“Hear now the wind through the aspens,And the swallows calling;And into my heart they come,The whispering of the aspen leavesAnd the sound of the swallows calling,Listen—listen.A strange joy steals over.There is a breath on my lips,And into my eyes flashes the faith of a sword.Dear lord, is thy blood as redAs the blood in my heart?Whither shall we go?Out into strange lands, into the south,Under the same stars?And I will hold thee,And thy honour as mine.Listen—listen!The swallows are calling,And I hear the great riversRunning to the sea.”
“Hear now the wind through the aspens,And the swallows calling;And into my heart they come,The whispering of the aspen leavesAnd the sound of the swallows calling,Listen—listen.A strange joy steals over.There is a breath on my lips,And into my eyes flashes the faith of a sword.Dear lord, is thy blood as redAs the blood in my heart?Whither shall we go?Out into strange lands, into the south,Under the same stars?And I will hold thee,And thy honour as mine.Listen—listen!The swallows are calling,And I hear the great riversRunning to the sea.”
“Hear now the wind through the aspens,And the swallows calling;And into my heart they come,The whispering of the aspen leavesAnd the sound of the swallows calling,Listen—listen.A strange joy steals over.There is a breath on my lips,And into my eyes flashes the faith of a sword.Dear lord, is thy blood as redAs the blood in my heart?Whither shall we go?Out into strange lands, into the south,Under the same stars?And I will hold thee,And thy honour as mine.Listen—listen!The swallows are calling,And I hear the great riversRunning to the sea.”
“Hear now the wind through the aspens,
And the swallows calling;
And into my heart they come,
The whispering of the aspen leaves
And the sound of the swallows calling,
Listen—listen.
A strange joy steals over.
There is a breath on my lips,
And into my eyes flashes the faith of a sword.
Dear lord, is thy blood as red
As the blood in my heart?
Whither shall we go?
Out into strange lands, into the south,
Under the same stars?
And I will hold thee,
And thy honour as mine.
Listen—listen!
The swallows are calling,
And I hear the great rivers
Running to the sea.”
The dusk deepened. They clasped hands, and sat looking into each other’s eyes, and at the dark waters of the mere. The glow died out of the west; night came like the dew.
A moon was climbing when they rose and went up through the garden to the house.
“Isoult, I am your watchman to-night.”
“I shall sleep and not fear.”
Fulk had left flint and steel, tinder, and two torches ready on a bench in the hall. He struck a light, kindled the torches, thrust one into a cresset on the wall, and bore the other.
“My lady goes to her chamber.”
He passed up the stairs before her to the solar, thrust the door open, and stood aside for her to enter.
“Sleep, Isoult, and have no fear.”
Her eyes looked into his.
“Dear heart, I will pray for you.”
He gave her the torch, and she passed in, and Fulk closed the door after her. He brought up a bundle of straw and a dorser from the hall, made himself a bed there, and lay before her door that night, his naked sword beside him.
Dawn came and Fulk awoke, to see through the arch of the doorway where the steps went down into the hall, the rays of light striking in through the narrow windows. Everything was very still. He arose noiselessly, and going down into the hall, went out through the great doorway into the garden.
A curtain of mist covered the mere, though the tops of the willows were glimmering in the sunlight. The roses were laden with dew, and the grass about the sun-dial was a carpet of silver grey.
The delight of the dawn stirred in his blood, the still, stealthy freshness of it all, the mystery, the moist perfumes. He went down to the mere’s edge, where the water lay black and still under the mist. The lure of the still water drew him. He stripped, hanging his clothes on a willow, and climbing into the stern of the barge, took his plunge thence, and came up in the thick of a ring of ripples.
Isoult had heard Fulk stirring. She dressed, and came out with her hair hanging about her, to find his sword lying beside the bed he had made himself outside her door. She picked it up, and pressed the blade to her lips.
“Keep troth—ever.”
She, too, passed out into the garden, and saw the waters of the mere troubled by some strong thing that delighted in its strength. Fulk had circled the island thrice, and a beam of sunlight broke through the mist and shone on his head and shoulders as he came swimming round the willows.
Isoult stood there, holding his sword, her black hair hanging about her like smoke. And as he came near she began to sing.
“Wine and bread and honey sweet;Sticks for the bakehouse, spits for the meat,Spices and cakes and cups of gold,And good ypocrasse to keep out the cold!”
“Wine and bread and honey sweet;Sticks for the bakehouse, spits for the meat,Spices and cakes and cups of gold,And good ypocrasse to keep out the cold!”
“Wine and bread and honey sweet;Sticks for the bakehouse, spits for the meat,Spices and cakes and cups of gold,And good ypocrasse to keep out the cold!”
“Wine and bread and honey sweet;
Sticks for the bakehouse, spits for the meat,
Spices and cakes and cups of gold,
And good ypocrasse to keep out the cold!”
He turned on one flank, and saw her in the thick of the white mist.
“Isoult!”
“My hawk can swim as well as fly! I, too, can swim—perhaps as fast as you, friend Fulk.”
“Perhaps faster. How didst sleep?”
“With good dreams. And now I am thinking that my lord will have a hunger.”
“As big as my love.”
“I must see to it.”
She returned to the house, and Fulk climbed out, dried himself by rubbing his limbs and body with his hands, and put on his clothes. He heard Isoult singing.
“I took my man a cup of wine,For he is gay, and he is mine,Sing, birds, sing;The dawn is in,With dew upon the heather.”
“I took my man a cup of wine,For he is gay, and he is mine,Sing, birds, sing;The dawn is in,With dew upon the heather.”
“I took my man a cup of wine,For he is gay, and he is mine,Sing, birds, sing;The dawn is in,With dew upon the heather.”
“I took my man a cup of wine,
For he is gay, and he is mine,
Sing, birds, sing;
The dawn is in,
With dew upon the heather.”
Her voice stirred the deeps in him, and he stood motionless by the water’s edge, watching the mist-blurred sun heaving up over the edge of the world.
They were boy and girl together that day, playing at life with laughter holding the hands of love. There was bread to be baked, a fat fowl to be chased and caught in the yard, herbs to be gathered, a fire to be lit under the great brick bake-oven. Fulk carried in faggots and lit a fire, both under the oven and under the black pot that hung on the chain in the cook’s chimney. He left Isoult dabbling her hands in flour, and went to water and feed the horses, turning them out afterwards into the orchard where the hoar apple trees wriggled their boughs against the blue. In a loft over the stable he found a couple of bows and a sheaf of arrows, and he took them back with him into the kitchen.
Isoult was putting her bread into the oven, handling the long iron shovel that bakers use.
“Woodman, more faggots. I will teach you to shoot—when I have shown you how to bake.”
He laughed, and thrust in more wood.
“I caught you once with a bow, Isoult!”
“Ah! I have not had vengeance for that! I can ride with you, swim with you, shoot with you. Not too high in the stirrups, my friend.”
“I will shoot you a match for love.”
“The boy with the bow is blind!”
Fulk went across in the boat that afternoon and set up an old smock he had found in the stable, on a stake thrust into the bank. He and Isoult stood by the sun-dial, and shot at the mark in turn. Isoult’s first arrow flew over and stuck in the grass. Fulk’s struck the stake and broke.
She turned and laughed.
“Now your head is in the air! I will shoot the smock off the stake before you will.”
He watched her bend her bow, her face intent, her eyes steady. The bow string sang. He saw the arrow strike the smock and jerk it off the stake as though a hand had snatched it away.
Her dark eyes teased him.
“That was a brave shot.”
He laughed with her and for her, his pride of love mounting.
“What a mate for a man! When we go adventuring you shall carry the bow.”
Towards evening they put out in the boat, Isoult with her lute, Fulk sitting in the prow and handling the pole. He let the boat drift, giving an occasional thrust with the pole, so that they moved from the willow shadows into the sunlight, and from the sunlight into the shadows. Sometimes Isoult sang, but more often they were silent, knowing that their eyes could say all that their lips could have uttered.
Neither of them saw a grey thing crawling through the long grass towards one of the thickets that touched the very edge of the mere. The crawling figure reached the tangle of hazels and hollies, wriggled through, and, rising on its knees, peered cautiously over the water.
The boat had drifted close to the willows that grew on the farther bank. Fulk was leaning forward over the pole, Isoult touching the strings of the lute. The evening sunlight played upon the water, dappling it with gold between the network of shadows.
Merlin’s hand went to the knife at his girdle.
“Fools, have you forgotten me?”
He knelt there among the hazels, biting his nails, black jealousy in his blood.
“I bide my time, Master Fulk; I bide my time.”
And that night Fulk again slept across Isoult’s door, his naked sword beside him. But no one crossed the water. The moon shone on it, and there was not a ripple.
Fulk slept heavily that night, so heavily that when the day had come he did not hear the opening of Isoult’s door. Stepping over him as he lay, she stood for a moment, looking down at him and at the naked sword by his side.
“Had it been an enemy, something would have warned thee, Fulk. They would not have caught thee sleeping.”
She bent over him dearly, her hair almost brushing against his face.
“Sleep on, dear lad. Were I to kiss thee thou wouldst wake.”
She passed down the stairway into the hall, and noiselessly unbarring the door, went out into the garden. It was very early and very still, and, like yesterday, a morning of white mist and stealthy sunlight. The trees, the rose bushes, and the grass were grey with dew, and the willows drooped over water that was smooth as glass.
Isoult was barefooted, her hair hanging about her, and, barefooted, she walked down the path to the grass bank by the willows. The boat lay moored close by, its black timber reflected in the water.
Isoult threw off her blue tunic and hung it on the nearest willow; the white shift followed the blue tunic. She stepped into the boat, and, standing on the seat in the stern, looked down at herself in the water. Her hair hung round her like a black mantle, her shoulders gleaming through. She gathered it up, and fastened it into a net that she had brought with her, and all the white beauty of her body stood displayed, as pure and miraculous a thing as human eyes could look upon. For a minute she stood there, her whiteness mirrored in the water, smiling to herself, and moving her arms with a sinuous and swaying indolence. She knew herself to be part of the enchantment of the hour, part of its secret and innocent wonder. The morning’s eyes were grey and soft and misty, and Isoult’s eyes were as soft and as mysterious as the eyes of the morning.
But there were other eyes that looked at her over the water—carnal eyes that gloated over her beauty and coveted it. She suspected no peril, thinking herself alone with the mist and the grey willows.
Raising her arms above her head, she stood poised for a moment on the gunwale, and then took her plunge, going in clean as an arrow. Coming up, she turned on her side and struck out for the deep water, swimming with an overhand stroke, one white flank showing now and again.
Fulk awoke just as Isoult gave herself to the water. He sat up, saw the open door, and was on his feet, holding his sword.
“Isoult!”
There was no answer.
He looked into her room, with a lover’s shyness, saw the empty bed, and a cloak lying on a stool.
Then he laughed, remembering something she had said to him the night before.
The door of the hall stood open. Fulk left his sword and dagger lying on the daïs table, and went to search for her in the garden, but no one answered when he called. He had reached the dial on its pedestal when he caught sight of the blue tunic and the white shift hanging on the willow tree, and he saw, too, that the mere was troubled, and that ripples were moving, although there was no wind.
Fulk stepped into the boat, and through the mist that still hung thinly over the water saw Isoult swimming in the mere. She had circled the island, and was keeping towards the farther bank, and her face, turned towards him, seemed to float upon the water.
“Isoult.”
Her laughter came over the mere.
“What, awake at last, sluggard!”
She lifted a white arm.
“I can ride with you, and shoot with you, and I would match you in the water. There’s a challenge!”
His man’s laughter, deep and quiet, crossed over to meet hers.
“Perhaps I should be beaten!”
“Faint heart. I dare you to race me.”
She reached the shallows on the farther side, and putting up her hands, unfastened the net that held her hair, and as she rose she let her hair fall in black masses, covering her like a veil. The water lay in a grey circle about her waist. She raised her arms and held them out to him, half mockingly.
“Come. Am I to dare you again? If you can catch me—I am yours.”
Fulk had bent down and was unfastening his shoes when he heard a rustling in the brushwood on the other side of the mere. Isoult’s back was turned towards the farther bank, where the thicket that had hidden Merlin came close to the water’s edge. It was not ten paces from where Isoult stood, and as Fulk raised his head he saw two men spring out from among the hazels and dash into the shallows towards Isoult.
He stood up, shouting.
“Swim! swim!”
Fulk saw her throw herself forward and dive like a waterfowl under the water. But her long hair that she had loosened proved her undoing. It floated long enough for one of the fellows to snatch at it and to draw her back.
Then Fulk saw her, struggling, naked, trying to break away from the men who held her.
“Fulk—Fulk!”
For the first time he heard fear in her voice, and his love was like wine poured upon fire.
“Dogs, off—off!”
A scoffing voice answered him across the mere.
“Who catches—holds.”
Merlin came out from behind the hazels, and stood watching the men struggling with Isoult. Her hair fell all about her as they half carried and half dragged her up the bank to where Merlin stood. Three more men came out of the thicket. An old cloak was thrown about Isoult, and the men closed round her, hiding her from Fulk’s view.
Merlin looked over the water.
“If the stag follows the doe, he shall give up his antlers.”
Fulk ran back into the great hall, caught up his sword from the table, but did not tarry to think of shield or helmet.
His rage blew like a north wind, and his face met it, bleak and grim.
“God!”
He saw nothing but Isoult, naked and afraid, struggling in the hands of those two men.
And Merlin! The devil in Fulk was a silent devil, with hard eyes and a cruel mouth.
The group over the water was making away towards the beech woods. Fulk unchained the boat, sprang in, and laying his sword on one of the seats, took the pole and sent the boat surging over. The prow ran well up the bank, and stuck fast among the flags and sedges. He had scarcely set foot on the grass when two men dashed at him out of the thicket.
That sword of his looked a slim thing to tackle a brown bill and stout oak cudgel, but Fulk was as cool as the steel, though a devil’s temper raged in him. He was too quick and too fierce for these clumsy slashers. One had the point in his throat, the other was cut to the left ear. Fulk left them lying, and ran on.
Merlin and the rest had reached the beech woods, and a trampled track through the long grass showed the way they had gone. Fulk was not concerned with the possible odds. He was the male robbed of his mate, ready to rush at death, take wounds and not feel them. His sword felt like metal at white heat. It was thirsty. His face was not pleasant to behold, the grim white face of a man whose eyes see blood.
The track through the grass went into the beech wood where the trees stood at a little distance from each other with chequered stretches of brown leaves and short, sweet turf. Fulk glimpsed something ahead down one of the woodland ways. His nostrils expanded; his lips were nothing but a thin, hard line.
He ran on between the great smooth boles of the beeches and under boughs that swept within a bow’s length of the ground, his feet making the dead leaves crackle, or going noiselessly over the patches of grass. He could see figures moving ahead of him, a grey shape, pausing ever and again, a white face looking back, a man half hidden by some tree-trunk and handling a bow. Once he heard a half-smothered cry, and something leapt in him, a fury of tenderness that stung him like fire.
A sudden glade opened in the beech wood, and he saw all that he desired to see, someone to be rescued, someone to be spoken to with the sword. They had thrown an old red cloak about Isoult, and two men were holding her, one with a brown fist half hidden in her hair. Three more fellows were waiting like dogs at Merlin’s heel—Merlin who had faced about and was pointing towards Fulk with the knife that he had drawn from his girdle.
One man put a horn to his lips and blew a blast that whimpered into the distant woodlands. The others were handling their bows. Fulk gave them no leisure to shoot at him as they pleased. He ran in to give them cold steel.
Two arrows went past him. He saw Merlin leap aside, shouting to his men.
“Kill—kill!”
Fulk had an arrow through his sleeve before he marked out his first man. Maybe he had the mastery of these fellows before a blow was struck, for he came at them like a white-faced devil out of hell, and his eyes were as terrible as his sword. He slashed at one man’s bow, and the hand fell with it, the wretch staring stupidly at a bleeding stump. A little fat rascal with a poleaxe had the point under his ribs. A tall, raw-boned horse-thief stabbed at Fulk with a short sword, but not getting home with the blow, had his throat slashed as a judgment. One of the men who guarded Isoult had run forward to join in the tussle, but thought better of it and hung back.
Fulk heard Isoult utter a warning cry.
“Your back—guard your back!”
As he struck the fourth man down he had a vision of Isoult struggling and breaking free. She ran towards him.
“Behind you, behind you!”
Merlin had crept up like a shadow, knife raised. And as Fulk half turned, Isoult ran between them, striking at Merlin’s knife with her arm, and was stabbed between the wrist and elbow for her courage.
Fulk swung a hasty blow at Merlin and knocked him flat. But the blade had not bitten. A long, red bruise showed across the friar’s forehead. His wits had been rattled like dice in a dice-box.
“Run, run!”
She caught Fulk’s wrist, and he saw her arm all red where Merlin’s knife had smitten her.
“Let me settle with this damned priest!”
“You are blood mad—run! There are more to come, I tell you. Hear them giving tongue.”
True enough, they heard men running through the beech wood, shouting as they ran. Fulk shouldered his sword and gripped Isoult’s hand. It was to be a race to the mere; the feet that rustled the dead leaves in the wood came on like a March wind.
“Art faint, Isoult?”
He looked in her eyes as they ran side by side.
“It was nothing—a mere bodkin prick through the flesh.”
He lifted her arm and pressed his lips to it, even where the blood reddened it.
“My desire, twice have you given me of your blood.”
“Do I grudge it?”
“Not yet have I matched it with mine.”
They reached the grassland and saw the mere all silver with the slant of the morning sunlight, and the boat lying by the bank. Fulk fell behind Isoult now that they were in the open, letting her hand go. A glance over the shoulder showed him Merlin’s pack in full cry through the beech wood.
“Why are you behind me?”
“Keep your breath—and run.”
He was covering her, remembering how that chance arrow had struck her down that night when they had made a dash to escape from Merlin and his Sussex rebels.
They reached the mere. Isoult sprang into the boat, and Fulk followed, throwing his sword into the stern and picking up the pole. He had thrust the boat off as he climbed in.
“Down, Isoult, lie down.”
An arrow struck the gunwale and stood quivering there when they were half across the mere. A second hissed into the water close to the boat; another struck the pole and snapped in two.
The boat touched the landing-stage. Fulk dropped the pole and caught Isoult under the shoulders.
“Up; keep behind me.”
“I’ll not hide behind you.”
“Love is a shield.”
He half lifted her out of the boat, bent for an instant to throw the ring of the chain over the post and to snatch up his sword.
“Now!”
They made their dash for the house, and reached the porch untouched.
Fulk caught Isoult’s face between his hands and kissed her on the lips.
They were breathless, both of them, and exultant, though Death in a grey friar’s frock raged to and fro beyond the water. Fulk closed the heavy, nail-studded door of the hall, and, standing on a stool, took a look at the enemy through one of the narrow windows.
There were about twenty men on the farther bank, thorough rapscallions and cut-throats, all of them, whom Guy the Stallion and the Polecat had got together. Merlin was walking up and down like a grey wolf behind the bars of a cage. Fulk saw Guy the Stallion to the front as usual, cocking his red beard fiercely, with that hacked old sword of his over his shoulder.
They seemed undecided and ready to argue among themselves, while Merlin cursed them because they were not savage enough to suit his temper. He kept showing them his right hand, a gesture that puzzled Fulk, and pointing them across the water, but these rats would not or could not swim.
Fulk stepped down from the stool.
“Watch Merlin for me while I play the surgeon.”
She took his place on the stool, while Fulk ransacked the solar for clean linen and brought a bowl of water and a cup of wine from the kitchen. He set the bowl of water and the linen on a second stool, and handed Isoult the wine cup.
“Drink, my desire.”
“The dogs yonder will not take to the water, though Merlin lashes them with his tongue.”
“Have a care. If they see a face they will let fly at the window.”
He bathed her wounded forearm as gently as a falconer imps the wing of a hawk. It was a clean stab, and the blood had ceased to ooze; so Fulk left well alone, and pouring in a little sweet oil from a phial he had found in a cupboard, set to bandage the arm with strips of linen.
“Say if I hurt, Isoult.”
“Am I a child? And you are very gentle.”
She laughed softly.
“I must have my shift and tunic.”
“I will bring them in.”
“And be shot for your pains!”
“I shall put on my harness. It is stout stuff. They can shoot till they have emptied their quivers.”
He knotted the bandage, kissed her fingers.
“Isoult!”
She turned to him, stooping a little, her eyes all a-kindle.
“Six men could not say you nay!”
“Because of one woman!”
“Ah—ah!”
She kissed him, with passion, her eyes half closed.
“Brave heart, I did not call in vain. What care I so long as we are together?”
She drew her hand across his cheek.
“Fetch your harness. I will help you to arm, and I can keep watch.”
He brought his armour, bassinet, gorget, breast and back pieces, shoulder-plates, arm guards, gauntlets, cuishes, genouillères, greaves, and solerets. Isoult was as good as any squire. She climbed on the stool every half minute to keep Merlin and his lousels under view.
When she had fastened the laces of his bassinet she asked him, “What will you do now, great captain?”
“Rescue your clothes, dear lady.”
“And then?”
“Start a few planks and sink the boat, and bring the horses under cover.”
“And then?”
“Bolt all the shutters, barricade the door that leads from the kitchen into the yard.”
“And then?”
“Eat.”
She laughed.
“We are well victualled; we can stand a siege.”
Fulk buckled on his dagger, dropped the vizor of his bassinet, took his shield and sword, and marched out into the garden. Through the grid of his vizor he saw Merlin waving his long arms, and his men handling their bows. Fulk went down to the water’s edge as though Merlin and his footpads were not there, and taking Isoult’s blue tunic and white shift from the willow tree, laid them over the blade of his sword.
Arrows came with a vengeance, testing his harness. He slung his shield over his back and walked back in leisurely fashion to the house, re-entered the hall, and held out the clothes to Isoult.
She laughed, coloured as she took them, and fled away up the stairs to the solar.
Fulk made a second sally, and keeping to the far side of the island, managed to bring the horses in without being discovered. He found an axe in the wood-lodge, just the tool for starting some of the boat planks, but had he tarried much longer there would have been no boat for him to deal with. A mop head floated within ten yards of it.
The swimmer turned and struck out for the open water, while a scattering of arrows and curses showed the temper of Merlin’s men at seeing their fellow balked. Fulk paid no heed. He started two planks with the back of the axe; water welled in and the boat settled slowly, the stern sinking first, the bow remaining level with the surface, being held there by the chain.
The men had given over shooting, and were watching their comrade, who had been swimming to and fro in the open water as though to show them that he was as good as any water-dog. He turned at last to swim in, and, getting on his feet in the shallows, started to wade the last few yards. Fulk was watching him, guessing that this was the only fellow among them who could swim, and thinking that if he had had a bow in his hand he would have cut short this gentleman’s possible adventures. He had hardly thought the thought when he saw something strike the wading man between his naked shoulders. The white flight feathers of an arrow showed as the fellow threw up his arms and pitched forward into the shallow water.
Those on the bank jumped down to drag him out, though it was but to save a dead man from drowning! Merlin stood scanning the windows of the manor house, and calling to his gentry to mark them and shoot at anything that showed. And then a second arrow came flying and stuck in Merlin’s grey frock.
The barb rasped his skin, nothing more; but it had flown near enough to chasten his courage. He shook his fist at the house, and took cover in the nearest thicket, having the wit to know that Isoult owed him no mercy.
Fulk went in and found her in the loft over the kitchen, where a window overlooked the mere. She was standing well back in the room, an arrow ready on the string, her hair cast back and knotted over her neck.
“What a woman for tempting death!”
He drew her aside to where no arrow flying in at the window could touch her.
“I gave Merlin a fright. And there was the man who swam for the boat, and another after Merlin had jumped into the bushes. That makes two to my own bow.”
He held her close, looking down at her from under his raised vizor.
“God, what a mate for a man! But no more playing with death. I’ll take a bow and drive these gentry to cover.”
Fulk went down to bar and barricade the door that opened from the passage leading to the kitchen quarters from the yard. He dragged all the lumber he could find in the kitchen and offices, tables, casks, flour bins, stools, and benches, and piled them in the passage way. All this gear, jammed together behind the door, would give Merlin’s men some trouble if they tried to break in on that side. Fulk remembered that he had seen a ladder hanging on brackets under the stable eaves. He went out by the hall door, and with an axe broke the ladder in pieces.
Then he thought of victuals and water. The well was round behind the wood lodge, and Fulk drew several buckets, carried them in, and filled every empty jug and crock that he could find. He caught a couple of fowls, wrung their necks, and hung them in the larder. Nor were faggots forgotten; there was a stack of them behind the house, and Fulk made sure of having fuel for the baking of their bread.
When he climbed the ladder into the loft he found that Isoult had discovered an old hauberk and a rusty helmet with a face guard and had armed herself to mighty good purpose. She was at the window, with an arrow ready on the string.
“I have brought down another bird.”
He chided her.
“Heart of mine, can you never leave death alone?”
He dropped his vizor, and, drawing her aside, took her place at the window. Merlin’s men were scattered along the further bank, watching for something tangible to shoot at.
Fulk counted them.
“Seventeen trailbastons left. We have settled eight between us this morning.”
Even as he spoke, an arrow flew in at the window and stuck in the opposite wall.
“They have marked us down. If we keep to this one window their arrows will fly in like wasps.”
They returned to the hall, and Fulk dragged the daïs table against the wall. It was a good length, and made a platform from which he could command two out of the six lancet windows.
“I’ll take toll while I can.”
He went into the kitchen and came back with a broomstick, a loaf, and an old piece of dark sacking, and sticking the loaf on the end of the broomstick, fastened the cloth to it with a couple of skewers.
“Nothing like a good use of one’s wits. Show that at the other windows, and bob it to and fro. I wager it will fool them.”
Fulk had laid his arrows ready against the wall, and that battle of the bows began and lasted no more than thirteen minutes. The loaf on the broomstick was slain three times over. Fulk brought down two men and winged another, till Merlin’s men lost heart and took cover in the thickets. They had shot off nearly all their arrows, and had no more than six left between them.
Fulk stood there, waiting for a chance shot.
“Seventeen less three leaves fourteen, without counting Master Merlin.”
He mused, leaning one shoulder against the wall.
“Can you read me this riddle, Isoult? Who has set these dogs on us?”
She had taken off her helmet, and stood looking up at him.
“Who can tell?”
His face had grown grim, though she could not see it.
“Treachery somewhere! Or was it chance? I would trust Knollys and Cavendish to the death. No; chance has it. Some underling has blabbed on the road and Merlin got wind of it. They have a blood debt against us, Isoult. But for us these scullions might be lording it in London.”
He half raised his bow, but dropped it again.
“I thought I had a shot. When night comes the game will begin.”
“They will have to cross the water.”
“Merlin has wit enough. They will cut down trees and float over. We shall have to hold the house against them.”
The day brought no further adventures, and Fulk and Isoult made ready against a probable siege. They fastened the shutters of all the lower windows, and carried a store of food and water up into the solar, Fulk foreseeing that he might have to make his last stand there if Merlin’s men broke in. The gentry across the water kept close in the thickets. Fulk saw the smoke of a fire rising and guessed that they would lie hidden till night came.
About sunset they heard the sound of men felling timber in the wood nearest the mere. Fulk and Isoult were supping at the daïs table, and they looked at each other meaningly.
“Axes! Merlin is getting ready.”
Dusk fell, and they went to their stations, Isoult taking a window in the short passage leading from the stairs to the solar, Fulk going to the loft window over the kitchen. Over the tree tops he could see streaks of yellow sky banded by purple clouds. A blue gloom seemed to rise in the woods like water and flow out over the valley. Axes were still at work in the wood, but Merlin’s men did not show themselves, having come by a wholesome respect for the shooting of the two in the house over the water.
Before long the moon would be up in a clear summer sky, and Fulk guessed that Merlin would seize the darkness between sunset and moonrise to get his timber float dragged down to the water. Sure enough, as the dusk deepened, he saw figures appear on the edge of the wood—dim, busy figures that hacked at the undergrowth and hauled at ropes made of girdles knotted together. It was a long carry to the edge of the wood, and the chances of a hit so vague that Fulk husbanded his arrows and left the men alone.
The darkness increased. Fulk went down into the hall, lit a torch, and set three more ready in the brackets. Then he joined Isoult at her window in the passage leading to the solar.
“We shall have Merlin knocking at the door before midnight.”
“Listen!”
They heard an occasional shout, the crackling of brushwood, and then a confused sound as of men labouring to draw some heavy thing over the grass.
“Hurry, moon, hurry.”
They waited, standing close together, Isoult’s hair touching Fulk’s helmet as they watched the eastern sky.
“Look. It is rising.”
A faint, silvery radiance showed above the trees, spread, and brightened till the yellow rim of the moon shone like the top of a great dome. They watched it rise, solemn and huge and tawny, making the blackness of the woods seem more black.
Shouts came from the edge of the mere. Isoult gripped Fulk’s hands.
“They are there.”
Dim shapes were moving over yonder; ropes creaked and strained. They heard men splashing in the shallows where the shadows of the woods still lay upon the water.
Ripples appeared, breaking the still surface of the mere where the moon shone upon it. There was more splashing, and the sound of some heavy thing slithering down the bank.
Fulk took his bow.
“We may get a shot at them as they ferry over.”
“See, there—over the willows!”
A rough raft made of young tree-trunks lashed together with withes was moving out into the moonlight. The figures of men were dotted over it, men who paddled with paddles made of oak boughs. All about this clumsy ferry-boat the water broke into gobbets and spurts of silver.
Fulk aimed and let fly, stepping aside for Isoult to take her shot. A shrill yell went up. They heard men cursing. Then the raft moved behind the willows and was screened from view.
Fulk caught Isoult to him.
“Isoult!”
She threw her arms about him.
“Dear heart, I shall go down and make a first fight of it in the hall. Bide here. If they press me too hard I shall take to the stairs.”
A sudden solemnity seized them, a sense of peril, and of the nearness of desperate ends. They had laughed while they had shot their arrows across the mere, but now this scum of outlaws and broken men had floated over, and both Fulk and Isoult knew that Merlin would show no mercy.
She pressed her body against his harness.
“Man, man, whatever befalls we face it together.”
“They shall come at you only over my body.”
“Ah, ah—if death takes you shall I tarry behind? I carry a knife.”
“By God, it shall not be so. Stand here with your bow and succour me if the chance offers. I go to light the torches.”
He hastened down the stairs, and taking a torch that had half burned itself out, he kindled three other torches that were ready in the brackets. Merlin’s men were in the porch. He could hear a scuffling sound like the sound of a pack of dogs sniffing and pawing at a door.
A harsh voice shouted a summons.
“Fulk Ferrers, Fulk Ferrers, the badger is to be drawn out of his earth!”
Fulk rested his two hands on the pommel of his sword.
“I am here, Merlin; but you shall lose your dogs in the hunting.”
A discordant laugh answered him.
“What! Are you still on the high horse? Think not, Fulk Ferrers, that the great ones have need of you any longer. Nay, it is otherwise. I have been sent to shrive a mock King and to bury him.”
“You lie.”
“Tell me, then, what did the King and his Council promise Knollys if he would trap you here? And how is it that I, Merlin, carry the King’s ring on my finger?”
“Merlin, you lie.”
“Believe what you choose, fool. We are here to make an end.”
Fulk’s face grew more sharp and grim behind his vizor, for it flashed on him that Merlin’s sneers might be near the truth. It was strange, now that he came to think of it, that they should have found the house of the Black Mere empty. It was still more strange that Merlin should have known whither to lead his thieves and cut-throats. And yet it went bitterly against the grain with him to think Knollys guilty of treachery.
Then they struck the first blow upon the door, and the timbers creaked, and the bar strained in its sockets. They were using a tree-trunk as a ram, six men swinging it, while the rest stood ready.
Fulk’s blood was up. He thought of Isoult, and his heart grew great and fierce within him. If this pack of wolves had been set on them to make an end—well, by God, he would cheat them and their masters.
He tossed his shield to Isoult, who stood at the head of the stairs, drew his dagger, and took his stand about four paces behind the great door. A second blow had started the planking. A third split the door from top to bottom, though the iron hinge straps held the two halves together. The end of the tree trunk burst through and stood a yard beyond the broken door. The men worked it to and fro till the hinge bolts snapped one by one. The gap widened, showing wild and shadowy faces, the blade of a sword, and a hand holding an axe.
Someone knocked the bar up; the two halves of the door fell apart. Those behind pushed on those in front. A tangle of bodies, heads, arms, and weapons jammed themselves in the doorway.
Fulk seized his chance. The first man in went down with a broken skull. The second stumbled as he swung a blow at Fulk with a poleaxe, and had the dagger in his face. Then the whole pack broke through, and Fulk sprang back, knowing that their numbers would smother him if he let them close.
He covered the stairway leading to the solar, and for the moment Merlin’s men held back. A voice cursed them from the porch.
“At him, dogs, drag the fool down.”
Guy the Stallion was the first man to leap forward, but death took him before he could strike a blow. Isoult had loosed an arrow at him from the head of the stairs. Its white feathers showed under the red tuft of Guy’s beard.
He faltered, and sprawled, his sword flying from his hand. The rest charged over his body. Fulk backed up the stairs like a stag at bay, and paused halfway up to make his stand.