OF AN AMBUSCADE, A DUEL, AND AN ESCAPE
The Renegade Duke, whose challenge Sir Richard had so openly invited,
and who, through the mishap described, had secured a temporary
possession of the playful note written to the young knight by Isabel,
had quickly surmised by whom it had been inscribed. He was aware of the
maid's dissatisfaction with her surroundings, and that she had chosen
Sir Richard to be her deliverer at once sent the Duke into a ferment of
passionate jealousy.
The Renegade Duke's accidental meeting with Isabel when he had first
come to Scotland to join Tyrrell's projected expedition, had marked the
beginning of a mad desire to arouse within her breast a return of the
sentiment that he entertained toward her. In so far as his superficial
character permitted, his affection for her was genuine. But in the rare
instances in which he had contrived to meet and talk with her alone,
she had rejected his suit with an indignant scorn that would have left
an ordinary man without the shadow of a hope of future success. The
Duke, however, was all egotism and vanity, and remained firm in his
belief that his charms would ultimately prevail. By fair means or foul,
he had determined upon having her within his power; and, as the initial
step toward such an end, he had played the traitor by laying bare
before Douglas the whole of Sir James's plan.
Douglas, himself a conspirator of no mean abilities, had immediately
set about to concoct a scheme whereby to take advantage of Tyrrell's
grave dilemma, caused by the unhappy death of the young prince.
Douglas had already instituted measures to have a substitute candidate
proclaimed in the place of the one dead, being well aware that Sir
James would scarcely dare to incur the ire of his men--from whom he had
kept the circumstance of the prince's death a dark secret--by exposing
the falsity of the Douglas claimant. Rather, did Douglas figure it,
would Tyrrell be under the necessity of joining issues. This would
result in a powerful movement, with the Douglas finger very much in
the juicy pasty that was designed to be served up to Henry VII and
his followers. Had the Renegade Duke been acquainted with the genuine
character of the captive Sir Richard's ancestry he would doubtless
have been in haste to communicate his knowledge thereof to his new
master, with the result that the plot, then taking shape, would have
been infinitely less complex, and probably less interesting than it
subsequently turned out to be. In his selection of Sir Richard to
assume the leadership of his gathered forces, the Duke fell into the
error of supposing that Tyrrell had happened by chance to duplicate
Lord Douglas's clever expedient.
In the early morning of that day the Duke had contrived to get word to
one of Douglas's lieutenants of the captivity of the young knight, and
of Tyrrell's intention to carry him to his stronghold before making
known his plans with regard to him. The Duke anticipated a counter
move upon the part of Douglas along the way; but he calculated that
if he could make himself the instrument of the captive's removal, it
would place him high in the esteem of Lord Douglas; while, at the same
time, he believed that such a move would leave Tyrrell without a prop
wherewith to buttress his tottering conspiracy.
As Sir Richard, around whom simmered this salmagundi of politics, rode
onward with the company, he tried many times, by piecing together odds
and ends of the talk that drifted to his ears, to gather some inkling
of the purpose upon which the company, of which he was a most unwilling
member, was engaged. With recurring frequency he heard the word
"treason," and its kindred, "traitor," "spy," "base informer" traded
from tongue to tongue among the men around him. The march was now being
urged rapidly forward, and a something portending evil seemed to be
hanging in the air about them.
The end they were seeking to attain, and the part his person was
playing in their machinations grew more enigmatical in proportion with
the thought that Sir Richard gave to the matter of burrowing to the
reason for them. He ceased trying, finally, and suffered himself to be
carried along whithersoever chance, or good or bad fortune, listed.
His companion of the morning, now no longer taciturn, was riding well
to the front with Erasmus, whom he had evidently persuaded to remain
with the company. In sullen silence at his left rode the Renegade Duke.
Faithful de Claverlok kept within touch of Sir Richard's hand to his
right.
When he was not engaging the bluff old warrior in conversation, the
young knight would yield himself to the ineffable delights of conjuring
up radiant visions of the maiden of the piece of saffron velvet, whilst
all of the time he was building every manner of chimerical plan for
effecting her delivery from the hands of the keeper of the Red Tavern.
Full often his fingers would seek and caress the soft nap of the
cutting of cloth. He had need of constant assurance that the entire
mysterious happening had not been of the ephemeral fabric of an unusual
dream.
Thinking thus of the unknown maiden to whom he had pledged his knightly
sword, led him naturally to the contemplation of his own freedom,
and the stratagem through which he was hopeful of achieving it. That
his avowed enemy, the Duke, was, at the proper moment, ready to lend
himself to his device, Sir Richard was almost certain. His scheme
involved the arrangement of a secret duel, in which he trusted in his
strength of arm to vanquish his enemy and thereafter make his escape.
But a most substantial and incorruptible barrier offered in the bulky
person of the grizzled knight. As many as a score of times had de
Claverlok been loudly hailed from the vanguard of the line. But without
exception he had laughingly rejoined that he was engaged in keeping
companionship with the honored guest of the company, remaining deaf to
the young knight's fervent assurances that he must consider himself
quite free to ride ahead, if he so desired.
"Aye," he would invariably reply, "I know well that thou art growing
tired of my prattle, ... eh? I wish that it were not so, sir knight,
for I must do my devoir by thy side till the trumpet sounds a halt for
the night."
Once Sir Richard put to him point blank the question of why and how
long he was to be thus forcibly detained.
"Before the sun drops beneath the hills in the evening of to-morrow,"
de Claverlok replied, "thou shalt know all. Would that I were free to
tell thee the story now, Sir Richard," he added with an honest candor,
"but my lips are sealed with an oath most sacred, ... eh! Thou wouldst
not expect me to break my knightly vow, I know," upon which he looked
significantly across at the Renegade Duke, but that immaculate dandy
was busily engaged in polishing his nails against the flowing skirts of
his scarlet _sclaveyn_, and remained wholly unconscious of the implied
warning.
One thing, at least, had drifted clear of the haze within Sir Richard's
topsy-turvy brain. Lord Kennedy was the leader, and had appointed
de Claverlok as his especial consort. He wished heartily that some
accident might befall to win or send the rugged warrior from his close
attendance upon his stirrup, as this was the only means through which
he could hope to achieve the end he had in mind.
The sun, by now, was tinting the western sky a rose glow, with all
across the face of it a sweeping of thin and luminously pink clouds.
The hour had almost come when Sir Richard had promised himself the
felicity of trying conclusions with his braggart enemy at his left; yet
here was de Claverlok riding unyielding alongside, the embodiment of
everything firm and loyal.
Though he was chafing sore under the restraint, Sir Richard could not
but suffer himself to be entertained by the flow of good humored talk
of his companion, which went something after the following fashion:
He had been told that Sir Richard had passed the greater part of his
life in Brittany? The young knight answered affirmatively. He, too, the
grizzled warrior averred, had hunted, fought, and tilted there. There
were maidens in Brittany, ... shy, big-eyed, captivating, ... who had
once regarded him not unfavorably, ... eh! Their daughters, mayhap, had
done the same for Sir Richard? "Thy looks doth certes deny thy age,"
the young knight had politely assured him. Ah! aye--but he was old,
though, ... quite old enough to be the sir knight's father. Why! once
he had split a lance or two with the old Duke Francis himself. And at
the time when Henry, Earl of Richmond, now England's sovereign ruler,
had been but a romping, long-haired boy, ... eh! Yea, ... and the
sturdy Duke had come nearer to unhorsing him than any man across the
Channel. He had been informed that the young sir knight had once been
Henry's playmate; ... was this true, ... eh?
He had indeed been the companion of Henry, Sir Richard told his
friendly guard, and with him had shared the guardianship of Duke
Francis and the bountiful hospitality of his court.
Then it may have been, the grizzled knight went on, that Sir Richard
had witnessed that self-same tournament upon the field of Anjou, at
Vannes? It had been extravagantly rich in prizes, ... that tournament.
He himself had been so fortunate as to win two barbs and three coats
of Tuscan mail, ... fluted, ... sumptuous, ... exquisitely damascened.
But they had long since found their way into the rapacious talons of
the Jews. Everything that he had ever possessed ... of any value, ...
saving that which he was then wearing, ... and his knightly honor,
... had followed at the tail of them into the same far-reaching, ever
greedy claws. Yet he courted no hatred of them, ... eh! Why should one?
Were they not as necessary to a gold-lean knight, these gleaners of
worldly wealth, as were his very bread and wine, ... eh? What excuse
was there for despising one of the prime essentials of life, he wanted
to know?
In something after this manner the warrior rambled on. Touching, with a
ponderous grace, upon any subject that chanced to fall, haphazard, into
his mind, not pausing for a moment to listen to answering comment, or
seeming to expect it: Sir Richard was growing convinced that the crafty
fellow was witness to the passing of the insult between the Renegade
Duke and himself, and that he was merely talking to defeat their avowed
purpose of renewing hostilities till the hour when they should halt for
the night.
There would be no duel that day, and no escape, of this he was by now
almost certain. Disappointed, chagrined, impatient of his strange
thralldom, and desiring above all things else to deliver Henry's
message to Douglas, he rode gloomily along, lending something less than
half an ear to the empty words that his stanch, unwavering guard was
volleying into it.
For a considerable while the road had been threading between a pleasing
succession of furze and thistle-grown downs. It was from a copse
abutting upon the highway, when they were riding between the steeper
of these, that a frightened hare scurried in front of them across
the road. Upon the instant de Claverlok drew rein and swept each of
the hillsides with a swift and keen scrutiny. The trifling incident
of the flying hare was as the first eddy of wind that heralds the
coming tornado; for, in almost the next moment, there followed the
sharp spattering of bolts against bonnet and breast-plate and shield.
One struck fair upon Sir Richard's gorget, causing him to reel in
his saddle and his temples to throb and ache with the shock of the
impact. Among those riding ahead the young knight saw three pitch
heavily off their horses. Clear eyed and iron nerved indeed were these
Scot archers; men who could pick you out with unerring nicety the
crevice between gorget and helm, or the joint between pauldron and
breast-plate. Often, with the beaver drawn, they were known to flick an
arrow through the eye-slit without touching either side of the orifice.
After the first shower of bolts the slopes upon each side of the
company of horsemen became alive with warriors, slipping down the hill
upon them like brown and living torrents. There was a ruddy glare
ahead, where the ardent rays of the sun, now setting, were beating
against the breastplates of an advancing foe. Uprose, then, loud cries
of "Douglas, and the Duke of York!" "Long live the White Rose!" which
was met with shouts of "Death to the traitors!" "Long live Tyrrell and
the Duke of Warwick!"
Sir Richard was just upon the point of yielding to the instinctive call
that would have placed him in the singular position of giving battle
against the enemies of his supposed own foes, when the Renegade Duke's
hand fell heavily upon the bridle of his prancing stallion.
"Cock-shut time is come!" he was shouting in the young knight's ear. "I
am ready to obey thy command of this morning. Ride with me to the left!"
Quick as a flash Sir Richard wheeled, and together they drove upward
along a narrow roadway that debouched from the one over which they had
been traveling, unlimbering their battle-axes as they sped along.
When the wooded summit of the down intervened between them and the
scene of the conflict, they drew rein and went at it. Whatsoever else
the Renegade Duke may have been, Sir Richard was quick to discover that
as a foeman he was not in the least to be despised. Blow after blow
he was parrying, and that with a neatness and cleverness that set the
impetuous young knight somewhat by the ears. Indeed, growing out of the
very frenzy of his eagerness, he realized that his attacks were losing
an alarming measure of their force and accuracy.
There was now need of immediate action, as, upon the further side of
the down, the crash of arms seemed to be subsiding. It was just as he
was charging his antagonist afresh that Sir Richard heard the thunder
of hoof-beats along the narrow road upon which the Duke and he were
fighting for their very lives. Summoning every vestige of energy
and strength at his command, he aimed a blow full at his foeman's
head-piece. When it appeared to be upon the point of striking, the
Renegade Duke executed a swift demivolte. The heavy ax, glancing along
his helm, clove off its jaunty white plume, and crashed fair upon the
chamfron of his mount. There followed then a momentary reeling and
staggering, like a maimed ship in a sudden gale, whereupon horse and
rider fell, furiously plunging and kicking, into a thornhedge beside
the road.
By now the echoes of the approaching hoofbeats were reverberating
clear and crepitant from against the steep side of the opposite hill.
The Renegade Duke had not done sinking into the crackling brush when
Sir Richard wheeled, and, touching rowels lightly to his stallion's
foam-flecked side, made off with all the speed there was left in him.