Chapter IX: Of an Ambuscade, a Duel, and an Escape

The Renegade Duke, whose challenge Sir Richard had so openly invited, and who, through the mishap described, had secured a temporary possession of the playful note written to the young knight by Isabel, had quickly surmised by whom it had been inscribed. He was aware of the maid's dissatisfaction with her surroundings, and that she had chosen Sir Richard to be her deliverer at once sent the Duke into a ferment of passionate jealousy.

The Renegade Duke's accidental meeting with Isabel when he had first come to Scotland to join Tyrrell's projected expedition, had marked the beginning of a mad desire to arouse within her breast a return of the sentiment that he entertained toward her. In so far as his superficial character permitted, his affection for her was genuine. But in the rare instances in which he had contrived to meet and talk with her alone, she had rejected his suit with an indignant scorn that would have left an ordinary man without the shadow of a hope of future success. The Duke, however, was all egotism and vanity, and remained firm in his belief that his charms would ultimately prevail. By fair means or foul, he had determined upon having her within his power; and, as the initial step toward such an end, he had played the traitor by laying bare before Douglas the whole of Sir James's plan.

Douglas, himself a conspirator of no mean abilities, had immediately set about to concoct a scheme whereby to take advantage of Tyrrell's grave dilemma, caused by the unhappy death of the young prince. Douglas had already instituted measures to have a substitute candidate proclaimed in the place of the one dead, being well aware that Sir James would scarcely dare to incur the ire of his men--from whom he had kept the circumstance of the prince's death a dark secret--by exposing the falsity of the Douglas claimant. Rather, did Douglas figure it, would Tyrrell be under the necessity of joining issues. This would result in a powerful movement, with the Douglas finger very much in the juicy pasty that was designed to be served up to Henry VII and his followers. Had the Renegade Duke been acquainted with the genuine character of the captive Sir Richard's ancestry he would doubtless have been in haste to communicate his knowledge thereof to his new master, with the result that the plot, then taking shape, would have been infinitely less complex, and probably less interesting than it subsequently turned out to be. In his selection of Sir Richard to assume the leadership of his gathered forces, the Duke fell into the error of supposing that Tyrrell had happened by chance to duplicate Lord Douglas's clever expedient.

In the early morning of that day the Duke had contrived to get word to one of Douglas's lieutenants of the captivity of the young knight, and of Tyrrell's intention to carry him to his stronghold before making known his plans with regard to him. The Duke anticipated a counter move upon the part of Douglas along the way; but he calculated that if he could make himself the instrument of the captive's removal, it would place him high in the esteem of Lord Douglas; while, at the same time, he believed that such a move would leave Tyrrell without a prop wherewith to buttress his tottering conspiracy.

As Sir Richard, around whom simmered this salmagundi of politics, rode onward with the company, he tried many times, by piecing together odds and ends of the talk that drifted to his ears, to gather some inkling of the purpose upon which the company, of which he was a most unwilling member, was engaged. With recurring frequency he heard the word "treason," and its kindred, "traitor," "spy," "base informer" traded from tongue to tongue among the men around him. The march was now being urged rapidly forward, and a something portending evil seemed to be hanging in the air about them.

The end they were seeking to attain, and the part his person was playing in their machinations grew more enigmatical in proportion with the thought that Sir Richard gave to the matter of burrowing to the reason for them. He ceased trying, finally, and suffered himself to be carried along whithersoever chance, or good or bad fortune, listed.

His companion of the morning, now no longer taciturn, was riding well to the front with Erasmus, whom he had evidently persuaded to remain with the company. In sullen silence at his left rode the Renegade Duke. Faithful de Claverlok kept within touch of Sir Richard's hand to his right.

When he was not engaging the bluff old warrior in conversation, the young knight would yield himself to the ineffable delights of conjuring up radiant visions of the maiden of the piece of saffron velvet, whilst all of the time he was building every manner of chimerical plan for effecting her delivery from the hands of the keeper of the Red Tavern. Full often his fingers would seek and caress the soft nap of the cutting of cloth. He had need of constant assurance that the entire mysterious happening had not been of the ephemeral fabric of an unusual dream.

Thinking thus of the unknown maiden to whom he had pledged his knightly sword, led him naturally to the contemplation of his own freedom, and the stratagem through which he was hopeful of achieving it. That his avowed enemy, the Duke, was, at the proper moment, ready to lend himself to his device, Sir Richard was almost certain. His scheme involved the arrangement of a secret duel, in which he trusted in his strength of arm to vanquish his enemy and thereafter make his escape. But a most substantial and incorruptible barrier offered in the bulky person of the grizzled knight. As many as a score of times had de Claverlok been loudly hailed from the vanguard of the line. But without exception he had laughingly rejoined that he was engaged in keeping companionship with the honored guest of the company, remaining deaf to the young knight's fervent assurances that he must consider himself quite free to ride ahead, if he so desired.

"Aye," he would invariably reply, "I know well that thou art growing tired of my prattle, ... eh? I wish that it were not so, sir knight, for I must do my devoir by thy side till the trumpet sounds a halt for the night."

Once Sir Richard put to him point blank the question of why and how long he was to be thus forcibly detained.

"Before the sun drops beneath the hills in the evening of to-morrow," de Claverlok replied, "thou shalt know all. Would that I were free to tell thee the story now, Sir Richard," he added with an honest candor, "but my lips are sealed with an oath most sacred, ... eh! Thou wouldst not expect me to break my knightly vow, I know," upon which he looked significantly across at the Renegade Duke, but that immaculate dandy was busily engaged in polishing his nails against the flowing skirts of his scarlet _sclaveyn_, and remained wholly unconscious of the implied warning.

One thing, at least, had drifted clear of the haze within Sir Richard's topsy-turvy brain. Lord Kennedy was the leader, and had appointed de Claverlok as his especial consort. He wished heartily that some accident might befall to win or send the rugged warrior from his close attendance upon his stirrup, as this was the only means through which he could hope to achieve the end he had in mind.

The sun, by now, was tinting the western sky a rose glow, with all across the face of it a sweeping of thin and luminously pink clouds. The hour had almost come when Sir Richard had promised himself the felicity of trying conclusions with his braggart enemy at his left; yet here was de Claverlok riding unyielding alongside, the embodiment of everything firm and loyal.

Though he was chafing sore under the restraint, Sir Richard could not but suffer himself to be entertained by the flow of good humored talk of his companion, which went something after the following fashion:

He had been told that Sir Richard had passed the greater part of his life in Brittany? The young knight answered affirmatively. He, too, the grizzled warrior averred, had hunted, fought, and tilted there. There were maidens in Brittany, ... shy, big-eyed, captivating, ... who had once regarded him not unfavorably, ... eh! Their daughters, mayhap, had done the same for Sir Richard? "Thy looks doth certes deny thy age," the young knight had politely assured him. Ah! aye--but he was old, though, ... quite old enough to be the sir knight's father. Why! once he had split a lance or two with the old Duke Francis himself. And at the time when Henry, Earl of Richmond, now England's sovereign ruler, had been but a romping, long-haired boy, ... eh! Yea, ... and the sturdy Duke had come nearer to unhorsing him than any man across the Channel. He had been informed that the young sir knight had once been Henry's playmate; ... was this true, ... eh?

He had indeed been the companion of Henry, Sir Richard told his friendly guard, and with him had shared the guardianship of Duke Francis and the bountiful hospitality of his court.

Then it may have been, the grizzled knight went on, that Sir Richard had witnessed that self-same tournament upon the field of Anjou, at Vannes? It had been extravagantly rich in prizes, ... that tournament. He himself had been so fortunate as to win two barbs and three coats of Tuscan mail, ... fluted, ... sumptuous, ... exquisitely damascened. But they had long since found their way into the rapacious talons of the Jews. Everything that he had ever possessed ... of any value, ... saving that which he was then wearing, ... and his knightly honor, ... had followed at the tail of them into the same far-reaching, ever greedy claws. Yet he courted no hatred of them, ... eh! Why should one? Were they not as necessary to a gold-lean knight, these gleaners of worldly wealth, as were his very bread and wine, ... eh? What excuse was there for despising one of the prime essentials of life, he wanted to know?

In something after this manner the warrior rambled on. Touching, with a ponderous grace, upon any subject that chanced to fall, haphazard, into his mind, not pausing for a moment to listen to answering comment, or seeming to expect it: Sir Richard was growing convinced that the crafty fellow was witness to the passing of the insult between the Renegade Duke and himself, and that he was merely talking to defeat their avowed purpose of renewing hostilities till the hour when they should halt for the night.

There would be no duel that day, and no escape, of this he was by now almost certain. Disappointed, chagrined, impatient of his strange thralldom, and desiring above all things else to deliver Henry's message to Douglas, he rode gloomily along, lending something less than half an ear to the empty words that his stanch, unwavering guard was volleying into it.

For a considerable while the road had been threading between a pleasing succession of furze and thistle-grown downs. It was from a copse abutting upon the highway, when they were riding between the steeper of these, that a frightened hare scurried in front of them across the road. Upon the instant de Claverlok drew rein and swept each of the hillsides with a swift and keen scrutiny. The trifling incident of the flying hare was as the first eddy of wind that heralds the coming tornado; for, in almost the next moment, there followed the sharp spattering of bolts against bonnet and breast-plate and shield. One struck fair upon Sir Richard's gorget, causing him to reel in his saddle and his temples to throb and ache with the shock of the impact. Among those riding ahead the young knight saw three pitch heavily off their horses. Clear eyed and iron nerved indeed were these Scot archers; men who could pick you out with unerring nicety the crevice between gorget and helm, or the joint between pauldron and breast-plate. Often, with the beaver drawn, they were known to flick an arrow through the eye-slit without touching either side of the orifice.

After the first shower of bolts the slopes upon each side of the company of horsemen became alive with warriors, slipping down the hill upon them like brown and living torrents. There was a ruddy glare ahead, where the ardent rays of the sun, now setting, were beating against the breastplates of an advancing foe. Uprose, then, loud cries of "Douglas, and the Duke of York!" "Long live the White Rose!" which was met with shouts of "Death to the traitors!" "Long live Tyrrell and the Duke of Warwick!"

Sir Richard was just upon the point of yielding to the instinctive call that would have placed him in the singular position of giving battle against the enemies of his supposed own foes, when the Renegade Duke's hand fell heavily upon the bridle of his prancing stallion.

"Cock-shut time is come!" he was shouting in the young knight's ear. "I am ready to obey thy command of this morning. Ride with me to the left!"

Quick as a flash Sir Richard wheeled, and together they drove upward along a narrow roadway that debouched from the one over which they had been traveling, unlimbering their battle-axes as they sped along.

When the wooded summit of the down intervened between them and the scene of the conflict, they drew rein and went at it. Whatsoever else the Renegade Duke may have been, Sir Richard was quick to discover that as a foeman he was not in the least to be despised. Blow after blow he was parrying, and that with a neatness and cleverness that set the impetuous young knight somewhat by the ears. Indeed, growing out of the very frenzy of his eagerness, he realized that his attacks were losing an alarming measure of their force and accuracy.

There was now need of immediate action, as, upon the further side of the down, the crash of arms seemed to be subsiding. It was just as he was charging his antagonist afresh that Sir Richard heard the thunder of hoof-beats along the narrow road upon which the Duke and he were fighting for their very lives. Summoning every vestige of energy and strength at his command, he aimed a blow full at his foeman's head-piece. When it appeared to be upon the point of striking, the Renegade Duke executed a swift demivolte. The heavy ax, glancing along his helm, clove off its jaunty white plume, and crashed fair upon the chamfron of his mount. There followed then a momentary reeling and staggering, like a maimed ship in a sudden gale, whereupon horse and rider fell, furiously plunging and kicking, into a thornhedge beside the road.

By now the echoes of the approaching hoofbeats were reverberating clear and crepitant from against the steep side of the opposite hill. The Renegade Duke had not done sinking into the crackling brush when Sir Richard wheeled, and, touching rowels lightly to his stallion's foam-flecked side, made off with all the speed there was left in him.