Mellis and her brother had left Gawdy Town lying behind them on the blue edge of the sea. The day was very young, and a north wind came over the marshes about the mouth of the Rondel river, bending the reeds in the dykes and rousing ripples in the lengthening grass. Mellis was mounted on a modest nag whose brown coat and sleepy ears were more suited to the russet cloak she wore than to the brighter colors underneath it. Gilbert marched at her side. His eyes looked gray in the morning; the north wind had pinched his courage a little; and he and Mellis were to part for a while.
“Keep your heart up, sweet sister.”
She looked down at him and smiled. Her eyes were steadier than his, and more determined, and she was less touched by the north wind. His nature was more mercurial, more restless, not so patient when life’s adventure dragged.
“I feel near home, Gilbert. I think I could live in the Forest—like a wild thing.”
“Woodmere must be all green, and the lilies white on the water. The house is but a shell, they say.”
Her eyes filled with a great tenderness.
“My heart is there,” she said, sighing.
A flock of sheep passed them, being driven to the river pastures. A great wood-wain came rumbling along, loaded high with brown fagots. Mellis’s nostrils dilated, and her eyes shone.
“What a good ship, and what merchandise! I can smell the Forest.”
He laughed, with a note of recklessness.
“Oh the merry, merry life, with the horn and the hound, and the bed under the greenwood tree. Why did our people wear the wrong color, sister? Our hearts were red, and the color beggared us.”
“My heart is the color of fire,” she answered him, “and I let it burn with the thought of vengeance. When will you begin to tell me your secrets?”
“Very soon, sister. I want no listeners within a mile of us. You see how discreet I am! Gawdy Town is a pest of a place; even the dogs do their spying; and there is always the chance of your getting a knife in your back. That is why I thought it better that you should go.”
“Have you ever found me a coward?”
“Dear heart, you are too brave, and such courage may be dangerous.”
They were leaving the marshes behind them, and the Rondel had taken to itself glimmering green lines of pollard willows. Little farmsteads dotted the long northward slope of the hills. Here and there the Forest showed itself, thrusting a green headland into the cornlands and the meadows.
Gilbert was on the alert. Presently he pointed to an open beech wood that spread down close to the road.
“There is our council chamber, Mellis.”
“It should serve.”
“We can tie up the nag and see how my friend the cook has filled your saddle-bags.”
They turned aside into the beech wood, tethered the horse, and sat down under a tree. They were hidden from the road; the gray trunks hemmed them in.
Gilbert was examining the saddle-bags.
“That cook is a brave creature! Good slices of bread with meat in between. And a bottle of wine. There is enough stuff here to last you for days. Dear Lord, what trouble I was at to explain my buying of that sorry old nag!”
He set one of the bags between them.
“Now for dinner and a gossip. There are two words that you must never utter, Mellis, save when some one challenges you with the question, ‘What of Wales?’ ”
“And those words?”
“Are ‘Owen Tudor.’ They will win you friends where friends are to be had, but also they might hang you.”
“Of course.”
“Our plans have not gone so badly. Our king across the water is a shrewd gentleman. Our business is to stir up a hornets’ nest in these parts; others will play the same game elsewhere, so that Crooked Dick shall be stung in a hundred places while Lord Harry is crossing the sea. Roger Bland is our arch enemy.”
She drew in a deep breath.
“Do I forget it?”
“Tsst!—not too much fire! He is the very devil for cunning. We have got to hold him in these parts, so worry him that he cannot march and join the Hunchback when spears will be precious to that king. They will find a dozen fires alight in every corner of the kingdom, and if our Harry wins the day, Woodmere will be ours again.”
She uttered a fiercer cry.
“And blood shall pay for blood. Oh, I am no sweet saint, Gilbert. That man dragged our father at his horse’s heels, and then——”
She broke off as though the words were too bitter to be spoken.
Gilbert’s eyes had hardened.
“God forgive me for feeling merry at times. Well, sister, I stay on in Gawdy Town, as you know, to wait for news, and to watch for the men who will come over the sea. Old John Falconer is our watchdog in the Forest. The Blounts and the Ropers are with us; also a dozen more. We ought to muster three hundred men when the day comes. The Flemming is a jewel. His pack mules have smuggled war gear and stores into the Forest. There are three suits of armor, besides bills and salets and jacks hidden in our cellar under the south tower. There is a big beam, too, in the sluice ditch to throw across the gap in the trestle bridge.”
He lay back against the tree, thinking deeply.
“This Father Jude on the Black Moor is a close-mouthed old worthy. He is a man who asks no questions, and there is money to be made by such people; a fellow who can mind his own business is worth his wage. There is not a wilder place in the Forest. You will lodge there in the pilgrim’s house; the Benedictines of Paradise are bound to feed and lodge any traveler who passes that way. Besides, Father Jude is one of us; the man has some bitter grudge against the Lord of Troy.”
She looked at him questioningly.
“And I am a pilgrim.”
“Under a vow.”
“And how shall I serve you, on the top of a moor? It seems foolishness.”
“If a man goes to shrive himself or to pray at a holy place, can folk quarrel with him? That butcher villain of a Vance has his spies everywhere. A bird does not fly straight to its nest when a cat is about.”
“True.”
“And, sister, it would be well if you could steal your way to Woodmere, and see with your own eyes that things are as old Falconer and the Flemming say they are. The cellar trap is hidden under a pile of loose stones; a stout stake through the ring will raise it.”
“I could find my way to Woodmere in the dark.”
“What a wench you are for wandering! You have that money safely? I might have my purse cut in Gawdy. You must play Jew.”
She put her hand to her bosom.
“It is here.”
They talked awhile of all that was in their hearts and of the great adventure that lay before them. Mellis was as serious as he was gay; his flippancy increased as the time slipped by.
“I shall have a tale to spin, oh false woman who passed as my sister! I am a Jack without a Jill.”
Yet his eyes were sad. A gradual melancholy took hold of him.
“Kiss me, child; we must be parting. Keep a brave heart.”
She kissed him with sudden tenderness.
“God guard you, my brother.”
“Oh, I have a cat’s lives!”
He jumped up and went to unfasten her nag.
“Remember, this good priest will ask no questions. He is a kind soul, and will swear to any lie, so they tell me. Up with you, sweetheart.”
He strapped on the saddle-bags, helped her to mount, and led her horse out of the wood. There was not a soul to be seen on the road, and still he seemed loth to leave her.
“I will go with you a little way.”
She looked at him dearly.
“No, I am brave. And there is no one here to see us part, and to gape and wonder concerning us.”
“True, oh queen! And so, farewell.”
He tossed his cap at her, laughed, and went off whistling.
And a sudden strange sadness assailed her. She held her horse in and sat there watching him. He was so gallant, so debonair, this brother of hers.
And she would never set eyes on him again. No prophetic instinct could tell her that.