spoken of by my lips? Why, by all the devils, have I no heart in me, and
no liking for the gallant splendor of youth? You will be attacked
to-day, not with ten men, but with fifty.”
Martin answered him bluntly.
“She has gone for help. We are not alone.”
He stared down at Swartz, and Swartz’s eyes met his without flinching.
“So—that is the game! I guessed it. There is the color of a red rose in
all this.”
“Guess what you please.”
“A Richmond—a Richmond! The Forest is stirring with the wind, eh? And I
am Peter Noside for the moment. Yes, and let me tell you one thing,
Martin Valliant, your friends will need to hurry if they are to make
this place good. There are cannon at Raychester. Oh, this great and
happy madness!”
He rose up, and walked to and fro.
“What an old fool I am, but I could change sides to get a blow at my
dear master. Why must some of us always rush to help the man who has his
back against the wall? Hallo—hallo!”
Shrill and clear came the scream of a trumpet from the valley. Martin
Valliant and Peter Swartz stood looking at each other.
“Troy, by God! And a summons. What did I tell you, comrade?”
Martin dropped the billhook and took his sword, that was leaning against
the wall. He stared hard at Swartz, as though to read the man’s soul.
Swartz smiled at him.
“No, I shall not stab you in the back, man; have no fear. Let us go up
on the tower and look at the country.”
He followed Martin to the leads, but did not show himself above the
wall. Martin was scanning the valley.
“What do you see, brother?”
“A man on a white horse with a green banner, and on it a silver key.
There is another man with a trumpet.”
“Troy. What else?”
“A knight in black harness, on a black horse.”
“That would be John Rich. Nothing more?”
“There is a shining of something, back in the beech wood.”
“Steel, man, steel.”
The trumpeter blew a second blast, and John Rich and his banner-bearer
rode down nearer to the water. They were scanning the island, and had
sighted Martin on the tower.
“A summons, Greenshield.”
“I have nothing to say to them.”
“Then say nothing. They will take to other music.”
Swartz, raising his head to look, saw John Rich turn his horse and ride
back slowly to the beech wood, followed by his trumpeter and the man who
carried my Lord of Troy’s banner.
“Ha, the old fox! John Rich takes his time. You will not see until you
do see.”
An hour passed, and nothing happened. The beech wood looked black,
mysterious, and inscrutable, while Martin stood to arms upon the tower,
feeling that the wood above was full of eyes that watched and waited.
Swartz had grown restless. His heart was taking sides in the adventure.
“What is the old fox at? I mislike this silence.”
Suddenly he heard Martin Valliant give a strange, sharp cry.
“Look!”
He stood rigid, his eyes shining like glass in the sunlight, his
forehead all knotted up.
Swartz looked over the battlements, and uttered a robust and honest
oath.
“What damnable fool is that?”
Away down the valley young Nigel Blount and Mellis had ridden out from
the woods and were crossing the open grassland toward the mere, with
Nigel’s men straggling as they pleased half a furlong behind them. Young
Blount was riding gallantly enough, making his horse cut capers, while
he showed what manner of man he was in the saddle. His men were laughing
and talking, their bows unstrung, not one of them troubling to keep
watch.
“Peacock! Ape! Shout, man, shout! There is a trap set here, if I am not
much mistaken.”
Martin raised his sword, and flashed it to and fro. He saw Mellis draw
rein, and knew that her eyes were on him. He pointed toward the beech
wood, but even if she understood his warning it came too late.
_Chapter XXVII_
The beech wood filled with sudden movement, and its blackness was like a
storm cloud sending out a vague and hollow muttering. Dark shapes came
hurrying out of the gloom beyond the gray trunks, the shapes of men and
horses that took on color, fierceness, life. There was the rattle of
harness, the flashing of steel. John Rich and his riders came out at the
gallop.
A piece of tapestry seemed unrolled, so swiftly did things happen. The
very power of movement was taken away from Martin Valliant. He saw all
that passed as though it were in a dream, the black figure of John Rich
and his horse going at the gallop with spear leveled, the men behind him
strung out in a half circle and all rushing like the wind. There was
Mellis’s white face, helpless, hesitating, like a piece of apple blossom
floating on the blackness of a pool. Young Nigel Blount, sword in air,
was shouting to his men, who had turned tail and were running for the
shelter of the woods. Then Rich’s spear smote right through Nigel
Blount’s body. Martin heard the lad’s scream, saw him twist like a
puppet on a wire, and tumble backwards, dragging the point of Rich’s
spear to the ground. The riders swept around Mellis; she seemed to sink
out of sight in the thick of the crowd.
Martin Valliant awoke. He uttered a great cry, and rushed toward the
little turret where the stairway opened upon the leads. As he reached it
Peter Swartz caught him by the sword belt.
“Stay, you fool!”
Martin tried to thrust him off, but Swartz kept his hold.
“No, no, my friend, knock my teeth out if it pleases you, but if your
head’s on fire mine had better do the thinking.”
“Let go, man.”
“And see you rush out there and be ridden down and spitted like that
poor popinjay! Thirty to one are heavy odds, Martin Valliant.”
“Let go, curse you.”
“And hold on, say I. Listen to reason, man, and use your wits. You’ll
not help that girl by getting yourself killed.”
“The strength of God is in me.”
“And the brains of a sheep! The game is not lost and won yet, but it
will be if you go rushing out like a mad bull. Cunning, man—cunning and
patience.”
Martin stood irresolute, his eyes full of wrath and yearning.
“If I must die, I’ll die now, Swartz.”
“Oh, good fool, set your teeth and bide your time! It is no time for
dying. What use would a dead man be to the child out yonder? Set your
teeth, Martin Valliant; play the grim dog who can watch and wait.”
He laid his arm across Martin’s shoulders and drew him aside.
“Why, man, I’m with you, and you will thank me to-morrow for this. And
here are we squabbling and scuffling when we should be watching like
hawks. Come—we must match John Rich for cunning.”
Martin Valliant surrendered, but he covered his face with his sword-arm
and stood shaking like a man with the ague.
Meanwhile John Rich was riding back at his leisure, the bridle of
Mellis’s horse over his wrist. Ten of his men had gone in pursuit of the
foresters from Bloody Rood, and two more had dismounted, taken young
Blount’s body by the heels, and were dragging it down to the mere. John
Rich brought his horse close to the bridge-head, and his trumpeter blew
a summons.
“A parley, Valliant.”
Martin straightened himself, with a sudden shining of the eyes. He saw
Mellis sitting her horse beside John Rich, pale, motionless, tragically
calm. She looked up toward the tower, and Martin fancied that she
smiled; he felt that his heart would break for her.
“If they would take me and let her go!”
Swartz scoffed at his madness.
“My Lord of Troy is no honey-pot, to catch flies and let them escape as
they please. Have nothing to say to John Rich; let him blow his trumpet
till the fellow’s cheeks burst.”
Martin stood forward, resting his hands on the pommel of his sword. John
Rich hailed him.
“Hallo, there! Come down and open the gate. The game is played out.”
Martin Valliant’s eyes were fixed on Mellis’s face. He was wondering
whether she despised him for not rushing out to strike a blow for
her—whether she thought him a coward. Swartz had crouched down behind
the wall, and was watching Martin narrowly.
“Steady, brother. That child has brave eyes and a fine heart. She will
understand. Tell Rich to go to the devil.”
Martin stood like a statue, and Rich bellowed again:
“Have done with this fooling. Will you give us the place, or are we to
take it?”
Martin was waiting for something, and that something came. He saw Mellis
raise her head proudly; he saw her mouth open; her voice reached out to
him across the water:
“Stand fast, Martin Valliant!”
He raised the cross of his sword and kissed it as a sign to her.
“To the death!” he called to her.
And John Rich, accepting the defiance, turned his horse and rode back
with Mellis to the beech wood.
Now John Rich was a man of method. He posted a guard of ten men to cover
the bridge, and two more to patrol the banks of the mere. The rest
disappeared into the woods, shed their harness, and took to ax and saw,
for John Rich had brought a tumbril laden with ropes, a ladder, tools,
balks of timber, and such-like gear from Troy Castle. The matter was to
be undertaken stolidly and with thoroughness. He set his men at building
a couple of rafts or floats that could be dragged down to the mere after
dark. Half his party would pole themselves over to attack the house,
while the rest held the causeway.
Martin kept watch upon the tower, and Swartz remained with him out of a
new-born spirit of comradeship. A great restlessness tormented Martin
Valliant. He could no longer see his love, nor guess what might have
befallen her, and his soul suffered in a lover’s purgatory. All the past
years had been blotted out; he had lived just seven days since this
woman had come into his life, with those eyes of hers dark as the forest
and her lips red as the rose. Great storms of tenderness and wrath swept
through him. He was tortured by vivid memories of her, flashes of her
that hurt his soul, the miraculous way her dark eyes would fill with
golden lights, her plaintive look when she was sad, the little dimple in
her cheek, the way her lips moved, the shape of her fingers, the curve
of her chin, the falling of her dark hair over her ears. These vivid
flashes of her intoxicated, maddened him. He wanted to pour himself out,
die for her, spend his great love, and make her feel it.
Swartz watched Martin closely as he went restlessly to and fro, or stood
and stared at the beech wood as though it held both heaven and hell.
“Patience, brother.”
Martin turned on him with furious eyes.
“Patience! Man, man, I burn—I burn!”
“Keep your torch alight; there is no harm in it. With the night will
come your hope.”
“Night?”
“Things may be done by a desperate man at night.”
“True. I can swim the moat.”
He stood and brooded with a face that spelled death for some one. His
love and his helplessness scorched him like flame. He could have choked
Swartz for telling him to wait, though in his heart he knew that Swartz
was right.
Sometimes he would start, fancying that he had heard Mellis calling to
him:
“Martin—Martin Valliant!”
He would turn on Swartz:
“Did you hear?”
“Nothing, my son—nothing.”
Swartz was laconic, implacable. He had made himself a little peephole by
loosening some of the stones with his dagger and levering them out. This
squint of his commanded the beech wood, and he watched it like a dog
waiting for a rat.
“Thunder!”
Martin turned and saw him kneeling with his eye close to the hole. His
lips were stretched tight over his teeth.
“Are you behind me, man? What do you see?”
Martin faced sharply toward the beech wood. A man had ridden out from
the shade—a man in a red doublet slashed and puffed with blue, a red
hat on his head, his legs and thighs cased in white armor. He was a very
tall man, and he sat his horse with a certain swaggering grace. In his
right hand he carried a light switch.
Swartz spat hate at him.
“Hell hound, swaggerer, bully.”
Martin looked puzzled.
“I have not seen that fellow before.”
“And I have seen him too often. What, you have lived in these parts and
know not Messire Fulk de Lisle?”
Martin’s forehead wrinkled itself.
“Fulk de Lisle! A great gentleman in my Lord of Troy’s service.”
“A great gentleman! God help you, Martin Valliant, and God help—
Enough. This clinches it. I have often itched to cut that man’s throat,
though I have served with him.”
Martin Valliant’s eyes filled with a sudden fury of understanding.
“Why is he here?”
“To play any devil’s trick that pleases him. You do not know Messire
Fulk de Lisle. Rich is a saint beside him. The debonair, filthy,
malicious devil! Why, I could tell you— Oh! to hell with the beast!”
He twisted around and looked up into Martin Valliant’s face.
“Man, can you stand torture?”
“Speak out!”
“Supposing he brings the child—and tries to break you by—shaming her?”
Martin’s face was like a white flame.
“God! It’s beyond belief! Why should he?”
Swartz grimaced.
“Because he is Fulk de Lisle; because he has a foul cleverness and a
liking for such things. My Lord of Troy would laugh at such a comedy.
God and the Saints, I wonder now why I have lived with such men!”
_Chapter XXVIII_
Mellis lay in a patch of young bracken in a little glade among the beech
trees. They had tied her feet together, but left her hands free, after
searching her and taking away her poniard. Five paces away a man stood
on guard—a man with the beard of a goat and stupid eyes hard as gray
stones out of a brook.
Mellis lay very still, the fronds of the fern arching over her and
throwing little flecks of shadow on her face. But though her bosom
hardly betrayed her breathing, and her hands lay motionless among the
bracken stems, all that was quick and vital in her lived in her eyes.
The pupils were big and black and sensitive with fear, wild, tremulous
eyes in a white and anguished face.
For a great fear gripped her—the nameless, instinctive fear of the wild
creature caught in a trap, where struggling is of no avail. She waited,
listened, counted the beats of her own heart, closed her eyes at times
so that she might not see the imbecile face of the man who guarded her.
But even a moment’s blindness quickened her fear, her quivering dread of
what might happen.
She was snared, helpless, and felt a great hand ready to close over her.
The violence of young Nigel’s death had shocked her horribly. She could
not get the vision of the poor fool out of her head; he was still
screaming and writhing on Rich’s spear. The patches of blue sky between
the trees seemed hard as steel; there was no softness in the sunlight on
the bracken.
“Martin—Martin Valliant!”
She mouthed his name, but without sound. Her fingers quivered; she drew
her breath with a deep, pleading misery. Her hands and her soul reached
out to him; he seemed the one strong and loyal thing left her in the
beginnings of her despair. For her despair was very real and no piece of
cowardice; she had no illusions as to the temper of the men who served
the Lord of Troy.
It was not death she feared so much as that other—nameless thing. She
was herself as yet, clean, pure, virginal, and a man loved her. And even
as her love reached out to him she clung with passionate, hoarding
tenderness to her own chastity. It was hers—and it was his. She wanted
it because he was what he was—her man, her life’s mate. Such
exaltations, such dear prejudices rise from the sacred deeps of the
heart. Without them flesh is but flesh, and love mere gluttony.
Hours seemed to pass. The man who guarded her yawned, spat in the
bracken, and slouched around like a tired cur. Sometimes Mellis found
him staring at her with a hungry, gloating glint in his eyes, a look for
which she loathed him as she would have loathed some slimy thing that
had touched her hand.
Presently she heard voices in the beech wood, voices that seemed on the
edge of a quarrel. They came nearer, like two birds sparring and
scolding at each other; one was gay and insolent and swift, the other
sullen and toneless.
“Have your way, then! Damnation, such drolleries are not part of my
harness.”
“You are too gentle, good John Rich. What is life but a great hunting?
And a plain, straight-forward gallop does not always please me. There is
no wit, no cunning in it.”
“No devilry, you mean.”
“Have it that way. I like my wine well spiced, and a new spice tickles
the palate. You dullards are content with rivers of beer.”
The man with the goat’s beard brisked up and stood stiffly on guard as
Fulk de Lisle and John Rich came out from under the shade of the trees.
Rich hung back, seeming to have no stomach for Fulk de Lisle’s spiced
devilries.
“Stand away, Bannister.”
The guard saluted with his sword, and slunk off under the beeches.
Mellis sat up. Fulk de Lisle was standing within two paces of her, his
hands on his hips, his red hat with its plume clapped on his head like a
halo. His brown eyes stared at her boldly, and his red lips seemed on
the point of smiling. She hated the man instantly, hated because she
feared him.
“So this is the gentlewoman who turns quiet priests into turbulent
traitors! Mistress Dale, is not the thing heavy on your conscience?”
His bantering air made her shiver, for it was like the gliding of a
snake through the fern. She did not answer him.
“By my chastity, I feel sorry for that young man. For three days to eat
of the forbidden fruit, and then——”
He watched the hot blood stain her face.
“Assuredly it is a case for a rescue. Being a faithful son of the
Church, I must take it upon myself to deliver the young man from this
enchantment, that his eyes may be opened before some good Christian
hangs him. How does it feel, madam, to have made a man a murderer?”
To John Rich her eyes would have cried, “Have pity,” but Fulk de Lisle
saw no more than a handsome wench whose pride struggled with her fear.
Her pride won the victory. She remained mute before him, with a white
stillness that refused to unbend.
Fulk de Lisle’s brown eyes were smiling.
“Madam is sullen; she does not repent. Humility is good in a woman. It
seems then that I must play the father to this poor fool of a monk;
there are many ways of opening a man’s eyes. Supposing, Mistress Dale,
you were given the chance of saving this man’s life, by making a
sacrifice such as many women make with resignation, even with joy——”
She caught his meaning, and the blood seemed to congeal in her heart.
She felt cold, so cold that she shivered.
“Did God make you?” she said, hanging her head.
He laughed.
“He chose a fine sire and a handsome woman, madam, and I myself am
considered a presentable man. Even you may grant that I have my points,
if I chose to prove them.”
The power of speech died in her.
“Consider awhile. You shall be left in peace for an hour.”
He swept his red hat to her, and moved backwards through the bracken to
where John Rich stood biting his beard.
“Well, have you done?”
“I have but begun, good John; this wine is to my liking.”
Fulk de Lisle wasted no time. Martin Valliant saw men come out of the
beech wood carrying roughly shaped posts and the branches of trees, and
for a while their labor puzzled him. They were setting up a shelter or
bower halfway between the mere and the woodlands, digging the posts into
the ground and lashing the branches of the trees to them. This forest
lodge was left open toward the island, but closed in on all the other
sides with a dense wall of green leaves. Four short stakes were driven
into the floor of the lodge, and a bed of leaves and bracken made
between them.
The thing was barely finished when Fulk de Lisle appeared on the
hillside, followed by a trooper who carried a piece of white cloth
fastened to the staff of his spear. De Lisle sighted Martin on the
tower, pointed with his riding switch to the white pennon, and came down
at a leisurely pace toward the causeway.
Swartz had his eye to the loophole.
“Here comes the devil on a parley. Go down to the gate; I will keep
watch here.”
Fulk de Lisle made his way along the causeway as far as the raised
footbridge, and stood there with an air of serene insolence, as though
he had nothing to fear from arrow shot or cross-bow bolt. He was wearing
no body armor, and carried no weapon save the dagger at his side.
“Brother Martin, a word with you.”
Martin had climbed the ladder to the squint in the gate-house wall, and
he could see Fulk de Lisle’s red figure framed like a picture. The man
had courage, and knew how to use a smiling audacity.
Martin answered him.
“I am Martin Valliant. What do you want with me?”
Fulk de Lisle raised his eyes to the loop.
“Is that you, Brother Martin? I have come to speak with you as man to
man, and to reason with you over your madness. That a priest should shed
blood is very shameful, that he should shed it for the sake of a
woman——”
“I am no longer a priest.”
“Listen awhile, good sir. My Lord of Troy is a devout gentleman. He
would be willing to gloze over this midsummer madness, for the sake of
St. Benedict, even to the point of sending you back to your cell—for
discipline—and chastisement.”
“I ask nothing from my Lord of Troy.”
“You seem in a furious hurry to be hanged, Brother Martin. Listen a
little further: I will put the matter with what grace I can, even though
the thing is not as delicate as it should be. There is a certain young
gentlewoman who is a prisoner in our hands. Is not that so?”
Martin set his teeth, and made no answer.
“Your silence is sufficient. Come now, let me tell you that this young
gentlewoman is very loth to see you hanged, so loth that she is ready to
offer that most inestimable thing—her virtue——”
He paused, looking up with an ironical grin at the loop in the wall.
“Consider this great sacrifice, Brother Martin, for though it is very
flattering to myself——”
Martin’s face was as gray as the stone. He turned, and went silently
down the ladder, and began to unfasten the rope that kept the footbridge
raised.
Fulk de Lisle’s voice taunted him, but grew fainter, for he was
withdrawing along the causeway.
“Tricks will not serve you, Brother Martin. I give you till nightfall to
decide. Come out to us, unarmed, and wearing nothing but your cassock,
and your neck may be saved. The lady will pay.”
Martin let the bridge fall with a crash, and sprang to unbar the gate.
His face was the face of a devil, mouth awry, nostrils agape, his
forehead a knot of wrinkles; but by the time he had the gate open Fulk
de Lisle was across the causeway, and walking back toward the woods, and
several of Rich’s men were moving down to meet him.
Martin Valliant stood there, breathing like a man who had run a mile
uphill. He did not hear Swartz come quietly behind him and take hold of
the rope to raise the footbridge.
“No, no, good comrade; that trick shall not work against you.”
Martin turned with a sharp, fierce cry.
“Swartz! Let go of that rope! I must die out yonder—or win through.”
But Swartz heaved the bridge up, fastened the rope, and stood to face
his man.
“What! Will you be fooled by that rogue’s tongue? I heard all that I
needed to hear. He came down to try his wit on you; he prides himself on
such pretty quips and villainies.”
“Man, I am selling her, betraying her!”
Swartz struck him a blow on the chest.
“Wake—wake! Will that rouse you? To play with a man like Fulk de Lisle
one wants a skin of iron and a brain of brass. He knew that he could cut
you to the quick, drive you mad. Such things must not be.”
He pushed Martin aside, and shut the gate.
“Gird up your soul, Martin Valliant, and set your teeth. Such a coil as
this is not unwound by prayers and whimperings and such-like softness.
Be hard, man, to win. You shall fight your fight—yet.”
_Chapter XXIX_
Martin Valliant and Swartz went back to the tower, for a stage had been
set and the play was about to begin with the wracking of a man’s soul.
Martin leaned against the battlement, his face turned toward the great
beech wood, and his eyes fixed on the green bower that Rich’s men had
built. He had taken Swartz’s words to heart; he was hardening himself,
preparing to bear his torture without flinching and without uttering a
sound. He thought of the day when he had hung on the cross to prove
himself stronger than Kate Succory’s youth, and how the physical pain
was as nothing to this torment of the soul. Swartz sat close to him with
his back to the wall, and Swartz’s face was very grim. He had changed
sides, turned rebel; he was a good hound, and no cur.
Fulk de Lisle had vanished into the beech wood, but in a short while his
red figure reappeared. He stood leaning with one hand against a tree
trunk as though waiting for some order of his to be obeyed, and Martin
Valliant watched him with steady eyes, letting his anger gather like
deep water behind a dam.