For three years following the disappearance of Prince Richard, a bent
old woman lived in the heart of London within a stone’s throw of the
King’s palace. In a small back room she lived, high up in the attic of
an old building, and with her was a little boy who never went abroad
alone, nor by day. And upon his left breast was a strange mark which
resembled a lily. When the bent old woman was safely in her attic room,
with bolted door behind her, she was wont to straighten up, and discard
her dingy mantle for more comfortable and becoming doublet and hose.
For years, she worked assiduously with the little boy’s education.
There were three subjects in her curriculum; French, swordsmanship and
hatred of all things English, especially the reigning house of England.
The old woman had had made a tiny foil and had commenced teaching the
little boy the art of fence when he was but three years old.
“You will be the greatest swordsman in the world when you are twenty,
my son,” she was wont to say, “and then you shall go out and kill many
Englishmen. Your name shall be hated and cursed the length and breadth
of England, and when you finally stand with the halter about your neck,
aha, then will I speak. Then shall they know.”
The little boy did not understand it all, he only knew that he was
comfortable, and had warm clothing, and all he required to eat, and
that he would be a great man when he learned to fight with a real
sword, and had grown large enough to wield one. He also knew that he
hated Englishmen, but why, he did not know.
Way back in the uttermost recesses of his little, childish head, he
seemed to remember a time when his life and surroundings had been very
different; when, instead of this old woman, there had been many people
around him, and a sweet faced woman had held him in her arms and kissed
him, before he was taken off to bed at night; but he could not be sure,
maybe it was only a dream he remembered, for he dreamed many strange
and wonderful dreams.
When the little boy was about six years of age, a strange man came to
their attic home to visit the little old woman. It was in the dusk of
the evening but the old woman did not light the cresset, and further,
she whispered to the little boy to remain in the shadows of a far
corner of the bare chamber.
The stranger was old and bent and had a great beard which hid almost
his entire face except for two piercing eyes, a great nose and a bit of
wrinkled forehead. When he spoke, he accompanied his words with many
shrugs of his narrow shoulders and with waving of his arms and other
strange and amusing gesticulations. The child was fascinated. Here was
the first amusement of his little starved life. He listened intently to
the conversation, which was in French.
“I have just the thing for madame,” the stranger was saying. “It be a
noble and stately hall far from the beaten way. It was built in the old
days by Harold the Saxon, but in later times, death and poverty and the
disfavor of the King have wrested it from his descendants. A few years
since, Henry granted it to that spend-thrift favorite of his, Henri de
Macy, who pledged it to me for a sum he hath been unable to repay.
Today it be my property, and as it be far from Paris, you may have it
for the mere song I have named. It be a wondrous bargain, madame.”
“And when I come upon it, I shall find that I have bought a crumbling
pile of ruined masonry, unfit to house a family of foxes,” replied the
old woman peevishly.
“One tower hath fallen, and the roof for half the length of one wing
hath sagged and tumbled in,” explained the old Frenchman. “But the
three lower stories be intact and quite habitable. It be much grander
even now than the castles of many of England’s noble barons, and the
price, madame—ah, the price be so ridiculously low.”
Still the old woman hesitated.
“Come,” said the Frenchman, “I have it. Deposit the money with Isaac
the Jew—thou knowest him?—and he shall hold it together with the deed
for forty days, which will give thee ample time to travel to Derby and
inspect thy purchase. If thou be not entirely satisfied, Isaac the Jew
shall return thy money to thee and the deed to me, but if at the end of
forty days thou hast not made demand for thy money, then shall Isaac
send the deed to thee and the money to me. Be not this an easy and fair
way out of the difficulty?”
The little old woman thought for a moment and at last conceded that it
seemed quite a fair way to arrange the matter. And thus it was
accomplished.
Several days later, the little old woman called the child to her.
“We start tonight upon a long journey to our new home. Thy face shall
be wrapped in many rags, for thou hast a most grievous toothache. Dost
understand?”
“But I have no toothache. My teeth do not pain me at all. I—”
expostulated the child.
“Tut, tut,” interrupted the little old woman. “Thou hast a toothache,
and so thy face must be wrapped in many rags. And listen, should any
ask thee upon the way why thy face be so wrapped, thou art to say that
thou hast a toothache. And thou do not do as I say, the King’s men will
take us and we shall be hanged, for the King hateth us. If thou hatest
the English King and lovest thy life do as I command.”
“I hate the King,” replied the little boy. “For this reason I shall do
as thou sayest.”
So it was that they set out that night upon their long journey north
toward the hills of Derby. For many days they travelled, riding upon
two small donkeys. Strange sights filled the days for the little boy
who remembered nothing outside the bare attic of his London home and
the dirty London alleys that he had traversed only by night.
They wound across beautiful parklike meadows and through dark,
forbidding forests, and now and again they passed tiny hamlets of
thatched huts. Occasionally they saw armored knights upon the highway,
alone or in small parties, but the child’s companion always managed to
hasten into cover at the road side until the grim riders had passed.
Once, as they lay in hiding in a dense wood beside a little open glade
across which the road wound, the boy saw two knights enter the glade
from either side. For a moment, they drew rein and eyed each other in
silence, and then one, a great black mailed knight upon a black
charger, cried out something to the other which the boy could not
catch. The other knight made no response other than to rest his lance
upon his thigh and with lowered point, ride toward his ebon adversary.
For a dozen paces their great steeds trotted slowly toward one another,
but presently the knights urged them into full gallop, and when the two
iron men on their iron trapped chargers came together in the center of
the glade, it was with all the terrific impact of full charge.
The lance of the black knight smote full upon the linden shield of his
foeman, the staggering weight of the mighty black charger hurtled upon
the gray, who went down with his rider into the dust of the highway.
The momentum of the black carried him fifty paces beyond the fallen
horseman before his rider could rein him in, then the black knight
turned to view the havoc he had wrought. The gray horse was just
staggering dizzily to his feet, but his mailed rider lay quiet and
still where he had fallen.
With raised visor, the black knight rode back to the side of his
vanquished foe. There was a cruel smile upon his lips as he leaned
toward the prostrate form. He spoke tauntingly, but there was no
response, then he prodded the fallen man with the point of his spear.
Even this elicited no movement. With a shrug of his iron clad
shoulders, the black knight wheeled and rode on down the road until he
had disappeared from sight within the gloomy shadows of the encircling
forest.
The little boy was spell-bound. Naught like this had he ever seen or
dreamed.
“Some day thou shalt go and do likewise, my son,” said the little old
woman.
“Shall I be clothed in armor and ride upon a great black steed?” he
asked.
“Yes, and thou shalt ride the highways of England with thy stout lance
and mighty sword, and behind thee thou shalt leave a trail of blood and
death, for every man shalt be thy enemy. But come, we must be on our
way.”
They rode on, leaving the dead knight where he had fallen, but always
in his memory the child carried the thing that he had seen, longing for
the day when he should be great and strong like the formidable black
knight.
On another day, as they were biding in a deserted hovel to escape the
notice of a caravan of merchants journeying up-country with their
wares, they saw a band of ruffians rush out from the concealing shelter
of some bushes at the far side of the highway and fall upon the
surprised and defenseless tradesmen.
Ragged, bearded, uncouth villains they were, armed mostly with
bludgeons and daggers, with here and there a cross-bow. Without mercy
they attacked the old and the young, beating them down in cold blood
even when they offered no resistance. Those of the caravan who could,
escaped, the balance the highwaymen left dead or dying in the road, as
they hurried away with their loot.
At first the child was horror-struck, but when he turned to the little
old woman for sympathy he found a grim smile upon her thin lips. She
noted his expression of dismay.
“It is naught, my son. But English curs setting upon English swine.
Some day thou shalt set upon both—they be only fit for killing.”
The boy made no reply, but he thought a great deal about that which he
had seen. Knights were cruel to knights—the poor were cruel to the
rich—and every day of the journey had forced upon his childish mind
that everyone must be very cruel and hard upon the poor. He had seen
them in all their sorrow and misery and poverty—stretching a long,
scattering line all the way from London town. Their bent backs, their
poor thin bodies and their hopeless, sorrowful faces attesting the
weary wretchedness of their existence.
“Be no one happy in all the world?” he once broke out to the old woman.
“Only he who wields the mightiest sword,” responded the old woman. “You
have seen, my son, that all Englishmen are beasts. They set upon and
kill one another for little provocation or for no provocation at all.
When thou shalt be older, thou shalt go forth and kill them all for
unless thou kill them, they will kill thee.”
At length, after tiresome days upon the road, they came to a little
hamlet in the hills. Here the donkeys were disposed of and a great
horse purchased, upon which the two rode far up into a rough and
uninviting country away from the beaten track, until late one evening
they approached a ruined castle.
The frowning walls towered high against the moonlit sky beyond, and
where a portion of the roof had fallen in, the cold moon, shining
through the narrow unglazed windows, gave to the mighty pile the
likeness of a huge, many-eyed ogre crouching upon the flank of a
deserted world, for nowhere was there other sign of habitation.
Before this somber pile, the two dismounted. The little boy was filled
with awe and his childish imagination ran riot as they approached the
crumbling barbican on foot, leading the horse after them. From the dark
shadows of the ballium, they passed into the moonlit inner court. At
the far end the old woman found the ancient stables, and here, with
decaying planks, she penned the horse for the night, pouring a measure
of oats upon the floor for him from a bag which had hung across his
rump.
Then she led the way into the dense shadows of the castle, lighting
their advance with a flickering pine knot. The old planking of the
floors, long unused, groaned and rattled beneath their approach. There
was a sudden scamper of clawed feet before them, and a red fox dashed
by in a frenzy of alarm toward the freedom of the outer night.
Presently they came to the great hall. The old woman pushed open the
great doors upon their creaking hinges and lit up dimly the mighty,
cavernous interior with the puny rays of their feeble torch. As they
stepped cautiously within, an impalpable dust arose in little spurts
from the long-rotted rushes that crumbled beneath their feet. A huge
bat circled wildly with loud fluttering wings in evident remonstrance
at this rude intrusion. Strange creatures of the night scurried or
wriggled across wall and floor.
But the child was unafraid. Fear had not been a part of the old woman’s
curriculum. The boy did not know the meaning of the word, nor was he
ever in his after-life to experience the sensation. With childish
eagerness, he followed his companion as she inspected the interior of
the chamber. It was still an imposing room. The boy clapped his hands
in delight at the beauties of the carved and panelled walls and the oak
beamed ceiling, stained almost black from the smoke of torches and oil
cressets that had lighted it in bygone days, aided, no doubt, by the
wood fires which had burned in its two immense fireplaces to cheer the
merry throng of noble revellers that had so often sat about the great
table into the morning hours.
Here they took up their abode. But the bent, old woman was no longer an
old woman—she had become a straight, wiry, active old man.
The little boy’s education went on—French, swordsmanship and hatred of
the English—the same thing year after year with the addition of
horsemanship after he was ten years old. At this time the old man
commenced teaching him to speak English, but with a studied and very
marked French accent. During all his life now, he could not remember of
having spoken to any living being other than his guardian, whom he had
been taught to address as father. Nor did the boy have any name—he was
just “my son.”
His life in the Derby hills was so filled with the hard, exacting
duties of his education that he had little time to think of the strange
loneliness of his existence; nor is it probable that he missed that
companionship of others of his own age of which, never having had
experience in it, he could scarce be expected to regret or yearn for.
At fifteen, the youth was a magnificent swordsman and horseman, and
with an utter contempt for pain or danger—a contempt which was the
result of the heroic methods adopted by the little old man in the
training of him. Often the two practiced with razor-sharp swords, and
without armor or other protection of any description.
“Thus only,” the old man was wont to say, “mayst thou become the
absolute master of thy blade. Of such a nicety must be thy handling of
the weapon that thou mayst touch an antagonist at will and so lightly,
shouldst thou desire, that thy point, wholly under the control of a
master hand, mayst be stopped before it inflicts so much as a scratch.”
But in practice, there were many accidents, and then one or both of
them would nurse a punctured skin for a few days. So, while blood was
often let on both sides, the training produced a fearless swordsman who
was so truly the master of his point that he could stop a thrust within
a fraction of an inch of the spot he sought.
At fifteen, he was a very strong and straight and handsome lad. Bronzed
and hardy from his outdoor life; of few words, for there was none that
he might talk with save the taciturn old man; hating the English, for
that he was taught as thoroughly as swordsmanship; speaking French
fluently and English poorly—and waiting impatiently for the day when
the old man should send him out into the world with clanking armor and
lance and shield to do battle with the knights of England.
It was about this time that there occurred the first important break in
the monotony of his existence. Far down the rocky trail that led from
the valley below through the Derby hills to the ruined castle, three
armored knights urged their tired horses late one afternoon of a chill
autumn day. Off the main road and far from any habitation, they had
espied the castle’s towers through a rift in the hills, and now they
spurred toward it in search of food and shelter.
As the road led them winding higher into the hills, they suddenly
emerged upon the downs below the castle where a sight met their eyes
which caused them to draw rein and watch in admiration. There, before
them upon the downs, a boy battled with a lunging, rearing horse—a
perfect demon of a black horse. Striking and biting in a frenzy of
rage, it sought ever to escape or injure the lithe figure which clung
leech-like to its shoulder.
The boy was on the ground. His left hand grasped the heavy mane; his
right arm lay across the beast’s withers and his right hand drew
steadily in upon a halter rope with which he had taken a half hitch
about the horse’s muzzle. Now the black reared and wheeled, striking
and biting, full upon the youth, but the active figure swung with
him—always just behind the giant shoulder—and ever and ever he drew the
great arched neck farther and farther to the right.
As the animal plunged hither and thither in great leaps, he dragged the
boy with him, but all his mighty efforts were unavailing to loosen the
grip upon mane and withers. Suddenly, he reared straight into the air
carrying the youth with him, then with a vicious lunge he threw himself
backward upon the ground.
“It’s death!” exclaimed one of the knights, “he will kill the youth
yet, Beauchamp.”
“No!” cried he addressed. “Look! He is up again and the boy still
clings as tightly to him as his own black hide.”
“’Tis true,” exclaimed another, “but he hath lost what he had gained
upon the halter—he must needs fight it all out again from the
beginning.”
And so the battle went on again as before, the boy again drawing the
iron neck slowly to the right—the beast fighting and squealing as
though possessed of a thousand devils. A dozen times, as the head bent
farther and farther toward him, the boy loosed his hold upon the mane
and reached quickly down to grasp the near fore pastern. A dozen times
the horse shook off the new hold, but at length the boy was successful,
and the knee was bent and the hoof drawn up to the elbow.
Now the black fought at a disadvantage, for he was on but three feet
and his neck was drawn about in an awkward and unnatural position. His
efforts became weaker and weaker. The boy talked incessantly to him in
a quiet voice, and there was a shadow of a smile upon his lips. Now he
bore heavily upon the black withers, pulling the horse toward him.
Slowly the beast sank upon his bent knee—pulling backward until his off
fore leg was stretched straight before him. Then, with a final surge,
the youth pulled him over upon his side, and, as he fell, slipped prone
beside him. One sinewy hand shot to the rope just beneath the black
chin—the other grasped a slim, pointed ear.
For a few minutes the horse fought and kicked to gain his liberty, but
with his head held to the earth, he was as powerless in the hands of
the boy as a baby would have been. Then he sank panting and exhausted
into mute surrender.
“Well done!” cried one of the knights. “Simon de Montfort himself never
mastered a horse in better order, my boy. Who be thou?”
In an instant, the lad was upon his feet his eyes searching for the
speaker. The horse, released, sprang up also, and the two stood—the
handsome boy and the beautiful black—gazing with startled eyes, like
two wild things, at the strange intruder who confronted them.
“Come, Sir Mortimer!” cried the boy, and turning he led the prancing
but subdued animal toward the castle and through the ruined barbican
into the court beyond.
“What ho, there, lad!” shouted Paul of Merely. “We would not harm
thee—come, we but ask the way to the castle of De Stutevill.”
The three knights listened but there was no answer.
“Come, Sir Knights,” spoke Paul of Merely, “we will ride within and
learn what manner of churls inhabit this ancient rookery.”
As they entered the great courtyard, magnificent even in its ruined
grandeur, they were met by a little, grim old man who asked them in no
gentle tones what they would of them there.
“We have lost our way in these devilish Derby hills of thine, old man,”
replied Paul of Merely. “We seek the castle of Sir John de Stutevill.”
“Ride down straight to the river road, keeping the first trail to the
right, and when thou hast come there, turn again to thy right and ride
north beside the river—thou canst not miss the way—it be plain as the
nose before thy face,” and with that the old man turned to enter the
castle.
“Hold, old fellow!” cried the spokesman. “It be nigh onto sunset now,
and we care not to sleep out again this night as we did the last. We
will tarry with you then till morn that we may take up our journey
refreshed, upon rested steeds.”
The old man grumbled, and it was with poor grace that he took them in
to feed and house them over night. But there was nothing else for it,
since they would have taken his hospitality by force had he refused to
give it voluntarily.
From their guests, the two learned something of the conditions outside
their Derby hills. The old man showed less interest than he felt, but
to the boy, notwithstanding that the names he heard meant nothing to
him, it was like unto a fairy tale to hear of the wondrous doings of
earl and baron, bishop and king.
“If the King does not mend his ways,” said one of the knights, “we will
drive his whole accursed pack of foreign blood-suckers into the sea.”
“De Montfort has told him as much a dozen times, and now that all of
us, both Norman and Saxon barons, have already met together and formed
a pact for our mutual protection, the King must surely realize that the
time for temporizing be past, and that unless he would have a civil war
upon his hands, he must keep the promises he so glibly makes, instead
of breaking them the moment De Montfort’s back be turned.”
“He fears his brother-in-law,” interrupted another of the knights,
“even more than the devil fears holy water. I was in attendance on his
majesty some weeks since when he was going down the Thames upon the
royal barge. We were overtaken by as severe a thunder storm as I have
ever seen, of which the King was in such abject fear that he commanded
that we land at the Bishop of Durham’s palace opposite which we then
were. De Montfort, who was residing there, came to meet Henry, with all
due respect, observing, ‘What do you fear, now, Sire, the tempest has
passed?’ And what thinkest thou old ‘waxen heart’ replied? Why, still
trembling, he said, ‘I do indeed fear thunder and lightning much, but,
by the hand of God, I tremble before you more than for all the thunder
in Heaven!’”
“I surmise,” interjected the grim, old man, “that De Montfort has in
some manner gained an ascendancy over the King. Think you he looks so
high as the throne itself?”
“Not so,” cried the oldest of the knights. “Simon de Montfort works for
England’s weal alone—and methinks, nay know, that he would be first to
spring to arms to save the throne for Henry. He but fights the King’s
rank and covetous advisers, and though he must needs seem to defy the
King himself, it be but to save his tottering power from utter
collapse. But, gad, how the King hates him. For a time it seemed that
there might be a permanent reconciliation when, for years after the
disappearance of the little Prince Richard, De Montfort devoted much of
his time and private fortune to prosecuting a search through all the
world for the little fellow, of whom he was inordinately fond. This
self-sacrificing interest on his part won over the King and Queen for
many years, but of late his unremitting hostility to their continued
extravagant waste of the national resources has again hardened them
toward him.”
The old man, growing uneasy at the turn the conversation threatened,
sent the youth from the room on some pretext, and himself left to
prepare supper.
As they were sitting at the evening meal, one of the nobles eyed the
boy intently, for he was indeed good to look upon; his bright handsome
face, clear, intelligent gray eyes, and square strong jaw framed in a
mass of brown waving hair banged at the forehead and falling about his
ears, where it was again cut square at the sides and back, after the
fashion of the times.
His upper body was clothed in a rough under tunic of wool, stained red,
over which he wore a short leathern jerkin, while his doublet was also
of leather, a soft and finely tanned piece of undressed doeskin. His
long hose, fitting his shapely legs as closely as another layer of
skin, were of the same red wool as his tunic, while his strong leather
sandals were cross-gartered halfway to his knees with narrow bands of
leather.
A leathern girdle about his waist supported a sword and a dagger and a
round skull cap of the same material, to which was fastened a falcon’s
wing, completed his picturesque and becoming costume.
“Your son?” he asked, turning to the old man.
“Yes,” was the growling response.
“He favors you but little, old fellow, except in his cursed French
accent.
“’S blood, Beauchamp,” he continued, turning to one of his companions,
“an’ were he set down in court, I wager our gracious Queen would he
hard put to it to tell him from the young Prince Edward. Dids’t ever
see so strange a likeness?”
“Now that you speak of it, My Lord, I see it plainly. It is indeed a
marvel,” answered Beauchamp.
Had they glanced at the old man during this colloquy, they would have
seen a blanched face, drawn with inward fear and rage.
Presently the oldest member of the party of three knights spoke in a
grave quiet tone.
“And how old might you be, my son?” he asked the boy.
“I do not know.”
“And your name?”
“I do not know what you mean. I have no name. My father calls me son
and no other ever before addressed me.”
At this juncture, the old man arose and left the room, saving he would
fetch more food from the kitchen, but he turned immediately he had
passed the doorway and listened from without.
“The lad appears about fifteen,” said Paul of Merely, lowering his
voice, “and so would be the little lost Prince Richard, if he lives.
This one does not know his name, or his age, yet he looks enough like
Prince Edward to be his twin.”
“Come, my son,” he continued aloud, “open your jerkin and let us have a
look at your left breast, we shall read a true answer there.”
“Are you Englishmen?” asked the boy without making a move to comply
with their demand.
“That we be, my son,” said Beauchamp.
“Then it were better that I die than do your bidding, for all
Englishmen are pigs and I loathe them as becomes a gentleman of France.
I do not uncover my body to the eyes of swine.”
The knights, at first taken back by this unexpected outbreak, finally
burst into uproarious laughter.
“Indeed,” cried Paul of Merely, “spoken as one of the King’s foreign
favorites might speak, and they ever told the good God’s truth. But
come lad, we would not harm you—do as I bid.”
“No man lives who can harm me while a blade hangs at my side,” answered
the boy, “and as for doing as you bid, I take orders from no man other
than my father.”
Beauchamp and Greystoke laughed aloud at the discomfiture of Paul of
Merely, but the latter’s face hardened in anger, and without further
words he strode forward with outstretched hand to tear open the boy’s
leathern jerkin, but met with the gleaming point of a sword and a quick
sharp, “En garde!” from the boy.
There was naught for Paul of Merely to do but draw his own weapon, in
self-defense, for the sharp point of the boy’s sword was flashing in
and out against his unprotected body, inflicting painful little jabs,
and the boy’s tongue was murmuring low-toned taunts and insults as it
invited him to draw and defend himself or be stuck “like the English
pig you are.”
Paul of Merely was a brave man and he liked not the idea of drawing
against this stripling, but he argued that he could quickly disarm him
without harming the lad, and he certainly did not care to be further
humiliated before his comrades.
But when he had drawn and engaged his youthful antagonist, he
discovered that, far from disarming him, he would have the devil’s own
job of it to keep from being killed.
Never in all his long years of fighting had he faced such an agile and
dexterous enemy, and as they backed this way and that about the room,
great beads of sweat stood upon the brow of Paul of Merely, for he
realized that he was fighting for his life against a superior
swordsman.
The loud laughter of Beauchamp and Greystoke soon subsided to grim
smiles, and presently they looked on with startled faces in which fear
and apprehension were dominant.
The boy was fighting as a cat might play with a mouse. No sign of
exertion was apparent, and his haughty confident smile told louder than
words that he had in no sense let himself out to his full capacity.
Around and around the room they circled, the boy always advancing, Paul
of Merely always retreating. The din of their clashing swords and the
heavy breathing of the older man were the only sounds, except as they
brushed against a bench or a table.
Paul of Merely was a brave man, but he shuddered at the thought of
dying uselessly at the hands of a mere boy. He would not call upon his
friends for aid, but presently, to his relief, Beauchamp sprang between
them with drawn sword, crying “Enough, gentlemen, enough! You have no
quarrel. Sheathe your swords.”
But the boy’s only response was, “En garde, cochon,” and Beauchamp
found himself taking the center of the stage in the place of his
friend. Nor did the boy neglect Paul of Merely, but engaged them both
in swordplay that caused the eyes of Greystoke to bulge from their
sockets.
So swiftly moved his flying blade that half the time it was a sheet of
gleaming light, and now he was driving home his thrusts and the smile
had frozen upon his lips—grim and stern.
Paul of Merely and Beauchamp were wounded in a dozen places when
Greystoke rushed to their aid, and then it was that a little, wiry,
gray man leaped agilely from the kitchen doorway, and with drawn sword
took his place beside the boy. It was now two against three and the
three may have guessed, though they never knew, that they were pitted
against the two greatest swordsmen in the world.
“To the death,” cried the little gray man, “à mort, mon fils.” Scarcely
had the words left his lips ere, as though it had but waited
permission, the boy’s sword flashed into the heart of Paul of Merely,
and a Saxon gentleman was gathered to his fathers.
The old man engaged Greystoke now, and the boy turned his undivided
attention to Beauchamp. Both these men were considered excellent
swordsmen, but when Beauchamp heard again the little gray man’s “à
mort, mon fils,” he shuddered, and the little hairs at the nape of his
neck rose up, and his spine froze, for he knew that he had heard the
sentence of death passed upon him; for no mortal had yet lived who
could vanquish such a swordsman as he who now faced him.
As Beauchamp pitched forward across a bench, dead, the little old man
led Greystoke to where the boy awaited him.
“They are thy enemies, my son, and to thee belongs the pleasure of
revenge; à mort, mon fils.”
Greystoke was determined to sell his life dearly, and he rushed the lad
as a great bull might rush a teasing dog, but the boy gave back not an
inch and, when Greystoke stopped, there was a foot of cold steel
protruding from his back.
Together they buried the knights at the bottom of the dry moat at the
back of the ruined castle. First they had stripped them and, when they
took account of the spoils of the combat, they found themselves richer
by three horses with full trappings, many pieces of gold and silver
money, ornaments and jewels, as well as the lances, swords and chain
mail armor of their erstwhile guests.
But the greatest gain, the old man thought to himself, was that the
knowledge of the remarkable resemblance between his ward and Prince
Edward of England had come to him in time to prevent the undoing of his
life’s work.
The boy, while young, was tall and broad shouldered, and so the old man
had little difficulty in fitting one of the suits of armor to him,
obliterating the devices so that none might guess to whom it had
belonged. This he did, and from then on the boy never rode abroad
except in armor, and when he met others upon the high road, his visor
was always lowered that none might see his face.
The day following the episode of the three knights the old man called
the boy to him, saying,
“It is time, my son, that thou learned an answer to such questions as
were put to thee yestereve by the pigs of Henry. Thou art fifteen years
of age, and thy name be Norman, and so, as this be the ancient castle
of Torn, thou mayst answer those whom thou desire to know it that thou
art Norman of Torn; that thou be a French gentleman whose father
purchased Torn and brought thee hither from France on the death of thy
mother, when thou wert six years old.
“But remember, Norman of Torn, that the best answer for an Englishman
is the sword; naught else may penetrate his thick wit.”
And so was born that Norman of Torn, whose name in a few short years
was to strike terror to the hearts of Englishmen, and whose power in
the vicinity of Torn was greater than that of the King or the barons.