fulk de lisle rode all that night, a madman, inflamed, balked of the satisfaction of a violent desire. he had nothing but the stars and the moon to guide him; the forest was no more than a pathless waste; he pushed northwards, raging like a torch burning in the wind. at dawn his horse died under him, driven by the spurs till its heart failed on the brow of a steep hill. fulk de lisle kicked the beast’s body, and looked with red eyes at a gray and silent world.
but the luck was with him—the luck of the adventurer and the drunkard. dim and sullen, troy castle stood less than two miles away on its great hill; the rising sun struck slantwise upon it, so that it looked like a huge turreted ship sailing above a sea of green.
fulk de lisle came on his own feet to troy castle. there was a sense of stir about the place although the day was still so young. a couple of dusty and sweat-streaked horses were waiting outside the gate-house; grooms and servants were gossiping, and on the battlements soldiers were unlashing the canvas covers of my lord’s cannon.
some one on the walls recognized fulk de lisle when he was a quarter of a mile from the dry fosse; there was some shouting and running to and fro; a man vaulted on to the back of one of the tired horses and went cantering down the road. he was a squire in roger bland’s service, a youngster with red hair and an impudent mouth.
“good morning to you, sir. why this humility?”
fulk de lisle took him by the leg and pitched him out of the saddle.
“thanks. i will ride the last furlong, and help you to mend your manners.”
red head scrambled up and dusted his clothes. fulk de lisle was too soaring a bird for him to fly at, but his impudence refused to be chastened.
“i trust your news is better than your face, sir. our dear lord has the ague this morning.”
fulk de lisle rode on, without troubling to turn the lad’s wit.
he clattered over the bridge and into the main court, and the men who saw him ride in stared at his savage face.
“pride has had a fall,” said some one.
“or been balked of a woman.”
fulk de lisle called a page who was loitering on the steps of the chapel.
“have you nothing but eyes, you brat? where is my lord?”
“in his closet, sir.”
“run and tell him that i am in the castle.”
roger bland already had the news, and his groom of the chamber came out with a haggard face.
“my lord would see you—instantly.”
“damnation—may not a man eat?”
the lord of troy sat in his great padded chair with a writing-board on his knees, and quills and an inkhorn on the table at his side. he looked white about the gills, with that whiteness that tells of a faltering heart; his hand had lost its steady, clerkly niceness, and there were blots upon the paper. he had not been barbered, and still wore a gorgeous crimson bed-gown that made his thin face look all the yellower.
“what’s this—what’s this, man? shut that door, bennington. not more bad news?”
he was petulant to the point of childishness. fulk de lisle’s red-brown eyes looked at him with veiled and subtle scorn.
“i could not make it worse, my lord. the forest is up.”
“the forest—in arms against us! man—you are dreaming!”
“i am very wide awake, sir. we were ambushed last night as we lay outside woodmere. they must have been a hundred to our thirty. we made a fight of it; that is all that can be said.”
roger bland’s face twitched.
“how many men came back with you?”
“none, my lord.”
there was a short silence. my lord of troy’s fingers were playing with his quill. he looked old and querulous.
“these swine! i thought we had tamed them. there is a deeper cunning in all this. i have had secret news this very morning. richmond is on the sea. by now he may have landed.”
fulk de lisle took the news as a soldier of fortune takes his pay.
“the king will not grudge him a battle, my lord.”
“bombast is so easy. but to say who are friends and who are enemies! supposing i chose to have you hanged, sir?”
“a most unreasonable fancy, my lord.”
“and why?”
“i have risked my neck in your service. i have no quarrel with your generosity. and my pride is concerned in this—the pride of a soldier and a captain.”
“we shall see, sir; i may let you prove it. and now—we must strike, and strike quickly. these letters shall go at once; they must not miscarry. in three days we should muster a hundred spears and two hundred archers. the falconets and serpents are to come from roychester; sir humphrey heron will be master of the cannon. i have chosen my gallopers. look to the garrison, and see that our tenants are fitly armed as they come in.”
fulk de lisle bowed.
“my heart is in this venture, my lord,” he said; “you can trust me, because my blood is up.”
so roger bland’s gallopers went out from troy castle, carrying letters to sir humphrey heron at roychester, to sir paul scrooby at granet, and to such lords and gentlemen as favored the white rose. the rallying place was to be troy castle. naught was said of the earl of richmond being upon the seas, for such news might have aroused a dubious loyalty among the gentry of those parts, where fear ruled and the king.
“i charge you to come to me with all your might—and within three days—for the chastening and humbling of certain rebels and traitors.”
so ran the lord of troy’s message. these smaller fires had to be quenched before the great beacon burst into a blaze.
my lord of troy had eyes in gawdy town to serve him, and men were watching to see the rose come into port; but, seeing that she carried merchandise that was too precious to be fingered, her master elected to lower it overboard before making the land. the rose came towering along about sunset, with a mild breeze behind her. the sea was a deep purplish blue, and the red west promised fair weather.
her master had put the ship on a strange course. she hung out to sea till the land grew gray with the dusk, and then, turning her gilded bows shorewards, footed it solemnly toward the land. no one in gawdy town had seen her topsails. the gossips on the quay said that she would not make port before the morning.
half a mile from the land the rose backed her sails and lay to. the sky was all blue-green above, the sea black as pitch, and the land, with its forest ridge, looked like a great cloud-bank. the rose lowered two boats, each manned by half a dozen seamen. baggage was tumbled into them from the waist, and about a score of voyagers left the ship.
the master stood on the poop and lifted his hat to them as the boats pulled away.
“a good market to you, gentlemen,” he shouted.
a deep voice answered him,
“god save the king.”
the boats went shorewards at a good speed, looking like two gray beetles on the water crawling with white legs, the foam from the oars. they melted into the dusk, and the rose veered and beat up against the breeze, to play mother till her boats returned.
the baggage and the twenty adventurers were landed in a horseshoe-shaped cove under the cliffs. some one had been watching for them above, for a couple of men came scampering down the steep path, one of them waving a piece of red cloth.
“all’s well.”
the seamen pushed off and rowed back toward the rose, but the men stood in a group on the shingle and talked.
“the king is at sea.”
“sure enough.”
“and the forest is up.”
“so soon!”
“a woman as usual! they stabbed young dale in gawdy town, and would have taken his sister. so falconer raised the forest. bland’s men came to beleaguer woodmere; we ambushed thirty of them last night, so the fat is in the fire.”
the man with the deep voice, who seemed to be the leader, betrayed a savage impatience. he had the hard, flat, high-cheeked face of a mongol, with a brutal mouth, and cold blue eyes.
“the devil fly away with all women! young dale was a fool to take the wench with him, and falconer was a fool to trouble his head about her.”
“that is not the whole story, sir gregory.”
“damn your story! they have rushed matters too rashly. we may have to fight before we are ready. now for the baggage. have you any horses above?”
“six.”
“bustle up, then. the sooner we are knee-deep in the forest the better.”
the baggage was carried up the cliff and lashed on the backs of the pack-horses. the men who had landed were well armed under their cloaks. sir gregory took the lead, one of the foresters walking beside him.
“now, man, this story of yours; let us hear it.”
the forester told all that he knew concerning mellis and her championing by martin valliant.
the round-headed man was not pleased.
“beelzebub—what a beginning! a blackguard monk is a pretty stormcock to open the hurly-burly for us. fools are superstitious, and i am one of the fools.”
