Chapter XXXI
A broad silver radiance spread above the black tops of the beech trees. It was the moon rising behind the wood, throwing long slants of light across the grasslands, and making a glimmer of mystery everywhere. The towering shadow of the beech wood still lay upon the island and the mere, leaving them all black in a world of tremulous white light.
Mellis drew aside suddenly, her arms over her bosom, her eyes looking toward the tops of the beech trees.
“Martin!”
A something in her voice kept him from looking at her.
“I must become a man. This adventure has shipwrecked me.”
He was most desperately and dearly perplexed.
“Is there no cloth anywhere?”
She could not help laughing at his immense seriousness.
“Have you forgotten? Ah!”
The moon seemed to glide suddenly above the beech wood, huge, and yellow, and stealthy. The shadows slipped away from the island; the long grass glimmered like silver wire; the mere shone like a shield.
Mellis threw herself in the long grass.
“Have you forgotten all our gear in that cellar? If you love me, man—hasten.”
“What shall I bring?”
“A suit of light armor, and a wadded coat—and—and—things to go under it.”
He blundered off, calling himself the most imbecile fool that ever was; but before he had got across the orchard he heard Falconer hailing him.
“Martin Valliant—Martin Valliant!”
Martin had other matters to attend to. John Falconer could wait. But he gave him an answering shout,
“Is that Master Falconer?”
“Aye.”
“All’s well.”
“Let down the bridge, man.”
“All in good season.”
Martin ran to the tower, groped for the ring of the great stone, found it, and then remembered that he would need a light. The tinder-box and the candles were in Mellis’s room. He was about to go for them when he heard a sound of soft footsteps, and some one glided up the stairs.
“Martin!”
“I need a light.”
“The tinder-box is above. Come to me in a moment.”
He lifted the stone out, rolled it aside, and waited. He could hear the ring of the flint against the steel, and then her voice calling to him softly,
“Here. It is lighted.”
Martin climbed the stairs and found a candle burning outside her door. He picked it up, holding it in one big hand and shading it as though that flame was one of the most precious things in the world. The light played upon his solemn face, and mirrored itself in his grave, intent eyes. He held his breath all the way down the stairs; the flame was a flickering soul, and he was guarding it.
So Martin lowered himself into the vault, and setting that precious candle on a stone bracket let into the wall, he made a great disorder among the stuff that was stored there. The idea of thoroughness obsessed him, of not letting Mellis lack for anything that might be of use in such a crisis. He made three journeys to the landing outside her chamber door, and the merchandise that was piled there testified to his sincerity. It included a suit of light mail; a woolen doublet and hose to be worn beneath it; a belt, sword and dagger; leather shoes; an odd piece of green cloth that bows had been wrapped in; some strips of leather; a green and blue banner rolled in a canvas bag. He left the candle burning there, and went down to lower the bridge for Falconer and his men.
John Falconer had torches with him, and the causeway was a glare of light. Martin lowered the bridge and swung the gate open; Falconer came across.
He stared at Martin Valliant.
“Hallo! This is a queer way to go harnessed.”
“There is much to be told.”
“Is the child safe?”
“She is in her chamber. Her men were ambushed this morning, and she was taken.”
Falconer nodded understandingly.
“You have been in the water, my friend?”
“Swartz and I swam across to rescue her.”
“Swartz? Peter Swartz?”
“He is with us now. He went into the woods to raise an alarm, while I saved Mellis. Warn your men that he is a friend.”
Martin and John Falconer passed on into the courtyard, and the Forest followed them with a tossing of torches, and much grim jubilation. The men were as diverse and rustic as their weapons. Oak clubs, scythe blades on poles, axes, spits, wooden mallets, all came dancing into the yard of Woodmere. Many of the men had bows on their backs and arrows stuck in their belts. Not a few were wounded. There were bloody faces, arms that hung limp, stockings soaked all red. But the crowd was hot, triumphant, and fiercely merry; they had tasted blood; many vile things had been avenged.
“Look to your wounds, lads. Lay a fire, some of you. We have come far, and no man is grudged his supper.”
Several of the Forest gentry gathered around Falconer, and looked curiously at Martin Valliant.
“Is this the fellow?”
“He has some limbs on him.”
“But a runaway priest, gentles, is black company. What say you?”
Falconer answered them gruffly:
“And what are we but traitors, so long as Crookback wears the crown! Men who can fight are the blood and muscle of such a venture as ours. Use your wits, gentlemen. We are not women to tilt our noses and screw up our mouths.”
Martin had drawn aside. He felt a stranger and almost an outcast under the eyes of these mesne lords who stared at him and did not lower their voices. The mysterious and solitary nights and days had vanished. He saw Mellis surrounded by a crowd of figures, knights, yeomen, foresters. They seemed to thrust him back into the darkness; he had served his purpose and no one held out a hand.
He gathered up his harness from the spot where he had left it by the gate that led into the garden, and made his way into the orchard. The life had gone out of him for the moment; this secret and love-enchanted island had been seized by a hundred rough fellows who shouted and crowded in the courtyard. He did not belong to them; he was a thing to be eyed with distrust.
The moonlight flooded the orchard, and Martin sat down under an apple tree and began to arm himself, but there was no pride of purpose in his hands. Bitter thoughts crowded into his heart, and he sank in a slough of self-abasement. He had been in heaven, and suddenly he found himself in hell. What was he but an outcast, a murderer, a thing that was neither priest nor man? And he had believed for one short hour that Mellis loved him. What madness! What could he be to her, or she to him? He had mistaken a child’s gratitude for the love of the woman. The danger was past, for she was in the midst of friends; he had played his part, and the dream was ended.
Into the melancholy circle of his thoughts drifted a sound of some one moving through the orchard grass. Martin was in the shadow of the tree, and the moonlight showed him a primeval figure scouting furtively toward the house. It was Swartz, naked, and very cold.
Martin hailed him, and the man of the horn joined him under the tree.
“God be blessed; all the devils in hell seem loose to-night! A dance I have had of it, everyone’s enemy and no man’s friend. These Forest worthies have been hunting me like a pig. I had to take to the water and sit with my chin in it under the bank.”
He was shivering.
“My kingdom for a bit of lamb’s wool, brother.”
“Where did you leave your clothes, man?”
“On my lady’s table in the garden, God forgive me! But if those wild devils get a sight of such a thing as I am—I shall have a scythe blade between my ribs.”
Martin was in too grim and sad a mood to see the ludicrous in Peter Swartz. He rose, went into the garden, and returned with the soldier’s clothes.
“Corn in Egypt!”
Swartz tumbled into them, his teeth chattering.
“Hallo! those fellows are lighting a fire; they must be taught to love Peter Swartz. And I would not quarrel with some wine and a bite of supper.”
Martin’s melancholy was not a thing that could be overlooked. Swartz discovered it, and ceased his prattling.
“Why, man, things did not go amiss?”
“No. She is safe.”
Swartz was trying to remedy the disastrous haste of his undressing.
“May the curse of the prophet fall on these tags and tatters! What ails you, man?”
“Nothing.”
“Then let it be nothing.”
He stared hard at Martin, puzzled by his strange sullenness, but too shrewd to vex it further.
“Old Falconer came in finely—like a pot boiling over. And Messire Fulk de Lisle has gone galloping home to Troy; he passed within five yards of me. Hallo—cheering! They are in great heart, yonder.”
Those rough men in the ruined court of Woodmere had seen a vision, for Mellis had come out to them, clad in bright harness, her dark hair pouring over it, a naked sword in her hands. Behind her walked John Falconer, carrying a green and blue banner fastened to the throat of a lance. The men crowded from the fire, and from every corner of the courtyard. And she stood and spoke to them in a clear, calm voice:
“Good gentlemen and comrades all, I thank you for coming to me. We have begun bravely. God speed King Harry!”
They cheered her.
“Shout, lads, for our captain.”
“Mistress Mellis—Mistress Mellis!”
“Let Roger Bland try to take ye from us.”
“Aye, and there be more of us a-comin’.”
Mellis’s eyes were restless, searching for something that she could not see. She turned and spoke to John Falconer.
“Martin Valliant——”
Falconer shook his head. She grew imperious.
“Call him. He must be here.”
“The man may have some shame, Mellis.”
“Shame!”
She flushed with sensitive wrath.
“Shame! God forgive you. Ah! I see how things have sped!”
Falconer’s eyes shirked meeting hers.
“There may be draughts that men are loth to swallow,” he said dourly; “I did not make the world or men’s hearts.”
She stood a moment, with dark, thinking eyes and a proud, hurt face.
“I am young—still. Oh, these jealous tangles that men weave! Must we be little and thankless for the sake of fools?”
Mellis made her way through the crowd of mesne lords and gentlemen, looking neither to the right hand nor the left. They stood back for her, for she was proud, more pure in her strength than they. The moon hung clear and white and splendid in the sky, shining on her face and the plated steel half hidden by her hair.
“So they would think him an outcast,” she said to herself. “My scorn is theirs for the asking.”
Some instinct led her through the garden into the orchard, where the long grass was all patterned with the black shadows of the trees. She stood in the moonlight, and called softly:
“Martin—Martin Valliant!”
Old Swartz crept away, a dog grown mute, and wise in his silence. Martin’s face was all twisted with a spasm of pain, for he was fey that night with a mysterious forefeeling of great sorrow and despair.
“Martin—Martin Valliant!”
She came down through the orchard, and Martin rose to his feet. The moonlight through the trees shone on his harness, and betrayed him to her. He stood absolutely still, waiting for her to draw near.
“Martin!”
Her voice had a soft, wounded plaintiveness.
“Why are you hiding here?”
His face was all somber in the shadows.
“I had a wish to be alone.”
He could not bring himself to look at her, because of the new bitterness in his heart, and because her voice was so soft and luring.
“What has happened to you, Martin?”
She went close, looking in his face.
“Tell me. Have I no right to know?”
He answered her with strange gentleness, but his eyes would not meet hers.
“Perhaps I have seen a vision, a glimpse of the world as it is. Some things are too beautiful to endure, for other men break them in pieces.”
She drew her breath deeply.
“Ah! Have these rough fools touched your pride? They can have my scorn for the asking. And are you nothing to me, or I to you? Have we not gone through the deeps together, and have you not carried my life in your hands? Man, what do these rough squires matter? Look into my eyes and see if there is shame in them.”
He bowed his head.
“Mellis—what am I but an outcast?”
“Then I am an outcast also. But for me you would be chanting your Masses. And you have been very noble and good to me. Oh, Martin, Martin! this wounds my heart.”
He gave a sudden cry, and fell on his knees before her.
“God help me, but there is nothing else in the world but you. I cannot bear that for my sake you should even suffer pain.”
She bent over him, her hands hovering close to his face.
“Pain! What pain is there? And were it real—should I not bear it?”
“God forbid! Child, I have a kind of dark forefeeling to-night. Yesterday was all sunlight, there was no fear or sorrow in my heart. I was Martin Valliant, a man who was ready to die for you. What has happened? I feel a menace, a threat, a shadow drifting toward us; we are not alone; other voices strike in on ours. This island is not the world; here—I could serve you; but beyond us there are shadows, the shadows of other men—other women; they whisper together against me.”
A great light transfigured her face. She was on her knees, her hands on his shoulders, her eyes wonderful to behold.
“Martin, what has come to us? Oh, my dear, must I speak out?”
He looked at her, awed, trembling, entranced.
“Mellis, Mellis!”
“Is not my fate yours—and yours mine? What is pain to you is pain to me. If there is a world of shadows before us, I go—where my man goes.”
He uttered a deep cry.
“Can I touch you? Is it possible? Will you not melt into the air? Oh, my God! but I dare hardly look at you.”
“Martin, I am a soul in a body. What am I but a woman? Guard me—hold me!”
His arms went around her, but they were all tremulous with awe. Her face was close to his, a white, yearning face, with parted lips and half-closed eyes.
“Mellis—oh, my heart!”
She lay in his arms and smiled at him as he kissed her.