Part 12

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.

Something white glimmered under the trees. It drew nearer, and was led forth into the sunlight close to where Fulk de Lisle stood waiting. Martin Valliant covered his eyes with his forearm, and Swartz, who had put his eye to his squint-hole, rolled aside, and stared at the sky.

Martin Valliant said never a word. A new and wonderful strength seemed to come to him; he uncovered his eyes, stood up calmly with a face that was like a great white light. His lips moved, but no sound came.

They had fastened a rope about Mellis’s neck, and the man who held the end of the rope had crowned himself with a wreath of wild flowers. Another fellow who walked behind had a garland on his spear. Fulk de Lisle’s allegory burned itself into Martin Valliant’s brain. This beautiful nakedness was to be sacrificed to shame him.

Old Swartz was cursing to himself. He glanced up at Martin and stared in an awed way at the man’s white and shining face.

He saw Martin cross himself.

“Some day I shall kill that man,” he said, as though he were praying; “I shall not die till I have killed him.”

Mellis was led through the long grass to the green bower. She looked at the ground, but once her eyes lifted to the tower with one tremulous glance of appeal. And Martin’s soul struggled like a live thing in a cage.

“It shall not happen!” he said. “By the greatness of God, it shall not happen!”

The men led her into the bower and made her lie down upon the bed. One of them tossed a riding-cloak over her. They cut the rope into four pieces, and tied her by her wrists and ankles to the four stakes. Their work was done; they threw their garlands on the ground, and went off laughing and looking mockingly at Woodmere tower.

Martin was watching Fulk de Lisle, who came pacing with all the airs of a great lord toward the place where Mellis lay.

“What a chance to shoot the red devil!”

Swartz rubbed his hands together.

“Ah! I thought so.”

De Lisle was playing a part, and his swaggering was mere whimsical insolence. He marched up and down in front of the lodge of leaves, pointing his toes and cocking his head, the male thing in possession. A servant came down from the wood with a silver cup full of wine, and Fulk de Lisle made a great parade of his drinking. He walked into the bower and drank to Mellis, turned again, and drank to Martin on the tower. He was in high favor with himself. Life was a dissolute jest.

Martin Valliant heard Swartz whispering to him.

“Have you come by any plan, brother?”

“Only that I am going yonder to-night.”

His face was gray and hard as a winter dawn.

“I can better that plan.”

“How?”

“They will be too much on the alert to give you an honest chance. If you open the gate and cross the bridge they will be waiting for you. We must make them face two ways—scare them a little.”

“Go on.”

“I have my horn with me. Picture us stripped, comrade, you with a sharp knife, and I with my horn. We swim the moat after dark, and before the moon is up. I creep through the grass into the woods, get around behind the gentry, blow my horn like the last trump, and shout to my imaginary men to cut the rogues to pieces. We must trust to them getting a trifle ruffled. You will have to take your chance of saving the child.”

Martin stared at him fixedly.

“Why are you doing this?”

“Why? Why do we eat and sleep, man? Because we must. To cheat that red rogue over there is as natural as eating. Thunder! but I have forgotten one thing. The girl would not be able to swim.”

Martin hid his knowledge.

“I could carry her over. That is nothing.”

“Love could carry the moon! What say you to my plan, Martin Valliant?”

Martin stooped and caught Swartz by the shoulders.

“And I was near killing you two days ago!”

“Hard blows have begun many a good friendship. My heart’s with you, Martin Valliant.”

And so it was agreed between them, that they should try this desperate venture when darkness came.

To Martin Valliant it seemed very long in the coming, though the shadow of the tower lengthened itself across the water till it touched the grassland beyond the mere. He watched the fish leaping in the water, and the swallows skimming the surface and calling shrilly to each other. As for the sunset, it seemed to set the earth afire and make everything burn with miraculous color, so that the grasslands were a great green carpet dusted with precious stones, and the beech trees all glowing with yellow light. In that little shelter of leaves Mellis lay white and still like a sweet saint sleeping in a tomb cut out of crystal, while Martin Valliant’s fierce restlessness longed for all this beauty to be blotted out. He could have pulled the sun down out of the sky, and thrown it into the mere for the quicker quenching of the day.

Fulk de Lisle had had a seat made of sods and branches on the edge of the wood, and he sat there like a great lord while the men built two fires, one for themselves and one for their captains, and with the coming of the darkness these two fires were like great red eyes under the black brow of the beech wood. A pot was slung over the flames, and a table set for Fulk de Lisle and John Rich, and covered with a white cloth. The shelter of leaves lay a hundred paces or more away from the fires and beyond the edge of the light. It showed as a dark blur on the open grassland.

Martin Valliant had been stripping off his harness, but Swartz was still on the watch.

“They are guarding the causeway. Fulk de Lisle would not lose his supper for any woman. It is time we made a beginning.”

Martin gathered up his armor, and they went down into the courtyard. Swartz was fumbling at the points of his hose.

“Curse these knots! Give me your knife, man.”

He cut himself out of his clothes, chuckling fiercely. Martin had laid his armor and his sword beside the postern leading into the garden; he had stripped himself of everything save his short cassock, for the thing would not spoil his swimming, and it hid the whiteness of his body. Old Swartz came out haired like an ape, his horn slung to his neck by a stout cord.

“Here is your knife, man. We had best take to the water on the farther side, and paddle across softly.”

They passed through the orchard where the grass and weeds brushed their knees, and Swartz talked in a whisper.

“Crawl around and get as near as you can to the child. Then, wait—and have patience. I shall have to make a wide sweep. When you hear me blowing my horn and shouting, you must be ready to make your dash.”

Martin Valliant was grimly cool.

“I shall waste no time,” he said.

They stood for a moment to look at the two fires and the men gathered around them. The blaze lit the trunks of the beech trees and made the lower branches shine like brass. A man was fishing meat out of the iron pot with a dagger. Fulk de Lisle’s red figure was the color of blood; he had a cup in his hand and was about to drink.

“While gluttons eat, wise men are up and doing. The hour is ripe for us.”

They struck the water on the far side of the island, where willows grew.

“Well, God’s good luck to us, comrade.”

Their hands met. Then Martin let himself down into the water, and Swartz followed him. They paddled slowly and softly across with hardly a splash, Martin swimming with his knife in his right hand. The mere was as black as a well, and the willows hid them from the men who watched the causeway.

When they reached the shallows under the farther bank they crouched and listened. There was no shouting; no alarm—not a sound save the faint lapping of a few ripples among the reeds and sedges. Martin climbed out, and gave Swartz his hand. There was a thorn tree growing within a few paces of the water, and they took cover under it before parting.

“Give me a minute’s start, Valliant. I shall make a track well out into the open, and then turn toward the woods. God grant the mud has not got into this horn of mine.”

He slipped away into the long grass, and Martin knew that all that he held most dear hung on the good faith of Peter Swartz.

_Chapter XXX_

Martin Valliant did not tarry long under the thorn tree. He knelt for a moment to listen, and then started on his way around the mere, crawling on hands and knees through the rich rank grass that grew near the water. It was wet with dew, and the brown sorrel and the great white daisies brushed against his face. The smell of the green growth touched him like a subtle, clinging memory. He did not think of death or wounds, but only of Mellis and what might happen to her if he failed.

Skirting the mere, he came to the sluice ditch, all choked with shrubs and brambles. The ditch was less than two hundred paces from the causeway, and about the same distance from the shelter of leaves, and Martin scrambled down and took cover in spite of the thorns and brambles. He half stood and half lay, with his head and shoulders above the bank, and a stunted thorn stretching a canopy above him. He could see the two fires, and Fulk de Lisle’s red figure. Mellis’s bower lay between the sluice ditch and the camp fires; Martin could not pick it out of the darkness, though he strained his eyes till the lids began to flicker.

Still, he knew where she lay, and there was nothing for him to do but to lie still and wait for Swartz’s horn. He could feel his heart beating as he leaned against the grassy bank. Every nerve and muscle in him seemed a-quiver. He fingered the point and edge of his knife, and smiled.

Then a strange thought came to him. What if he failed—what if he found the adventure hopeless?

He would die—he meant to die in such a case—but Mellis would be living. He would go out into the great darkness leaving her alone. Rough hands might do what they pleased with her. Fulk de Lisle would come down full of his wine, violent and inflamed.

Martin fondled his knife. One blow, and all that would be saved. And yet he recoiled from the thought with a spasm of tenderness and horror. To strike that white body of hers, to hear her cry out, to know that her blood was flowing! The passion in him hardened to an iron frenzy. He would not fail; no strength should master him; nothing should say him nay.

Martin Valliant had fought through those moments of a man’s strong anguish when Swartz’s horn brayed in the deeps of the beech wood. Martin did not wait to see what would happen. He was out of the ditch and running through the long grass like a greyhound loosed after a hare. He knew where the shelter of leaves should be; that was all that mattered.

And yet his senses were dimly aware of other things that were happening. Swartz was shouting like a madman, “At them! At them! Cut the swine to pieces!” Fulk de Lisle had sprung to his feet and was facing toward the beech wood; his men were rushing to arms. The fellows on the causeway had left their post and were trailing across the grass to join their comrades by the fires.

Martin went like the wind, conscious of a wild exultation. A black shape loomed in front of him, like a hay-cock in a field. He reached it, fell on his knees, and crawled into its shadow.

“Mellis!”

He heard her cry out.

“Martin—Martin—oh, my comrade!”

“Don’t speak, child. I must cut those ropes.”

He groped for her right arm, found it, and cut the thong that fastened her wrist to the stake. To free her left arm he had to lean over her body, but the second rope was cut, and of a sudden he felt her arms about him.

“Martin!”

Her great joy and her love would not be stifled. Her arms held him close, and for a moment he lay on her bosom, feeling her breath on his face, and the beating of her heart answering his.

“My own dear mate——”

“Child, it is life and death.”

He freed himself, and cut the ropes that bound her ankles.

“Come.”

She was up like a blown leaf, holding the cloak over her bosom with one hand, and running at his side. Martin looked back at the fires. Confusion still fooled Fulk de Lisle and his men. There was much running to and fro and shouting under the beech trees, and no grasping, as yet, of the trick that had been played them.

Martin felt himself touched upon the shoulder.

“You are all wet, dear comrade.”

“I had to swim across.”

She gave an exquisite, shy laugh.

“The mere is an old friend. You will not have to carry me.”