are apt to fly out hot-temperedly. Nor am I pleased that we should owe yonder fellow a service.”
“Then men are less generous than women. Why, I owe life and more to that man; I have taken his vows from him, made of him a murderer in the eyes of the law. Before he saw me—before I blundered into his life—he was God’s man, with nothing to fear in the whole world. To-morrow he might hang, because the blood in him was generous.”
Falconer looked like an old dog who was trying to take his scolding without a blink of the eyes. He knew that Mellis was in the right, and that it was his own heart that grudged Martin her gratitude.
“Well, well, he will either hang or be knighted. Nor have we any leisure to stand arguing here. I could bring no men with me, for my place is watched.”
“Roger Bland is wise by now.”
“That’s the devil of it. We must get a garrison for Woodmere as soon as we may. Young Blount can call two or three score fellows together with good speed. You and I had better ride at once to Bloody Rood. Your face will count with young Nigel.”
She gave him a shrewd look.
“And trust Woodmere to Martin Valliant? He is not so poor a comrade, after all!”
“I spoke hastily. The lad has brave eyes. We can trust him.”
“To the death.”
So Martin Valliant was left to hold Woodmere, while Mellis mounted her horse and rode with John Falconer to Bloody Rood.
Men called young Blount “Sir Nigel Head-in-air.” He was a dark, hawk-faced stripling, very passionate and headstrong, vain, quarrelsome, the fool of any woman who could use her eyes. John Falconer would never have chosen such a fellow as a comrade, but the Blounts had a strong following and had to be considered. Moreover, young Nigel would be ready to gallop on any wild adventure; he had impudence and courage and a sense of his own splendor. Men were wanted at Woodmere. Nigel Blount could be packed off with Mellis to temper his recklessness, while he, John Falconer, went about to raise the Forest.
The morning proved propitious. They found Sir Nigel in the midst of his hounds and his men, ready to start out after a fine hart that had been spotted by his trackers. He was mounted on a black Arab, and his colors were crimson and green. He looked sulky when he saw John Falconer, but Mellis’s face put him in a different humor.
“A good day’s hunting spoiled, lording!”
“And well spoiled in such a service.”
He was ready to tumble into his harness and ride out as Mellis’s champion almost before John Falconer had said all he had to say.
“Nothing but a scurvy hedge priest left at Woodmere! Heart of Heaven, but that shall be altered. Leave Woodmere to me, sir.”
The hounds were sent back to the kennels. Young Blount had jacks and steel caps for some of his men, and a score or so bills and boar spears. The men took their bows with them. He mustered eighteen followers, a force that was strong enough to hold Woodmere till the Forest rose in arms.
John Falconer took Mellis aside.
“Watch that young jay. He screams too much. Remember to make him obey you. It should be easy.”
She knew how to queen it over young firebrands like Nigel Blount.
“I shall rule him, John, with one finger. And now, good-by. Woodmere waits for us.”
Chapter XXVI
Five men rode up to the gate of Troy Castle just as the sun was setting in a flare of yellow behind the black towers. These five gentlemen were a little ashamed of themselves, and had dressed up a tale between them to show to the Lord of Troy. Peter Swartz was dead and could not kick their scarecrow to pieces. That devil of a fellow in white harness bulked bigger and bigger in the romance, cutting men in two with one sweep of the sword, and tossing Swartz like a puppy dog into the moat.
“We have run, gossips, and there must be a reason for it, or we shall be damned.”
Their unanimity was admirable. My Lord of Troy owed them six months’ pay, a shrewd way he had of keeping men at his heels, but he did not concern himself with cowards. These five dogs knew better than to run home with their tails between their legs.
Roger Bland was at supper, a noble function in which all stateliness was properly and finely considered. He had a love of taking his meals in public, of playing at pageantry even among the plates. His wealth showed itself in his gold cups and dishes, his tapestries and dorsers, his linen and silver, the musicians, their coats of blue and green, his crowd of serving men, the profusion of food. All this peacocking had a purpose. Men’s senses are conquered and led into subjection by the pomps that paint a picture of power.
Fulk de Lisle had returned and brought in the bodies of Vance and the archer. Rich and his men were back from Badger Hill. Neither of these captains had caught much; the Forest did not lightly surrender its secrets.
Meanwhile those five fugitive worthies had chosen a player and spokesman, a little Welshman with much language and fiery eyes. He was to tell their tale of the attack on Woodmere to Roger Bland, and dress up a few picturesque lies to give the tale a greater appearance of reality.
The news of their coming was brought to my Lord of Troy as he sat at the high table. The page who brought the news had been listening to the Welshman filling the guard-room with sound and fury.
“These fellows say, my lord, that Swartz is dead, and five more with him, and that they were beaten by one man.”
My lord was cracking nuts, and picking them out of their shells with precise indifference.
“Who are the men, Ralph?”
It was De Lisle who asked the question.
“Morgan the Welshman, Part, and Simonsby, and fat Horner, and one more.”
De Lisle laughed, and nodded at Roger Bland.
“I could have named the men, my lord; spunkless rogues all of them. Morgan would lie the hoofs off Satan.”
My Lord of Troy went on cracking nuts.
“Ralph.”
“My lord?”
“Bring the men in here, all of them, and let them line up in front of my table.”
He was obeyed. The five bold “blades” found themselves standing in a row, while Roger Bland ate his nuts, and looked at them as though they were cattle to be judged. He did not speak, and the five tried not to fidget.
“Question these fellows for me, Sir Fulk de Lisle.”
“My lord, with pleasure.”
And Fulk de Lisle thrust the bright blade of truth into the belly of their invention.
“So you ran away, my friends?”
They denied it, Morgan the Welshman leading the chorus.
“Then, how is it that you are here?”
Roger Bland smiled like a cynical old priest listening to a confession.
“A very presentable question, sir. Let me amplify it. You found people at Woodmere, Morgan?”
The Welshman tried to get his imagination into its stride, but my lord would not let him gallop.
“You saw no more than one man?”
“A giant, sir, a devil of a fellow in white harness, plated from poll to toes.”
“Ah, a paladin! You say that he killed Swartz and five more?”
“He was like an iron bull, my lord.”
“And so you ran away! Yes, yes—I have no patience to waste, fool, on your paltry lies. You saw nothing of a woman?”
“Nothing, my lord.”
“Very well. Out with you—out of my sight! Master Rich, come here to me.”
The five slouched out, and John Rich, who was sitting at the far end of the dais table, came and stood behind Roger Bland’s chair.
“My lord?”
“Ah, Master Rich, bend your head nearer. You will take thirty men and such gear as you need, and ride at dawn. I must have this fabulous fellow in white harness. See to it that he does not frighten you all.”
Rich grinned.
“It shall be done, my lord.”
“Man, let it be done. I am beginning to be angry.”
Five minutes later my Lord of Troy took a last sip of sweet wine, washed his hands in perfumed water, and went to his closet. Fulk de Lisle followed at his heels, smiling humorously at the great man’s back.
“Fulk de Lisle.”
“My dear lord?”
“Is there more in this, think you, than meets the eye?”
“The slaying of Vance, sir, was very natural, and I take it that Swartz fell by the same hand. This bastard priest is something of an enigma. How did he come by armor and a sword? Such things do not grow in the Forest.”
Roger Bland’s pale eyelids seemed to flicker.
“We must see the end and bottom of this affair. I have given John Rich the adventure; I give you John Rich. Is that plain to you?”
“Most plain, my lord.”
“See that this business is carried through. I want the Forest’s secret—if it is keeping a secret. I care not how it is come by.”
Fulk de Lisle bowed.
“You have a spacious way, my lord, of sending a gentleman upon your business. We are not cramped and hindered by little abominations of the law. It is an honor to serve you.”
And he went out with the air of a man who knew himself to be shrewder than his master.
Such were the preparations that were maturing at Troy Castle on the night after Martin Valliant’s defeat of Swartz and his men. John Rich took the road next morning, while Martin was improving his footbridge, and Mellis was chastening the hot vanities of young Nigel Blount. Martin had brought the three horses over the mere, stabled them in the old dining hall, pulled up the bridge and shut the gate. He took life with great seriousness, but his heart was full of a new song.
Martin was shaping a new oak bar for the garden postern when Peter Swartz came out of the orchard for a gossip. He had slept passably and eaten better, though his legs were none too steady under him.
He squatted on the grass, and watched Martin with a friendly glint in his eyes.
“My noddle still simmers like a boiling pot. What happens to-day, brother?”
“What God wills.”
Swartz looked at him intently.
“Fine philosophy, Martin Valliant, but God may leave a man with a noose about his neck. You would say that this is no affair of mine, nor is it, save that I have no lust for a man’s blood, or to see him kicking at the end of a rope. The Forest would be healthier than this sweet island.”
Martin stood idle, the bill hanging in his hand.
“I am here to serve,” he said.
“My friend, you have drunk of the magic cup. A man might wound you, and you would hardly feel it. But my Lord of Troy is no child of dreams. You are but a rat—to be sniffed out by terriers.”
“I am not alone.”
“Thunder—that’s where the trouble lies. This child with the eyes of midnight wonder——”
He shook his fist at Martin.
“No frowns, no haughtiness, good comrade. Is she too miraculous to be spoken of by my lips? Why, by all the devils, have I no heart in me, and no liking for the gallant splendor of youth? You will be attacked to-day, not with ten men, but with fifty.”
Martin answered him bluntly.
“She has gone for help. We are not alone.”
He stared down at Swartz, and Swartz’s eyes met his without flinching.
“So—that is the game! I guessed it. There is the color of a red rose in all this.”
“Guess what you please.”
“A Richmond—a Richmond! The Forest is stirring with the wind, eh? And I am Peter Noside for the moment. Yes, and let me tell you one thing, Martin Valliant, your friends will need to hurry if they are to make this place good. There are cannon at Raychester. Oh, this great and happy madness!”
He rose up, and walked to and fro.
“What an old fool I am, but I could change sides to get a blow at my dear master. Why must some of us always rush to help the man who has his back against the wall? Hallo—hallo!”
Shrill and clear came the scream of a trumpet from the valley. Martin Valliant and Peter Swartz stood looking at each other.
“Troy, by God! And a summons. What did I tell you, comrade?”
Martin dropped the billhook and took his sword, that was leaning against the wall. He stared hard at Swartz, as though to read the man’s soul.
Swartz smiled at him.
“No, I shall not stab you in the back, man; have no fear. Let us go up on the tower and look at the country.”
He followed Martin to the leads, but did not show himself above the wall. Martin was scanning the valley.
“What do you see, brother?”
“A man on a white horse with a green banner, and on it a silver key. There is another man with a trumpet.”
“Troy. What else?”
“A knight in black harness, on a black horse.”
“That would be John Rich. Nothing more?”
“There is a shining of something, back in the beech wood.”
“Steel, man, steel.”
The trumpeter blew a second blast, and John Rich and his banner-bearer rode down nearer to the water. They were scanning the island, and had sighted Martin on the tower.
“A summons, Greenshield.”
“I have nothing to say to them.”
“Then say nothing. They will take to other music.”
Swartz, raising his head to look, saw John Rich turn his horse and ride back slowly to the beech wood, followed by his trumpeter and the man who carried my Lord of Troy’s banner.
“Ha, the old fox! John Rich takes his time. You will not see until you do see.”
An hour passed, and nothing happened. The beech wood looked black, mysterious, and inscrutable, while Martin stood to arms upon the tower, feeling that the wood above was full of eyes that watched and waited. Swartz had grown restless. His heart was taking sides in the adventure.
“What is the old fox at? I mislike this silence.”
Suddenly he heard Martin Valliant give a strange, sharp cry.
“Look!”
He stood rigid, his eyes shining like glass in the sunlight, his forehead all knotted up.
Swartz looked over the battlements, and uttered a robust and honest oath.
“What damnable fool is that?”
Away down the valley young Nigel Blount and Mellis had ridden out from the woods and were crossing the open grassland toward the mere, with Nigel’s men straggling as they pleased half a furlong behind them. Young Blount was riding gallantly enough, making his horse cut capers, while he showed what manner of man he was in the saddle. His men were laughing and talking, their bows unstrung, not one of them troubling to keep watch.
“Peacock! Ape! Shout, man, shout! There is a trap set here, if I am not much mistaken.”
Martin raised his sword, and flashed it to and fro. He saw Mellis draw rein, and knew that her eyes were on him. He pointed toward the beech wood, but even if she understood his warning it came too late.
Chapter XXVII
The beech wood filled with sudden movement, and its blackness was like a storm cloud sending out a vague and hollow muttering. Dark shapes came hurrying out of the gloom beyond the gray trunks, the shapes of men and horses that took on color, fierceness, life. There was the rattle of harness, the flashing of steel. John Rich and his riders came out at the gallop.
A piece of tapestry seemed unrolled, so swiftly did things happen. The very power of movement was taken away from Martin Valliant. He saw all that passed as though it were in a dream, the black figure of John Rich and his horse going at the gallop with spear leveled, the men behind him strung out in a half circle and all rushing like the wind. There was Mellis’s white face, helpless, hesitating, like a piece of apple blossom floating on the blackness of a pool. Young Nigel Blount, sword in air, was shouting to his men, who had turned tail and were running for the shelter of the woods. Then Rich’s spear smote right through Nigel Blount’s body. Martin heard the lad’s scream, saw him twist like a puppet on a wire, and tumble backwards, dragging the point of Rich’s spear to the ground. The riders swept around Mellis; she seemed to sink out of sight in the thick of the crowd.
Martin Valliant awoke. He uttered a great cry, and rushed toward the little turret where the stairway opened upon the leads. As he reached it Peter Swartz caught him by the sword belt.
“Stay, you fool!”
Martin tried to thrust him off, but Swartz kept his hold.
“No, no, my friend, knock my teeth out if it pleases you, but if your head’s on fire mine had better do the thinking.”
“Let go, man.”
“And see you rush out there and be ridden down and spitted like that poor popinjay! Thirty to one are heavy odds, Martin Valliant.”
“Let go, curse you.”
“And hold on, say I. Listen to reason, man, and use your wits. You’ll not help that girl by getting yourself killed.”
“The strength of God is in me.”
“And the brains of a sheep! The game is not lost and won yet, but it will be if you go rushing out like a mad bull. Cunning, man—cunning and patience.”
Martin stood irresolute, his eyes full of wrath and yearning.
“If I must die, I’ll die now, Swartz.”
“Oh, good fool, set your teeth and bide your time! It is no time for dying. What use would a dead man be to the child out yonder? Set your teeth, Martin Valliant; play the grim dog who can watch and wait.”
He laid his arm across Martin’s shoulders and drew him aside.
“Why, man, I’m with you, and you will thank me to-morrow for this. And here are we squabbling and scuffling when we should be watching like hawks. Come—we must match John Rich for cunning.”
Martin Valliant surrendered, but he covered his face with his sword-arm and stood shaking like a man with the ague.
Meanwhile John Rich was riding back at his leisure, the bridle of Mellis’s horse over his wrist. Ten of his men had gone in pursuit of the foresters from Bloody Rood, and two more had dismounted, taken young Blount’s body by the heels, and were dragging it down to the mere. John Rich brought his horse close to the bridge-head, and his trumpeter blew a summons.
“A parley, Valliant.”
Martin straightened himself, with a sudden shining of the eyes. He saw Mellis sitting her horse beside John Rich, pale, motionless, tragically calm. She looked up toward the tower, and Martin fancied that she smiled; he felt that his heart would break for her.
“If they would take me and let her go!”
Swartz scoffed at his madness.
“My Lord of Troy is no honey-pot, to catch flies and let them escape as they please. Have nothing to say to John Rich; let him blow his trumpet till the fellow’s cheeks burst.”
Martin stood forward, resting his hands on the pommel of his sword. John Rich hailed him.
“Hallo, there! Come down and open the gate. The game is played out.”
Martin Valliant’s eyes were fixed on Mellis’s face. He was wondering whether she despised him for not rushing out to strike a blow for her—whether she thought him a coward. Swartz had crouched down behind the wall, and was watching Martin narrowly.
“Steady, brother. That child has brave eyes and a fine heart. She will understand. Tell Rich to go to the devil.”
Martin stood like a statue, and Rich bellowed again:
“Have done with this fooling. Will you give us the place, or are we to take it?”
Martin was waiting for something, and that something came. He saw Mellis raise her head proudly; he saw her mouth open; her voice reached out to him across the water:
“Stand fast, Martin Valliant!”
He raised the cross of his sword and kissed it as a sign to her.
“To the death!” he called to her.
And John Rich, accepting the defiance, turned his horse and rode back with Mellis to the beech wood.
Now John Rich was a man of method. He posted a guard of ten men to cover the bridge, and two more to patrol the banks of the mere. The rest disappeared into the woods, shed their harness, and took to ax and saw, for John Rich had brought a tumbril laden with ropes, a ladder, tools, balks of timber, and such-like gear from Troy Castle. The matter was to be undertaken stolidly and with thoroughness. He set his men at building a couple of rafts or floats that could be dragged down to the mere after dark. Half his party would pole themselves over to attack the house, while the rest held the causeway.
Martin kept watch upon the tower, and Swartz remained with him out of a new-born spirit of comradeship. A great restlessness tormented Martin Valliant. He could no longer see his love, nor guess what might have befallen her, and his soul suffered in a lover’s purgatory. All the past years had been blotted out; he had lived just seven days since this woman had come into his life, with those eyes of hers dark as the forest and her lips red as the rose. Great storms of tenderness and wrath swept through him. He was tortured by vivid memories of her, flashes of her that hurt his soul, the miraculous way her dark eyes would fill with golden lights, her plaintive look when she was sad, the little dimple in her cheek, the way her lips moved, the shape of her fingers, the curve of her chin, the falling of her dark hair over her ears. These vivid flashes of her intoxicated, maddened him. He wanted to pour himself out, die for her, spend his great love, and make her feel it.
Swartz watched Martin closely as he went restlessly to and fro, or stood and stared at the beech wood as though it held both heaven and hell.
“Patience, brother.”
Martin turned on him with furious eyes.
“Patience! Man, man, I burn—I burn!”
“Keep your torch alight; there is no harm in it. With the night will come your hope.”
“Night?”
“Things may be done by a desperate man at night.”
“True. I can swim the moat.”
He stood and brooded with a face that spelled death for some one. His love and his helplessness scorched him like flame. He could have choked Swartz for telling him to wait, though in his heart he knew that Swartz was right.
Sometimes he would start, fancying that he had heard Mellis calling to him:
“Martin—Martin Valliant!”
He would turn on Swartz:
“Did you hear?”
“Nothing, my son—nothing.”
Swartz was laconic, implacable. He had made himself a little peephole by loosening some of the stones with his dagger and levering them out. This squint of his commanded the beech wood, and he watched it like a dog waiting for a rat.
“Thunder!”
Martin turned and saw him kneeling with his eye close to the hole. His lips were stretched tight over his teeth.
“Are you behind me, man? What do you see?”
Martin faced sharply toward the beech wood. A man had ridden out from the shade—a man in a red doublet slashed and puffed with blue, a red hat on his head, his legs and thighs cased in white armor. He was a very tall man, and he sat his horse with a certain swaggering grace. In his right hand he carried a light switch.
Swartz spat hate at him.
“Hell hound, swaggerer, bully.”
Martin looked puzzled.
“I have not seen that fellow before.”
“And I have seen him too often. What, you have lived in these parts and know not Messire Fulk de Lisle?”
Martin’s forehead wrinkled itself.
“Fulk de Lisle! A great gentleman in my Lord of Troy’s service.”
“A great gentleman! God help you, Martin Valliant, and God help— Enough. This clinches it. I have often itched to cut that man’s throat, though I have served with him.”
Martin Valliant’s eyes filled with a sudden fury of understanding.
“Why is he here?”
“To play any devil’s trick that pleases him. You do not know Messire Fulk de Lisle. Rich is a saint beside him. The debonair, filthy, malicious devil! Why, I could tell you— Oh! to hell with the beast!”
He twisted around and looked up into Martin Valliant’s face.
“Man, can you stand torture?”
“Speak out!”
“Supposing he brings the child—and tries to break you by—shaming her?”
Martin’s face was like a white flame.
“God! It’s beyond belief! Why should he?”
Swartz grimaced.
“Because he is Fulk de Lisle; because he has a foul cleverness and a liking for such things. My Lord of Troy would laugh at such a comedy. God and the Saints, I wonder now why I have lived with such men!”
Chapter XXVIII
Mellis lay in a patch of young bracken in a little glade among the beech trees. They had tied her feet together, but left her hands free, after searching her and taking away her poniard. Five paces away a man stood on guard—a man with the beard of a goat and stupid eyes hard as gray stones out of a brook.
Mellis lay very still, the fronds of the fern arching over her and throwing little flecks of shadow on her face. But though her bosom hardly betrayed her breathing, and her hands lay motionless among the bracken stems, all that was quick and vital in her lived in her eyes. The pupils were big and black and sensitive with fear, wild, tremulous eyes in a white and anguished face.
For a great fear gripped her—the nameless, instinctive fear of the wild creature caught in a trap, where struggling is of no avail. She waited, listened, counted the beats of her own heart, closed her eyes at times so that she might not see the imbecile face of the man who guarded her. But even a moment’s blindness quickened her fear, her quivering dread of what might happen.
She was snared, helpless, and felt a great hand ready to close over her. The violence of young Nigel’s death had shocked her horribly. She could not get the vision of the poor fool out of her head; he was still screaming and writhing on Rich’s spear. The patches of blue sky between the trees seemed hard as steel; there was no softness in the sunlight on the bracken.
“Martin—Martin Valliant!”
She mouthed his name, but without sound. Her fingers quivered; she drew her breath with a deep, pleading misery. Her hands and her soul reached out to him; he seemed the one strong and loyal thing left her in the beginnings of her despair. For her despair was very real and no piece of cowardice; she had no illusions as to the temper of the men who served the Lord of Troy.
It was not death she feared so much as that other—nameless thing. She was herself as yet, clean, pure, virginal, and a man loved her. And even as her love reached out to him she clung with passionate, hoarding tenderness to her own chastity. It was hers—and it was his. She wanted it because he was what he was—her man, her life’s mate. Such exaltations, such dear prejudices rise from the sacred deeps of the heart. Without them flesh is but flesh, and love mere gluttony.
Hours seemed to pass. The man who guarded her yawned, spat in the bracken, and slouched around like a tired cur. Sometimes Mellis found him staring at her with a hungry, gloating glint in his eyes, a look for which she loathed him as she would have loathed some slimy thing that had touched her hand.
Presently she heard voices in the beech wood, voices that seemed on the edge of a quarrel. They came nearer, like two birds sparring and scolding at each other; one was gay and insolent and swift, the other sullen and toneless.
“Have your way, then! Damnation, such drolleries are not part of my harness.”
“You are too gentle, good John Rich. What is life but a great hunting? And a plain, straight-forward gallop does not always please me. There is no wit, no cunning in it.”
“No devilry, you mean.”
“Have it that way. I like my wine well spiced, and a new spice tickles the palate. You dullards are content with rivers of beer.”
The man with the goat’s beard brisked up and stood stiffly on guard as Fulk de Lisle and John Rich came out from under the shade of the trees. Rich hung back, seeming to have no stomach for Fulk de Lisle’s spiced devilries.
“Stand away, Bannister.”
The guard saluted with his sword, and slunk off under the beeches.
Mellis sat up. Fulk de Lisle was standing within two paces of her, his hands on his hips, his red hat with its plume clapped on his head like a halo. His brown eyes stared at her boldly, and his red lips seemed on the point of smiling. She hated the man instantly, hated because she feared him.
“So this is the gentlewoman who turns quiet priests into turbulent traitors! Mistress Dale, is not the thing heavy on your conscience?”
His bantering air made her shiver, for it was like the gliding of a snake through the fern. She did not answer him.
“By my chastity, I feel sorry for that young man. For three days to eat of the forbidden fruit, and then——”
He watched the hot blood stain her face.
“Assuredly it is a case for a rescue. Being a faithful son of the Church, I must take it upon myself to deliver the young man from this enchantment, that his eyes may be opened before some good Christian hangs him. How does it feel, madam, to have made a man a murderer?”
To John Rich her eyes would have cried, “Have pity,” but Fulk de Lisle saw no more than a handsome wench whose pride struggled with her fear. Her pride won the victory. She remained mute before him, with a white stillness that refused to unbend.
Fulk de Lisle’s brown eyes were smiling.
“Madam is sullen; she does not repent. Humility is good in a woman. It seems then that I must play the father to this poor fool of a monk; there are many ways of opening a man’s eyes. Supposing, Mistress Dale, you were given the chance of saving this man’s life, by making a sacrifice such as many women make with resignation, even with joy——”
She caught his meaning, and the blood seemed to congeal in her heart. She felt cold, so cold that she shivered.
“Did God make you?” she said, hanging her head.
He laughed.
“He chose a fine sire and a handsome woman, madam, and I myself am considered a presentable man. Even you may grant that I have my points, if I chose to prove them.”
The power of speech died in her.
“Consider awhile. You shall be left in peace for an hour.”
He swept his red hat to her, and moved backwards through the bracken to where John Rich stood biting his beard.
“Well, have you done?”
“I have but begun, good John; this wine is to my liking.”
Fulk de Lisle wasted no time. Martin Valliant saw men come out of the beech wood carrying roughly shaped posts and the branches of trees, and for a while their labor puzzled him. They were setting up a shelter or bower halfway between the mere and the woodlands, digging the posts into the ground and lashing the branches of the trees to them. This forest lodge was left open toward the island, but closed in on all the other sides with a dense wall of green leaves. Four short stakes were driven into the floor of the lodge, and a bed of leaves and bracken made between them.
The thing was barely finished when Fulk de Lisle appeared on the hillside, followed by a trooper who carried a piece of white cloth fastened to the staff of his spear. De Lisle sighted Martin on the tower, pointed with his riding switch to the white pennon, and came down at a leisurely pace toward the causeway.
Swartz had his eye to the loophole.
“Here comes the devil on a parley. Go down to the gate; I will keep watch here.”
Fulk de Lisle made his way along the causeway as far as the raised footbridge, and stood there with an air of serene insolence, as though he had nothing to fear from arrow shot or cross-bow bolt. He was wearing no body armor, and carried no weapon save the dagger at his side.
“Brother Martin, a word with you.”
Martin had climbed the ladder to the squint in the gate-house wall, and he could see Fulk de Lisle’s red figure framed like a picture. The man had courage, and knew how to use a smiling audacity.
Martin answered him.
“I am Martin Valliant. What do you want with me?”
Fulk de Lisle raised his eyes to the loop.
“Is that you, Brother Martin? I have come to speak with you as man to man, and to reason with you over your madness. That a priest should shed blood is very shameful, that he should shed it for the sake of a woman——”
“I am no longer a priest.”
“Listen awhile, good sir. My Lord of Troy is a devout gentleman. He would be willing to gloze over this midsummer madness, for the sake of St. Benedict, even to the point of sending you back to your cell—for discipline—and chastisement.”
“I ask nothing from my Lord of Troy.”
“You seem in a furious hurry to be hanged, Brother Martin. Listen a little further: I will put the matter with what grace I can, even though the thing is not as delicate as it should be. There is a certain young gentlewoman who is a prisoner in our hands. Is not that so?”
Martin set his teeth, and made no answer.
“Your silence is sufficient. Come now, let me tell you that this young gentlewoman is very loth to see you hanged, so loth that she is ready to offer that most inestimable thing—her virtue——”
He paused, looking up with an ironical grin at the loop in the wall.
“Consider this great sacrifice, Brother Martin, for though it is very flattering to myself——”
Martin’s face was as gray as the stone. He turned, and went silently down the ladder, and began to unfasten the rope that kept the footbridge raised.
Fulk de Lisle’s voice taunted him, but grew fainter, for he was withdrawing along the causeway.
“Tricks will not serve you, Brother Martin. I give you till nightfall to decide. Come out to us, unarmed, and wearing nothing but your cassock, and your neck may be saved. The lady will pay.”
Martin let the bridge fall with a crash, and sprang to unbar the gate. His face was the face of a devil, mouth awry, nostrils agape, his forehead a knot of wrinkles; but by the time he had the gate open Fulk de Lisle was across the causeway, and walking back toward the woods, and several of Rich’s men were moving down to meet him.
Martin Valliant stood there, breathing like a man who had run a mile uphill. He did not hear Swartz come quietly behind him and take hold of the rope to raise the footbridge.
“No, no, good comrade; that trick shall not work against you.”
Martin turned with a sharp, fierce cry.
“Swartz! Let go of that rope! I must die out yonder—or win through.”
But Swartz heaved the bridge up, fastened the rope, and stood to face his man.
“What! Will you be fooled by that rogue’s tongue? I heard all that I needed to hear. He came down to try his wit on you; he prides himself on such pretty quips and villainies.”
“Man, I am selling her, betraying her!”
Swartz struck him a blow on the chest.
“Wake—wake! Will that rouse you? To play with a man like Fulk de Lisle one wants a skin of iron and a brain of brass. He knew that he could cut you to the quick, drive you mad. Such things must not be.”
He pushed Martin aside, and shut the gate.
“Gird up your soul, Martin Valliant, and set your teeth. Such a coil as this is not unwound by prayers and whimperings and such-like softness. Be hard, man, to win. You shall fight your fight—yet.”