by John Buchan
He had no fear of capture. How could Norfolk’s men hope to take him in a land of which they knew naught, and which he had conned since childhood. But it was not of himself that he thought. God’s plan, aforetime so miraculous in his eyes, had miscarried. The King was back among his friends. He was no longer lost and derelict and alone, but must now be plucked from the heart of a troop. Peter’s confidence flagged. . . . And meantime where were his folk? Had Mother Sweetbread failed in her errand? Or had Darking been overpowered somewhere in the night and his troop scattered? . . . Peter grew sick with apprehension.
He had learned from Darking all the calls of the vagabond folk — the dull whistle of the palliards, the broken whinny of the priggers, the owl’s hoot of the rufflers, the snipe’s bleat of the whipjacks. He tried each in turn, but there was no reply. Yesterday this forest had been alive with secret dwellers, but now it seemed as lifeless as a tomb. The birds that answered him were not breeched fowls, but pigeons that broke with a crash from the high tree-tops, and owls lumbering in the low coverts, and the soft swish of zigzagging woodcock. Where in Heaven’s name were the vagabonds? What had become of John Naps’s scouts? Where, above all, was Darking?
But if there was no sign of his friends, there was proof of the presence of others. As he crossed the forest road from Charlbury to Witney he saw that it was puddled with fresh hoof marks. A body of mounted men had passed here not an hour before, and the horses had been heavy lowland beasts, not the light mounts of his own people. . . . And then he had a sharp surprise. There were men in the forest, riding like prickers to unharbour deer. From a nook in the scrub he noticed several pass, men with a purpose, men looking for something other than buck, for they were not hunt servants. All wore livery or badges, and on one he recognised the Talbot colours. The enemy had taken the offensive. He was no longer the pursuer, but the pursued.
At last he was in the Ramsden dingles, and there he found only cold ashes. Anxiety for Darking had now fevered his thoughts. Had he and all his folk been driven out of the forest? Somehow, somewhere, there had been a great rallying of the King’s men. He strove to think clearly. Darking in the night watches must have been disturbed, and prevented from receiving Mother Sweetbread’s message, or, if the message had found him, from reaching Minster Lovell. It must have been a strong force that dispossessed him, but dispossessed he must have been — he and all John Naps’s crew. The forest was now full of the King’s folk. Whither had Darking gone? There was only one way — west by the high downs to their own country. Some violent compulsion had made Darking leave without a word of guidance to him; doubtless he trusted to his wits and woodcraft to make the right deduction and follow. . . .
And then came a ray of light in the darkness. In a deep hollow stood a verderer’s hut, which had been the stable of the horse Peter had ridden from Avelard, what time he left it behind after the loosing of the gospeller. There it had remained during the weeks of his fever at Little Greece. He had left it fourteen hours back tied to a stump on the far side of Windrush. Now he was greeted with a whinny, and found the bay ranging in its stall, sniffing after stray grain and chaff in the corners. It had broken its tether and swum Windrush, for its flanks and belly were wet. There was some hay in the rack on the rafters from which he fed it. The stirrup irons and bridle were dark with frost.
His hopes rose. Here was a means by which he could overtake Darking. This was his first business, for the whole plan must be re-ordered. The King was alive to his peril, but that peril might still be turned into doom. Whatever reinforcements he had got at Woodstock — and, since the forest was alive with men, these reinforcements must have been ample — they could be overmatched by the levies from the west. War had been declared, and there could be no turning back. Never had Peter felt such a heat of resolution. Every nerve of mind and body was constrained into one conscious purpose. He had seen his enemy and had understood both his power and his maleficence. His soul seemed now to be drawn to a fine edge of burning light.
They were beating the eastern forest for him; the troops at Minster Lovell, with Henry behind them, would follow hard on his tracks from the south; north lay Woodstock; his only course was westward. He summoned all his remembered lore to his aid. He knew a secret track which would bring him by Leafield to the open land above Shipton Barren. Once there, it would be strange if he could not ride fast by Taynton and Barrington and be past Northleach by midday. His enemies were not likely to have anything in the way of horseflesh that could vie with his bay for speed. He dug in his spurs, and galloped for the high woods of the Leafield crest. . . .
About the same moment Darking, who after two hours of daylight had realised that the King and Peter were not south of Windrush, had issued orders to troops and vagabonds alike to get back to the north bank. Every mile Peter moved was separating him farther from his friends. . . .
In an hour he was looking down on the road from Charlbury to Burford, at almost the point where, in the early dawn, the Carmelite had met the horsemen. A small army was encamped there — not less than a thousand men, and a chain of posts north and south along the highway barred all access to the Taynton downs.
Peter crouched and reflected. If he tried to pass by he would be seen. He might break through at a gap in the posts, but he would certainly be pursued. Was there hope of escape? His hawk eyes scanned the picketed horses, and he saw that they were of a different breed from the heavy beasts now lumbering behind him in the forest. They looked like southerners — Norfolk’s men, maybe, from his Sussex lands. Had he any chance of outdistancing such in open country?
If his soul was on fire, his brain was cool. Calmly he calculated his chances. They were quartering the forest behind him, and if he went back that way he would have to discard his horse and take to crawling in thickets. He might escape discovery, but there was no hope there, with Darking spurring somewhere on the road to the west. Besides, he would presently starve. He thought of sheltering with Mother Sweetbread, but only to discard the notion. Whatever befell him, he could not involve her in his danger. But indeed the forest was useless now. The campaign had moved to a different country. It was the west, High Cotswold, that mattered, the place where Darking had gone. . . .
At that moment John Naps’s men were filtering back into Wychwood. Darking and half his force had fetched a circuit, crossed Windrush below Witney, and were even now approaching the Ramsden brakes. One company of the King’s men had been surprised by them, disarmed, and dismounted, and were now, mostly with broken heads, sitting in Finstock meadow. . . .
All quarters seemed shut to Peter but the north. An idea came to him. What about the road he had ridden three days back? Charlbury bridge was indeed on the direct track from Woodstock, but for that reason it would be the less closely guarded. The bold road might be the wise road. . . . He moved farther north on the crest. The pickets only occupied the higher ground, and did not extend to the meadows by Evenlode. He could not see the bridge nor the causeway, but he could see the track winding down to within half a mile of it, and it was empty.
His mind was made up. He would cross at Charlbury, where he was not looked for, and take the high road by Stow to the west. He had worn no sword the day before, for he had not looked for fighting, and had feared lest any weapon might obstruct his passage in the thickets. But a weapon he needed now. With his knife he cut and trimmed a great cudgel from an ash tree, and made it sing round his head. “If there is a sentinel on Charlbury bridge he will get a cracked skull,” he thought. He felt strangely exalted. An issue would yet be found out of his perplexities.
Very carefully he made his way, leading his horse, round the butt of the hill till Charlbury bridge came in view. Evenlode had ebbed and the current no longer swirled over the two causeways; it barely lipped them. There was nobody at the near end of the bridge. The far end he could not see, for the high central arch blocked it. There was a hovel or two there, he knew, but the little town lay well to the right on the hill. He could see the smoke going up str
aight from its chimneys in the windless morning.
He came to the edge of the forest, beyond which some furlongs of meadowland separated him from the bridge. Less than a mile lay between him and safety, but he knew that that mile held the crisis of his life. He had the exaltation but also the anxiety of a great purpose. He knelt and prayed to the Virgin, her of whom he had had a vision in the snowy wood, but he had no answering comfort. “The Blessed Ones have left me to face this business alone,” he told himself. “Well, here’s for fortune!”
He mounted his horse and rode towards the bridge with his great cudgel carried at the rest, as a man might ride the lists at a tourney. Not a soul was visible in the wide landscape.
There was a little rise of ground before he reached the first causeway, and there his eye could just surmount the high bridge back. Something he saw beyond, and that something was like the summit of a pleached hedge. He knew it for the tips of spears. There were men stationed on the other side.
His eyes dimmed and then cleared, and out of his heart went all carefulness. That awoke in him which had sent his forbears rending the Scottish footmen and driving through the mellay at Poictiers. He felt light-hearted and unconquerable. His great stick was like a straw in his hands. He had in him the power to subdue thousands. He was singing to himself, singing small and low, and the words were Sabine’s song.
The spurs were in the bay’s flanks, and in a mad gallop he was on the causeway. . . . Summer is come with love to town. . . . The light lip of the tide flew around him in spray. . . . Sweet mistress, why so pale O? . . . With a bound he was on the bridge’s keystone. . . . The deer draw to the dale O! He saw below him a blur of men . . . and spear-points. Their faces seemed strangely white. They blocked the path, most of them dismounted, and they stared — stared with blank eyes. Could such feeble folk stay him? He saw one man on a horse with a blue surcoat over mail, and he saw him draw his sword. Down the steep descent from the arch to the far causeway he thundered, and men gave way for him and two fell sprawling. The horseman took his cudgel on his sword arm and promptly rolled from his horse.
Peter was not humming now, for the fury of an older England was on him. For the last time men heard a cry once more terrible than trumpets — the cry of “God and the Swan.” . . . They divided and some ran, for the ash stick was breaking their heads and snapping their spear-shafts.
But there was a stout man at the back, one Jonas Turph, the Swinbrook armourer, and he bore a great hammer. Likewise he had a steel cap under his felt bonnet. On his head the ash stick shivered into a dozen pieces, and the hard skull beneath took no scaith. Peter was almost through — in three strides more he would be beyond the causeway with the road open for the west. But the armourer, shaking his head like a dog coming out of water, swung his hammer. It struck the bay’s rump, there was the squeal of a beast in pain, and down it came with a palsied back. . . . A great hand plucked at Peter’s neck from behind, and in an instant he was on the ground with a press of men atop of him.
Sir Ferdinando Fettiplace, nursing a broken arm, looked at the trussed and half-senseless figure with a wry face.
“Curse on the madcap,” he said. “‘Twill be a month of Sundays ere I can sup broth again. This day will be worth a capful of gold to you, Jonas Turph, for beyond doubt ‘tis the lad the King’s grace is seeking. Well-grown, they said, and comely, and habited in russet and green. By the Blood of Hailes, but he is ripe for hanging, for with such abroad there can be no peace in England. He came down on us like the lightnings of God.”
CHAPTER XVI. HOW PETER RETURNED TO THE GREENWOOD
He was brought next morning before the King. Henry sat in the banqueting-house at Woodstock, with every window open, for the day was mild and he heated quickly. The guards were no longer Shrewsbury’s hundred spears, for Norfolk had sent a thousand men under Surrey his son, and Sir John Denton had brought his Epping riders, and half the squires of east Oxfordshire and Berkshire had hastened each with his mounted lackeys to honour the King. The park was like a tented field in the foreign wars.
Peter had been well enough treated by the Fettiplace men. They had forborne to question him, and one, who knew something of leechcraft, had tended his bruises. That morning he had been heavily manacled and handed over by them to the royal guards, after listening to a stammering speech of loyalty from Sir Ferdinando and Henry’s gracious reply — Sir Ferdinando whose name had been on the Avelard muster-roll. Peter did not grumble. He hoped that no thick-witted country lording would suffer in his cause, since that cause was now doomed and destroyed. . . . Darking would know of his capture, and, he trusted, would lead his men safely back to High Cotswold. Avelard would hear of it, and Neville, and all the rest, and the levies would melt like snow in an April sun. Only he himself would suffer, which was just, since he was Bohun and might have been king.
He was in a strange mood, equable, almost happy. A load of care seemed to have fallen from him. He had no longer to think of others, only of himself, and that was a light task. . . . For him there was but the one fate. The great mill of destiny with which he had conversed two nights before, would grind him small. A miracle, and he might have overthrown it, but that miracle had miscarried. God had other purposes. It was His celestial will that the Beast should rule a little longer in England. . . . But he would not see that rule, for he would be under the sod. “Only the dead are beautiful and free” — why should fear vex any man, when so easy a gate gave upon a land where fears were at rest?
He looked curiously at the tall guards on each side of his settle, at the mob of Woodstock townsmen who thronged the doors in lively terror of the yeoman of the hall with his silver wand, at the dust-motes dancing in the sunlight which slanted through the windows, at the King in his crimson chair at the table on the dais, and the councillors about him. He saw Sir John Denton, and Chartley, and a red-faced ecclesiastic whom he knew for Dr John London of Oxford. One other, too, a stout man in a furred black gown, with a large pale face, a host of chins, a low voice, and steady ruminant eyes — a familiar face, it seemed. He asked one of the guards, and was told “the lord Crummle.”
Henry was in a high humour. He had had an adventure out of which he had come with credit and safety. He felt confirmed in his self-confidence and in the approbation of God. That morning he had served at High Mass, and the odour of the black ropy incense which he loved still clung to him. He had eaten for breakfast the best part of a pasty of quails, and a great dish of buttered kidneys. The glow of conscious holiness and good feeding was in his veins.
He had many despatches to read, which he passed among his lords. Then he looked round the hall and saw Peter.
“Ha!” he said. “‘Tis the mad monk. Bring the man forward that my lords may see him. This is he that threatened the majesty of England, and held it in durance for a winter’s night. But for your timely appearance, Sir John, it might be now lying in a ditch with a slit throat. Mark the fellow — he has thews like Goliath and the eye of a wrestler. Dangerous stuff to be abbey-bred!”
The lords looked at Peter incuriously. Battered and pale, his clothes torn and soiled, he looked a common vagabond, of whom the land had many. He had fallen in with the King, when lost a-hunting, and had threatened him. For that he must swing, but it did not concern them. The King’s story might or might not be true — he was a ripe liar on occasion — but it mattered little whether there was one unfrocked priest the less in the world. Only Crummle looked at him sharply. The guards would have led Peter away, but Crummle motioned to them to withdraw to the side of the hall.
“Will your majesty see the other?” he asked, and Henry, who was telling the young Howard of a new falcon, nodded.
Peter was in the dusk now, out of the way of the sunbeams. He saw the crowd cleared at the doorway, and a tall man enter with a rope at his wrists. His face had a great gash on the left cheek, from which blood still oozed. He held his head stiffly, and Peter saw for the first time since Little Greece the high bold countenance of Simon Rede.
Henry knitted his brows.
“This is the Luterano,” he said. “A pest on the fellow for a crack-brain! Once he promised well, you say?” And he turned to Crummle.
“He carried letters, your majesty, for the Council to the Court of Denmark,” said Crummle in his soft even voice.
“And now he must needs abet the traitors who would have England godless, and blaspheme the holy mysteries.” Henry, with the incense of the mass still in his nostrils, grew hot. He consulted a paper. “He assisted the escape of one of the most pernicious of the foul brood called gospellers, deforced the servants of King and Church, and, when taken at last, broke sundry honest skulls and was heady in his impenitence. He has uttered blasphemies, says this indictment, too shocking to reiterate to godly ears, and he has altogether refused to confess his sins. . . . Hark you, sirrah!” Henry’s face was mottled with passion. “I will have no heretics in England, be they gentle or simple. You are born, they tell me, of an honourable house, and have served with credit in the wars. The more shame to you for your errors! I have said it, and I say it now, that I will root out of the land every seed of false doctrine, till this England be the very apple of God’s eye for its sweet and united faith.”
“What is your majesty’s will concerning him?” Crummle asked. He seemed to be about to put forward some plea on the prisoner’s behalf. But the King’s face was stern.
“He will go to the court of my lord Bishop of Lincoln. He will be given the chance to acknowledge his errors and to recant them. If he continue obdurate, he shall burn, by God, burn as if he were a common blasphemer from the kennels.”
Henry signed to Sir John Denton, his temporary marshal. “I would be alone with my Vicar-General. Have the rabble cleared from the door, and do you, my dear lord, wait on me again in an hour’s space. . . . No. Remove the Luterano, but leave the monk. I may have a word to speak to him.”