The Outlaw of Torn Part 31

Henry knelt and peered into the dying face.

"De Vac!" he exclaimed.

The old man nodded. Then he pointed to where lay Norman of Torn.

"Outlaw--highwayman--scourge--of--England. Look--upon--his--face.

Open--his tunic--left--breast."

He stopped from very weakness, and then in another moment, with a final effort: "De--Vac's--revenge. G.o.d--d.a.m.n--the--English," and slipped forward upon the rushes, dead.

The King had heard, and De Montfort and the Queen. They stood looking into each other's eyes with a strange fixity, for what seemed an eternity, before any dared to move; and then, as though they feared what they should see, they bent over the form of the Outlaw of Torn for the first time.

The Queen gave a little cry as she saw the still, quiet face turned up to hers.

"Edward!" she whispered.

"Not Edward, Madame," said De Montfort, "but--"

The King knelt beside the still form, across the breast of which lay the unconscious body of Bertrade de Montfort. Gently, he lifted her to the waiting arms of Philip of France, and then the King, with his own hands, tore off the shirt of mail, and with trembling fingers ripped wide the tunic where it covered the left breast of the Devil of Torn.

"Oh G.o.d!" he cried, and buried his head in his arms.

The Queen had seen also, and with a little moan she sank beside the body of her second born, crying out:

"Oh Richard, my boy, my boy!" And as she bent still lower to kiss the lily mark upon the left breast of the son she had not seen to know for over twenty years, she paused, and with frantic haste she pressed her ear to his breast.

"He lives!" she almost shrieked. "Quick, Henry, our son lives!"

Bertrade de Montfort had regained consciousness almost before Philip of France had raised her from the floor, and she stood now, leaning on his arm, watching with wide, questioning eyes the strange scene being enacted at her feet.

Slowly, the lids of Norman of Torn lifted with returning consciousness.

Before him, on her knees in the blood spattered rushes of the floor, knelt Eleanor, Queen of England, alternately chafing and kissing his hands.

A sore wound indeed to have brought on such a wild delirium, thought the Outlaw of Torn.

He felt his body, in a half sitting, half reclining position, resting against one who knelt behind him, and as he lifted his head to see whom it might be supporting him, he looked into the eyes of the King, upon whose breast his head rested.

Strange vagaries of a disordered brain! Yes it must have been a very terrible wound that the little old man of Torn had given him; but why could he not dream that Bertrade de Montfort held him? And then his eyes wandered about among the throng of ladies, n.o.bles and soldiers standing uncovered and with bowed heads about him. Presently he found her.

"Bertrade!" he whispered.

The girl came and knelt beside him, opposite the Queen.

"Bertrade, tell me thou art real; that thou at least be no dream."

"I be very real, dear heart," she answered, "and these others be real, also. When thou art stronger, thou shalt understand the strange thing that has happened. These who wert thine enemies, Norman of Torn, be thy best friends now--that thou should know, so that thou may rest in peace until thou be better."

He groped for her hand, and, finding it, closed his eyes with a faint sigh.

They bore him to a cot in an apartment next the Queen's, and all that night the mother and the promised wife of the Outlaw of Torn sat bathing his fevered forehead. The King's chirurgeon was there also, while the King and De Montfort paced the corridor without.

And it is ever thus; whether in hovel or palace; in the days of Moses, or in the days that be ours; the lamb that has been lost and is found again be always the best beloved.

Toward morning, Norman of Torn fell into a quiet and natural sleep; the fever and delirium had succ.u.mbed before his perfect health and iron const.i.tution. The chirurgeon turned to the Queen and Bertrade de Montfort.

"You had best retire, ladies," he said, "and rest. The Prince will live."

Late that afternoon he awoke, and no amount of persuasion or commands on the part of the King's chirurgeon could restrain him from arising.

"I beseech thee to lie quiet, My Lord Prince," urged the chirurgeon.

"Why call thou me prince?" asked Norman of Torn.

"There be one without whose right it be to explain that to thee,"

replied the chirurgeon, "and when thou be clothed, if rise thou wilt, thou mayst see her, My Lord."

The chirurgeon aided him to dress and, opening the door, he spoke to a sentry who stood just without. The sentry transmitted the message to a young squire who was waiting there, and presently the door was thrown open again from without, and a voice announced:

"Her Majesty, the Queen!"

Norman of Torn looked up in unfeigned surprise, and then there came back to him the scene in the Queen's apartment the night before. It was all a sore perplexity to him; he could not fathom it, nor did he attempt to.

And now, as in a dream, he saw the Queen of England coming toward him across the small room, her arms outstretched; her beautiful face radiant with happiness and love.

"Richard, my son!" exclaimed Eleanor, coming to him and taking his face in her hands and kissing him.

"Madame!" exclaimed the surprised man. "Be all the world gone crazy?"

And then she told him the strange story of the little lost prince of England.

When she had finished, he knelt at her feet, taking her hand in his and raising it to his lips.

"I did not know, Madame," he said, "or never would my sword have been bared in other service than thine. If thou canst forgive me, Madame, never can I forgive myself."

"Take it not so hard, my son," said Eleanor of England. "It be no fault of thine, and there be nothing to forgive; only happiness and rejoicing should we feel, now that thou be found again."

"Forgiveness!" said a man's voice behind them. "Forsooth, it be we that should ask forgiveness; hunting down our own son with swords and halters.

"Any but a fool might have known that it was no base-born knave who sent the King's army back, naked, to the King, and rammed the King's message down his messenger's throat.

"By all the saints, Richard, thou be every inch a King's son, an' though we made sour faces at the time, we be all the prouder of thee now."

The Queen and the outlaw had turned at the first words to see the King standing behind them, and now Norman of Torn rose, half smiling, and greeted his father.

"They be sorry jokes, Sire," he said. "Methinks it had been better had Richard remained lost. It will do the honor of the Plantagenets but little good to acknowledge the Outlaw of Torn as a prince of the blood."

But they would not have it so, and it remained for a later King of England to wipe the great name from the pages of history--perhaps a jealous king.