little store of sleep had the lord of gambrevault that night. war with all its echoing prophecies played through his thought as a storm wind through the rotting casements of a ruin. he beheld the high hills red with beacons, the valleys filled with the surging steel of battle. gilderoy and its terrors flamed through his brain. above all, like the moon from a cloud shone the face of yeoland, the madonna of the forest.
he was up and armed before dawn, and on the topmost battlements, eager for the day. the sun came with splendour out of the east, hurling a golden net over the woods piled upon the hills. mists moved from off the sea, that shimmered opalescent towards the dawn. brine laded the breeze. the waves were scalloped amber and purple, fringed with foam about the agate cliffs.
the hours were void to the man till riders should come in with tidings of how the revolt sped at gilderoy and geraint. the prophetic hints that had been tossed to him from the tongues of the mob had served to discover to him his own invidious fame. gambrevault, on its rocky headland, stood, the strongest castle in the south, a black mass looming athwart the perilous path of war. the rebels would smite at it. of that its lord was assured.
at noon he attended mass in the chapel, with all his knights, solacing his impatience with the purer aspirations of the soul. it was even as he left the chapel that sir modred met him, telling how a galloper had left the woods and was cantering over the meadows towards the headland. the man was soon under the arch of the great gate, his sweating horse smiting fire from the stones, dropping foam from his black muzzle. the rider was godamar, flavian's favourite esquire, a ruddy youth, with the heart of a jonathan.
modred brought him to the banqueting-hall, where flavian awaited him in full harness, two trumpeters at his back.
"sire, geraint has risen."
"ha!"
"they are marching on gambrevault."
"your news, on with it."
godamar told how the troop had neared geraint at eve and camped in the wood over night. at dawn they had reconnoitred the town, and seen, to their credit, black columns of "foot" pouring out by all the gates. the gambrevault company had fallen back upon the woods unseen, and had watched the gerainters massing in the city meadows about a red banner and one in armour upon a white horse. godamar had lain low in a thicket and watched the rebels march by in the valley. they had passed between two hundred paces of him, and he swore by roland the paladin that it was a woman who rode the great white horse.
flavian had listened to the man with a golden flux of fancy that had divined something of the esquire's meaning.
"godamar," he said.
"sire?"
"you rode with me that day when we tracked a certain lady from cambremont glade towards the pine forest."
"sire, you forestall me in thought."
"so?"
"i could even swear upon my sword that it is yeoland of cambremont who rides with the gerainters."
flavian coloured and commended him. godamar ran on.
"i threaded the thicket, sire, made a detour, galloped hard and rejoined our company. the gerainters were blind as bats; they had never a scout to serve them. we kept under cover and watched their march. they came due west in three columns, one following the other. six miles from geraint, longsword gave me a spare horse and sent me spurring to bring you the news."
flavian stroked his chin and brooded.
"their numbers?" he asked anon.
"ten thousand men, sire, we guessed it such."
before godamar had ended his despatch, a second galloper came in breathless from gilderoy. he had left fulviac's rebels massing in the meadows beyond the river, and had kept cover long enough to see the foremost column wheel westwards and take the road for gambrevault. the scout numbered the gilderoy force at anything between eight and twelve thousand pikes. fulviac had been on the march three hours.
the lord of avalon stood forward in the oriel in the full light of the sun. sea, hill, and woodland stretched before him under a peerless sky. there was the scent of brine in the breeze, the banner of youth was ablaze upon the hills. a red heart beat under his shimmering cuirass, red blood flushed his brain. it was a season of romance and of lusty daring, an hour when his manhood shone bright as his burnished sword.
thoughts were tumbling, moving over his mind like water over a wheel. geraint stood ten leagues from gambrevault, gilderoy thirteen. the geraint forces had been on the march six hours or more, the men of gilderoy only three. hence, by all the craft of araby, they of geraint were three hours and three leagues to the fore. bad generalship without doubt, but vastly prophetic to the man figuring in the oriel, his fingers drumming on the stone sill.
strategy stirred in him, and waxed like a dragon created from some magic crystal into the might of deeds. the lord of gambrevault caught the strong smile of chivalry. a great venture burnt upon his sword. it was no uncertain voice that rang through the hall of gambrevault.
"gentlemen, to horse! trumpets, blow the sally! let every man who can ride, mount and follow me to-day. blow, trumpets, blow!"
the brazen throats brayed from the walls, their shrill scream echoing and echoing amid the distant hills. their message was like the plunging of a boulder into a pool, smiting to foam and clamour the camp in the meadows. swords were girded on, spears plucked from the sods, horses saddled and bridled in grim haste. in one short, stirring hour flavian rode out from gambrevault with twelve hundred steel-clad riders at his back. those on the walls watched this mass of fire and colour thundering over the meadows, splashing through the ford, smoking away to the east with trumpets clanging, banneroles adance. there was to be great work done that day. the sentinels on the walls gossiped together, and swore by their lord as he had been the king.
gambrevault and its towers sank back against the skyline, its banner waving heavily above the keep. flavian's mass of knights and men-at-arms held over the eastern downs that rolled greenly above the black cliffs and the blue mosaics of the sea. a brisk breeze laughed in their faces, setting plumes nodding, banneroles and pensils aslant. their spears rose like the slim masts of many sloops in a harbour. the sun shone, the green woods beckoned to the glittering mass with its forest of rolling spears.
flavian's pride whimpered as he rode in the van with modred, godamar, who bore the banner of gambrevault, and merlion d'or, his herald. the man felt like a zeus with a thunderbolt poised in his hand. a word, the flash of a sword, the cry of a trumpet, and all this splendid torrent of steel would leap and thunder to work his will. the star of chivalry shone bright in the heavens. as for this woman on the white horse, the madonna of the pine forest, god and the saints, he would charge the whole world, hell and its legions, to win so rich a prize.
turning northwards, with scouts scattered in the far van, they drew to wilder regions where the dark and saturnine outposts of the great pine forest stood solemn upon the hills. dusky were the thickets against the sapphire sky, the cloud banners trailing in the breeze. the very valleys breathed of battle and sudden peril of the sword. rounding a wood, they saw riders flash over the brow of a hill and come towards them at a gallop. the men drew rein before the great company of spears. their leader saluted his lord, and glanced round grimly upon the sea of steel dwindling over the green slopes.
"sire, we are well-fortuned."
"say on."
"ten thousand rebels from geraint are on the march two miles away. godamar has given you the news. we are on the crest of the wave."
flavian tightened his baldric.
"good ground to the east, longsword?"
"excellent for 'horse,' sire."
"to our advantage?"
"half a mile further towards geraint there lies a grass valley, a league long, four furlongs from wood to wood. the rebels will march through it, or i am a dotard. there stands your chance, sire. we can roll down on them like a torrent."
flavian took time by the throat, and called on his man of the tabard.
"make me this proclamation," quoth he: "'gentlemen of gambrevault, strike for king and chivalry. let vengeance dye your swords. as for the lady riding upon the white horse, mark you, sirs, let her be as the virgin out of heaven. we ride to take her and her banner. for the rest, no quarter and no prisoners. we will teach this mob the art of war.'"
the man of the tabard proclaimed it as he was bidden. the iron ranks thundered to him like billows foaming about a rock. modred claimed silence with uplifted sword.
"enough, gentlemen, enough. no bellowing. muzzle your temper. we make our spring in silence, that we may claw the harder."
a line of hills lay before them, heights crowned with black pine woods, save for one bare ridge like a great scimitar carving the sky. flavian advanced his companies up the slopes, halted them in a broad hollow under the brow of the hill. a last galloper had ridden in with hot tidings of the rebels. the lord of gambrevault, with sir modred and longsword, cantered on to reconnoitre. they drew to a thicket of gnarled hollies on the hilltop, and looked down upon a long grass valley bounded north and south by woods.
half a mile away came the rebel vanguard, a black mass of footmen plodding uphill, their pikes and bills shining in the sun. pennons and gonfalons danced here and there, while in the thick of the column flew the red banner of the forest, girt about by the spears of yeoland's guard. she could be seen on her white horse in the midst of the press. the gerainters were split into three columns, the second column half a mile behind the first, the third somewhat closer upon the second. they were marching without outriders, as though thoroughly assured of their own safety.
modred chuckled grimly through his black beard, and smote his thigh.
"fools, fools!"
"devilish generalship," quoth longsword under his beaver. "we can crush their van like a wheatfield before the rest can come up. what say you, sire, fewtre spears, and at them?"
flavian had already turned his horse.
"no sounding of trumpets, sirs," he said; "we will deal only with their van. call up our companies. god and st. philip for gambrevault!"
over the bare ridge, with its barriers of sun-steeped trees, steel shivered and spears bristled, rank on rank, wave on wave. with a massed rhythm of hoofs, the flood crested the hill, plunged down at a gallop with fewtred spears. knee to knee, flank to flank, a thousand streaks of steel deluged the hillside. their trumpets throated now the charge; the iron ranks clashed and thundered, rocked on with a rush of glittering shields.
as dust rolling before a march wind, so the horsemen of gambrevault poured down on the horde of wavering pikes. the storm had come sudden as thunder out of a summer sky. before the hurtling impact of that bolt of war, the palsied ranks of foot crumbled like rotten timber. the gerainters were too massed and too amazed to squander or give ground, to stem with bill and bow the rolling torrent of death. they were rent and trampled, trodden like straw under the stupendous avalanche of steel that crushed and pulverised with ponderous and invincible might.
"god and gambrevault, kill, kill!"
such was the death-cry thundered out over the rebel van. the column broke, burst into infinite chaos. yeoland's guards alone stood firm, a tough core of oak amid rotten tinder. over the trampled wreckage the fight swirled and eddied, circling about the knot of steel where the red banner flapped in the vortex of the storm.
yeoland sat dazed on her white horse, as one in the grip of some terrific dream. nord was at her side, snarling, snapping his jaw like a wolf, his great iron mace poised over his shoulder. the red banner flapped prophetic above their heads. around them the fight gathered, a whirlwind of contorted figures and stabbing steel.
yeoland's eyes were on one figure in the press, a man straddling a big bay horse, smiting double-handed with his sword, his red plume jerking in the hot rush of the fight. she saw horse and man go down before him; saw him buffet his way onward like a galley ploughing against wind and wave. his leaping sword and tossing plume came steady and strenuous through the girdle of death.
fear, pride, a hundred battling passions played like the battle through the woman's mobile brain. she watched the man under the red plume with an intensity of feeling that made her blind to all else for the moment. love seemed to struggle towards her in bright harness through the fight. she saw the last rank of the human rampart pierced. the man on the bay horse came out before her like some warrior out of an old epic.
none save nord stood between them, shaggy and grim as a great norse thor. she watched the iron mace swing, saw it fall and smite wide. flavian stood in the stirrups, both hands to the hilt, his horse's muzzle rammed against the opposing brute's chest. the blow fell, a great cut laid in with all the culminating courage of an hour. the sword slashed nord's gorget, buried its blade in the bull-like neck. he clutched at his throat, toppled, slid out of the saddle and rolled under his horse's hoofs.
the man's hand snatched at the girl's bridle; he dragged her and her horse out of the press. she had a confused vision of carnage, of stabbing swords and trampling hoofs. she saw her banner-bearer fall forward on his horse's neck, thrust through with a sword, while modred seized the banner staff from his impotent hand. the rebel column had deliquesced and vanished. in its stead she was girdled by grim and exultant horsemen whose swords flashed in the sun.
trumpets blew the retreat. a thousand glittering riders swarmed about her and the knight with the red plume. she had his words confusedly in her ears, strong, passionate words, heroic, yet utterly tender. they rode uphill together amid the clangour of his men. in a minute they had won the ridge, and were swinging down the further slope with their faces towards gambrevault.
