Swartz’s head for him. He gave him wine to drink, and Swartz was glad of
it.
“Zounds, that’s good. Now, by my soul, I think I will spend the night
here, out of the dew, and with the stars blinking above. I have a love
of the green earth, Martin Valliant; I was not bred in a city. And look
you here, man——”
Martin gazed at him steadily.
“You took me in fair fight, and here I shall stay, so long as you hold
the place. I swear to keep faith, and to play no tricks on you. And
here’s the hand of a soldier.”
Martin accepted the pledge.
“My heart trusts you,” he said.
“One word, lad: never trust the man I serve—or did serve—Roger Bland,
if you have him as you have me now. I am a war-dog, but he is a cold
snake. Put your heel on his head, and spare no weight.”
_Chapter XXIV_
The sun sank low in the west, and the whole world was very still. Peter
Swartz had fallen asleep under his apple tree in the orchard, and the
white blossom scattered itself on him as he slept.
A great wonder had overtaken Martin Valliant. He had eased himself of
his harness and gone down to a little grassy place where willows cast a
net of shadows over the brown water. He stood there, leaning against the
trunk of a willow tree, listening to the birds singing in the valley
that shone like a great bowl of magic gold. The west was all afire, and
throwing a strange glory over the woods, so that the tall trees seemed
topped with flame. Not a breath of wind stirred in the leaves or
grasses.
And Martin Valliant’s heart was full of a strange, listening awe. He
looked at the still water, the burning trees, the glimmering meadows,
and there seemed no sadness anywhere, but only deep exultation and a sob
of wonder in the throat. His face shone under the soft green of the
willows. This place was the new Paradise, and a woman’s eyes looked out
of the window of Heaven.
A voice called to him.
“Martin, Martin!”
A spasm of emotion shook Martin Valliant’s soul. He spread his arms, and
raised his face to the sunset. If to love a woman was sin, then God was
a devil, and the Lord Christ had never walked the earth.
He heard Mellis come singing through the orchard where Peter Swartz
slept under the apple trees. The sound of her voice quickened his love
almost to anguish. He dared not go to her for the moment or meet those
dark eyes of hers.
“Martin Valliant!”
She came out from the shadows of the orchard, and saw him standing
there, his right arm covering his face. Her heart faltered for a beat or
two, and then quickened with a rush of wonder and awe.
Mellis went toward him, her eyes mysterious and full of soft, tremulous
light. Martin heard her footsteps and her gown sweeping the grass. He
uncovered his face, and it was all white and strange and radiant.
For a moment they looked at each other with mute timidity. There seemed
nothing that could be said, for the great mystery of life had touched
them.
Then Mellis spoke, and her words were no louder than a light wind moving
in the trees.
“I do not know what the day has done to me. But I could sit in the long
grass and listen to the birds singing, and watch the sunset on the
water, and never speak nor move.”
“It is very wonderful,” he said, “for all the joy of the world seems in
this valley.”
“I could touch no food to-night but honey and white bread, and moisten
my lips with the dew.”
She heard Martin draw in his breath.
“And presently the soft dusk will come, and the day will die. But there
will be the stars, and a silver sheen on the water, and a silence that
waits—and listens——”
Her face dreamed.
“Come.”
He followed her, found himself at her side, moving through the long
grass that rustled under their feet. He was no more a body, but a soul
that burned with yearning and a great white glory. And Mellis’s hair was
as black as the night.
She led him into the garden, and there he saw their table strewn with
flowers. She had set out bread, and wine, and honey. His helmet lay in
the midst on a cushion of green leaves, and she had bound it about with
a spray of red roses taken from the old rose bush.
Mellis pointed a finger.
“Even the roses bloomed for us to-day. And there is your crown of
victory.”
He stretched out a hand and touched hers timidly, as though he were
afraid.
“Mellis——”
Her hand closed on his with a sudden thrill of tenderness.
“Is not life good? Do you fear to look at me, Martin?”
“You have stepped out of heaven,” he said, “and the great light of you
blinds my eyes.”
They sat down at the board, but though the bread was white and the honey
sweet, little of either passed their lips. It fell to old Swartz to make
an end of the loaf, and to sweeten his black beard with the honey.
“Deo gratias,” he said when Martin brought him his supper; “but I have
been asleep and dreaming, and in my dreams I thought I heard a woman
singing. You can leave me the wine bottle. I shall not play the swine
with it.”
He looked shrewdly at Martin Valliant’s face, and saw that the green
island had become a place of enchantment.
“Get you gone, Sir Greenshield. I shall be ready to sleep again, and
this apple tree will serve as a tent. Black beards are not for such as
you, and perhaps I was not dreaming when I slept.”
He cut himself a great hunch of bread.
“Think of the blood I have to make good! Take your youth, man, and thank
God for it. You are welcome to any glory you have got out of the
bloodying of my poll!”
Swartz watched Martin Valliant walk back toward the garden.
“His head is in Paradise,” he said to himself, “but he had the heart to
remember my supper. May the wench be kind to him. It is all a midsummer
madness—this love. Well, give me the madness, say I; good wine and a
comely woman. The worms can have me when a wench will no longer give me
a glint of the eye.”
Mellis had brought her lute with her from the Black Moor, and she had
not touched its strings since she had sung to the burgher revelers in
the tavern at Gawdy Town. And somehow all her grief and travail and
yearning seemed to melt into an exultation that was like the beauty of
an April day, a race of sunlight and of shadow.
As the sunset reddened, and the black bats began to flutter around on
noiseless wings, the sound of her lute went over the water. Old Swartz
heard it, and then her voice, deep, and strange, and very sweet, warming
the heart like wine.
She looked down at Martin lying in the grass at her feet.
“Is there sin in my singing—when my brother is dead? Am I forgetting
because my mouth is not silent?”
The sunset lit up Martin’s face. His eyes were gazing into the distance,
eyes that questioned the earth and heaven—and life and the hypocrisies
of men. It was as though the gates of a new wisdom had been opened to
him. A man may think himself into hell, and feel himself into heaven.
“What is sin?”
She smiled at him.
“Such words from your lips!”
“I see a vision,” he said slowly, “of the beauty of the earth and the
mystery thereof. Shall I quarrel with the apple because it comes from
the bloom of the tree? Do not the beasts fight for their mates, and is
there not a nobleness in valor? The good knight rides out, and his
strength is for the service of those who are oppressed. As for hiding in
a cell and starving one’s body—such a life begins to smell of
cowardice.”
She raised her head proudly.
“We are rebels, Master Valliant, you and I. Say, have I lost you your
soul?”
“No, by God; but you have found it for me, and set it free. I am no
longer afraid of the shadows of sick thoughts.”
She swept her fingers over the strings, and began to sing to him as the
dusk gathered. The woods melted into a cloud of blackness; the red of
the sky changed to amber; moths came to feed from the white flowers in
the grasses of the wild garden.
Between the snatches of song she leaned toward him, and he knelt to meet
her.
“What if we die to-morrow? What can the Lord of Troy take from us?”
“No man shall take you while I live.”
“And in the Forest the birds sing at dawn.”
“And in the night I lie before your door to guard it with my body.”
They looked long into each other’s eyes.
“Martin Valliant,” she said very softly, “Martin Valliant.”
And he bowed himself and kissed her feet.
_Chapter XXV_
John Falconer of Badger Hill was too shrewd a gentleman to betray
himself or his affairs to the lurkers whom John Rich had left in the
woods to watch him. Falconer made no stir about the place, left his men
working in the fields, and kept his own counsel.
“If the dogs have been busy about here,” he said to himself, “we will
give them no cause to hunt us. There are other parts of the Forest where
men can muster and march to help Mellis Dale.”
Yet he was much troubled about Mellis, and what might have happened at
Woodmere in her absence. Roger Bland’s men might have seized the place
and made it a trap for her. John Falconer had no faith in any runaway
monk, even though he happened to be old Valliant’s son.
When night came he went quietly to the stable with a wallet full of
food, saddled and bridled his horse, and rode out by the way of the pine
woods. The moon would not be up for an hour; the woods were dark as a
pit; he saw nothing of Rich’s men, nor did they see anything of him.
When he was well away from Badger Hill, John Falconer tied up his horse
and sat down to wait for the moon.
Old forester though he was, Falconer missed his way that night, and the
sun had been up an hour before he reached the hills above Woodmere Vale.
Martin Valliant had been up and stirring before the dawn, for love and
his harness had left him but little sleep.
Mellis had taken the watch, and had bidden him unbuckle his harness and
sleep in the upper room; but Martin had refused to take off his breast
and back-plates, gorget and cuishes, lest Roger Bland’s men should try
to steal into the place at night and catch him unprepared.
“When your friends rally here,” he had said, “then I can rest out of
this iron skin.”
He was minded to better his footbridge, and broaden it with two lighter
pieces of planking so that a horse could be brought across. His
forethought proved prophetic, for when the first grayness of the dawn
spread over the valley he saw three horses quietly cropping the grass
not fifty yards from the bridge-head. One of them was Swartz’s roan; the
others had been lost by the five men in the flurry of their flight.
Swartz’s roan seemed to be a companionable beast. He came down to the
bridge-head, and stood there whinnying and watching Martin at his work.
He was still saddled and bridled, as were his two comrades who went on
cropping the grass.
Martin Valliant looked at Swartz’s horse as he had never looked at a
horse before. The creature had a new meaning for him; it was no ambling
pad, no fat palfrey, but a beast built to carry a man to battle, one of
the strong things of the earth whose strength had to be mastered. Martin
left his bridge-building for something more knightly. He wanted to ride
Swartz’s horse, to feel himself astride of that brown body, to know
himself the creature’s master.
The roan seemed as ready as Martin Valliant. He was playful, full of
zest, and went off at a canter directly Martin was in the saddle. But
the man was the lord. He made the beast drop to a trot, and then worked
him to a gallop over the dew-wet grasslands between the water and the
woods.
So when John Falconer came to the edge of the beech wood he saw a young
man in half armor galloping a horse furiously up and down the valley,
and handling him like no novice. Horse and man were in excellent temper,
the one delighting in riding, the other in being ridden.
John Falconer kept himself in the shade, and looked down on Woodmere. He
noticed the two horses feeding by the mere, that the bridge was down and
the gate open, and for the moment he had good cause to fear that the
Lord of Troy’s men had taken the place, and that this galloper on the
horse was one of them. Then he saw a woman appear on the leads of the
tower, and knew her to be Mellis.
She watched Martin Valliant and the roan horse, and waved a hand to him
as he came cantering back from the lower end of the valley. Falconer
tugged at his beard with thumb and forefinger.
“So this is our outlaw monk! The fellow has learned to sit a horse.”
He rode out from the beech wood, and the two horses converged upon the
bridge, Martin feeling for his sword and calling himself a fool for
galloping about unarmed, with the bridge down and the gate open.
He saw Mellis waving a scarf at the new-comer, and guessed that all was
well. Falconer had reined in by the bridge-head and was waiting for the
man on the roan horse. The master of Badger Hill had a shrewd eye for
the shape of a man, the color of his eyes, and the set of his head. He
could look inwards, judge without favor; and though he had no desire to
be pleased, Martin Valliant pleased him.
These two men stared into each other’s eyes with a certain searching and
haughty curiosity.
“So this is Roger Valliant’s son? You are overtrustful, young man, to go
galloping up and down with that gate open. Had I been an enemy, I could
have put a shaft into you.”
Martin flushed.
“I have called myself a fool for it,” he said bluntly, “but the horse
came and whinnied at me, and I had to ride him.”
“Then it is no horse of yours?”
“No, Peter Swartz’s.”
“Peter Swartz’s! Such a tale hangs crooked!”
“He is wounded and a prisoner.”
Then Mellis came out to them with eyes that smiled at old Falconer’s
grim and puzzled face. He had to be told everything, how Martin had
fought with Peter Swartz and his men, beaten them, and taken Swartz
prisoner. And still John Falconer was not pleased. He had ridden out
with a fixed distrust of Martin Valliant in his heart, and being an
obstinate and dogged gentleman, he was in no hurry to surrender his
distrust. Martin had tied up Swartz’s horse and gone back to his
bridge-building.
“Very pretty—very pretty. But the fat’s in the fire, thanks to our
champion’s valor. ’Twould have been almost better to have played fox and
let them have the place.”
“And what would you have said of Martin Valliant if he had made no fight
for it?”
“Praised his cunning, no doubt!”
“No; you would have called him a coward and a traitor.”
She was smiling, but there was a glitter of hot partisanship in her
eyes, and she was ready to stand by her man and speak for him.
“This is not like you, John Falconer, to quibble and sneer!”
“Mistress, when our heads depend on the adventure, our wits are apt to
fly out hot-temperedly. Nor am I pleased that we should owe yonder
fellow a service.”
“Then men are less generous than women. Why, I owe life and more to that
man; I have taken his vows from him, made of him a murderer in the eyes
of the law. Before he saw me—before I blundered into his life—he was
God’s man, with nothing to fear in the whole world. To-morrow he might
hang, because the blood in him was generous.”
Falconer looked like an old dog who was trying to take his scolding
without a blink of the eyes. He knew that Mellis was in the right, and
that it was his own heart that grudged Martin her gratitude.
“Well, well, he will either hang or be knighted. Nor have we any leisure
to stand arguing here. I could bring no men with me, for my place is
watched.”
“Roger Bland is wise by now.”
“That’s the devil of it. We must get a garrison for Woodmere as soon as
we may. Young Blount can call two or three score fellows together with
good speed. You and I had better ride at once to Bloody Rood. Your face
will count with young Nigel.”
She gave him a shrewd look.
“And trust Woodmere to Martin Valliant? He is not so poor a comrade,
after all!”
“I spoke hastily. The lad has brave eyes. We can trust him.”
“To the death.”
So Martin Valliant was left to hold Woodmere, while Mellis mounted her
horse and rode with John Falconer to Bloody Rood.
Men called young Blount “Sir Nigel Head-in-air.” He was a dark,
hawk-faced stripling, very passionate and headstrong, vain, quarrelsome,
the fool of any woman who could use her eyes. John Falconer would never
have chosen such a fellow as a comrade, but the Blounts had a strong
following and had to be considered. Moreover, young Nigel would be ready
to gallop on any wild adventure; he had impudence and courage and a
sense of his own splendor. Men were wanted at Woodmere. Nigel Blount
could be packed off with Mellis to temper his recklessness, while he,
John Falconer, went about to raise the Forest.
The morning proved propitious. They found Sir Nigel in the midst of his
hounds and his men, ready to start out after a fine hart that had been
spotted by his trackers. He was mounted on a black Arab, and his colors
were crimson and green. He looked sulky when he saw John Falconer, but
Mellis’s face put him in a different humor.
“A good day’s hunting spoiled, lording!”
“And well spoiled in such a service.”
He was ready to tumble into his harness and ride out as Mellis’s
champion almost before John Falconer had said all he had to say.
“Nothing but a scurvy hedge priest left at Woodmere! Heart of Heaven,
but that shall be altered. Leave Woodmere to me, sir.”
The hounds were sent back to the kennels. Young Blount had jacks and
steel caps for some of his men, and a score or so bills and boar spears.
The men took their bows with them. He mustered eighteen followers, a
force that was strong enough to hold Woodmere till the Forest rose in
arms.
John Falconer took Mellis aside.
“Watch that young jay. He screams too much. Remember to make him obey
you. It should be easy.”
She knew how to queen it over young firebrands like Nigel Blount.
“I shall rule him, John, with one finger. And now, good-by. Woodmere
waits for us.”
_Chapter XXVI_
Five men rode up to the gate of Troy Castle just as the sun was setting
in a flare of yellow behind the black towers. These five gentlemen were
a little ashamed of themselves, and had dressed up a tale between them
to show to the Lord of Troy. Peter Swartz was dead and could not kick
their scarecrow to pieces. That devil of a fellow in white harness
bulked bigger and bigger in the romance, cutting men in two with one
sweep of the sword, and tossing Swartz like a puppy dog into the moat.
“We have run, gossips, and there must be a reason for it, or we shall be
damned.”
Their unanimity was admirable. My Lord of Troy owed them six months’
pay, a shrewd way he had of keeping men at his heels, but he did not
concern himself with cowards. These five dogs knew better than to run
home with their tails between their legs.
Roger Bland was at supper, a noble function in which all stateliness was
properly and finely considered. He had a love of taking his meals in
public, of playing at pageantry even among the plates. His wealth showed
itself in his gold cups and dishes, his tapestries and dorsers, his
linen and silver, the musicians, their coats of blue and green, his
crowd of serving men, the profusion of food. All this peacocking had a
purpose. Men’s senses are conquered and led into subjection by the pomps
that paint a picture of power.
Fulk de Lisle had returned and brought in the bodies of Vance and the
archer. Rich and his men were back from Badger Hill. Neither of these
captains had caught much; the Forest did not lightly surrender its
secrets.
Meanwhile those five fugitive worthies had chosen a player and
spokesman, a little Welshman with much language and fiery eyes. He was
to tell their tale of the attack on Woodmere to Roger Bland, and dress
up a few picturesque lies to give the tale a greater appearance of
reality.
The news of their coming was brought to my Lord of Troy as he sat at the
high table. The page who brought the news had been listening to the
Welshman filling the guard-room with sound and fury.
“These fellows say, my lord, that Swartz is dead, and five more with
him, and that they were beaten by one man.”
My lord was cracking nuts, and picking them out of their shells with
precise indifference.
“Who are the men, Ralph?”
It was De Lisle who asked the question.
“Morgan the Welshman, Part, and Simonsby, and fat Horner, and one more.”
De Lisle laughed, and nodded at Roger Bland.
“I could have named the men, my lord; spunkless rogues all of them.
Morgan would lie the hoofs off Satan.”
My Lord of Troy went on cracking nuts.
“Ralph.”
“My lord?”
“Bring the men in here, all of them, and let them line up in front of my
table.”
He was obeyed. The five bold “blades” found themselves standing in a
row, while Roger Bland ate his nuts, and looked at them as though they
were cattle to be judged. He did not speak, and the five tried not to
fidget.
“Question these fellows for me, Sir Fulk de Lisle.”
“My lord, with pleasure.”
And Fulk de Lisle thrust the bright blade of truth into the belly of
their invention.
“So you ran away, my friends?”
They denied it, Morgan the Welshman leading the chorus.
“Then, how is it that you are here?”
Roger Bland smiled like a cynical old priest listening to a confession.
“A very presentable question, sir. Let me amplify it. You found people
at Woodmere, Morgan?”
The Welshman tried to get his imagination into its stride, but my lord
would not let him gallop.
“You saw no more than one man?”
“A giant, sir, a devil of a fellow in white harness, plated from poll to
toes.”
“Ah, a paladin! You say that he killed Swartz and five more?”
“He was like an iron bull, my lord.”
“And so you ran away! Yes, yes—I have no patience to waste, fool, on
your paltry lies. You saw nothing of a woman?”
“Nothing, my lord.”
“Very well. Out with you—out of my sight! Master Rich, come here to
me.”
The five slouched out, and John Rich, who was sitting at the far end of
the dais table, came and stood behind Roger Bland’s chair.
“My lord?”
“Ah, Master Rich, bend your head nearer. You will take thirty men and
such gear as you need, and ride at dawn. I must have this fabulous
fellow in white harness. See to it that he does not frighten you all.”
Rich grinned.
“It shall be done, my lord.”
“Man, let it be done. I am beginning to be angry.”
Five minutes later my Lord of Troy took a last sip of sweet wine, washed
his hands in perfumed water, and went to his closet. Fulk de Lisle
followed at his heels, smiling humorously at the great man’s back.
“Fulk de Lisle.”
“My dear lord?”
“Is there more in this, think you, than meets the eye?”
“The slaying of Vance, sir, was very natural, and I take it that Swartz
fell by the same hand. This bastard priest is something of an enigma.
How did he come by armor and a sword? Such things do not grow in the
Forest.”
Roger Bland’s pale eyelids seemed to flicker.
“We must see the end and bottom of this affair. I have given John Rich
the adventure; I give you John Rich. Is that plain to you?”
“Most plain, my lord.”
“See that this business is carried through. I want the Forest’s
secret—if it is keeping a secret. I care not how it is come by.”
Fulk de Lisle bowed.
“You have a spacious way, my lord, of sending a gentleman upon your
business. We are not cramped and hindered by little abominations of the
law. It is an honor to serve you.”
And he went out with the air of a man who knew himself to be shrewder
than his master.
Such were the preparations that were maturing at Troy Castle on the
night after Martin Valliant’s defeat of Swartz and his men. John Rich
took the road next morning, while Martin was improving his footbridge,
and Mellis was chastening the hot vanities of young Nigel Blount. Martin
had brought the three horses over the mere, stabled them in the old
dining hall, pulled up the bridge and shut the gate. He took life with
great seriousness, but his heart was full of a new song.
Martin was shaping a new oak bar for the garden postern when Peter
Swartz came out of the orchard for a gossip. He had slept passably and
eaten better, though his legs were none too steady under him.
He squatted on the grass, and watched Martin with a friendly glint in
his eyes.
“My noddle still simmers like a boiling pot. What happens to-day,
brother?”
“What God wills.”
Swartz looked at him intently.
“Fine philosophy, Martin Valliant, but God may leave a man with a noose
about his neck. You would say that this is no affair of mine, nor is it,
save that I have no lust for a man’s blood, or to see him kicking at the
end of a rope. The Forest would be healthier than this sweet island.”
Martin stood idle, the bill hanging in his hand.
“I am here to serve,” he said.
“My friend, you have drunk of the magic cup. A man might wound you, and
you would hardly feel it. But my Lord of Troy is no child of dreams. You
are but a rat—to be sniffed out by terriers.”
“I am not alone.”
“Thunder—that’s where the trouble lies. This child with the eyes of
midnight wonder——”
He shook his fist at Martin.