The Doomsman by Van Tassel Sutphen (best ereader for pdf and epub .txt) 📗

couple of hundred yards at the northern entrance or barrier.

A quarter of a mile back from the north gate stood the keep, not one distinct building, but rather several, built in the form of a hollow square and consolidated for mutual protection. The principal entrance, the one at the northern end, was called the water gate, for it should be explained that the keep stood on the bank of the Ochre brook and access was only possible by means of a drawbridge. Some day[Pg 26] Sir Gavan intended to turn the course of the stream so as to carry it around the keep and thereby secure the protection of a continuous moat. But hitherto other duties had seemed more pressing, and the plan was still in abeyance.

Entering through the covered way of the water gate, with guard-room and bailiff's office to the right and left, one found himself in the court-yard, some fifty yards in the square. On the right were the cow-barns, horse-stalls, granaries, tool-houses, and store-buildings, while the dwelling proper, known as the Great House, occupied the entire left of the square, the kitchens and other offices adjoining the retainers' quarters on the south. An enormous hall, running clear to the roof, took up the central portion of the house, staircases and galleries affording access to the store and sleeping-rooms on the second and attic stories. The roof proper was surmounted by a para-petted and loop-holed structure called the fighting platform, and it was thither that Constans had repaired upon receiving the startling intelligence of his sister's disappearance. Let us rejoin him there.

In the leisurely moving figure glimpsed through the birches, Constans had instantly recognized Issa. Plainly she had been out flower-hunting; with the aid of his binoculars he could determine that she carried a bunch of the delicate pink-and-white blossoms that we call May-bloom. She was directing her steps straight for the house, but either she was unaccountably deaf to the continuous clanging of the alarm-bell or, still more strangely, unaware of its significance; she walked as though in a reverie, slowly and with her head bent forward. Thunder of God! it was a trap,[Pg 27] and the foolish girl would not see. Unquestionably, the Doomsmen had forced the stockade at some distant point and were even now in ambush about the keep. But Constans, for all his keenness of vision and the assistance of his glass, could discover nothing to indicate the presence of any considerable body of men. There was no one in actual sight save he who sat upon his blood-bay steed, girth deep in the Ochre brook under shadow of the alders. Only one, but that one!

Constans found himself in the court-yard; how he scarcely knew. The water gate still stood open with the drawbridge lowered, but both could be easily secured within a few seconds should the enemy venture upon any open demonstration. Sir Gavan stood in the covered way talking anxiously with his eldest son Tennant, who had just returned from an unsuccessful search of the upper orchard.

Constans, in his confusion of mind, did not notice his father and brother; he ran across the court-yard to the horse-boxes. His black mare Night whickered upon recognizing her master, and tried to rub her muzzle against his cheek as he fumbled with the throat-latch of the bridle. An instant longer, to lead out the mare and vault upon her back, and he was clattering through the court-yard and covered way.

Upon reaching the open Constans saw that the situation had developed into a crisis. The cavalier of the ostrich-feather had forced his horse up the steep bank of the Ochre brook and was riding slowly towards the girl, who stood motionless, realizing her perilous position, but unable for the moment to cope with it. She half turned, as though to seek again the shelter of the[Pg 28] birchen copse; then, clutching at her impeding skirts, she ran in the direction of the keep. He of the ostrich-plume spurred to the gallop; inevitably their paths must intersect a few yards farther on.

From behind came the noise of men shouting and the thud of quarrels impinging upon stout oak; the Doomsmen, hitherto in hiding, were making a diversion, in answer, doubtless, to a signal from their leader. A hundred gray-garbed men showed themselves in the open, coming from the shelter of the fir plantation back of the rickyards; they ran towards the open water gate, exposing themselves recklessly in their eagerness to reach it.

But the defenders were not to be surprised so easily, and Constans, glancing backward, saw that the drawbridge was already in the air and the gate closed. The outlaws, realizing that the surprise was a failure, and unwilling to brave the arrows sent whistling about their ears from the fighting platforms of the keep, fell back in some disorder. At the same moment a solitary figure appeared, emerging as though by magic from the solid wall of the keep—Sir Gavan himself, a father forgetful of all else but the peril of his children. He must have used the "Rat's-Hole" for egress; he hurried down the green slope, calling his daughter by name. All this Constans saw in that swift backward glance. Well, there was but one thing that he could do.

And Night knew it, too; brave little Night, how cleverly you forced yourself under the towering bulk of that brute of a blood-bay! A thunder of hoofs and they were in touch; Constans felt himself hurled into space; the bridle-reins of tough plaited leather were torn from his hands; Night and he were down.[Pg 29]

The dust cloud cleared and the boy struggled up, although his head was still spinning from the shock of the encounter. Ten yards away lay the black mare with a broken foreleg. She was trying to rise, her eyes glazed with pain and her flanks heaving horribly.

The blood-bay had kept his feet and his master his saddle—a hardy pair, these two. But the desperate expedient had proved successful in that Issa was safe. Already Sir Gavan had her in his arms, and before the horseman had fully found himself the fugitives were under the shadow of the keep's walls.

The question of his own danger did not immediately concern Constans; he had no eyes for anything but Night lying there in her agony. His father had given him the horse when she was a foal of a week old, and Constans had broken and trained her himself. Well, she had served him faithfully, and in return he would show her the last mercy. His knife-sheath hung from his girdle; he drew out the blade and drove it home just behind the glossy black shoulder. Night shuddered and lay still. The knife had sunken deep, and Constans had to exert all his strength to withdraw it. The bare point of a rapier touched him meaningly on the arm; he stood up and faced his enemy.

The man on horseback laughed softly. "Oho, my young cockerel, it was but a touch of the gaff, and now that you are ready is reason sufficient why I should prefer to wait. But that neither of us may forget—" He bent down and caught Constans by the shoulders, turning him around and forcing him backward until his head rested against the blood-bay's withers. Two slashes of his hunting-knife and a tiny,[Pg 30] triangular nick appeared on the upper part of the lad's right ear.

"That is my sign-manual of which I spoke to you an hour or more ago. It is Quinton Edge's mark, as all men know, and it brands whatever bears it as Quinton Edge's property. Some day I may deem it worth while to claim my own; until then you can be my caretaker, my tenant. What! no answer? And yet it is a generous offer, I think, considering how sore my arm has grown and how impertinently you behaved just now in interfering between me and a lady. Light of God! but she is a bewitching bundle of femineity. But twice, boy, have I seen her; hardly a dozen words have passed——"

He stopped abruptly and gazed hard at Constans. Then slowly:

"Your sister, I take it; there is the same straight line of eyebrow. No answer again? Well, we will pass it over for the nonce; you have still many things to learn, and, chiefly, to becomingly order body and soul in the presence of your lord. After all, it pleases me better to have the last word from the lady's own lips; she had been most discourteously treated, and I would fain be shriven. Until we meet again, then."

The cavalier put spur to the blood-bay's flank and rode straight for the Great House. The boy stood staring after him; he did not notice the trickle of blood from the cut in his ear; he was not even conscious that he was still in life. He remembered only the unforgivable affront which this man had put upon him, the mark which was the infamous badge of the bondman, the slave. Quinton Edge! Ah, yes; he would remember that face and name.[Pg 31]

The Doomsman had ridden in cool defiance up to the very walls of the keep. It would have been an easy matter for one of the garrison to have bored his gay jacket through with a feathered shaft, and for a moment Constans trembled, fearing lest some overzealous partisan should thus rob him of his future vengeance. But the very audacity of the man proved the saving of his skin. They were brave men who manned the fighting platforms of the Greenwood Keep, and they could not bring themselves to set upon naked courage.

Constans fancied that the man spoke to some one who stood hidden in the deep embrasure of a window, but it was too far to either see or hear. Then it seemed that a small object fell lightly from the window-sill. The Doomsman caught it dexterously and fastened it on his breast. Another low bow and, wheeling his horse, he dashed down the slope. Constans ran blindly to meet him; why, he did not know. He who named himself Quinton Edge swerved slightly in his course so as to pass within arm's-length, calling out as he did so:

"Gage of battle and gage of love; a fortunate day for me. Believe me that at some future time I shall answer for them both."

It was a sprig of the May-bloom that the cavalier wore in his button-hole; Constans had only time to recognize it when the blood-bay broke into full gallop. The lad flung himself at full length upon the turf, face downward, and lay there motionless.[Pg 32]

V

THE RAT'S-HOLE

It was a warm, cloudy night some two weeks later, and Constans sat in the great hall of the keep, listlessly regarding the preparations that were being made for the evening meal. Six or seven of the house-servants were bustling to and from the buttery laden with flagons and dishes, which they deposited with a vast amount of noise and confusion upon the tables. These latter were of the most primitive construction, nothing more than puncheons smoothed down with the adze and supported by wooden trestles.

The main table ran nearly the full length of the hall, and was intended to accommodate the men-at-arms and the superior servants, together with such strangers of low degree as might chance to be present. The furniture was of the rudest pattern—platters of bass and white wood, which were daily scoured with sand to keep them clean and sweet, earthenware pitchers of a bricklike hue, drinking-cups of pewter and leather, and clumsy iron forks. There was no provision of cutlery; evidently the guests were expected to use their hunting-knives and daggers for the dismemberment of the viands.

At the upper or dais end of the hall there was a second table, placed at right angles to the long one[Pg 33] and elevated above it by the height of the superior flooring upon which it stood. This principal board was, of course, for the exclusive use of the family and distinguished guests, and from the circumstance of its being raised above the main level the master could command an unobstructed view of the entire household in the event of any overt disorder or indecorum.

The viands were quite in keeping with the simplicity of the table-gear. Huge chines of beef and mutton, with spare-rib and fowl in apparently unlimited quantity, formed the staple of the repast, and were reinforced by vast bowls of the commoner garden vegetables and by bread made of unbolted flour. Sweetmeats were scarce, for the products of the sugarcane are difficult to procure in these northern latitudes. Maple sugar and honey serve as the ordinary substitutes, and even these are regarded as luxuries, since maple-trees are few