Part 7

It was Martin Valliant who prayed for the soul of Gilbert Dale, and not Mellis his sister.

She was bitter and fierce, and wounded.

“I will not ask God or the saints for anything—no, nor Mother Mary. My brother had no sin upon him. Let them look to their own.”

So Martin tolled the bell, lit candles, and chanted a death Mass, yet all the while he was thinking of the rebel woman out yonder and of the despair in her eyes. Nature was striking shrewd blows at Martin’s simplicity, using the lecherous treachery of Geraint and the bloody heartlessness of the Lord of Troy to prove to him that there are great violences on earth, lusts and cruelties and loves that no mere saint can conquer. Even Mellis’s wild words of revolt sounded more real and human than the patter of his prayers. He knelt a long while in silence, wondering, asking himself grim questions. How would his father, old Valliant, have acted? Would he have put up a prayer, or donned harness and taken the sword?

Mellis would not enter the chapel or kneel before the altar. She went wandering over the moor, recklessly, with that fever of anguish and hatred burning in her blood. She wanted to hurt those men who had killed her brother. She wanted to take the Lord of Troy and give him to some strong man to be throttled. All the love and tenderness that were in her were like perfumes thrown upon the flames.

Wearied at last, she came back to the great cross, passed under its shadow, and entering the rest-house, lay down upon her bed. The room was cool and silent, with its massive walls of stone and thickly thatched roof, and not a sound disturbed her; but she could neither sleep nor rest because of the knowledge of the peril that threatened her. Mellis felt herself betrayed, hunted, and her instincts warned her that she would be shown no mercy. She did not believe that her brother’s death had come about casually, or that he had been stabbed wantonly or in error. The shadow of Troy Castle loomed over her. She was fey that morning; the Forest whispered a warning.

About noon Martin Valliant took his spade and went out to dig in the garden. He was shy of Mellis, shy of her despair, and the new manhood that had been born in him chafed and raged at the vows that held it. The blood of old Roger Valliant was alive in him; he was more the son of his father than he knew.

The garden hedge shut Martin in upon himself, and he could see nothing of the moor, so that one of Noble Vance’s archers was able to come scouting right to the foot of the great cross and creep away again unnoticed. The fellow went back to a heathy hollow where the Forest Warden waited, sitting on his black horse in the sun.

“The woman is there, lording. I saw her in the doorway of the rest-house.”

“And the monk?”

“I heard the sound of a spade in the garden.”

“Good. Now listen to me, you men. There is no cause to be too gentle with the jade; they say she is a fierce wench, and may carry a knife, and a knife in an angry woman’s hands is not to be despised.”

“Will you take her, or shall we, lording?”

“We’ll see what we shall see.”

Martin Valliant was just turning a new spit when he heard a sound that made him raise his head and listen. A horse was moving somewhere; he heard the thudding of hoofs and the jingle of a bridle. The horse came on at a canter, and a man’s voice shouted an order.

“A view—a view! Run, Jack; head her off, or she’ll have the door shut in our faces.”

Then Martin heard Mellis cry out.

“Martin Valliant—Martin Valliant!”

Something seemed to twist itself in his head and snap like a broken bowstring. He plucked his spade out of the ground and went running, his nostrils agape, his eyes hard as blue glass.

And this was what Martin saw when he pushed through the gate and rounded the corner of the thorn hedge. Mellis had her back to the wall of the rest-house, and a light dagger in her hand. A man in red was sucking a bloody wrist, and two archers were crouching behind him like dogs waiting to be let loose.

Martin saw the man in red raise the butt of his riding whip and strike at Mellis, shouting savagely:

“Break the jade—break her!”

Then Martin Valliant went mad. He was no more than the male thing answering the wild call of its mate. He saw Noble Vance’s whip strike Mellis’s arm.

It was all over in twenty seconds, for that spade was a grim weapon whirled like a battle-ax by old Valliant’s son. The two archers had stood and gaped, too astonished to think of bending a bow. One of them, indeed, had plucked out a knife, but he was dead before he could use it.

Vance the Forest Warden lay all huddled up, grinning horribly, gashed to the brain pulp. The other archer had taken to his heels, mounted his master’s horse, and galloped off with the fear of God in him. And Martin Valliant was standing leaning on his spade, his face deathly white, his eyes staring at the dead men on the grass.

_Chapter XVII_

For a long while Martin Valliant neither moved nor spoke, and Mellis watched him in silence. His rage had passed, and a kind of wondering horror dulled his eyes. He was afraid of his own handiwork, this death that he had brought into the world, these bloody things at his feet. And yet they fascinated him, for there were two men struggling in Martin Valliant—the poor monk and the soldier.

The monk in him, being the elder, stood shocked to the heart, and most tragically dismayed. Such a bloody deed as this seemed the end of everything, even though it had been done in generous wrath. Martin’s monastic soul shrank away, horrified, covering its face with its hands. He had spilled blood, he was a murderer, he had sinned against the God Who had given him life.

For a while the monk in him possessed his whole consciousness, but there was a man stronger and fiercer than the monk waiting to be heard. The soul of old Valliant lived more nobly in his son, old Valliant who had looked on dead men with the pity of a soldier, but who would have had no pity for such a fellow as Noble Vance.

“Martin—Martin Valliant!”

He heard her voice, at first very soft and faint, like a voice from a distance. He had not looked at her since he had struck Vance down.

Slowly he seemed to drag himself from staring at his own handiwork. He turned his head, and her eyes met his.

Once more the soul of that tragic day astonished him, for there was a strange, shining light in Mellis’s eyes. Her lips seemed to tremble; her throat showed proud and triumphant. Here was no shame, no horror, but a something that gloried, an exultation that was near to tears.

He stared at her as though he had been dead and she had called him back to life.

Mellis stretched out her hands as though to crown him.

“Martin Valliant—Martin Valliant.”

Again the note of exultation sounded. He beheld a new and human glory in her eyes.

“God forgive me.”

He dropped on his knees, and covered his face with his right arm.

The woman in her rushed instantly to comfort him.

“Martin—Martin Valliant, take it not to heart. God slays men sometimes; it is right and good that they should be slain.”

She bent over him with infinite compassion.

“How can I lift this burden from you, you who have striven to love men?”

He dropped his arm and stared at the grass.

“What has happened to me? I do not understand. Yet that man there was an evil beast, and I struck him in clean wrath. What does God wish? I have lost the light in my soul.”

He got up and began to walk to and fro with great strides, his forehead all knotted, his mouth awry. And Mellis watched him, keeping silent, but with a great pity in her eyes. He was like a blind man, groping his way, lost in the confusion of his own soul.

“Martin——”

He turned to her with dull anguish in his eyes.

“God will not speak to me. I hear no voice but yours. I will go and surrender myself.”

“To whom?”

“What does it matter? There is blood on my hands. Let them do with me as they please.”

A new light flashed in her eyes. She seemed to feel the struggle that was coming, the fight for the soul of this strong man. Either he would dash himself to ruin, or she would save him as he had saved her.

“Is there no other voice but mine?”

“None.”

“Perhaps God is in my voice, speaking to you, Martin Valliant.”

He looked at her strangely.

“Those men died by my hand.”

“Good—very good—I grant it. There’s death, lying at our feet. Let us look at it boldly, without shrinking, without shame. What were those men? One was an evil beast, you say, and I know it to be true. He was one of those who slew my father; I would charge him, too, with my brother’s death, and by your hand I am avenged. There were three, and you were alone. There was God’s good wrath in your heart. And I call you proudly Martin Valliant. Yes, the song of the sword is yours.”

The blood rose to his face.

“Is my sin the less?”

“What if there be no sin in the killing of such enemies? Think, why did you strike the man down?”

He avoided her eyes.

“To save me. Because your heart told you that these men brought me death—perhaps things that are worse than death. You killed them, but I live and am free.”

She smiled bravely.

“Free—to be grateful—free to swear to you from my heart that the deed was done nobly. And now—what of the morrow?”

He could not rise to her rebel mood as yet; the old life still hung to him, though he realized that it was a thing of rags and tatters.

“To-morrow? I cannot think of a to-morrow. Life seems to end for me in a great cliff.”

She made herself look at the dead man, pointed at him with her finger.

“You know whom you have killed?”

“Vance, the Forest Warden.”

“Roger Bland’s watchdog. And you will hang for it, Martin Valliant, in spite of twenty St. Benedicts. The Lord of Troy is not gentle with those who flout him.”

He answered sullenly, “If I hang—I hang.”

Mellis went closer, and looked steadily into his face.

“And I, Martin Valliant, I shall hang on the same gibbet.”

He threw his head back, with a tightening of the mouth and a hardening of the eyes.

“God forbid!”

“Roger Bland of Troy will not forbid it. We shall hang, Martin Valliant, unless——”

He opened and shut his hands as though blindly striving to grip the truth.

“I am a broken man—but you——”

“Broken, say you? And before God—why? What are we but rebels, outlaws, so long as Crookback rules and such hounds as Bland hunt at his bidding? My troth is pledged to another king. Broken?—never! What, shall I not fight for my life against my enemies—aye, and with a good heart? And you, Martin Valliant?”

“I—fight—to save myself?”

“Would you let them lead you off like an ox to be pole-axed?”

“I have vowed——”

“God have pity on you, Martin Valliant. Where are your vows now? Blown to the winds. No, I’ll not suffer you to go with meek madness to your death. Answer me—will you not fight for your own life?”

He thought awhile, and then answered stubbornly, “No.”

Mellis drew a deep breath.

“Before God, then, will you fight for mine?”

He faltered, looked at her, and his face flamed to her challenge.

“For you? To save you?”

He bowed his head.

“Yes—to the death, so that you may live.”

She held out her hands to him, her eyes shining.

“Martin Valliant, let us be comrades, let us swear troth to each other.”

But he looked at her hands as though he dared not touch them.

“I am a priest no more,” he said, “but an outlaw. So be it, though God has dealt strangely with me.”

He turned his head and looked at the great cross.

“The shape of a sword!”

“There is a noble spirit in it, Martin Valliant.”

“It shall be a cross—and a sword,” he answered her.

_Chapter XVIII_

So Martin Valliant became an outlaw, Nature being stronger than the ingenious folly of dead saints.

It was Mellis who captained the adventure, for she was quicker in thought than Martin, and the day’s happenings had stunned him not a little.

She had her eyes on Woodmere, and both heart and head justified the choice. It was nearer to Troy Castle than the Black Moor, but this disadvantage was overbalanced by many virtues. The place lay in the thick of the woods; its broad mere made it very safe; and with but little labor the house itself could be put into a good state for defense. Arms and stores were hidden there. Moreover, it lay in the Red Rose country, where the Forest folk were most bitter against the Lord of Troy. John Falconer held Badger Hill; the Blounts were at Bloody Rood, just south of the Rondel toward the west. Mellis counted on the Forest rallying to her when the secret word went forth that Richmond was crossing the seas.

“To horse, good comrade; or rather you and I will have to march and load the baggage on my horse. Have you much store of food?”

“Half a sack of flour, and some yeast.”

“Empty your cupboard into a couple of sacks. I will go and harness the horse.”

Martin Valliant was looking at the dead men. He loitered a moment, as though he could not decide what should be done with them.

“No, I’ll not touch them,” he said to himself. “I am a man of blood; let others do what is right and good.”

He locked up the chapel and left the key hanging on a nail in his cell, nor did he touch anything in the cell itself save the food in the cupboard and larder. A couple of sacks served for the stowing away of the flour, the yeast, a bottle or two of wine, a paper of dried herbs, and some salted meat. He tied up the mouths of the sacks and carried them down to the stable.

Mellis showed herself a very practical young woman.

“Fasten those two sacks together, and we can sling them like panniers. Now, what else would make useful plunder? A coil of rope, if you have such a thing.”

Martin remembered seeing a coil hanging in Father Jude’s tool-house.

“Wait—and a felling ax and a crowbar. I’ll come with you.”

They ransacked the tool-house, and Mellis blessed Father Jude.

“The rope, yes, and that felling ax. This is a treasury, good comrade. Take that saw, and the mattock and spade.”

“Here’s a crowbar.”

“Oh, brave man! We shall bless these tools to-morrow. That big maul, too, and the billhook, and that auger hanging there.”

“I can use the rope to lash them into a bundle.”

“Of course. Give me the saw, the auger, and the billhook.”

Martin laid the rest of the tools on the ground, and lashed them together by the handles. He tried the weight of the bundle.

“Your horse will not bless us. I could shoulder these things.”

“Seven miles?”

“It is not the weight, but an awkward bale to tie on a horse’s back.”

“Here’s a sack and some cord; wrap it around the handles; we can sling the food one side and the tools the other. The horse must make the best of it.”

Her word was law for the moment, both to Martin Valliant and the beast. She stood by while he loaded the things on to the horse’s back, watching him critically and the way he used his big brown hands.

“Can you ride a horse?” she asked him.

He smiled around at her gravely.

“I have broken in colts at Paradise.”

“Was that monk’s work?”

“I was young, and even a monk is none the worse for learning to handle an untamed thing and to keep his temper.”

She nodded approvingly.

“That may help us. Can you use a bow?”

“Passably. As a boy I used to carry a prodd and shoot at the crows.”

“The long bow for a forester; the arbalist is only for townsmen.”

“I could hit a sheaf of corn at fifty paces when I was younger.”

“You will have to grow young again. And traps—can you set a snare as a bird-trap?”

“No.”

“I am thinking of our larder,” she explained. “Outlaws are not fed by ravens.”

The sun had swung well into the west when they were ready to start upon their journey. Mellis went to the great cross, and from its knoll she scanned the moor, but could see no live thing moving anywhere. Martin stood by the horse, leaning on his hollywood staff and staring at the ground, trying to convince himself that he was not dreaming. He saw Mellis come back and turn her head so as not to see those dead things lying by the rest-house. Yes, the business was real enough. He had but to look at Mellis, and the knowledge leaped in him that the Martin Valliant of yesterday was dead.

“I can see no one moving. The sooner we are lost to view in the woods, the better it will be for us.”

His tragic face touched her, but she let him alone, and taking the horse’s bridle, started over the moor.

Martin followed her like a dog. He moved mechanically, watching her with a kind of sorrowful bewilderment, marching toward the new world with a heart that was very heavy. A man’s whole life cannot be overturned and broken in a day without the shock of it leaving him dazed and full of a dull distrust. To have become a murderer, to find himself tramping at the heels of a young woman whose eyes bewitched him, to know that there was a likelihood of both of them being hanged—these amazing realities hung heavy about Martin Valliant’s neck.

Once or twice Mellis glanced back over her shoulder. She had divined what was passing in Martin Valliant’s heart; she half expected to find herself alone, or to see him stalking away over the moor. Had she suffered less herself, she might have reasoned with him, tried to spur him against the world; but her own heart was full of sadness, and sorrow is a great teacher. She had fought to save him from his own fanaticism, and she had won a victory; but she was too full of pity for the man to torture him with more grim home-truths. Fate seemed to have tossed them together into the unknown. She chose to let Fate settle the matter. The man should be free to repent and go.

They crossed the moor and reached the beech woods without adventure, and Mellis’s heart beat with a lessened feeling of suspense when the green trees hid them. It was one of those soft, cloudy, windless days when the Forest seemed to gather an added mystery, and the great aisles looked more solemn, hiding strange secrets.

“It is good to be here.”

She breathed the words like a prayer.

“There is no cleaner thing than the Forest. The trees have no sins to remember.”

Martin did not answer her. He was gazing along the green aisles and up into the tops of the great trees where a vague shimmer of light played above the black branches. The stillness was miraculous; not a leaf was moving; the huge gray trunks looked strong enough to carry the world.

Then he fell to watching the figure of the girl in front of him, with its gown of green that seemed part of the woodland. She walked lightly, bravely, the horse plodding placidly at her heels as though he recognized in her a wise power that was to be trusted and obeyed. And in watching her Martin Valliant was led toward a new humility, and an unforeseen conquest of his own perplexities.

It was her loneliness, and her courage in bearing it, that routed the scandalized selfishness of the monk and stirred the deeper compassion of the man. He remembered yesterday’s despair in her eyes and the words of anguish he had heard her utter. She seemed to stand alone in this great wilderness, a wounded thing at the mercy of some brutal chance, a white martyr to be torn and ravished by such ruffians as Noble Vance. What were his own sorrows compared with hers? How much more grim and real the dangers that threatened her!

A sudden shame seized him; his eyes lost their sullen, doubting look; his face became transfigured. He had been worshiping self all the while, and, like a Pharisee, he had broken into pious wailings because blood had spotted his precious robe. Yes, he had made an idol of his own sinlessness, bowed down to it, thought of it as the one great thing in the world.

The soft green light under the trees seemed like the light of a sanctuary, and an awed look stole into Martin’s eyes. He followed Mellis in silence, nor did she speak to him, and all the while that great change was working in his soul. Here was something to serve, a thing of flesh and blood, nobler than any altar of stone. He felt that he could lay down his life for her, and that God Himself would not turn from such a sacrifice.

From that moment Martin Valliant’s soul felt strong and calm in him. His eyes no longer looked back at the old life; he set his face steadily toward the future.

Now Mellis knew nothing of all this, of the man’s uprising from the wounded horror of his blood-stained self. They had come to the high ground, above the Rondel, and could see the river glimmering in the green deeps below. It was time to eat and rest, and she called a halt.

“Are you footsore, comrade?”

“No; nor sore at heart.”

She gave him a quick, searching look, and his face surprised her. It was serene, steadfast, and its eyes were very gentle. All that tangle of doubt and self-horror had been wiped away.

She said nothing. He made a movement to take the horse’s bridle from her.

“I will unload the horse and let him feed. There is a patch of grass there. Sit down and rest.”

They looked into each other’s eyes.

“Pain wearies the heart,” she said.

“You shall ride the horse and I will carry the baggage.”

“No, but you shall not.”

“We will see,” he answered her.

It was Martin who served. He unbuckled the horse’s bridle and made a tether of it, so that the beast could feed. Then he unloaded the baggage, opened one of the sacks, and took out bread, meat, and some wine. Mellis had thrown herself down under a beech tree where the moss was like a green carpet, and Martin served her with wine and bread.

Her eyes met his with a new softness. Something had happened to Martin Valliant; he was a changed man. He offered her a new calm strength upon which she could lean, and in her loneliness her heart thanked him. She wanted to rest, to close her eyes for a moment, to let the burden of her fate lie for a moment on a man’s shoulders.

He watched her eat, and forgot that he was hungry. She had to chide him.

“No man is strong enough to go hungry. And there is much work to be done.”

They sat and looked at the river flowing in the valley at their feet. Martin’s memories of yesterday were growing sacred; he hoarded them in his heart.

“Yonder is the ford.”

She pointed with her poniard.

“It was wise of us to halt here. That might be a dangerous passage for us if enemies were near.”

But no hostile thing showed itself; the river was like a silver dream in the green slumber of the woods.

When they had finished their meal and rested awhile, Martin roped up the baggage and untethered the horse.

“You will ride for an hour.”

Mellis rebelled.

“No; you cannot shoulder all that gear.”

“Let us see.”

He slung the sacks over one shoulder, one in front and one behind, and hoisted the tools on to the other.

“I am younger than the horse.”

Something in his eyes persuaded her to humor him.

“It is good to be strong,” she said.

And Martin felt strangely happy.

She mounted, and they went down to the ford. Mellis rode in to show the way, and Martin splashed after her, planting his feet carefully, for the bottom was full of pebbles.

She looked back.

“Remember the flour.”

For the first time he saw a gleam of laughter in her eyes, a glimmer of sweet youthfulness.

“It shall come to no harm,” he answered, smiling back, and thinking her the most beautiful thing in the world.

_Chapter XIX_

The day was far spent when they came to the valley in the heart of the woods where the ruined house of the Dales stood on that white blossoming island in the midst of the water. Mellis had dismounted half a league from the ford, and had refused to go forward until Martin had loaded the baggage again on the horse’s back.

“I am rested,” she had said, “and your strength is precious. Let the beast bear the burden for which he was born.”