They were breathless, both of them, and exultant, though Death in a grey
friar’s frock raged to and fro beyond the water. Fulk closed the heavy,
nail-studded door of the hall, and, standing on a stool, took a look at
the enemy through one of the narrow windows.
There were about twenty men on the farther bank, thorough rapscallions
and cut-throats, all of them, whom Guy the Stallion and the Polecat had
got together. Merlin was walking up and down like a grey wolf behind the
bars of a cage. Fulk saw Guy the Stallion to the front as usual, cocking
his red beard fiercely, with that hacked old sword of his over his
shoulder.
They seemed undecided and ready to argue among themselves, while Merlin
cursed them because they were not savage enough to suit his temper. He
kept showing them his right hand, a gesture that puzzled Fulk, and
pointing them across the water, but these rats would not or could not
swim.
Fulk stepped down from the stool.
“Watch Merlin for me while I play the surgeon.”
She took his place on the stool, while Fulk ransacked the solar for
clean linen and brought a bowl of water and a cup of wine from the
kitchen. He set the bowl of water and the linen on a second stool, and
handed Isoult the wine cup.
“Drink, my desire.”
“The dogs yonder will not take to the water, though Merlin lashes them
with his tongue.”
“Have a care. If they see a face they will let fly at the window.”
He bathed her wounded forearm as gently as a falconer imps the wing of a
hawk. It was a clean stab, and the blood had ceased to ooze; so Fulk
left well alone, and pouring in a little sweet oil from a phial he had
found in a cupboard, set to bandage the arm with strips of linen.
“Say if I hurt, Isoult.”
“Am I a child? And you are very gentle.”
She laughed softly.
“I must have my shift and tunic.”
“I will bring them in.”
“And be shot for your pains!”
“I shall put on my harness. It is stout stuff. They can shoot till they
have emptied their quivers.”
He knotted the bandage, kissed her fingers.
“Isoult!”
She turned to him, stooping a little, her eyes all a-kindle.
“Six men could not say you nay!”
“Because of one woman!”
“Ah—ah!”
She kissed him, with passion, her eyes half closed.
“Brave heart, I did not call in vain. What care I so long as we are
together?”
She drew her hand across his cheek.
“Fetch your harness. I will help you to arm, and I can keep watch.”
He brought his armour, bassinet, gorget, breast and back pieces,
shoulder-plates, arm guards, gauntlets, cuishes, genouillères, greaves,
and solerets. Isoult was as good as any squire. She climbed on the stool
every half minute to keep Merlin and his lousels under view.
When she had fastened the laces of his bassinet she asked him, “What
will you do now, great captain?”
“Rescue your clothes, dear lady.”
“And then?”
“Start a few planks and sink the boat, and bring the horses under
cover.”
“And then?”
“Bolt all the shutters, barricade the door that leads from the kitchen
into the yard.”
“And then?”
“Eat.”
She laughed.
“We are well victualled; we can stand a siege.”
Fulk buckled on his dagger, dropped the vizor of his bassinet, took his
shield and sword, and marched out into the garden. Through the grid of
his vizor he saw Merlin waving his long arms, and his men handling their
bows. Fulk went down to the water’s edge as though Merlin and his
footpads were not there, and taking Isoult’s blue tunic and white shift
from the willow tree, laid them over the blade of his sword.
Arrows came with a vengeance, testing his harness. He slung his shield
over his back and walked back in leisurely fashion to the house,
re-entered the hall, and held out the clothes to Isoult.
She laughed, coloured as she took them, and fled away up the stairs to
the solar.
Fulk made a second sally, and keeping to the far side of the island,
managed to bring the horses in without being discovered. He found an axe
in the wood-lodge, just the tool for starting some of the boat planks,
but had he tarried much longer there would have been no boat for him to
deal with. A mop head floated within ten yards of it.
The swimmer turned and struck out for the open water, while a scattering
of arrows and curses showed the temper of Merlin’s men at seeing their
fellow balked. Fulk paid no heed. He started two planks with the back of
the axe; water welled in and the boat settled slowly, the stern sinking
first, the bow remaining level with the surface, being held there by the
chain.
The men had given over shooting, and were watching their comrade, who
had been swimming to and fro in the open water as though to show them
that he was as good as any water-dog. He turned at last to swim in, and,
getting on his feet in the shallows, started to wade the last few yards.
Fulk was watching him, guessing that this was the only fellow among them
who could swim, and thinking that if he had had a bow in his hand he
would have cut short this gentleman’s possible adventures. He had hardly
thought the thought when he saw something strike the wading man between
his naked shoulders. The white flight feathers of an arrow showed as the
fellow threw up his arms and pitched forward into the shallow water.
Those on the bank jumped down to drag him out, though it was but to save
a dead man from drowning! Merlin stood scanning the windows of the manor
house, and calling to his gentry to mark them and shoot at anything that
showed. And then a second arrow came flying and stuck in Merlin’s grey
frock.
The barb rasped his skin, nothing more; but it had flown near enough to
chasten his courage. He shook his fist at the house, and took cover in
the nearest thicket, having the wit to know that Isoult owed him no
mercy.
Fulk went in and found her in the loft over the kitchen, where a window
overlooked the mere. She was standing well back in the room, an arrow
ready on the string, her hair cast back and knotted over her neck.
“What a woman for tempting death!”
He drew her aside to where no arrow flying in at the window could touch
her.
“I gave Merlin a fright. And there was the man who swam for the boat,
and another after Merlin had jumped into the bushes. That makes two to
my own bow.”
He held her close, looking down at her from under his raised vizor.
“God, what a mate for a man! But no more playing with death. I’ll take a
bow and drive these gentry to cover.”