CHAPTER II
CHAPTER III
CHAPTER IV
CHAPTER V
CHAPTER VI
CHAPTER VII
CHAPTER VIII
CHAPTER IX
CHAPTER X
CHAPTER XI
CHAPTER XII
CHAPTER XIII
CHAPTER XIV
CHAPTER XV
CHAPTER XVI
CHAPTER XVII
CHAPTER XVIII
CHAPTER XIX
CHAPTER XX
CHAPTER XXI
CHAPTER XXII
CHAPTER XXIII
CHAPTER XXIV
CHAPTER XXV
CHAPTER XXVI
CHAPTER XXVII
CHAPTER XXVIII
CHAPTER XXIX
CHAPTER XXX
CHAPTER XXXI
CHAPTER XXXII
CHAPTER XXXIII
CHAPTER XXXIV
CHAPTER XXXV
CHAPTER XXXVI
CHAPTER XXXVII
CHAPTER XXXVIII
CHAPTER XXXIX
CHAPTER XL
CHAPTER XLI
THE KING BEHIND THE KING
CHAPTER I
Fulk of the Forest had taken the way towards Witch’s Cross, with the
full moon shining like a silver buckler behind him, to find himself
standing at gaze among the yews of the Black Gill.
Straight before him stretched a black aisle pillared and arched with
huge yews. The aisle ended, like the choir of a church, in a great
woodland window where the full moon hung, one yellow rim touching a
flurry of clouds. Fulk had drawn aside against the trunk of a tree,
lean, alert, shadowy, conscious of something stirring away yonder in the
glooms.
As he stood there watching, and straining his ears in the windless
silence of the April night, he saw a figure move suddenly into the
opening of this woodland window and remain there, outlined against the
moon. The figure was wrapped in a loose cloak, and the peak and jagged
edge of a hood showed up sharply. Moreover, a curved black line beside
it betrayed the line of a strung bow.
Fulk’s sinews were as taut as lute cords. Here was a blessed chance sent
after many nights of grim watching and waiting for certain elusive
rascals who had been slaying my Lord of Lancaster’s deer. He began to
move like a cat, slowly, sinuously, with a queer trailing action of the
legs, slipping from tree to tree. The yews had dropped no dead wood; the
turf was soft and sleek, and Fulk moved as silently as an owl flitting
down a hedgerow.
The figure with the bow stood above him on a low bank where the yews
ended and the fern and gorse began. It was motionless save for a slight
turning of the head from side to side, and wholly intent upon scanning
the heath beyond. Fulk drew a deep breath, gathered himself, and sprang.
The figure whipped round with a sharp cry. A wave of Fulk’s arm knocked
aside the stabbing point of the horn end of the bow. The two black
shapes grappled, one striving to break away, the other to hold its
quarry. Someone’s foot slipped in a rabbit hole, and the two came down
the bank in a tangle into the dense shade under the yews.
A cloud came over the moon, and out yonder a fat hart had risen and was
galloping over the heath. Fulk, on top in the tussle, had a grip of a
wrist whose hand had darted for a girdle knife. The figure under him
ceased to struggle.
“Caught, you lousel!”
The voice that answered him had a fine edge of anger.
“Let me go, you clown. Have you no more wit than——”
Fulk sprang back and up.
“What!”
“Fool, let me but get my knife.”
“Blood of St. Thomas—a woman!”