of the wood. His wits were at work, offering him all manner of wild
hazards, and the more desperate and foolish they seemed, the more bitter
and dogged grew his resolution. He passed through the beech wood,
crossed a stretch of open grassland, and plunged into a thicket of
hollies that trailed down from the slopes of an oak-covered hill. Once
under cover, he stood at gaze to see if he had been followed, and his
shrewdness had its reward. A man in a doublet of Lincoln green showed
himself for a moment on the edge of the beech wood, scanned the
grassland, and then turned back into the woodshade as though he had no
liking for following such a wild dog any farther.
Martin cut northwards into the oak wood where the trees stood well
apart, with no scrub growing between them, their trunks rising from the
green turf. He went at the double, keeping well in among the trees,
bearing westwards along the hill that bounded Woodmere valley in the
north. His need of a weapon asserted itself, for he had nothing but his
knife, and coming across a young holly growing straight and clean, he
felled it after five minutes’ hacking with his knife. With its boughs
and top trimmed off, it made a heavy and notable club, and he went on
with it on his shoulder, and in a temper that boded ill for any man who
should give him battle.
It took Martin Valliant the best part of an hour to cast a half circle
around Woodmere valley and approach it from the other side. A hazel
copse proved friendly; he crawled into it, and plowed his way cautiously
through the green cloud of branches. The copse ended in a great bank of
furze that poured down the hillside like a flood.
Martin Valliant had the whole valley spread before him, all wet and
washed with the morning’s dew, the sunlight slanting down on it with the
calm beauty of a summer morning. Smoke rose straight and blue from the
camp fires; the mere shone like glass; the tower, with its
lichen-stained walls, was the color of gold. But if the woods and the
valley breathed peace, man plotted war, and all the green hill beyond
the water was astir with men running to arms.
Falconer and the Forest lords were preparing to march. Each captain was
rallying his company, and there was much shouting and hurrying to and
fro. The swarm of figures in their reds and greens, russets and blues,
sorted themselves and gathered to their pennons and banners like a
pattern of flowers. There were the archers, with bows on their backs,
and bills in their hands; the common crowd of footmen with their pikes,
partisans, scythes, axes, and oak cudgels; the gentry and their servants
mounted and sheathed in steel, their lances rising straight and close
together like pine trees in a wood.
Martin Valliant marked a little group of riders sitting their horses
apart from the rest. They numbered about twenty lances, and a man in the
midst of them carried a banner of blue and green. The sunlight
splintered itself on their harness; they looked big men and stoutly
armed, chosen for a purpose.
Two riders were crossing the grassland from the direction of the mere,
and Martin Valliant’s eyes filled with a hungry, yearning light as he
watched them. One was a woman, the other a man. The woman was
distinguishable by her hair, that hung loose upon the suit of light
harness that she wore, and by the cloak or apron of green fastened about
her waist. She rode a white horse. The man, John Falconer, had her
bridle over his arm. She was a prisoner. The twenty lances were to serve
as her guard.
Martin Valliant knelt and watched her, leaning on his holly staff, his
eyes shining like steel.
The trumpets blew. A swarm of archers and mounted men went scattering
into the beech wood and were swallowed up by its shadows. The massed
“foot” began to move in columns, like fat, brightly colored caterpillars
crawling up the hill. The gentlemen and men-at-arms followed, with
jogging spears and a glittering of harness. Last of all rode John
Falconer, Mellis, and her guard.
Martin Valliant sprang up, and held his staff aloft as though
challenging them. Then he turned back into the woods, a divine madman
hunting an army.
_Chapter XXXVII_
Sir Gregory’s scouts had been watching Troy Castle, and my Lord of
Troy’s spies had had their eyes on Woodmere. Both parties were kept well
victualed with news; but Sir Gregory was no better than a round-headed
butcher, a mere bullying, blasting Englishman, ever ready to think his
enemy a fool; whereas Roger Bland had an Italian shrewdness and an
imagination that made him something of a coward. A clever coward is
worth any number of bull-headed fools. And in this game of hide-and-seek
my Lord of Troy was too subtle and too cunning for the Foresters. He saw
to it that they had false news, and no real knowledge of the power that
he could bring against them.
Scouts had galloped back to Woodmere, greatly exulting.
“Troy is on the march. Fifty archers and a hundred men-at-arms. They
have cannon with them. We can eat them up, lordings all.”
Such was the news, and the Forest captains rose to it, and set their
trumpets blowing. But Roger Bland was no such facile fool. Sir Gregory’s
scouts had watched Troy Castle, and the roads leading to it; they had
reported faithfully, counted their men with honest precision, accurately
judged the enemy’s strength. Yet no one appeared to remember that there
might be another cloud in the sky, hidden from them by the tree-tops and
the hills. My Lord of Troy had blundered, belittled the forces against
him! He had marched out and camped for the night on Bracknell Plain with
his cannon and a hundred and fifty men. That was how Sir Gregory and his
captains viewed it, and they rushed out to attack my Lord of Troy,
meaning to catch him on the march.
Roger Bland had not hurried himself. He was still camped on Bracknell
Plain, though the sun had been up some hours. And that camp of his was
very cunningly placed, with three great open woods sending out leafy
capes within a quarter of a mile of it, good cover for an ambuscade. His
camp had a rampart of brushwood and sharp stakes; his cannon were loaded
and ready, the gunners lying beside them; his archers squatted behind
the brushwood; gentlemen and men-at-arms were in full harness and ready
to mass their spears. The horses were tethered outside the camp, half a
furlong away; a sharp look-out was being kept. My Lord of Troy had
baited his trap and sat down to wait for his prey.
It was a league and a half from Woodmere to the edge of Bracknell Plain,
and Sir Gregory had halted his companies under cover of a heathy hill
and waited for his riders to come in. John Falconer had the rear-guard,
and Sir Gregory jogged back to speak with him, and to look with lustful
eyes at a woman who was very beautiful.
“We should have good news, John. And how doth our sweet Mistress like
the morning?”
Mellis had dismounted and was sitting in the heather, white, dark-eyed,
and sullen, holding herself proudly because of these men and of the
shame they had put upon her.
She did not look at Sir Gregory, or answer him.
“Tut, tut! Our sweet comrade is still wroth with us, John. Women are
unreasonable.”
Falconer growled at him.
“Let the wench be! We have flayed her pride, and she hates us.”
A squire, very hot and dusty, came cantering down on them.
“News, sir—news!”
“Out with it.”
“My Lord of Troy is still camped on Bracknell Plain. They have not
stirred, sir. Their horses are unharnessed, their sentries pushed out no
farther than a furlong.”
“Ye gods! This Roger Bland was never a soldier. Why, we shall be on them
before they can get to horse. Come, sirs, come.”
Away in the woods Martin Valliant was seeing strange things. He had
followed the march of Sir Gregory’s men from Woodmere, and when they had
reached the rolling heaths that led up to Bracknell Plain, he had drawn
away among the pine thickets so that he could watch them without being
seen. His course had led him toward one of those strips of woodland that
jutted out into the plain toward my Lord of Troy’s camp, an open wood of
beeches and Scots firs. The place seemed silent and empty, full of deep
shadows and splashes of sunlight that played on the bracken and the
trunks of the trees.
Then of a sudden he saw something that made him drop down in the bracken
like a bird when a hawk is hovering overhead. A knight in armor was
riding his horse through the wood. He reined in and remained motionless,
spear on thigh, red plume trailing under the branches. He wore a red
tabard embroidered with gold; his horse’s harness was of red leather
studded with brass; his spear was painted black, and a bunch of white
roses had been tied to its throat.
Martin, lying flat on his belly, grew aware of a strange, tremulous
stirring in the deeps of the wood. It was as though some great monster
were moving, ponderous and slow, the earth and the trees quivering as it
moved. There was a shrilling of steel and the snorting of horses. The
knight in the red tabard held up his spear, and the wood seemed to grow
silent.
Martin had blundered into the midst of a mystery. He crawled backwards
through the bracken, keeping his eyes on the knight in the red tabard;
but that gentleman was staring through a woodland window out upon
Bracknell Plain, and Martin Valliant escaped unseen.
He lay for a while in a little dell, resting his chin on his hands, and
staring at the seed pods of the wild hyacinths that had carpeted the
ground. The wood remained silent, save for the screaming of a couple of
jays, yet Martin guessed that the red knight was no solitary adventurer,
but the leader of a great company that was lying hidden among the trees.
What of Sir Gregory and the men of the Red Rose? Were they pushing
blindly into an ambush, and if so—what would come of it? A grim
impartiality guided Martin’s thoughts; he cared not which beast devoured
the other, provided Mellis was not harmed; he was a thief ready to
snatch the precious plunder while these gentry fought. The inspiration
was obvious, and stirred him to action. He crawled to the edge of the
wood, followed it southwards for a short distance, chose a tall fir, and
swarmed up it, leaving his club lying in the grass.
The tree forked above thirty feet from the ground, and Martin wriggled
up and out along one of the limbs till he was part of the pine needles,
like a crow in its nest. The fir gave him a superb view. He could see
nearly the whole of Bracknell Plain, my Lord of Troy’s camp, even Sir
Gregory’s troops massed in the hollow behind the hill. This live map
puzzled him for a moment; he was thinking of the red knight in the wood,
a sinister figure, the wizard who could conjure forth a dragon of steel.
Martin had his eyes on Sir Gregory’s forces, when he saw one of the
columns push forward up the hill with a scattering of dark figures
running on ahead. Sir Gregory was sending on his archers to sow arrows
and disorder in my lord’s sluggish camp. The gentry and men-at-arms
followed at a walk, moving on the farther side of the footmen, and ready
to break into a charge when the archers had done their work. Last of all
came Mellis’s guard, a knot of steel-clad figures with Falconer and
Mellis in the midst.
Martin turned his eyes on my Lord of Troy’s camp. It looked amazingly
still and unconcerned, the sentries standing to their arms in the midst
of the heather. This carelessness seemed astonishing to the man who was
watching those armed masses surging up the blind side of the hill. But
the very foolishness of that seemingly casual camp flashed the meaning
of it all into Martin Valliant’s mind. It was not my Lord of Troy who
was in dire peril, but those hot heads who were streaming to the attack.
For many a year the Forest had good cause to remember the battle of
Bracknell Plain. It began with the rush of Sir Gregory’s archers over
the hill, and a rattling shower of arrows into my Lord of Troy’s camp.
Yet these arrows did but little damage, for the White Rose bowmen had
thrown up a wall of sods behind the line of brushwood and were lying
under cover, while the heavily armed knights and gentry could trust in
their harness. The foresters fired flight after flight of arrows into
the camp, shouting and leaping like madmen, for not an arrow shot came
in return.
Sir Gregory, who rode over the hill with his men-at-arms, saw his
archers shooting furiously, and heard them cheering as though the
victory were won. He did not pause to consider the question, but
thinking my Lord of Troy’s men too panic-stricken even to run to their
horses, he set his riders at the gallop and charged down upon the camp.
His footmen were to follow and to end the business when he and his
“spears” had broken in and scattered the enemy.
Then Martin saw puffs of blue smoke belch out from behind the brushwood,
and heard the roar of my lord’s cannon. The archers sprang to their feet
and poured a flight of arrows into the charging “horse.” The cannon shot
tore into the mass; the arrows struck the horses. A great confusion
followed, as of a wave of water meeting a wall; horses and men were
down; the whole company faltered, broke, tangled itself into a whirl of
disorder. Arrows came stinging down on them, for the shooting was fast
and easy so far as my Lord of Troy’s archers were concerned.
A thunder of hoofs in the wood behind him, a screaming of trumpets, and
out galloped the red knight with a torrent of steel at his back. The
charge was superb, terrible, carried out like a whirlwind. It bore down
on Sir Gregory’s disorder, crashed through and over it, wheeled, and
headed for the mass of footmen who had halted in a palsied crowd on the
edge of the plain. My lord’s archers and footmen were running out to
complete the overthrow of Sir Gregory’s horse, to cut throats and to
take prisoners.
The battle was over in twenty minutes; it became a wild slaughter, a
scattering of death and despair over Bracknell Plain. Sir Gregory’s
“foot” had turned and run, throwing down their weapons as they fled over
the heather. And Martin Valliant had come swarming down his tree, picked
up his club, and started to run toward the rout as though he had lost
his senses.
He had seen John Falconer and his men-at-arms halt on the open plain and
stand watching the battle as though it was neither their business to
fight nor to fly. None the less, the disastrous issue had pricked their
consciences; they had moved forward tentatively, faltered, and thought
better of such heroism; moreover, they had a prize to guard, and John
Falconer had kept his head. But fate and Fulk de Lisle did not will it
that they should escape the slaughter on Bracknell Plain, and Martin had
seen the red knight and some fifty of his lances wheel and gallop down
on Mellis’s guards. De Lisle’s men opened out and enveloped the little
group before it could escape over the edge of the plain.
That was the reason of Martin Valliant’s madness and his wild dash
across the heather. Fortune was with him in a sense, for he came through
the butchery and the turmoil without being struck down by my Lord of
Troy’s men. There was a space of calmness between the main rout and the
fight that was going on between John Falconer and De Lisle, but the
tussle was over before Martin drew near. Falconer lay dying from a spear
thrust through the body; his men were down or had surrendered; De
Lisle’s riders tossed their spears and cheered.
Then Martin saw a sight that made him stand stone still and set his
teeth. The group of steel-coated figures parted, and from the midst of
them came riding the red knight, leading a white horse by the bridle.
Martin Valliant saw Mellis drooping in the saddle, her hair falling over
her face, her hands hanging as though she despaired.
The red knight did not turn toward my lord’s camp, but rode calmly away
over the plain toward the woods in the distance. No one followed him or
the woman on the white horse. His men knew that Fulk de Lisle was not to
be meddled with when he followed the chase and the game was a stag or a
woman.
Martin Valliant started running again, his face all white and twisted.
But a certain cunning saved him from throwing his life and his hope
away. He doubled sharply under the brow of the hill, caught a riderless
horse that was standing nosing the heather, mounted, and urged the beast
to a canter, keeping to the lower ground out of sight of the riders from
Troy.
When he was well clear he turned upwards on to Bracknell Plain, the
reins in one hand, his hollywood staff in the other. The white horse and
the red tabard showed a mile away over the heather, and Martin followed
them with the grimness of death.
_Chapter XXXVIII_
Fulk de Lisle rode for a mile without troubling to glance back. He was
in great good humor, and trying to raise some color in the face of the
girl beside him. She looked dazed, beaten, her eyes empty of all light,
her hands gripping the pommel of her saddle.
“Why so sad, sweet mistress? Am I not as good a man as any fellow
yonder, and better than our friend the monk? I have won you on a fair
field.”
Her eyes glanced at him with furtive dread.
“I know not who you are.”
He put up his vizor and she knew him by his eyes, bold, brown, and
merciless.
“Ah!”
Her frank horror angered him, and he reached out and twisted his hand
into her hair.
“What! Shall I have to tame you, teach you what manner of man I am? What
others have had I will have also.”
“Beast!”
Her pride rose at his challenge.
“Let me go, or I will throw myself out of the saddle.”
“And be dragged by the hair, my shrew! No, no; such tricks will not
serve. I have taken my prize, and this time I shall not be balked of
it.”
She knew her own helplessness, and constrained herself to try other
weapons.
“Let me go. You are hurting.”
“Is the fault mine? Smile at me, you jade, and look not so sick and
passionless.”
She contrived to smile, hating him the more for it.
“That’s better—much better. Why, I have taught many women to love me,
but love does not last, wench; that is why men should marry for a month
and no more.”
He let her go, and glancing back over his shoulder, he reined in with
sudden fierceness. The white horse, checked so roughly, swerved and
showed temper.
“Stand still, you beast! Hallo! what have we here?”
Mellis saw what Fulk de Lisle saw, and her face flamed like a sunset.
Martin Valliant had drawn up to within a quarter of a mile of them, but
he was holding his horse in and following them with a certain grim
leisureliness. This eastern part of Bracknell Plain was an utter
wilderness; they had left victory and defeat far behind; nothing moved
over the heather.
Fulk de Lisle caught a glimpse of Mellis’s face with its shining eyes
and its rich rush of tenderness. The droop had gone out of her figure,
and her throat had regained its pride.
He laughed with malicious insolence.
“What is this, my lady? A beggar in a black smock? I am in no temper to
give alms to-day.”
He spurred on his horse, and jerked Mellis along with him. It was his
spear that had broken itself in John Falconer’s body, and he felt to see
that his sword was loose in its scabbard. Mellis noticed the act, and
smiled strangely. Ahead of them towered the fir woods of Amber Holt,
dark and silent, like a great green cloud across the blue. Dense gloom
lay behind the tall straight trunks, and bracken foamed at their feet.
She glanced back over her shoulder, and realized that Martin had no
harness. He had drawn nearer, and she could see that he carried some
sort of weapon on his shoulder. Fear for him darkened her eyes. What
chance had he, a naked man, against this steel-coated swashbuckler with
his sword and dagger?
She hated Fulk de Lisle—hated him with such intensity that he turned
his head sharply and met her eyes. Even his vanity could not misread the
look in them.
“So! Madame has a tender heart? You white-bosomed jade!”
He drew the white horse in, hooked an arm around her neck, and forced
her face close to his helmet.
“Look in my eyes, wench. Yes, our friend can see this pretty picture. If
he meddles with me I shall kill him; somewhere over yonder in the fir
woods. Then we shall be alone together, you and I, and you will give me
all that I desire.”
She strained away from him.
“Beast! Be not so sure!”
He laughed.
“What—a fool of a monk with a club! I know that sort of clumsy savage.
It will be mere murder.”
But she would not betray her fear.
“Have it so. Strange things happen—even to kings.”
Martin saw all this, and his wrath blew like a north wind. He had
guessed the name of the red knight and knew the man with whom he had to
deal. It would be no easy business, setting about this notable sworder
and captain with nothing but a green holly stake, but somehow Martin had
no doubts as to how the battle would end. His cold fury was so intense
and so fanatical that it resembled a fate that was not to be stayed or
turned back.
Fulk de Lisle and Mellis were nearing the fir woods, and Martin put his
horse at a canter and drew up within fifty yards. De Lisle had no spear;
that was something in Martin’s favor, though his long sword would be
deadly enough in so strong and cunning a hand. Martin had a shrewd
notion as to how he ought to fight the man; if he could dismount him and
get to close grips De Lisle’s heavy armor would make him clumsy and
slow.
The shadows of the firs swept over them, and they were in among the
crowded trunks, riding down a narrow track that seemed to lose itself in
the distant gloom. Martin drew closer, teeth set, his heavy truncheon
ready on his shoulder.
Fulk de Lisle turned in the saddle and looked back at him. He had drawn
his sword.
“My friend, be warned in time. Turn back, or I shall kill you.”
Martin said never a word, but drew closer, his eyes shining in a
dead-white face.
De Lisle had every advantage, but there was a woman at his side, and he
did not respect her courage or her hatred as he should have done. The
white horse was close to his, and of a sudden Mellis twisted sideways,
threw her arms about De Lisle’s body, and held to him desperately.
“Martin—Martin!”
Martin kicked his heels into his horse’s flanks, leaning forward and
swinging his club. De Lisle had got an arm around Mellis’s body. He
dragged her around on to his knees, struck her savagely in the breast
with the pommel of his sword, and flung her down under her horse’s feet.
He brought his horse around just as Martin charged him, and gave his
enemy the point; but Martin had been waiting for such a trick, and
slipping down under his horse’s flank, he let Fulk’s blade gash his
shoulder.
His own horse blundered into De Lisle’s and staggered the other beast.
Martin slipped clear, and got in a blow that made the swashbuckler reel
in the saddle. De Lisle struck back at him, and Martin, guarding, had
his staff cut clean in two. He sprang in and up, got a grip of Fulk’s
swordbelt and wrist, and dragged him out of the saddle.
De Lisle’s sword flew out of his hand, and the two men lay struggling
like wild beasts under the horses’ hoofs. De Lisle’s harness bit into
Martin’s flesh, his spurs gashed him, but Martin felt no pain. The fight
was for the swashbuckler’s poniard, already half drawn from its sheath.
Martin came uppermost, one hand gripping De Lisle’s wrist, the other
thrust under the vizor of his helmet. De Lisle struck at him furiously
with his gadded glove, and then tried to tear Martin’s hand away from
his eyes.
But Martin was too strong for him; he had lived a cleaner life, and his
muscles won in the tense balance of such a struggle. Neither man seemed
to move for half a minute, both bodies rigid, straining against each
other. Then De Lisle’s hand was jerked from the handle of his poniard,
and Martin had clutched it and drawn it from its sheath.
Fulk de Lisle knew what was coming. He rolled to and fro, lashed out
with his mailed fists, tore at Martin with his spurs; but his heavy
harness cumbered him, and his breath was gone. Martin struck three times
at the man’s gorget before the plates gave, and the poniard drove deep
into the swashbuckler’s throat.
Two more such blows, and Fulk de Lisle twitched, gave a wet cry, and lay
still.
Martin struggled up, panting, battered, running with blood. He looked
around for Mellis. She had been leaning against a tree trunk, her hands
clasping her bruised bosom, watching that death struggle with eyes that
saw love and life fighting for her and for her honor. Her man was
wounded. He would need her now.
She ran to him, eyes full of soft lights and shadows, pitying his
wounds, and not shrinking from his bloodiness.
“Martin! Oh, brave heart!”
She caught his face between her hands and kissed him.
“Mellis!”
“Was there ever so fine a man as mine? And your wounds, your poor
shoulder! Now it is that my hands can be of use.”