Martin Valliant did some mighty rapid thinking. That glimpse of Mellis’s face had stirred his manhood to a kind of Norse frenzy. Yet he kept his wits unclouded; and this was the way he reasoned the thing out.
“They will build that bridge of theirs. I might shoot one or two of them through the loophole, but they have cross-bows and will mark the loop. When they have built their bridge they will be able to batter down the gate, and while I am busy there, one or two of them might swim the mere and come at me from behind. They are in light harness. This armor of mine should turn a cross-bow bolt. I will try to shoot one or two of them, and then open the gate, let down my bridge, and give them battle there or on the causeway.”
The audacity of the plan pleased him, for Martin Valliant was discovering in himself the wit and daring of a great fighter. He hung his green shield about his neck, dropped the vizor of his salade, took the bow and arrows and his naked sword, and made straight for the gate-house. The ladder and stage he had built gave him command of the loophole. And his luck and his cunning shook hands, for he pinked two men, one in the body and the other in the throat, before a cross-bow bolt came stinging through the loophole.
“Two from ten leaves eight.”
He scrambled down the ladder, leaving his bow on the stage, and quite calmly and at his leisure unbarred and opened the gate.
Mellis, lying in a patch of young fern on the edge of the beech wood, held her breath and watched him in amazement. For one moment a wild doubt stabbed her; he was a craven, he was going to surrender Woodmere and shirk a fight. The next moment she thought him mad, but she had torn all doubt of him from her heart and thrown it from her with hot scorn. She saw Martin let down his bridge, and take his stand just outside the gate, with the point of his sword on the ground and his hands resting on the pommel. He was a white and challenging figure holding the bridge and the gate, daring Swartz and his men to come at him and try their fortune.
One of the cross-bowmen fired a shot; the bolt struck Martin’s pauldron and glanced harmlessly aside.
“Drop that—drop that!”
Swartz roared at the fellow. He was a tough old rogue, but he had a soldier’s love of courage.
“One man against eight, and you want to fight him at fifty paces!”
He pushed his horse along the causeway, and looked curiously at Martin Valliant. The figure in white harness puzzled him; it did not seem to belong to a runaway monk.
“Who are you, my friend?”
Martin answered him.
“Come and see.”
Swartz grinned.
“By God—and we will! Bid that Dale wench drop her bow, and my fellows shall not use their arbalists. We will make a straight fight of it, Master Greenshield.”
The first man to try his luck was a little stunted fellow who had been a smith and was immensely strong in the arms and back, but a fool in the choice of his weapons. He came footing it cautiously along the narrow bridge, with his spear held pointed at Martin. He had some idea of feinting at Martin’s throat, of dropping the point and getting the shaft between the taller man’s legs and tripping him. The trick might have worked if Martin Valliant had not lopped off the spear-head with a sudden sweep of his sword, caught the staff in his left hand, and swung the fellow into the water. The smith could not swim, and was drowned; but Martin had no time to think of being merciful.
A tall fellow charged him while he was still on the beam, and it was a question of which man gave the bigger blow and knocked the other into the mere. Martin’s sword had that honor. Swartz’s second gentleman fell across the beam with a red wound in his throat, struggled for a few seconds, and then slipped dying into the mere.
Swartz was biting his beard.
“What—there is no man here who can stand up to a monk! Big Harry, there: have a swash at him with your pole-ax.”
Big Harry had the face and temper of a bull. He made a rush along the bridge, swung his pole-ax, and struck at Martin’s head. The salade threw the point aside, and the shaft struck Martin’s shoulder. He had shortened his sword and thrust hard at the big man. The point went through Big Harry’s midriff, and the mere hid a third victim.
Swartz rolled out of the saddle and drew his sword.
“Stand back! This fellow is too good for such raw cattle. I have fought many fights in my time.”
Then Martin did a knightly thing. He went to meet Swartz, crossing the beam, so that they met on the broad causeway where neither man could claim any advantage.
Swartz saluted him.
“I take that to heart, my friend. It was gallantly thought of. One word before we fight it out like gentlemen. Who the devil are you?”
Martin kept silent.
“You will not tell me? I must find it out for myself. Good. And so—to business.”
Swartz was lightly armed, and he trusted to his swordsmanship, for he was very clever with the sword. But his swashbuckling craftiness proved useless against a man harnessed as Martin Valliant was harnessed, and who fought like a young madman. It was like aiming delicate and cunning blows at a man of iron, a man who struck back furiously without troubling to defend himself. Swartz, with blood in his eyes, plunged to escape that whistling sword, closed with Martin, and tried to throw him; but Martin’s gadded fist beat him off and sent him heavily to the ground.
Swartz lay still, while the five men who had stood to watch this battle royal fumbled with their weapons and looked at each other out of the corners of their eyes.
“Try the cross-bow on him, Jack.”
“Shoot, man, and we’ll push at him with our spears.”
But Martin Valliant did not leave them the right to choose how and when they would attack him. His blood was on fire. He came leaping along the causeway, a white figure of shining wrath, and those five men turned tail and fled incontinently toward the woods. Martin did not follow them, but went back to the place where Swartz was lying. The old swashbuckler was sitting up, dazed, ghastly, trying to wipe the blood out of his eyes with his knuckles.
The man in Martin leaped out to the man he had wounded. This fellow with the black beard was made of finer stuff than the lousels who had taken to their heels. He grinned at Martin Valliant, and tried to rise.
“Lord, my friend; but am I also to feed the fishes?”
Martin helped him to his feet.
“That blood must be staunched. Those rogues should have stood and fought for you.”
“Let them run. Master Greenshield, methinks you have broken my brain pan with that blow of yours. Let me lie down on something soft. I feel sick as a dog that has eaten grass.”
Martin sheathed his sword, picked up Swartz in his arms, and carried him over the footbridge. He remembered his own bed of bracken at the foot of the stairs, and he bore the wounded man there and laid him on the fern.
“Thanks, Greenshield. My head’s full of molten metal. No—let me lie. I’ll just curse and burrow into the fern, I have had worse wounds than this in my time.”
He stretched out a hand suddenly.
“No bad blood—no grudges! I’m your prisoner; I play fair.”
Martin gripped his hand hard and went back to the gate.
Mellis had been lying in the bracken, listening to the rout of Swartz’s gentry in the wood behind her. For five men they made a fine noise and flutter in getting to horse, and it was like the flight of a small army, what with their shouting and their quarreling as to what should be done. She heard them galloping away into the Forest, for they were in frank agreement upon the main issue, and that was to have nothing more to do with that devil of a man in white harness who held the bridge at Woodmere.
Mellis rose up, and went down toward the mere, her heart full of Martin’s victory. He came out through the gate as she reached the causeway and crossed the footbridge to meet her. He had taken off his salade, and so came to her bare-headed, flushed, brave-eyed, and triumphant.
The sheen of her eyes opened the gates of heaven. She was exultant, glorious, a woman whose love had taken fire.
“Martin Valliant—oh, brave heart! What a fight was that! I thought you mad when you came out on the bridge.”
He could find nothing to say to her, but his eyes gave her an answer.
“You little thought that I was watching you.”
This made him smile.
“Yes, I knew that you were up yonder. I saw you looking down from behind a tree. I think I could have beaten twenty men—because you were watching me.”
“Am I so fierce?”
“No, it is not that,” he said, quite simply.
Mellis knew what was in his heart, and the cry that echoed to it in her own. She looked at him with a sudden, tremulous light in her eyes.
“I would have a man brave and staunch—for my sake. It is very sweet to a woman when she is lonely.”
Martin dared not look at her for a moment. He was her man so utterly that he could have kissed the dust from her feet, for the love in him was great and passionate and holy.
“I did what my heart bade me,” he said, “and not to shame this sword.”
“Yes, give me the sword.”
“It is all bloody.”
“What matter. It is but a christening.”
He drew the sword from its scabbard and gave it into her hands. And Mellis kissed the cross of the hilt, and held it for him to take.
“That is a second sacrament,” he said; “I shall need no other crucifix.”
They entered Woodmere, and Martin raised the bridge and closed the gate.
“You took a prisoner.”
He remembered Swartz, brain-sick and groaning.
“Their captain! A good fighter—and a generous. I must wash his wound; and if I could find linen——”
“You shall have linen. I love that softness in you, comrade; good soldiers are made so.”
She turned aside through the postern into the garden, and Martin went to look at Swartz. He was sitting up, holding his head between his hands, but the blood had ceased flowing.
“Ah, Brother Greenshield, get me out into the sunlight. I would rather lie on the green grass—under those apple trees. This place smells of the coffin.”
Martin helped him up.
“That wound of yours must be dressed. Mistress Mellis is finding me linen.”
Swartz put an arm around him.
“Deo gratias, but I guess I owe this crack of the poll to her. Well, I bear her no ill-will. And I have a liking for you, Greenshield, a man after my own heart.”
“We were trying to kill each other half an hour ago.”
“Lord, man, are we the worse for that?”
Martin helped Swartz out into the orchard and propped him against a tree. And there Mellis found them like brethren in arms when she brought linen and red wine.
“I have found you linen, Martin Valliant.”
But she did not tell him that she had torn it from her own shift.
Swartz had a look at her as she turned to go.
“Saints, brother, but some things are well lost for a woman.”
Martin’s eyes grew grim.
“Tush, man, I did not speak lightly. Never flare out at Peter Swartz; he is too old a ruffian.”
Martin fetched water from the mere in his salade and washed and dressed Swartz’s head for him. He gave him wine to drink, and Swartz was glad of it.
“Zounds, that’s good. Now, by my soul, I think I will spend the night here, out of the dew, and with the stars blinking above. I have a love of the green earth, Martin Valliant; I was not bred in a city. And look you here, man——”
Martin gazed at him steadily.
“You took me in fair fight, and here I shall stay, so long as you hold the place. I swear to keep faith, and to play no tricks on you. And here’s the hand of a soldier.”
Martin accepted the pledge.
“My heart trusts you,” he said.
“One word, lad: never trust the man I serve—or did serve—Roger Bland, if you have him as you have me now. I am a war-dog, but he is a cold snake. Put your heel on his head, and spare no weight.”