The plunge through the cold Ouse freshened Aymery’s horse, and Gaillard,
who rode only to put some miles between him and Simon’s host at Lewes,
heard the rhythm of the hoofs behind him drawing ever nearer. The
knowledge that he was chased by one man did not bustle the Gascon in the
least, for Gaillard knew his own strength, and had never taken a
thrashing. The day’s battle had beggared him, and his brother
adventurers, for the lords who had hired them would soon be scattered
over the sea. Moreover Gaillard remembered De Montfort in Gascony, and
that Earl Simon had dealt very roughly with hired gentlemen of the sword
who meddled where they had no cause. Yet Gaillard did not snap his jaws
at the chance that had beggared him. He felt in fettle, and ready for a
scrimmage, arrogantly confident in himself, and with sufficient animal
spite in the mood to put him in an excellent temper. He would thrash the
fool who followed them, have his way with Denise, and make Pevensey on
the morrow, and sail with some of the King’s lords who were seized with
a desire to visit France.
Had Gaillard had a glimpse of the face of the man who followed him, he
might have taken the escapade more grimly, and talked less of “Sussex
boors who could better fix a spiggot in a barrel than handle a sword.”
The Gascon could not keep the froth from the surface. Loquacity was a
habit of his when he had anything strenuous in hand. He gabbled away to
Denise as they cantered on in the dusk, keeping a sharp eye however on
the ground before him, very wide awake in spite of his loquacity.
“Come, now, Sanctissima,” he said, “tell me when you are tired of your
horse, and we will stop and talk to the gentleman behind us. A gallop at
night makes one sleep more soundly. We shall find a bed somewhere, and
no one shall wake you early if you would play the sluggard.”
Denise, listening to the rhythm of hoofs behind them in the dusk, hated
Gaillard for his flamboyant spirit and his arrogance. She held her
breath for Aymery’s sake. If Gaillard should kill him! If she should see
him beaten, and crushed! She cast frightened brown eyes over Gaillard’s
figure, and hated him the more because he seemed so big and lusty.
“Hallo, we are coming up fast behind there! The gentleman is very hot,
and in a great hurry, Sanctissima! Do you see a wood over yonder. We can
make a bed under the trees when we have had our talk with Messire
Mead-horn. Beer, Sanctissima, makes these boors hot in the head and
quarrelsome.”
Denise felt the canter slacken, for Gaillard was drawing in. A swift and
inarticulate horror, a vivid sense of what was to follow, seized on her.
These two men would be at each other’s throats. And in the dusk and the
silence of that night in May she might see lust conquer and strangle
love.
The dull plodding of hoofs behind them beat a measure in her brain. She
would have cried out to Aymery, and could not. And on that hard, brown
face under the helmet she imagined a callous and self-assured smile.
They neared the trees, masses of fresh foliage hanging motionless under
the quiet sky. It would be peaceful, and odorous, and silent in among
those trees. Yet their black plumes had a sinister sadness for Denise.
They were so calm, and black, and motionless, with never the sound of a
night wind in them.
Gaillard reined in abruptly, threw a sharp glance over his shoulder, and
then pushed Denise roughly from her horse.
“Try to run, my minion, and I will ride over you,” he said, “no fool of
a mesne lord shall stand in the way of it.”
He still had her horse by the halter, and Denise saw him jerk it, so
that the beast tossed its head. And the brutal thing that Gaillard did
sickened her to the heart, so that she stood still with wide eyes and
quivering mouth. For Gaillard had slashed the horse’s throat, and Denise
saw the poor beast rear, break free, and then sink on its knees with a
smothered sound that was all too human.
Denise forgot even the maimed horse with the coming of Aymery out of the
dusk. Gaillard had circled round so that he stood between Denise and the
trees. He had begun to sing some southern song, throwing his sword from
hand to hand, his voice reverberating in his helmet.
Denise stood and watched and waited as though her whole soul had
withdrawn into her eyes. Aymery was quite close to her, yet she neither
moved nor spoke to him. Perhaps she was dazed by the imminent dread of
what would follow.
Gaillard broke off his song, drew his shield forward, and crowed like a
cock.
“Good evening, my little gentleman,” he said; “there you are, white
cross and all. I will put a red mark on that cross of yours. Ladies are
always pleased by a red rose.”
Aymery said nothing, but glanced aside at Denise. Then Gaillard came
cantering up, tossing his sword, and crowing in his helmet.
“Up with your shield, my friend, I have a lady to love, and the night is
ready.”
Denise watched them, half in a stupor. The men were sword to sword,
shield to shield, and horse to horse. Confusedly, like one half asleep,
she heard Gaillard prattling as they began the tussle, a grim and half
playful babble, like the chatter of a waterfall when men are struggling
in the pool beneath.
Soon, however, Gaillard grew very silent, save for a sudden and
spasmodic oath. To Denise there seemed nothing in the world but two
strong men lashing at each other from the backs of two ever moving and
circling horses. Then in the thick of the clangour, and the heavy
breathing, she heard Gaillard give a sharp, fierce cry, the cry of a
strong man cut beneath his harness. A horse swerved, stumbled, and
rolled over. Whose, Denise could not tell for the moment, in the whirl
of the tussle, and the darkness.
It was Gaillard’s horse, but he was free of the beast, up, and no longer
the complacent sworder, but a man fighting with the valour of a beast
that fights to live. He blundered against the other’s horse, grappled a
leg, and twisted Aymery out of the saddle. They were on foot now, still
close to her, dodging, striking, circling round and round. Denise could
hear the sound of their breathing above the rattle of blows, and the
dull rustling of feet.
Then she saw a man stumble, jerk forward, and recover though cut across
the shoulders with a sword. A head was bare, the great helmet had
fallen, and a white face showed in its stead. Denise knew Gaillard by
his greater height. His shield was up, sure as a pent-house at the foot
of a wall, and Denise would have crushed that shield had the power of a
Greek goddess been hers that moment.
Gaillard had blood on his face, she saw the dark smirch thereof above
the eyes and down one cheek. A broken shield was thrown aside, Aymery’s,
and fell like a dead crow with flapping wings into the grass. Gaillard
sprang on him. There was a meeting of swords, a moment’s locking of the
blades, a swift up-thrust by the one that first broke free. Again Denise
heard that great cry of Gaillard’s with more of the roar of the wild
beast in it than before.
He rolled from side to side as though drunk, and then throwing aside his
shield, made a blind and blundering charge with an upheave of the sword.
Aymery sprang to the right with a twist of the body, using that swing of
the body for the sweep of the counter-blow. Gaillard sprawled, spun
round, caught Aymery’s ankle, and dragged him to earth. For a while
there was a confused struggle in the grass. Denise heard a man groaning,
and straining like a giant trying to lift a rock that is crushing him
into the ground. Then there was the sharp sound of steel wrenching its
way through steel. The end had come, and one of the men lay still.
Why the horror of the thing should take possession of her as it did
Denise did not consider. She saw the wood, dark, cool, and still, before
her, and fled into it, seeing nothing but hearing ever Gaillard’s cry.
And though she fell often, stumbling against the great trees in the
darkness, she ran like one without reason, not noticing whether anyone
followed, and that the silence of the place closed on her like water
over a stone.