The Path of the King Part 3

At a turn of the road where two gra.s.sy tracks forked, he pa.s.sed a graven stone now chipped and moss-grown, set on n.o.ble eminence among reddening thorns. It was an altar to the old G.o.ds of the land, there had been another such in the forest of his childhood. The priest had told him it was the shrine of the Lord Apollo and forbade him on the pain of a mighty cursing to do reverence to it. Nevertheless he had been wont to doff his cap when he pa.s.sed it, for he respected a G.o.d that lived in the woods instead of a clammy church. Now the sight of the ancient thing seemed an omen. It linked up the past and the present. He waved a greeting to it. "Hail, old friend," he said. "Bid your master be with me, whoever he be, for I go to find a home."

One of his fellows rode up to his side. "We are within a mile of Highstead," he told him. "Better go warily, for the King's law runs limpingly in the fanlands. I counsel that a picket be sent forward to report if the way be clear. Every churl that we pa.s.sed on the road will have sent news of our coming."

"So much the better," said Jehan. "Man, I come not as a thief in the night. This is a daylight business. If I am to live my days here I must make a fair conquest."

The man fell back sullenly, and there were anxious faces in the retinue jogging twenty yards behind. But no care sat on Jehan's brow. He plucked sprays of autumn berries and tossed and caught them, he sang gently to himself and spoke his thoughts to his horse. Harm could not come to him when air and scene woke in his heart such strange familiarity.

A last turn of the road showed Highstead before him, two furlongs distant. The thatched roof of the hall rose out of a cl.u.s.ter of shingled huts on a mound defended by moat and palisade. No smoke came from the dwelling, and no man was visible, but not for nothing was Jehan named the Hunter. He was aware that every tuft of reed and scrog of wood concealed a spear or a bowman. So he set his head stiff and laughed, and hummed a bar of a song which the ferry-men used to sing on Seine side.

"A man does not fight to win his home," he told his horse, "but only to defend it when he has won it. If G.o.d so wills I shall be welcomed with open gates: otherwise there will be burying ere nightfall."

In this fashion he rode steadfastly toward the silent burg. Now he was within a stone's throw of it, and no spear had been launched; now he was before the ma.s.sive oaken gate. Suddenly it swung open and a man came out. He was a short, square fellow who limped, and, half hidden by his long hair, a great scar showed white on his forehead.

"In whose name?" he asked in the English tongue.

"In the name of our lord the King and the Earl Ivo."

"That is no pa.s.sport," said the man.

"In my own name, then,--in the name of Jehan the Hunter."

The man took two steps forward and laid a hand on the off stirrup. Jehan leaped to the ground and kissed him on both cheeks.

"We have met before, friend," he said, and he took between his palms the joined hands of his new liege.

"Two years back on the night of Hastings," said the man. "But for that meeting, my lord, you had tasted twenty arrows betwixt Highstead and the forest."

Part 3

"I go to visit my neighbours," said Jehan next morning.

Arn the Steward stared at his master with a puzzled face. "You will get a dusty welcome," he said. "There is but the Lady Hilda at Galland, and her brother Aelward is still at odds with your Duke."

Nevertheless Jehan rode out in a clear dawn of St. Luke's summer, leaving a wondering man behind him, and he rode alone, having sent back his men-at-arms to Ivo. "He has the bold heart," said Arn to himself.

"If there be many French like him there will a.s.suredly be a new England."

At Galland, which is low down in the fen country, he found a sullen girl. She met him at the bridge of the Galland fen and her grey eyes flashed fire. She was a tall maid, very fair to look upon, and the blue tunic which she wore over her russet gown was cunningly embroidered.

Embroidered too with gold was the hood which confined her plaited yellow hair.

"You find a defenceless house and a woman to conquer," she railed.

"Long may it need no other warder," said Jehan, dismounting and looking at her across the water.

"The fortune of war has given me a home, mistress. I would dwell in amity with my neighbours."

"Amity!" she cried in scorn. "You will get none from me. My brother Aelward will do the parleying."

"So be it," he said. "Be a.s.sured I will never cross this water into Galland till you bid me."

He turned and rode home, and for a month was busied with the work of his farms. When he came again it was on a dark day in November, and every runnel of the fens was swollen. He got the same answer from the girl, and with it a warning "Aelward and his men wait for you in the oakshaw,"

she told him. "I sent word to them when the thralls brought news of you." And her pretty face was hard and angry.

Jehan laughed. "Now, by your leave, mistress, I will wait here the hour or two till nightfall. I am Englishman enough to know that your folk do not strike in the dark."

He returned to Highstead unscathed, and a week later came a message from Aelward. "Meet me," it ran, "to-morrow by the Danes' barrow at noon, and we will know whether Englishman or Frenchman is to bear rule in this land."

Jehan donned his hauberk and girt himself with his long sword. "There will be hot work to-day in that forest," he told Arn, who was busied with the trussing of his mail.

"G.o.d prosper you, master," said the steward. "Frenchman or no, you are such a man as I love. Beware of Aelward and his downward stroke, for he has the strength of ten."

At noon by the Danes' barrow Jehan met a young tow-headed giant, who spoke with the back of his throat and made surly-response to the other's greeting. It was a blue winter's day, with rime still white on the gra.s.s, and the forest was very still. The Saxon had the shorter sword and a round buckler; Jehan fought only with his blade.

At the first bout they strove with steel, and were ill-matched at that, for the heavy strength of the fenman was futile against the lithe speed of the hunter. Jehan ringed him in circles of light, and the famous downward stroke was expended on vacant air. He played with him till he breathed heavily like a cow, and then by a sleight of hand sent his sword spinning among the oak mast. The young giant stood sulkily before him, unarmed, deeply shamed, waiting on his death, but with no fear in his eyes.

Jehan tossed his own blade to the ground, and stripped off his hauberk.

"We have fought with weapons," he said, "now we will fight in the ancient way."

There followed a very different contest. Aelward lost his shamefastness and his slow blood fired as flesh met flesh and sinew strained against sinew. His great arms crushed the Frenchman till the ribs cracked, but always the other slipped through and evaded the fatal hug. And as the struggle continued Aelward's heart warmed to his enemy. When their swords crossed he had hated him like death; now he seemed to be striving with a kinsman.

Suddenly, when victory looked very near, he found the earth moving from beneath him, and a mountain descended on his skull. When he blinked himself into consciousness again, Jehan was laving his head from a pool in an oak-root.

"I will teach you that throw some day, friend," he was saying. "Had I not known the trick of it, you had mauled me sadly. I had liefer grapple with a bear."

Aelward moistened his lips. "You have beat me fairly, armed and weaponless," he said, and his voice had no anger in it.

"Talk not of beating between neighbours," was the answer. "We have played together and I have had the luck of it. It will be your turn to break my head to-morrow."

"Head matters little," grumbled Aelward. "Mine has stood harder dints.

But you have broken my leg, and that means a month of housekeeping."

Jehan made splints of ash for the leg, and set him upon his horse, and in this wise they came to the bridge of Galland fen. On the far side of the water stood the Lady Hilda. He halted and waited on her bidding.

She gazed speechless at the horse whereon sat her brother with a clouted scalp.

"What ails you, Frenchman?" said Aelward. "It is but a half-grown girl of my father's begetting."

"I have vowed not to pa.s.s that bridge till yonder lady bids me."

"Then for the pity of Christ bid him, sister. He and I are warm with play and yearn for a flagon."

In this manner did Jehan first enter the house of Galland, whence in the next cowslip-time he carried a bride to Highstead.

The months pa.s.sed smoothly in the house on the knoll above the fat fen pastures. Jehan forsook his woodcraft for the work of byre and furrow and sheepfold, and the yield of his lands grew under his wardenship. He brought heavy French cattle to improve the little native breed, and made a garden of fruit trees where once had been only bent and sedge. The thralls wrought cheerfully for him, for he was a kindly master, and the freemen of the manor had no complaint against one who did impartial justice and respected their slow and ancient ways. As for skill in hunting, there was no fellow to the lord of Highstead between Trent and Thames.

Inside the homestead the Lady Hilda moved happily, a wife smiling and well content. She had won more than a husband; it seemed she had made a convert; for daily Jehan grew into the country-side as if he had been born in it. Something in the soft woodland air and the sharper tang of the fens and the sea awoke response from his innermost soul. An aching affection was born in him for every acre of his little heritage. His son, dark like his father, who made his first diffident pilgrimages in the sunny close where the pigeons cooed, was not more thirled to English soil.

They were quiet years in that remote place, for Aelward over at Galland had made his peace with the King. But when the little Jehan was four years old the tides of war lapped again to the forest edges. One Hugo of Auchy, who had had a usurer to his father and had risen in an iron age by a merciless greed, came a-foraying from the north to see how he might add to his fortunes. Men called him the Crane, for he was tall and lean and parchment-skinned, and to his banner resorted all malcontents and broken men. He sought to conduct a second Conquest, making war on the English who still held their lands, but sparing the French manors.

The King's justice was slow-footed, and the King was far away, so the threatened men, banded together to hold their own by their own might.