about sunset fulk went up to standard hill and looked out over the forest. spread below him, with all the great oaks burgeoning into bronze, was a shimmering sea of gold meeting a sky of amber, and from it rose the singing of a thousand birds. about the group of firs on standard hill the slanting sunlight struck upon the young green growth of the heather, and made it shine like the dust of emeralds scattered broadcast over the earth. the yews of nutley hung like a thundercloud across a band of scarlet, and the distant hills were all soft greys and purples. the western sky was like the mysterious eyes of a woman flushed with love.
fulk could see nothing stirring on the heathlands, and he turned back to the white lodge in the valley. the day had passed quietly, and he judged that the wagon had reached lewes town in safety, and that on the morrow peter of pippinford and his men would be back at the white lodge. a frail smoke spiral went up from the louvre of the hall, and the whole valley was very still save for the singing of the birds in the oak woods on either side of the meadow. the grassland itself was a sheet of gold, and the old thorns by the great ditch were white with flower, and wondrous fragrant.
fulk passed just within the porch to watch an owl gliding along the edge of the wood; but it so happened that he saw more than an owl. a man in a brown smock came cautiously from behind the trunk of an oak, and stood looking towards the white lodge, shading his eyes with his hand.
fulk, motionless in the shadowy porch, called softly to the forester whom he had left on guard in the hall.
“john, bring me my bow.”
no one answered him, and he gave an impatient jerk of the head.
“fool, are you there?”
there was a long silence—a silence that seemed to hint at a suppressed chuckle. fulk turned and went in, searched the hall, the kitchen quarters, the store-room and upper chambers, but found no john. the fellow had sneaked off, and fled into the forest.
fulk took his bow and a couple of arrows from the table and passed out again into the porch. the man in brown had disappeared from the edge of the oak wood, and in his place stood a figure in a grey frock and hood, the figure of a grey friar, still as a stone figure in a niche over a church door.
fulk fingered his chin.
“so you are there, my friend. god’s mercy, but i have been bidden to wait for you, and i will wait with a naked sword. let us see whether any ditch-mender will dare to put a foot over this threshold.”
passing swiftly from place to place, he closed and fastened every door and shutter, but left the porch door open. brown dusk was falling, and the rafters of the hall were lost in gloom. fulk kicked up the fire, threw on half a faggot and some logs, and the flare of the flames as they blazed up were reflected in his eyes. a ringed coat and an open basinet hung on a peg above the dais, with a plain black shield and a sword in a blue scabbard. fulk stood listening a moment before taking down the hauberk. he slipped it on, donned the basinet, and began to fasten the laces to the rings of the chain gorget.
the fire had blazed up brightly, and, taking the shield and sword, fulk drew a stool near to the hearth and sat down to watch and wait. he unsheathed the sword and laid it across his knees. there was no sound that he could hear other than the crackling of the burning wood or the scattering of sparks as a log fell. he saw a rat come out of a hole in the wainscoting and go gliding along the wall.
his eyes were fated to serve him sooner than his ears, for he had left the heavy oak door wide open, and in the dark streak between the hinge post and the edge of the door he saw something that glistened. it was the white of a man’s eye peering through the crack, and looking straight at him as he sat beside the fire.
fulk’s muscles tightened.
“hallo, my friend! i see you.”
his voice was sharp and ringing as the stroke of a dagger upon steel. the glistening eye melted back into the shadows, and he heard whispering voices and a scuffling of feet. there were some twenty men in the courtyard, bunched together like hounds who have come to the mouth of a bear’s cave.
one figure took another by the scruff of the neck and thrust it forward, and persuaded it towards the porch at the point of a sword. fulk heard a man snarl like a dog. then a mop head came furtively round the edge of the door, red eyes blinking anxiously, as though ready to dodge a blow.
the head jerked back again, and fulk heard the murmur of voices grow louder. one voice topped the others, and the rest grew silent.
“leave it to me, sirs; i know how to handle a vicious colt.”
fulk took the measure of the man who stalked insolently into the hall. it was the figure of a strapping bully, swaggering, tawdry, dramatic, clad in a scarlet cote-hardie covered with tarnished embroidery, hauberk, and basinet very rusty, and the blade of his sword, which he carried naked upon his shoulder, jagged like a saw. the red points of his forked beard stuck out like tusks, for he had a habit of throwing his head well back, and looking at people with an aggressive and staring insolence.
fulk scanned him from head to heel; his nostrils dilating a little, his mouth twitching with scorn. he bided there silently like a hound of the blood waiting to hear a strange cur snarl at him.
guy the stallion gave him a swaggering salute with his sword.
“master fulk ferrers, greeting. i have twenty men at my back, and none of us love john of gaunt and his creatures. i charge you to throw down that sword of yours, and stand up like a good lad.”
fulk’s stare was like the thrust of a spear. the doorway was full of hairy faces, of brown smocks and fists that held flails, scythe-blades on poles, clubs, bows, bill-hooks—a boor’s armoury.
fulk showed them an ironical courtesy, a storm sign in a young man of his temper.
“sir hacksword, i am much beholden to you. that blade of yours looks as though it had seen wonderful adventures. step in, knights and gentles all; the honour is mine to be visited by so fair a company.”
his scorn struck them like a north wind, and made the swashbuckler’s forked beard thrust itself out more fiercely.
“this sword was hammering the french when you were a mere toddler. have a care lest i come to use the flat of it.”
fulk rose up and walked over towards the man in red, keeping his eyes on guy the stallion’s eyes, and holding his sword on his shoulder.
“out—out, you dogs!”
he pointed with his sword towards the crowd of boors in the doorway.
“out!”
“by cock, you young ruffler, i can take blows better than words.”
he had his blow, a flat buffet across the face given slantwise with a lightning sweep of the sword-blade. he staggered, jerking up his arms, his nostrils reddening with blood. there was a crowding in of the smocked figures through the doorway, but guy the stallion bellowed them back.
“all hell shall stir for this! let no man meddle.”
he sprang towards fulk with huge and flamboyant sweeps of the sword.
“guard, you adder; i’ll teach you sword-play.”
and so the fight began.
fulk had drawn back into a corner of the hall where he could hold the ground before him without being taken on the flanks. guy the stallion came at him with a swaggering rage, and for the moment the boors held back to watch the tussle, such a smiting together of swords not being seen on every day of the week.
fulk was as calm as a frosty morning, his face looking serenely through all the whirl and pother of the swashbuckler’s blows. roger ferrers had been a great man at his weapons, and fulk had swung a sword with roger before he was four feet high. he let this swaggerer slash as he pleased, guarding himself and smiling into the stallion’s eyes.
“strike, my friend, strike harder. you would do better with a bulrush.”
of a sudden his whole front changed. his chin rose higher, his lips and nostrils grew thin, and his eyes ceased smiling. blows leapt at guy like flames, licking him on every side and driving him back. the fight ended with his stumbling and shooting forward under fulk’s sword, where he lay like a red beetle, very flat and still.
the men of the door set up a howl of rage, for this tawdry and swaggering bird had made them believe in his crowing. they came pushing in, bunched together, scythe-blades and bills poking forward, lusting to smite, yet afraid of that uncompromising sword. fulk stood with head thrown back, nostrils dilated, eyes mocking them with a flare of scorn.
“come, my lords and nobles, come nearer.”
his fierce pride of birth, and his lean valour, awed them, though they cursed him and handled their weapons.
“fetch in the chopping-block, harry.”
“we’ll have his head off before cock-crow.”
“knock the whelp’s legs from under him with a pole.”
they edged forward in a half circle, encouraging each other, and pointing to the swashbuckler who still lay flat on his face. and since all their eyes were towards fulk of the forest, they did not see isoult of the rose and father merlin standing in the doorway.
it was isoult’s voice that whipped the boors back. they parted and let her through, since she carried a knife, and stabbed at those who faltered.
“out, fools, out of the way.”
her voice might have been the sound of the last trump so far as guy the stallion was concerned, for he picked himself up, drew a sleeve across his face, and attempted an unsteady swagger. a crack in his rusty basinet showed where fulk’s sword had bitten him.
“isoult, the cub is mine for the taking. he tricked me the once——”
he flourished his sword towards fulk, but isoult’s eyes swept him aside.
“fool, go and wash the blood out of your boasting beard.”
“s’death! i’ll set hell loose!”
“poor jay, you pecked at a falcon and got smitten. stand away. i have no patience to listen to your frothing.”
he slunk aside with furious red eyes, while father merlin waited in the background, showing his teeth and smoothing his chin.
isoult passed on towards fulk, and these two stood confronting each other, the man with the point of his sword resting on the floor and his hands crossed on the pommel. no one but fulk saw isoult’s face, or the cry of “hail, fellow falcon!” in her eyes.
“master fulk ferrers, i charge you, surrender that sword of yours.”
he stared at her mistrustfully, head up, lips set.
“dame isoult, i thought you were at lewes.”
“ah, my friend, i met comrades by the way. have no fear, dame margaret is safe in lewes town. we let the baggage pass, but tied up your men. and now, since we are too many for you, it is your turn to surrender.”
his pride stiffened itself.
“let them take me—if they dare.”
there was the length of the hall between these two and the rest, but isoult went closer to him, dropping her voice to a whisper:
“fulk, listen to me. these wretches have tasted blood; your men are dead; we could not help it. you might kill the first three, but the rest would drag you down like dogs, and i’ll not suffer it. you cannot fight, because i, isoult, stand in the way.”
his eyes searched hers.
“you! you are with these vermin?”
“i am, and i am not. but i shall stand between you so that you cannot use your sword nor these jacks their clubs and bills. the grey friar is merciful. you surrender as my prisoner.”
he looked at the floor, frowning and biting his lower lip.
“come, messire fulk”—and her voice had a strange new challenge in it—“come; we change parts for awhile, you and i. and i will not bear to see these bullocks trampling you underfoot, for no man’s valour can overcome twenty men. i have my pride, and pride knows its own kith and kin.”
he raised his eyes suddenly to hers.
“so be it. but when i am swordless——”
“think you that father merlin and i cannot rule these fools?”
“isoult, you puzzle me.”
she held up a hand.
“no questions. surrender to me—to isoult of the rose. i vow that your sword shall be in safe keeping.”
