The Outlaw of Torn by Edgar Rice Burroughs (uplifting books for women .txt) 📗

When the little, grim, gray man had set the object covered with a cloth upon the table in the center of the room and left the apartment, he did not return to camp as Norman of Torn had ordered.

Instead, he halted immediately without the little door, which he left a trifle ajar, and there he waited, listening to all that passed between Bertrade de Montfort and Norman of Torn.

As he heard the proud daughter of Simon de Montfort declare her love for the Devil of Torn, a cruel smile curled his lip.

“It will be better than I had hoped,” he muttered, “and easier. ’S blood! How much easier now that Leicester, too, may have his whole proud heart in the hanging of Norman of Torn. Ah, what a sublime revenge! I have waited long, thou cur of a King, to return the blow thou struck that day, but the return shall be an hundred-fold increased by long accumulated interest.”

Quickly, the wiry figure hastened through the passageways and corridors, until he came to the great hall where sat De Montfort and the King, with Philip of France and many others, gentlemen and nobles.

Before the guard at the door could halt him, he had broken into the room and, addressing the King, cried:

“Wouldst take the Devil of Torn, My Lord King? He be now alone where a few men may seize him.”

“What now! What now!” ejaculated Henry. “What madman be this?”

“I be no madman, Your Majesty. Never did brain work more clearly or to more certain ends,” replied the man.

“It may doubtless be some ruse of the cut-throat himself,” cried De Montfort.

“Where be the knave?” asked Henry.

“He stands now within this palace and in his arms be Bertrade, daughter of My Lord Earl of Leicester. Even now she did but tell him that she loved him.”

“Hold,” cried De Montfort. “Hold fast thy foul tongue. What meanest thou by uttering such lies, and to my very face?”

“They be no lies, Simon de Montfort. An I tell thee that Roger de Conde and Norman of Torn be one and the same, thou wilt know that I speak no lie.”

De Montfort paled.

“Where be the craven wretch?” he demanded.

“Come,” said the little, old man. And turning, he led from the hall, closely followed by De Montfort, the King, Prince Philip and the others.

“Thou hadst better bring twenty fighting men—thou’lt need them all to take Norman of Torn,” he advised De Montfort. And so as they passed the guard room, the party was increased by twenty men-at-arms.

Scarcely had Bertrade de Montfort left him ere Norman of Torn heard the tramping of many feet. They seemed approaching up the dim corridor that led to the little door of the apartment where he stood.

Quickly, he moved to the opposite door and, standing with his hand upon the latch, waited. Yes, they were coming that way, many of them and quickly and, as he heard them pause without, he drew aside the arras and pushed open the door behind him; backing into the other apartment just as Simon de Montfort, Earl of Leicester, burst into the room from the opposite side.

At the same instant, a scream rang out behind Norman of Torn, and, turning, he faced a brightly lighted room in which sat Eleanor, Queen of England and another Eleanor, wife of Simon de Montfort, with their ladies.

There was no hiding now, and no escape; for run he would not, even had there been where to run. Slowly, he backed away from the door toward a corner where, with his back against a wall and a table at his right, he might die as he had lived, fighting; for Norman of Torn knew that he could hope for no quarter from the men who had him cornered there like a great bear in a trap.

With an army at their call, it were an easy thing to take a lone man, even though that man were the Devil of Torn.

The King and De Montfort had now crossed the smaller apartment and were within the room where the outlaw stood at bay.

At the far side, the group of royal and noble women stood huddled together, while behind De Montfort and the King pushed twenty gentlemen and as many men-at-arms.

“What dost thou here, Norman of Torn?” cried De Montfort, angrily. “Where be my daughter, Bertrade?”

“I be here, My Lord Earl, to attend to mine own affairs,” replied Norman of Torn, “which be the affair of no other man. As to your daughter: I know nothing of her whereabouts. What should she have to do with the Devil of Torn, My Lord?”

De Montfort turned toward the little gray man.

“He lies,” shouted he. “Her kisses be yet wet upon his lips.”

Norman of Torn looked at the speaker and, beneath the visor that was now partly raised, he saw the features of the man whom, for twenty years, he had called father.

He had never expected love from this hard old man, but treachery and harm from him? No, he could not believe it. One of them must have gone mad. But why Flory’s armor and where was the faithful Flory?

“Father!” he ejaculated, “leadest thou the hated English King against thine own son?”

“Thou be no son of mine, Norman of Torn,” retorted the old man. “Thy days of usefulness to me be past. Tonight thou serve me best swinging from a wooden gibbet. Take him, My Lord Earl; they say there be a good strong gibbet in the courtyard below.”

“Wilt surrender, Norman of Torn?” cried De Montfort.

“Yes,” was the reply, “when this floor be ankle deep in English blood and my heart has ceased to beat, then will I surrender.”

“Come, come,” cried the King. “Let your men take the dog, De Montfort!”

“Have at him, then,” ordered the Earl, turning toward the waiting men-at-arms, none of whom seemed overly anxious to advance upon the doomed outlaw.

But an officer of the guard set them the example, and so they pushed forward in a body toward Norman of Torn; twenty blades bared against one.

There was no play now for the Outlaw of Torn. It was grim battle and his only hope that he might take a fearful toll of his enemies before he himself went down.

And so he fought as he never fought before, to kill as many and as quickly as he might. And to those who watched, it was as though the young officer of the Guard had not come within reach of that terrible blade ere he lay dead upon the floor, and then the point of death passed into the lungs of one of the men-at-arms, scarcely pausing ere it pierced the heart of a third.

The soldiers fell back momentarily, awed by the frightful havoc of that mighty arm. Before De Montfort could urge them on to renew the attack, a girlish figure, clothed in a long riding cloak, burst through the little knot of men as they stood facing their lone antagonist.

With a low cry of mingled rage and indignation, Bertrade de Montfort threw herself before the Devil of Torn, and facing the astonished company of king, prince, nobles and soldiers, drew herself to her full height, and with all the pride of race and blood that was her right of heritage from a French king on her father’s side and an English king on her mother’s, she flashed her defiance and contempt in the single word:

“Cowards!”

“What means this, girl?” demanded De Montfort, “Art gone stark mad? Know thou that this fellow be the Outlaw of Torn?”

“If I had not before known it, My Lord,” she replied haughtily, “it would be plain to me now as I see forty cowards hesitating to attack a lone man. What other man in all England could stand thus against forty? A lion at bay with forty jackals yelping at his feet.”

“Enough, girl,” cried the King, “what be this knave to thee?”

“He loves me, Your Majesty,” she replied proudly, “and I, him.”

“Thou lov’st this low-born cut-throat, Bertrade,” cried Henry. “Thou, a De Montfort, the daughter of my sister; who have seen this murderer’s accursed mark upon the foreheads of thy kin; thou have seen him flaunt his defiance in the King’s, thy uncle’s, face, and bend his whole life to preying upon thy people; thou lov’st this monster?”

“I love him, My Lord King.”

“Thou lov’st him, Bertrade?” asked Philip of France in a low tone, pressing nearer to the girl.

“Yes, Philip,” she said, a little note of sadness and finality in her voice; but her eyes met his squarely and bravely.

Instantly, the sword of the young Prince leaped from its scabbard, and facing De Montfort and the others, he backed to the side of Norman of Torn.

“That she loves him be enough for me to know, my gentlemen,” he said. “Who takes the man Bertrade de Montfort loves must take Philip of France as well.”

Norman of Torn laid his left hand upon the other’s shoulder.

“No, thou must not do this thing, my friend,” he said. “It be my fight and I will fight it alone. Go, I beg of thee, and take her with thee, out of harm’s way.”

As they argued, Simon de Montfort and the King had spoken together, and, at a word from the former, the soldiers rushed suddenly to the attack again. It was a cowardly strategem, for they knew that the two could not fight with the girl between them and their adversaries. And thus, by weight of numbers, they took Bertrade de Montfort and the Prince away from Norman of Torn without a blow being struck, and then the little, grim, gray, old man stepped forward.

“There be but one sword in all England, nay in all the world that can, alone, take Norman of Torn,” he said, addressing the King, “and that sword be mine. Keep thy cattle back, out of my way.” And, without waiting for a reply, the grim, gray man sprang in to engage him whom for twenty years he had called son.

Norman of Torn came out of his corner to meet his new-found enemy, and there, in the apartment of the Queen of England in the castle of Battel, was fought such a duel as no man there had ever seen before, nor is it credible that its like was ever fought before or since.

The world’s two greatest swordsmen: teacher and pupil—the one with the strength of a young bull, the other with the cunning of an old gray fox, and both with a lifetime of training behind them, and the lust of blood and hate before them—thrust and parried and cut until those that gazed awestricken upon the marvellous swordplay scarcely breathed in the tensity of their wonder.

Back and forth about the room they moved, while those who had come to kill pressed back to make room for the contestants. Now was the young man forcing his older foeman more and more upon the defensive. Slowly, but as sure as death, he was winning ever nearer and nearer to victory. The old man saw it too. He had devoted years of his life to training that mighty sword arm that it might deal out death to others, and now—ah! The grim justice of the retribution—he, at last, was to fall before its diabolical cunning.

He could not win in fair fight against Norman