"And if you are not back by fourteen days from now, what then?" I had asked; and he had refused to take the question seriously.
I found a dozen yew-wood bows in the cave, and as many staves of the same wood not yet shaped, and a score of beeswaxed hempen bowstrings in a crock, and bundles of clothyard shafts, most of them barbed and fletched, but some not yet completed with steel and feathers. I strung a bow and went out and shot at a mark. Later, I found a sharp knife and whittled at an unfinished bow. Star Boy and I passed the long afternoon together, wandering idly around and about. Again I supped on the stew in the pot, but with diminished relish.
I slept outside again, but not as peacefully as on the first night, for I was beset and harassed by dreams and nightmares from the moment of closing my eyes until Star Boy woke me at dawn by snorting in my face. ... I ran through the great hall and up a winding stairs in Dragon Castle, with Sir Osbert in swift but silent pursuit. I turned my head and looked back and down at him, and he looked up at me, and I saw his red lips smiling in his curly black beard, and the glinting of his eyes which were half shut as if in silent laughter, and I knew without seeing the weapons that he held a dagger in either hand.
I rode Star Boy through thick and thin, over brake and boulder, while unseen pursuers shook the thickets behind us. And I knew suddenly that I did not ride alone. Slender arms encircled and held me tight, and slender fingers clasped my sword-belt at either side of the massy buckle, and I felt a disturbing pressure between my shoulder blades as of a soft breast; and I knew, without looking farther, that the Norman damosel rode a-pillion. ... I was afoot and with the great sword Dragon-killer in my hands, and before me a large man armed with a long sword and a long shield stood on ever-shifting feet like a dancer, but menacingly. Blood trickled down my left arm. I leaped and struck—and awoke to the colt's anxious snorting in my face.
* * *
Unable to stomach another breakfast of that stew, and equally unable to find any trace of the roast bustard, which had doubtless been carried off by a fox, I helped myself to a bow and arrows and went in search of a fresh breakfast. Star Boy followed on my heels. I searched for hours, flushing grouse which flew too unexpectedly and hard, and starting hares which ran too fast, without glimpsing so much as the tail of a bustard; and by noon I was back at the cave, thinking better of the contents of the iron pot. I was about to enter the screening thicket of hazel and wild pear, when a sudden snort and thump and thudding of hooves behind me checked and turned me. I saw Star Boy charging to the right, and a human figure in leather bounding before him. Next moment the fellow went up the inclined trunk of a half-uprooted oak like a squirrel. He held a boar-spear in one hand. I set arrow to string.
"Drop that spear!" I yelled. "Quick—or I´ll spit you like a partridge!"
He looked my way, saw the bending bow, and dropped the spear to the ground. The colt wheeled and came back to me. I advanced slowly upon the intruder.
"What brings you here?" I asked.
He glared down at me like a wildcat, but made no answer. And he may spring like one, I thought; and I let the bow fall and drew one of Ben Tinker's knives from my belt.
"Who are you, fellow?" I asked.
"Stark," he snarled. "A poor herd. A serf."
"A serf? Where is your iron collar?"
He glowered in silence.
"Filed through and torn away, is that it, fellow?" I went on. "An outlaw, then. And you flee your Norman master. But what brings you here? Do you seek the gypsy?"
He started, but did not speak.
"You know Ben Tinker," I continued. "Well, so do I. He is my friend; and his friends are my friends and his foes my foes."
"You are a lord," he muttered, sliding his suspicious glance from the brooch in my cap own to my buskins of Spanish leather, and aside to my noble Star Boy and back to the brooch.
I cried: "A lord in truth, fellow, but not in fact, for I am fled my lordship—chivied by Normans like any crop-eared poacher!" I laughed bitterly. "Down on your knees, rogue, to mighty Lord Patrick, the last of the princely Pendragons!" And I struck a wild attitude, and laughed again and yet more bitterly.
The outlaw dropped from his perch to the ground, and crouched huddled there with his elbows and knees under him and his forehead on the moss. I waved Star Boy away from him.
"What now?" I asked, in wonder.
He shuffled and hitched himself forward and pressed his forehead on my right foot, then on my left, and hunched motionless again. Seconds passed before I was enough recovered from surprise and embarrassment to stoop and lift him and stand him upright.
"Gramercy!" I muttered.
I took him to the cave and made him free of the stew. I told him of my long acquaintance with Ben Tinker, of my recent lucky meeting with him, of my flight into the greenwood and the cause of it, and of Ben's departure on a secret mission. He harkened attentively, and with an air of abject humility even while gobbling soggy dumplings and gobbets of venison. He was a better listener than a talker; but after I had fetched him a second cannikin of ale from a little cask at the far back of the cave, I received almost more information than I could grasp.
By Stark's telling—and in few and uncouth words, at that—he was but one of the hundreds of poor, desperate men in the forests and waste places of this Devereaux country who thought of little else than revenge upon their lord and the meaner tyrants who served him. And so it had been as long as he could remember, and before he was born. His father had been flogged to death for slaying a deer. A mad cellarer who had cursed this lord to his face for hanging his son for the sticking of a wild pig, had been starved to death in an iron cage. But now the tyrants' days were numbered—here and beyond the Hills of Har and yet farther. Ben Tinker said so. He was their prophet. Now they but awaited their destined champion to lead them—even Pendragon, the last lord of the old bloods. The gypsy had for years wrought and planned for it; and Stark believed it.
All this I knew, or at least had been told by the gypsy himself. But Stark had more to tell. Ben Tinker was not their only captain, nor I their only champion. There was Sir Philip too, captain and champion in one. My ears pricked at that name.
"A mighty lord from the great world," the fellow continued. "Norman sired, but English dammed. His heart bleeds for us poor downtrodden folk. He will give every man a cot and craft when he is our lord."
I asked if he spoke of Philip de Courtville, and he said he did. I was puzzled; and I asked if he knew anything of a damosel named Blanche. He uttered an uncouth hoot of laughter, which offended me out of reason.
"Not so loud!" I warned him. "I don't begrudge you a full belly, good Stark—but another blast of insolence in my face, and I´ll dent that cannikin on your empty head!"
He fairly groveled at that. I had to speak coaxingly, and give him more of the tinker's musty ale, and even pat him on the back, before his assurance was sufficiently recovered to permit him further speech. By Stark's telling, the damosel was Blanche Devereaux, the hated lord's only daughter and youngest child. The tyrant had two sons by a former marriage, the older of whom was the damosel's senior by more than twenty years. Guy was his name; and little was known of him by the vassals and churls of Devereaux, for he had left home when a mere lad, to serve as a page at the King's court. There were rumors that he passed much of his time in knight-errantry and the rest in extravagant carousings in the highest court circles. The younger, Simon, was at home, and a match for his father at grinding the faces of the poor.
"If your wicked lord has two male heirs, how will your soft-hearted Sir Philip ever get possession of Devereaux by wedding the damosel?" I interrupted.
The fellow started to hoot again, and uttered the first villainous ho-hah before stopped by my menacing gesture.
"Have a care, my good loon," I said softly. "Answer my questions, if you can, but spare me your impudent emotions."
Again he abased himself, and again I reassured him of my good will, calling him a true English churl and more fo
ol than rogue at bottom. He soon recovered enough of his assurance and poor wits to answer my question.
This champion of the poor and downtrodden, this Sir Philip de Courtville, was not (by Stark's telling) a suitor for the damosel's hand in wedlock, whatever she and her sire and her half-brother Simon might believe to the contrary. He was not that kind of Norman lord. His love was not for other lords and Normans, but for the poor folk upon whose birthrights they lived and fattened. And as for the Damosel Blanche, she was but an excuse for his frequent appearances in the country, while he spread his promises of deliverance to crofter and cotter and hunted outlaw, and for his sojourns at the castle while he spied out the weaknesses of its walls and garrison. She, little fool, was but noble Philip's instrument for the destruction of her kind. He would take her or leave her, at his own good time and pleasure.
"Not so loud, rogue!" I muttered.
I controlled an unreasonable impulse to cuff him. The devil take this Philip, I thought. The poor man's friend, is he? Ben Tinker did not so much as name him to me; and I did not like the tootle of his horn; and try as I might, none of Stark's praise of him pleased me. Who is he to set true Britons free, I asked myself. Courtville! Who is he to take or leave that damosel at his own good time and pleasure? I looked at my hands and thought of the waist they had all but spanned. I laughed bitterly.
"Courtville or Devereaux, it's nothing to me," I cried; and still restraining the impulse to cuff the poor churl's ear, I left the cave and sought Star Boy's more congenial company.
* * *
That night I left the cave to Stark and made my bed outside again: but instead of sleeping in it, I took up a position close to the cave's mouth and remained wide awake. I suspected the lout within, by his prating of the virtues of Philip de Courtville, to be far too simple to be quite trustworthy. And he soon proved my suspicion right. He came tiptoeing forth with a bulky and long bundle on his back and a knife in his hand. I dealt him an open-handed blow that sent him reeling and the iron spinning. I took him by the scruff of the neck and shook him till his burden of goods and gear fell and scattered on the ground. Then I saw, by the light of the stars, the great sword of my fathers, noble Dragon-killer, lying there; then my indignation flared to high anger; and I drew the bull-hide scabbard from the sacred blade and beat him with it. He twisted and squirmed and bellowed, and rolled on the ground and groveled at my feet, still bellowing.
"Have mercy, lord! Spare your slave! It was for Sir Philip—at his command—by Christ His wounds! He would have the old sword—that every Englishman might know him for the true champion—as it is sung by old bards!"
I sheathed Dragon-killer and stirred the rogue with a foot, gently enough.
"This touches my honor," I said. "This hilt is not for your base hands—nay, nor for your master's neither—for my gorge rises at the very name of him—Philip! And I would trust that skulking mongrel no farther than yourself, cur!"
I raised him then and felt him over. Finding no broken bones, I thrust him back into the cave and told him to stay there, promising that if he ventured forth he would be either cut in two pieces by the offended sword or trampled to a pulp by Star Boy's hoofs. But to make trebly sure of him, I barred the cave with great boulders.
Upon removing the rocky barricade and entering the cave in the morning, I found my prisoner deep in drunken sleep beside the empty cask. I made a flambeau, lighted it at the embers under the empty pot, and searched the cave from front to back and side to side. It was an armory, in very truth. Here were short swords and daggers and boar-spears by the dozen; and a jumble of armor of various periods and designs. The collection suggested numerous thieveries, and many pieces showed signs of smith-work and tinkering. I found a coat of fine Spanish chain that fitted me, and pieces of plate enough to make up a fair and serviceable suit of knightly harness, though somewhat tarnished, and even a helmet that fitted, though the hinges of the vizor needed oiling and the plume was broken.
Then I went to work on the fellow in leather, for whom I now felt less of charity and pity because of his sufferings from Norman hands than of animosity and distrust. I shook him. I might as well have shaken a corpse. I dragged him forth by the heels and rolled him in dew-wet fern, and got no more than a grunt for my efforts. Then I carried him to the stream and threw him in, but gently withal. He came out spluttering, and wide awake. I drove him back to the cave, but in the softness of my heart I grilled some smoke-dried venison from the gypsy's store with my own hands. He had no appetite for it, but I broke my fast, though it was in truth strong meat. Next I filled my wallet from the same store, then saddled Star Boy and harnessed myself, and armed with Dragon-killer and a short sword, a dagger, a bow, and a quiver of clothyard arrows. Then I made a leash of bowstrings, made one end of it fast about Stark's middle and mounted with the other end in my hand.
"Lead on," I told him. "Lead me to your noble Philip, that champion of the poor and oppressed."
He did not move.
"Bestir yourself," I continued. "Would you fail in duty to the generous master who has promised cots and crofts and full bellies to all poor native sons and daughters of these lands—and the castle too, no doubt, unless he occupied it himself? Bestir yourself, good Stark. He sent you for this sword. Here it is. Here is the sword of Pendragon, and here is the Pendragon with it. Lead on, rogue!"
"Spare me!" he bawled, flinging himself to the ground.
"Stand up," I said. "Or must Star Boy raise you with his teeth?"
He scrambled to his feet.
"Lead on, and straight, or the foxes will gnaw your bones," I said. "Bring me to your generous champion, and I promise you he shall receive the sword he sent you to thieve from Ben Tinker's cave—receive it unsheathed, and by point and edge, and to his death or mine, by my halidom!"
Our progress was slow, for the poor loon halted often to beg me to go my way and cast him free to go his. He even tried to frighten me from my intention of confronting Sir Philip, with talk of his size and knightly prowess and fierce temper.
"He will slay you on sight, lord!" he whined.
"In that case, he will have my sword and my horse too, and your reward will be doubled," I replied.
We rested at noon. Star Boy, unsaddled and unbridled, found good grazing nearby. I ate of the smoke-cured meat, but sparingly. Stark did not touch it. I gathered bramble berries from the nearest thicket and gave him a handful of them; and he ate them with such signs of relish and gratitude that I let him pick more for himself, then took him to a nearby stream, where we both drank. We traveled again, and with fewer delays. We halted at sunset.
"How far now?" I asked.
"No more than a league, lord," he muttered.
"Then I shall find him in the morning, bright and early," I said.
He was silent.
"Have you lost your tongue?" I asked. Without looking at me, he whispered: "He will kill you, lord."
"I doubt it," I said. "But if I die, it shall not be alone, or this is not Dragon-killer and I am no Pendragon." He went down on his knees to me.
"Nay, spare me the blood-guilt, lord! He has strangers with him now—in half armor, with crossbows. Not poor English forest fugitives. A dozen such, before and behind him and at both elbows—ready to loose a bolt at the cock of an eye. Let me go now, and you await me here, and I will bring you a dozen true men by sunrise. Heed me, lord! True forest men with English hearts and bows. Then I will take you to him. I swear it, lord, by Christ's wounds! Hold the great sword to me, and I will swear on the cross of the holy hilt."
"I would not trust you, poor rogue, if you swore a hundred oaths and kissed a hundred crosses," I said. "You made to rob me of Dragon-killer last night, and would have slit my throat too, I think. Come to this tree now, and I will secure you for the night."
"You are my lord now!" he cried.
"A quick change of fealty," I sneered.
He was silent a moment, kneeling there with bowed head. Then he raised his head and looked at me.
"I did not strike you while we plucked berries in the thicket, lord," he said slowly. "Nor when we knelt together and drank at the stream. Nor when you turned your back upon me to mount your horse. Look to your belt, lord."
I looked down at my belt.
"To the right side, lord. To the silver-hafted dagger." I looked. The sheath was empty.
"Your dagger, lord," he murmured, and laid the thin blade at my feet, and bowed his head again.
I stared down at it stupidly. He had taken it while we picked bramble berries. He could have stabbed me a dozen times since then. Or he could have cut his leash and escaped into the underbrush. Or he could have waited and freed himself at night; and if I had suddenly become aware of my loss at any time, he could have sprung upon me quicker than I could have sensed my peril. I turned and moved away a pace and stood so a long minute. When I turned again, the fellow still knelt at the same spot, but with his head up again, and the dagger still lay where he had placed it. I stooped and took up the weapon, and stepped close to him. He did not move, save for his twitching eyelids. I cut the bowstring at his middle, then sheathed the keen blade. His eyelids ceased their twitching. Then I drew the weapon, sheath and all, from my belt, and extended it to him, with the silver hilt advanced.
I slept but little that night. At one moment, thinking of the incident of the dagger, I trusted the fellow utterly, and at the next I feared the worst for my simplicity.
As well trust a wolf or a wildcat, I told myself. And yet he had me at his mercy and spared me. But he is a simpleton as well as a savage, at best. Even if he truly means no harm to me, the best I can expect from him is never to see him again.
I made a second and more secret couch of dry fern and heather, and lay on it with Dragon-killer unsheathed at my right hand and a knife in my left fist. But in a little while I sat up and called Star Boy closer. I dozed off, only to start up at the cry of a night-bird. I dozed again, only to be brought to my feet by the piping of a cricket. I was startled out of a mad dream by the barking of a fox. I slept again. I opened my eyes and wondered what had wakened me. The sky beyond the forest boughs above me was gray with dawn. I heard Star Boy grazing nearby. Then I heard a thin ghost of a whisper:
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