第26章

"Guy," said Peter of Colfax, as the man entered, "ye made a rare fizzle of a piece of business some weeks ago.Ye wot of which I speak ?""Yes, My Lord."

"It chances that on the morrow ye may have opportunity to retrieve thy blunder.Ride out with ten men where the stranger who waits in the courtyard below shall lead ye, and come not back without that which ye lost to a handful of men before.You understand ?""Yes, My Lord !"

"And, Guy, I half mistrust this fellow who hath offered to assist us.At the first sign of treachery, fall upon him with all thy men and slay him.

Tell the others that these be my orders.""Yes, My Lord.When do we ride ?"

"At once.You may go."

The morning that Bertrade de Montfort had chosen to return to her father's castle dawned gray and threatening.In vain did Mary de Stutevill plead with her friend to give up the idea of setting out upon such a dismal day and without sufficient escort, but Bertrade de Montfort was firm.

"Already have I overstayed my time three days, and it is not lightly that even I, his daughter, fail in obedience to Simon de Montfort.I shall have enough to account for as it be.Do not urge me to add even one more day to my excuses.And again, perchance, my mother and my father may be sore distressed by my continued absence.No, Mary, I must ride today." And so she did, with the five knights that could be spared from the castle's defence.

Scarcely half an hour had elapsed before a cold drizzle set in, so that they were indeed a sorry company that splashed along the muddy road, wrapped in mantle and surcoat.As they proceeded, the rain and wind increased in volume, until it was being driven into their faces in such blinding gusts that they must needs keep their eyes closed and trust to the instincts of their mounts.

Less than half the journey had been accomplished.They were winding across a little hollow toward a low ridge covered with dense forest, into the somber shadows of which the road wound.There was a glint of armor among the drenched foliage, but the rain-buffeted eyes of the riders saw it not.

On they came, their patient horses plodding slowly through the sticky road and hurtling storm.

Now they were half way up the ridge's side.There was a movement in the dark shadows of the grim wood, and then, without cry or warning, a band of steel-clad horsemen broke forth with couched spears.Charging at full run down upon them, they overthrew three of the girl's escort before a blow could be struck in her defense.Her two remaining guardians wheeled to meet the return attack, and nobly did they acquit themselves, for it took the entire eleven who were pitted against them to overcome and slay the two.

In the melee, none had noticed the girl, but presently one of her assailants, a little, grim, gray man, discovered that she had put spurs to her palfrey and escaped.Calling to his companions he set out at a rapid pace in pursuit.

Reckless of the slippery road and the blinding rain, Bertrade de Montfort urged her mount into a wild run, for she had recognized the arms of Peter of Colfax on the shields of several of the attacking party.

Nobly, the beautiful Arab bent to her call for speed.The great beasts of her pursuers, bred in Normandy and Flanders, might have been tethered in their stalls for all the chance they had of overtaking the flying white steed that fairly split the gray rain as lightning flies through the clouds.

But for the fiendish cunning of the little grim, gray man's foresight, Bertrade de Montfort would have made good her escape that day.As it was, however, her fleet mount had carried her but two hundred yards ere, in the midst of the dark wood, she ran full upon a rope stretched across the roadway between two trees.

As the horse fell, with a terrible lunge, tripped by the stout rope, Bertrade de Montfort was thrown far before him, where she lay, a little, limp bedraggled figure, in the mud of the road.

There they found her.The little, grim, gray man did not even dismount, so indifferent was he to her fate; dead or in the hands of Peter of Colfax, it was all the same to him.In either event, his purpose would be accomplished, and Bertrade de Montfort would no longer lure Norman of Torn from the path he had laid out for him.

That such an eventuality threatened, he knew from one Spizo the Spaniard, the single traitor in the service of Norman of Torn, whose mean aid the little grim, gray man had purchased since many months to spy upon the comings and goings of the great outlaw.

The men of Peter of Colfax gathered up the lifeless form of Bertrade de Montfort and placed it across the saddle before one of their number.

"Come," said the man called Guy, "if there be life left in her, we must hasten to Sir Peter before it be extinct.""I leave ye here," said the little old man."My part of the business is done."And so he sat watching them until they had disappeared in the forest toward the castle of Colfax.

Then he rode back to the scene of the encounter where lay the five knights of Sir John de Stutevill.Three were already dead, the other two, sorely but not mortally wounded, lay groaning by the roadside.

The little grim, gray man dismounted as he came abreast of them and, with his long sword, silently finished the two wounded men.Then, drawing his dagger, he made a mark upon the dead foreheads of each of the five, and mounting, rode rapidly toward Torn.

"And if one fact be not enough," he muttered, "that mark upon the dead will quite effectually stop further intercourse between the houses of Torn and Leicester."Henry de Montfort, son of Simon, rode fast and furious at the head of a dozen of his father's knights on the road to Stutevill.

Bertrade de Montfort was so long overdue that the Earl and Princess Eleanor, his wife, filled with grave apprehensions, had posted their oldest son off to the castle of John de Stutevill to fetch her home.