Star of Mercia Part 17

"I met some of his men yesterday upon the heath," said Grim, "all mud-bespattered and outworn. What hath he now in hand, Ulwin?"

"Pah! who can tell? He hath fetched a swarm of accursed foreigners--smiths and wrights--from overseas, and he must keep them busy. There is ever some new-fangled hewing or digging. He set a yew-hedge in the fall, ye know; and they say he will have a fish-pond."

"Here is friend Richard," said Ingelric, "and the little lad also."

Richard appeared upon the green, on horseback, accompanied by his son Osbern, aged ten, who rode a pony. Having tethered their mounts to two of a row of posts beside the ale-house door, they made their way to the elm-tree. The years had been generous towards Richard the Scrob. He was better clothed and shod than formerly, more serene, less spare. Osbern, the eldest of his children, had his father's firm mouth and his mother's clear blue eyes.

"Greeting," said Ulwin, with an uneasy leer. "We talk of thee, neighbour, as a great man and a wealthy. Shouldst thank me for Alftrude and what she brought thee, which latter did surely set thee on thy feet."

"Nay, Ulwin, surely I did set thee once upon thy feet, with timely loan. Hast thou forgotten, also, that I have had no answer from thee to a question I put to thee above a year and four months ago?"

"What mean ye? Say all that ye mean aloud, in the ears of these thanes, and let them judge between thee and me!" Ulwin's brain was slow, but he rightly guessed that an explicit reply would follow, for Richard's love of litigation was notorious.

"Thou knowest that I speak of Ashford, which wrongfully thou keepest from me, and of the hundred and forty shillings which thou borrowedst."

"Thou knowest, and all here know, that Ashford is mine, holden of Turstin as lord," said Ulwin.

"Turstin is not lord of that land; the Abbot is lord thereof indeed, and by the Abbot's leave did it pa.s.s from thee to me. And I did pay thy gaming-losses; and thou gavest me Alftrude my dear wife, and half of the land she had as thy brother's widow. I did swear to let thee be in Ashford for ten years, and thou to give it up to me when ten years were run, or to repay me the sum of my lending in gold."

"Not so," said Ulwin. "I agreed with thee for Alftrude and half of her morning-gift from Winge. Why should she take more with her when she went from us to wed a needy foreigner?"

"I have thy mark which thou settedst to the bond I wrote."

"I made no mark. I saw no bond."

"There is Ednoth's mark thereon, beneath thine own."

"Say, brother Ednoth, have I pledged all this to Richard the Scrob by tongue or by pen?"

"I know nought of it," answered Ednoth.

Richard thrust his hands into his belt. The faintest possible shadow of a smile lurked at the corners of his lips. For a second his glance wandered absently to the rocky hill of Lude[16] which towered above Ludford on the farther bank of the Teme where that river turned northward to join the Corve, and for a fraction of a second rested upon the narrow track straggling round the southern side of the hill and descending steeply to the ford.

[16] Now Ludlow.

"Bring witnesses to my mark and Ednoth's!" cried Ulwin with a gobbling laugh. "Bring witnesses to the Abbot's right! The hundredmen will laugh thee to scorn. This Richard is a liar, friends: guilt hath sapped his boldness, or wealth and good-living, belike; he who was wont to be so ready with his fists now quails before an Englishman. What, dost thou smile? Aha, thou thinkest on the Frenchman at Westminster! What deemest thou we shall make of thy Duke?"

"What ye will, I doubt not," said Richard. "I am for law and order." He seated himself upon a root of the elm, and leant against the trunk.

Every now and again he scanned what could be seen of the winding road about the hill of Lude.

"Hear me once more," said Edric the Wild. "Ye should make ready against aught that may befall while these your fruitful acres are your own and all unscathed. The tyrant hath left his spoor of fire and steel from the South Saxon land to London town.... Why, Gunwert of Mereston! What tidings? Steady, man--drink first, speak after!"

A weary, speechless man dropped from his horse to Edric's feet.

"They come!" he gasped, when he had swallowed a mouthful of beer.

"Sighted beyond Stretton.... From Shrewsbury ... in their hundreds--fully armed!"

Richard, deep in the shadow of the tree, took the boy Osbern's hand and drew him down beside him.

"Hasten, all!" shouted Edric, quivering with eagerness. "To every homestead where be weapons--tools--what ye can find! Hasten, hasten!

Ride--gather your men together! We will beat them back at the ford."

All were on their feet, all running--every thane, every churl, every thrall. Some dashed into houses and sheds, and bore thence sickles, scythes, axes, picks, shovels, and mattocks, and ancient rust-caked weapons; some seized the horses tethered by the ale-house door and sprang upon them. Richard, still holding Osbern by the hand, entered the town in the midst of the first contingent of those who remained on foot.

"They have taken our horses," he whispered. "Silence now--we must not move nor breathe!"

The maltman's barn opened on to Ludford Street, and they slipped within and hid between the outer wall and a rampart of odorous sacks. Edric drove the whole body of his compatriots out into the open. After a quick consultation with Ingelric, he set off with the old man on the shortest route to Caynham. Some made towards Ashford, some towards the Moor. A few splashed through the ford over which the grey waters of the Teme glided in their winter flood.

An hour pa.s.sed; another hour; the second hour after noon began. Richard was still in the maltman's storehouse, scarcely stirring from the post he had originally taken up, listening intently to every sound that penetrated from without. Osbern had perched himself upon a sack by his father's side, as motionless except for his fingers, about which he twined a piece of string in cat's cradle pattern. The voices of women reached them, the laughter of children, the swirl of water among the roots of the willows. Falling cobwebs powdered these two with dingy flakes; conflicting currents of air made the malt-dust dance all around them; they heard the patter of rats' feet, the dogged gnawing of a mouse. Suddenly a woman shrieked in terror----

"Yonder--see yonder! Hors.e.m.e.n! hors.e.m.e.n! Yonder the death of us all! My man--where is he? Gone--left me here helpless! The Frenchmen! The Frenchmen!"

Panic seized the women of Ludford (there were some twenty of them): tearful, voluble, or outwardly composed, they carried, dragged, drove their children up the street, across the green, and out of the town, in frantic search of masculine protection.

Richard and Osbern stepped stiffly out into the street, brushing their garments as they went. Yes, there they were, the hors.e.m.e.n, filing along the hill-side track. The apathetic sun of late winter lent a sulky radiance to lance, mace, and scabbard, ringed hauberk, conical helm, and kite-shaped shield. Nearer they came--sixty in all, Richard guessed. The cavalcade appeared at the farther end of the street: men-at-arms, pursuivants, knights, esquires, and, behind his banner, riding alone, William fitzOsbern, Earl of Hereford and Lord of Breteuil, in the full splendour of vigorous manhood.

"Seignior!" cried Richard the Norman--"Seignior, faictes grace a moy, qui suys de vostre sang!"

William fitzOsbern threw an amused glance at a forgotten cobweb that adhered to the speaker's head.

"Mort Dex!" said he. "Whom have we here?"

"Richard of Overton, son of Hugh, son of Osbern, son of Walter of Rye in the Cotentin, where my nephew is now lord. Sir Count, the mother of my grandsire was cousin and nurse unto Herfast your own father's father, and unto n.o.ble Dame Gunnore his sister, spouse of our then Duke."

"Thou art the Scrope. I have heard of thee. One named Perot spoke of thee with the King at Westminster; and that British fellow of thine--Howel they call him--guides the company of Ralph de Mortemar behind us upon the road. I have pressed on with another to conduct me, for I would reach the city of Hereford as soon as may be."

"Seignior, I have dwelt for twenty years within your county that now is," said Richard, dropping on one knee, "and I pray of you justice and your puissant aid! The rascal English do me wrong, and they will not consider my cause, for I stand alone. One Ulwin invades certain of my lands and a mill which I myself set up beside the river: he first exchanged this Ashford for money and cattle of mine, then pleaded his no-right to sell."

He paused. FitzOsbern had half-turned in his saddle and was surveying the rugged hill of Lude upon the other side of the ford.

"What a rock of defence!" he exclaimed. "Careless fools to let it stand unfortified!... Well, I did look for thee to come to greet us; but alone? and--toil-stained, is it? I have seen no rascal English hereabouts. This seems a village dead or sleeping. Are ye the only persons here alive, thou and one child?"

"News of your coming has reached these English, my lord, and they believe that your purpose is to spoil their homesteads, and so they are gone without into the country, gathering together all able men for resistance. Wild Edric of Clun was here but now, at work upon their fears. Though they be mostly on foot, and their weapons be rusty, they are more than we, and might bar your road to Hereford. Come with me, I pray you: on yonder hill I have a strong house, where ye, aye, and all these, may be safe."

"Joyously will we partake of thine hospitality, good Richard, for an hour or so, although our march be thereby delayed. Thy Howel, I know, will lead Ralph de Mortemar to thy very door. Say, who is the lad? Son of thine, I wager."

"My eldest son, so please you. Osbern, stand forth."

"Hah! Osbern fitzRichard, how sayest thou?

"Wilt thou serve my lady in bower and at board until such time as thou be old enough to ride with me into battle?"

"a.s.surement, mon seignior!" replied the child, upon his knee beside his father in a moment. His French had the thick accent of an Englishman.

FitzOsbern smiled down upon him.

"Shalt learn more gracious French," said he, "but not more gracious manners. Well, let us be going."

"Seignior," said one of the esquires, "I hear the tramp of many feet, but no voices at all."