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.”
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.
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!”
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.”
Martin Valliant and Swartz went back to the tower, for a stage had been set and the play was about to begin with the wracking of a man’s soul.
Martin leaned against the battlement, his face turned toward the great beech wood, and his eyes fixed on the green bower that Rich’s men had built. He had taken Swartz’s words to heart; he was hardening himself, preparing to bear his torture without flinching and without uttering a sound. He thought of the day when he had hung on the cross to prove himself stronger than Kate Succory’s youth, and how the physical pain was as nothing to this torment of the soul. Swartz sat close to him with his back to the wall, and Swartz’s face was very grim. He had changed sides, turned rebel; he was a good hound, and no cur.
Fulk de Lisle had vanished into the beech wood, but in a short while his red figure reappeared. He stood leaning with one hand against a tree trunk as though waiting for some order of his to be obeyed, and Martin Valliant watched him with steady eyes, letting his anger gather like deep water behind a dam.
Something white glimmered under the trees. It drew nearer, and was led forth into the sunlight close to where Fulk de Lisle stood waiting. Martin Valliant covered his eyes with his forearm, and Swartz, who had put his eye to his squint-hole, rolled aside, and stared at the sky.
Martin Valliant said never a word. A new and wonderful strength seemed to come to him; he uncovered his eyes, stood up calmly with a face that was like a great white light. His lips moved, but no sound came.
They had fastened a rope about Mellis’s neck, and the man who held the end of the rope had crowned himself with a wreath of wild flowers. Another fellow who walked behind had a garland on his spear. Fulk de Lisle’s allegory burned itself into Martin Valliant’s brain. This beautiful nakedness was to be sacrificed to shame him.
Old Swartz was cursing to himself. He glanced up at Martin and stared in an awed way at the man’s white and shining face.
He saw Martin cross himself.
“Some day I shall kill that man,” he said, as though he were praying; “I shall not die till I have killed him.”
Mellis was led through the long grass to the green bower. She looked at the ground, but once her eyes lifted to the tower with one tremulous glance of appeal. And Martin’s soul struggled like a live thing in a cage.
“It shall not happen!” he said. “By the greatness of God, it shall not happen!”
The men led her into the bower and made her lie down upon the bed. One of them tossed a riding-cloak over her. They cut the rope into four pieces, and tied her by her wrists and ankles to the four stakes. Their work was done; they threw their garlands on the ground, and went off laughing and looking mockingly at Woodmere tower.
Martin was watching Fulk de Lisle, who came pacing with all the airs of a great lord toward the place where Mellis lay.
“What a chance to shoot the red devil!”
Swartz rubbed his hands together.
“Ah! I thought so.”
De Lisle was playing a part, and his swaggering was mere whimsical insolence. He marched up and down in front of the lodge of leaves, pointing his toes and cocking his head, the male thing in possession. A servant came down from the wood with a silver cup full of wine, and Fulk de Lisle made a great parade of his drinking. He walked into the bower and drank to Mellis, turned again, and drank to Martin on the tower. He was in high favor with himself. Life was a dissolute jest.
Martin Valliant heard Swartz whispering to him.
“Have you come by any plan, brother?”
“Only that I am going yonder to-night.”
His face was gray and hard as a winter dawn.
“I can better that plan.”
“How?”
“They will be too much on the alert to give you an honest chance. If you open the gate and cross the bridge they will be waiting for you. We must make them face two ways—scare them a little.”
“Go on.”
“I have my horn with me. Picture us stripped, comrade, you with a sharp knife, and I with my horn. We swim the moat after dark, and before the moon is up. I creep through the grass into the woods, get around behind the gentry, blow my horn like the last trump, and shout to my imaginary men to cut the rogues to pieces. We must trust to them getting a trifle ruffled. You will have to take your chance of saving the child.”
Martin stared at him fixedly.
“Why are you doing this?”
“Why? Why do we eat and sleep, man? Because we must. To cheat that red rogue over there is as natural as eating. Thunder! but I have forgotten one thing. The girl would not be able to swim.”
Martin hid his knowledge.
“I could carry her over. That is nothing.”
“Love could carry the moon! What say you to my plan, Martin Valliant?”
Martin stooped and caught Swartz by the shoulders.
“And I was near killing you two days ago!”
“Hard blows have begun many a good friendship. My heart’s with you, Martin Valliant.”
And so it was agreed between them, that they should try this desperate venture when darkness came.
To Martin Valliant it seemed very long in the coming, though the shadow of the tower lengthened itself across the water till it touched the grassland beyond the mere. He watched the fish leaping in the water, and the swallows skimming the surface and calling shrilly to each other. As for the sunset, it seemed to set the earth afire and make everything burn with miraculous color, so that the grasslands were a great green carpet dusted with precious stones, and the beech trees all glowing with yellow light. In that little shelter of leaves Mellis lay white and still like a sweet saint sleeping in a tomb cut out of crystal, while Martin Valliant’s fierce restlessness longed for all this beauty to be blotted out. He could have pulled the sun down out of the sky, and thrown it into the mere for the quicker quenching of the day.
Fulk de Lisle had had a seat made of sods and branches on the edge of the wood, and he sat there like a great lord while the men built two fires, one for themselves and one for their captains, and with the coming of the darkness these two fires were like great red eyes under the black brow of the beech wood. A pot was slung over the flames, and a table set for Fulk de Lisle and John Rich, and covered with a white cloth. The shelter of leaves lay a hundred paces or more away from the fires and beyond the edge of the light. It showed as a dark blur on the open grassland.
Martin Valliant had been stripping off his harness, but Swartz was still on the watch.
“They are guarding the causeway. Fulk de Lisle would not lose his supper for any woman. It is time we made a beginning.”
Martin gathered up his armor, and they went down into the courtyard. Swartz was fumbling at the points of his hose.
“Curse these knots! Give me your knife, man.”
He cut himself out of his clothes, chuckling fiercely. Martin had laid his armor and his sword beside the postern leading into the garden; he had stripped himself of everything save his short cassock, for the thing would not spoil his swimming, and it hid the whiteness of his body. Old Swartz came out haired like an ape, his horn slung to his neck by a stout cord.
“Here is your knife, man. We had best take to the water on the farther side, and paddle across softly.”
They passed through the orchard where the grass and weeds brushed their knees, and Swartz talked in a whisper.
“Crawl around and get as near as you can to the child. Then, wait—and have patience. I shall have to make a wide sweep. When you hear me blowing my horn and shouting, you must be ready to make your dash.”
Martin Valliant was grimly cool.
“I shall waste no time,” he said.
They stood for a moment to look at the two fires and the men gathered around them. The blaze lit the trunks of the beech trees and made the lower branches shine like brass. A man was fishing meat out of the iron pot with a dagger. Fulk de Lisle’s red figure was the color of blood; he had a cup in his hand and was about to drink.
“While gluttons eat, wise men are up and doing. The hour is ripe for us.”
They struck the water on the far side of the island, where willows grew.
“Well, God’s good luck to us, comrade.”
Their hands met. Then Martin let himself down into the water, and Swartz followed him. They paddled slowly and softly across with hardly a splash, Martin swimming with his knife in his right hand. The mere was as black as a well, and the willows hid them from the men who watched the causeway.
When they reached the shallows under the farther bank they crouched and listened. There was no shouting; no alarm—not a sound save the faint lapping of a few ripples among the reeds and sedges. Martin climbed out, and gave Swartz his hand. There was a thorn tree growing within a few paces of the water, and they took cover under it before parting.
“Give me a minute’s start, Valliant. I shall make a track well out into the open, and then turn toward the woods. God grant the mud has not got into this horn of mine.”
He slipped away into the long grass, and Martin knew that all that he held most dear hung on the good faith of Peter Swartz.
Martin Valliant did not tarry long under the thorn tree. He knelt for a moment to listen, and then started on his way around the mere, crawling on hands and knees through the rich rank grass that grew near the water. It was wet with dew, and the brown sorrel and the great white daisies brushed against his face. The smell of the green growth touched him like a subtle, clinging memory. He did not think of death or wounds, but only of Mellis and what might happen to her if he failed.
Skirting the mere, he came to the sluice ditch, all choked with shrubs and brambles. The ditch was less than two hundred paces from the causeway, and about the same distance from the shelter of leaves, and Martin scrambled down and took cover in spite of the thorns and brambles. He half stood and half lay, with his head and shoulders above the bank, and a stunted thorn stretching a canopy above him. He could see the two fires, and Fulk de Lisle’s red figure. Mellis’s bower lay between the sluice ditch and the camp fires; Martin could not pick it out of the darkness, though he strained his eyes till the lids began to flicker.
Still, he knew where she lay, and there was nothing for him to do but to lie still and wait for Swartz’s horn. He could feel his heart beating as he leaned against the grassy bank. Every nerve and muscle in him seemed a-quiver. He fingered the point and edge of his knife, and smiled.
Then a strange thought came to him. What if he failed—what if he found the adventure hopeless?
He would die—he meant to die in such a case—but Mellis would be living. He would go out into the great darkness leaving her alone. Rough hands might do what they pleased with her. Fulk de Lisle would come down full of his wine, violent and inflamed.
Martin fondled his knife. One blow, and all that would be saved. And yet he recoiled from the thought with a spasm of tenderness and horror. To strike that white body of hers, to hear her cry out, to know that her blood was flowing! The passion in him hardened to an iron frenzy. He would not fail; no strength should master him; nothing should say him nay.
Martin Valliant had fought through those moments of a man’s strong anguish when Swartz’s horn brayed in the deeps of the beech wood. Martin did not wait to see what would happen. He was out of the ditch and running through the long grass like a greyhound loosed after a hare. He knew where the shelter of leaves should be; that was all that mattered.
And yet his senses were dimly aware of other things that were happening. Swartz was shouting like a madman, “At them! At them! Cut the swine to pieces!” Fulk de Lisle had sprung to his feet and was facing toward the beech wood; his men were rushing to arms. The fellows on the causeway had left their post and were trailing across the grass to join their comrades by the fires.
Martin went like the wind, conscious of a wild exultation. A black shape loomed in front of him, like a hay-cock in a field. He reached it, fell on his knees, and crawled into its shadow.
“Mellis!”
He heard her cry out.
“Martin—Martin—oh, my comrade!”
“Don’t speak, child. I must cut those ropes.”
He groped for her right arm, found it, and cut the thong that fastened her wrist to the stake. To free her left arm he had to lean over her body, but the second rope was cut, and of a sudden he felt her arms about him.
“Martin!”
Her great joy and her love would not be stifled. Her arms held him close, and for a moment he lay on her bosom, feeling her breath on his face, and the beating of her heart answering his.
“My own dear mate——”
“Child, it is life and death.”
He freed himself, and cut the ropes that bound her ankles.
“Come.”
She was up like a blown leaf, holding the cloak over her bosom with one hand, and running at his side. Martin looked back at the fires. Confusion still fooled Fulk de Lisle and his men. There was much running to and fro and shouting under the beech trees, and no grasping, as yet, of the trick that had been played them.
Martin felt himself touched upon the shoulder.
“You are all wet, dear comrade.”
“I had to swim across.”
She gave an exquisite, shy laugh.
“The mere is an old friend. You will not have to carry me.”
There flashed on Martin Valliant a swift new consciousness of her as a woman, a woman who trusted him as a bird flies to its mate. A great white light had blazed for him, lighting such an awe of her that the very thought of touching her had seemed sacrilege. And now a miraculous thing had happened. Her arms had held him; she was not afraid; and in the soft darkness her eyes sought his. His awe of her melted to a deep and exultant tenderness. He wanted to tell her how beautiful she was, that he was ready to die for her, that she was the most wonderful and adorable thing in the whole world.
He touched her hand.
“Have no fear,” he said, “for no harm shall come to you.”
“Fear! I have no fear of you.”
“God be thanked. We have been close to the edge of hell, Mellis, you and I, to-day.”
He heard her draw her breath as though in pain.
“Let me forget it—let me forget it.”
The mere lay at their feet, black and still and welcoming. There was no pursuit as yet, though Fulk de Lisle was turning his eyes and his thoughts to Mellis and the shelter of leaves.
“Blessed water!”
She stepped confidently into the mere, and went forward till the water rose above her waist.
“S-sh! How sweet and cold it is! Martin—my cloak!”
She had folded it over her bosom and shoulders.
“There is no saving it,” and she laughed softly; “the thing must get soaked.”
“Give it to me. I can carry it above my head.”
“No, no; something else must serve. Mother of Heaven—they are after us—at last!”
She let the cloak drop, and left it floating as she dipped to the water and struck out for the island. Martin caught it up and followed her, blessing the darkness for its friendliness. He glanced over his shoulder as he swam, and saw a dozen red lights tossing toward them over the grassland. Fulk de Lisle had sent a man to the shelter of leaves, and its emptiness had been discovered.
Mellis was swimming so swiftly that he had to strike out hard to overtake her. Her arm came out and cut the water like a silver sickle, each stroke striking a little splash of foam. Martin drew to her, and they swam side by side.
“We shall beat them.”
“Please God. The torches will not show the farther bank.”
“How you can swim!”
“I always loved this side stroke. I could beat my brother in a race.”
Her whiteness played near him under the black swirl of the water.
“This way. The bank is low by the orchard; we can land there. That man! I was forgetting him.”
“Swartz?”
“Yes.”
Her sudden, sensitive trepidation thrilled him. He found that he had forgotten Swartz.
“Swartz is in the woods over yonder. He swam across with me. It was his horn that you heard. We owe—this—to him.”
“What! He is on our side now?”
“Yes.”
“That is noble.”
They reached the shallows just as Fulk de Lisle’s torches came flaring to the landward bank. The men could see nothing but ripples; the light did not carry to the island. One of the fellows hurled his torch out into the darkness at a venture. It kissed the water, threw out a momentary radiance, and went out.
Martin was up the bank, and reaching for Mellis’s hands. They heard Fulk de Lisle cursing.
“Martin, we have fooled them.”
She came out to him like a child, dim, dripping, exultant. Her hands held his without shame.
“Mellis.”
He threw the wet cloak over her, but she cast it off.
“Not that clammy thing. The night is warm, and I am all aglow.”
She put up her hands, and in a second her hair came clouding down.
“What now? Dear man, they will be mad. You must get your harness and stand ready.”
Martin was moving away when new sounds came out of the darkness of the night. A horn blared in the woods; a man screamed in agony; there was the noise of men running, and shouting as they ran.
Martin turned and looked across the water.
“Listen!”
Mellis was at his side.
“Did you hear that cry? ‘Richmond! Richmond!’ It is John Falconer.”
A man in armor, whose horse was half unmanageable, blundered out into the light of the fires. It was John Rich. He waved his sword, and shouted to Fulk de Lisle,
“To us! To us! We are attacked.”
Fulk de Lisle’s torches went tossing up the hill; but before he and his men reached the beech wood, the fight came tumbling out like a drove of swine. John Rich was down with an arrow through his throat, and his horse went charging straight at the torches. Fulk de Lisle caught the beast by the bridle, swung himself into the saddle, and snatched a spear from one of his men.
“Troy! Troy! Hold together, lads!”
But that rough and tumble on the edge of the wood was no fitting stage for flamboyant feats of arms. Falconer’s men poured out in a black swarm. The fighting was at close quarters, a wild swirl of jerking and grotesque figures, a tangle of men and horses, torches, flying embers, oaths and blows. The fires were kicked out, smothered by the bodies of men who fell on them, and rolled away—cursing. Torches were flung, tossed back again, trampled under foot. There was no knightliness in the game. It was a battle of wild beasts who were in a mad haste to kill. My Lord of Troy’s men had raped and bullied the Forest, and the Forest was taking its vengeance.
Mellis’s head was close to Martin’s shoulder, and his arm had slipped about her body. Neither of them spoke. The work up yonder was too grim, too breathless. The fires were scattered; a few torches flared in the grass; the dance of death became a thing of darkness.
Then a horse went galloping down past the mere, a dim, hurrying shape.
“Who was that?”
Martin strained his eyes. A faint radiance was stealing over the grassland, the light of the rising moon. The horse became a gray ghost carrying a man who rode for safety.
“Who should it be?”
“Fulk de Lisle.”
“That devil!”
The bloody game under the black shadows of the beeches seemed to be losing its fury. Men were calling to each other in the darkness; there was a kind of whimpering murmur, a vague scattering of voices. Once a man shrieked aloud, and Martin felt Mellis shiver.
“It is over. Look, you can see men running. One, two, and another—over there, in the open.”
“Is it with us, or against us?”
“Troy is beaten. Hear them shouting—our people, ‘Richmond! Richmond!’ ”
“What a night, comrade, what a night!”
A broad silver radiance spread above the black tops of the beech trees. It was the moon rising behind the wood, throwing long slants of light across the grasslands, and making a glimmer of mystery everywhere. The towering shadow of the beech wood still lay upon the island and the mere, leaving them all black in a world of tremulous white light.
Mellis drew aside suddenly, her arms over her bosom, her eyes looking toward the tops of the beech trees.
“Martin!”
A something in her voice kept him from looking at her.
“I must become a man. This adventure has shipwrecked me.”
He was most desperately and dearly perplexed.
“Is there no cloth anywhere?”
She could not help laughing at his immense seriousness.
“Have you forgotten? Ah!”
The moon seemed to glide suddenly above the beech wood, huge, and yellow, and stealthy. The shadows slipped away from the island; the long grass glimmered like silver wire; the mere shone like a shield.
Mellis threw herself in the long grass.
“Have you forgotten all our gear in that cellar? If you love me, man—hasten.”
“What shall I bring?”
“A suit of light armor, and a wadded coat—and—and—things to go under it.”
He blundered off, calling himself the most imbecile fool that ever was; but before he had got across the orchard he heard Falconer hailing him.
“Martin Valliant—Martin Valliant!”
Martin had other matters to attend to. John Falconer could wait. But he gave him an answering shout,
“Is that Master Falconer?”
“Aye.”
“All’s well.”
“Let down the bridge, man.”
“All in good season.”
Martin ran to the tower, groped for the ring of the great stone, found it, and then remembered that he would need a light. The tinder-box and the candles were in Mellis’s room. He was about to go for them when he heard a sound of soft footsteps, and some one glided up the stairs.
“Martin!”
“I need a light.”
“The tinder-box is above. Come to me in a moment.”
He lifted the stone out, rolled it aside, and waited. He could hear the ring of the flint against the steel, and then her voice calling to him softly,
“Here. It is lighted.”
Martin climbed the stairs and found a candle burning outside her door. He picked it up, holding it in one big hand and shading it as though that flame was one of the most precious things in the world. The light played upon his solemn face, and mirrored itself in his grave, intent eyes. He held his breath all the way down the stairs; the flame was a flickering soul, and he was guarding it.
So Martin lowered himself into the vault, and setting that precious candle on a stone bracket let into the wall, he made a great disorder among the stuff that was stored there. The idea of thoroughness obsessed him, of not letting Mellis lack for anything that might be of use in such a crisis. He made three journeys to the landing outside her chamber door, and the merchandise that was piled there testified to his sincerity. It included a suit of light mail; a woolen doublet and hose to be worn beneath it; a belt, sword and dagger; leather shoes; an odd piece of green cloth that bows had been wrapped in; some strips of leather; a green and blue banner rolled in a canvas bag. He left the candle burning there, and went down to lower the bridge for Falconer and his men.
John Falconer had torches with him, and the causeway was a glare of light. Martin lowered the bridge and swung the gate open; Falconer came across.
He stared at Martin Valliant.
“Hallo! This is a queer way to go harnessed.”
“There is much to be told.”
“Is the child safe?”
“She is in her chamber. Her men were ambushed this morning, and she was taken.”
Falconer nodded understandingly.
“You have been in the water, my friend?”
“Swartz and I swam across to rescue her.”
“Swartz? Peter Swartz?”
“He is with us now. He went into the woods to raise an alarm, while I saved Mellis. Warn your men that he is a friend.”
Martin and John Falconer passed on into the courtyard, and the Forest followed them with a tossing of torches, and much grim jubilation. The men were as diverse and rustic as their weapons. Oak clubs, scythe blades on poles, axes, spits, wooden mallets, all came dancing into the yard of Woodmere. Many of the men had bows on their backs and arrows stuck in their belts. Not a few were wounded. There were bloody faces, arms that hung limp, stockings soaked all red. But the crowd was hot, triumphant, and fiercely merry; they had tasted blood; many vile things had been avenged.
“Look to your wounds, lads. Lay a fire, some of you. We have come far, and no man is grudged his supper.”
Several of the Forest gentry gathered around Falconer, and looked curiously at Martin Valliant.
“Is this the fellow?”
“He has some limbs on him.”
“But a runaway priest, gentles, is black company. What say you?”
Falconer answered them gruffly:
“And what are we but traitors, so long as Crookback wears the crown! Men who can fight are the blood and muscle of such a venture as ours. Use your wits, gentlemen. We are not women to tilt our noses and screw up our mouths.”
Martin had drawn aside. He felt a stranger and almost an outcast under the eyes of these mesne lords who stared at him and did not lower their voices. The mysterious and solitary nights and days had vanished. He saw Mellis surrounded by a crowd of figures, knights, yeomen, foresters. They seemed to thrust him back into the darkness; he had served his purpose and no one held out a hand.
He gathered up his harness from the spot where he had left it by the gate that led into the garden, and made his way into the orchard. The life had gone out of him for the moment; this secret and love-enchanted island had been seized by a hundred rough fellows who shouted and crowded in the courtyard. He did not belong to them; he was a thing to be eyed with distrust.
The moonlight flooded the orchard, and Martin sat down under an apple tree and began to arm himself, but there was no pride of purpose in his hands. Bitter thoughts crowded into his heart, and he sank in a slough of self-abasement. He had been in heaven, and suddenly he found himself in hell. What was he but an outcast, a murderer, a thing that was neither priest nor man? And he had believed for one short hour that Mellis loved him. What madness! What could he be to her, or she to him? He had mistaken a child’s gratitude for the love of the woman. The danger was past, for she was in the midst of friends; he had played his part, and the dream was ended.
Into the melancholy circle of his thoughts drifted a sound of some one moving through the orchard grass. Martin was in the shadow of the tree, and the moonlight showed him a primeval figure scouting furtively toward the house. It was Swartz, naked, and very cold.
Martin hailed him, and the man of the horn joined him under the tree.
“God be blessed; all the devils in hell seem loose to-night! A dance I have had of it, everyone’s enemy and no man’s friend. These Forest worthies have been hunting me like a pig. I had to take to the water and sit with my chin in it under the bank.”
He was shivering.
“My kingdom for a bit of lamb’s wool, brother.”
“Where did you leave your clothes, man?”
“On my lady’s table in the garden, God forgive me! But if those wild devils get a sight of such a thing as I am—I shall have a scythe blade between my ribs.”
Martin was in too grim and sad a mood to see the ludicrous in Peter Swartz. He rose, went into the garden, and returned with the soldier’s clothes.
“Corn in Egypt!”
Swartz tumbled into them, his teeth chattering.
“Hallo! those fellows are lighting a fire; they must be taught to love Peter Swartz. And I would not quarrel with some wine and a bite of supper.”
Martin’s melancholy was not a thing that could be overlooked. Swartz discovered it, and ceased his prattling.
“Why, man, things did not go amiss?”
“No. She is safe.”
Swartz was trying to remedy the disastrous haste of his undressing.
“May the curse of the prophet fall on these tags and tatters! What ails you, man?”
“Nothing.”
“Then let it be nothing.”
He stared hard at Martin, puzzled by his strange sullenness, but too shrewd to vex it further.
“Old Falconer came in finely—like a pot boiling over. And Messire Fulk de Lisle has gone galloping home to Troy; he passed within five yards of me. Hallo—cheering! They are in great heart, yonder.”
Those rough men in the ruined court of Woodmere had seen a vision, for Mellis had come out to them, clad in bright harness, her dark hair pouring over it, a naked sword in her hands. Behind her walked John Falconer, carrying a green and blue banner fastened to the throat of a lance. The men crowded from the fire, and from every corner of the courtyard. And she stood and spoke to them in a clear, calm voice:
“Good gentlemen and comrades all, I thank you for coming to me. We have begun bravely. God speed King Harry!”
They cheered her.
“Shout, lads, for our captain.”
“Mistress Mellis—Mistress Mellis!”
“Let Roger Bland try to take ye from us.”
“Aye, and there be more of us a-comin’.”
Mellis’s eyes were restless, searching for something that she could not see. She turned and spoke to John Falconer.
“Martin Valliant——”
Falconer shook his head. She grew imperious.
“Call him. He must be here.”
“The man may have some shame, Mellis.”
“Shame!”
She flushed with sensitive wrath.
“Shame! God forgive you. Ah! I see how things have sped!”
Falconer’s eyes shirked meeting hers.
“There may be draughts that men are loth to swallow,” he said dourly; “I did not make the world or men’s hearts.”
She stood a moment, with dark, thinking eyes and a proud, hurt face.
“I am young—still. Oh, these jealous tangles that men weave! Must we be little and thankless for the sake of fools?”
Mellis made her way through the crowd of mesne lords and gentlemen, looking neither to the right hand nor the left. They stood back for her, for she was proud, more pure in her strength than they. The moon hung clear and white and splendid in the sky, shining on her face and the plated steel half hidden by her hair.
“So they would think him an outcast,” she said to herself. “My scorn is theirs for the asking.”
Some instinct led her through the garden into the orchard, where the long grass was all patterned with the black shadows of the trees. She stood in the moonlight, and called softly:
“Martin—Martin Valliant!”
Old Swartz crept away, a dog grown mute, and wise in his silence. Martin’s face was all twisted with a spasm of pain, for he was fey that night with a mysterious forefeeling of great sorrow and despair.
“Martin—Martin Valliant!”
She came down through the orchard, and Martin rose to his feet. The moonlight through the trees shone on his harness, and betrayed him to her. He stood absolutely still, waiting for her to draw near.
“Martin!”
Her voice had a soft, wounded plaintiveness.
“Why are you hiding here?”
His face was all somber in the shadows.
“I had a wish to be alone.”
He could not bring himself to look at her, because of the new bitterness in his heart, and because her voice was so soft and luring.
“What has happened to you, Martin?”
She went close, looking in his face.
“Tell me. Have I no right to know?”
He answered her with strange gentleness, but his eyes would not meet hers.
“Perhaps I have seen a vision, a glimpse of the world as it is. Some things are too beautiful to endure, for other men break them in pieces.”
She drew her breath deeply.
“Ah! Have these rough fools touched your pride? They can have my scorn for the asking. And are you nothing to me, or I to you? Have we not gone through the deeps together, and have you not carried my life in your hands? Man, what do these rough squires matter? Look into my eyes and see if there is shame in them.”
He bowed his head.
“Mellis—what am I but an outcast?”
“Then I am an outcast also. But for me you would be chanting your Masses. And you have been very noble and good to me. Oh, Martin, Martin! this wounds my heart.”
He gave a sudden cry, and fell on his knees before her.
“God help me, but there is nothing else in the world but you. I cannot bear that for my sake you should even suffer pain.”
She bent over him, her hands hovering close to his face.
“Pain! What pain is there? And were it real—should I not bear it?”
“God forbid! Child, I have a kind of dark forefeeling to-night. Yesterday was all sunlight, there was no fear or sorrow in my heart. I was Martin Valliant, a man who was ready to die for you. What has happened? I feel a menace, a threat, a shadow drifting toward us; we are not alone; other voices strike in on ours. This island is not the world; here—I could serve you; but beyond us there are shadows, the shadows of other men—other women; they whisper together against me.”
A great light transfigured her face. She was on her knees, her hands on his shoulders, her eyes wonderful to behold.
“Martin, what has come to us? Oh, my dear, must I speak out?”
He looked at her, awed, trembling, entranced.
“Mellis, Mellis!”
“Is not my fate yours—and yours mine? What is pain to you is pain to me. If there is a world of shadows before us, I go—where my man goes.”
He uttered a deep cry.
“Can I touch you? Is it possible? Will you not melt into the air? Oh, my God! but I dare hardly look at you.”
“Martin, I am a soul in a body. What am I but a woman? Guard me—hold me!”
His arms went around her, but they were all tremulous with awe. Her face was close to his, a white, yearning face, with parted lips and half-closed eyes.
“Mellis—oh, my heart!”
She lay in his arms and smiled at him as he kissed her.
Fulk de Lisle rode all that night, a madman, inflamed, balked of the satisfaction of a violent desire. He had nothing but the stars and the moon to guide him; the Forest was no more than a pathless waste; he pushed northwards, raging like a torch burning in the wind. At dawn his horse died under him, driven by the spurs till its heart failed on the brow of a steep hill. Fulk de Lisle kicked the beast’s body, and looked with red eyes at a gray and silent world.
But the luck was with him—the luck of the adventurer and the drunkard. Dim and sullen, Troy Castle stood less than two miles away on its great hill; the rising sun struck slantwise upon it, so that it looked like a huge turreted ship sailing above a sea of green.
Fulk de Lisle came on his own feet to Troy Castle. There was a sense of stir about the place although the day was still so young. A couple of dusty and sweat-streaked horses were waiting outside the gate-house; grooms and servants were gossiping, and on the battlements soldiers were unlashing the canvas covers of my lord’s cannon.
Some one on the walls recognized Fulk de Lisle when he was a quarter of a mile from the dry fosse; there was some shouting and running to and fro; a man vaulted on to the back of one of the tired horses and went cantering down the road. He was a squire in Roger Bland’s service, a youngster with red hair and an impudent mouth.
“Good morning to you, sir. Why this humility?”
Fulk de Lisle took him by the leg and pitched him out of the saddle.
“Thanks. I will ride the last furlong, and help you to mend your manners.”
Red Head scrambled up and dusted his clothes. Fulk de Lisle was too soaring a bird for him to fly at, but his impudence refused to be chastened.
“I trust your news is better than your face, sir. Our dear lord has the ague this morning.”
Fulk de Lisle rode on, without troubling to turn the lad’s wit.
He clattered over the bridge and into the main court, and the men who saw him ride in stared at his savage face.
“Pride has had a fall,” said some one.
“Or been balked of a woman.”
Fulk de Lisle called a page who was loitering on the steps of the chapel.
“Have you nothing but eyes, you brat? Where is my lord?”
“In his closet, sir.”
“Run and tell him that I am in the castle.”
Roger Bland already had the news, and his groom of the chamber came out with a haggard face.
“My lord would see you—instantly.”
“Damnation—may not a man eat?”
The Lord of Troy sat in his great padded chair with a writing-board on his knees, and quills and an inkhorn on the table at his side. He looked white about the gills, with that whiteness that tells of a faltering heart; his hand had lost its steady, clerkly niceness, and there were blots upon the paper. He had not been barbered, and still wore a gorgeous crimson bed-gown that made his thin face look all the yellower.
“What’s this—what’s this, man? Shut that door, Bennington. Not more bad news?”
He was petulant to the point of childishness. Fulk de Lisle’s red-brown eyes looked at him with veiled and subtle scorn.
“I could not make it worse, my lord. The Forest is up.”
“The Forest—in arms against us! Man—you are dreaming!”
“I am very wide awake, sir. We were ambushed last night as we lay outside Woodmere. They must have been a hundred to our thirty. We made a fight of it; that is all that can be said.”
Roger Bland’s face twitched.
“How many men came back with you?”
“None, my lord.”
There was a short silence. My Lord of Troy’s fingers were playing with his quill. He looked old and querulous.
“These swine! I thought we had tamed them. There is a deeper cunning in all this. I have had secret news this very morning. Richmond is on the sea. By now he may have landed.”
Fulk de Lisle took the news as a soldier of fortune takes his pay.
“The King will not grudge him a battle, my lord.”
“Bombast is so easy. But to say who are friends and who are enemies! Supposing I chose to have you hanged, sir?”
“A most unreasonable fancy, my lord.”
“And why?”
“I have risked my neck in your service. I have no quarrel with your generosity. And my pride is concerned in this—the pride of a soldier and a captain.”
“We shall see, sir; I may let you prove it. And now—we must strike, and strike quickly. These letters shall go at once; they must not miscarry. In three days we should muster a hundred spears and two hundred archers. The falconets and serpents are to come from Roychester; Sir Humphrey Heron will be master of the cannon. I have chosen my gallopers. Look to the garrison, and see that our tenants are fitly armed as they come in.”
Fulk de Lisle bowed.
“My heart is in this venture, my lord,” he said; “you can trust me, because my blood is up.”
So Roger Bland’s gallopers went out from Troy Castle, carrying letters to Sir Humphrey Heron at Roychester, to Sir Paul Scrooby at Granet, and to such lords and gentlemen as favored the White Rose. The rallying place was to be Troy Castle. Naught was said of the Earl of Richmond being upon the seas, for such news might have aroused a dubious loyalty among the gentry of those parts, where fear ruled and the King.
“I charge you to come to me with all your might—and within three days—for the chastening and humbling of certain rebels and traitors.”
So ran the Lord of Troy’s message. These smaller fires had to be quenched before the great beacon burst into a blaze.
My Lord of Troy had eyes in Gawdy Town to serve him, and men were watching to see the Rose come into port; but, seeing that she carried merchandise that was too precious to be fingered, her master elected to lower it overboard before making the land. The Rose came towering along about sunset, with a mild breeze behind her. The sea was a deep purplish blue, and the red west promised fair weather.
Her master had put the ship on a strange course. She hung out to sea till the land grew gray with the dusk, and then, turning her gilded bows shorewards, footed it solemnly toward the land. No one in Gawdy Town had seen her topsails. The gossips on the quay said that she would not make port before the morning.
Half a mile from the land the Rose backed her sails and lay to. The sky was all blue-green above, the sea black as pitch, and the land, with its Forest ridge, looked like a great cloud-bank. The Rose lowered two boats, each manned by half a dozen seamen. Baggage was tumbled into them from the waist, and about a score of voyagers left the ship.
The master stood on the poop and lifted his hat to them as the boats pulled away.
“A good market to you, gentlemen,” he shouted.
A deep voice answered him,
“God save the King.”
The boats went shorewards at a good speed, looking like two gray beetles on the water crawling with white legs, the foam from the oars. They melted into the dusk, and the Rose veered and beat up against the breeze, to play mother till her boats returned.
The baggage and the twenty adventurers were landed in a horseshoe-shaped cove under the cliffs. Some one had been watching for them above, for a couple of men came scampering down the steep path, one of them waving a piece of red cloth.
“All’s well.”
The seamen pushed off and rowed back toward the Rose, but the men stood in a group on the shingle and talked.
“The King is at sea.”
“Sure enough.”
“And the Forest is up.”
“So soon!”
“A woman as usual! They stabbed young Dale in Gawdy Town, and would have taken his sister. So Falconer raised the Forest. Bland’s men came to beleaguer Woodmere; we ambushed thirty of them last night, so the fat is in the fire.”
The man with the deep voice, who seemed to be the leader, betrayed a savage impatience. He had the hard, flat, high-cheeked face of a Mongol, with a brutal mouth, and cold blue eyes.
“The devil fly away with all women! Young Dale was a fool to take the wench with him, and Falconer was a fool to trouble his head about her.”
“That is not the whole story, Sir Gregory.”
“Damn your story! They have rushed matters too rashly. We may have to fight before we are ready. Now for the baggage. Have you any horses above?”
“Six.”
“Bustle up, then. The sooner we are knee-deep in the Forest the better.”
The baggage was carried up the cliff and lashed on the backs of the pack-horses. The men who had landed were well armed under their cloaks. Sir Gregory took the lead, one of the foresters walking beside him.
“Now, man, this story of yours; let us hear it.”
The forester told all that he knew concerning Mellis and her championing by Martin Valliant.
The round-headed man was not pleased.
“Beelzebub—what a beginning! A blackguard monk is a pretty stormcock to open the hurly-burly for us. Fools are superstitious, and I am one of the fools.”