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The outlaw of Torn

by Edgar Rice Burroughs · English · Gutenberg #369 · 374,774 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: The outlaw of Torn

Author: Edgar Rice Burroughs


        
Release date: July 11, 2008 [eBook #369]
                Most recently updated: November 11, 2020

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/369

Credits: Produced by Judith Boss, and David Widger


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE OUTLAW OF TORN ***




Produced by Judith Boss, and David Widger




The Outlaw of Torn

by Edgar Rice Burroughs


Contents

 CHAPTER I.
 CHAPTER II.
 CHAPTER III.
 CHAPTER IV.
 CHAPTER V.
 CHAPTER VI.
 CHAPTER VII.
 CHAPTER VIII.
 CHAPTER IX.
 CHAPTER X.
 CHAPTER XI.
 CHAPTER XII.
 CHAPTER XIII.
 CHAPTER XIV.
 CHAPTER XV.
 CHAPTER XVI.
 CHAPTER XVII.
 CHAPTER XVIII.
 CHAPTER XIX.




CHAPTER I


Here is a story that has lain dormant for seven hundred years. At first
it was suppressed by one of the Plantagenet kings of England. Later it
was forgotten. I happened to dig it up by accident. The accident being
the relationship of my wife’s cousin to a certain Father Superior in a
very ancient monastery in Europe.

He let me pry about among a quantity of mildewed and musty manuscripts
and I came across this. It is very interesting—partially since it is a
bit of hitherto unrecorded history, but principally from the fact that
it records the story of a most remarkable revenge and the adventurous
life of its innocent victim—Richard, the lost prince of England.

In the retelling of it, I have left out most of the history. What
interested me was the unique character about whom the tale revolves—the
visored horseman who—but let us wait until we get to him.

It all happened in the thirteenth century, and while it was happening,
it shook England from north to south and from east to west; and reached
across the channel and shook France. It started, directly, in the
London palace of Henry III, and was the result of a quarrel between the
King and his powerful brother-in-law, Simon de Montfort, Earl of
Leicester.

Never mind the quarrel, that’s history, and you can read all about it
at your leisure. But on this June day in the year of our Lord 1243,
Henry so forgot himself as to very unjustly accuse De Montfort of
treason in the presence of a number of the King’s gentlemen.

De Montfort paled. He was a tall, handsome man, and when he drew
himself to his full height and turned those gray eyes on the victim of
his wrath, as he did that day, he was very imposing. A power in
England, second only to the King himself, and with the heart of a lion
in him, he answered the King as no other man in all England would have
dared answer him.

“My Lord King,” he cried, “that you be my Lord King alone prevents
Simon de Montfort from demanding satisfaction for such a gross insult.
That you take advantage of your kingship to say what you would never
dare say were you not king, brands me not a traitor, though it does
brand you a coward.”

Tense silence fell upon the little company of lords and courtiers as
these awful words fell from the lips of a subject, addressed to his
king. They were horrified, for De Montfort’s bold challenge was to them
but little short of sacrilege.

Henry, flushing in mortification and anger, rose to advance upon De
Montfort, but suddenly recollecting the power which he represented, he
thought better of whatever action he contemplated and, with a haughty
sneer, turned to his courtiers.

“Come, my gentlemen,” he said, “methought that we were to have a turn
with the foils this morning. Already it waxeth late. Come, De Fulm!
Come, Leybourn!” and the King left the apartment followed by his
gentlemen, all of whom had drawn away from the Earl of Leicester when
it became apparent that the royal displeasure was strong against him.
As the arras fell behind the departing King, De Montfort shrugged his
broad shoulders, and turning, left the apartment by another door.

When the King, with his gentlemen, entered the armory he was still
smarting from the humiliation of De Montfort’s reproaches, and as he
laid aside his surcoat and plumed hat to take the foils with De Fulm,
his eyes alighted on the master of fence, Sir Jules de Vac, who was
advancing with the King’s foil and helmet. Henry felt in no mood for
fencing with De Fulm, who, like the other sycophants that surrounded
him, always allowed the King easily to best him in every encounter.

De Vac he knew to be too jealous of his fame as a swordsman to permit
himself to be overcome by aught but superior skill, and this day Henry
felt that he could best the devil himself.

The armory was a great room on the main floor of the palace, off the
guard room. It was built in a small wing of the building so that it had
light from three sides. In charge of it was the lean, grizzled,
leather-skinned Sir Jules de Vac, and it was he whom Henry commanded to
face him in mimic combat with the foils, for the King wished to go with
hammer and tongs at someone to vent his suppressed rage.

So he let De Vac assume to his mind’s eye the person of the hated De
Montfort, and it followed that De Vac was nearly surprised into an
early and mortifying defeat by the King’s sudden and clever attack.

Henry III had always been accounted a good swordsman, but that day he
quite outdid himself and, in his imagination, was about to run the
pseudo De Montfort through the heart, to the wild acclaim of his
audience. For this fell purpose he had backed the astounded De Vac
twice around the hall when, with a clever feint, and backward step, the
master of fence drew the King into the position he wanted him, and with
the suddenness of lightning, a little twist of his foil sent Henry’s
weapon clanging across the floor of the armory.

For an instant, the King stood as tense and white as though the hand of
death had reached out and touched his heart with its icy fingers. The
episode meant more to him than being bested in play by the best
swordsman in England—for that surely was no disgrace—to Henry it seemed
prophetic of the outcome of a future struggle when he should stand face
to face with the real De Montfort; and then, seeing in De Vac only the
creature of his imagination with which he had vested the likeness of
his powerful brother-in-law, Henry did what he should like to have done
to the real Leicester. Drawing off his gauntlet he advanced close to De
Vac.

“Dog!” he hissed, and struck the master of fence a stinging blow across
the face, and spat upon him. Then he turned on his heel and strode from
the armory.

De Vac had grown old in the service of the kings of England, but he
hated all things English and all Englishmen. The dead King John, though
hated by all others, he had loved, but with the dead King’s bones De
Vac’s loyalty to the house he served had been buried in the Cathedral
of Worcester.

During the years he had served as master of fence at the English Court,
the sons of royalty had learned to thrust and parry and cut as only De
Vac could teach the art, and he had been as conscientious in the
discharge of his duties as he had been in his unswerving hatred and
contempt for his pupils.

And now the English King had put upon him such an insult as might only
be wiped out by blood.

As the blow fell, the wiry Frenchman clicked his heels together, and
throwing down his foil, he stood erect and rigid as a marble statue
before his master. White and livid was his tense drawn face, but he
spoke no word.

He might have struck the King, but then there would have been left to
him no alternative save death by his own hand; for a king may not fight
with a lesser mortal, and he who strikes a king may not live—the king’s
honor must be satisfied.

Had a French king struck him, De Vac would have struck back, and
gloried in the fate which permitted him to die for the honor of France;
but an English King—pooh! a dog; and who would die for a dog? No, De
Vac would find other means of satisfying his wounded pride. He would
revel in revenge against this man for whom he felt no loyalty. If
possible, he would harm the whole of England if he could, but he would
bide his time. He could afford to wait for his opportunity if, by
waiting, he could encompass a more terrible revenge.

De Vac had been born in Paris, the son of a French officer reputed the
best swordsman in France. The son had followed closely in the footsteps
of his father until, on the latter’s death, he could easily claim the
title of his sire. How he had left France and entered the service of
John of England is not of this story. All the bearing that the life of
Jules de Vac has upon the history of England hinges upon but two of his
many attributes—his wonderful swordsmanship and his fearful hatred for
his adopted country.




CHAPTER II


South of the armory of Westminster Palace lay the gardens, and here, on
the third day following the King’s affront to De Vac, might have been
seen a black-haired woman gowned in a violet cyclas, richly embroidered
with gold about the yoke and at the bottom of the loose-pointed
sleeves, which reached almost to the similar bordering on the lower hem
of the garment. A richly wrought leathern girdle, studded with precious
stones, and held in place by a huge carved buckle of gold, clasped the
garment about her waist so that the upper portion fell outward over the
girdle after the manner of a blouse. In the girdle was a long dagger of
beautiful workmanship. Dainty sandals encased her feet, while a wimple
of violet silk bordered in gold fringe, lay becomingly over her head
and shoulders.

By her side walked a handsome boy of about three, clad, like his
companion, in gay colors. His tiny surcoat of scarlet velvet was rich
with embroidery, while beneath was a close-fitting tunic of white silk.
His doublet was of scarlet, while his long hose of white were
cross-gartered with scarlet from his tiny sandals to his knees. On the
back of his brown curls sat a flat-brimmed, round-crowned hat in which
a single plume of white waved and nodded bravely at each move of the
proud little head.

The child’s features were well molded, and his frank, bright eyes gave
an expression of boyish generosity to a face which otherwise would have
been too arrogant and haughty for such a mere baby. As he talked with
his companion, little flashes of peremptory authority and dignity,
which sat strangely upon one so tiny, caused the young woman at times
to turn her head from him that he might not see the smiles which she
could scarce repress.

Presently the boy took a ball from his tunic, and, pointing at a little
bush near them, said, “Stand you there, Lady Maud, by yonder bush. I
would play at toss.”

The young woman did as she was bid, and when she had taken her place
and turned to face him the boy threw the ball to her. Thus they played
beneath the windows of the armory, the boy running blithely after the
ball when he missed it, and laughing and shouting in happy glee when he
made a particularly good catch.

In one of the windows of the armory overlooking the garden stood a
grim, gray, old man, leaning upon his folded arms, his brows drawn
together in a malignant scowl, the corners of his mouth set in a stern,
cold line.

He looked upon the garden and the playing child, and upon the lovely
young woman beneath him, but with eyes which did not see, for De Vac
was working out a great problem, the greatest of all his life.

For three days, the old man had brooded over his grievance, seeking for
some means to be revenged upon the King for the insult which Henry had
put upon him. Many schemes had presented themselves to his shrewd and
cunning mind, but so far all had been rejected as unworthy of the
terrible satisfaction which his wounded pride demanded.

His fancies had, for the most part, revolved about the unsettled
political conditions of Henry’s reign, for from these he felt he might
wrest that opportunity which could be turned to his own personal uses
and to the harm, and possibly the undoing, of the King.

For years an inmate of the palace, and often a listener in the armory
when the King played at sword with his friends and favorites, De Vac
had heard much which passed between Henry III and his intimates that
could well be turned to the King’s harm by a shrewd and resourceful
enemy.

With all England, he knew the utter contempt in which Henry held the
terms of the Magna Charta which he so often violated along with his
kingly oath to maintain it. But what all England did not know, De Vac
had gleaned from scraps of conversation dropped in the armory: that
Henry was even now negotiating with the leaders of foreign mercenaries,
and with Louis IX of France, for a sufficient force of knights and
men-at-arms to wage a relentless war upon his own barons that he might
effectively put a stop to all future interference by them with the
royal prerogative of the Plantagenets to misrule England.

If he could but learn the details of this plan, thought De Vac: the
point of landing of the foreign troops; their numbers; the first point
of attack. Ah, would it not be sweet revenge indeed to balk the King in
this venture so dear to his heart!

A word to De Clare, or De Montfort would bring the barons and their
retainers forty thousand strong to overwhelm the King’s forces.

And he would let the King know to whom, and for what cause, he was
beholden for his defeat and discomfiture. Possibly the barons would
depose Henry, and place a new king upon England’s throne, and then De
Vac would mock the Plantagenet to his face. Sweet, kind, delectable
vengeance, indeed! And the old man licked his thin lips as though to
taste the last sweet vestige of some dainty morsel.

And then Chance carried a little leather ball beneath the window where
the old man stood; and as the child ran, laughing, to recover it, De
Vac’s eyes fell upon him, and his former plan for revenge melted as the
fog before the noonday sun; and in its stead there opened to him the
whole hideous plot of fearsome vengeance as clearly as it were writ
upon the leaves of a great book that had been thrown wide before him.
And, in so far as he could direct, he varied not one jot from the
details of that vividly conceived masterpiece of hellishness during the
twenty years which followed.

The little boy who so innocently played in the garden of his royal
father was Prince Richard, the three-year-old son of Henry III of
England. No published history mentions this little lost prince; only
the secret archives of the kings of England tell the story of his
strange and adventurous life. His name has been blotted from the
records of men; and the revenge of De Vac has passed from the eyes of
the world; though in his time it was a real and terrible thing in the
hearts of the English.




CHAPTER III


For nearly a month, the old man haunted the palace, and watched in the
gardens for the little Prince until he knew the daily routine of his
tiny life with his nurses and governesses.

He saw that when the Lady Maud accompanied him, they were wont to
repair to the farthermost extremities of the palace grounds where, by a
little postern gate, she admitted a certain officer of the Guards to
whom the Queen had forbidden the privilege of the court.

There, in a secluded bower, the two lovers whispered their hopes and
plans, unmindful of the royal charge playing neglected among the
flowers and shrubbery of the garden.

Toward the middle of July De Vac had his plans well laid. He had
managed to coax old Brus, the gardener, into letting him have the key
to the little postern gate on the plea that he wished to indulge in a
midnight escapade, hinting broadly of a fair lady who was to be the
partner of his adventure, and, what was more to the point with Brus, at
the same time slipping a couple of golden zecchins into the gardener’s
palm.

Brus, like the other palace servants, considered De Vac a loyal
retainer of the house of Plantagenet. Whatever else of mischief De Vac
might be up to, Brus was quite sure that in so far as the King was
concerned, the key to the postern gate was as safe in De Vac’s hands as
though Henry himself had it.

The old fellow wondered a little that the morose old master of fence
should, at his time in life, indulge in frivolous escapades more
befitting the younger sprigs of gentility, but, then, what concern was
it of his? Did he not have enough to think about to keep the gardens so
that his royal master and mistress might find pleasure in the shaded
walks, the well-kept sward, and the gorgeous beds of foliage plants and
blooming flowers which he set with such wondrous precision in the
formal garden?

Further, two gold zecchins were not often come by so easily as this;
and if the dear Lord Jesus saw fit, in his infinite wisdom, to take
this means of rewarding his poor servant, it ill became such a worm as
he to ignore the divine favor. So Brus took the gold zecchins and De
Vac the key, and the little prince played happily among the flowers of
his royal father’s garden, and all were satisfied; which was as it
should have been.

That night, De Vac took the key to a locksmith on the far side of
London; one who could not possibly know him or recognize the key as
belonging to the palace. Here he had a duplicate made, waiting
impatiently while the old man fashioned it with the crude instruments
of his time.

From this little shop, De Vac threaded his way through the dirty lanes
and alleys of ancient London, lighted at far intervals by an occasional
smoky lantern, until he came to a squalid tenement but a short distance
from the palace.

A narrow alley ran past the building, ending abruptly at the bank of
the Thames in a moldering wooden dock, beneath which the inky waters of
the river rose and fell, lapping the decaying piles and surging far
beneath the dock to the remote fastnesses inhabited by the great fierce
dock rats and their fiercer human antitypes.

Several times De Vac paced the length of this black alley in search of
the little doorway of the building he sought. At length he came upon
it, and, after repeated pounding with the pommel of his sword, it was
opened by a slatternly old hag.

“What would ye of a decent woman at such an ungodly hour?” she
grumbled. “Ah, ’tis ye, my lord?” she added, hastily, as the flickering
rays of the candle she bore lighted up De Vac’s face. “Welcome, my
Lord, thrice welcome. The daughter of the devil welcomes her brother.”

“Silence, old hag,” cried De Vac. “Is it not enough that you leech me
of good marks of such a quantity that you may ever after wear mantles
of villosa and feast on simnel bread and malmsey, that you must needs
burden me still further with the affliction of thy vile tongue?

“Hast thou the clothes ready bundled and the key, also, to this gate to
perdition? And the room: didst set to rights the furnishings I had
delivered here, and sweep the century-old accumulation of filth and
cobwebs from the floor and rafters? Why, the very air reeked of the
dead Romans who builded London twelve hundred years ago. Methinks, too,
from the stink, they must have been Roman swineherds who habited this
sty with their herds, an’ I venture that thou, old sow, hast never
touched broom to the place for fear of disturbing the ancient relics of
thy kin.”

“Cease thy babbling, Lord Satan,” cried the woman. “I would rather hear
thy money talk than thou, for though it come accursed and tainted from
thy rogue hand, yet it speaks with the same sweet and commanding voice
as it were fresh from the coffers of the holy church.

“The bundle is ready,” she continued, closing the door after De Vac,
who had now entered, “and here be the key; but first let us have a
payment. I know not what thy foul work may be, but foul it is I know
from the secrecy which you have demanded, an’ I dare say there will be
some who would pay well to learn the whereabouts of the old woman and
the child, thy sister and her son you tell me they be, who you are so
anxious to hide away in old Til’s garret. So it be well for you, my
Lord, to pay old Til well and add a few guilders for the peace of her
tongue if you would that your prisoner find peace in old Til’s house.”

“Fetch me the bundle, hag,” replied De Vac, “and you shall have gold
against a final settlement; more even than we bargained for if all goes
well and thou holdest thy vile tongue.”

But the old woman’s threats had already caused De Vac a feeling of
uneasiness, which would have been reflected to an exaggerated degree in
the old woman had she known the determination her words had caused in
the mind of the old master of fence.

His venture was far too serious, and the results of exposure too
fraught with danger, to permit of his taking any chances with a
disloyal fellow-conspirator. True, he had not even hinted at the
enormity of the plot in which he was involving the old woman, but, as
she had said, his stern commands for secrecy had told her enough to
arouse her suspicions, and with them her curiosity and cupidity. So it
was that old Til might well have quailed in her tattered sandals had
she but even vaguely guessed the thoughts which passed in De Vac’s
mind; but the extra gold pieces he dropped into her withered palm as
she delivered the bundle to him, together with the promise of more,
quite effectually won her loyalty and her silence for the time being.

Slipping the key into the pocket of his tunic and covering the bundle
with his long surcoat, De Vac stepped out into the darkness of the
alley and hastened toward the dock.

Beneath the planks he found a skiff which he had moored there earlier
in the evening, and underneath one of the thwarts he hid the bundle.
Then, casting off, he rowed slowly up the Thames until, below the
palace walls, he moored near to the little postern gate which let into
the lower end of the garden.

Hiding the skiff as best he could in some tangled bushes which grew to
the water’s edge, set there by order of the King to add to the beauty
of the aspect from the river side, De Vac crept warily to the postern
and, unchallenged, entered and sought his apartments in the palace.

The next day, he returned the original key to Brus, telling the old man
that he had not used it after all, since mature reflection had
convinced him of the folly of his contemplated adventure, especially in
one whose youth was past, and in whose joints the night damp of the
Thames might find lodgement for rheumatism.

“Ha, Sir Jules,” laughed the old gardener, “Virtue and Vice be twin
sisters who come running to do the bidding of the same father, Desire.
Were there no desire there would be no virtue, and because one man
desires what another does not, who shall say whether the child of his
desire be vice or virtue? Or on the other hand if my friend desires his
own wife and if that be virtue, then if I also desire his wife, is not
that likewise virtue, since we desire the same thing? But if to obtain
our desire it be necessary to expose our joints to the Thames’ fog,
then it were virtue to remain at home.”

“Right you sound, old mole,” said De Vac, smiling, “would that I might
learn to reason by your wondrous logic; methinks it might stand me in
good stead before I be much older.”

“The best sword arm in all Christendom needs no other logic than the
sword, I should think,” said Brus, returning to his work.

That afternoon, De Vac stood in a window of the armory looking out upon
the beautiful garden which spread before him to the river wall two
hundred yards away. In the foreground were box-bordered walks, smooth,
sleek lawns, and formal beds of gorgeous flowering plants, while here
and there marble statues of wood nymph and satyr gleamed, sparkling in
the brilliant sunlight, or, half shaded by an overhanging bush, took on
a semblance of life from the riotous play of light and shadow as the
leaves above them moved to and fro in the faint breeze. Farther in the
distance, the river wall was hidden by more closely massed bushes, and
the formal, geometric precision of the nearer view was relieved by a
background of vine-colored bowers, and a profusion of small trees and
flowering shrubs arranged in studied disorder.

Through this seeming jungle ran tortuous paths, and the carved stone
benches of the open garden gave place to rustic seats, and swings
suspended from the branches of fruit trees.

Toward this enchanting spot slowly were walking the Lady Maud and her
little charge, Prince Richard; all ignorant of the malicious watcher in
the window behind them.

A great peacock strutted proudly across the walk before them, and, as
Richard ran, childlike, after it, Lady Maud hastened on to the little
postern gate which she quickly unlocked, admitting her lover, who had
been waiting without. Relocking the gate the two strolled arm in arm to
the little bower which was their trysting place.

As the lovers talked, all self-engrossed, the little Prince played
happily about among the trees and flowers, and none saw the stern,
determined face which peered through the foliage at a little distance
from the playing boy.

Richard was devoting his royal energies to chasing an elusive butterfly
which fate led nearer and nearer to the cold, hard watcher in the
bushes. Closer and closer came the little Prince, and in another
moment, he had burst through the flowering shrubs, and stood facing the
implacable master of fence.

“Your Highness,” said De Vac, bowing to the little fellow, “let old
DeVac help you catch the pretty insect.”

Richard, having often seen De Vac, did not fear him, and so together
they started in pursuit of the butterfly which by now had passed out of
sight. De Vac turned their steps toward the little postern gate, but
when he would have passed through with the tiny Prince, the latter
rebelled.

“Come, My Lord Prince,” urged De Vac, “methinks the butterfly did but
alight without the wall, we can have it and return within the garden in
an instant.”

“Go thyself and fetch it,” replied the Prince; “the King, my father,
has forbid me stepping without the palace grounds.”

“Come,” commanded De Vac, more sternly, “no harm can come to you.”

But the child hung back and would not go with him so that De Vac was
forced to grasp him roughly by the arm. There was a cry of rage and
alarm from the royal child.

“Unhand me, sirrah,” screamed the boy. “How dare you lay hands on a
prince of England?”

De Vac clapped his hand over the child’s mouth to still his cries, but
it was too late. The Lady Maud and her lover had heard and, in an
instant, they were rushing toward the postern gate, the officer drawing
his sword as he ran.

When they reached the wall, De Vac and the Prince were upon the
outside, and the Frenchman had closed and was endeavoring to lock the
gate. But, handicapped by the struggling boy, he had not time to turn
the key before the officer threw himself against the panels and burst
out before the master of fence, closely followed by the Lady Maud.

De Vac dropped the key and, still grasping the now thoroughly
affrightened Prince with his left hand, drew his sword and confronted
the officer.

There were no words, there was no need of words; De Vac’s intentions
were too plain to necessitate any parley, so the two fell upon each
other with grim fury; the brave officer facing the best swordsman that
France had ever produced in a futile attempt to rescue his young
prince.

In a moment, De Vac had disarmed him, but, contrary to the laws of
chivalry, he did not lower his point until it had first plunged through
the heart of his brave antagonist. Then, with a bound, he leaped
between Lady Maud and the gate, so that she could not retreat into the
garden and give the alarm.

Still grasping the trembling child in his iron grip, he stood facing
the lady in waiting, his back against the door.

“Mon Dieu, Sir Jules,” she cried, “hast thou gone mad?”

“No, My Lady,” he answered, “but I had not thought to do the work which
now lies before me. Why didst thou not keep a still tongue in thy head
and let his patron saint look after the welfare of this princeling?
Your rashness has brought you to a pretty pass, for it must be either
you or I, My Lady, and it cannot be I. Say thy prayers and compose
thyself for death.”

Henry III, King of England, sat in his council chamber surrounded by
the great lords and nobles who composed his suit. He awaited Simon de
Montfort, Earl of Leicester, whom he had summoned that he might heap
still further indignities upon him with the intention of degrading and
humiliating him that he might leave England forever. The King feared
this mighty kinsman who so boldly advised him against the weak follies
which were bringing his kingdom to a condition of revolution.

What the outcome of this audience would have been none may say, for
Leicester had but just entered and saluted his sovereign when there
came an interruption which drowned the petty wrangles of king and
courtier in a common affliction that touched the hearts of all.

There was a commotion at one side of the room, the arras parted, and
Eleanor, Queen of England, staggered toward the throne, tears streaming
down her pale cheeks.

“Oh, My Lord! My Lord!” she cried, “Richard, our son, has been
assassinated and thrown into the Thames.”

In an instant, all was confusion and turmoil, and it was with the
greatest difficulty that the King finally obtained a coherent statement
from his queen.

It seemed that when the Lady Maud had not returned to the palace with
Prince Richard at the proper time, the Queen had been notified and an
immediate search had been instituted—a search which did not end for
over twenty years; but the first fruits of it turned the hearts of the
court to stone, for there beside the open postern gate lay the dead
bodies of Lady Maud and a certain officer of the Guards, but nowhere
was there a sign or trace of Prince Richard, second son of Henry III of
England, and at that time the youngest prince of the realm.

It was two days before the absence of De Vac was noted, and then it was
that one of the lords in waiting to the King reminded his majesty of
the episode of the fencing bout, and a motive for the abduction of the
King’s little son became apparent.

An edict was issued requiring the examination of every child in
England, for on the left breast of the little Prince was a birthmark
which closely resembled a lily and, when after a year no child was
found bearing such a mark and no trace of De Vac uncovered, the search
was carried into France, nor was it ever wholly relinquished at any
time for more than twenty years.

The first theory, of assassination, was quickly abandoned when it was
subjected to the light of reason, for it was evident that an assassin
could have dispatched the little Prince at the same time that he killed
the Lady Maud and her lover, had such been his desire.

The most eager factor in the search for Prince Richard was Simon de
Montfort, Earl of Leicester, whose affection for his royal nephew had
always been so marked as to have been commented upon by the members of
the King’s household.

Thus for a time the rupture between De Montfort and his king was
healed, and although the great nobleman was divested of his authority
in Gascony, he suffered little further oppression at the hands of his
royal master.




CHAPTER IV


As De Vac drew his sword from the heart of the Lady Maud, he winced,
for, merciless though he was, he had shrunk from this cruel task. Too
far he had gone, however, to back down now, and, had he left the Lady
Maud alive, the whole of the palace guard and all the city of London
would have been on his heels in ten minutes; there would have been no
escape.

The little Prince was now so terrified that he could but tremble and
whimper in his fright. So fearful was he of the terrible De Vac that a
threat of death easily stilled his tongue, and so the grim, old man led
him to the boat hidden deep in the dense bushes.

De Vac did not dare remain in this retreat until dark, as he had first
intended. Instead, he drew a dingy, ragged dress from the bundle
beneath the thwart and in this disguised himself as an old woman,
drawing a cotton wimple low over his head and forehead to hide his
short hair. Concealing the child beneath the other articles of
clothing, he pushed off from the bank, and, rowing close to the shore,
hastened down the Thames toward the old dock where, the previous night,
he had concealed his skiff. He reached his destination unnoticed, and,
running in beneath the dock, worked the boat far into the dark recess
of the cave-like retreat.

Here he determined to hide until darkness had fallen, for he knew that
the search would be on for the little lost Prince at any moment, and
that none might traverse the streets of London without being subject to
the closest scrutiny.

Taking advantage of the forced wait, De Vac undressed the Prince and
clothed him in other garments, which had been wrapped in the bundle
hidden beneath the thwart; a little red cotton tunic with hose to
match, a black doublet and a tiny leather jerkin and leather cap.

The discarded clothing of the Prince he wrapped about a huge stone torn
from the disintegrating masonry of the river wall, and consigned the
bundle to the voiceless river.

The Prince had by now regained some of his former assurance and,
finding that De Vac seemed not to intend harming him, the little fellow
commenced questioning his grim companion, his childish wonder at this
strange adventure getting the better of his former apprehension.

“What do we here, Sir Jules?” he asked. “Take me back to the King’s, my
father’s palace. I like not this dark hole nor the strange garments you
have placed upon me.”

“Silence, boy!” commanded the old man. “Sir Jules be dead, nor are you
a king’s son. Remember these two things well, nor ever again let me
hear you speak the name Sir Jules, or call yourself a prince.”

The boy went silent, again cowed by the fierce tone of his captor.
Presently he began to whimper, for he was tired and hungry and
frightened—just a poor little baby, helpless and hopeless in the hands
of this cruel enemy—all his royalty as nothing, all gone with the
silken finery which lay in the thick mud at the bottom of the Thames,
and presently he dropped into a fitful sleep in the bottom of the
skiff.

When darkness had settled, De Vac pushed the skiff outward to the side
of the dock and, gathering the sleeping child in his arms, stood
listening, preparatory to mounting to the alley which led to old Til’s
place.

As he stood thus, a faint sound of clanking armor came to his attentive
ears; louder and louder it grew until there could be no doubt but that
a number of men were approaching.

De Vac resumed his place in the skiff, and again drew it far beneath
the dock. Scarcely had he done so ere a party of armored knights and
men-at-arms clanked out upon the planks above him from the mouth of the
dark alley. Here they stopped as though for consultation and plainly
could the listener below hear every word of their conversation.

“De Montfort,” said one, “what thinkest thou of it? Can it be that the
Queen is right and that Richard lies dead beneath these black waters?”

“No, De Clare,” replied a deep voice, which De Vac recognized as that
of the Earl of Leicester. “The hand that could steal the Prince from
out of the very gardens of his sire without the knowledge of Lady Maud
or her companion, which must evidently have been the case, could more
easily and safely have dispatched him within the gardens had that been
the object of this strange attack. I think, My Lord, that presently we
shall hear from some bold adventurer who holds the little Prince for
ransom. God give that such may be the case, for of all the winsome and
affectionate little fellows I have ever seen, not even excepting mine
own dear son, the little Richard was the most to be beloved. Would that
I might get my hands upon the foul devil who has done this horrid
deed.”

Beneath the planks, not four feet from where Leicester stood, lay the
object of his search. The clanking armor, the heavy spurred feet, and
the voices above him had awakened the little Prince and, with a
startled cry, he sat upright in the bottom of the skiff. Instantly De
Vac’s iron hand clapped over the tiny mouth, but not before a single
faint wail had reached the ears of the men above.

“Hark! What was that, My Lord?” cried one of the men-at-arms.

In tense silence they listened for a repetition of the sound and then
De Montfort cried out:

“What ho, below there! Who is it beneath the dock? Answer, in the name
of the King!”

Richard, recognizing the voice of his favorite uncle, struggled to free
himself, but De Vac’s ruthless hand crushed out the weak efforts of the
babe, and all was quiet as the tomb, while those above stood listening
for a repetition of the sound.

“Dock rats,” said De Clare, and then as though the devil guided them to
protect his own, two huge rats scurried upward from between the loose
boards, and ran squealing up the dark alley.

“Right you are,” said De Montfort, “but I could have sworn ’twas a
child’s feeble wail had I not seen the two filthy rodents with mine own
eyes. Come, let us to the next vile alley. We have met with no success
here, though that old hag who called herself Til seemed overanxious to
bargain for the future information she seemed hopeful of being able to
give us.”

As they moved off, their voices grew fainter in the ears of the
listeners beneath the dock and soon were lost in the distance.

“A close shave,” thought De Vac, as he again took up the child and
prepared to gain the dock. No further noises occurring to frighten him,
he soon reached the door to Til’s house and, inserting the key, crept
noiselessly to the garret room which he had rented from his ill-favored
hostess.

There were no stairs from the upper floor to the garret above, this
ascent being made by means of a wooden ladder which De Vac pulled up
after him, closing and securing the aperture, through which he climbed
with his burden, by means of a heavy trapdoor equipped with thick bars.

The apartment which they now entered extended across the entire east
end of the building, and had windows upon three sides. These were
heavily curtained. The apartment was lighted by a small cresset hanging
from a rafter near the center of the room.

The walls were unplastered and the rafters unceiled; the whole bearing
a most barnlike and unhospitable appearance.

In one corner was a huge bed, and across the room a smaller cot; a
cupboard, a table, and two benches completed the furnishings. These
articles De Vac had purchased for the room against the time when he
should occupy it with his little prisoner.

On the table were a loaf of black bread, an earthenware jar containing
honey, a pitcher of milk and two drinking horns. To these, De Vac
immediately gave his attention, commanding the child to partake of what
he wished.

Hunger for the moment overcame the little Prince’s fears, and he set to
with avidity upon the strange, rough fare, made doubly coarse by the
rude utensils and the bare surroundings, so unlike the royal
magnificence of his palace apartments.

While the child ate, De Vac hastened to the lower floor of the building
in search of Til, whom he now thoroughly mistrusted and feared. The
words of De Montfort, which he had overheard at the dock, convinced him
that here was one more obstacle to the fulfillment of his revenge which
must be removed as had the Lady Maud; but in this instance there was
neither youth nor beauty to plead the cause of the intended victim, or
to cause the grim executioner a pang of remorse.

When he found the old hag, she was already dressed to go upon the
street, in fact he intercepted her at the very door of the building.
Still clad as he was in the mantle and wimple of an old woman, Til did
not, at first, recognize him, and when he spoke, she burst into a
nervous, cackling laugh, as one caught in the perpetration of some
questionable act, nor did her manner escape the shrewd notice of the
wily master of fence.

“Whither, old hag?” he asked.

“To visit Mag Tunk at the alley’s end, by the river, My Lord,” she
replied, with more respect than she had been wont to accord him.

“Then, I will accompany you part way, my friend, and, perchance, you
can give me a hand with some packages I left behind me in the skiff I
have moored there.”

And so the two walked together through the dark alley to the end of the
rickety, dismantled dock; the one thinking of the vast reward the King
would lavish upon her for the information she felt sure she alone could
give; the other feeling beneath his mantle for the hilt of a long
dagger which nestled there.

As they reached the water’s edge, De Vac was walking with his right
shoulder behind his companion’s left, in his hand was gripped the keen
blade and, as the woman halted on the dock, the point that hovered just
below her left shoulder-blade plunged, soundless, into her heart at the
same instant that De Vac’s left hand swung up and grasped her throat in
a grip of steel.

There was no sound, barely a struggle of the convulsively stiffening
old muscles, and then, with a push from De Vac, the body lunged forward
into the Thames, where a dull splash marked the end of the last hope
that Prince Richard might be rescued from the clutches of his Nemesis.




CHAPTER V


For three years following the disappearance of Prince Richard, a bent
old woman lived in the heart of London within a stone’s throw of the
King’s palace. In a small back room she lived, high up in the attic of
an old building, and with her was a little boy who never went abroad
alone, nor by day. And upon his left breast was a strange mark which
resembled a lily. When the bent old woman was safely in her attic room,
with bolted door behind her, she was wont to straighten up, and discard
her dingy mantle for more comfortable and becoming doublet and hose.

For years, she worked assiduously with the little boy’s education.
There were three subjects in her curriculum; French, swordsmanship and
hatred of all things English, especially the reigning house of England.

The old woman had had made a tiny foil and had commenced teaching the
little boy the art of fence when he was but three years old.

“You will be the greatest swordsman in the world when you are twenty,
my son,” she was wont to say, “and then you shall go out and kill many
Englishmen. Your name shall be hated and cursed the length and breadth
of England, and when you finally stand with the halter about your neck,
aha, then will I speak. Then shall they know.”

The little boy did not understand it all, he only knew that he was
comfortable, and had warm clothing, and all he required to eat, and
that he would be a great man when he learned to fight with a real
sword, and had grown large enough to wield one. He also knew that he
hated Englishmen, but why, he did not know.

Way back in the uttermost recesses of his little, childish head, he
seemed to remember a time when his life and surroundings had been very
different; when, instead of this old woman, there had been many people
around him, and a sweet faced woman had held him in her arms and kissed
him, before he was taken off to bed at night; but he could not be sure,
maybe it was only a dream he remembered, for he dreamed many strange
and wonderful dreams.

When the little boy was about six years of age, a strange man came to
their attic home to visit the little old woman. It was in the dusk of
the evening but the old woman did not light the cresset, and further,
she whispered to the little boy to remain in the shadows of a far
corner of the bare chamber.

The stranger was old and bent and had a great beard which hid almost
his entire face except for two piercing eyes, a great nose and a bit of
wrinkled forehead. When he spoke, he accompanied his words with many
shrugs of his narrow shoulders and with waving of his arms and other
strange and amusing gesticulations. The child was fascinated. Here was
the first amusement of his little starved life. He listened intently to
the conversation, which was in French.

“I have just the thing for madame,” the stranger was saying. “It be a
noble and stately hall far from the beaten way. It was built in the old
days by Harold the Saxon, but in later times, death and poverty and the
disfavor of the King have wrested it from his descendants. A few years
since, Henry granted it to that spend-thrift favorite of his, Henri de
Macy, who pledged it to me for a sum he hath been unable to repay.
Today it be my property, and as it be far from Paris, you may have it
for the mere song I have named. It be a wondrous bargain, madame.”

“And when I come upon it, I shall find that I have bought a crumbling
pile of ruined masonry, unfit to house a family of foxes,” replied the
old woman peevishly.

“One tower hath fallen, and the roof for half the length of one wing
hath sagged and tumbled in,” explained the old Frenchman. “But the
three lower stories be intact and quite habitable. It be much grander
even now than the castles of many of England’s noble barons, and the
price, madame—ah, the price be so ridiculously low.”

Still the old woman hesitated.

“Come,” said the Frenchman, “I have it. Deposit the money with Isaac
the Jew—thou knowest him?—and he shall hold it together with the deed
for forty days, which will give thee ample time to travel to Derby and
inspect thy purchase. If thou be not entirely satisfied, Isaac the Jew
shall return thy money to thee and the deed to me, but if at the end of
forty days thou hast not made demand for thy money, then shall Isaac
send the deed to thee and the money to me. Be not this an easy and fair
way out of the difficulty?”

The little old woman thought for a moment and at last conceded that it
seemed quite a fair way to arrange the matter. And thus it was
accomplished.

Several days later, the little old woman called the child to her.

“We start tonight upon a long journey to our new home. Thy face shall
be wrapped in many rags, for thou hast a most grievous toothache. Dost
understand?”

“But I have no toothache. My teeth do not pain me at all. I—”
expostulated the child.

“Tut, tut,” interrupted the little old woman. “Thou hast a toothache,
and so thy face must be wrapped in many rags. And listen, should any
ask thee upon the way why thy face be so wrapped, thou art to say that
thou hast a toothache. And thou do not do as I say, the King’s men will
take us and we shall be hanged, for the King hateth us. If thou hatest
the English King and lovest thy life do as I command.”

“I hate the King,” replied the little boy. “For this reason I shall do
as thou sayest.”

So it was that they set out that night upon their long journey north
toward the hills of Derby. For many days they travelled, riding upon
two small donkeys. Strange sights filled the days for the little boy
who remembered nothing outside the bare attic of his London home and
the dirty London alleys that he had traversed only by night.

They wound across beautiful parklike meadows and through dark,
forbidding forests, and now and again they passed tiny hamlets of
thatched huts. Occasionally they saw armored knights upon the highway,
alone or in small parties, but the child’s companion always managed to
hasten into cover at the road side until the grim riders had passed.

Once, as they lay in hiding in a dense wood beside a little open glade
across which the road wound, the boy saw two knights enter the glade
from either side. For a moment, they drew rein and eyed each other in
silence, and then one, a great black mailed knight upon a black
charger, cried out something to the other which the boy could not
catch. The other knight made no response other than to rest his lance
upon his thigh and with lowered point, ride toward his ebon adversary.
For a dozen paces their great steeds trotted slowly toward one another,
but presently the knights urged them into full gallop, and when the two
iron men on their iron trapped chargers came together in the center of
the glade, it was with all the terrific impact of full charge.

The lance of the black knight smote full upon the linden shield of his
foeman, the staggering weight of the mighty black charger hurtled upon
the gray, who went down with his rider into the dust of the highway.
The momentum of the black carried him fifty paces beyond the fallen
horseman before his rider could rein him in, then the black knight
turned to view the havoc he had wrought. The gray horse was just
staggering dizzily to his feet, but his mailed rider lay quiet and
still where he had fallen.

With raised visor, the black knight rode back to the side of his
vanquished foe. There was a cruel smile upon his lips as he leaned
toward the prostrate form. He spoke tauntingly, but there was no
response, then he prodded the fallen man with the point of his spear.
Even this elicited no movement. With a shrug of his iron clad
shoulders, the black knight wheeled and rode on down the road until he
had disappeared from sight within the gloomy shadows of the encircling
forest.

The little boy was spell-bound. Naught like this had he ever seen or
dreamed.

“Some day thou shalt go and do likewise, my son,” said the little old
woman.

“Shall I be clothed in armor and ride upon a great black steed?” he
asked.

“Yes, and thou shalt ride the highways of England with thy stout lance
and mighty sword, and behind thee thou shalt leave a trail of blood and
death, for every man shalt be thy enemy. But come, we must be on our
way.”

They rode on, leaving the dead knight where he had fallen, but always
in his memory the child carried the thing that he had seen, longing for
the day when he should be great and strong like the formidable black
knight.

On another day, as they were biding in a deserted hovel to escape the
notice of a caravan of merchants journeying up-country with their
wares, they saw a band of ruffians rush out from the concealing shelter
of some bushes at the far side of the highway and fall upon the
surprised and defenseless tradesmen.

Ragged, bearded, uncouth villains they were, armed mostly with
bludgeons and daggers, with here and there a cross-bow. Without mercy
they attacked the old and the young, beating them down in cold blood
even when they offered no resistance. Those of the caravan who could,
escaped, the balance the highwaymen left dead or dying in the road, as
they hurried away with their loot.

At first the child was horror-struck, but when he turned to the little
old woman for sympathy he found a grim smile upon her thin lips. She
noted his expression of dismay.

“It is naught, my son. But English curs setting upon English swine.
Some day thou shalt set upon both—they be only fit for killing.”

The boy made no reply, but he thought a great deal about that which he
had seen. Knights were cruel to knights—the poor were cruel to the
rich—and every day of the journey had forced upon his childish mind
that everyone must be very cruel and hard upon the poor. He had seen
them in all their sorrow and misery and poverty—stretching a long,
scattering line all the way from London town. Their bent backs, their
poor thin bodies and their hopeless, sorrowful faces attesting the
weary wretchedness of their existence.

“Be no one happy in all the world?” he once broke out to the old woman.

“Only he who wields the mightiest sword,” responded the old woman. “You
have seen, my son, that all Englishmen are beasts. They set upon and
kill one another for little provocation or for no provocation at all.
When thou shalt be older, thou shalt go forth and kill them all for
unless thou kill them, they will kill thee.”

At length, after tiresome days upon the road, they came to a little
hamlet in the hills. Here the donkeys were disposed of and a great
horse purchased, upon which the two rode far up into a rough and
uninviting country away from the beaten track, until late one evening
they approached a ruined castle.

The frowning walls towered high against the moonlit sky beyond, and
where a portion of the roof had fallen in, the cold moon, shining
through the narrow unglazed windows, gave to the mighty pile the
likeness of a huge, many-eyed ogre crouching upon the flank of a
deserted world, for nowhere was there other sign of habitation.

Before this somber pile, the two dismounted. The little boy was filled
with awe and his childish imagination ran riot as they approached the
crumbling barbican on foot, leading the horse after them. From the dark
shadows of the ballium, they passed into the moonlit inner court. At
the far end the old woman found the ancient stables, and here, with
decaying planks, she penned the horse for the night, pouring a measure
of oats upon the floor for him from a bag which had hung across his
rump.

Then she led the way into the dense shadows of the castle, lighting
their advance with a flickering pine knot. The old planking of the
floors, long unused, groaned and rattled beneath their approach. There
was a sudden scamper of clawed feet before them, and a red fox dashed
by in a frenzy of alarm toward the freedom of the outer night.

Presently they came to the great hall. The old woman pushed open the
great doors upon their creaking hinges and lit up dimly the mighty,
cavernous interior with the puny rays of their feeble torch. As they
stepped cautiously within, an impalpable dust arose in little spurts
from the long-rotted rushes that crumbled beneath their feet. A huge
bat circled wildly with loud fluttering wings in evident remonstrance
at this rude intrusion. Strange creatures of the night scurried or
wriggled across wall and floor.

But the child was unafraid. Fear had not been a part of the old woman’s
curriculum. The boy did not know the meaning of the word, nor was he
ever in his after-life to experience the sensation. With childish
eagerness, he followed his companion as she inspected the interior of
the chamber. It was still an imposing room. The boy clapped his hands
in delight at the beauties of the carved and panelled walls and the oak
beamed ceiling, stained almost black from the smoke of torches and oil
cressets that had lighted it in bygone days, aided, no doubt, by the
wood fires which had burned in its two immense fireplaces to cheer the
merry throng of noble revellers that had so often sat about the great
table into the morning hours.

Here they took up their abode. But the bent, old woman was no longer an
old woman—she had become a straight, wiry, active old man.

The little boy’s education went on—French, swordsmanship and hatred of
the English—the same thing year after year with the addition of
horsemanship after he was ten years old. At this time the old man
commenced teaching him to speak English, but with a studied and very
marked French accent. During all his life now, he could not remember of
having spoken to any living being other than his guardian, whom he had
been taught to address as father. Nor did the boy have any name—he was
just “my son.”

His life in the Derby hills was so filled with the hard, exacting
duties of his education that he had little time to think of the strange
loneliness of his existence; nor is it probable that he missed that
companionship of others of his own age of which, never having had
experience in it, he could scarce be expected to regret or yearn for.

At fifteen, the youth was a magnificent swordsman and horseman, and
with an utter contempt for pain or danger—a contempt which was the
result of the heroic methods adopted by the little old man in the
training of him. Often the two practiced with razor-sharp swords, and
without armor or other protection of any description.

“Thus only,” the old man was wont to say, “mayst thou become the
absolute master of thy blade. Of such a nicety must be thy handling of
the weapon that thou mayst touch an antagonist at will and so lightly,
shouldst thou desire, that thy point, wholly under the control of a
master hand, mayst be stopped before it inflicts so much as a scratch.”

But in practice, there were many accidents, and then one or both of
them would nurse a punctured skin for a few days. So, while blood was
often let on both sides, the training produced a fearless swordsman who
was so truly the master of his point that he could stop a thrust within
a fraction of an inch of the spot he sought.

At fifteen, he was a very strong and straight and handsome lad. Bronzed
and hardy from his outdoor life; of few words, for there was none that
he might talk with save the taciturn old man; hating the English, for
that he was taught as thoroughly as swordsmanship; speaking French
fluently and English poorly—and waiting impatiently for the day when
the old man should send him out into the world with clanking armor and
lance and shield to do battle with the knights of England.

It was about this time that there occurred the first important break in
the monotony of his existence. Far down the rocky trail that led from
the valley below through the Derby hills to the ruined castle, three
armored knights urged their tired horses late one afternoon of a chill
autumn day. Off the main road and far from any habitation, they had
espied the castle’s towers through a rift in the hills, and now they
spurred toward it in search of food and shelter.

As the road led them winding higher into the hills, they suddenly
emerged upon the downs below the castle where a sight met their eyes
which caused them to draw rein and watch in admiration. There, before
them upon the downs, a boy battled with a lunging, rearing horse—a
perfect demon of a black horse. Striking and biting in a frenzy of
rage, it sought ever to escape or injure the lithe figure which clung
leech-like to its shoulder.

The boy was on the ground. His left hand grasped the heavy mane; his
right arm lay across the beast’s withers and his right hand drew
steadily in upon a halter rope with which he had taken a half hitch
about the horse’s muzzle. Now the black reared and wheeled, striking
and biting, full upon the youth, but the active figure swung with
him—always just behind the giant shoulder—and ever and ever he drew the
great arched neck farther and farther to the right.

As the animal plunged hither and thither in great leaps, he dragged the
boy with him, but all his mighty efforts were unavailing to loosen the
grip upon mane and withers. Suddenly, he reared straight into the air
carrying the youth with him, then with a vicious lunge he threw himself
backward upon the ground.

“It’s death!” exclaimed one of the knights, “he will kill the youth
yet, Beauchamp.”

“No!” cried he addressed. “Look! He is up again and the boy still
clings as tightly to him as his own black hide.”

“’Tis true,” exclaimed another, “but he hath lost what he had gained
upon the halter—he must needs fight it all out again from the
beginning.”

And so the battle went on again as before, the boy again drawing the
iron neck slowly to the right—the beast fighting and squealing as
though possessed of a thousand devils. A dozen times, as the head bent
farther and farther toward him, the boy loosed his hold upon the mane
and reached quickly down to grasp the near fore pastern. A dozen times
the horse shook off the new hold, but at length the boy was successful,
and the knee was bent and the hoof drawn up to the elbow.

Now the black fought at a disadvantage, for he was on but three feet
and his neck was drawn about in an awkward and unnatural position. His
efforts became weaker and weaker. The boy talked incessantly to him in
a quiet voice, and there was a shadow of a smile upon his lips. Now he
bore heavily upon the black withers, pulling the horse toward him.
Slowly the beast sank upon his bent knee—pulling backward until his off
fore leg was stretched straight before him. Then, with a final surge,
the youth pulled him over upon his side, and, as he fell, slipped prone
beside him. One sinewy hand shot to the rope just beneath the black
chin—the other grasped a slim, pointed ear.

For a few minutes the horse fought and kicked to gain his liberty, but
with his head held to the earth, he was as powerless in the hands of
the boy as a baby would have been. Then he sank panting and exhausted
into mute surrender.

“Well done!” cried one of the knights. “Simon de Montfort himself never
mastered a horse in better order, my boy. Who be thou?”

In an instant, the lad was upon his feet his eyes searching for the
speaker. The horse, released, sprang up also, and the two stood—the
handsome boy and the beautiful black—gazing with startled eyes, like
two wild things, at the strange intruder who confronted them.

“Come, Sir Mortimer!” cried the boy, and turning he led the prancing
but subdued animal toward the castle and through the ruined barbican
into the court beyond.

“What ho, there, lad!” shouted Paul of Merely. “We would not harm
thee—come, we but ask the way to the castle of De Stutevill.”

The three knights listened but there was no answer.

“Come, Sir Knights,” spoke Paul of Merely, “we will ride within and
learn what manner of churls inhabit this ancient rookery.”

As they entered the great courtyard, magnificent even in its ruined
grandeur, they were met by a little, grim old man who asked them in no
gentle tones what they would of them there.

“We have lost our way in these devilish Derby hills of thine, old man,”
replied Paul of Merely. “We seek the castle of Sir John de Stutevill.”

“Ride down straight to the river road, keeping the first trail to the
right, and when thou hast come there, turn again to thy right and ride
north beside the river—thou canst not miss the way—it be plain as the
nose before thy face,” and with that the old man turned to enter the
castle.

“Hold, old fellow!” cried the spokesman. “It be nigh onto sunset now,
and we care not to sleep out again this night as we did the last. We
will tarry with you then till morn that we may take up our journey
refreshed, upon rested steeds.”

The old man grumbled, and it was with poor grace that he took them in
to feed and house them over night. But there was nothing else for it,
since they would have taken his hospitality by force had he refused to
give it voluntarily.

From their guests, the two learned something of the conditions outside
their Derby hills. The old man showed less interest than he felt, but
to the boy, notwithstanding that the names he heard meant nothing to
him, it was like unto a fairy tale to hear of the wondrous doings of
earl and baron, bishop and king.

“If the King does not mend his ways,” said one of the knights, “we will
drive his whole accursed pack of foreign blood-suckers into the sea.”

“De Montfort has told him as much a dozen times, and now that all of
us, both Norman and Saxon barons, have already met together and formed
a pact for our mutual protection, the King must surely realize that the
time for temporizing be past, and that unless he would have a civil war
upon his hands, he must keep the promises he so glibly makes, instead
of breaking them the moment De Montfort’s back be turned.”

“He fears his brother-in-law,” interrupted another of the knights,
“even more than the devil fears holy water. I was in attendance on his
majesty some weeks since when he was going down the Thames upon the
royal barge. We were overtaken by as severe a thunder storm as I have
ever seen, of which the King was in such abject fear that he commanded
that we land at the Bishop of Durham’s palace opposite which we then
were. De Montfort, who was residing there, came to meet Henry, with all
due respect, observing, ‘What do you fear, now, Sire, the tempest has
passed?’ And what thinkest thou old ‘waxen heart’ replied? Why, still
trembling, he said, ‘I do indeed fear thunder and lightning much, but,
by the hand of God, I tremble before you more than for all the thunder
in Heaven!’”

“I surmise,” interjected the grim, old man, “that De Montfort has in
some manner gained an ascendancy over the King. Think you he looks so
high as the throne itself?”

“Not so,” cried the oldest of the knights. “Simon de Montfort works for
England’s weal alone—and methinks, nay know, that he would be first to
spring to arms to save the throne for Henry. He but fights the King’s
rank and covetous advisers, and though he must needs seem to defy the
King himself, it be but to save his tottering power from utter
collapse. But, gad, how the King hates him. For a time it seemed that
there might be a permanent reconciliation when, for years after the
disappearance of the little Prince Richard, De Montfort devoted much of
his time and private fortune to prosecuting a search through all the
world for the little fellow, of whom he was inordinately fond. This
self-sacrificing interest on his part won over the King and Queen for
many years, but of late his unremitting hostility to their continued
extravagant waste of the national resources has again hardened them
toward him.”

The old man, growing uneasy at the turn the conversation threatened,
sent the youth from the room on some pretext, and himself left to
prepare supper.

As they were sitting at the evening meal, one of the nobles eyed the
boy intently, for he was indeed good to look upon; his bright handsome
face, clear, intelligent gray eyes, and square strong jaw framed in a
mass of brown waving hair banged at the forehead and falling about his
ears, where it was again cut square at the sides and back, after the
fashion of the times.

His upper body was clothed in a rough under tunic of wool, stained red,
over which he wore a short leathern jerkin, while his doublet was also
of leather, a soft and finely tanned piece of undressed doeskin. His
long hose, fitting his shapely legs as closely as another layer of
skin, were of the same red wool as his tunic, while his strong leather
sandals were cross-gartered halfway to his knees with narrow bands of
leather.

A leathern girdle about his waist supported a sword and a dagger and a
round skull cap of the same material, to which was fastened a falcon’s
wing, completed his picturesque and becoming costume.

“Your son?” he asked, turning to the old man.

“Yes,” was the growling response.

“He favors you but little, old fellow, except in his cursed French
accent.

“’S blood, Beauchamp,” he continued, turning to one of his companions,
“an’ were he set down in court, I wager our gracious Queen would he
hard put to it to tell him from the young Prince Edward. Dids’t ever
see so strange a likeness?”

“Now that you speak of it, My Lord, I see it plainly. It is indeed a
marvel,” answered Beauchamp.

Had they glanced at the old man during this colloquy, they would have
seen a blanched face, drawn with inward fear and rage.

Presently the oldest member of the party of three knights spoke in a
grave quiet tone.

“And how old might you be, my son?” he asked the boy.

“I do not know.”

“And your name?”

“I do not know what you mean. I have no name. My father calls me son
and no other ever before addressed me.”

At this juncture, the old man arose and left the room, saving he would
fetch more food from the kitchen, but he turned immediately he had
passed the doorway and listened from without.

“The lad appears about fifteen,” said Paul of Merely, lowering his
voice, “and so would be the little lost Prince Richard, if he lives.
This one does not know his name, or his age, yet he looks enough like
Prince Edward to be his twin.”

“Come, my son,” he continued aloud, “open your jerkin and let us have a
look at your left breast, we shall read a true answer there.”

“Are you Englishmen?” asked the boy without making a move to comply
with their demand.

“That we be, my son,” said Beauchamp.

“Then it were better that I die than do your bidding, for all
Englishmen are pigs and I loathe them as becomes a gentleman of France.
I do not uncover my body to the eyes of swine.”

The knights, at first taken back by this unexpected outbreak, finally
burst into uproarious laughter.

“Indeed,” cried Paul of Merely, “spoken as one of the King’s foreign
favorites might speak, and they ever told the good God’s truth. But
come lad, we would not harm you—do as I bid.”

“No man lives who can harm me while a blade hangs at my side,” answered
the boy, “and as for doing as you bid, I take orders from no man other
than my father.”

Beauchamp and Greystoke laughed aloud at the discomfiture of Paul of
Merely, but the latter’s face hardened in anger, and without further
words he strode forward with outstretched hand to tear open the boy’s
leathern jerkin, but met with the gleaming point of a sword and a quick
sharp, “En garde!” from the boy.

There was naught for Paul of Merely to do but draw his own weapon, in
self-defense, for the sharp point of the boy’s sword was flashing in
and out against his unprotected body, inflicting painful little jabs,
and the boy’s tongue was murmuring low-toned taunts and insults as it
invited him to draw and defend himself or be stuck “like the English
pig you are.”

Paul of Merely was a brave man and he liked not the idea of drawing
against this stripling, but he argued that he could quickly disarm him
without harming the lad, and he certainly did not care to be further
humiliated before his comrades.

But when he had drawn and engaged his youthful antagonist, he
discovered that, far from disarming him, he would have the devil’s own
job of it to keep from being killed.

Never in all his long years of fighting had he faced such an agile and
dexterous enemy, and as they backed this way and that about the room,
great beads of sweat stood upon the brow of Paul of Merely, for he
realized that he was fighting for his life against a superior
swordsman.

The loud laughter of Beauchamp and Greystoke soon subsided to grim
smiles, and presently they looked on with startled faces in which fear
and apprehension were dominant.

The boy was fighting as a cat might play with a mouse. No sign of
exertion was apparent, and his haughty confident smile told louder than
words that he had in no sense let himself out to his full capacity.

Around and around the room they circled, the boy always advancing, Paul
of Merely always retreating. The din of their clashing swords and the
heavy breathing of the older man were the only sounds, except as they
brushed against a bench or a table.

Paul of Merely was a brave man, but he shuddered at the thought of
dying uselessly at the hands of a mere boy. He would not call upon his
friends for aid, but presently, to his relief, Beauchamp sprang between
them with drawn sword, crying “Enough, gentlemen, enough! You have no
quarrel. Sheathe your swords.”

But the boy’s only response was, “En garde, cochon,” and Beauchamp
found himself taking the center of the stage in the place of his
friend. Nor did the boy neglect Paul of Merely, but engaged them both
in swordplay that caused the eyes of Greystoke to bulge from their
sockets.

So swiftly moved his flying blade that half the time it was a sheet of
gleaming light, and now he was driving home his thrusts and the smile
had frozen upon his lips—grim and stern.

Paul of Merely and Beauchamp were wounded in a dozen places when
Greystoke rushed to their aid, and then it was that a little, wiry,
gray man leaped agilely from the kitchen doorway, and with drawn sword
took his place beside the boy. It was now two against three and the
three may have guessed, though they never knew, that they were pitted
against the two greatest swordsmen in the world.

“To the death,” cried the little gray man, “à mort, mon fils.” Scarcely
had the words left his lips ere, as though it had but waited
permission, the boy’s sword flashed into the heart of Paul of Merely,
and a Saxon gentleman was gathered to his fathers.

The old man engaged Greystoke now, and the boy turned his undivided
attention to Beauchamp. Both these men were considered excellent
swordsmen, but when Beauchamp heard again the little gray man’s “à
mort, mon fils,” he shuddered, and the little hairs at the nape of his
neck rose up, and his spine froze, for he knew that he had heard the
sentence of death passed upon him; for no mortal had yet lived who
could vanquish such a swordsman as he who now faced him.

As Beauchamp pitched forward across a bench, dead, the little old man
led Greystoke to where the boy awaited him.

“They are thy enemies, my son, and to thee belongs the pleasure of
revenge; à mort, mon fils.”

Greystoke was determined to sell his life dearly, and he rushed the lad
as a great bull might rush a teasing dog, but the boy gave back not an
inch and, when Greystoke stopped, there was a foot of cold steel
protruding from his back.

Together they buried the knights at the bottom of the dry moat at the
back of the ruined castle. First they had stripped them and, when they
took account of the spoils of the combat, they found themselves richer
by three horses with full trappings, many pieces of gold and silver
money, ornaments and jewels, as well as the lances, swords and chain
mail armor of their erstwhile guests.

But the greatest gain, the old man thought to himself, was that the
knowledge of the remarkable resemblance between his ward and Prince
Edward of England had come to him in time to prevent the undoing of his
life’s work.

The boy, while young, was tall and broad shouldered, and so the old man
had little difficulty in fitting one of the suits of armor to him,
obliterating the devices so that none might guess to whom it had
belonged. This he did, and from then on the boy never rode abroad
except in armor, and when he met others upon the high road, his visor
was always lowered that none might see his face.

The day following the episode of the three knights the old man called
the boy to him, saying,

“It is time, my son, that thou learned an answer to such questions as
were put to thee yestereve by the pigs of Henry. Thou art fifteen years
of age, and thy name be Norman, and so, as this be the ancient castle
of Torn, thou mayst answer those whom thou desire to know it that thou
art Norman of Torn; that thou be a French gentleman whose father
purchased Torn and brought thee hither from France on the death of thy
mother, when thou wert six years old.

“But remember, Norman of Torn, that the best answer for an Englishman
is the sword; naught else may penetrate his thick wit.”

And so was born that Norman of Torn, whose name in a few short years
was to strike terror to the hearts of Englishmen, and whose power in
the vicinity of Torn was greater than that of the King or the barons.




CHAPTER VI


From now on, the old man devoted himself to the training of the boy in
the handling of his lance and battle-axe, but each day also, a period
was allotted to the sword, until, by the time the youth had turned
sixteen, even the old man himself was as but a novice by comparison
with the marvelous skill of his pupil.

During these days, the boy rode Sir Mortimer abroad in many directions
until he knew every bypath within a radius of fifty miles of Torn.
Sometimes the old man accompanied him, but more often he rode alone.

On one occasion, he chanced upon a hut at the outskirts of a small
hamlet not far from Torn and, with the curiosity of boyhood, determined
to enter and have speech with the inmates, for by this time the natural
desire for companionship was commencing to assert itself. In all his
life, he remembered only the company of the old man, who never spoke
except when necessity required.

The hut was occupied by an old priest, and as the boy in armor pushed
in, without the usual formality of knocking, the old man looked up with
an expression of annoyance and disapproval.

“What now,” he said, “have the King’s men respect neither for piety nor
age that they burst in upon the seclusion of a holy man without so much
as a ‘by your leave’?”

“I am no king’s man,” replied the boy quietly. “I am Norman of Torn,
who has neither a king nor a god, and who says ‘by your leave’ to no
man. But I have come in peace because I wish to talk to another than my
father. Therefore you may talk to me, priest,” he concluded with
haughty peremptoriness.

“By the nose of John, but it must be a king has deigned to honor me
with his commands,” laughed the priest. “Raise your visor, My Lord, I
would fain look upon the countenance from which issue the commands of
royalty.”

The priest was a large man with beaming, kindly eyes, and a round
jovial face. There was no bite in the tones of his good-natured retort,
and so, smiling, the boy raised his visor.

“By the ear of Gabriel,” cried the good father, “a child in armor!”

“A child in years, mayhap,” replied the boy, “but a good child to own
as a friend, if one has enemies who wear swords.”

“Then we shall be friends, Norman of Torn, for albeit I have few
enemies, no man has too many friends, and I like your face and your
manner, though there be much to wish for in your manners. Sit down and
eat with me, and I will talk to your heart’s content, for be there one
other thing I more love than eating, it is talking.”

With the priest’s aid, the boy laid aside his armor, for it was heavy
and uncomfortable, and together the two sat down to the meal that was
already partially on the board.

Thus began a friendship which lasted during the lifetime of the good
priest. Whenever he could do so, Norman of Torn visited his friend,
Father Claude. It was he who taught the boy to read and write in
French, English and Latin at a time when but few of the nobles could
sign their own names.

French was spoken almost exclusively at court and among the higher
classes of society, and all public documents were inscribed either in
French or Latin, although about this time the first proclamation
written in the English tongue was issued by an English king to his
subjects.

Father Claude taught the boy to respect the rights of others, to
espouse the cause of the poor and weak, to revere God and to believe
that the principal reason for man’s existence was to protect woman. All
of virtue and chivalry and true manhood which his old guardian had
neglected to inculcate in the boy’s mind, the good priest planted
there, but he could not eradicate his deep-seated hatred for the
English or his belief that the real test of manhood lay in a desire to
fight to the death with a sword.

An occurrence which befell during one of the boy’s earlier visits to
his new friend rather decided the latter that no arguments he could
bring to bear could ever overcome the bald fact that to this very
belief of the boy’s, and his ability to back it up with acts, the good
father owed a great deal, possibly his life.

As they were seated in the priest’s hut one afternoon, a rough knock
fell upon the door which was immediately pushed open to admit as
disreputable a band of ruffians as ever polluted the sight of man. Six
of them there were, clothed in dirty leather, and wearing swords and
daggers at their sides.

The leader was a mighty fellow with a great shock of coarse black hair
and a red, bloated face almost concealed by a huge matted black beard.
Behind him pushed another giant with red hair and a bristling mustache;
while the third was marked by a terrible scar across his left cheek and
forehead and from a blow which had evidently put out his left eye, for
that socket was empty, and the sunken eyelid but partly covered the
inflamed red of the hollow where his eye had been.

“A ha, my hearties,” roared the leader, turning to his motley crew,
“fine pickings here indeed. A swine of God fattened upon the sweat of
such poor, honest devils as we, and a young shoat who, by his looks,
must have pieces of gold in his belt.

“Say your prayers, my pigeons,” he continued, with a vile oath, “for
The Black Wolf leaves no evidence behind him to tie his neck with a
halter later, and dead men talk the least.”

“If it be The Black Wolf,” whispered Father Claude to the boy, “no
worse fate could befall us for he preys ever upon the clergy, and when
drunk, as he now is, he murders his victims. I will throw myself before
them while you hasten through the rear doorway to your horse, and make
good your escape.” He spoke in French, and held his hands in the
attitude of prayer, so that he quite entirely misled the ruffians, who
had no idea that he was communicating with the boy.

Norman of Torn could scarce repress a smile at this clever ruse of the
old priest, and, assuming a similar attitude, he replied in French:

“The good Father Claude does not know Norman of Torn if he thinks he
runs out the back door like an old woman because a sword looks in at
the front door.”

Then rising he addressed the ruffians.

“I do not know what manner of grievance you hold against my good friend
here, nor neither do I care. It is sufficient that he is the friend of
Norman of Torn, and that Norman of Torn be here in person to
acknowledge the debt of friendship. Have at you, sir knights of the
great filth and the mighty stink!” and with drawn sword he vaulted over
the table and fell upon the surprised leader.

In the little room, but two could engage him at once, but so fiercely
did his blade swing and so surely did he thrust that, in a bare moment,
The Black Wolf lay dead upon the floor and the red giant, Shandy, was
badly, though not fatally wounded. The four remaining ruffians backed
quickly from the hut, and a more cautious fighter would have let them
go their way in peace, for in the open, four against one are odds no
man may pit himself against with impunity. But Norman of Torn saw red
when he fought and the red lured him ever on into the thickest of the
fray. Only once before had he fought to the death, but that once had
taught him the love of it, and ever after until his death, it marked
his manner of fighting; so that men who loathed and hated and feared
him were as one with those who loved him in acknowledging that never
before had God joined in the human frame absolute supremacy with the
sword and such utter fearlessness.

So it was, now, that instead of being satisfied with his victory, he
rushed out after the four knaves. Once in the open, they turned upon
him, but he sprang into their midst with his seething blade, and it was
as though they faced four men rather than one, so quickly did he parry
a thrust here and return a cut there. In a moment one was disarmed,
another down, and the remaining two fleeing for their lives toward the
high road with Norman of Torn close at their heels.

Young, agile and perfect in health, he outclassed them in running as
well as in swordsmanship, and ere they had made fifty paces, both had
thrown away their swords and were on their knees pleading for their
lives.

“Come back to the good priest’s hut, and we shall see what he may say,”
replied Norman of Torn.

On the way back, they found the man who had been disarmed bending over
his wounded comrade. They were brothers, named Flory, and one would not
desert the other. It was evident that the wounded man was in no danger,
so Norman of Torn ordered the others to assist him into the hut, where
they found Red Shandy sitting propped against the wall while the good
father poured the contents of a flagon down his eager throat.

The villain’s eyes fairly popped from his head when he saw his four
comrades coming, unarmed and prisoners, back to the little room.

“The Black Wolf dead, Red Shandy and John Flory wounded, James Flory,
One Eye Kanty and Peter the Hermit prisoners!” he ejaculated.

“Man or devil! By the Pope’s hind leg, who and what be ye?” he said,
turning to Norman of Torn.

“I be your master and ye be my men,” said Norman of Torn. “Me ye shall
serve in fairer work than ye have selected for yourselves, but with
fighting a-plenty and good reward.”

The sight of this gang of ruffians banded together to prey upon the
clergy had given rise to an idea in the boy’s mind, which had been
revolving in a nebulous way within the innermost recesses of his
subconsciousness since his vanquishing of the three knights had brought
him, so easily, such riches in the form of horses, arms, armor and
gold. As was always his wont in his after life, to think was to act.

“With The Black Wolf dead, and may the devil pull out his eyes with red
hot tongs, we might look farther and fare worse, mates, in search of a
chief,” spoke Red Shandy, eyeing his fellows, “for verily any man, be
he but a stripling, who can vanquish six such as we, be fit to command
us.”

“But what be the duties?” said he whom they called Peter the Hermit.

“To follow Norman of Torn where he may lead, to protect the poor and
the weak, to lay down your lives in defence of woman, and to prey upon
rich Englishmen and harass the King of England.”

The last two clauses of these articles of faith appealed to the
ruffians so strongly that they would have subscribed to anything, even
daily mass, and a bath, had that been necessary to admit them to the
service of Norman of Torn.

“Aye, aye!” they cried. “We be your men, indeed.”

“Wait,” said Norman of Torn, “there is more. You are to obey my every
command on pain of instant death, and one-half of all your gains are to
be mine. On my side, I will clothe and feed you, furnish you with
mounts and armor and weapons and a roof to sleep under, and fight for
and with you with a sword arm which you know to be no mean protector.
Are you satisfied?”

“That we are,” and “Long live Norman of Torn,” and “Here’s to the chief
of the Torns” signified the ready assent of the burly cut-throats.

“Then swear it as ye kiss the hilt of my sword and this token,” pursued
Norman of Torn catching up a crucifix from the priest’s table.

With these formalities was born the Clan Torn, which grew in a few
years to number a thousand men, and which defied a king’s army and
helped to make Simon de Montfort virtual ruler of England.

Almost immediately commenced that series of outlaw acts upon
neighboring barons, and chance members of the gentry who happened to be
caught in the open by the outlaws, that filled the coffers of Norman of
Torn with many pieces of gold and silver, and placed a price upon his
head ere he had scarce turned eighteen.

That he had no fear of or desire to avoid responsibility for his acts,
he grimly evidenced by marking with a dagger’s point upon the foreheads
of those who fell before his own sword the initials NT.

As his following and wealth increased, he rebuilt and enlarged the grim
Castle of Torn, and again dammed the little stream which had furnished
the moat with water in bygone days.

Through all the length and breadth of the country that witnessed his
activities, his very name was worshipped by poor and lowly and
oppressed. The money he took from the King’s tax gatherers, he returned
to the miserable peasants of the district, and once when Henry III sent
a little expedition against him, he surrounded and captured the entire
force, and, stripping them, gave their clothing to the poor, and
escorted them, naked, back to the very gates of London.

By the time he was twenty, Norman the Devil, as the King himself had
dubbed him, was known by reputation throughout all England, though no
man had seen his face and lived other than his friends and followers.
He had become a power to reckon with in the fast culminating quarrel
between King Henry and his foreign favorites on one side, and the Saxon
and Norman barons on the other.

Neither side knew which way his power might be turned, for Norman of
Torn had preyed almost equally upon royalist and insurgent. Personally,
he had decided to join neither party, but to take advantage of the
turmoil of the times to prey without partiality upon both.

As Norman of Torn approached his grim castle home with his five filthy,
ragged cut-throats on the day of his first meeting with them, the old
man of Torn stood watching the little party from one of the small
towers of the barbican.

Halting beneath this outer gate, the youth winded the horn which hung
at his side in mimicry of the custom of the times.

“What ho, without there!” challenged the old man entering grimly into
the spirit of the play.

“’Tis Sir Norman of Torn,” spoke up Red Shandy, “with his great host of
noble knights and men-at-arms and squires and lackeys and sumpter
beasts. Open in the name of the good right arm of Sir Norman of Torn.”

“What means this, my son?” said the old man as Norman of Torn
dismounted within the ballium.

The youth narrated the events of the morning, concluding with, “These,
then, be my men, father; and together we shall fare forth upon the
highways and into the byways of England, to collect from the rich
English pigs that living which you have ever taught me was owing us.”

“’Tis well, my son, and even as I myself would have it; together we
shall ride out, and where we ride, a trail of blood shall mark our way.

“From now, henceforth, the name and fame of Norman of Torn shall grow
in the land, until even the King shall tremble when he hears it, and
shall hate and loathe ye as I have even taught ye to hate and loathe
him.

“All England shall curse ye and the blood of Saxon and Norman shall
never dry upon your blade.”

As the old man walked away toward the great gate of the castle after
this outbreak, Shandy, turning to Norman of Torn, with a wide grin,
said:

“By the Pope’s hind leg, but thy amiable father loveth the English.
There should be great riding after such as he.”

“Ye ride after ME, varlet,” cried Norman of Torn, “an’ lest ye should
forget again so soon who be thy master, take that, as a reminder,” and
he struck the red giant full upon the mouth with his clenched fist—so
that the fellow tumbled heavily to the earth.

He was on his feet in an instant, spitting blood, and in a towering
rage. As he rushed, bull-like, toward Norman of Torn, the latter made
no move to draw; he but stood with folded arms, eyeing Shandy with
cold, level gaze; his head held high, haughty face marked by an
arrogant sneer of contempt.

The great ruffian paused, then stopped, slowly a sheepish smile
overspread his countenance and, going upon one knee, he took the hand
of Norman of Torn and kissed it, as some great and loyal noble knight
might have kissed his king’s hand in proof of his love and fealty.
There was a certain rude, though chivalrous grandeur in the act; and it
marked not only the beginning of a lifelong devotion and loyalty on the
part of Shandy toward his young master, but was prophetic of the
attitude which Norman of Torn was to inspire in all the men who served
him during the long years that saw thousands pass the barbicans of Torn
to crave a position beneath his grim banner.

As Shandy rose, one by one, John Flory, James, his brother, One Eye
Kanty, and Peter the Hermit knelt before their young lord and kissed
his hand. From the Great Court beyond, a little, grim, gray, old man
had watched this scene, a slight smile upon his old, malicious face.

“’Tis to transcend even my dearest dreams,” he muttered. “’S death, but
he be more a king than Henry himself. God speed the day of his
coronation, when, before the very eyes of the Plantagenet hound, a
black cap shall be placed upon his head for a crown; beneath his feet
the platform of a wooden gibbet for a throne.”




CHAPTER VII


It was a beautiful spring day in May, 1262, that Norman of Torn rode
alone down the narrow trail that led to the pretty cottage with which
he had replaced the hut of his old friend, Father Claude.

As was his custom, he rode with lowered visor, and nowhere upon his
person or upon the trappings of his horse were sign or insignia of rank
or house. More powerful and richer than many nobles of the court, he
was without rank or other title than that of outlaw and he seemed to
assume what in reality he held in little esteem.

He wore armor because his old guardian had urged him to do so, and not
because he craved the protection it afforded. And, for the same cause,
he rode always with lowered visor, though he could never prevail upon
the old man to explain the reason which necessitated this precaution.

“It is enough that I tell you, my son,” the old fellow was wont to say,
“that for your own good as well as mine, you must not show your face to
your enemies until I so direct. The time will come and soon now, I
hope, when you shall uncover your countenance to all England.”

The young man gave the matter but little thought, usually passing it
off as the foolish whim of an old dotard; but he humored it
nevertheless.

Behind him, as he rode down the steep declivity that day, loomed a very
different Torn from that which he had approached sixteen years before,
when, as a little boy he had ridden through the darkening shadows of
the night, perched upon a great horse behind the little old woman,
whose metamorphosis to the little grim, gray, old man of Torn their
advent to the castle had marked.

Today the great, frowning pile loomed larger and more imposing than
ever in the most resplendent days of its past grandeur. The original
keep was there with its huge, buttressed Saxon towers whose mighty
fifteen foot walls were pierced with stairways and vaulted chambers,
lighted by embrasures which, mere slits in the outer periphery of the
walls, spread to larger dimensions within, some even attaining the area
of small triangular chambers.

The moat, widened and deepened, completely encircled three sides of the
castle, running between the inner and outer walls, which were set at
intervals with small projecting towers so pierced that a flanking fire
from long bows, cross bows and javelins might be directed against a
scaling party.

The fourth side of the walled enclosure overhung a high precipice,
which natural protection rendered towers unnecessary upon this side.

The main gateway of the castle looked toward the west and from it ran
the tortuous and rocky trail, down through the mountains toward the
valley below. The aspect from the great gate was one of quiet and
rugged beauty. A short stretch of barren downs in the foreground only
sparsely studded with an occasional gnarled oak gave an unobstructed
view of broad and lovely meadowland through which wound a sparkling
tributary of the Trent.

Two more gateways let into the great fortress, one piercing the north
wall and one the east. All three gates were strongly fortified with
towered and buttressed barbicans which must be taken before the main
gates could be reached. Each barbican was portcullised, while the inner
gates were similarly safeguarded in addition to the drawbridges which,
spanning the moat when lowered, could be drawn up at the approach of an
enemy, effectually stopping his advance.

The new towers and buildings added to the ancient keep under the
direction of Norman of Torn and the grim, old man whom he called
father, were of the Norman type of architecture, the windows were
larger, the carving more elaborate, the rooms lighter and more
spacious.

Within the great enclosure thrived a fair sized town, for, with his ten
hundred fighting-men, the Outlaw of Torn required many squires,
lackeys, cooks, scullions, armorers, smithies, farriers, hostlers and
the like to care for the wants of his little army.

Fifteen hundred war horses, beside five hundred sumpter beasts, were
quartered in the great stables, while the east court was alive with
cows, oxen, goats, sheep, pigs, rabbits and chickens.

Great wooden carts drawn by slow, plodding oxen were daily visitors to
the grim pile, fetching provender for man and beast from the
neighboring farm lands of the poor Saxon peasants, to whom Norman of
Torn paid good gold for their crops.

These poor serfs, who were worse than slaves to the proud barons who
owned the land they tilled, were forbidden by royal edict to sell or
give a pennysworth of provisions to the Outlaw of Torn, upon pain of
death, but nevertheless his great carts made their trips regularly and
always returned full laden, and though the husbandmen told sad tales to
their overlords of the awful raids of the Devil of Torn in which he
seized upon their stuff by force, their tongues were in their cheeks as
they spoke and the Devil’s gold in their pockets.

And so, while the barons learned to hate him the more, the peasants’
love for him increased. Them he never injured; their fences, their
stock, their crops, their wives and daughters were safe from
molestation even though the neighboring castle of their lord might be
sacked from the wine cellar to the ramparts of the loftiest tower. Nor
did anyone dare ride rough shod over the territory which Norman of Torn
patrolled. A dozen bands of cut-throats he had driven from the Derby
hills, and though the barons would much rather have had all the rest
than he, the peasants worshipped him as a deliverer from the lowborn
murderers who had been wont to despoil the weak and lowly and on whose
account the women of the huts and cottages had never been safe.

Few of them had seen his face and fewer still had spoken with him, but
they loved his name and his prowess and in secret they prayed for him
to their ancient god, Wodin, and the lesser gods of the forest and the
meadow and the chase, for though they were confessed Christians, still
in the hearts of many beat a faint echo of the old superstitions of
their ancestors; and while they prayed also to the Lord Jesus and to
Mary, yet they felt it could do no harm to be on the safe side with the
others, in case they did happen to exist.

A poor, degraded, downtrodden, ignorant, superstitious people, they
were; accustomed for generations to the heel of first one invader and
then another and in the interims, when there were any, the heels of
their feudal lords and their rapacious monarchs.

No wonder then that such as these worshipped the Outlaw of Torn, for
since their fierce Saxon ancestors had come, themselves as conquerors,
to England, no other hand had ever been raised to shield them from
oppression.

On this policy of his toward the serfs and freedmen, Norman of Torn and
the grim, old man whom he called father had never agreed. The latter
was for carrying his war of hate against all Englishmen, but the young
man would neither listen to it, nor allow any who rode out from Torn to
molest the lowly. A ragged tunic was a surer defence against this wild
horde than a stout lance or an emblazoned shield.

So, as Norman of Torn rode down from his mighty castle to visit Father
Claude, the sunlight playing on his clanking armor and glancing from
the copper boss of his shield, the sight of a little group of woodmen
kneeling uncovered by the roadside as he passed was not so remarkable
after all.

Entering the priest’s study, Norman of Torn removed his armor and lay
back moodily upon a bench with his back against a wall and his strong,
lithe legs stretched out before him.

“What ails you, my son?” asked the priest, “that you look so
disconsolate on this beautiful day?”

“I do not know, Father,” replied Norman of Torn, “unless it be that I
am asking myself the question, ‘What it is all for?’ Why did my father
train me ever to prey upon my fellows? I like to fight, but there is
plenty of fighting which is legitimate, and what good may all my stolen
wealth avail me if I may not enter the haunts of men to spend it?
Should I stick my head into London town, it would doubtless stay there,
held by a hempen necklace.

“What quarrel have I with the King or the gentry? They have quarrel
enough with me it is true, but, nathless, I do not know why I should
have hated them so before I was old enough to know how rotten they
really are. So it seems to me that I am but the instrument of an old
man’s spite, not even knowing the grievance to the avenging of which my
life has been dedicated by another.

“And at times, Father Claude, as I grow older, I doubt much that the
nameless old man of Torn is my father, so little do I favor him, and
never in all my life have I heard a word of fatherly endearment or felt
a caress, even as a little child. What think you, Father Claude?”

“I have thought much of it, my son,” answered the priest. “It has ever
been a sore puzzle to me, and I have my suspicions, which I have held
for years, but which even the thought of so frightens me that I shudder
to speculate upon the consequences of voicing them aloud. Norman of
Torn, if you are not the son of the old man you call father, may God
forfend that England ever guesses your true parentage. More than this,
I dare not say except that, as you value your peace of mind and your
life, keep your visor down and keep out of the clutches of your
enemies.”

“Then you know why I should keep my visor down?”

“I can only guess, Norman of Torn, because I have seen another whom you
resemble.”

The conversation was interrupted by a commotion from without; the sound
of horses’ hoofs, the cries of men and the clash of arms. In an
instant, both men were at the tiny unglazed window. Before them, on the
highroad, five knights in armor were now engaged in furious battle with
a party of ten or a dozen other steel-clad warriors, while crouching
breathless on her palfry, a young woman sat a little apart from the
contestants.

Presently, one of the knights detached himself from the melee and rode
to her side with some word of command, at the same time grasping
roughly at her bridle rein. The girl raised her riding whip and struck
repeatedly but futilely against the iron headgear of her assailant
while he swung his horse up the road, and, dragging her palfrey after
him, galloped rapidly out of sight.

Norman of Torn sprang to the door, and, reckless of his unarmored
condition, leaped to Sir Mortimer’s back and spurred swiftly in the
direction taken by the girl and her abductor.

The great black was fleet, and, unencumbered by the usual heavy armor
of his rider, soon brought the fugitives to view. Scarce a mile had
been covered ere the knight, turning to look for pursuers, saw the face
of Norman of Torn not ten paces behind him.

With a look of mingled surprise, chagrin and incredulity the knight
reined in his horse, exclaiming as he did so, “Mon Dieu, Edward!”

“Draw and defend yourself,” cried Norman of Torn.

“But, Your Highness,” stammered the knight.

“Draw, or I stick you as I have stuck an hundred other English pigs,”
cried Norman of Torn.

The charging steed was almost upon him and the knight looked to see the
rider draw rein, but, like a black bolt, the mighty Sir Mortimer struck
the other horse full upon the shoulder, and man and steed rolled in the
dust of the roadway.

The knight arose, unhurt, and Norman of Torn dismounted to give fair
battle upon even terms. Though handicapped by the weight of his armor,
the knight also had the advantage of its protection, so that the two
fought furiously for several minutes without either gaining an
advantage.

The girl sat motionless and wide-eyed at the side of the road watching
every move of the two contestants. She made no effort to escape, but
seemed riveted to the spot by the very fierceness of the battle she was
beholding, as well, possibly, as by the fascination of the handsome
giant who had espoused her cause. As she looked upon her champion, she
saw a lithe, muscular, brown-haired youth whose clear eyes and perfect
figure, unconcealed by either bassinet or hauberk, reflected the clean,
athletic life of the trained fighting man.

Upon his face hovered a faint, cold smile of haughty pride as the sword
arm, displaying its mighty strength and skill in every move, played
with the sweating, puffing, steel-clad enemy who hacked and hewed so
futilely before him. For all the din of clashing blades and rattling
armor, neither of the contestants had inflicted much damage, for the
knight could neither force nor insinuate his point beyond the perfect
guard of his unarmored foe, who, for his part, found difficulty in
penetrating the other’s armor.

Finally, by dint of his mighty strength, Norman of Torn drove his blade
through the meshes of his adversary’s mail, and the fellow, with a cry
of anguish, sank limply to the ground.

“Quick, Sir Knight!” cried the girl. “Mount and flee; yonder come his
fellows.”

And surely, as Norman of Torn turned in the direction from which he had
just come, there, racing toward him at full tilt, rode three
steel-armored men on their mighty horses.

“Ride, madam,” cried Norman of Torn, “for fly I shall not, nor may I,
alone, unarmored, and on foot hope more than to momentarily delay these
three fellows, but in that time you should easily make your escape.
Their heavy-burdened animals could never o’ertake your fleet palfrey.”

As he spoke, he took note for the first time of the young woman. That
she was a lady of quality was evidenced not alone by the richness of
her riding apparel and the trappings of her palfrey, but as well in her
noble and haughty demeanor and the proud expression of her beautiful
face.

Although at this time nearly twenty years had passed over the head of
Norman of Torn, he was without knowledge or experience in the ways of
women, nor had he ever spoken with a female of quality or position. No
woman graced the castle of Torn nor had the boy, within his memory,
ever known a mother.

His attitude therefore was much the same toward women as it was toward
men, except that he had sworn always to protect them. Possibly, in a
way, he looked up to womankind, if it could be said that Norman of Torn
looked up to anything: God, man or devil—it being more his way to look
down upon all creatures whom he took the trouble to notice at all.

As his glance rested upon this woman, whom fate had destined to alter
the entire course of his life, Norman of Torn saw that she was
beautiful, and that she was of that class against whom he had preyed
for years with his band of outlaw cut-throats. Then he turned once more
to face her enemies with the strange inconsistency which had ever
marked his methods.

Tomorrow he might be assaulting the ramparts of her father’s castle,
but today he was joyously offering to sacrifice his life for her—had
she been the daughter of a charcoal burner he would have done no less.
It was enough that she was a woman and in need of protection.

The three knights were now fairly upon him, and with fine disregard for
fair play, charged with couched spears the unarmored man on foot. But
as the leading knight came close enough to behold his face, he cried
out in surprise and consternation:

“Mon Dieu, le Prince!” He wheeled his charging horse to one side. His
fellows, hearing his cry, followed his example, and the three of them
dashed on down the high road in as evident anxiety to escape as they
had been keen to attack.

“One would think they had met the devil,” muttered Norman of Torn,
looking after them in unfeigned astonishment.

“What means it, lady?” he asked turning to the damsel, who had made no
move to escape.

“It means that your face is well known in your father’s realm, my Lord
Prince,” she replied. “And the King’s men have no desire to antagonize
you, even though they may understand as little as I why you should
espouse the cause of a daughter of Simon de Montfort.”

“Am I then taken for Prince Edward of England?” he asked.

“An’ who else should you be taken for, my Lord?”

“I am not the Prince,” said Norman of Torn. “It is said that Edward is
in France.”

“Right you are, sir,” exclaimed the girl. “I had not thought on that;
but you be enough of his likeness that you might well deceive the Queen
herself. And you be of a bravery fit for a king’s son. Who are you
then, Sir Knight, who has bared your steel and faced death for
Bertrade, daughter of Simon de Montfort, Earl of Leicester?”

“Be you De Montfort’s daughter, niece of King Henry?” queried Norman of
Torn, his eyes narrowing to mere slits and face hardening.

“That I be,” replied the girl, “an’ from your face I take it you have
little love for a De Montfort,” she added, smiling.

“An’ whither may you be bound, Lady Bertrade de Montfort? Be you niece
or daughter of the devil, yet still you be a woman, and I do not war
against women. Wheresoever you would go will I accompany you to
safety.”

“I was but now bound, under escort of five of my father’s knights, to
visit Mary, daughter of John de Stutevill of Derby.”

“I know the castle well,” answered Norman of Torn, and the shadow of a
grim smile played about his lips, for scarce sixty days had elapsed
since he had reduced the stronghold, and levied tribute on the great
baron. “Come, you have not far to travel now, and if we make haste you
shall sup with your friend before dark.”

So saying, he mounted his horse and was turning to retrace their steps
down the road when he noticed the body of the dead knight lying where
it had fallen.

“Ride on,” he called to Bertrade de Montfort, “I will join you in an
instant.”

Again dismounting, he returned to the side of his late adversary, and
lifting the dead knight’s visor, drew upon the forehead with the point
of his dagger the letters NT.

The girl turned to see what detained him, but his back was toward her
and he knelt beside his fallen foeman, and she did not see his act.
Brave daughter of a brave sire though she was, had she seen what he
did, her heart would have quailed within her and she would have fled in
terror from the clutches of this scourge of England, whose mark she had
seen on the dead foreheads of a dozen of her father’s knights and
kinsmen.

Their way to Stutevill lay past the cottage of Father Claude, and here
Norman of Torn stopped to don his armor. Now he rode once more with
lowered visor, and in silence, a little to the rear of Bertrade de
Montfort that he might watch her face, which, of a sudden, had excited
his interest.

Never before, within the scope of his memory, had he been so close to a
young and beautiful woman for so long a period of time, although he had
often seen women in the castles that had fallen before his vicious and
terrible attacks. While stories were abroad of his vile treatment of
women captives, there was no truth in them. They were merely spread by
his enemies to incite the people against him. Never had Norman of Torn
laid violent hand upon a woman, and his cut-throat band were under oath
to respect and protect the sex, on penalty of death.

As he watched the semi-profile of the lovely face before him, something
stirred in his heart which had been struggling for expression for
years. It was not love, nor was it allied to love, but a deep longing
for companionship of such as she, and such as she represented. Norman
of Torn could not have translated this feeling into words for he did
not know, but it was the far faint cry of blood for blood and with it,
mayhap, was mixed not alone the longing of the lion among jackals for
other lions, but for his lioness.

They rode for many miles in silence when suddenly she turned, saying:

“You take your time, Sir Knight, in answering my query. Who be ye?”

“I am Nor—” and then he stopped. Always before he had answered that
question with haughty pride. Why should he hesitate, he thought. Was it
because he feared the loathing that name would inspire in the breast of
this daughter of the aristocracy he despised? Did Norman of Torn fear
to face the look of seem and repugnance that was sure to be mirrored in
that lovely face?

“I am from Normandy,” he went on quietly. “A gentleman of France.”

“But your name?” she said peremptorily. “Are you ashamed of your name?”

“You may call me Roger,” he answered. “Roger de Conde.”

“Raise your visor, Roger de Conde,” she commanded. “I do not take
pleasure in riding with a suit of armor; I would see that there is a
man within.”

Norman of Torn smiled as he did her bidding, and when he smiled thus,
as he rarely did, he was good to look upon.

“It is the first command I have obeyed since I turned sixteen, Bertrade
de Montfort,” he said.

The girl was about nineteen, full of the vigor and gaiety of youth and
health; and so the two rode on their journey talking and laughing as
they might have been friends of long standing.

She told him of the reason for the attack upon her earlier in the day,
attributing it to an attempt on the part of a certain baron, Peter of
Colfax, to abduct her, his suit for her hand having been peremptorily
and roughly denied by her father.

Simon de Montfort was no man to mince words, and it is doubtless that
the old reprobate who sued for his daughter’s hand heard some unsavory
truths from the man who had twice scandalized England’s nobility by his
rude and discourteous, though true and candid, speeches to the King.

“This Peter of Colfax shall be looked to,” growled Norman of Torn.
“And, as you have refused his heart and hand, his head shall be yours
for the asking. You have but to command, Bertrade de Montfort.”

“Very well,” she laughed, thinking it but the idle boasting so much
indulged in in those days. “You may bring me his head upon a golden
dish, Roger de Conde.”

“And what reward does the knight earn who brings to the feet of his
princess the head of her enemy?” he asked lightly.

“What boon would the knight ask?”

“That whatsoever a bad report you hear of your knight, of whatsoever
calumnies may be heaped upon him, you shall yet ever be his friend, and
believe in his honor and his loyalty.”

The girl laughed gaily as she answered, though something seemed to tell
her that this was more than play.

“It shall be as you say, Sir Knight,” she replied. “And the boon once
granted shall be always kept.”

Quick to reach decisions and as quick to act, Norman of Torn decided
that he liked this girl and that he wished her friendship more than any
other thing he knew of. And wishing it, he determined to win it by any
means that accorded with his standard of honor; an honor which in many
respects was higher than that of the nobles of his time.

They reached the castle of De Stutevill late in the afternoon, and
there, Norman of Torn was graciously welcomed and urged to accept the
Baron’s hospitality overnight.

The grim humor of the situation was too much for the outlaw, and, when
added to his new desire to be in the company of Bertrade de Montfort,
he made no effort to resist, but hastened to accept the warm welcome.

At the long table upon which the evening meal was spread sat the entire
household of the Baron, and here and there among the men were evidences
of painful wounds but barely healed, while the host himself still wore
his sword arm in a sling.

“We have been through grievous times,” said Sir John, noticing that his
guest was glancing at the various evidences of conflict. “That fiend,
Norman the Devil, with his filthy pack of cut-throats, besieged us for
ten days, and then took the castle by storm and sacked it. Life is no
longer safe in England with the King spending his time and money with
foreign favorites and buying alien soldiery to fight against his own
barons, instead of insuring the peace and protection which is the right
of every Englishman at home.

“But,” he continued, “this outlaw devil will come to the end of a short
halter when once our civil strife is settled, for the barons themselves
have decided upon an expedition against him, if the King will not
subdue him.”

“An’ he may send the barons naked home as he did the King’s soldiers,”
laughed Bertrade de Montfort. “I should like to see this fellow; what
may he look like—from the appearance of yourself, Sir John, and many of
your men-at-arms, there should be no few here but have met him.”

“Not once did he raise his visor while he was among us,” replied the
Baron, “but there are those who claim they had a brief glimpse of him
and that he is of horrid countenance, wearing a great yellow beard and
having one eye gone, and a mighty red scar from his forehead to his
chin.”

“A fearful apparition,” murmured Norman of Torn. “No wonder he keeps
his helm closed.”

“But such a swordsman,” spoke up a son of De Stutevill. “Never in all
the world was there such swordplay as I saw that day in the courtyard.”

“I, too, have seen some wonderful swordplay,” said Bertrade de
Montfort, “and that today. O he!” she cried, laughing gleefully,
“verily do I believe I have captured the wild Norman of Torn, for this
very knight, who styles himself Roger de Conde, fights as I ne’er saw
man fight before, and he rode with his visor down until I chid him for
it.”

Norman of Torn led in the laugh which followed, and of all the company
he most enjoyed the joke.

“An’ speaking of the Devil,” said the Baron, “how think you he will
side should the King eventually force war upon the barons? With his
thousand hell-hounds, the fate of England might well be in the palm of
his bloody hand.”

“He loves neither King nor baron,” spoke Mary de Stutevill, “and I
rather lean to the thought that he will serve neither, but rather
plunder the castles of both rebel and royalist whilst their masters be
absent at war.”

“It be more to his liking to come while the master be home to welcome
him,” said De Stutevill, ruthfully. “But yet I am always in fear for
the safety of my wife and daughters when I be away from Derby for any
time. May the good God soon deliver England from this Devil of Torn.”

“I think you may have no need of fear on that score,” spoke Mary, “for
Norman of Torn offered no violence to any woman within the wall of
Stutevill, and when one of his men laid a heavy hand upon me, it was
the great outlaw himself who struck the fellow such a blow with his
mailed hand as to crack the ruffian’s helm, saying at the time, ‘Know
you, fellow, Norman of Torn does not war upon women?’”

Presently the conversation turned to other subjects and Norman of Torn
heard no more of himself during that evening.

His stay at the castle of Stutevill was drawn out to three days, and
then, on the third day, as he sat with Bertrade de Montfort in an
embrasure of the south tower of the old castle, he spoke once more of
the necessity for leaving and once more she urged him to remain.

“To be with you, Bertrade of Montfort,” he said boldly, “I would forego
any other pleasure, and endure any privation, or face any danger, but
there are others who look to me for guidance and my duty calls me away
from you. You shall see me again, and at the castle of your father,
Simon de Montfort, in Leicester. Provided,” he added, “that you will
welcome me there.”

“I shall always welcome you, wherever I may be, Roger de Conde,”
replied the girl.

“Remember that promise,” he said smiling. “Some day you may be glad to
repudiate it.”

“Never,” she insisted, and a light that shone in her eyes as she said
it would have meant much to a man better versed in the ways of women
than was Norman of Torn.

“I hope not,” he said gravely. “I cannot tell you, being but poorly
trained in courtly ways, what I should like to tell you, that you might
know how much your friendship means to me. Goodbye, Bertrade de
Montfort,” and he bent to one knee, as he raised her fingers to his
lips.

As he passed over the drawbridge and down toward the highroad a few
minutes later on his way back to Torn, he turned for one last look at
the castle and there, in an embrasure in the south tower, stood a young
woman who raised her hand to wave, and then, as though by sudden
impulse, threw a kiss after the departing knight, only to disappear
from the embrasure with the act.

As Norman of Torn rode back to his grim castle in the hills of Derby,
he had much food for thought upon the way. Never till now had he
realized what might lie in another manner of life, and he felt a twinge
of bitterness toward the hard, old man whom he called father, and whose
teachings from the boy’s earliest childhood had guided him in the ways
that had cut him off completely from the society of other men, except
the wild horde of outlaws, ruffians and adventurers that rode beneath
the grisly banner of the young chief of Torn.

Only in an ill-defined, nebulous way did he feel that it was the girl
who had come into his life that caused him for the first time to feel
shame for his past deeds. He did not know the meaning of love, and so
he could not know that he loved Bertrade de Montfort.

And another thought which now filled his mind was the fact of his
strange likeness to the Crown Prince of England. This, together with
the words of Father Claude, puzzled him sorely. What might it mean? Was
it a heinous offence to own an accidental likeness to a king’s son?

But now that he felt he had solved the reason that he rode always with
closed helm, he was for the first time anxious himself to hide his face
from the sight of men. Not from fear, for he knew not fear, but from
some inward impulse which he did not attempt to fathom.




CHAPTER VIII


As Norman of Torn rode out from the castle of De Stutevill, Father
Claude dismounted from his sleek donkey within the ballium of Torn. The
austere stronghold, notwithstanding its repellent exterior and unsavory
reputation, always extended a warm welcome to the kindly, genial
priest; not alone because of the deep friendship which the master of
Torn felt for the good father, but through the personal charm, and
lovableness of the holy man’s nature, which shone alike on saint and
sinner.

It was doubtless due to his unremitting labors with the youthful
Norman, during the period that the boy’s character was most amenable to
strong impressions, that the policy of the mighty outlaw was in many
respects pure and lofty. It was this same influence, though, which won
for Father Claude his only enemy in Torn; the little, grim, gray, old
man whose sole aim in life seemed to have been to smother every finer
instinct of chivalry and manhood in the boy, to whose training he had
devoted the past nineteen years of his life.

As Father Claude climbed down from his donkey—fat people do not
“dismount”—a half dozen young squires ran forward to assist him, and to
lead the animal to the stables.

The good priest called each of his willing helpers by name, asking a
question here, passing a merry joke there with the ease and familiarity
that bespoke mutual affection and old acquaintance.

As he passed in through the great gate, the men-at-arms threw him
laughing, though respectful, welcomes and within the great court,
beautified with smooth lawn, beds of gorgeous plants, fountains,
statues and small shrubs and bushes, he came upon the giant, Red
Shandy, now the principal lieutenant of Norman of Torn.

“Good morrow, Saint Claude!” cried the burly ruffian. “Hast come to
save our souls, or damn us? What manner of sacrilege have we committed
now, or have we merited the blessings of Holy Church? Dost come to
scold, or praise?”

“Neither, thou unregenerate villain,” cried the priest, laughing.
“Though methinks ye merit chiding for the grievous poor courtesy with
which thou didst treat the great Bishop of Norwich the past week.”

“Tut, tut, Father,” replied Red Shandy. “We did but aid him to adhere
more closely to the injunctions and precepts of Him whose servant and
disciple he claims to be. Were it not better for an Archbishop of His
Church to walk in humility and poverty among His people, than to be
ever surrounded with the temptations of fine clothing, jewels and much
gold, to say nothing of two sumpter beasts heavy laden with runlets of
wine?”

“I warrant his temptations were less by at least as many runlets of
wine as may be borne by two sumpter beasts when thou, red robber, had
finished with him,” exclaimed Father Claude.

“Yes, Father,” laughed the great fellow, “for the sake of Holy Church,
I did indeed confiscate that temptation completely, and if you must
needs have proof in order to absolve me from my sins, come with me now
and you shall sample the excellent discrimination which the Bishop of
Norwich displays in the selection of his temptations.”

“They tell me you left the great man quite destitute of finery, Red
Shandy,” continued Father Claude, as he locked his arm in that of the
outlaw and proceeded toward the castle.

“One garment was all that Norman of Torn would permit him, and as the
sun was hot overhead, he selected for the Bishop a bassinet for that
single article of apparel, to protect his tonsured pate from the rays
of old sol. Then, fearing that it might be stolen from him by some
vandals of the road, he had One Eye Kanty rivet it at each side of the
gorget so that it could not be removed by other than a smithy, and
thus, strapped face to tail upon a donkey, he sent the great Bishop of
Norwich rattling down the dusty road with his head, at least, protected
from the idle gaze of whomsoever he might chance to meet. Forty stripes
he gave to each of the Bishop’s retinue for being abroad in bad
company; but come, here we are where you shall have the wine as proof
of my tale.”

As the two sat sipping the Bishop’s good Canary, the little old man of
Torn entered. He spoke to Father Claude in a surly tone, asking him if
he knew aught of the whereabouts of Norman of Torn.

“We have seen nothing of him since, some three days gone, he rode out
in the direction of your cottage,” he concluded.

“Why, yes,” said the priest, “I saw him that day. He had an adventure
with several knights from the castle of Peter of Colfax, from whom he
rescued a damsel whom I suspect from the trappings of her palfrey to be
of the house of Montfort. Together they rode north, but thy son did not
say whither or for what purpose. His only remark, as he donned his
armor, while the girl waited without, was that I should now behold the
falcon guarding the dove. Has he not returned?”

“No,” said the old man, “and doubtless his adventure is of a nature in
line with thy puerile and effeminate teachings. Had he followed my
training, without thy accurst priestly interference, he had made an
iron-barred nest in Torn for many of the doves of thy damned English
nobility. An’ thou leave him not alone, he will soon be seeking service
in the household of the King.”

“Where, perchance, he might be more at home than here,” said the priest
quietly.

“Why say you that?” snapped the little old man, eyeing Father Claude
narrowly.

“Oh,” laughed the priest, “because he whose power and mien be even more
kingly than the King’s would rightly grace the royal palace,” but he
had not failed to note the perturbation his remark had caused, nor did
his off-hand reply entirely deceive the old man.

At this juncture, a squire entered to say that Shandy’s presence was
required at the gates, and that worthy, with a sorrowing and regretful
glance at the unemptied flagon, left the room.

For a few moments, the two men sat in meditative silence, which was
presently broken by the old man of Torn.

“Priest,” he said, “thy ways with my son are, as you know, not to my
liking. It were needless that he should have wasted so much precious
time from swordplay to learn the useless art of letters. Of what
benefit may a knowledge of Latin be to one whose doom looms large
before him. It may be years and again it may be but months, but as sure
as there be a devil in hell, Norman of Torn will swing from a king’s
gibbet. And thou knowst it, and he too, as well as I. The things which
thou hast taught him be above his station, and the hopes and ambitions
they inspire will but make his end the bitterer for him. Of late I have
noted that he rides upon the highway with less enthusiasm than was his
wont, but he has gone too far ever to go back now; nor is there where
to go back to. What has he ever been other than outcast and outlaw?
What hopes could you have engendered in his breast greater than to be
hated and feared among his blood enemies?”

“I know not thy reasons, old man,” replied the priest, “for devoting
thy life to the ruining of his, and what I guess at be such as I dare
not voice; but let us understand each other once and for all. For all
thou dost and hast done to blight and curse the nobleness of his
nature, I have done and shall continue to do all in my power to
controvert. As thou hast been his bad angel, so shall I try to be his
good angel, and when all is said and done and Norman of Torn swings
from the King’s gibbet, as I only too well fear he must, there will be
more to mourn his loss than there be to curse him.

“His friends are from the ranks of the lowly, but so too were the
friends and followers of our Dear Lord Jesus; so that shall be more
greatly to his honor than had he preyed upon the already unfortunate.

“Women have never been his prey; that also will be spoken of to his
honor when he is gone, and that he has been cruel to men will be
forgotten in the greater glory of his mercy to the weak.

“Whatever be thy object: whether revenge or the natural bent of a cruel
and degraded mind, I know not; but if any be curst because of the
Outlaw of Torn, it will be thou—I had almost said, unnatural father;
but I do not believe a single drop of thy debased blood flows in the
veins of him thou callest son.”

The grim old man of Torn had sat motionless throughout this indictment,
his face, somewhat pale, was drawn into lines of malevolent hatred and
rage, but he permitted Father Claude to finish without interruption.

“Thou hast made thyself and thy opinions quite clear,” he said
bitterly, “but I be glad to know just how thou standeth. In the past
there has been peace between us, though no love; now let us both
understand that it be war and hate. My life work is cut out for me.
Others, like thyself, have stood in my path, yet today I am here, but
where are they? Dost understand me, priest?” And the old man leaned far
across the table so that his eyes, burning with an insane fire of
venom, blazed but a few inches from those of the priest.

Father Claude returned the look with calm level gaze.

“I understand,” he said, and, rising, left the castle.

Shortly after he had reached his cottage, a loud knock sounded at the
door, which immediately swung open without waiting the formality of
permission. Father Claude looked up to see the tall figure of Norman of
Torn, and his face lighted with a pleased smile of welcome.

“Greetings, my son,” said the priest.

“And to thee, Father,” replied the outlaw. “And what may be the news of
Torn. I have been absent for several days. Is all well at the castle?”

“All be well at the castle,” replied Father Claude, “if by that you
mean have none been captured or hanged for their murders. Ah, my boy,
why wilt thou not give up this wicked life of thine? It has never been
my way to scold or chide thee, yet always has my heart ached for each
crime laid at the door of Norman of Torn.”

“Come, come, Father,” replied the outlaw, “what do I that I have not
good example for from the barons, and the King, and Holy Church.
Murder, theft, rapine! Passeth a day over England which sees not one or
all perpetrated in the name of some of these?

“Be it wicked for Norman of Torn to prey upon the wolf, yet righteous
for the wolf to tear the sheep? Methinks not. Only do I collect from
those who have more than they need, from my natural enemies; while they
prey upon those who have naught.

“Yet,” and his manner suddenly changed, “I do not love it, Father. That
thou know. I would that there might be some way out of it, but there is
none.

“If I told you why I wished it, you would be surprised indeed, nor can
I myself understand; but, of a verity, my greatest wish to be out of
this life is due to the fact that I crave the association of those very
enemies I have been taught to hate. But it is too late, Father, there
can be but one end and that the lower end of a hempen rope.”

“No, my son, there is another way, an honorable way,” replied the good
Father. “In some foreign clime there be opportunities abundant for such
as thee. France offers a magnificent future to such a soldier as Norman
of Torn. In the court of Louis, you would take your place among the
highest of the land. You be rich and brave and handsome. Nay do not
raise your hand. You be all these and more, for you have learning far
beyond the majority of nobles, and you have a good heart and a true
chivalry of character. With such wondrous gifts, naught could bar your
way to the highest pinnacles of power and glory, while here you have no
future beyond the halter. Canst thou hesitate, Norman of Torn?”

The young man stood silent for a moment, then he drew his hand across
his eyes as though to brush away a vision.

“There be a reason, Father, why I must remain in England for a time at
least, though the picture you put is indeed wondrous alluring.”

And the reason was Bertrade de Montfort.




CHAPTER IX


The visit of Bertrade de Montfort with her friend Mary de Stutevill was
drawing to a close. Three weeks had passed since Roger de Conde had
ridden out from the portals of Stutevill and many times the handsome
young knight’s name had been on the lips of his fair hostess and her
fairer friend.

Today the two girls roamed slowly through the gardens of the great
court, their arms about each other’s waists, pouring the last
confidences into each other’s ears, for tomorrow Bertrade had elected
to return to Leicester.

“Methinks thou be very rash indeed, my Bertrade,” said Mary. “Were my
father here he would, I am sure, not permit thee to leave with only the
small escort which we be able to give.”

“Fear not, Mary,” replied Bertrade. “Five of thy father’s knights be
ample protection for so short a journey. By evening it will have been
accomplished; and, as the only one I fear in these parts received such
a sound setback from Roger de Conde recently, I do not think he will
venture again to molest me.”

“But what about the Devil of Torn, Bertrade?” urged Mary. “Only
yestereve, you wot, one of Lord de Grey’s men-at-arms came limping to
us with the news of the awful carnage the foul fiend had wrought on his
master’s household. He be abroad, Bertrade, and I can think of naught
more horrible than to fall into his hands.”

“Why, Mary, thou didst but recently say thy very self that Norman of
Torn was most courteous to thee when he sacked this, thy father’s
castle. How be it thou so soon hast changed thy mind?”

“Yes, Bertrade, he was indeed respectful then, but who knows what
horrid freak his mind may take, and they do say that he be cruel beyond
compare. Again, forget not that thou be Leicester’s daughter and
Henry’s niece; against both of whom the Outlaw of Torn openly swears
his hatred and his vengeance. Oh, Bertrade, wait but for a day or so, I
be sure my father must return ere then, and fifty knights shall
accompany thee instead of five.”

“What be fifty knights against Norman of Torn, Mary? Thy reasoning is
on a parity with thy fears, both have flown wide of the mark.

“If I am to meet with this wild ruffian, it were better that five
knights were sacrificed than fifty, for either number would be but a
mouthful to that horrid horde of unhung murderers. No, Mary, I shall
start tomorrow and your good knights shall return the following day
with the best of word from me.”

“If thou wilt, thou wilt,” cried Mary petulantly. “Indeed it were plain
that thou be a De Montfort; that race whose historic bravery be second
only to their historic stubbornness.”

Bertrade de Montfort laughed, and kissed her friend upon the cheek.

“Mayhap I shall find the brave Roger de Conde again upon the highroad
to protect me. Then indeed shall I send back your five knights, for of
a truth, his blade is more powerful than that of any ten men I e’er saw
fight before.”

“Methinks,” said Mary, still peeved at her friend’s determination to
leave on the morrow, “that should you meet the doughty Sir Roger all
unarmed, that still would you send back my father’s knights.”

Bertrade flushed, and then bit her lip as she felt the warm blood mount
to her cheek.

“Thou be a fool, Mary,” she said.

Mary broke into a joyful, teasing laugh; hugely enjoying the
discomfiture of the admission the tell-tale flush proclaimed.

“Ah, I did but guess how thy heart and thy mind tended, Bertrade; but
now I see that I divined all too truly. He be indeed good to look upon,
but what knowest thou of him?”

“Hush, Mary!” commanded Bertrade. “Thou know not what thou sayest. I
would not wipe my feet upon him, I care naught whatever for him, and
then—it has been three weeks since he rode out from Stutevill and no
word hath he sent.”

“Oh, ho,” cried the little plague, “so there lies the wind? My Lady
would not wipe her feet upon him, but she be sore vexed that he has
sent her no word. Mon Dieu, but thou hast strange notions, Bertrade.”

“I will not talk with you, Mary,” cried Bertrade, stamping her sandaled
foot, and with a toss of her pretty head she turned abruptly toward the
castle.

In a small chamber in the castle of Colfax two men sat at opposite
sides of a little table. The one, Peter of Colfax, was short and very
stout. His red, bloated face, bleary eyes and bulbous nose bespoke the
manner of his life; while his thick lips, the lower hanging large and
flabby over his receding chin, indicated the base passions to which his
life had been given. His companion was a little, grim, gray man but his
suit of armor and closed helm gave no hint to his host of whom his
guest might be. It was the little armored man who was speaking.

“Is it not enough that I offer to aid you, Sir Peter,” he said, “that
you must have my reasons? Let it go that my hate of Leicester be the
passion which moves me. Thou failed in thy attempt to capture the
maiden; give me ten knights and I will bring her to you.”

“How knowest thou she rides out tomorrow for her father’s castle?”
asked Peter of Colfax.

“That again be no concern of thine, my friend, but I do know it, and,
if thou wouldst have her, be quick, for we should ride out tonight that
we may take our positions by the highway in ample time tomorrow.”

Still Peter of Colfax hesitated, he feared this might be a ruse of
Leicester’s to catch him in some trap. He did not know his guest—the
fellow might want the girl for himself and be taking this method of
obtaining the necessary assistance to capture her.

“Come,” said the little, armored man irritably. “I cannot bide here
forever. Make up thy mind; it be nothing to me other than my revenge,
and if thou wilt not do it, I shall hire the necessary ruffians and
then not even thou shalt see Bertrade de Montfort more.”

This last threat decided the Baron.

“It is agreed,” he said. “The men shall ride out with you in half an
hour. Wait below in the courtyard.”

When the little man had left the apartment, Peter of Colfax summoned
his squire whom he had send to him at once one of his faithful
henchmen.

“Guy,” said Peter of Colfax, as the man entered, “ye made a rare fizzle
of a piece of business some weeks ago. Ye wot of which I speak?”

“Yes, My Lord.”

“It chances that on the morrow ye may have opportunity to retrieve thy
blunder. Ride out with ten men where the stranger who waits in the
courtyard below shall lead ye, and come not back without that which ye
lost to a handful of men before. You understand?”

“Yes, My Lord!”

“And, Guy, I half mistrust this fellow who hath offered to assist us.
At the first sign of treachery, fall upon him with all thy men and slay
him. Tell the others that these be my orders.”

“Yes, My Lord. When do we ride?”

“At once. You may go.”

The morning that Bertrade de Montfort had chosen to return to her
father’s castle dawned gray and threatening. In vain did Mary de
Stutevill plead with her friend to give up the idea of setting out upon
such a dismal day and without sufficient escort, but Bertrade de
Montfort was firm.

“Already have I overstayed my time three days, and it is not lightly
that even I, his daughter, fail in obedience to Simon de Montfort. I
shall have enough to account for as it be. Do not urge me to add even
one more day to my excuses. And again, perchance, my mother and my
father may be sore distressed by my continued absence. No, Mary, I must
ride today.” And so she did, with the five knights that could be spared
from the castle’s defence.

Scarcely half an hour had elapsed before a cold drizzle set in, so that
they were indeed a sorry company that splashed along the muddy road,
wrapped in mantle and surcoat. As they proceeded, the rain and wind
increased in volume, until it was being driven into their faces in such
blinding gusts that they must needs keep their eyes closed and trust to
the instincts of their mounts.

Less than half the journey had been accomplished. They were winding
across a little hollow toward a low ridge covered with dense forest,
into the somber shadows of which the road wound. There was a glint of
armor among the drenched foliage, but the rain-buffeted eyes of the
riders saw it not. On they came, their patient horses plodding slowly
through the sticky road and hurtling storm.

Now they were halfway up the ridge’s side. There was a movement in the
dark shadows of the grim wood, and then, without cry or warning, a band
of steel-clad horsemen broke forth with couched spears. Charging at
full run down upon them, they overthrew three of the girl’s escort
before a blow could be struck in her defense. Her two remaining
guardians wheeled to meet the return attack, and nobly did they acquit
themselves, for it took the entire eleven who were pitted against them
to overcome and slay the two.

In the melee, none had noticed the girl, but presently one of her
assailants, a little, grim, gray man, discovered that she had put spurs
to her palfrey and escaped. Calling to his companions he set out at a
rapid pace in pursuit.

Reckless of the slippery road and the blinding rain, Bertrade de
Montfort urged her mount into a wild run, for she had recognized the
arms of Peter of Colfax on the shields of several of the attacking
party.

Nobly, the beautiful Arab bent to her call for speed. The great beasts
of her pursuers, bred in Normandy and Flanders, might have been
tethered in their stalls for all the chance they had of overtaking the
flying white steed that fairly split the gray rain as lightning flies
through the clouds.

But for the fiendish cunning of the little grim, gray man’s foresight,
Bertrade de Montfort would have made good her escape that day. As it
was, however, her fleet mount had carried her but two hundred yards
ere, in the midst of the dark wood, she ran full upon a rope stretched
across the roadway between two trees.

As the horse fell, with a terrible lunge, tripped by the stout rope,
Bertrade de Montfort was thrown far before him, where she lay, a
little, limp bedraggled figure, in the mud of the road.

There they found her. The little, grim, gray man did not even dismount,
so indifferent was he to her fate; dead or in the hands of Peter of
Colfax, it was all the same to him. In either event, his purpose would
be accomplished, and Bertrade de Montfort would no longer lure Norman
of Torn from the path he had laid out for him.

That such an eventuality threatened, he knew from one Spizo the
Spaniard, the single traitor in the service of Norman of Torn, whose
mean aid the little grim, gray man had purchased since many months to
spy upon the comings and goings of the great outlaw.

The men of Peter of Colfax gathered up the lifeless form of Bertrade de
Montfort and placed it across the saddle before one of their number.

“Come,” said the man called Guy, “if there be life left in her, we must
hasten to Sir Peter before it be extinct.”

“I leave ye here,” said the little old man. “My part of the business is
done.”

And so he sat watching them until they had disappeared in the forest
toward the castle of Colfax.

Then he rode back to the scene of the encounter where lay the five
knights of Sir John de Stutevill. Three were already dead, the other
two, sorely but not mortally wounded, lay groaning by the roadside.

The little grim, gray man dismounted as he came abreast of them and,
with his long sword, silently finished the two wounded men. Then,
drawing his dagger, he made a mark upon the dead foreheads of each of
the five, and mounting, rode rapidly toward Torn.

“And if one fact be not enough,” he muttered, “that mark upon the dead
will quite effectually stop further intercourse between the houses of
Torn and Leicester.”

Henry de Montfort, son of Simon, rode fast and furious at the head of a
dozen of his father’s knights on the road to Stutevill.

Bertrade de Montfort was so long overdue that the Earl and Princess
Eleanor, his wife, filled with grave apprehensions, had posted their
oldest son off to the castle of John de Stutevill to fetch her home.

With the wind and rain at their backs, the little party rode rapidly
along the muddy road, until late in the afternoon they came upon a
white palfrey standing huddled beneath a great oak, his arched back
toward the driving storm.

“By God,” cried De Montfort, “tis my sister’s own Abdul. There be
something wrong here indeed.” But a rapid search of the vicinity, and
loud calls brought no further evidence of the girl’s whereabouts, so
they pressed on toward Stutevill.

Some two miles beyond the spot where the white palfrey had been found,
they came upon the dead bodies of the five knights who had accompanied
Bertrade from Stutevill.

Dismounting, Henry de Montfort examined the bodies of the fallen men.
The arms upon shield and helm confirmed his first fear that these had
been Bertrade’s escort from Stutevill.

As he bent over them to see if he recognized any of the knights, there
stared up into his face from the foreheads of the dead men the dreaded
sign, NT, scratched there with a dagger’s point.

“The curse of God be on him!” cried De Montfort. “It be the work of the
Devil of Torn, my gentlemen,” he said to his followers. “Come, we need
no further guide to our destination.” And, remounting, the little party
spurred back toward Torn.

When Bertrade de Montfort regained her senses, she was in bed in a
strange room, and above her bent an old woman; a repulsive, toothless
old woman, whose smile was but a fangless snarl.

“Ho, ho!” she croaked. “The bride waketh. I told My Lord that it would
take more than a tumble in the mud to kill a De Montfort. Come, come,
now, arise and clothe thyself, for the handsome bridegroom can scarce
restrain his eager desire to fold thee in his arms. Below in the great
hall he paces to and fro, the red blood mantling his beauteous
countenance.”

“Who be ye?” cried Bertrade de Montfort, her mind still dazed from the
effects of her fall. “Where am I?” and then, “O, Mon Dieu!” as she
remembered the events of the afternoon; and the arms of Colfax upon the
shields of the attacking party. In an instant she realized the horror
of her predicament; its utter hopelessness.

Beast though he was, Peter of Colfax stood high in the favor of the
King; and the fact that she was his niece would scarce aid her cause
with Henry, for it was more than counter-balanced by the fact that she
was the daughter of Simon de Montfort, whom he feared and hated.

In the corridor without, she heard the heavy tramp of approaching feet,
and presently a man’s voice at the door.

“Within there, Coll! Has the damsel awakened from her swoon?”

“Yes, Sir Peter,” replied the old woman. “I was but just urging her to
arise and clothe herself, saying that you awaited her below.”

“Haste then, My Lady Bertrade,” called the man, “no harm will be done
thee if thou showest the good sense I give thee credit for. I will
await thee in the great hall, or, if thou prefer, will come to thee
here.”

The girl paled, more in loathing and contempt than in fear, but the
tones of her answer were calm and level.

“I will see thee below, Sir Peter, anon,” and rising, she hastened to
dress, while the receding footsteps of the Baron diminished down the
stairway which led from the tower room in which she was imprisoned.

The old woman attempted to draw her into conversation, but the girl
would not talk. Her whole mind was devoted to weighing each possible
means of escape.

A half hour later, she entered the great hall of the castle of Peter of
Colfax. The room was empty. Little change had been wrought in the
apartment since the days of Ethelwolf. As the girl’s glance ranged the
hall in search of her jailer it rested upon the narrow, unglazed
windows beyond which lay freedom. Would she ever again breathe God’s
pure air outside these stifling walls? These grimy hateful walls! Black
as the inky rafters and wainscot except for occasional splotches a few
shades less begrimed, where repairs had been made. As her eyes fell
upon the trophies of war and chase which hung there her lips curled in
scorn, for she knew that they were acquisitions by inheritance rather
than by the personal prowess of the present master of Colfax.

A single cresset lighted the chamber, while the flickering light from a
small wood fire upon one of the two great hearths seemed rather to
accentuate the dim shadows of the place.

Bertrade crossed the room and leaned against a massive oak table,
blackened by age and hard usage to the color of the beams above, dented
and nicked by the pounding of huge drinking horns and heavy swords when
wild and lusty brawlers had been moved to applause by the lay of some
wandering minstrel, or the sterner call of their mighty chieftains for
the oath of fealty.

Her wandering eyes took in the dozen benches and the few rude, heavy
chairs which completed the rough furnishings of this rough room, and
she shuddered. One little foot tapped sullenly upon the disordered
floor which was littered with a miscellany of rushes interspread with
such bones and scraps of food as the dogs had rejected or overlooked.

But to none of these surroundings did Bertrade de Montfort give but
passing heed; she looked for the man she sought that she might quickly
have the encounter over and learn what fate the future held in store
for her.

Her quick glance had shown her that the room was quite empty, and that
in addition to the main doorway at the lower end of the apartment,
where she had entered, there was but one other door leading from the
hall. This was at one side, and as it stood ajar she could see that it
led into a small room, apparently a bedchamber.

As she stood facing the main doorway, a panel opened quietly behind her
and directly back of where the thrones had stood in past times. From
the black mouth of the aperture stepped Peter of Colfax. Silently, he
closed the panel after him, and with soundless steps, advanced toward
the girl. At the edge of the raised dais he halted, rattling his sword
to attract her attention.

If his aim had been to unnerve her by the suddenness and mystery of his
appearance, he failed signally, for she did not even turn her head as
she said:

“What explanation hast thou to make, Sir Peter, for this base treachery
against thy neighbor’s daughter and thy sovereign’s niece?”

“When fond hearts be thwarted by a cruel parent,” replied the
pot-bellied old beast in a soft and fawning tone, “love must still find
its way; and so thy gallant swain hath dared the wrath of thy great
father and majestic uncle, and lays his heart at thy feet, O beauteous
Bertrade, knowing full well that thine hath been hungering after it
since we did first avow our love to thy hard-hearted sire. See, I kneel
to thee, my dove!” And with cracking joints the fat baron plumped down
upon his marrow bones.

Bertrade turned and as she saw him her haughty countenance relaxed into
a sneering smile.

“Thou art a fool, Sir Peter,” she said, “and, at that, the worst
species of fool—an ancient fool. It is useless to pursue thy cause, for
I will have none of thee. Let me hence, if thou be a gentleman, and no
word of what hath transpired shall ever pass my lips. But let me go,
’tis all I ask, and it is useless to detain me for I cannot give what
you would have. I do not love you, nor ever can I.”

Her first words had caused the red of humiliation to mottle his already
ruby visage to a semblance of purple, and now, as he attempted to rise
with dignity, he was still further covered with confusion by the fact
that his huge stomach made it necessary for him to go upon all fours
before he could rise, so that he got up much after the manner of a cow,
raising his stern high in air in a most ludicrous fashion. As he gained
his feet he saw the girl turn her head from him to hide the laughter on
her face.

“Return to thy chamber,” he thundered. “I will give thee until tomorrow
to decide whether thou wilt accept Peter of Colfax as thy husband, or
take another position in his household which will bar thee for all time
from the society of thy kind.”

The girl turned toward him, the laugh still playing on her lips.

“I will be wife to no buffoon; to no clumsy old clown; to no debauched,
degraded parody of a man. And as for thy other rash threat, thou hast
not the guts to put thy wishes into deeds, thou craven coward, for well
ye know that Simon de Montfort would cut out thy foul heart with his
own hand if he ever suspected thou wert guilty of speaking of such to
me, his daughter.” And Bertrade de Montfort swept from the great hall,
and mounted to her tower chamber in the ancient Saxon stronghold of
Colfax.

The old woman kept watch over her during the night and until late the
following afternoon, when Peter of Colfax summoned his prisoner before
him once more. So terribly had the old hag played upon the girl’s fears
that she felt fully certain that the Baron was quite equal to his dire
threat, and so she had again been casting about for some means of
escape or delay.

The room in which she was imprisoned was in the west tower of the
castle, fully a hundred feet above the moat, which the single embrasure
overlooked. There was, therefore, no avenue of escape in this
direction. The solitary door was furnished with huge oaken bars, and
itself composed of mighty planks of the same wood, cross barred with
iron.

If she could but get the old woman out, thought Bertrade, she could
barricade herself within and thus delay, at least, her impending fate
in the hope that succor might come from some source. But her most
subtle wiles proved ineffectual in ridding her, even for a moment, of
her harpy jailer; and now that the final summons had come, she was
beside herself for a lack of means to thwart her captor.

Her dagger had been taken from her, but one hung from the girdle of the
old woman and this Bertrade determined to have.

Feigning trouble with the buckle of her own girdle, she called upon the
old woman to aid her, and as the hag bent her head close to the girl’s
body to see what was wrong with the girdle clasp, Bertrade reached
quickly to her side and snatched the weapon from its sheath. Quickly
she sprang back from the old woman who, with a cry of anger and alarm,
rushed upon her.

“Back!” cried the girl. “Stand back, old hag, or thou shalt feel the
length of thine own blade.”

The woman hesitated and then fell to cursing and blaspheming in a most
horrible manner, at the same time calling for help.

Bertrade backed to the door, commanding the old woman to remain where
she was, on pain of death, and quickly dropped the mighty bars into
place. Scarcely had the last great bolt been slipped than Peter of
Colfax, with a dozen servants and men-at-arms, were pounding loudly
upon the outside.

“What’s wrong within, Coll,” cried the Baron.

“The wench has wrested my dagger from me and is murdering me,” shrieked
the old woman.

“An’ that I will truly do, Peter of Colfax,” spoke Bertrade, “if you do
not immediately send for my friends to conduct me from thy castle, for
I will not step my foot from this room until I know that mine own
people stand without.”

Peter of Colfax pled and threatened, commanded and coaxed, but all in
vain. So passed the afternoon, and as darkness settled upon the castle
the Baron desisted from his attempts, intending to starve his prisoner
out.

Within the little room, Bertrade de Montfort sat upon a bench guarding
her prisoner, from whom she did not dare move her eyes for a single
second. All that long night she sat thus, and when morning dawned, it
found her position unchanged, her tired eyes still fixed upon the hag.

Early in the morning, Peter of Colfax resumed his endeavors to persuade
her to come out; he even admitted defeat and promised her safe conduct
to her father’s castle, but Bertrade de Montfort was not one to be
fooled by his lying tongue.

“Then will I starve you out,” he cried at length.

“Gladly will I starve in preference to falling into thy foul hands,”
replied the girl. “But thy old servant here will starve first, for she
be very old and not so strong as I. Therefore, how will it profit you
to kill two and still be robbed of thy prey?”

Peter of Colfax entertained no doubt but that his fair prisoner would
carry out her threat and so he set his men to work with cold chisels,
axes and saws upon the huge door.

For hours, they labored upon that mighty work of defence, and it was
late at night ere they made a little opening large enough to admit a
hand and arm, but the first one intruded within the room to raise the
bars was drawn quickly back with a howl of pain from its owner. Thus
the keen dagger in the girl’s hand put an end to all hopes of entering
without completely demolishing the door.

To this work, the men without then set themselves diligently while
Peter of Colfax renewed his entreaties, through the small opening they
had made. Bertrade replied but once.

“Seest thou this poniard?” she asked. “When that door falls, this point
enters my heart. There is nothing beyond that door, with thou,
poltroon, to which death in this little chamber would not be
preferable.”

As she spoke, she turned toward the man she was addressing, for the
first time during all those weary, hideous hours removing her glance
from the old hag. It was enough. Silently, but with the quickness of a
tigress the old woman was upon her back, one claw-like paw grasping the
wrist which held the dagger.

“Quick, My Lord!” she shrieked, “the bolts, quick.”

Instantly Peter of Colfax ran his arm through the tiny opening in the
door and a second later four of his men rushed to the aid of the old
woman.

Easily they wrested the dagger from Bertrade’s fingers, and at the
Baron’s bidding, they dragged her to the great hall below.

As his retainers left the room at his command, Peter of Colfax strode
back and forth upon the rushes which strewed the floor. Finally he
stopped before the girl standing rigid in the center of the room.

“Hast come to thy senses yet, Bertrade de Montfort?” he asked angrily.
“I have offered you your choice; to be the honored wife of Peter of
Colfax, or, by force, his mistress. The good priest waits without, what
be your answer now?”

“The same as it has been these past two days,” she replied with haughty
scorn. “The same that it shall always be. I will be neither wife nor
mistress to a coward; a hideous, abhorrent pig of a man. I would die,
it seems, if I felt the touch of your hand upon me. You do not dare to
touch me, you craven. I, the daughter of an earl, the niece of a king,
wed to the warty toad, Peter of Colfax!”

“Hold, chit!” cried the Baron, livid with rage. “You have gone too far.
Enough of this; and you love me not now, I shall learn you to love ere
the sun rises.” And with a vile oath he grasped the girl roughly by the
arm, and dragged her toward the little doorway at the side of the room.




CHAPTER X


For three weeks after his meeting with Bertrade de Montfort and his
sojourn at the castle of John de Stutevill, Norman of Torn was busy
with his wild horde in reducing and sacking the castle of John de Grey,
a royalist baron who had captured and hanged two of the outlaw’s
fighting men; and never again after his meeting with the daughter of
the chief of the barons did Norman of Torn raise a hand against the
rebels or their friends.

Shortly after his return to Torn, following the successful outcome of
his expedition, the watch upon the tower reported the approach of a
dozen armed knights. Norman sent Red Shandy to the outer walls to learn
the mission of the party, for visitors seldom came to this inaccessible
and unhospitable fortress; and he well knew that no party of a dozen
knights would venture with hostile intent within the clutches of his
great band of villains.

The great red giant soon returned to say that it was Henry de Montfort,
oldest son of the Earl of Leicester, who had come under a flag of truce
and would have speech with the master of Torn.

“Admit them, Shandy,” commanded Norman of Torn, “I will speak with them
here.”

When the party, a few moments later, was ushered into his presence it
found itself facing a mailed knight with drawn visor.

Henry de Montfort advanced with haughty dignity until he faced the
outlaw.

“Be ye Norman of Torn?” he asked. And, did he try to conceal the hatred
and loathing which he felt, he was poorly successful.

“They call me so,” replied the visored knight. “And what may bring a De
Montfort after so many years to visit his old neighbor?”

“Well ye know what brings me, Norman of Torn,” replied the young man.
“It is useless to waste words, and we cannot resort to arms, for you
have us entirely in your power. Name your price and it shall be paid,
only be quick and let me hence with my sister.”

“What wild words be these, Henry de Montfort? Your sister! What mean
you?”

“Yes, my sister Bertrade, whom you stole upon the highroad two days
since, after murdering the knights of John de Stutevill who were
fetching her home from a visit upon the Baron’s daughter. We know that
it was you for the foreheads of the dead men bore your devil’s mark.”

“Shandy!” roared Norman of Torn. “WHAT MEANS THIS? Who has been upon
the road, attacking women, in my absence? You were here and in charge
during my visit to my Lord de Grey. As you value your hide, Shandy, the
truth!”

“Since you laid me low in the hut of the good priest, I have served you
well, Norman of Torn. You should know my loyalty by this time and that
never have I lied to you. No man of yours has done this thing, nor is
it the first time that vile scoundrels have placed your mark upon their
dead that they might thus escape suspicion, themselves.”

“Henry de Montfort,” said Norman of Torn, turning to his visitor, “we
of Torn bear no savory name, that I know full well, but no man may say
that we unsheath our swords against women. Your sister is not here. I
give you the word of honor of Norman of Torn. Is it not enough?”

“They say you never lie,” replied De Montfort. “Would to God I knew who
had done this thing, or which way to search for my sister.”

Norman of Torn made no reply, his thoughts were in wild confusion, and
it was with difficulty that he hid the fierce anxiety of his heart or
his rage against the perpetrators of this dastardly act which tore his
whole being.

In silence De Montfort turned and left, nor had his party scarce passed
the drawbridge ere the castle of Torn was filled with hurrying men and
the noise and uproar of a sudden call to arms.

Some thirty minutes later, five hundred iron-clad horses carried their
mailed riders beneath the portcullis of the grim pile, and Norman the
Devil, riding at their head, spurred rapidly in the direction of the
castle of Peter of Colfax.

The great troop, winding down the rocky trail from Torn’s buttressed
gates, presented a picture of wild barbaric splendor.

The armor of the men was of every style and metal from the ancient
banded mail of the Saxon to the richly ornamented plate armor of Milan.
Gold and silver and precious stones set in plumed crest and breastplate
and shield, and even in the steel spiked chamfrons of the horses’ head
armor showed the rich loot which had fallen to the portion of Norman of
Torn’s wild raiders.

Fluttering pennons streamed from five hundred lance points, and the
gray banner of Torn, with the black falcon’s wing, flew above each of
the five companies. The great linden wood shields of the men were
covered with gray leather and, in the upper right hand corner of each,
was the black falcon’s wing. The surcoats of the riders were also
uniform, being of dark gray villosa faced with black wolf skin, so that
notwithstanding the richness of the armor and the horse trappings,
there was a grim, gray warlike appearance to these wild companies that
comported well with their reputation.

Recruited from all ranks of society and from every civilized country of
Europe, the great horde of Torn numbered in its ten companies serf and
noble; Briton, Saxon, Norman, Dane, German, Italian and French, Scot,
Pict and Irish.

Here birth caused no distinctions; the escaped serf, with the gall
marks of his brass collar still visible about his neck, rode shoulder
to shoulder with the outlawed scion of a noble house. The only
requisites for admission to the troop were willingness and ability to
fight, and an oath to obey the laws made by Norman of Torn.

The little army was divided into ten companies of one hundred men, each
company captained by a fighter of proven worth and ability.

Our old friends Red Shandy, and John and James Flory led the first
three companies, the remaining seven being under command of other
seasoned veterans of a thousand fights.

One Eye Kanty, owing to his early trade, held the always important post
of chief armorer, while Peter the Hermit, the last of the five
cut-throats whom Norman of Torn had bested that day, six years before,
in the hut of Father Claude, had become majordomo of the great castle
of Torn, which post included also the vital functions of quartermaster
and commissary.

The old man of Torn attended to the training of serf and squire in the
art of war, for it was ever necessary to fill the gaps made in the
companies, due to their constant encounters upon the highroad and their
battles at the taking of some feudal castle; in which they did not
always come off unscathed, though usually victorious.

Today, as they wound west across the valley, Norman of Torn rode at the
head of the cavalcade, which strung out behind him in a long column.
Above his gray steel armor, a falcon’s wing rose from his crest. It was
the insignia which always marked him to his men in the midst of battle.
Where it waved might always be found the fighting and the honors, and
about it they were wont to rally.

Beside Norman of Torn rode the grim, gray, old man, silent and
taciturn; nursing his deep hatred in the depths of his malign brain.

At the head of their respective companies rode the five captains: Red
Shandy; John Flory; Edwild the Serf; Emilio, Count de Gropello of
Italy; and Sieur Ralph de la Campnee, of France.

The hamlets and huts which they passed in the morning and early
afternoon brought forth men, women and children to cheer and wave
God-speed to them; but as they passed farther from the vicinity of
Torn, where the black falcon wing was known more by the ferocity of its
name than by the kindly deeds of the great outlaw to the lowly of his
neighborhood, they saw only closed and barred doors with an occasional
frightened face peering from a tiny window.

It was midnight ere they sighted the black towers of Colfax silhouetted
against the starry sky. Drawing his men into the shadows of the forest
a half mile from the castle, Norman of Torn rode forward with Shandy
and some fifty men to a point as close as they could come without being
observed. Here they dismounted and Norman of Torn crept stealthily
forward alone.

Taking advantage of every cover, he approached to the very shadows of
the great gate without being detected. In the castle, a light shone
dimly from the windows of the great hall, but no other sign of life was
apparent. To his intense surprise, Norman of Torn found the drawbridge
lowered and no sign of watchmen at the gate or upon the walls.

As he had sacked this castle some two years since, he was familiar with
its internal plan, and so he knew that through the scullery he could
reach a small antechamber above, which let directly into the great
hall.

And so it happened that, as Peter of Colfax wheeled toward the door of
the little room, he stopped short in terror, for there before him stood
a strange knight in armor, with lowered visor and drawn sword. The girl
saw him too, and a look of hope and renewed courage overspread her
face.

“Draw!” commanded a low voice in English, “unless you prefer to pray,
for you are about to die.”

“Who be ye, varlet?” cried the Baron. “Ho, John! Ho, Guy! To the
rescue, quick!” he shrieked, and drawing his sword, he attempted to
back quickly toward the main doorway of the hall; but the man in armor
was upon him and forcing him to fight ere he had taken three steps.

It had been short shrift for Peter of Colfax that night had not John
and Guy and another of his henchmen rushed into the room with drawn
swords.

“Ware! Sir Knight,” cried the girl, as she saw the three knaves rushing
to the aid of their master.

Turning to meet their assault, the knight was forced to abandon the
terror-stricken Baron for an instant, and again he had made for the
doorway bent only on escape; but the girl had divined his intentions,
and running quickly to the entrance, she turned the great lock and
threw the key with all her might to the far corner of the hall. In an
instant she regretted her act, for she saw that where she might have
reduced her rescuer’s opponents by at least one, she had now forced the
cowardly Baron to remain, and nothing fights more fiercely than a
cornered rat.

The knight was holding his own splendidly with the three retainers, and
for an instant Bertrade de Montfort stood spell-bound by the exhibition
of swordsmanship she was witnessing.

Fighting the three alternately, in pairs and again all at the same
time, the silent knight, though weighted by his heavy armor, forced
them steadily back; his flashing blade seeming to weave a net of steel
about them. Suddenly his sword stopped just for an instant, stopped in
the heart of one of his opponents, and as the man lunged to the floor,
it was flashing again close to the breasts of the two remaining
men-at-arms.

Another went down less than ten seconds later, and then the girl’s
attention was called to the face of the horrified Baron; Peter of
Colfax was moving—slowly and cautiously, he was creeping, from behind,
toward the visored knight, and in his raised hand flashed a sharp
dagger.

For an instant, the girl stood frozen with horror, unable to move a
finger or to cry out; but only for an instant, and then, regaining
control of her muscles, she stooped quickly and, grasping a heavy
foot-stool, hurled it full at Peter of Colfax.

It struck him below the knees and toppled him to the floor just as the
knight’s sword passed through the throat of his final antagonist.

As the Baron fell, he struck heavily upon a table which supported the
only lighted cresset within the chamber. In an instant, all was
darkness. There was a rapid shuffling sound as of the scurrying of rats
and then the quiet of the tomb settled upon the great hall.

“Are you safe and unhurt, my Lady Bertrade?” asked a grave English
voice out of the darkness.

“Quite, Sir Knight,” she replied, “and you?”

“Not a scratch, but where is our good friend the Baron?”

“He lay here upon the floor but a moment since, and carried a thin long
dagger in his hand. Have a care, Sir Knight, he may even now be upon
you.”

The knight did not answer, but she heard him moving boldly about the
room. Soon he had found another lamp and made a light. As its feeble
rays slowly penetrated the black gloom, the girl saw the bodies of the
three men-at-arms, the overturned table and lamp, and the visored
knight; but Peter of Colfax was gone.

The knight perceived his absence at the same time, but he only laughed
a low, grim laugh.

“He will not go far, My Lady Bertrade,” he said.

“How know you my name?” she asked. “Who may you be? I do not recognize
your armor, and your breastplate bears no arms.”

He did not answer at once and her heart rose in her breast as it filled
with the hope that her brave rescuer might be the same Roger de Conde
who had saved her from the hirelings of Peter of Colfax but a few short
weeks since. Surely it was the same straight and mighty figure, and
there was the marvelous swordplay as well. It must be he, and yet Roger
de Conde had spoken no English while this man spoke it well, though, it
was true, with a slight French accent.

“My Lady Bertrade, I be Norman of Torn,” said the visored knight with
quiet dignity.

The girl’s heart sank, and a feeling of cold fear crept through her.
For years that name had been the symbol of fierce cruelty, and mad
hatred against her kind. Little children were frightened into obedience
by the vaguest hint that the Devil of Torn would get them, and grown
men had come to whisper the name with grim, set lips.

“Norman of Torn!” she whispered. “May God have mercy on my soul!”

Beneath the visored helm, a wave of pain and sorrow surged across the
countenance of the outlaw, and a little shudder, as of a chill of
hopelessness, shook his giant frame.

“You need not fear, My Lady,” he said sadly. “You shall be in your
father’s castle of Leicester ere the sun marks noon. And you will be
safer under the protection of the hated Devil of Torn than with your
own mighty father, or your royal uncle.”

“It is said that you never lie, Norman of Torn,” spoke the girl, “and I
believe you, but tell me why you thus befriend a De Montfort.”

“It is not for love of your father or your brothers, nor yet hatred of
Peter of Colfax, nor neither for any reward whatsoever. It pleases me
to do as I do, that is all. Come.”

He led her in silence to the courtyard and across the lowered
drawbridge, to where they soon discovered a group of horsemen, and in
answer to a low challenge from Shandy, Norman of Torn replied that it
was he.

“Take a dozen men, Shandy, and search yon hellhole. Bring out to me,
alive, Peter of Colfax, and My Lady’s cloak and a palfrey—and Shandy,
when all is done as I say, you may apply the torch! But no looting,
Shandy.”

Shandy looked in surprise upon his leader, for the torch had never been
a weapon of Norman of Torn, while loot, if not always the prime object
of his many raids, was at least a very important consideration.

The outlaw noticed the surprised hesitation of his faithful subaltern
and signing him to listen, said:

“Red Shandy, Norman of Torn has fought and sacked and pillaged for the
love of it, and for a principle which was at best but a vague
generality. Tonight we ride to redress a wrong done to My Lady Bertrade
de Montfort, and that, Shandy, is a different matter. The torch,
Shandy, from tower to scullery, but in the service of My Lady, no
looting.”

“Yes, My Lord,” answered Shandy, and departed with his little
detachment.

In a half hour he returned with a dozen prisoners, but no Peter of
Colfax.

“He has flown, My Lord,” the big fellow reported, and indeed it was
true. Peter of Colfax had passed through the vaults beneath his castle
and, by a long subterranean passage, had reached the quarters of some
priests without the lines of Norman of Torn. By this time, he was
several miles on his way to the coast and France; for he had recognized
the swordsmanship of the outlaw, and did not care to remain in England
and face the wrath of both Norman of Torn and Simon de Montfort.

“He will return,” was the outlaw’s only comment, when he had been fully
convinced that the Baron had escaped.

They watched until the castle had burst into flames in a dozen places,
the prisoners huddled together in terror and apprehension, fully
expecting a summary and horrible death.

When Norman of Torn had assured himself that no human power could now
save the doomed pile, he ordered that the march be taken up, and the
warriors filed down the roadway behind their leader and Bertrade de
Montfort, leaving their erstwhile prisoners sorely puzzled but unharmed
and free.

As they looked back, they saw the heavens red with the great flames
that sprang high above the lofty towers. Immense volumes of dense smoke
rolled southward across the sky line. Occasionally it would clear away
from the burning castle for an instant to show the black walls pierced
by their hundreds of embrasures, each lit up by the red of the raging
fire within. It was a gorgeous, impressive spectacle, but one so common
in those fierce, wild days, that none thought it worthy of more than a
passing backward glance.

Varied emotions filled the breasts of the several riders who wended
their slow way down the mud-slippery road. Norman of Torn was both
elated and sad. Elated that he had been in time to save this girl who
awakened such strange emotions in his breast; sad that he was a
loathsome thing in her eyes. But that it was pure happiness just to be
near her, sufficed him for the time; of the morrow, what use to think!
The little, grim, gray, old man of Torn nursed the spleen he did not
dare vent openly, and cursed the chance that had sent Henry de Montfort
to Torn to search for his sister; while the followers of the outlaw
swore quietly over the vagary which had brought them on this long ride
without either fighting or loot.

Bertrade de Montfort was but filled with wonder that she should owe her
life and honor to this fierce, wild cut-throat who had sworn especial
hatred against her family, because of its relationship to the house of
Plantagenet. She could not fathom it, and yet, he seemed fair spoken
for so rough a man; she wondered what manner of countenance might lie
beneath that barred visor.

Once the outlaw took his cloak from its fastenings at his saddle’s
cantel and threw it about the shoulders of the girl, for the night air
was chilly, and again he dismounted and led her palfrey around a bad
place in the road, lest the beast might slip and fall.

She thanked him in her courtly manner for these services, but beyond
that, no word passed between them, and they came, in silence, about
midday within sight of the castle of Simon de Montfort.

The watch upon the tower was thrown into confusion by the approach of
so large a party of armed men, so that, by the time they were in
hailing distance, the walls of the great structure were crowded with
fighting men.

Shandy rode ahead with a flag of truce, and when he was beneath the
castle walls Simon de Montfort called forth:

“Who be ye and what your mission? Peace or war?”

“It is Norman of Torn, come in peace, and in the service of a De
Montfort,” replied Shandy. “He would enter with one companion, my Lord
Earl.”

“Dares Norman of Torn enter the castle of Simon de Montfort—thinks he
that I keep a robbers’ roost!” cried the fierce old warrior.

“Norman of Torn dares ride where he will in all England,” boasted the
red giant. “Will you see him in peace, My Lord?”

“Let him enter,” said De Montfort, “but no knavery, now, we are a
thousand men here, well armed and ready fighters.”

Shandy returned to his master with the reply, and together, Norman of
Torn and Bertrade de Montfort clattered across the drawbridge beneath
the portcullis of the castle of the Earl of Leicester, brother-in-law
of Henry III of England.

The girl was still wrapped in the great cloak of her protector, for it
had been raining, so that she rode beneath the eyes of her father’s men
without being recognized. In the courtyard, they were met by Simon de
Montfort, and his sons Henry and Simon.

The girl threw herself impetuously from her mount, and, flinging aside
the outlaw’s cloak, rushed toward her astounded parent.

“What means this,” cried De Montfort, “has the rascal offered you harm
or indignity?”

“You craven liar,” cried Henry de Montfort, “but yesterday you swore
upon your honor that you did not hold my sister, and I, like a fool,
believed.” And with his words, the young man flung himself upon Norman
of Torn with drawn sword.

Quicker than the eye could see, the sword of the visored knight flew
from its scabbard, and, with a single lightning-like move, sent the
blade of young De Montfort hurtling across the courtyard; and then,
before either could take another step, Bertrade de Montfort had sprung
between them and placing a hand upon the breastplate of the outlaw,
stretched forth the other with palm out-turned toward her kinsmen as
though to protect Norman of Torn from further assault.

“Be he outlaw or devil,” she cried, “he is a brave and courteous
knight, and he deserves from the hands of the De Montforts the best
hospitality they can give, and not cold steel and insults.” Then she
explained briefly to her astonished father and brothers what had
befallen during the past few days.

Henry de Montfort, with the fine chivalry that marked him, was the
first to step forward with outstretched hand to thank Norman of Torn,
and to ask his pardon for his rude words and hostile act.

The outlaw but held up his open palm, as he said,

“Let the De Montforts think well ere they take the hand of Norman of
Torn. I give not my hand except in friendship, and not for a passing
moment; but for life. I appreciate your present feelings of gratitude,
but let them not blind you to the fact that I am still Norman the
Devil, and that you have seen my mark upon the brows of your dead. I
would gladly have your friendship, but I wish it for the man, Norman of
Torn, with all his faults, as well as what virtues you may think him to
possess.”

“You are right, sir,” said the Earl, “you have our gratitude and our
thanks for the service you have rendered the house of Montfort, and
ever during our lives you may command our favors. I admire your bravery
and your candor, but while you continue the Outlaw of Torn, you may not
break bread at the table of De Montfort as a friend would have the
right to do.”

“Your speech is that of a wise and careful man,” said Norman of Torn
quietly. “I go, but remember that from this day, I have no quarrel with
the House of Simon de Montfort, and that should you need my arms, they
are at your service, a thousand strong. Goodbye.” But as he turned to
go, Bertrade de Montfort confronted him with outstretched hand.

“You must take my hand in friendship,” she said, “for, to my dying day,
I must ever bless the name of Norman of Torn because of the horror from
which he has rescued me.”

He took the little fingers in his mailed hand, and bending upon one
knee raised them to his lips.

“To no other—woman, man, king, God, or devil—has Norman of Torn bent
the knee. If ever you need him, My Lady Bertrade, remember that his
services are yours for the asking.”

And turning, he mounted and rode in silence from the courtyard of the
castle of Leicester. Without a backward glance, and with his five
hundred men at his back, Norman of Torn disappeared beyond a turning in
the roadway.

“A strange man,” said Simon de Montfort, “both good and bad, but from
today, I shall ever believe more good than bad. Would that he were
other than he be, for his arm would wield a heavy sword against the
enemies of England, an he could be persuaded to our cause.”

“Who knows,” said Henry de Montfort, “but that an offer of friendship
might have won him to a better life. It seemed that in his speech was a
note of wistfulness. I wish, father, that we had taken his hand.”




CHAPTER XI


Several days after Norman of Torn’s visit to the castle of Leicester, a
young knight appeared before the Earl’s gates demanding admittance to
have speech with Simon de Montfort. The Earl received him, and as the
young man entered his presence, Simon de Montfort sprang to his feet in
astonishment.

“My Lord Prince,” he cried. “What do ye here, and alone?”

The young man smiled.

“I be no prince, My Lord,” he said, “though some have said that I favor
the King’s son. I be Roger de Conde, whom it may have pleased your
gracious daughter to mention. I have come to pay homage to Bertrade de
Montfort.”

“Ah,” said De Montfort, rising to greet the young knight cordially, “an
you be that Roger de Conde who rescued my daughter from the fellows of
Peter of Colfax, the arms of the De Montforts are open to you.

“Bertrade has had your name upon her tongue many times since her
return. She will be glad indeed to receive you, as is her father. She
has told us of your valiant espousal of her cause, and the thanks of
her brothers and mother await you, Roger de Conde.

“She also told us of your strange likeness to Prince Edward, but until
I saw you, I could not believe two men could be born of different
mothers and yet be so identical. Come, we will seek out my daughter and
her mother.”

De Montfort led the young man to a small chamber where they were
greeted by Princess Eleanor, his wife, and by Bertrade de Montfort. The
girl was frankly glad to see him once more and laughingly chide him
because he had allowed another to usurp his prerogative and rescue her
from Peter of Colfax.

“And to think,” she cried, “that it should have been Norman of Torn who
fulfilled your duties for you. But he did not capture Sir Peter’s head,
my friend; that is still at large to be brought to me upon a golden
dish.”

“I have not forgotten, Lady Bertrade,” said Roger de Conde. “Peter of
Colfax will return.”

The girl glanced at him quickly.

“The very words of the Outlaw of Torn,” she said. “How many men be ye,
Roger de Conde? With raised visor, you could pass in the King’s court
for the King’s son; and in manner, and form, and swordsmanship, and
your visor lowered, you might easily be hanged for Norman of Torn.”

“And which would it please ye most that I be?” he laughed.

“Neither,” she answered, “I be satisfied with my friend, Roger de
Conde.”

“So ye like not the Devil of Torn?” he asked.

“He has done me a great service, and I be under monstrous obligations
to him, but he be, nathless, the Outlaw of Torn and I the daughter of
an earl and a king’s sister.”

“A most unbridgeable gulf indeed,” commented Roger de Conde, drily.
“Not even gratitude could lead a king’s niece to receive Norman of Torn
on a footing of equality.”

“He has my friendship, always,” said the girl, “but I doubt me if
Norman of Torn be the man to impose upon it.”

“One can never tell,” said Roger de Conde, “what manner of fool a man
may be. When a man’s head be filled with a pretty face, what room be
there for reason?”

“Soon thou wilt be a courtier, if thou keep long at this turning of
pretty compliments,” said the girl coldly; “and I like not courtiers,
nor their empty, hypocritical chatter.”

The man laughed.

“If I turned a compliment, I did not know it,” he said. “What I think,
I say. It may not be a courtly speech or it may. I know nothing of
courts and care less, but be it man or maid to whom I speak, I say what
is in my mind or I say nothing. I did not, in so many words, say that
you are beautiful, but I think it nevertheless, and ye cannot be angry
with my poor eyes if they deceive me into believing that no fairer
woman breathes the air of England. Nor can you chide my sinful brain
that it gladly believes what mine eyes tell it. No, you may not be
angry so long as I do not tell you all this.”

Bertrade de Montfort did not know how to answer so ridiculous a
sophistry; and, truth to tell, she was more than pleased to hear from
the lips of Roger de Conde what bored her on the tongues of other men.

De Conde was the guest of the Earl of Leicester for several days, and
before his visit was terminated, the young man had so won his way into
the good graces of the family that they were loath to see him leave.

Although denied the society of such as these throughout his entire
life, yet it seemed that he fell as naturally into the ways of their
kind as though he had always been among them. His starved soul, groping
through the darkness of the empty past, yearned toward the feasting and
the light of friendship, and urged him to turn his back upon the old
life, and remain ever with these people, for Simon de Montfort had
offered the young man a position of trust and honor in his retinue.

“Why refused you the offer of my father?” said Bertrade to him as he
was come to bid her farewell. “Simon de Montfort is as great a man in
England as the King himself, and your future were assured did you
attach yourself to his person. But what am I saying! Did Roger de Conde
not wish to be elsewhere, he had accepted and, as he did not accept, it
is proof positive that he does not wish to bide among the De
Montforts.”

“I would give my soul to the devil,” said Norman of Torn, “would it buy
me the right to remain ever at the feet of Bertrade Montfort.”

He raised her hand to his lips in farewell as he started to speak, but
something—was it an almost imperceptible pressure of her little
fingers, a quickening of her breath or a swaying of her body toward
him?—caused him to pause and raise his eyes to hers.

For an instant they stood thus, the eyes of the man sinking deep into
the eyes of the maid, and then hers closed and with a little sigh that
was half gasp, she swayed toward him, and the Devil of Torn folded the
King’s niece in his mighty arms and his lips placed the seal of a great
love upon those that were upturned to him.

The touch of those pure lips brought the man to himself.

“Ah, Bertrade, my Bertrade,” he cried, “what is this thing that I have
done! Forgive me, and let the greatness and the purity of my love for
you plead in extenuation of my act.”

She looked up into his face in surprise, and then placing her strong
white hands upon his shoulders, she whispered:

“See, Roger, I am not angry. It is not wrong that we love; tell me it
is not, Roger.”

“You must not say that you love me, Bertrade. I am a coward, a craven
poltroon; but, God, how I love you.”

“But,” said the girl, “I do love—”

“Stop,” he cried, “not yet, not yet. Do not say it till I come again.
You know nothing of me, you do not know even who I be; but when next I
come, I promise that ye shall know as much of me as I myself know, and
then, Bertrade, my Bertrade, if you can then say, ‘I love you’ no power
on earth, or in heaven above, or hell below shall keep you from being
mine!”

“I will wait, Roger, for I believe in you and trust you. I do not
understand, but I know that you must have some good reason, though it
all seems very strange to me. If I, a De Montfort, am willing to
acknowledge my love for any man, there can be no reason why I should
not do so, unless,” and she started at the sudden thought, wide-eyed
and paling, “unless there be another woman, a—a—wife?”

“There is no other woman, Bertrade,” said Norman of Torn. “I have no
wife; nor within the limits of my memory have my lips ever before
touched the lips of another, for I do not remember my mother.”

She sighed a happy little sigh of relief, and laughing lightly, said:

“It is some old woman’s bugaboo that you are haling out of a dark
corner of your imagination to frighten yourself with. I do not fear,
since I know that you must be all good. There be no line of vice or
deception upon your face and you are very brave. So brave and noble a
man, Roger, has a heart of pure gold.”

“Don’t,” he said, bitterly. “I cannot endure it. Wait until I come
again and then, oh my flower of all England, if you have it in your
heart to speak as you are speaking now, the sun of my happiness will be
at zenith. Then, but not before, shall I speak to the Earl, thy father.
Farewell, Bertrade, in a few days I return.”

“If you would speak to the Earl on such a subject, you insolent young
puppy, you may save your breath,” thundered an angry voice, and Simon
de Montfort strode, scowling, into the room.

The girl paled, but not from fear of her father, for the fighting blood
of the De Montforts was as strong in her as in her sire. She faced him
with as brave and resolute a face as did the young man, who turned
slowly, fixing De Montfort with level gaze.

“I heard enough of your words as I was passing through the corridor,”
continued the latter, “to readily guess what had gone before. So it is
for this that you have wormed your sneaking way into my home? And
thought you that Simon de Montfort would throw his daughter at the head
of the first passing rogue? Who be ye, but a nameless rascal? For aught
we know, some low born lackey. Get ye hence, and be only thankful that
I do not aid you with the toe of my boot where it would do the most
good.”

“Stop!” cried the girl. “Stop, father, hast forgot that but for Roger
de Conde ye might have seen your daughter a corpse ere now, or, worse,
herself befouled and dishonored?”

“I do not forget,” replied the Earl, “and it is because I remember that
my sword remains in its scabbard. The fellow has been amply repaid by
the friendship of De Montfort, but now this act of perfidy has wiped
clean the score. An’ you would go in peace, sirrah, go quickly, ere I
lose my temper.”

“There has been some misunderstanding on your part, My Lord,” spoke
Norman of Torn, quietly and without apparent anger or excitement. “Your
daughter has not told me that she loves me, nor did I contemplate
asking you for her hand. When next I come, first shall I see her and if
she will have me, My Lord, I shall come to you to tell you that I shall
wed her. Norm—Roger de Conde asks permission of no man to do what he
would do.”

Simon de Montfort was fairly bursting with rage but he managed to
control himself to say,

“My daughter weds whom I select, and even now I have practically closed
negotiations for her betrothal to Prince Philip, nephew of King Louis
of France. And as for you, sir, I would as lief see her the wife of the
Outlaw of Torn. He, at least, has wealth and power, and a name that be
known outside his own armor. But enough of this; get you gone, nor let
me see your face again within the walls of Leicester’s castle.”

“You are right, My Lord, it were foolish and idle for us to be
quarreling with words,” said the outlaw. “Farewell, My Lady. I shall
return as I promised, and your word shall be law.” And with a profound
bow to De Montfort, Norman of Torn left the apartment, and in a few
minutes was riding through the courtyard of the castle toward the main
portals.

As he passed beneath a window in the castle wall, a voice called to him
from above, and drawing in his horse, he looked up into the eyes of
Bertrade de Montfort.

“Take this, Roger de Conde,” she whispered, dropping a tiny parcel to
him, “and wear it ever, for my sake. We may never meet again, for the
Earl my father, is a mighty man, not easily turned from his decisions;
therefore I shall say to you, Roger de Conde, what you forbid my
saying. I love you, and be ye prince or scullion, you may have me, if
you can find the means to take me.”

“Wait, my lady, until I return, then shall you decide, and if ye be of
the same mind as today, never fear but that I shall take ye. Again,
farewell.” And with a brave smile that hid a sad heart, Norman of Torn
passed out of the castle yard.

When he undid the parcel which Bertrade had tossed to him, he found
that it contained a beautifully wrought ring set with a single opal.

The Outlaw of Torn raised the little circlet to his lips, and then
slipped it upon the third finger of his left hand.




CHAPTER XII


Norman of Torn did not return to the castle of Leicester “in a few
days,” nor for many months. For news came to him that Bertrade de
Montfort had been posted off to France in charge of her mother.

From now on, the forces of Torn were employed in repeated attacks on
royalist barons, encroaching ever and ever southward until even
Berkshire and Surrey and Sussex felt the weight of the iron hand of the
outlaw.

Nearly a year had elapsed since that day when he had held the fair form
of Bertrade de Montfort in his arms, and in all that time he had heard
no word from her.

He would have followed her to France but for the fact that, after he
had parted from her and the intoxication of her immediate presence had
left his brain clear to think rationally, he had realized the futility
of his hopes, and he had seen that the pressing of his suit could mean
only suffering and mortification for the woman he loved.

His better judgment told him that she, on her part, when freed from the
subtle spell woven by the nearness and the newness of a first love,
would doubtless be glad to forget the words she had spoken in the heat
of a divine passion. He would wait, then, until fate threw them
together, and should that ever chance, while she was still free, he
would let her know that Roger de Conde and the Outlaw of Torn were one
and the same.

If she wants me then, he thought, but she will not. No, it is
impossible. It is better that she marry her French prince than to live,
dishonored, the wife of a common highwayman; for though she might love
me at first, the bitterness and loneliness of her life would turn her
love to hate.

As the outlaw was sitting one day in the little cottage of Father
Claude, the priest reverted to the subject of many past conversations;
the unsettled state of civil conditions in the realm, and the stand
which Norman of Torn would take when open hostilities between King and
baron were declared.

“It would seem that Henry,” said the priest, “by his continued breaches
of both the spirit and letter of the Oxford Statutes, is but urging the
barons to resort to arms; and the fact that he virtually forced Prince
Edward to take up arms against Humphrey de Bohun last fall, and to
carry the ravages of war throughout the Welsh border provinces,
convinces me that he be, by this time, well equipped to resist De
Montfort and his associates.”

“If that be the case,” said Norman of Torn, “we shall have war and
fighting in real earnest ere many months.”

“And under which standard does My Lord Norman expect to fight?” asked
Father Claude.

“Under the black falcon’s wing,” laughed he of Torn.

“Thou be indeed a close-mouthed man, my son,” said the priest, smiling.
“Such an attribute helpeth make a great statesman. With thy soldierly
qualities in addition, my dear boy, there be a great future for thee in
the paths of honest men. Dost remember our past talk?”

“Yes, father, well; and often have I thought on’t. I have one more duty
to perform here in England and then, it may be, that I shall act on thy
suggestion, but only on one condition.”

“What be that, my son?”

“That wheresoere I go, thou must go also. Thou be my best friend; in
truth, my father; none other have I ever known, for the little old man
of Torn, even though I be the product of his loins, which I much
mistrust, be no father to me.”

The priest sat looking intently at the young man for many minutes
before he spoke.

Without the cottage, a swarthy figure skulked beneath one of the
windows, listening to such fragments of the conversation within as came
to his attentive ears. It was Spizo, the Spaniard. He crouched entirely
concealed by a great lilac bush, which many times before had hid his
traitorous form.

At length the priest spoke.

“Norman of Torn,” he said, “so long as thou remain in England, pitting
thy great host against the Plantagenet King and the nobles and barons
of his realm, thou be but serving as the cats-paw of another. Thyself
hast said an hundred times that thou knowst not the reason for thy
hatred against them. Thou be too strong a man to so throw thy life
uselessly away to satisfy the choler of another.

“There be that of which I dare not speak to thee yet and only may I
guess and dream of what I think, nor do I know whether I must hope that
it be false or true, but now, if ever, the time hath come for the
question to be settled. Thou hast not told me in so many words, but I
be an old man and versed in reading true between the lines, and so I
know that thou lovest Bertrade de Montfort. Nay, do not deny it. And
now, what I would say be this. In all England there lives no more
honorable man than Simon de Montfort, nor none who could more truly
decide upon thy future and thy past. Thou may not understand of

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