Joris of the Rock [The Neustrian Cycle, Book II] (Forgotten Fantasy Library)

by Leslie Barringer

  "Borqueron beaks them – a Boqueron, ho-ho!'

  "Gaston is thrashing his own pikemen – no, it is useless, they scatter in spite of him – look, look, my lord!"

  "Hey, by the harrowing of hell, the whole wing melts like snow – ay, chevaliers and all – Saint George! Saint George!"

  The voices rang and jarred and exulted; Juhel scrambled from under the wagon and tottered to his feet. Half dazed, he stared for a moment at the flats where panic spread – at the northward road alive with scurrying fugitives, at the Barberghe banner reeling amid the thickets, at the steel-gray sweep of river toward Angmer, where already scores of rebels were wading, swimming, drowning. Then he looked for Piers, and saw him, and with a wail lurched forward upon bended knees; for Piers lay staring skyward, with a long shaft driven through his smooth extended throat.

  "Juhel, bring Safadin hither!" were the next words he understood. The count's mailed hand fell on his shoulder; the count's eyes narrowed with pain as he looked from one lad's still face to the other's that ran with tears.

  "It is not yet done, boy," said the count. "Time for our sorrow later. Now go."

  When Juhel brought up the great charger the wagons had already been tugged apart. Barberghe and Moncarneau lay straightened out in their gilded armour; the one had stifled where he fell, the other had died upright with the broken blade of John Doust's estoc fast in his riven helm. Gavin's body and many another were tumbled more hurriedly aside; there was trampling and laughing on Pont-de-Foy, and Raoul of Ger turned in his saddle and gestured to the Englishman.

  "Your bridge, John," he said. "The king shall know we owe it to you. Stand fast for the present – Boqueron drives them northward, and I drive to the centre, so that none should trouble you here."

  John Doust lifted a puzzled face that glistened with sweat.

  "What is the bell?" he demanded, glancing oddly around him.

  "What bell? I hear none."

  "Nor I," added Nino Chiostra, wheeling his mount close by them. "In faith, John, you are dreaming. The bell chimes only in your head … belike the mace of Montcarneau awoke it before you finished him."

  "Nay, nay … I know it … it rang as for a passing even now. It is the Minster bell."

  What Minster, man?"

  "The great Minster of York … hey, you are right, I dreamed it. God speed you both. I keep the bridge behind you. I must get me another sword…"

  Then count and comptroller were away with Juhel and thirty more crowding behind them; for in the mid-field, near the smoking ruins of the Inn of Harmony, the great fight rolled toward the river – a crazy welter of death whose result still seemed to hang in the balance.

  "Ha! Robin Barberghe!" cried Raoul of Ger grimly; and Juhel looked aside to see the signs of a past eddy of strife-churned earth, splayed grasses, hacked willows, a score of dead around the torn chevron banner that once darkened a page's ride from Saint-Eloy-over-Hardonek. And in the midst a propped corpse, unhelmed, with dark head bowed as though in meditation.

  "Titles to spare this night," commented Nino Chiostra; and Juhel felt a dull amazement at this deadly twining and cutting of so many threads of life.

  But when they came to the centre they found the tumult slackened; on the middle mound of three beneath his royal father's banner, that had been his own for a week Conrad of Burias stood bareheaded and haggardly at bay. His charger he had scorned to use for flight; his power had flaked away on either hand, and beside him were now the constable an most of his other chief supporters who had not yet done down. Two or three hundred were gathered with them – chevaliers and squires for the most part, who had chosen their game and would play it to a finish.

  On three sides of them closed their foemen; the young king flung up his visor and showed a chalk-white face as he rode up to the ranked rebels.

  "Bid these your men surrender, Conrad," he shrilled. "Six heads shall pay the score for all."

  "What say you, lords and chevaliers?" demanded Conrad loftily of them around him.

  A short and angry roar of refusal beat in Thorismund's face.

  "Better die with Burias than live with Hastain!" shrieked the daft Count of Lestembourg; and Conrad smiled at his royal cousin and one-time friend.

  "You hear?" he thundered. "Let loose your hounds, good kinsman; we take a relay of them where we go!"

  Thorismund tightened rein and waved a savage command. A flung spear rebounded from his shoulder plate, and he snapped his visor down. Behind him the Saulte and Olencourt lances sank for the last time; and on the western mound Raoul of Ger set Safadin in motion.

  "Hey, there is little Judas Ger!" yelled Conrad. "Come hither, Judas, and share the sport you planned!"

  "I come," cried the young count deeply; and Juhel followed him in the trampling rush which made safe Thorismund's throne.

  Half an hour later the sunset of Pont-de-Foy flared redly through the drizzle to show the six heads Thorismund had claimed, with ten more added as an afterthought, laid in a grisly row for swift conveyance to the principal cities of the realm; and Nino Chiostra looked from them to the group about the king's pavilion, and spoke in the ear of Raoul of Ger the only jest which Juhel heard that day.

  "Now they are all at peace together, tenants in capite and tenants sine capite."

  But the count caught his friend by the arm and pushed him forward to kneel before the weary sovereign, who struck with a hacked blade upon shoulder after plated shoulder of those who had well served him since the dawn.

  "My liege, this is Nino da Chiostra, who guided us over the ford."

  "So, it is well done. Rise, Chevalier Nino, and serve as you have served before. Raoul, good cousin, where is your English captain? Boqueron here has told us of the bridge you held, you two and he together."

  "He is still posted there, guarding the bodies of Barberghe and Montcarneau. He slew them both beside our barricade."

  "Send him to us when you can. You are well served, cousin – yet God may witness, no better served than we are. Only Gaston is fled, and only Camors and Ahun are taken. The rest – are here."

  Juhel turned from the victor groups to scan the field below him. Already scores of campfires twinkled between the forest and the river; smoke circled and blew beneath the purple clouds that drifted together and whelmed the sun. The thin rain ceased, and out of the woods came damp scents of summer evening, contending with and cooling the sharp odours of camp and horse lines and stale carnage. Already monks from Angmer were dotted over the fields, helping the tired men-at-arms who sought the wounded among the slain.

  "That was a strange dream," mused Juhel. "I must tell Piers about it."

  Then he remembered, and groaned aloud; but again his grief was checked by action, for a horseman in a falcon coat came charging up the western slope, and away behind him men were running as though upon Pont-de-Foy.

  "Where is my lord?" shouted the messenger; and king and commanders and chevaliers turned behind Raoul of Ger.

  "What is it?" demanded the count.

  "My lord, I have sent what men I met – Joris of the Rock with near a hundred thieving rogues is broken out of the woods; they are knifing the hurt and stripping the slain and pressing Captain John Doust on the bridge – he bade me find you quickly – and I–"

  The horseman stopped and leaned from his saddle, clutching at the arrow which had him in the thigh. Down he crashed before they could catch him; amid the running and the shouting Juhel saw the king's physician waddling over the wet grass.

  Then there was only the scramble of mounting – each man on the charger first to hand – and the singing of air in Juhel's ears. That thinned the tumult of that second headlong ride toward the twilit hamlet by the river.

  * * * *

  Thousands of slain in the meadows … the royal standard taken … Joris laughing amain at the end of a great battle.

  The heavy-lidded eyes were rimmed with red, the eagle face was lined with a new savagery, the golden beard half gray now, and no longer trimmed t
o a point; but Joris could still achieve a shout of honest mirth as he sat in a high beech fork and saw that rearward threat of threescore men plunge Conrad's whole left wing into dismay and panic-stricken rout.

  "By the chimes of hell it is ill work to cross the viper of Ger!" he said.

  Then his face chilled with anger; she had said that – the woman whom he now called Thorismund's harlot, the creature who had brought him within grasp of power and then thrust him back upon hi old wolfish life. No word of her had reached him in the eight months newly past; but Thorismund took his loves lightly, and Joris thought of Anne as maybe fallen to some lesser paramour in Hautarroy. And Gaston's forced march – possible only by grace of that year's dry spring, which gave footing for men and beast in moorland ways at most times impassable – had sent Joris southward only to find the realm in arms between himself and the Rock.

  "This for our entertainment," he said to his staring men; and all day long they had gazed from the trees and thickets, their view raking the line of fight from Pont-de-Foy to Angmer. Ger and his troop must have circled their lair; and Joris swore in surprise when he realized the use to which they had put the ford he deemed his secret. He pondered rushing across behind them and adding a grimmer surprise to the day's chances; but Gaston was not a man to reward him with anything but a hempen noose. It was better to wait and watch what befell, with men unwearied in case of need.

  So, when the end was apparent, when Ger rode off to the centre across the littered levels, Joris climbed down from his wet perch and threaded a way to the edge of the deep thickets. Brightly the last light was reflected in steel and gilded armour of the fallen; less than a score of yellow surcoats moved on Pont-de-Foy.

  "Raoul of Ger I will not encounter," said Joris between set teeth, "but these his men make a mouthful too tempting to pass by. Madoc, take ten and have ponies ready; when we have cleared the bridge, drive straight across it. We will empty those tents beyond – if my kinsman Montcarneau be down, I am as good an heir as any. Haro!"

  And he broke out into the open, with his followers at his heels.

  "There is that damned English captain," came Gandulf's warning word; but Joris only laughed again, content with speed and odds and prospect of some small revenge.

  The half of his men charged with him, the others spreading out to begin their grisly work among the helpless fallen. On the bridge the little group of yellow coats had stirred to rapid action; one man leaped on a horse and spurred obliquely across the line or attack before the outlaws were within fair bowshot. Nevertheless Joris himself sent an arrow true to its mark; the man at arms dropped the ax he carried, but held his place and rocked away on the tail of his vanished lord.

  "Now we must hasten," cried Joris. "Stand and let fly – forward – stand and let fly again – down bows and at them all together – this for the belfry at Gramberge!"

  One of the wagons once more half blocked the bridge; John Doust stood forward with three more heavily armoured companions; their plate of proof protected them and helped to shield the others, of whom four wielded bows and the rest pikes or guisarmes.

  "This for your whole foul fame, you rat from the sewers of hell," said the Englishman quietly; and a whirled blow of his snatched-up sword split the buckler on the outlaw's lifted arm and beat Joris flat on his back. Across their leader dived and pressed the first stout rogues of the wolf pack; left and right swung John Doust's weapon, slaying one and stunning another, who dropped like a log on the chieftain's knees, while Gandulf's sloped shield took a pike thrust aimed at the chieftain's head.

  Joris heaved himself back and away, stumbling amid the throng of assault; a second buckler was thrust to his hand, and with three long forward strides he plunged into the fight of his life.

  A mace had beaten awry the Englishman's visor point; his armour was dinted and riven in places, but he seemed to have taken no hurt. Nevertheless he was tired, and his heavy strokes were mistimed; this, and the quickness of Joris, balanced the strength of plate, so that he dealt one blow for every two he received. Also he raised no war shout against the bark of Joris, but kept his breath for hewing and thrusting, and gave not an inch of ground.

  In brief, for the second time that day, John Doust was holding Pont-de-Foy; and beside him fought and fell and died the men who survived the earlier onset – each slaying an outlaw or two before he dropped in the wagon or on the narrow way.

  "Hurry, Hurry!" screamed Gandulf, cautious even in midbattle; and as John Doust split the second buckler and gashed the shoulder of Joris beneath it, Gandulf shore the steel knee cop from the Englishman's fore-bent leg. John Doust staggered and swore, and ignored recoiling Joris to whirl out a terrible back-handed blow that split the face of Gandulf and dropped him dead in his tracks.

  Wounded Joris took his chance, and thrust, instead of striking, over the chopped shield rim; beneath the rent and flapping falcon a battered breastplate gave to his point. With four inches of steel in him, John Doust grunted and reeled, his harness bumping against the wagon, his shield drooping, his sword wavering up for a last flat ill-aimed smack that laid the outlaw's jawbone bare and spun him round to the parapet.

  "To hell yourself, you English hog!" he grated, wrenching his own blade back and smiting hard; but this time plate repelled the edge, and the yelling and tumbling of his own men told Joris of flight and danger. He glanced round in the sudden twilight, and saw coloured coats converging toward the bridge – and behind them others, mounted, gaining swiftly upon them.

  Last of all his band, Joris turned and fled the way he had come, heedless of wounds or of plunder, or of the fallen men of his own who squealed for help as he passed. And on the bridge John Doust slid to a sitting posture, back to the wagon wheel and feet among the dead; his empty sword hand wavered up to the flattened visor, but one of his three surviving men had to open it for him, while another hobbled down the bank to fetch water in a bascinet.

  Out of the twilight drummed the last charge upon Pont-de-Foy. Juhel, being light in the saddle, had gained the van of that company; when he leaped to earth he ignored the horses, stumbling forward, plucking out of his wallet the pliers used with armour. But Raoul of Ger and Nino Chiostra were first of all on the bridge; brushing aside the men at arms, they knelt beside their friend.

  "John," croaked the young count; and to Nino: "Quick, his breastplate. I will unhelm him."

  "Juhel, here … take hold."

  The little blue eyes of John Doust went twinkling form one to the other; he gave a curious short cough and his great face was not now very red.

  "Lung," he muttered quickly. "Nay, you can do no good. Praise to Saint George, I pinked the wolf and broke his ugly jowl … but a man cannot fight all day and all night too. If I had not smashed my estoc…"

  Nino was slitting leather and linen; Juhel, turning aside to lay down the breastplate, all but set it on the steel shoe of the young king. Thorismund stood at the feet of John Doust; behind or about him were great commanders – Saulte, Boqueron, the grim castellan – and among them stood forward the portly Bishop of Belsaunt.

  "One moment, my lord Bishop," came the sharp royal command; and Thorismund once more dragged out his sword.

  "We must keep our promise," he said. "We dub you Chevalier John. God lift you to your feet ere long, brave Englishman, and give us other such swords among our friends."

  John Doust smiled at the king, and shook his head slightly. The Bishop of Belsaunt clanked to his knees beside the Count of Ger; Paternoster and Ave Maria boomed to the work of reddened fingers whose skill availed nothing.

  John Doust smiled at the bishop with a little nod of thanks; he had taken the Bread and Wine at dawn and seemed in no dismay. The armoured group around him burred the last 'Amen'; then falling silent, they heard his words to his own comrades.

  "I knew it was the Minster bell. My lord, you will tell your valiant imp I would have taught him swordcraft fit for a paladin … great times we would have had … amber out of Moscovy…

&nbs
p; "Trust in God and mount your archers. Nay, Nino, it was to be… I have mounted my last archer and now can only trust in God. Michael Archangel has His ear, and my own good Saint George, and by them I have sworn, and in them greatly confided.

  "The – the men – they fought like the brave rogues they are. Which of them live?"

  Neither the count nor Nino could speak; Juhel got the names out somehow, and the pale slit of a mouth moved again.

  "Give each of them some gear of mine … it was a good fight. Let little Juhel have my dagger. Hang the hilt of my estoc in the hall at Marckmont."

  John Doust's face was gray now; his voice that had gained a little in strength sank low again. For the last time his blue eyes went from the face of the Count of Ger to the face of the Chevalier da Chiostra; then they closed, and he spoke as though to himself, three several times.

  "Nino, Herluin, good lads both."

  For a moment he paused, and then, in a kind of bewilderment, entitled himself quietly in his own tongue.

  "Sir John Doust."

  Then he gave the ghost of a chuckle, and spoke from past to future with sudden tender reproof.

  "Nay, mammy, all will be well."

  The heavy head with its straw-coloured hair drooped childishly against the Tuscan's gorget. King and nobles crossed themselves, turning aside with a rattle of steel, averting their eyes from the face of the Chevalier.

  But Raoul of Ger stood upright and cried out in a choked and dreadful voice upon his royal kinsman.

  "My liege, lend me – lend me–"

  "Lend you what, Raoul?"

  "Lend me the quarter of your army, with horses to mount each man of them, and by the living God I will track that hell dog down and send you his head at last. If we are swift, we can ring him round. I hoped I might see you crowned, but better a gap by the throne than Joris still at large. See, he is in this angle of the hills. Men racing north and east must partly enclose him… Alanol and Belsaunt will contribute…"