Chapter XIV: Of a Series of Remarkable Duels, and De Claverlok's Peril

Their meeting place was within the larger of the bailey-courts, when day was just on the dawn. Towering round about them were the rough walls of the huge castle. Sir Richard noted that every embrasure had suddenly sprouted a multiple of bright eyes, all gazing down at the combatants making ready to begin their battle at the bottom of the damp well.

The meeting turned out to be but the merest trifle for the young knight. Duke Francis was a past master of the arts of war-craft and had taught him thoroughly well. Once, Sir Richard was proud to remember, when the old Duke happened to have been in an uncommonly amiable mood, he had assured him that he was the most apt of all his pupils. The young knight fought only when there was a just cause at issue, and then with his whole heart set upon winning the battle. Upon this occasion he had very little trouble in disabling his adversary's sword arm. But not, however, before playing with him a considerable time in deference to the astonishingly early risers, who had dared the chill blasts to peer through the open windows.

"Brava, Sir Richard!" the plaudits swept from opening to opening around the gray walls when the business was over, upon which the young knight made a slight bow of acknowledgment and went hastily back to his warm bed, carrying with him there, besides somewhat of an aching head from excesses of the night before, the regret that he had been unable to give his auditors a prettier play in return for all their pains.

That morning's encounter, however, proved to be but a drowsy prelude to a veritable whirlwind of fighting duels. Without so much as a "By thy leave, sir," they would jostle Sir Richard roughly about, fling gauntlets at his feet, and hurl insults into his very teeth. Indeed, dueling grew to be an accepted part of his daily routine, and a day without its fight would have left him with the feeling that something important had remained undone. But Fortune continued to smile brightly upon him; and, saving for a few slight scratches, he carried no mark to bear him witness of the amazingly great number of personal combats in which he became engaged.

By nature Sir Richard was of a peace-loving disposition. Only upon one occasion had he deliberately set out to pick a quarrel, and that was with the Renegade Duke, for the purpose of aiding his escape from captivity. He was accordingly much puzzled as to the cause of this sudden plethora of insults and challenges. That the men were all envious of the open favors that Lady Anna continued to bestow upon him, was the only possible reason to which he could ascribe them. He appreciated that she must have an infinite number of admirers to be thus jealously guarded. Another circumstance that appealed to him as most singular, was the fact that once he had finished having it out with his enemies they became immediately his fast friends. Sir Richard's encounters were attended by a strangely favorable issue of events, for only in one instance had he been forced to inflict upon his adversary anything like a dangerous wound; and Sandufferin, the unfortunate exception and mightiest wielder of a blade in Scotland, made an ultimate recovery from his injuries. It grew to be a current subject of amused talk that when the latest comer had declared his intention of facing the young knight's deft sword, those whom he had met and vanquished would gather about him and convey their knowledge to him of the newcomer's particular methods of fighting.

"Look at them, Anna," Lord Douglas remarked upon an occasion when a number of men, many with bandaged hands and arms, were gathered close about Sir Richard. "They are giving points to their master, I take it. Never, within my knowledge, has there crossed the borders of Scotland a greater swordsman than this youthful knight. Marry, and how he seemeth to enjoy it, Anna, preserving the happiest of good humor through it all! But soon will I call a halt to the saturnalia of fighting and acquaint him with the contents of Henry's warrant. He'll make us a right brave chief of horse, Anna--that will he. He grows impatient to fare away southward. Every day now does he inquire of me whether his sovereign's business here is done. An he but guessed that he is held captive, I miss my shot an the gates and bars of Yewe would long hold him."

"Nay--that they would not," Lady Anna agreed. "'Tis the cutting of saffron velvet that beckons him away, my lord. Valiantly though I have striven, I cannot wean his regard from that bit of cloth. Many times lately have I observed him sitting in lonely corners and regarding it with soulful eyes. Would that I had him for pupil in the place of that silly boy, Warbeck."

"Ah! But that _was_ a stroke, Lady Anna!" said Douglas admiringly. "The oftener I look upon him, the more perfect seemeth his resemblance to the Yorkist brood. How doth he progress?"

"Slow, my lord--tiresome slow. 'Tis hard to make him to forget his plebeian ancestors. How fares it with the prisoner--he whom you have mewed within the dungeon?"

"De Claverlok, mean you? Bah! 'Tis a gruff old warrior, that--with his ehs! and ehs! Still doth he stubbornly refuse to pledge me his word to separate himself from Sir Richard. Nor, by my faith, can I gain his promise to fight beneath our standard."

"What then--the block, my lord?" interrogated Lady Douglas, yawning.

"Aye--the block," replied Douglas, quietly.

On the morning following the day upon which this dialogue took place, Sir Richard sauntered down the stairs to find Lady Anna reclining indolently at ease within the curtained alcove where first he had met her. She had with her a falcon, which she was stroking and feeding with bits of bread held daintily between her red lips. She looked up, greeting the young knight's coming with a rare smile.

"By the mass, dear Richard," said she, "and how early we are! Was it the topsy-turvy going of the men at daybreak that brings you so soon afoot? Did you hear the sounding of the tucket-sonuance in yonder yard? Or, tell me, boy, is it but another trifle of a duel?"

Right well was she aware that Sir Richard disliked to be called a boy, and she appeared to take a secret delight in thus teasing him. As was usual, he denied the propriety of the name.

"Tut, tut, then--bloody giant," said she, laughing merrily. "Is it, I beg of you, another play of blades?"

"In the whole of Scotland," retorted Sir Richard, "remains there a warrior whom I have not met?"

He had encountered three of them the day before, disarming two and slightly wounding the other.

"Remains yet the mightiest of them all," Lady Anna answered, surrendering another morsel of bread to the pet falcon.

"His name, Lady Anna?"

"Bull Bengough. Would you dare to break a lance with him in the approaching tournament ... for me, Sir Richard?"

"One more, or less, what matters it, Lady Anna?" said Sir Richard. "The game is palling upon me. I swear I will."

"I am growing fair frightened of your magic invincibility," said Lady Anna. "Which are they--fair spirits, or foul shades, by whom you have been gifted with a charmed life? In sober earnest, Richard, let me say to you that a momentous question hinges upon your meeting with Bull Bengough," she added seriously, pressing the young knight's hand by way of a reward for his promise, and then went on to fill his head with gentle flattery.

She told him of how the men-at-arms had sallied out that morning to give battle to a certain traitorous upstart. Unconsciously Sir Richard's mind reverted to Tyrrell. After that, for a considerable space, they sat together in silence, watching the workingmen engaged upon their task of bedizening the seating-place overlooking the lists where the coming tournament was designed to be held.

Presently Lady Anna went from the alcove, taking with her a bundle of books and manuscripts which, Sir Richard had frequently remarked, she often carried about with her through the galleries.

Since his mad entry through the sallyport of Yewe, this was the first clear breathing space Sir Richard had been allowed. He suddenly thought of his companion of that eventful ride. What with the dining and the wining, and the dancing attendance upon this captivating maid and that, and the singularly rapid succession of duels, his time had been pretty well occupied. "But certes," he said to himself, "these are small excuses for having so absolutely forgotten de Claverlok, whom, by my faith, I have not clapt eyes upon since leaving him at the foot of the stairs to go into the presence of Douglas. True, Lord Douglas assured me that he was to be rendered comfortable in other quarters. I dare say he is gone by now," he concluded. "But I'll away to the guards to discover me what has become of the good fellow."

But Sir Richard was counting the spots before his dies had been cast. He borrowed every guard's ear he could find within the precincts of the castle, and returned from the long round barren of the faintest hint in regard to his friend's whereabouts. Not one of them, so they all swore, had so much as heard a whisper of his name.

Feeling a presentiment that some direful mishap had betided his faithful companion, and heaping maledictions upon himself for a thoughtless ingrate, the young knight was walking slowly along one of the inner galleries. As he parted a drapery he came suddenly upon the fool, Lightsom, who had discarded his motley and bells for a garb of black. His habitually mirthful countenance was wearing an expression entirely in sympathy with his somber habit.

"Give you a good-morrow, Lightsom," said Sir Richard, meaning but to give the fool greeting and pass on.

"Thou'rt hunting my name by the heels, Sir Richard," Lightsom answered, pausing to give the young knight speech. "Vanisheth the motley, vanisheth Lightsom, the laughing fool. Vanisheth as well my good master, and I discover me without a body whereupon to practise my cutting art withal. To-day, good my knight, I was to play the executioner. Till I doff this habit let my name be Gruesom.... Bloodysom.... Anything, forsooth, but Lightsom! Dost take in the dolour of my visage?"

"Ah! What an end to come by," observed Sir Richard. "An ax, wielded by a fool. Name me thy unhappy victim--and loose thy hold of my cape, fellow."

"Marry, sir knight, shudder not thus! Is the touch of a fool less contaminative than that of the executioner? An it be, I wot not why. One murders the King's good English, the other the King's good subjects--both are the slaves of unyielding circumstance. And besides, good my knight, the head, after its separation from the body, recks not of the means whereof it was accomplished. Thy sword--my ax--'tis all the same to 't. So it be a bold, clean, and clever stroke, mark ye!"

"Have done with your parleying, Lightsom, and----"

"Say Grimsom, Sir Richard," the fool interrupted whiningly. "Smear not my melancholy cloth with grime!"

"Well, ... Grimsom, then, ... give me thy unhappy victim's name?"

Leaning forward till his repulsive face almost touched Sir Richard's, he skewed his features all awry in a horrible grimace. This was his only answer. The young knight instantly went cold to the marrow, and repeated his question tensely, passing the fool a rose noble.

"This," said Lightsom tantalizingly, balancing the yellow disc upon his raised forefinger, "will purchase thee one letter of his name, ... just one letter, Sir Richard. I am as hungry for gold as the block is thirsty for blood. Why need the pair of us be cheated? Say, ... wilt buy me his full name in these round baubles?"

Without a word Sir Richard counted out and passed the fool sixteen more.

"Have I made the count correctly?" he whispered hoarsely.

Lightsom went then to tallying with his clawlike finger upon his beak of a nose.

"In truth," he muttered, "I had expected but ten more.... Six.... Six.... Ah! I, by playing just then the fool, have myself disgraced my somber trappings. I have clean forgotten that his name is Lionel, by the rood, ... eh!"

This was enough for Sir Richard. In a frenzy of poignant regret and mortal fear, and leaving the black dwarf crying shrilly for him not to divulge the source of his information, he dashed away down the long gallery in a mad search of Lady Anna.