CHAPTER V
For three years following the disappearance of Prince Richard, a bentold woman lived in the heart of London within a stone's throw of theKing's palace. In a small back room she lived, high up in the attic ofan old building, and with her was a little boy who never went abroadalone, nor by day. And upon his left breast was a strange mark whichresembled 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 discardher dingy mantle for more comfortable and becoming doublet and hose.
For years, she worked assiduously with the little boy's education. Therewere three subjects in her curriculum; French, swordsmanship and hatredof all things English, especially the reigning house of England.
The old woman had had made a tiny foil and had commenced teaching thelittle 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 manyEnglishmen. Your name shall be hated and cursed the length and breadthof 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 wascomfortable, and had warm clothing, and all he required to eat, and thathe 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 hatedEnglishmen, but why, he did not know.
Way back in the uttermost recesses of his little, childish head, heseemed to remember a time when his life and surroundings had been verydifferent; when, instead of this old woman, there had been many peoplearound him, and a sweet faced woman had held him in her arms and kissedhim, 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 andwonderful dreams.
When the little boy was about six years of age, a strange man came totheir attic home to visit the little old woman. It was in the dusk ofthe 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 cornerof the bare chamber.
The stranger was old and bent and had a great beard which hid almosthis entire face except for two piercing eyes, a great nose and a bitof wrinkled forehead. When he spoke, he accompanied his words with manyshrugs of his narrow shoulders and with waving of his arms and otherstrange and amusing gesticulations. The child was fascinated. Here wasthe first amusement of his little starved life. He listened intently tothe conversation, which was in French.
"I have just the thing for madame," the stranger was saying. "It be anoble and stately hall far from the beaten way. It was built in the olddays by Harold the Saxon, but in later times, death and poverty and thedisfavor of the King have wrested it from his descendants. A few yearssince, Henry granted it to that spend-thrift favorite of his, Henri deMacy, who pledged it to me for a sum he hath been unable to repay. Todayit be my property, and as it be far from Paris, you may have it for themere song I have named. It be a wondrous bargain, madame."
"And when I come upon it, I shall find that I have bought a crumblingpile of ruined masonry, unfit to house a family of foxes," replied theold woman peevishly.
"One tower hath fallen, and the roof for half the length of one winghath sagged and tumbled in," explained the old Frenchman. "But the threelower stories be intact and quite habitable. It be much grander evennow 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 theJew--thou knowest him?--and he shall hold it together with the deedfor forty days, which will give thee ample time to travel to Derby andinspect thy purchase. If thou be not entirely satisfied, Isaac the Jewshall return thy money to thee and the deed to me, but if at the endof forty days thou hast not made demand for thy money, then shall Isaacsend the deed to thee and the money to me. Be not this an easy and fairway out of the difficulty?"
The little old woman thought for a moment and at last conceded thatit seemed quite a fair way to arrange the matter. And thus it wasaccomplished.
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 shallbe wrapped in many rags, for thou hast a most grievous toothache. Dostunderstand?"
"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 askthee upon the way why thy face be so wrapped, thou art to say that thouhast a toothache. And thou do not do as I say, the King's men will takeus and we shall be hanged, for the King hateth us. If thou hatest theEnglish King and lovest thy life do as I command."
"I hate the King," replied the little boy. "For this reason I shall doas thou sayest."
So it was that they set out that night upon their long journey northtoward the hills of Derby. For many days they travelled, riding upontwo small donkeys. Strange sights filled the days for the little boywho remembered nothing outside the bare attic of his London home and thedirty 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 ofthatched huts. Occasionally they saw armored knights upon the highway,alone or in small parties, but the child's companion always managed tohasten 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 gladeacross which the road wound, the boy saw two knights enter the gladefrom either side. For a moment, they drew rein and eyed each other insilence, and then one, a great black mailed knight upon a black charger,cried out something to the other which the boy could not catch. Theother knight made no response other than to rest his lance upon histhigh and with lowered point, ride toward his ebon adversary. For adozen paces their great steeds trotted slowly toward one another, butpresently the knights urged them into full gallop, and when the two ironmen on their iron trapped chargers came together in the center of theglade, it was with all the terrific impact of full charge.
The lance of the black knight smote full upon the linden shield of hisfoeman, the staggering weight of the mighty black charger hurtled uponthe gray, who went down with his rider into the dust of the highway. Themomentum of the black carried him fifty paces beyond the fallen horsemanbefore his rider could rein him in, then the black knight turned to viewthe havoc he had wrought. The gray horse was just staggering dizzily tohis 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 hisvanquished foe. There was a cruel smile upon his lips as he leanedtoward the prostrate form. He spoke tauntingly, but there was noresponse, 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 haddisappeared from sight within the gloomy shadows of the encirclingforest.
The little boy was spell-bound. Naught like this had he ever seen ordreamed.
"Some day thou shalt go and do likewise, my son," said the little oldwoman.
"Shall I be clothed in armor and ride upon a great black steed?" heasked.
"Yes, and thou shalt ride the highways of England with thy stout lanceand mighty sword, and behind thee thou shalt leave a trail of blood anddeath, for every man shalt be thy enemy. But come, we must be on ourway."
They rode on, leaving the dead knight where he had fallen, but always inhis memory the child carried the thing that he had seen, longing for theday 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 thenotice of a caravan of merchants j
ourneying up-country with their wares,they saw a band of ruffians rush out from the concealing shelter of somebushes at the far side of the highway and fall upon the surprised anddefenseless tradesmen.
Ragged, bearded, uncouth villains they were, armed mostly with bludgeonsand daggers, with here and there a cross-bow. Without mercy theyattacked the old and the young, beating them down in cold blood evenwhen they offered no resistance. Those of the caravan who could,escaped, the balance the highwaymen left dead or dying in the road, asthey hurried away with their loot.
At first the child was horror-struck, but when he turned to the littleold woman for sympathy he found a grim smile upon her thin lips. Shenoted his expression of dismay.
"It is naught, my son. But English curs setting upon English swine. Someday thou shalt set upon both--they be only fit for killing."
The boy made no reply, but he thought a great deal about that whichhe had seen. Knights were cruel to knights--the poor were cruel to therich--and every day of the journey had forced upon his childish mindthat everyone must be very cruel and hard upon the poor. He had seenthem in all their sorrow and misery and poverty--stretching a long,scattering line all the way from London town. Their bent backs, theirpoor thin bodies and their hopeless, sorrowful faces attesting the wearywretchedness 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. "Youhave seen, my son, that all Englishmen are beasts. They set upon andkill one another for little provocation or for no provocation at all.When thou shalt be older, thou shalt go forth and kill them all forunless thou kill them, they will kill thee."
At length, after tiresome days upon the road, they came to a littlehamlet in the hills. Here the donkeys were disposed of and a great horsepurchased, upon which the two rode far up into a rough and uninvitingcountry away from the beaten track, until late one evening theyapproached a ruined castle.
The frowning walls towered high against the moonlit sky beyond, andwhere a portion of the roof had fallen in, the cold moon, shiningthrough the narrow unglazed windows, gave to the mighty pile thelikeness of a huge, many-eyed ogre crouching upon the flank of adeserted world, for nowhere was there other sign of habitation.
Before this somber pile, the two dismounted. The little boy was filledwith awe and his childish imagination ran riot as they approached thecrumbling barbican on foot, leading the horse after them. From the darkshadows of the ballium, they passed into the moonlit inner court. At thefar end the old woman found the ancient stables, and here, with decayingplanks, she penned the horse for the night, pouring a measure of oatsupon 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, lightingtheir advance with a flickering pine knot. The old planking of thefloors, long unused, groaned and rattled beneath their approach. Therewas a sudden scamper of clawed feet before them, and a red fox dashed byin a frenzy of alarm toward the freedom of the outer night.
Presently they came to the great hall. The old woman pushed open thegreat doors upon their creaking hinges and lit up dimly the mighty,cavernous interior with the puny rays of their feeble torch. As theystepped cautiously within, an impalpable dust arose in little spurtsfrom the long-rotted rushes that crumbled beneath their feet. A hugebat circled wildly with loud fluttering wings in evident remonstrance atthis rude intrusion. Strange creatures of the night scurried or wriggledacross wall and floor.
But the child was unafraid. Fear had not been a part of the old woman'scurriculum. The boy did not know the meaning of the word, nor washe ever in his after-life to experience the sensation. With childisheagerness, he followed his companion as she inspected the interior ofthe chamber. It was still an imposing room. The boy clapped his handsin delight at the beauties of the carved and panelled walls and the oakbeamed ceiling, stained almost black from the smoke of torches and oilcressets that had lighted it in bygone days, aided, no doubt, by thewood fires which had burned in its two immense fireplaces to cheer themerry throng of noble revellers that had so often sat about the greattable into the morning hours.
Here they took up their abode. But the bent, old woman was no longer anold woman--she had become a straight, wiry, active old man.
The little boy's education went on--French, swordsmanship and hatredof the English--the same thing year after year with the addition ofhorsemanship after he was ten years old. At this time the old mancommenced teaching him to speak English, but with a studied and verymarked French accent. During all his life now, he could not remember ofhaving spoken to any living being other than his guardian, whom he hadbeen taught to address as father. Nor did the boy have any name--he wasjust "my son."
His life in the Derby hills was so filled with the hard, exactingduties of his education that he had little time to think of the strangeloneliness of his existence; nor is it probable that he missed thatcompanionship of others of his own age of which, never having hadexperience in it, he could scarce be expected to regret or yearn for.
At fifteen, the youth was a magnificent swordsman and horseman, and withan utter contempt for pain or danger--a contempt which was the result ofthe heroic methods adopted by the little old man in the training of him.Often the two practiced with razor-sharp swords, and without armor orother protection of any description.
"Thus only," the old man was wont to say, "mayst thou become theabsolute master of thy blade. Of such a nicety must be thy handling ofthe weapon that thou mayst touch an antagonist at will and so lightly,shouldst thou desire, that thy point, wholly under the control of amaster 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 themwould nurse a punctured skin for a few days. So, while blood was oftenlet on both sides, the training produced a fearless swordsman who wasso truly the master of his point that he could stop a thrust within afraction of an inch of the spot he sought.
At fifteen, he was a very strong and straight and handsome lad. Bronzedand hardy from his outdoor life; of few words, for there was none thathe might talk with save the taciturn old man; hating the English, forthat he was taught as thoroughly as swordsmanship; speaking Frenchfluently and English poorly--and waiting impatiently for the day whenthe old man should send him out into the world with clanking armor andlance and shield to do battle with the knights of England.
It was about this time that there occurred the first important break inthe monotony of his existence. Far down the rocky trail that led fromthe valley below through the Derby hills to the ruined castle, threearmored knights urged their tired horses late one afternoon of a chillautumn day. Off the main road and far from any habitation, they hadespied the castle's towers through a rift in the hills, and now theyspurred toward it in search of food and shelter.
As the road led them winding higher into the hills, they suddenlyemerged upon the downs below the castle where a sight met their eyeswhich caused them to draw rein and watch in admiration. There, beforethem upon the downs, a boy battled with a lunging, rearing horse--aperfect demon of a black horse. Striking and biting in a frenzy ofrage, it sought ever to escape or injure the lithe figure which clungleech-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 drewsteadily in upon a halter rope with which he had taken a half hitchabout the horse's muzzle. Now the black reared and wheeled, strikingand biting, full upon the youth, but the active figure swung withhim--always just behind the giant shoulder--and ever and ever he drewthe great arched neck farther and farther to the right.
As the animal plunged hither and thither in great leaps, he dragged theboy with him, but all his mighty efforts were unavailing to loosen thegrip upon mane and withers. Suddenly, he reared straight into the aircarrying the youth with him, then with a vicious lunge he threw himselfbackward 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 clingsas tightly to him as his own black hide."
"'Tis true," exclaimed another, "but he hath lost what he had gainedupon the halter--he must needs fight it all out again from thebeginning."
And so the battle went on again as before, the boy again drawing theiron neck slowly to the right--the beast fighting and squealing asthough possessed of a thousand devils. A dozen times, as the head bentfarther and farther toward him, the boy loosed his hold upon the maneand reached quickly down to grasp the near fore pastern. A dozen timesthe 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 feetand his neck was drawn about in an awkward and unnatural position. Hisefforts became weaker and weaker. The boy talked incessantly to him ina quiet voice, and there was a shadow of a smile upon his lips. Nowhe bore heavily upon the black withers, pulling the horse toward him.Slowly the beast sank upon his bent knee--pulling backward until his offfore leg was stretched straight before him. Then, with a final surge,the youth pulled him over upon his side, and, as he fell, slipped pronebeside him. One sinewy hand shot to the rope just beneath the blackchin--the other grasped a slim, pointed ear.
For a few minutes the horse fought and kicked to gain his liberty, butwith his head held to the earth, he was as powerless in the hands of theboy as a baby would have been. Then he sank panting and exhausted intomute surrender.
"Well done!" cried one of the knights. "Simon de Montfort himself nevermastered a horse in better order, my boy. Who be thou?"
In an instant, the lad was upon his feet his eyes searching for thespeaker. The horse, released, sprang up also, and the two stood--thehandsome boy and the beautiful black--gazing with startled eyes, liketwo wild things, at the strange intruder who confronted them.
"Come, Sir Mortimer!" cried the boy, and turning he led the prancing butsubdued animal toward the castle and through the ruined barbican intothe court beyond.
"What ho, there, lad!" shouted Paul of Merely. "We wouldst not harmthee--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 andlearn what manner of churls inhabit this ancient rookery."
As they entered the great courtyard, magnificent even in its ruinedgrandeur, they were met by a little, grim old man who asked them in nogentle 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 theright, and when thou hast come there, turn again to thy right and ridenorth beside the river--thou canst not miss the way--it be plain as thenose before thy face," and with that the old man turned to enter thecastle.
"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. Wewill tarry with you then till morn that we may take up our journeyrefreshed, upon rested steeds."
The old man grumbled, and it was with poor grace that he took them in tofeed and house them over night. But there was nothing else for it, sincethey would have taken his hospitality by force had he refused to give itvoluntarily.
From their guests, the two learned something of the conditions outsidetheir Derby hills. The old man showed less interest than he felt, but tothe 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 andbaron, bishop and king.
"If the King does not mend his ways," said one of the knights, "we willdrive 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 ofus, both Norman and Saxon barons, have already met together and formeda pact for our mutual protection, the King must surely realize that thetime for temporizing be past, and that unless he would have a civil warupon his hands, he must keep the promises he so glibly makes, instead ofbreaking them the moment De Montfort's back be turned."
"He fears his brother-in-law," interrupted another of the knights, "evenmore than the devil fears holy water. I was in attendance on his majestysome 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, ofwhich the King was in such abject fear that he commanded that we land atthe 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?' Andwhat thinkest thou old 'waxen heart' replied? Why, still trembling, hesaid, 'I do indeed fear thunder and lightning much, but, by the hand ofGod, I tremble before you more than for all the thunder in Heaven!'"
"I surmise," interjected the grim, old man, "that De Montfort has insome manner gained an ascendancy over the King. Think you he looks sohigh as the throne itself?"
"Not so," cried the oldest of the knights. "Simon de Montfort works forEngland's weal alone--and methinks, nay knowest, that he would be firstto spring to arms to save the throne for Henry. He but fights the King'srank and covetous advisers, and though he must needs seem to defy theKing 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 mightbe a permanent reconciliation when, for years after the disappearanceof the little Prince Richard, De Montfort devoted much of his time andprivate fortune to prosecuting a search through all the world for thelittle fellow, of whom he was inordinately fond. This self-sacrificinginterest on his part won over the King and Queen for many years, but oflate his unremitting hostility to their continued extravagant waste ofthe 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 toprepare supper.
As they were sitting at the evening meal, one of the nobles eyed the boyintently, for he was indeed good to look upon; his bright handsome face,clear, intelligent gray eyes, and square strong jaw framed in a massof 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 fashionof 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 alsoof leather, a soft and finely tanned piece of undressed doeskin. Hislong 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 sandalswere cross-gartered halfway to his knees with narrow bands of leather.
A leathern girdle about his waist supported a sword and a dagger and around skull cap of the same material, to which was fastened a falcon'swing, 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 Frenchaccent.
"'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 hardput to it to tell him from the young Prince Edward. Dids't ever see sostrange a likeness?"
"Now that you speak of it, My Lord, I see it plainly. It is indeed amarvel," answered Beauchamp.
Had they glanced at the old man during this colloquy, they would haveseen a blanched face, drawn with inward fear and rage.
Presently the oldest member of the party of three knights spoke in agrave 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 nam
e. My father calls me son andno other ever before addressed me."
At this juncture, the old man arose and left the room, saving he wouldfetch more food from the kitchen, but he turned immediately he hadpassed the doorway and listened from without.
"The lad appears about fifteen," said Paul of Merely, lowering hisvoice, "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 likePrince Edward to be his twin."
"Come, my son," he continued aloud, "open your jerkin and let us have alook at your left breast, we shall read a true answer there."
"Are you Englishmen?" asked the boy without making a move to comply withtheir demand.
"That we be, my son," said Beauchamp.
"Then it were better that I die than do your bidding, for all Englishmenare pigs and I loathe them as becomes a gentleman of France. I do notuncover my body to the eyes of swine."
The knights, at first taken back by this unexpected outbreak, finallyburst into uproarious laughter.
"Indeed," cried Paul of Merely, "spoken as one of the King's foreignfavorites might speak, and they ever told the good God's truth. But comelad, we would not harm you--do as I bid."
"No man lives who can harm me while a blade hangs at my side," answeredthe boy, "and as for doing as you bid, I take orders from no man otherthan my father."
Beauchamp and Greystoke laughed aloud at the discomfiture of Paul ofMerely, but the latter's face hardened in anger, and without furtherwords he strode forward with outstretched hand to tear open the boy'sleathern jerkin, but met with the gleaming point of a sword and a quicksharp, "En garde!" from the boy.
There was naught for Paul of Merely to do but draw his own weapon, inself-defense, for the sharp point of the boy's sword was flashing in andout against his unprotected body, inflicting painful little jabs,and the boy's tongue was murmuring low-toned taunts and insults as itinvited him to draw and defend himself or be stuck "like the English pigyou are."
Paul of Merely was a brave man and he liked not the idea of drawingagainst this stripling, but he argued that he could quickly disarm himwithout harming the lad, and he certainly did not care to be furtherhumiliated before his comrades.
But when he had drawn and engaged his youthful antagonist, he discoveredthat, far from disarming him, he would have the devil's own job of it tokeep from being killed.
Never in all his long years of fighting had he faced such an agile anddexterous 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 herealized that he was fighting for his life against a superior swordsman.
The loud laughter of Beauchamp and Greystoke soon subsided to grimsmiles, and presently they looked on with startled faces in which fearand apprehension were dominant.
The boy was fighting as a cat might play with a mouse. No sign ofexertion was apparent, and his haughty confident smile told louder thanwords that he had in no sense let himself out to his full capacity.
Around and around the room they circled, the boy always advancing, Paulof Merely always retreating. The din of their clashing swords and theheavy breathing of the older man were the only sounds, except as theybrushed against a bench or a table.
Paul of Merely was a brave man, but he shuddered at the thought of dyinguselessly at the hands of a mere boy. He would not call upon his friendsfor aid, but presently, to his relief, Beauchamp sprang between themwith drawn sword, crying "Enough, gentlemen, enough! You have noquarrel. Sheathe your swords."
But the boy's only response was, "En garde, cochon," and Beauchamp foundhimself taking the center of the stage in the place of his friend. Nordid the boy neglect Paul of Merely, but engaged them both in swordplaythat caused the eyes of Greystoke to bulge from their sockets.
So swiftly moved his flying blade that half the time it was a sheet ofgleaming light, and now he was driving home his thrusts and the smilehad frozen upon his lips--grim and stern.
Paul of Merely and Beauchamp were wounded in a dozen places whenGreystoke rushed to their aid, and then it was that a little, wiry, grayman leaped agilely from the kitchen doorway, and with drawn sword tookhis place beside the boy. It was now two against three and the three mayhave guessed, though they never knew, that they were pitted against thetwo greatest swordsmen in the world.
"To the death," cried the little gray man, "a mort, mon fils." Scarcelyhad 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 Saxongentleman was gathered to his fathers.
The old man engaged Greystoke now, and the boy turned his undividedattention to Beauchamp. Both these men were considered excellentswordsmen, but when Beauchamp heard again the little gray man's "a mort,mon fils," he shuddered, and the little hairs at the nape of his neckrose up, and his spine froze, for he knew that he had heard the sentenceof death passed upon him; for no mortal had yet lived who could vanquishsuch a swordsman as he who now faced him.
As Beauchamp pitched forward across a bench, dead, the little old manled Greystoke to where the boy awaited him.
"They are thy enemies, my son, and to thee belongs the pleasure ofrevenge; a mort, mon fils."
Greystoke was determined to sell his life dearly, and he rushed the ladas a great bull might rush a teasing dog, but the boy gave back notan inch and, when Greystoke stopped, there was a foot of cold steelprotruding from his back.
Together they buried the knights at the bottom of the dry moat at theback of the ruined castle. First they had stripped them and, when theytook account of the spoils of the combat, they found themselves richerby three horses with full trappings, many pieces of gold and silvermoney, ornaments and jewels, as well as the lances, swords and chainmail armor of their erstwhile guests.
But the greatest gain, the old man thought to himself, was that theknowledge of the remarkable resemblance between his ward and PrinceEdward of England had come to him in time to prevent the undoing of hislife's work.
The boy, while young, was tall and broad shouldered, and so the oldman had little difficulty in fitting one of the suits of armor tohim, obliterating the devices so that none might guess to whom it hadbelonged. This he did, and from then on the boy never rode abroad exceptin armor, and when he met others upon the high road, his visor wasalways lowered that none might see his face.
The day following the episode of the three knights the old man calledthe boy to him, saying,
"It is time, my son, that thou learned an answer to such questions aswere put to thee yestereve by the pigs of Henry. Thou art fifteen yearsof age, and thy name be Norman, and so, as this be the ancient castle ofTorn, thou mayst answer those whom thou desire to know it that thou artNorman of Torn; that thou be a French gentleman whose father purchasedTorn 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 isthe sword; naught else may penetrate his thick wit."
And so was born that Norman of Torn, whose name in a few short yearswas to strike terror to the hearts of Englishmen, and whose power in thevicinity of Torn was greater than that of the King or the barons.
The Outlaw of Torn Page 5
