boy, who was cleaning harness outside the stable doorway, stared at her
with a face like sodden dough. She reined up in the courtyard and called
to him.
“Is Master Falconer here?”
“Sure!”
The boy never budged.
“Tell Master Falconer that I am waiting.”
“Who be—I?”
“Run, you dolt, or I will get you a whipping.”
He vanished down a slope that led under one wing of the house, and in
half a minute John Falconer came out to her. He was like the hill he
lived on—a gray badger of a man, grim, reticent, yet kindly. His short
neck made the breadth of his shoulders more apparent. His legs were
bowed and immensely strong. John Falconer was a piece of the Forest. His
hair and beard were the color of beech mast, sanded with gray.
“Do you know me?”
His eyes brightened like a dog’s.
“God’s death! Is it you?”
“My own and very self. And poor Gilbert—you have heard?”
He looked grim.
“God hearten you, child! But what has happened?”
The boy reappeared, and proceeded to stare at them, while he picked his
teeth with a straw. Nor was John Falconer aware of the youngster’s
presence until he saw Mellis’s eyes prompting him to turn his head.
The man of Badger Hill gave a kind of growl, and the child disappeared
with a flutter of brown legs.
“I had to find you, John, but I am loth to be seen here by any stray
fool.”
“The men are in the fields.”
“But that boy?”
“He has no tongue when it pleases me.”
She glanced at the pine woods.
“If your dinner can wait I will talk to you up there.”
He nodded.
“Wise wench!”
Mellis fastened her horse to a tree, and she and John Falconer walked to
and fro along one of the black aisles. She had much to tell him, and he
seemed to grow grimmer the longer he listened. His comments were short,
gruff growls and an occasional terse judgment.
“Vance dead! May he burn like pitch! The priest turned outlaw! What
next? You have made him your man? Nay—I mislike that. A black
Benedictine! Lord, but we are in for a storm!”
John Falconer frightened most people, but he did not frighten Mellis.
She had known him since she was a toddler of three, to be picked up and
carried on his shoulder.
“Whether you like it or not, John, these things cannot be helped. Vance
has made us run when we would have walked. As to Martin Valliant, I
would stake my right hand on his keeping faith with us. And now—will
you rally to us? We can hold Woodmere till the whole Forest flaunts the
Red Rose.”
“I would we had word from France.”
“It cannot be helped. If our people are loth to move—well, I will
disappear, go and live in one of those old quarry holes by the Rondel.”
He answered her doggedly.
“No. I am with you, if I lose my old head for it. I am not so young as I
was, and I would get my blow in at Roger Bland before I am stiff in the
back. I will ride out to-night and warn our friends, and by to-morrow we
shall be able to throw a garrison into Woodmere.”
“Stubborn, trusty oak!”
Falconer smiled grimly.
“There are many men who lust to feel their poniards in Roger Bland’s
throat. I pray that mine may have that honor.”
Mellis did not tarry there much longer. Her work was done for the day;
she could leave the Forest folk to John Falconer. She chose a different
track for her homeward ride—a way that plunged through the pine woods
and turned south again by Witch’s Cross. And she was saved by her
caution, for half an hour after she had left Badger Hill Peter Rich and
his men came riding along the track she had used in the morning.
They found John Falconer at his dinner, and well warned as to their
business. He was bluff and easy with Peter Rich, had ale drawn for the
men and water for their horses.
Rich did not beat about his business.
“This is a hanging job for any fool who meddles. We are after old Dale’s
daughter.”
“Tut, man! She has been in France these seven years.”
“That is a good bit of brag, John Falconer. Come, now; I have no wish to
ride the high horse; the girl has been here; let us have the truth.”
Falconer told his lie with square-faced hardihood.
“I have not seen Mellis Dale for seven years. You can search the house.”
Rich had it searched to salve his conscience. His men found nothing—not
even the stable boy, who was shut up in the venison hutch in a dark
corner of the larder, and far too much in terror of John Falconer to
betray himself.
Peter Rich drank ale while his men were at work. He took his failure
philosophically, and got back into the saddle.
“It has saved me pulling you by the beard, John Falconer.”
“My beard may be at your service—some day.”
They grinned at each other like fierce dogs, and Peter Rich rode off.
But he left two men in the woods to watch the place, which was a trick
of no great moment, for John Falconer guessed that he would be watched.
“Thank God the girl left betimes, and by the other road. And God grant
she may not find a trap at Woodmere House.”
_Chapter XXII_
Martin Valliant was as restless as a dog whose master had gone out and
left him chained to his kennel.
His activities were various and many that morning. He took off his
arm-plates, covered his breast-plate with a sack, and completed the
walling up of the kitchen gateway. The defense of the causeway and the
bridge exercised him still further, and he built a rough ladder and
stage to one of the loopholes of the gate-house, so that a man with a
bow could command the bridge. The matter of archery piqued him to try
what skill he had left. He raised the roof stone of the cellar, searched
out a bow and some arrows, and going up on the leads of the tower, tried
shooting at a bush on the far side of the mere. Five arrows missed the
mark, but the sixth got home. And this testing of his skill taught him
something of value, in that he discovered the tower to be the right and
proper place for a watchman. He could scan the woods, the whole of the
valley, and the island, and see into nearly every corner of the ruined
house itself. The battlements were breast high, and gave good cover for
a man with a bow.
His armor was beginning to sit heavy on him, for he was raw to it; but
as to humoring his body, that was a surrender that he refused to make.
He returned to the courtyard, took his sword, and practiced striking and
thrusting at an imaginary mark. It was a “hand and a half” sword, heavy,
and long in the blade, but very finely balanced. To Martin it felt no
heavier than a willow wand; he played with it half the morning, cutting
off the heads of nettles, learning to judge his distances and the sweep
of a full-armed blow. From time to time he climbed the tower and took a
view of the woods and the valley.
The sun stood at noon when Martin Valliant caught his first glimpse of
the Lord of Troy’s gentry. He was on the leads of the tower and looking
toward the great beech wood when he saw a man skulking under the trees.
The fellow wore the Troy livery of green and silver, and carried a
cross-bow on his shoulder.
Martin kept very still, and the steel of his helmet may have toned with
the gray stone of the battlements, for the man with the cross-bow did
not appear to see him. He came out from the wood shade into the open,
and stood awhile looking at the island and the house. Then he put a horn
to his lips and blew a short blast.
Martin was still asking himself whether the man was an enemy or a
friend, when Swartz and his troop came riding out of the beech wood. The
sun flashed on their breast-plates and helmets, and on the points of
their spears. Swartz, mounted on a roan horse, and wearing a tabard of
green and silver, rode a little ahead of his men.
Martin crouched low, watching them. He had no doubt now as to whence
these gentry had come and as to what their business was. They were from
Troy Castle, adventurous rogues, the scum of the Yorkist armies, for
Roger Bland had good cause to keep a crowd of bullies around him. He was
no born lord; men had not served his father before him; the fealty sworn
to him was lip service; he paid with gold for such faith as men would
sell.
This bunch of spears came trotting across the grassland, their horses’
hoofs beating the golden pollen from the flowers. They reined in about a
hundred paces from the mere, and sat in a half circle, scanning the
newly built gate and the bridge, things that betrayed that Woodmere was
not deserted.
Swartz gave an order, and two men pricked away and posted themselves at
either end of the mere. The rest dismounted; two who carried cross-bows
wound up the winches and stood with the bolts ready on the cord. One of
them marked down Martin on the tower, and calling to Swartz, pointed out
what he saw.
Swartz rode nearer, staring upwards under his hand. Nor did Martin play
at hide-and-seek. The men had seen him; the game had begun.
“Hullo, there! Open, in the name of the King!”
Martin kept silent.
“Hullo! You on the tower, let the bridge down and open the gate, or we
shall have to break it for you.”
Martin was not to be drawn. His eyes kept watch while his thought went
racing through the woods toward Mellis. Had she been taken? And even if
they had not taken her, her peril was still very desperate. She might
come riding out of the beech wood and betray herself to these men. They
were well mounted, and her old brown horse would stand no chance in such
a chase. He sweated at the very thought of her being dragged down by
this rough pack.
Swartz was still shouting, but his voice seemed a long way off. Martin
caught the words, but they had no more significance than the scolding of
a fish-wife. If he could only get to Mellis, warn her! But the futility
of such a plan was self-apparent directly he considered it. If he swam
the mere he would have to swim it naked; he would be seen, and either be
killed or captured. No; salvation did not lie that way. He remembered
her charge to him, “Keep good guard,” and the charge helped him to a
decision. It was his affair to keep these men out of Woodmere, and to
hold the place, if one man could hold it against ten.
Swartz had given over shouting. He shook his fist at the tower, and rode
down boldly to examine the bridge. There was no passage that way without
much labor; Swartz saw that plainly, and rode back again to his men.
But he was an old “free-lance,” and very determined. He meant to enter
Woodmere before sunset, or know the reason why.
“Pounds and Littlejohn, you two men can swim. Off with your harness and
clothing; take poniards with you, and see what is to be found over
yonder.”
The men looked glum.
“Thunder, get to it, you dogs! Are you afraid of a girl and a monk? You
can run fast enough naked, if the monk puts the fear of God into you.”
The two fellows began to strip, and Martin saw how the first assault
threatened him. He had his bow and half a dozen arrows with him, and
there was no hesitation in his eyes.
He saw the two men come haltingly toward the mere, while their fellows
roared jests at them.
“Lord, but Jack Pounds has last year’s shirt on him.”
“Yoicks, see Littlejohn mincing like a girl! More spunk, Thomas!”
“Don’t frighten the lady, Jack! Be gentle.”
The men waded into the shallows, and took the water together, swimming
side by side with their poniards between their teeth. Martin had his
chance and took it, though he shot rather to discourage than to kill.
The arrow struck the water a yard from Littlejohn’s head.
Shouts went up from the gentry who were watching. One of the
cross-bowmen let fly, and the bolt struck the stone coping behind which
Martin was sheltering himself.
He heard Swartz cursing, and shaking his fist, for the two swimmers had
lost all stomach for so bald and naked an adventure. They had turned
back, and were splashing toward the shallows.
Swartz met them on the bank, and threatened them with the flat of his
sword.
“You craven swine!”
He was not loved because of his stern temper.
“Swim the foul pond yourself!” said one of them. “We are not paid to be
speared like fish.”
Swartz’s blood was up and his ambition kindled. Roger Bland did not
grudge gold to those who served him well, and Swartz saw that the luck
was with him, and that he might capture the prize before De Lisle or
Rich could come to share it. So he sat down before Woodmere, had the
horses taken back into the shade, and posted his two cross-bowmen to
mark the house. Swartz was an old campaigner, and always carried a
hatchet slung to his saddle; it would serve in this crisis. He sent six
of his men into the woods to fell trees, while he himself rode his horse
at a walk around and around the mere, preferring to trust his own eyes
when a trap had to be watched.
Martin could have shot at him, but he respected Swartz’s courage. These
gentlemen were not to be scared away by a few arrows; they were taking
the business in hand with methodical seriousness, and the outlook was
not hopeful. Yet Martin was conscious of a feeling of grim elation; his
wits were taut as a bow string; he had thrown himself with a cool head
and steady eyes into the great game of war.
Swartz’s purpose soon explained itself. The men came down from the
woods, carrying the trunks of young trees, till they had a dozen or
more, stacked ready at the end of the causeway. They were going to throw
a bridge across the gap, batter the gate down, and take the place by
assault.
Martin knelt on the leads of the tower, rubbing his chin, and watching
the menace taking shape. He was thinking hard, how he could best meet
the attack; whether he should try to hold the gate against them, or make
his stand in the tower.
Happening to glance at the great beech wood, he saw something that drove
every other thought out of his head. Mellis was there, looking down on
the place from behind the trunk of a beech tree. For a moment or two her
white face and green gown remained in view, and then vanished into the
wood’s gloom.
Martin felt his heart beating hard under his ribs. He looked at Swartz
and the men. They were intent on the work they had in hand; they had not
seen Mellis.
_Chapter XXIII_
Martin Valliant did some mighty rapid thinking. That glimpse of Mellis’s
face had stirred his manhood to a kind of Norse frenzy. Yet he kept his
wits unclouded; and this was the way he reasoned the thing out.
“They will build that bridge of theirs. I might shoot one or two of them
through the loophole, but they have cross-bows and will mark the loop.
When they have built their bridge they will be able to batter down the
gate, and while I am busy there, one or two of them might swim the mere
and come at me from behind. They are in light harness. This armor of
mine should turn a cross-bow bolt. I will try to shoot one or two of
them, and then open the gate, let down my bridge, and give them battle
there or on the causeway.”
The audacity of the plan pleased him, for Martin Valliant was
discovering in himself the wit and daring of a great fighter. He hung
his green shield about his neck, dropped the vizor of his salade, took
the bow and arrows and his naked sword, and made straight for the
gate-house. The ladder and stage he had built gave him command of the
loophole. And his luck and his cunning shook hands, for he pinked two
men, one in the body and the other in the throat, before a cross-bow
bolt came stinging through the loophole.
“Two from ten leaves eight.”
He scrambled down the ladder, leaving his bow on the stage, and quite
calmly and at his leisure unbarred and opened the gate.
Mellis, lying in a patch of young fern on the edge of the beech wood,
held her breath and watched him in amazement. For one moment a wild
doubt stabbed her; he was a craven, he was going to surrender Woodmere
and shirk a fight. The next moment she thought him mad, but she had torn
all doubt of him from her heart and thrown it from her with hot scorn.
She saw Martin let down his bridge, and take his stand just outside the
gate, with the point of his sword on the ground and his hands resting on
the pommel. He was a white and challenging figure holding the bridge and
the gate, daring Swartz and his men to come at him and try their
fortune.
One of the cross-bowmen fired a shot; the bolt struck Martin’s pauldron
and glanced harmlessly aside.
“Drop that—drop that!”
Swartz roared at the fellow. He was a tough old rogue, but he had a
soldier’s love of courage.
“One man against eight, and you want to fight him at fifty paces!”
He pushed his horse along the causeway, and looked curiously at Martin
Valliant. The figure in white harness puzzled him; it did not seem to
belong to a runaway monk.
“Who are you, my friend?”
Martin answered him.
“Come and see.”
Swartz grinned.
“By God—and we will! Bid that Dale wench drop her bow, and my fellows
shall not use their arbalists. We will make a straight fight of it,
Master Greenshield.”
The first man to try his luck was a little stunted fellow who had been a
smith and was immensely strong in the arms and back, but a fool in the
choice of his weapons. He came footing it cautiously along the narrow
bridge, with his spear held pointed at Martin. He had some idea of
feinting at Martin’s throat, of dropping the point and getting the shaft
between the taller man’s legs and tripping him. The trick might have
worked if Martin Valliant had not lopped off the spear-head with a
sudden sweep of his sword, caught the staff in his left hand, and swung
the fellow into the water. The smith could not swim, and was drowned;
but Martin had no time to think of being merciful.
A tall fellow charged him while he was still on the beam, and it was a
question of which man gave the bigger blow and knocked the other into
the mere. Martin’s sword had that honor. Swartz’s second gentleman fell
across the beam with a red wound in his throat, struggled for a few
seconds, and then slipped dying into the mere.
Swartz was biting his beard.
“What—there is no man here who can stand up to a monk! Big Harry,
there: have a swash at him with your pole-ax.”
Big Harry had the face and temper of a bull. He made a rush along the
bridge, swung his pole-ax, and struck at Martin’s head. The salade threw
the point aside, and the shaft struck Martin’s shoulder. He had
shortened his sword and thrust hard at the big man. The point went
through Big Harry’s midriff, and the mere hid a third victim.
Swartz rolled out of the saddle and drew his sword.
“Stand back! This fellow is too good for such raw cattle. I have fought
many fights in my time.”
Then Martin did a knightly thing. He went to meet Swartz, crossing the
beam, so that they met on the broad causeway where neither man could
claim any advantage.
Swartz saluted him.
“I take that to heart, my friend. It was gallantly thought of. One word
before we fight it out like gentlemen. Who the devil are you?”
Martin kept silent.
“You will not tell me? I must find it out for myself. Good. And so—to
business.”
Swartz was lightly armed, and he trusted to his swordsmanship, for he
was very clever with the sword. But his swashbuckling craftiness proved
useless against a man harnessed as Martin Valliant was harnessed, and
who fought like a young madman. It was like aiming delicate and cunning
blows at a man of iron, a man who struck back furiously without
troubling to defend himself. Swartz, with blood in his eyes, plunged to
escape that whistling sword, closed with Martin, and tried to throw him;
but Martin’s gadded fist beat him off and sent him heavily to the
ground.
Swartz lay still, while the five men who had stood to watch this battle
royal fumbled with their weapons and looked at each other out of the
corners of their eyes.
“Try the cross-bow on him, Jack.”
“Shoot, man, and we’ll push at him with our spears.”
But Martin Valliant did not leave them the right to choose how and when
they would attack him. His blood was on fire. He came leaping along the
causeway, a white figure of shining wrath, and those five men turned
tail and fled incontinently toward the woods. Martin did not follow
them, but went back to the place where Swartz was lying. The old
swashbuckler was sitting up, dazed, ghastly, trying to wipe the blood
out of his eyes with his knuckles.
The man in Martin leaped out to the man he had wounded. This fellow with
the black beard was made of finer stuff than the lousels who had taken
to their heels. He grinned at Martin Valliant, and tried to rise.
“Lord, my friend; but am I also to feed the fishes?”
Martin helped him to his feet.
“That blood must be staunched. Those rogues should have stood and fought
for you.”
“Let them run. Master Greenshield, methinks you have broken my brain pan
with that blow of yours. Let me lie down on something soft. I feel sick
as a dog that has eaten grass.”
Martin sheathed his sword, picked up Swartz in his arms, and carried him
over the footbridge. He remembered his own bed of bracken at the foot of
the stairs, and he bore the wounded man there and laid him on the fern.
“Thanks, Greenshield. My head’s full of molten metal. No—let me lie.
I’ll just curse and burrow into the fern, I have had worse wounds than
this in my time.”
He stretched out a hand suddenly.
“No bad blood—no grudges! I’m your prisoner; I play fair.”
Martin gripped his hand hard and went back to the gate.
Mellis had been lying in the bracken, listening to the rout of Swartz’s
gentry in the wood behind her. For five men they made a fine noise and
flutter in getting to horse, and it was like the flight of a small army,
what with their shouting and their quarreling as to what should be done.
She heard them galloping away into the Forest, for they were in frank
agreement upon the main issue, and that was to have nothing more to do
with that devil of a man in white harness who held the bridge at
Woodmere.
Mellis rose up, and went down toward the mere, her heart full of
Martin’s victory. He came out through the gate as she reached the
causeway and crossed the footbridge to meet her. He had taken off his
salade, and so came to her bare-headed, flushed, brave-eyed, and
triumphant.
The sheen of her eyes opened the gates of heaven. She was exultant,
glorious, a woman whose love had taken fire.
“Martin Valliant—oh, brave heart! What a fight was that! I thought you
mad when you came out on the bridge.”
He could find nothing to say to her, but his eyes gave her an answer.
“You little thought that I was watching you.”
This made him smile.
“Yes, I knew that you were up yonder. I saw you looking down from behind
a tree. I think I could have beaten twenty men—because you were
watching me.”
“Am I so fierce?”
“No, it is not that,” he said, quite simply.
Mellis knew what was in his heart, and the cry that echoed to it in her
own. She looked at him with a sudden, tremulous light in her eyes.
“I would have a man brave and staunch—for my sake. It is very sweet to
a woman when she is lonely.”
Martin dared not look at her for a moment. He was her man so utterly
that he could have kissed the dust from her feet, for the love in him
was great and passionate and holy.
“I did what my heart bade me,” he said, “and not to shame this sword.”
“Yes, give me the sword.”
“It is all bloody.”
“What matter. It is but a christening.”
He drew the sword from its scabbard and gave it into her hands. And
Mellis kissed the cross of the hilt, and held it for him to take.
“That is a second sacrament,” he said; “I shall need no other crucifix.”
They entered Woodmere, and Martin raised the bridge and closed the gate.
“You took a prisoner.”
He remembered Swartz, brain-sick and groaning.
“Their captain! A good fighter—and a generous. I must wash his wound;
and if I could find linen——”
“You shall have linen. I love that softness in you, comrade; good
soldiers are made so.”
She turned aside through the postern into the garden, and Martin went to
look at Swartz. He was sitting up, holding his head between his hands,
but the blood had ceased flowing.
“Ah, Brother Greenshield, get me out into the sunlight. I would rather
lie on the green grass—under those apple trees. This place smells of
the coffin.”
Martin helped him up.
“That wound of yours must be dressed. Mistress Mellis is finding me
linen.”
Swartz put an arm around him.
“Deo gratias, but I guess I owe this crack of the poll to her. Well, I
bear her no ill-will. And I have a liking for you, Greenshield, a man
after my own heart.”
“We were trying to kill each other half an hour ago.”
“Lord, man, are we the worse for that?”
Martin helped Swartz out into the orchard and propped him against a
tree. And there Mellis found them like brethren in arms when she brought
linen and red wine.
“I have found you linen, Martin Valliant.”
But she did not tell him that she had torn it from her own shift.
Swartz had a look at her as she turned to go.
“Saints, brother, but some things are well lost for a woman.”
Martin’s eyes grew grim.
“Tush, man, I did not speak lightly. Never flare out at Peter Swartz; he
is too old a ruffian.”