Grimbald the priest stood on guard under the ash tree where the road
left Goldspur for the open fields. He had a buckler on his arm, and an
axe over his shoulder. His short, frayed cassock showed the beginnings
of a brown and mighty pair of calves, and the feet in the leather
sandals looked like the feet of an Atlas whose shoulders wedged up the
heavens.
There had been a panic at Goldspur that morning, when a lad had run in
with the news that he had seen armed men riding through the mist, and
that they were marching towards Goldspur. And Grimbald, stalking down
into the village, had met some of the younger men skulking off as though
there were no women and children to be remembered. Grimbald had twisted
a stake out of the hedge, dusted some decent shame into these cowards,
and driven them back into Goldspur much as a drover drives his cattle.
Grimbald had found the village in an uproar, for Aymery was away with
Waleran, and the folk had tumbled over each other for the lack of a
leader. Men and boys had herded in sheep and cattle, and the beasts were
bolting all ways, and taking every road but the right one. Women,
weeping, scolding, chattering, were carrying out their chattels from the
cottages. One had a baby at the breast; another clutched a young pig; a
third sat at her door, and screamed like a silly girl. Men were arguing,
shouting, quarrelling, eager to do the same thing, but obstinate in
trying to do it each in his several way.
Then Grimbald had come and shepherded the people, knocked together the
heads of the men who quarrelled, and turned disorder into order. The
sheep, cattle, and pigs were driven off towards the woods. Men, women,
and children followed, carrying all that they could put upon their
backs. In a quarter of an hour from Grimbald’s coming Goldspur village
was a row of empty hovels, with nothing alive there but a few chickens,
and the sparrows, who trusted in God, and continued to build in the
thatch.
Grimbald had set himself at the lower end of the village, and stood
there like the giant figure of some protecting saint. He was about to
follow his flock when he saw a man on horseback round a spur of woodland
in the valley. He came on at a canter for the village, and Grimbald knew
him for Aymery by the colours of his surcoat and his horse.
Aymery reined in, hot with galloping, his eyes keen and full of flashes
of light. He had been with Waleran, and had ridden to warn his people of
what they might expect that day.
Grimbald pointed with his axe to the open doors of the hovels.
“They are safe in the woods by now. Have you had view of Peter’s
gentry?”
Aymery turned his horse, and shaded his eyes with his hand.
“They left the priest’s house under Bright Ling—at dawn. Waleran tried
a trick there, but the dogs smelt the smoke. I saw their spears coming
down the hill as I crossed the valley.”
Aymery looked towards the beech wood on the hill, his eyes flashing back
the morning sunlight. The muscles of his jaw were hard and tense.
“We must bide our time, and watch them,” he said; “they are coming to
make a bonfire here. They can burn every stick of the place so long as
they have not meddled with Denise.”
Grimbald shifted his axe from one shoulder to the other. If ever a man
had cause to be jealous of a woman, that man was Grimbald. But his heart
was too warm and too well tilled to harbour such a weed. He thanked God
for the good he found in the world, and did not quarrel with it because
it was not part of his own halo.
“She cannot be left yonder,” he said.
Aymery still looked at the beech wood, head thrown back, grey eyes
a-glitter.
“We must take cover and watch. They will be here soon, and we shall see.
To-night, I will take her away.”
A gleam of spears showed in the valley, and Aymery rode off to the
nearest wood with Grimbald holding to his stirrups. They saw Gaillard
and his men come over the fields to Goldspur village, and Denise was not
with them. Aymery’s eyes made sure of that. The Gascon found nothing but
the empty hovels, the untroubled sparrows, and a black cock crowing and
scratching on a dunghill. One of Gaillard’s men fitted an arrow to the
string, shot the black cock through the body, and laughed at the way the
bird tumbled and flapped in the death agony.
“Brother Barnabo may find use for him,” said someone, and there was a
laugh.
“He will wake him before daylight,” quoth another. “Such birds are
useful to gallant clerks.”
Goldspur village did not go up in smoke that morning, for Gaillard,
cunning as a fox, did not always run straight for the game in view.
“We will take our dinner elsewhere, sirs,” he said. “When we are over
the hill, the fools may think that they will see us no more. When does a
cat catch mice? We shall do better in the dark.”
And Aymery and Grimbald saw him and his men ride on towards the west as
though an empty village were too miserable a thing even to be burnt. Nor
did they turn aside to where the gable end of the manor house showed
amid the oak trees. It seemed that Gaillard had another quest in view.
Goldspur was left to the sparrows and the dead cock on the dunghill.
Aymery and Grimbald watched the raiders till they had disappeared.
“We are free of them for one day, brother. What about our people?”
“We had better look to the fools,” said Grimbald. “They are as
frightened as rabbits.”
And they went off together into the woods.
Aymery and the priest found the Goldspur folk penning their cattle in a
wild part of the forest. The men had cut boughs and furze bushes, and
the women were building rude huts for shelter at night. Aymery sent some
of the boys to scout through the forest, and bring back any news of
Gaillard that they could gather. About noon one of Waleran’s men came
in, with a word to Aymery that Waleran and the woodlanders were
gathering to ambush the Savoyard’s men. Grimbald and Aymery went off to
join in the tussle, but saw nothing of Waleran though they sought him
most of the day. A woodman who was felling oak trees to bark for the
tanner, told them that young St. Leger had ridden by, and that Gaillard
and his company had marched back beyond Bright Ling. Aymery and the
priest turned homewards towards Goldspur. The long shadows of evening
were purple upon the grass, and Aymery’s heart remembered Denise.
They came to Goldspur manor as the dusk was falling, and the song of the
birds went up towards the sunset, and everything was very still. The
bridge was down over the narrow moat, and the gate open; no man had been
there all that day, for Aymery’s servants had fled with the village
folk, and two men who could handle their bows had been sent two days ago
with Waleran into the woods.
Grimbald drew the bridge, while Aymery went to the stable to feed and
water his horse. They had no fear of Peter of Savoy’s riders that night,
and took their augury from the fact that Gaillard had left the place
untouched that morning. Grimbald carried tinder and steel in his wallet,
and he lit a torch in the hall, and went to the pantry and kitchen to
get bread, beer, and meat for supper. He and Aymery sat down in the
empty hall, and ate for a while in silence, like men who were weary, or
were sunk in thought.
They were nearly through with their hunger, and were talking of Denise
and the hermitage, when Grimbald, who was about to finish his mead,
paused with the horn between the table and his mouth. The men’s eyes met
across the board. They were both listening, motionless as images carved
in stone.
The night seemed dark and silent without, the woodlands asleep, the
night empty of all unrest. Yet there had come to Grimbald a sense of
something moving in the darkness. And as they listened there was a faint
splash from the moat, and a sound like the creaking of wet leather.
Grimbald’s eyes were fixed on Aymery’s face.
“Listen!”
“A rat in the moat?”
Grimbald put his horn down on the table, rose up swiftly and silently,
and taking his axe, went out into the courtyard. Aymery’s sword and
shield hung from a peg in the wall. He took them down, and had gained
the door of the hall when he heard a sudden scuffling of feet, an oath
in the darkness, the harsh breathing of men at grips, the splash of
something into the water of the moat.
A scattering of arrows whirred and pecked at the walls, one slanting in
and smiting the flagstones close to Aymery’s feet. He heard the dull
jingle of armed men on the move. Grimbald towered back suddenly out of
the night, a red splash of blood on his forehead, his eyes shining in
the torchlight.
He flung the door to, and ran the oak bar through the staples.
“Brother, we are trapped! I took the first of them and pitched him into
the moat.”
He shook his shaggy head, and looked round the hall. Aymery was buckling
on his sword.
“There is the garden bridge,” he said. “We can make a dash for it.”
“Away, then; they are wading the moat, and climbing the palisade.”
Aymery pushed in front of Grimbald as they hurried down a narrow
passage-way that led from the hall and the kitchen quarters into the
garden.
“I go first, brother,” he said. “I have my steel coat; a stab in the
dark might find your heart.”
Grimbald passed a huge arm about Aymery as they went.
“Lad, what is that to me!”
They came out into the garden, and stood for a moment listening. They
could hear Gaillard’s men beating in the door of the hall, but towards
the garden everything seemed quiet.
Aymery laid a hand on Grimbald’s arm.
“If one of us is taken, brother, let not the other tarry. Remember
Denise.”
Grimbald understood him.
“Come,” he said in an undertone, and they crossed the garden side by
side.
Now there was a trestle-bridge from the garden over the moat, a
footbridge made of a single plank that could be thrust across and
withdrawn at pleasure. A wicket in the palisade led to the bridge.
Aymery unbarred the gate, and ran the plank forward on to the trestles.
“We shall trick them,” he said grimly, “quick, they have broken in.”
He ran across the bridge, Grimbald following, the plank creaking and
sagging under the priest’s weight. Aymery had stooped to drag the plank
away again, when he heard Grimbald give a short, deep cry, and saw him
spring forward and smite at something with his axe.
“Guard, brother, guard.”
Steel crashed upon steel, a glitter of sparks flying from axe and
helmet. An arrow stopped quivering in Aymery’s shield as he sprang
forward to Grimbald’s aid. Men rose at him out of the darkness. Dimly in
the midst of the waving swords, he had a glimpse of two men clinging to
Grimbald. He saw the priest shake them off, and beat them down before
him as a boy snaps thistles with a stick. There was a rush of armed men
in the darkness, the dash of steel against steel as they blundered one
against another. The red splutter of a torch came tossing out of the
night, with the hoarse shouting of men trying to tell friend from foe.
Grimbald and Aymery lost each other, and fought each for his own hand.