The Outlaw of Torn Part 15

The outlaw but held up his open palm, as he said,

"Let the De Montforts think well ere they take the hand of Norman of Torn. I give not my hand except in friendship, and not for a pa.s.sing moment; but for life. I appreciate your present feelings of grat.i.tude, but let them not blind you to the fact that I am still Norman the Devil, and that you have seen my mark upon the brows of your dead. I would gladly have your friendship, but I wish it for the man, Norman of Torn, with all his faults, as well as what virtues you may think him to possess."

"You are right, sir," said the Earl, "you have our grat.i.tude and our thanks for the service you have rendered the house of Montfort, and ever during our lives you may command our favors. I admire your bravery and your candor, but while you continue the Outlaw of Torn, you may not break bread at the table of De Montfort as a friend would have the right to do."

"Your speech is that of a wise and careful man," said Norman of Torn quietly. "I go, but remember that from this day, I have no quarrel with the House of Simon de Montfort, and that should you need my arms, they are at your service, a thousand strong. Goodbye." But as he turned to go, Bertrade de Montfort confronted him with outstretched hand.

"You must take my hand in friendship," she said, "for, to my dying day, I must ever bless the name of Norman of Torn because of the horror from which he has rescued me."

He took the little fingers in his mailed hand, and bending upon one knee raised them to his lips.

"To no other--woman, man, king, G.o.d, or devil--has Norman of Torn bent the knee. If ever you need him, My Lady Bertrade, remember that his services are yours for the asking."

And turning, he mounted and rode in silence from the courtyard of the castle of Leicester. Without a backward glance, and with his five hundred men at his back, Norman of Torn disappeared beyond a turning in the roadway.

"A strange man," said Simon de Montfort, "both good and bad, but from today, I shall ever believe more good than bad. Would that he were other than he be, for his arm would wield a heavy sword against the enemies of England, an he could be persuaded to our cause."

"Who knows," said Henry de Montfort, "but that an offer of friendship might have won him to a better life. It seemed that in his speech was a note of wistfulness. I wish, father, that we had taken his hand."

CHAPTER XI

Several days after Norman of Torn's visit to the castle of Leicester, a young knight appeared before the Earl's gates demanding admittance to have speech with Simon de Montfort. The Earl received him, and as the young man entered his presence, Simon de Montfort, sprang to his feet in astonishment.

"My Lord Prince," he cried. "What do ye here, and alone?"

The young man smiled.

"I be no prince, My Lord," he said, "though some have said that I favor the King's son. I be Roger de Conde, whom it may have pleased your gracious daughter to mention. I have come to pay homage to Bertrade de Montfort."

"Ah," said De Montfort, rising to greet the young knight cordially, "an you be that Roger de Conde who rescued my daughter from the fellows of Peter of Colfax, the arms of the De Montforts are open to you.

"Bertrade has had your name upon her tongue many times since her return.

She will be glad indeed to receive you, as is her father. She has told us of your valiant espousal of her cause, and the thanks of her brothers and mother await you, Roger de Conde.

"She also told us of your strange likeness to Prince Edward, but until I saw you, I could not believe two men could be born of different mothers and yet be so identical. Come, we will seek out my daughter and her mother."

De Montfort led the young man to a small chamber where they were greeted by Princess Eleanor, his wife, and by Bertrade de Montfort. The girl was frankly glad to see him once more and laughingly chide him because he had allowed another to usurp his prerogative and rescue her from Peter of Colfax.

"And to think," she cried, "that it should have been Norman of Torn who fulfilled your duties for you. But he did not capture Sir Peter's head, my friend; that is still at large to be brought to me upon a golden dish."

"I have not forgotten, Lady Bertrade," said Roger de Conde. "Peter of Colfax will return."

The girl glanced at him quickly.

"The very words of the Outlaw of Torn," she said. "How many men be ye, Roger de Conde? With raised visor, you could pa.s.s in the King's court for the King's son; and in manner, and form, and swordsmanship, and your visor lowered, you might easily be hanged for Norman of Torn."

"And which would it please ye most that I be?" he laughed.

"Neither," she answered, "I be satisfied with my friend, Roger de Conde."

"So ye like not the Devil of Torn?" he asked.

"He has done me a great service, and I be under monstrous obligations to him, but he be, nathless, the Outlaw of Torn and I the daughter of an earl and a king's sister."

"A most unbridgeable gulf indeed," commented Roger de Conde, drily. "Not even grat.i.tude could lead a king's niece to receive Norman of Torn on a footing of equality."

"He has my friendship, always," said the girl, "but I doubt me if Norman of Torn be the man to impose upon it."

"One can never tell," said Roger de Conde, "what manner of fool a man may be. When a man's head be filled with a pretty face, what room be there for reason?"

"Soon thou wilt be a courtier, if thou keep long at this turning of pretty compliments," said the girl coldly; "and I like not courtiers, nor their empty, hypocritical chatter."

The man laughed.

"If I turned a compliment, I did not know it," he said. "What I think, I say. It may not be a courtly speech or it may. I know nothing of courts and care less, but be it man or maid to whom I speak, I say what is in my mind or I say nothing. I did not, in so many words, say that you are beautiful, but I think it nevertheless, and ye cannot be angry with my poor eyes if they deceive me into believing that no fairer woman breathes the air of England. Nor can you chide my sinful brain that it gladly believes what mine eyes tell it. No, you may not be angry so long as I do not tell you all this."

Bertrade de Montfort did not know how to answer so ridiculous a sophistry; and, truth to tell, she was more than pleased to hear from the lips of Roger de Conde what bored her on the tongues of other men.

De Conde was the guest of the Earl of Leicester for several days, and before his visit was terminated, the young man had so won his way into the good graces of the family that they were loath to see him leave.

Although denied the society of such as these throughout his entire life, yet it seemed that he fell as naturally into the ways of their kind as though he had always been among them. His starved soul, groping through the darkness of the empty past, yearned toward the feasting and the light of friendship, and urged him to turn his back upon the old life, and remain ever with these people, for Simon de Montfort had offered the young man a position of trust and honor in his retinue.

"Why refused you the offer of my father?" said Bertrade to him as he was come to bid her farewell. "Simon de Montfort is as great a man in England as the King himself, and your future were a.s.sured did you attach your self to his person. But what am I saying! Did Roger de Conde not wish to be elsewhere, he had accepted and, as he did not accept, it is proof positive that he does not wish to bide among the De Montforts."

"I would give my soul to the devil," said Norman of Torn, "would it buy me the right to remain ever at the feet of Bertrade Montfort."

He raised her hand to his lips in farewell as he started to speak, but something--was it an almost imperceptible pressure of her little fingers, a quickening of her breath or a swaying of her body toward him?--caused him to pause and raise his eyes to hers.

For an instant they stood thus, the eyes of the man sinking deep into the eyes of the maid, and then hers closed and with a little sigh that was half gasp, she swayed toward him, and the Devil of Torn folded the King's niece in his mighty arms and his lips placed the seal of a great love upon those that were upturned to him.

The touch of those pure lips brought the man to himself.

"Ah, Bertrade, my Bertrade," he cried, "what is this thing that I have done! Forgive me, and let the greatness and the purity of my love for you plead in extenuation of my act."

She looked up into his face in surprise, and then placing her strong white hands upon his shoulders, she whispered:

"See, Roger, I am not angry. It is not wrong that we love; tell me it is not, Roger."

"You must not say that you love me, Bertrade. I am a coward, a craven poltroon; but, G.o.d, how I love you."

"But," said the girl, "I do love--"

"Stop," he cried, "not yet, not yet. Do not say it till I come again.

You know nothing of me, you do not know even who I be; but when next I come, I promise that ye shall know as much of me as I myself know, and then, Bertrade, my Bertrade, if you can then say, 'I love you' no power on earth, or in heaven above, or h.e.l.l below shall keep you from being mine!"

"I will wait, Roger, for I believe in you and trust you. I do not understand, but I know that you must have some good reason, though it all seems very strange to me. If I, a De Montfort, am willing to acknowledge my love for any man, there can be no reason why I should not do so, unless," and she started at the sudden thought, wide-eyed and paling, "unless there be another woman, a--a--wife?"