Fulk went down to bar and barricade the door that opened from the
passage leading to the kitchen quarters from the yard. He dragged all
the lumber he could find in the kitchen and offices, tables, casks,
flour bins, stools, and benches, and piled them in the passage way. All
this gear, jammed together behind the door, would give Merlin’s men some
trouble if they tried to break in on that side. Fulk remembered that he
had seen a ladder hanging on brackets under the stable eaves. He went
out by the hall door, and with an axe broke the ladder in pieces.
Then he thought of victuals and water. The well was round behind the
wood lodge, and Fulk drew several buckets, carried them in, and filled
every empty jug and crock that he could find. He caught a couple of
fowls, wrung their necks, and hung them in the larder. Nor were faggots
forgotten; there was a stack of them behind the house, and Fulk made
sure of having fuel for the baking of their bread.
When he climbed the ladder into the loft he found that Isoult had
discovered an old hauberk and a rusty helmet with a face guard and had
armed herself to mighty good purpose. She was at the window, with an
arrow ready on the string.
“I have brought down another bird.”
He chided her.
“Heart of mine, can you never leave death alone?”
He dropped his vizor, and, drawing her aside, took her place at the
window. Merlin’s men were scattered along the further bank, watching for
something tangible to shoot at.
Fulk counted them.
“Seventeen trailbastons left. We have settled eight between us this
morning.”
Even as he spoke, an arrow flew in at the window and stuck in the
opposite wall.
“They have marked us down. If we keep to this one window their arrows
will fly in like wasps.”
They returned to the hall, and Fulk dragged the daïs table against the
wall. It was a good length, and made a platform from which he could
command two out of the six lancet windows.
“I’ll take toll while I can.”
He went into the kitchen and came back with a broomstick, a loaf, and an
old piece of dark sacking, and sticking the loaf on the end of the
broomstick, fastened the cloth to it with a couple of skewers.
“Nothing like a good use of one’s wits. Show that at the other windows,
and bob it to and fro. I wager it will fool them.”
Fulk had laid his arrows ready against the wall, and that battle of the
bows began and lasted no more than thirteen minutes. The loaf on the
broomstick was slain three times over. Fulk brought down two men and
winged another, till Merlin’s men lost heart and took cover in the
thickets. They had shot off nearly all their arrows, and had no more
than six left between them.
Fulk stood there, waiting for a chance shot.
“Seventeen less three leaves fourteen, without counting Master Merlin.”
He mused, leaning one shoulder against the wall.
“Can you read me this riddle, Isoult? Who has set these dogs on us?”
She had taken off her helmet, and stood looking up at him.
“Who can tell?”
His face had grown grim, though she could not see it.
“Treachery somewhere! Or was it chance? I would trust Knollys and
Cavendish to the death. No; chance has it. Some underling has blabbed on
the road and Merlin got wind of it. They have a blood debt against us,
Isoult. But for us these scullions might be lording it in London.”
He half raised his bow, but dropped it again.
“I thought I had a shot. When night comes the game will begin.”
“They will have to cross the water.”
“Merlin has wit enough. They will cut down trees and float over. We
shall have to hold the house against them.”
The day brought no further adventures, and Fulk and Isoult made ready
against a probable siege. They fastened the shutters of all the lower
windows, and carried a store of food and water up into the solar, Fulk
foreseeing that he might have to make his last stand there if Merlin’s
men broke in. The gentry across the water kept close in the thickets.
Fulk saw the smoke of a fire rising and guessed that they would lie
hidden till night came.
About sunset they heard the sound of men felling timber in the wood
nearest the mere. Fulk and Isoult were supping at the daïs table, and
they looked at each other meaningly.
“Axes! Merlin is getting ready.”
Dusk fell, and they went to their stations, Isoult taking a window in
the short passage leading from the stairs to the solar, Fulk going to
the loft window over the kitchen. Over the tree tops he could see
streaks of yellow sky banded by purple clouds. A blue gloom seemed to
rise in the woods like water and flow out over the valley. Axes were
still at work in the wood, but Merlin’s men did not show themselves,
having come by a wholesome respect for the shooting of the two in the
house over the water.
Before long the moon would be up in a clear summer sky, and Fulk guessed
that Merlin would seize the darkness between sunset and moonrise to get
his timber float dragged down to the water. Sure enough, as the dusk
deepened, he saw figures appear on the edge of the wood—dim, busy
figures that hacked at the undergrowth and hauled at ropes made of
girdles knotted together. It was a long carry to the edge of the wood,
and the chances of a hit so vague that Fulk husbanded his arrows and
left the men alone.
The darkness increased. Fulk went down into the hall, lit a torch, and
set three more ready in the brackets. Then he joined Isoult at her
window in the passage leading to the solar.
“We shall have Merlin knocking at the door before midnight.”
“Listen!”
They heard an occasional shout, the crackling of brushwood, and then a
confused sound as of men labouring to draw some heavy thing over the
grass.
“Hurry, moon, hurry.”
They waited, standing close together, Isoult’s hair touching Fulk’s
helmet as they watched the eastern sky.
“Look. It is rising.”
A faint, silvery radiance showed above the trees, spread, and brightened
till the yellow rim of the moon shone like the top of a great dome. They
watched it rise, solemn and huge and tawny, making the blackness of the
woods seem more black.
Shouts came from the edge of the mere. Isoult gripped Fulk’s hands.
“They are there.”
Dim shapes were moving over yonder; ropes creaked and strained. They
heard men splashing in the shallows where the shadows of the woods still
lay upon the water.
Ripples appeared, breaking the still surface of the mere where the moon
shone upon it. There was more splashing, and the sound of some heavy
thing slithering down the bank.
Fulk took his bow.
“We may get a shot at them as they ferry over.”
“See, there—over the willows!”
A rough raft made of young tree-trunks lashed together with withes was
moving out into the moonlight. The figures of men were dotted over it,
men who paddled with paddles made of oak boughs. All about this clumsy
ferry-boat the water broke into gobbets and spurts of silver.
Fulk aimed and let fly, stepping aside for Isoult to take her shot. A
shrill yell went up. They heard men cursing. Then the raft moved behind
the willows and was screened from view.
Fulk caught Isoult to him.
“Isoult!”
She threw her arms about him.
“Dear heart, I shall go down and make a first fight of it in the hall.
Bide here. If they press me too hard I shall take to the stairs.”
A sudden solemnity seized them, a sense of peril, and of the nearness of
desperate ends. They had laughed while they had shot their arrows across
the mere, but now this scum of outlaws and broken men had floated over,
and both Fulk and Isoult knew that Merlin would show no mercy.
She pressed her body against his harness.
“Man, man, whatever befalls we face it together.”
“They shall come at you only over my body.”
“Ah, ah—if death takes you shall I tarry behind? I carry a knife.”
“By God, it shall not be so. Stand here with your bow and succour me if
the chance offers. I go to light the torches.”
He hastened down the stairs, and taking a torch that had half burned
itself out, he kindled three other torches that were ready in the
brackets. Merlin’s men were in the porch. He could hear a scuffling
sound like the sound of a pack of dogs sniffing and pawing at a door.
A harsh voice shouted a summons.
“Fulk Ferrers, Fulk Ferrers, the badger is to be drawn out of his
earth!”
Fulk rested his two hands on the pommel of his sword.
“I am here, Merlin; but you shall lose your dogs in the hunting.”
A discordant laugh answered him.
“What! Are you still on the high horse? Think not, Fulk Ferrers, that
the great ones have need of you any longer. Nay, it is otherwise. I have
been sent to shrive a mock King and to bury him.”
“You lie.”
“Tell me, then, what did the King and his Council promise Knollys if he
would trap you here? And how is it that I, Merlin, carry the King’s ring
on my finger?”
“Merlin, you lie.”
“Believe what you choose, fool. We are here to make an end.”
Fulk’s face grew more sharp and grim behind his vizor, for it flashed on
him that Merlin’s sneers might be near the truth. It was strange, now
that he came to think of it, that they should have found the house of
the Black Mere empty. It was still more strange that Merlin should have
known whither to lead his thieves and cut-throats. And yet it went
bitterly against the grain with him to think Knollys guilty of
treachery.
Then they struck the first blow upon the door, and the timbers creaked,
and the bar strained in its sockets. They were using a tree-trunk as a
ram, six men swinging it, while the rest stood ready.
Fulk’s blood was up. He thought of Isoult, and his heart grew great and
fierce within him. If this pack of wolves had been set on them to make
an end—well, by God, he would cheat them and their masters.
He tossed his shield to Isoult, who stood at the head of the stairs,
drew his dagger, and took his stand about four paces behind the great
door. A second blow had started the planking. A third split the door
from top to bottom, though the iron hinge straps held the two halves
together. The end of the tree trunk burst through and stood a yard
beyond the broken door. The men worked it to and fro till the hinge
bolts snapped one by one. The gap widened, showing wild and shadowy
faces, the blade of a sword, and a hand holding an axe.
Someone knocked the bar up; the two halves of the door fell apart. Those
behind pushed on those in front. A tangle of bodies, heads, arms, and
weapons jammed themselves in the doorway.
Fulk seized his chance. The first man in went down with a broken skull.
The second stumbled as he swung a blow at Fulk with a poleaxe, and had
the dagger in his face. Then the whole pack broke through, and Fulk
sprang back, knowing that their numbers would smother him if he let them
close.
He covered the stairway leading to the solar, and for the moment
Merlin’s men held back. A voice cursed them from the porch.
“At him, dogs, drag the fool down.”
Guy the Stallion was the first man to leap forward, but death took him
before he could strike a blow. Isoult had loosed an arrow at him from
the head of the stairs. Its white feathers showed under the red tuft of
Guy’s beard.
He faltered, and sprawled, his sword flying from his hand. The rest
charged over his body. Fulk backed up the stairs like a stag at bay, and
paused halfway up to make his stand.