Delphi Collected Works of Edgar Rice Burroughs (Illustrated) (Series Four Book 26)

by Edgar Rice Burroughs

  “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 your self 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 you
r 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 what I hint, but thou know that thou may trust me, Norman of Torn.”

  “Yea, even with my life and honor, my father,” replied the outlaw.

  “Then promise me, that with the old man of Torn alone, thou wilt come hither when I bidst thee and meet Simon de Montfort, and abide by his decision should my surmises concerning thee be correct. He will be the best judge of any in England, save two who must now remain nameless.”

  “I will come, Father, but it must be soon for on the fourth day we ride south.”

  “It shall be by the third day, or not at all,” replied Father Claude, and Norman of Torn, rising to leave, wondered at the moving leaves of the lilac bush without the window, for there was no breeze.

  Spizo, the Spaniard, reached Torn sever
al minutes before the outlaw chief and had already poured his tale into the ears of the little, grim, gray, old man.

  As the priest’s words were detailed to him the old man of Torn paled in anger.

  “The fool priest will upset the whole work to which I have devoted near twenty years,” he muttered, “if I find not the means to quiet his half-wit tongue. Between priest and petticoat, it be all but ruined now. Well then, so much the sooner must I act, and I know not but that now be as good a time as any. If we come near enough to the King’s men on this trip south, the gibbet shall have its own, and a Plantagenet dog shall taste the fruits of his own tyranny,” then glancing up and realizing that Spizo, the Spaniard, had been a listener, the old man, scowling, cried:

  “What said I, sirrah? What didst hear?”

  “Naught, My Lord; thou didst but mutter incoherently,” replied the Spaniard.

  The old man eyed him closely.

  “An did I more, Spizo, thou heardst naught but muttering, remember.”

  “Yes, My Lord.”

  An hour later, the old man of Torn dismounted before the cottage of Father Claude and entered.

  “I am honored,” said the priest, rising.

  “Priest,” cried the old man, coming immediately to the point, “Norman of Torn tells me that thou wish him and me and Leicester to meet here. I know not what thy purpose may be, but for the boy’s sake, carry not out thy design as yet. I may not tell thee my reasons, but it be best that this meeting take place after we return from the south.”

  The old man had never spoken so fairly to Father Claude before, and so the latter was quite deceived and promised to let the matter rest until later.

  A few days after, in the summer of 1263, Norman of Torn rode at the head of his army of outlaws through the county of Essex, down toward London town. One thousand fighting men there were, with squires and other servants, and five hundred sumpter beasts to transport their tents and other impedimenta, and bring back the loot.

  But a small force of ailing men-at-arms, and servants had been left to guard the castle of Torn under the able direction of Peter the Hermit.