CHAPTER IV

There were deeps in the forest where a hundred men could hide and never be stumbled on for weeks together. Thieves and outlaws who knew the ways could travel north, south, east, and west, and never be seen by woodward or forester. Moreover, these trailbastons and broken men left the deer alone, for they themselves were part of the wild and the forest was their harbour, and if no deer were slain they themselves were less likely to be hunted.

Now there were forest lodges and foresters at Pippinford, Hindleape, Broadstone, and Comedean, as well as at the White Lodge of the Master Forester; but none of these men of the greenwood and the heather had any knowledge of the queer gentry who were lodged among the hollies of Blackbottom Gill. The holly wood was itself hidden in a great wood of oaks and beeches, and the Polecat, who knew every ride and every path, and the spots, too, where there were no paths, had served as guide to these strangers. The Polecat had lived all his life in the forests, thieving, cheating, robbing when a safe chance offered. He could “burr” like a goat-sucker and scream like a jay, tell the age of a deer from its slot and its dung, and judge just how high the pheasants would be roosting on a certain night. The Polecat had hunted in all the forests in Hampshire, Sussex, and Surrey, and he would slip from one to the other if it happened that the nose of the Law had smelt spilt blood.

In Blackbottom Gill five figures were grouped before a fire in the thick of the gloom of the hollies. The fire had been built in a recess grubbed out of the side of a bank, and a screen of boughs built round it, so that its light should not be seen. And since it was night the smoke did not concern them. They smothered the fire before dawn.

Father Merlin sat on a wallet stuffed with grass, his grey cowl over his head, the girdle of his grey habit unbuttoned. He had taken off his sandals and was stretching out his brown feet to the fire. Over against him, on a pile of dead bracken, sat Guy the Stallion, a handsome, tawdry, swashing sworder with a red head and fiery eyes and a fierce little peaked beard. At the other end of the half circle a lean man with a swarthy, gloating face was cleaning his nails with a holly twig, and men called him Jack Straw. In the centre sat John Ball, the mad priest of Kent, staring at the fire, bemused, lips moving silently, eyes seeing visions. Half lying on a sheep-skin and poking the fire with a charred stick, Big Blanche, the singing-woman, listened to Jack Straw and Guy the Stallion disputing over some point of policy.

The soldier spoke in fierce, characteristic jerks, as though he were making cuts with a sword.

“Let them begin with a little killing. I know a trick or two to make men’s blood boil. Let them warm to it, and in a month there will be no gentles left in the land to trouble us. I am a man of the sword, and what I know of war is as much as Du Guesclin or Knowles could carry.”

Jack Straw, the East Anglian, thrust out a contemptuous lip.

“Keep your sword in its scabbard. One word from Brother John here is worth a thousand such swords.”

“Bah, wait till the work begins. Look at him! Will he keep the hinds from blood and wine?”

Father Merlin showed his big teeth, his harsh face gaunt and long in the shadows. The swashbuckler amused him and piqued the laughter of a subtle scorn.

“Let no man quarrel with the soul of St. Francis,” said he. “What say we but that the meek shall inherit the earth?”

They turned their eyes by some common instinct upon Father John, staring raptly at the fire, his lips moving silently, his face strangely radiant. His spirit was away in some fantastic earthly heaven while his body remained among the black hollies of the forest. Even red-headed Guy was sobered by a something that was above and beyond his lustful vigour and his bombast.

“Father John treads the clouds.”

“Perhaps St. Thomas of Canterbury is up yonder. When we have pulled Simon of Sudbury out of his archbishop’s shoes we might do worse than clap them on Father John’s feet.”

The Franciscan smiled like a horse champing a bit, drawing back his lips and showing his teeth.

“What God wills—God wills.”

“And what the devil wills——”

“The swashbuckler knows best.”

Big Blanche sat and gazed at John Ball’s rapt and dreaming face. He seemed not to hear the voices of those about him, and his face was the face of a man drunk with visions.

She pointed to him.

“He has touched neither food nor drink since daybreak. Some day his soul will fly away like a piece of thistledown, and we shall have no one to preach to us.”

“Pluck his sleeve, Jack.”

“Descend, brother, descend. See here, something warm for the belly.”

John Ball started, and stared at those around him as though he had been wakened out of a deep sleep. Big Blanche wriggled across on her knees, and held out the mead bottle. He took it mechanically, and nodded to her with an air of vacant benignity.

“Drink, brother.”

Jack Straw was still using the holly twig, and the swashbuckler grew facetious.

“Take my dagger, Jack. We are getting ready to be great lords and gentles all by the cleaning of our nails!”

John Ball’s eyes fixed themselves on his neighbour’s hands. He began to speak in a slow and inward voice.

“Our brother cleanseth his nails. It is a symbol, surely. All the world shall have clean fingers.”

“And no pickings! My cock, father, I must pick up something on the point of my sword!”

The priest of Kent looked up and around at the black boughs and tops of the hollies. His face was the white face of a saint in an altar picture of the passions. His neighbours were so many allegorical figures—Cunning, Ambition, Lust, Bombast—and yet mere men with strong teeth and muscular hands and eyes that looked hungry. This dreamer of Kent whose mouth could fill with fire had a soul whose simplicity made these shrewd and carnal men marvel.

“Has Isoult of the Rose returned?”

“No, father.”

“The Polecat is out; we shall have news.”

John Ball spread his hands to the blaze.

“The voice of an angel, a bright angel on the white clouds at dawn. Shall it not sing the children into Paradise?”

Big Blanche’s face grew sullen and lowering. She glanced up suddenly and caught Guy the Stallion watching her mockingly, laughing at the jealousy that she could not hide. She flounced round and turned her back.

“What will you make of Isoult, father?”

John Ball was blind to such a thing as raillery.

“Isoult shall stand in the gateway of our new city and sing. I will put golden words into her mouth. And because of her beauty——”

The woman by the fire twitched her shoulders.

“Golden words in the mouth of such a——”

Father Merlin’s figure straightened suddenly, and his hooked nose protruded like the beak of a bird from under the shadow of his hood.

“’Ssst!”

“What is it?”

“Listen.”

They remained motionless, rigid, so many stark black figures seen against the glow of the fire. The night was very still and windless, and the hollies seemed weighed down by the heavy, midnight silence. From somewhere came a rustling sound as of dead leaves blown along the forest’s floor. Father Merlin’s head moved slowly from side to side on its long and sinewy throat; the swashbuckler’s hand went to the hilt of his sword.

They heard a jay scream, and Blanche drew in a deep breath and laughed.

“The Polecat!”

“That was his cry.”

“Come down into the light, good friend, and welcome.”

A little man with a face like a wild cat’s appeared from nowhere, and threw himself down beside Big Blanche. His eyes were red and small and wonderfully restless, and his hair looked like a mass of little black snakes writhing all in a tangle. For the moment he said nothing, but reaching out with both hands, grabbed a bottle of mead with one and half a loaf with the other. The animal was thirsty and hungry, and they suffered him to have his will.

Jack Straw was the first to question him.

“What news, Polecat, out of the wood?”

The man still masticated, and answered as he ate.

“The duke’s foresters have taken Isoult.”

“What! John of Gaunt’s green bullies?”

“I always said the wench was too venturesome.”

“What have they done?”

“Lugged her to the White Lodge. It was young Fulk, the riding forester, who took her. I might have stabbed him in the dark, but the young wolf was too wary.”

Father Merlin grinned and bit his nails. John Ball stared at the fire and said nothing. It was Guy the Stallion who jumped up, swaggered, tightened his belt, and looked at his comrades’ faces.

“Nothing to say, good brothers? See here, the sword has its tongue. I’ll have Isoult out of the White Lodge, by cock, before they can say a Pater!”

Big Blanche twisted round of a sudden, and snapped at him like an angry dog.

“Sit down, fool. Let the jade——”

“Fool! Shut that jealous mouth of yours. You—to be jealous of Isoult, the hen of the falcon!”

The woman sprang up, furious, chattering, beside herself, a knife in her fist.

“Let the jade rot, I say. You are my man and I’m your woman. By the blood of the——!”

Father Merlin rose up and put himself between them. He was a big man, and had a voice that could thunder.

“Peace, you fools. Swashbuckler, sit you down and cool that hot pot of a head of yours. As for you, Dame Blanche——”

She snarled at him insolently, her large white face like a lewd mask.

“I have a tongue, mind you. I have a tongue!”

Merlin went close to her, and she alone saw his eyes.

“Peace, or you may have no tongue to boast of.”

The insolence went out of her, and she cringed and slunk away.

“I meant nothing, good father; but that fool there is my man, and I’ll not see him filched from me.”

“Peace!”

John Ball had sat through the squabble with the look of a man whose soul was elsewhere. He turned his head slowly and stared at Father Merlin.

“My brother, what shall be done?”

The Franciscan sneered.

“Leave it to me, Brother John. I will go out to-morrow—to hear confessions.”

Father Merlin set out betimes on a fine spring morning, a hunch of bread in his wallet and his beads hanging down over his grey frock.

Father Merlin walked with his head thrown back, and his beak of a nose with its hungry nostrils sniffing the freshness of the morning; for the forest was in a joyous mood and the birds were singing in every bush and tree. The friar’s grey habit brushed the dew from the grass and heather. Rabbits scampered to cover. The primroses were dwindling, but the wild hyacinths were blue in the woods, and the blackthorn hung white against the sky. The soft bloom of a misty morning lay over the forest, deepening towards the grey chalk hills by the southern sea, and filling the valleys with a film of silver smoke. Life cried out lustily with the voice of desire. Green buds were bursting; the great hills seemed swollen with the mystery of birth; the birds were coming from the lands of the sun, and the wryneck complained in the oak boughs, and from the deep woods a cuckoo called. “Joy, joy, joy,” sang the blackbirds. Woodlarks hovered and thrilled, dust motes of melody dancing in the sunlight.

Half a furlong ahead of Father Merlin went a little hobbling figure in rags, prodding the earth with the point of a staff, for the Polecat had trudged ahead to show the grey friar the way. Merlin’s eyes watched this forerunner of his with cynical complacency. Such creatures were very useful when a man of God could send them down to hell and then tweak them back again at the end of an absolution. Father Merlin was no clumsy, tumultuous bully; his voice had many modulations; he could be as quiet as death and as persevering as a badger.

Now about the time that Merlin passed by the Ghost Oak, Fulk Ferrers stood outside Isoult’s door with a cup of water and a platter of bread and meat. He had taken them out of the cook-maid’s hands and left her gaping and looking at Dame Ferrers.

Fulk unlocked the door, pushed it open with his foot, and had no need to tell himself that he had not thought to find the woman at her prayers. She was kneeling by the window, the sunlight falling upon the curve of a white neck and the silver net that covered her hair. She did not stir or look round at him, but kept her eyes shut and her hands folded over her bosom.

Fulk crossed the room softly, set the cup and plate on a stool, drew back, and waited by the door. It may have been in his mind that Isoult of the Rose did not know who had deigned to serve her, and that to a woman who prayed with her eyes closed one footstep was very like another.

She remained motionless, and Fulk waited, watching her, meaning to be gone, and yet not going. This woman was a creature of surprises, a creature more wild and subtle than any hart he had ever tracked and hunted in the forest.

“Good-morning, Messire Fulk.”

He stared, for she had neither moved nor opened her eyes, for he had been watching her.

“It seems that you see with your ears!” he said.

“Yes, and with my nostrils and my fingers.”

“Even while you say your prayers!”

“I was praying for you, Messire Fulk, therefore I knew you, though my eyes were closed.”

She turned and gave him the full challenge of her opened eyes—eyes in which there was neither laughter nor raillery, but rather a prophetic pity. The Polecat had been to her window during the night, and the Polecat’s claws were to be dreaded because of those magicians whom the Polecat served.

Fulk hovered there like a hawk, not seeing anything upon which his reason could pounce.

“Madame Isoult, wherefore do you pray for me?”

“Because of your great need.”

“Think you I need your prayers?”

“Far more than I need yours.”

He was puzzled, both by the singing softness of her voice, and by the intent way in which she regarded him.

“I have no knowledge of needing a woman’s prayers.”

“No? Yet, good sir, since you will keep me here I must pray for you, even though my prayers may be of no avail.”

He came a step forward, looking at her steadfastly.

“Always riddles!”

She returned his look as steadfastly.

“You are young, Messire Fulk, and it is hard that a young man should come to a sudden end.”

“You are for making a ghost out of a sheet and a candle!”

Her eyes flashed.

“Not so. But I have a kind of pity for that stiff neck of yours. Not very often have I found such stiffness in a man, and in a young man! But go to, now, I talk to a winter frost. Yet it may so fall out that you shall have cause to thank me.”

He stood at gaze, and her face was the crystal into which he looked.

“For your prayers—if they are honest—I thank you,” he said. “I will stand on guard against the mischances that a woman’s prayers may hint at.”

She looked at him meaningly.

“Turn your back to no bush.”

“So!”

“A vest of ring mail under a doublet may turn a knife or an arrow.”

He stood a moment, and then went out from before her thoughtfully, without uttering a word.

Father Merlin overtook the Polecat where the heathland sloped down towards the White Lodge valley. The beggar stood to one side and made the friar a reverence, his red eyes twinkling under the edge of his hood.

“A blessing, holy father.”

Merlin stopped and blessed him as though he had never set eyes on the man before.

“How runs the road, my son?”

“Down yonder, father, stands a goodly house, and Fulk of the Forest dwells therein.”

Merlin crossed himself.

“My son,” said he, “there may be that work to be done which I told you of. Follow, but see that no man mistakes you for my follower.”

The Polecat pulled his forelock.

“I will be there, but not seen, holy father, like a toad under a stone.”

Merlin marched on, but at the White Lodge he found only Dame Margaret and her wench, and John the forester feathering arrows in the porch. Merlin could be as soft and debonair as any king’s chaplain, and a cup of wine and a cold pie were brought out for his good cheer. Dame Margaret was at her orfrey work in the parlour, and Merlin was well content to leave her there and to talk with John the forester in the porch. A second cup of hippocras was to be had for the asking, and the grey friar had much to say of the evil temper of the times and of the villainy of those lewd and meddlesome folk who grumbled because the king and the lords and gentles needed money.

Merlin discovered what he wished to discover, whither Fulk of the Forest had gone.

“For,” said he, “I never miss speech with a gentleman in whatsoever parts I may be travelling. I follow in the steps of St. Francis, and all living things were St. Francis’s children.”

He left drunken John much edified and a little redder about the nose, and set out westwards with his cowl drawn down and his beads in his hand.

Beyond the gorse lands by Stoneygate, where the world was all green and gold, he came to the rich meadows by the vachery and sat himself down under a wind-blown thorn. It was not for Merlin’s eyes to overlook the cowherd or bibulcus in leather jerkin and leggings standing by the vachery gate and talking to a man on a rough roan horse. The man on the horse was dressed in green, and the liripipes of his hood were blue and white; moreover, he carried a bow, and a horn slung to a blue and white baldric—colours that were the Duke of Lancaster’s, even of John of Gaunt.

Merlin heard a bird twittering in the furze, and he guessed it was the Polecat who twittered. Fulk of the Forest was turning his horse from the vachery gate, and the cowherd went in and closed it after him. Merlin sat well back against the trunk of the thorn tree, his head bowed, his beads in his hands, his ears listening for the hoof-falls of the riding forester’s horse.

Fulk, mounting the meadow slope, saw the grey friar under the thorn tree telling his beads. He had no great love for the strolling friars, holding them to be deer stealers when the chance served, and self-seeking meddlers who were breeding an insolent pride in the hearts of the lewd commons. For Fulk had an eagle scorn for the villein folk and the lower craftsmen of the town. Such creatures were to be kept under, and not puffed into a vain conceit of themselves by men who had left the dunghill to put on a friar’s frock.

Fulk took a good look at the Franciscan, and from under his hood Merlin’s eyes were watching the legs of the roan horse. It was part of his plan that he should seem lost in his devotions and blind to the world till Messire Fulk rode up.

“Good-day to you, Master Friar.”

Merlin lifted his head with a start of pretended surprise. Fulk had reined in close to the thorn tree, and Merlin looked up at him as he sat there full in the sunlight.

“Good-day, lording.”

The astonishment that he had feigned lost itself in an astonishment that was real. Merlin’s eyes fell into a stare; his lower lip drooped; the beads dropped into his lap. For the moment he lost all knowledge of himself, and his subtlety was as a snake that has been stunned with a blow.

“Sir, I am but a poor friar.”

Fulk looked him over, and thought him a gaping, stammering fool. Merlin was trying to scramble back out of the open amazement into which he had fallen, to steady his wits, to hide what he had betrayed. He blinked, and bit his cheek. But the thing was monstrous. To whom was he speaking—to a stripling called Fulk of the Forest or to Richard the King?

Merlin was shaken. For the moment he hardly knew whether the earth was real under him.

“Sir,” he said, to gain time, “my name is Father Merlin, and I travel in these parts for the good of all souls.”

He stood up with a humility that hid much turmoil, doubt, and wonder, yet his eyes were fiercely alive under his grey hood—eyes that snatched at every visible detail, and yet pretended to see nothing.

Fulk considered him as a lord considers a beggar.

“You friars are notorious busybodies. Our own priests say you take away their own alms-dish from under their very noses.”

Merlin drew a step nearer.

“Lording, we are much abused.”

“And it is pleasant to confess to a man whose face one may not see again.”

“Lording, you have a sharp tongue. Yet I will take a groat from any gentleman for the glorifying of our great house in London. And from Messire Fulk Ferrers——”

“Well, I am he.”

Merlin stood yet closer. His dark eyes seemed to search every line of Fulk’s face with a fascinated and greedy eagerness which could not be hid. Fulk took it to be a notorious hunger for money, for no beggars could beg like the preaching friars.

“Maybe you have been in London, Messire Fulk, and have seen the great and noble church of St. Francis, near to Newgate. Kings and great lords and ladies have given us money, and jewels, and plate, and rich stuffs, not for our glory but for the glory of St. Francis and the good of their souls. Doubtless, when you have tarried at my Lord of Lancaster’s Palace of the Savoy——”

Fulk took him up.

“I have never been in your city of London, Master Friar.”

A bird twittered in the furze, and Merlin threw up his arms of a sudden, and cried in a loud voice: “Peace—peace! All honour to St. Francis, and let all men love one another.”

Fulk looked at him as at one gone mad. Merlin waxed explanatory.

“Sir, at times the spirit stirs in me so strongly that I have to leap and cry out. And assuredly it is a marvellous thing that such a bachelor as Fulk Ferrers should never have ridden thirty miles and crossed London Bridge! Yet you are not altogether the loser, for in a city lurks much wickedness.”

Fulk’s horse began to fidget, and his master was in sympathy with him.

“We forest folk keep our wits and our money about us, Father Merlin, nor have we much of the latter to lose. I wish you a good journey, plenty of alms, and many sinners.”

Merlin showed his teeth and grinned.

“Pax tecum, my son.”

And so they parted.

The Polecat came wriggling out of the furze as soon as Fulk of the Forest had disappeared over the hill. He rubbed one finger along his nose and spat into the grass.

“Father Merlin is merciful to-day.”

Merlin turned on him with the savage impatience of a fierce spirit wantonly disturbed in the midst of some marvellous meditation.

“Back into the grass, you snake. And by the Wood of the Cross, do not budge thence till nightfall.”

The Polecat wriggled back, and Father Merlin went on his way, staring at the ground. He had walked a mile or more before he threw up both hands with a snapping of the thumbs and fingers and shouted aloud with exultation.

“A bastard, a prince’s bastard! How would it serve to steal and use the likeness of a king?”

It was the poll-tax that had set every common man in England snarling like an angry dog. Hitherto no one had listened to the sullen grumbling of the poor, those brown men with brown faces who trudged in the mud and went out to labour in the winter wind and rain. They were part of the soil, and no one heeded them so long as there was corn to be had and fat beasts to be salted for winter. Edward the King and his great lords had made war in France with a screaming of trumpets, a humming of bow-strings, and the clash of ash-staved spears. They had crossed the sea in their rich-coloured stuffs and their shining harness, had ridden their war horses over the fields of France, and brought back honour, noble prisoners, and much plunder. But the wars were no longer glorious, and the taxes mounted up. A gust of anger had passed over the land, and even the boor flinging mud out of a ditch had paused and asked himself, “Why—and wherefore?” There were many who talked and many who threatened, looking sullenly upon the lord as he rode by in a coat of furs, and thinking even more sullenly of those who sat before the fire with wine and spices ready to hand. Privilege everywhere, valiant pride soaring overhead, and the serf in the mud, suddenly and viciously envious! This anger of the common people had not known how to vent itself, how to speak so that the great ones should hear. This was no baron’s business, but a dunghill fermentation, and being slow and sodden and savage, was like to be more terrible when thoughts of blood and fire and vengeance fumed up out of this mixen of discontent.

Of all the great lords of the land no man was more hated than the King’s uncle, John of Gaunt. It was said that he had the King in the palm of his hand, that the curse of the heavy taxes flowed from him, and that he had no thought or pity for the poor. Men spoke of his Palace of the Savoy as the most wonderful house in England, packed with plate and jewels, rich stuffs, and armour. Scores of rich manors, forests, castles, houses, and chases were held by him, and his power and his opulence were not to be challenged. Moreover, a certain majestic pride, a casual haughtiness in dealing with lesser men, had not brought him the mob’s love. He was an eagle who took no account of the hedge-sparrows, holding aloof and looking far afield, for his was a soaring spirit with visions of kingship and honour in far countries. The little men under and about his feet were just little men to be forgotten. Being over-busied with great enterprises, he had no patience to remember the ploughman and the fool.

Not only was the Duke of Lancaster hated, but all those near to him, and even his possessions, shared this savage hatred. The common people lusted to cut the throats of his stewards and foresters, beat out the brains of his knights and men-at-arms, and to burn and destroy his houses and all the rich gear in them. So in the blowing up of the storm there were certain tall trees marked out for destruction; and Fulk of the Forest, riding his rounds and cherishing the deer, did not reflect that he himself would be a stag marked out for the slaughter.

But Father Merlin knew it, and told himself that a chained hart alive might be of more value than mere venison. Much enlightenment had come to him since that meeting by the thorn tree near the vachery, and Merlin had gathered his gossips round the fire in Blackbottom Gill and whispered a strange story. They had drawn close about him, gaping, amazed, yet caught by the shrewd audacity of his imaginings.

There was no moon when the Polecat climbed the White Lodge fence, opened the garden wicket, let Merlin in, and led him to Isoult’s window. The house was asleep, but Isoult lay awake, having been warned of Merlin’s coming. She had heard a fern-owl whirring in the oak woods, and, rising from her bed, stood at the window, waiting.

Merlin spoke in a whisper:

“Isoult, art there?”

He could see her grey face at the bars, but she could see nothing of his because of his cowl.

“Speak softly, for the young falcon has strong talons and a fierce beak.”

“It is of Fulk Ferrers that I have much to say.”

“I am listening.”

She was on her guard, though not conscious of it, half ready to put aside any treacherous blow aimed at the man who had captured her under the yews; but Merlin had not spoken ten words before she became enthralled by the strange tale that he was telling her. She stared out into the darkness whence this whispering voice came. And when he had ended she drew in her breath sharply, and fell to listening for any sound within the house.

“Merlin,” said she, “have a care. What if it be the King?”

“Comfort yourself. I had word. Richard is in the White Tower in London—has been there all these days.”

“Is he so like?”

“Like enough to trick any but his own familiars, and though this fellow is some five years older, the young king looks more than a lad. It is a marvel.”

Isoult stood thinking.

“Two kings to play with! To use the one, if the other should prove contrary! Yes; but, my friend, this young man, this Fulk of the Forest, is more proud and stiffnecked than any king I ever read of.”

Merlin’s voice was sly and insinuating.

“And Isoult of the Rose surpasses all women——”

She cut in on him sharply.

“Be careful. I am not to be played with. But I might try my wits.”

She stared into the darkness as though trying to see Merlin’s face.

“Have you any plan?”

“Listen, Isoult. All the country is stirring, and all the outlawed men are swarming hither. The word is flying from mouth to mouth. Now, we shall come here and break in. This falcon will fight?”

“To the death, or I am no judge of a man’s fettle.”

“Good. We will have him at our mercy, and then you, Isoult, shall step in and beg his life. A close prisoner he shall be, and I doubt not that he may be persuaded.”

“Be not too sure.”

“I am not crossed easily.”

“Merlin, one word: think not that Isoult is without honour.”

He protested with an eager, murmuring voice.

“No, no; it is but a lure to the lad’s spirit. Born out of wedlock, a love child, a king before a king! He is the son of his father’s loins. We’ll challenge him to the adventure.”

“There is the woman, his mother. That is another marvel that one who is now as cold and stiff as a corpse——”

“She may serve or she may not. It does not signify: the man’s the master. If only he be persuadable. And you, Isoult, may do much.”

Her voice betrayed impatience.

“Let the adventure go on, but do not think of me as hell fire. We shall see how the stag runs. And now, good-night.”

She heard the sound of his breathing die away, and knew that the window was empty. Like a ghost he had come and like a ghost he stole away, leaving Isoult distraught and restless.

It was in the half light of a May dawn that Peter of Pippinford came running to the White Lodge with his head all bloody and a short sword in his hand. He had been ranging his ward, and had come back to find his lodge on fire and four ragged rogues waiting for him behind the woodstack. One of them had given Peter a bloody poll with the thick end of a holly cudgel, and Peter had cut off one man’s hand, slashed another across the face, and then had saved himself by the grace of his long legs. He set up a furious hallooing outside the White Lodge gate, and Fulk went out to let him in.

Fulk listened to his news with a face that was very quiet and very grim. He had been warned two days ago by one of the purlieu men that the common people were breaking down fences and emptying fish ponds, and that the whole country had gone mad. A tax-gatherer had been beaten to death in one of the villages. The gentry were flying to Lewes and Pevensey, leaving their houses and larders to be plundered by their boors.

“We must get the women out of the way. I will ride over to the vachery and bring Barnabas’s people in. Get your head tied up, Peter, and then help John to make ready the great wagon.”

Fulk had a word with his mother, Margaret Ferrers standing at her chamber door in her night gear, looking like a corpse in a shroud. Cold woman that she was, she fell to pleading with him, but he put her prayers aside.

“Run away from the lousels? Not I! The men shall take you and Isoult and the women to Lewes, and then come back to me. We will make these scullions skip.”

He mounted his roan horse, galloped bareback to the vachery, and ordered the cowherd to the White Lodge with his women and children.

“Turn the cows out and let them fend for themselves, Barnabas. The wagon starts for Lewes in an hour.”

When he returned to the White Lodge Fulk found that two other foresters had come in and were helping Peter of Pippinford yoke eight oxen to the wagon, and load some of the household gear into it. Fulk chose Peter to be the leader, and charged them to return when they had lodged the women within the walls of Lewes town. He chose John to bide with him, because John was a coward, and the best men were wanted in the wagon; and John looked sulkily at Fulk, having no stomach for the White Lodge when such rough gentry were hunting men as well as deer.

Fulk passed into the house, went to Isoult’s room, and stood in the doorway, beckoning.

“Come.”

She was ready, dressed in all her rich colours, her hair in its silver net, her knife and gypsire at her girdle. She looked at Fulk with intent and questioning eyes, considering something in her heart.

“Is it the swainmote?”

“No. The boors have gone mad and are running wild. I am sending the womenfolk to Lewes town for shelter, and you will go with them.”

“And you?”

“A deer master does not run away from swine.”

Isoult did not move.

“Messire Fulk, if I choose to stay here——”

“On my faith, the choice is not with you. Put on your cloak and hood.”

She eyed him half defiantly, yet as one who loved to be defied.

“I’ll make you carry me. It may be that you hold a hostage and know it not!”

He went a step nearer.

“What! Are you with these nameless fools?”

“Did I say so?”

“Come, have done; time’s precious.”

Her loftiness topped his impatience.

“I choose to stay. You brought me here, and if it must be that I should go, you must put me out even as you brought me in.”

They stood, measuring each other, Isoult’s red mouth smiling provocation. Fulk fell to frowning because some strange emotion stirred in him, a fierce young wonder that had stumbled of a sudden upon this woman’s comeliness. Her audacity seemed to beat its wings and to soar against his pride, and her eyes had all the luring gloom of the woods.

“Come; I have no desire to be rough, Isoult.”

“Ah, but a man’s roughness——”

Isoult, looking beyond Fulk, saw Margaret Ferrers standing in the doorway.

“Fulk, do we wait for this woman?”

He stood back with a sweep of the arm.

“Come, let us waste no more words.”

Dame Margaret’s mouth sneered, but her eyes were afraid of Isoult’s. She stood there menacingly, as though longing to utter the one word—“harlot.”

Isoult’s chin went up.

“Dame Ferrers, this woman waits for nobody. I go at my own pleasure.”

She passed out, her arm touching Fulk’s sleeve, her eyes throwing a quick side-glance into his.

“Stiffnecked as ever. You must take your choice.”

Fulk followed her, looking at the red shoes under the edge of the green dress; and as a man notices things at times, simply because he cannot help but notice them, he was struck by the way the woman walked—confidently, proudly, as though beholden to no one. His glance lifted to the white curve of her neck as she passed out of the porch into the sunlight. She, too, could be stiffnecked, he thought, though her throat looked so white and smooth and mysterious.

Tom of Hindleape was standing beside the oxen. The other men were in the wagon with their bows ready, the women and children sitting on the floor. Fulk helped his mother in, and then stood to help Isoult, holding his knee and hand as a man helps a woman into the saddle.

She gave him a whisper:

“Hold the White Lodge and wait for the grey friar.”

As the wagon moved off he found her watching him with eyes that were dark and enigmatical.

About sunset Fulk went up to Standard Hill and looked out over the forest. Spread below him, with all the great oaks burgeoning into bronze, was a shimmering sea of gold meeting a sky of amber, and from it rose the singing of a thousand birds. About the group of firs on Standard Hill the slanting sunlight struck upon the young green growth of the heather, and made it shine like the dust of emeralds scattered broadcast over the earth. The yews of Nutley hung like a thundercloud across a band of scarlet, and the distant hills were all soft greys and purples. The western sky was like the mysterious eyes of a woman flushed with love.

Fulk could see nothing stirring on the heathlands, and he turned back to the White Lodge in the valley. The day had passed quietly, and he judged that the wagon had reached Lewes town in safety, and that on the morrow Peter of Pippinford and his men would be back at the White Lodge. A frail smoke spiral went up from the louvre of the hall, and the whole valley was very still save for the singing of the birds in the oak woods on either side of the meadow. The grassland itself was a sheet of gold, and the old thorns by the great ditch were white with flower, and wondrous fragrant.

Fulk passed just within the porch to watch an owl gliding along the edge of the wood; but it so happened that he saw more than an owl. A man in a brown smock came cautiously from behind the trunk of an oak, and stood looking towards the White Lodge, shading his eyes with his hand.

Fulk, motionless in the shadowy porch, called softly to the forester whom he had left on guard in the hall.

“John, bring me my bow.”

No one answered him, and he gave an impatient jerk of the head.

“Fool, are you there?”

There was a long silence—a silence that seemed to hint at a suppressed chuckle. Fulk turned and went in, searched the hall, the kitchen quarters, the store-room and upper chambers, but found no John. The fellow had sneaked off, and fled into the forest.

Fulk took his bow and a couple of arrows from the table and passed out again into the porch. The man in brown had disappeared from the edge of the oak wood, and in his place stood a figure in a grey frock and hood, the figure of a grey friar, still as a stone figure in a niche over a church door.

Fulk fingered his chin.

“So you are there, my friend. God’s mercy, but I have been bidden to wait for you, and I will wait with a naked sword. Let us see whether any ditch-mender will dare to put a foot over this threshold.”

Passing swiftly from place to place, he closed and fastened every door and shutter, but left the porch door open. Brown dusk was falling, and the rafters of the hall were lost in gloom. Fulk kicked up the fire, threw on half a faggot and some logs, and the flare of the flames as they blazed up were reflected in his eyes. A ringed coat and an open basinet hung on a peg above the dais, with a plain black shield and a sword in a blue scabbard. Fulk stood listening a moment before taking down the hauberk. He slipped it on, donned the basinet, and began to fasten the laces to the rings of the chain gorget.

The fire had blazed up brightly, and, taking the shield and sword, Fulk drew a stool near to the hearth and sat down to watch and wait. He unsheathed the sword and laid it across his knees. There was no sound that he could hear other than the crackling of the burning wood or the scattering of sparks as a log fell. He saw a rat come out of a hole in the wainscoting and go gliding along the wall.

His eyes were fated to serve him sooner than his ears, for he had left the heavy oak door wide open, and in the dark streak between the hinge post and the edge of the door he saw something that glistened. It was the white of a man’s eye peering through the crack, and looking straight at him as he sat beside the fire.

Fulk’s muscles tightened.

“Hallo, my friend! I see you.”

His voice was sharp and ringing as the stroke of a dagger upon steel. The glistening eye melted back into the shadows, and he heard whispering voices and a scuffling of feet. There were some twenty men in the courtyard, bunched together like hounds who have come to the mouth of a bear’s cave.

One figure took another by the scruff of the neck and thrust it forward, and persuaded it towards the porch at the point of a sword. Fulk heard a man snarl like a dog. Then a mop head came furtively round the edge of the door, red eyes blinking anxiously, as though ready to dodge a blow.

The head jerked back again, and Fulk heard the murmur of voices grow louder. One voice topped the others, and the rest grew silent.

“Leave it to me, sirs; I know how to handle a vicious colt.”

Fulk took the measure of the man who stalked insolently into the hall. It was the figure of a strapping bully, swaggering, tawdry, dramatic, clad in a scarlet cote-hardie covered with tarnished embroidery, hauberk, and basinet very rusty, and the blade of his sword, which he carried naked upon his shoulder, jagged like a saw. The red points of his forked beard stuck out like tusks, for he had a habit of throwing his head well back, and looking at people with an aggressive and staring insolence.

Fulk scanned him from head to heel; his nostrils dilating a little, his mouth twitching with scorn. He bided there silently like a hound of the blood waiting to hear a strange cur snarl at him.

Guy the Stallion gave him a swaggering salute with his sword.

“Master Fulk Ferrers, greeting. I have twenty men at my back, and none of us love John of Gaunt and his creatures. I charge you to throw down that sword of yours, and stand up like a good lad.”

Fulk’s stare was like the thrust of a spear. The doorway was full of hairy faces, of brown smocks and fists that held flails, scythe-blades on poles, clubs, bows, bill-hooks—a boor’s armoury.

Fulk showed them an ironical courtesy, a storm sign in a young man of his temper.

“Sir Hacksword, I am much beholden to you. That blade of yours looks as though it had seen wonderful adventures. Step in, knights and gentles all; the honour is mine to be visited by so fair a company.”

His scorn struck them like a north wind, and made the swashbuckler’s forked beard thrust itself out more fiercely.

“This sword was hammering the French when you were a mere toddler. Have a care lest I come to use the flat of it.”

Fulk rose up and walked over towards the man in red, keeping his eyes on Guy the Stallion’s eyes, and holding his sword on his shoulder.

“Out—out, you dogs!”

He pointed with his sword towards the crowd of boors in the doorway.

“Out!”

“By cock, you young ruffler, I can take blows better than words.”

He had his blow, a flat buffet across the face given slantwise with a lightning sweep of the sword-blade. He staggered, jerking up his arms, his nostrils reddening with blood. There was a crowding in of the smocked figures through the doorway, but Guy the Stallion bellowed them back.

“All hell shall stir for this! Let no man meddle.”

He sprang towards Fulk with huge and flamboyant sweeps of the sword.

“Guard, you adder; I’ll teach you sword-play.”

And so the fight began.

Fulk had drawn back into a corner of the hall where he could hold the ground before him without being taken on the flanks. Guy the Stallion came at him with a swaggering rage, and for the moment the boors held back to watch the tussle, such a smiting together of swords not being seen on every day of the week.

Fulk was as calm as a frosty morning, his face looking serenely through all the whirl and pother of the swashbuckler’s blows. Roger Ferrers had been a great man at his weapons, and Fulk had swung a sword with Roger before he was four feet high. He let this swaggerer slash as he pleased, guarding himself and smiling into the Stallion’s eyes.

“Strike, my friend, strike harder. You would do better with a bulrush.”

Of a sudden his whole front changed. His chin rose higher, his lips and nostrils grew thin, and his eyes ceased smiling. Blows leapt at Guy like flames, licking him on every side and driving him back. The fight ended with his stumbling and shooting forward under Fulk’s sword, where he lay like a red beetle, very flat and still.

The men of the door set up a howl of rage, for this tawdry and swaggering bird had made them believe in his crowing. They came pushing in, bunched together, scythe-blades and bills poking forward, lusting to smite, yet afraid of that uncompromising sword. Fulk stood with head thrown back, nostrils dilated, eyes mocking them with a flare of scorn.

“Come, my lords and nobles, come nearer.”

His fierce pride of birth, and his lean valour, awed them, though they cursed him and handled their weapons.

“Fetch in the chopping-block, Harry.”

“We’ll have his head off before cock-crow.”

“Knock the whelp’s legs from under him with a pole.”

They edged forward in a half circle, encouraging each other, and pointing to the swashbuckler who still lay flat on his face. And since all their eyes were towards Fulk of the Forest, they did not see Isoult of the Rose and Father Merlin standing in the doorway.

It was Isoult’s voice that whipped the boors back. They parted and let her through, since she carried a knife, and stabbed at those who faltered.

“Out, fools, out of the way.”

Her voice might have been the sound of the Last Trump so far as Guy the Stallion was concerned, for he picked himself up, drew a sleeve across his face, and attempted an unsteady swagger. A crack in his rusty basinet showed where Fulk’s sword had bitten him.

“Isoult, the cub is mine for the taking. He tricked me the once——”

He flourished his sword towards Fulk, but Isoult’s eyes swept him aside.

“Fool, go and wash the blood out of your boasting beard.”

“S’death! I’ll set hell loose!”

“Poor jay, you pecked at a falcon and got smitten. Stand away. I have no patience to listen to your frothing.”

He slunk aside with furious red eyes, while Father Merlin waited in the background, showing his teeth and smoothing his chin.

Isoult passed on towards Fulk, and these two stood confronting each other, the man with the point of his sword resting on the floor and his hands crossed on the pommel. No one but Fulk saw Isoult’s face, or the cry of “Hail, fellow falcon!” in her eyes.

“Master Fulk Ferrers, I charge you, surrender that sword of yours.”

He stared at her mistrustfully, head up, lips set.

“Dame Isoult, I thought you were at Lewes.”

“Ah, my friend, I met comrades by the way. Have no fear, Dame Margaret is safe in Lewes town. We let the baggage pass, but tied up your men. And now, since we are too many for you, it is your turn to surrender.”

His pride stiffened itself.

“Let them take me—if they dare.”

There was the length of the hall between these two and the rest, but Isoult went closer to him, dropping her voice to a whisper:

“Fulk, listen to me. These wretches have tasted blood; your men are dead; we could not help it. You might kill the first three, but the rest would drag you down like dogs, and I’ll not suffer it. You cannot fight, because I, Isoult, stand in the way.”

His eyes searched hers.

“You! You are with these vermin?”

“I am, and I am not. But I shall stand between you so that you cannot use your sword nor these Jacks their clubs and bills. The grey friar is merciful. You surrender as my prisoner.”

He looked at the floor, frowning and biting his lower lip.

“Come, Messire Fulk”—and her voice had a strange new challenge in it—“come; we change parts for awhile, you and I. And I will not bear to see these bullocks trampling you underfoot, for no man’s valour can overcome twenty men. I have my pride, and pride knows its own kith and kin.”

He raised his eyes suddenly to hers.

“So be it. But when I am swordless——”

“Think you that Father Merlin and I cannot rule these fools?”

“Isoult, you puzzle me.”

She held up a hand.

“No questions. Surrender to me—to Isoult of the Rose. I vow that your sword shall be in safe keeping.”

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