Chapter XVII: Of a Joust with Bull Bengough, and the Incident of the Knight in Black

A deep sense of guilt caused by his momentary surrender to Lady Anna's blandishments stirred a very tempest of remorse within Sir Richard's mind, which vented itself in a torrent of bitter words directed toward his fair seductress. All cold and calm and smiling she listened to the young knight's list of accusations.

"Fickle boy!" she said with a gay laugh when Sir Richard had finished. "Know you not that a late repentance is like the wind that blows above an empty sea? But let me tell you, Sir Richard," she added, abandoning the tone of light mockery in which she had first spoken, "that events are transpiring right well for you. Have but a mite of patience.... Wait, and see," whereupon she coolly replaced his poniard within the holder dangling from his baldric, reached for his hand and signified her desire to have him accompany her below. "'Tis a right bonnie and sharp blade, that," she said, referring to the poniard, "and did part the rope full smoothly. But come, Sir Richard. Lord Douglas is waiting to have speech with you."

"By the mass, Lady Anna, and how came you upon my plans?" Sir Richard sullenly inquired when they were come at length into the gallery of the griffins' heads.

He remarked that the sliding panel had been thrown wide open, and that half a score of attendants bearing flaring rush-lights were awaiting their mistress's coming. They all grinned within their beards as the young knight passed before them.

Lady Anna looked up into Sir Richard's eyes and smiled brightly.

"Ah! Sir valiant knight," she returned, "much have you yet to learn. Never should you confide a secret to a weak and lovelorn boy. Let me explain: Wishing much to have an immediate audience with you, my lord dispatched a messenger to the great hall. You were not there. A round of your accustomed abiding places failed to discover you. Your private chamber was searched, but without result. Entertaining somewhat of a shrewd suspicion of my own, which was speedily verified by our fair-haired, youthful friend, I sought you upon the tower, ... errant boy! The rest you know."

Sir Richard made no answering comment. His mind was taken up with de Claverlok. He was wondering what the generous warrior would be thinking of him. With no more than a curt good-night, he parted from Lady Anna at the head of the jutting balcony.

He found Lord Douglas awaiting him in his own chamber. The same in which he had delivered Henry's warrant less than a month ago. Douglas received him with a gracious cordiality, his red bewhiskered face all of a-wrinkle with genial smirks and smiles.

"So, so! Sir Richard," said he, rising and extending the young knight his hairy hand. "You have played the leech, I hear, and have delivered a suffering old warrior out of the womb of Castle Yewe? Well--well!" pausing to roar with laughter; "I looked upon the fellow as your dire enemy, and mewed him up for hurling treacherous lance at you. I pray you, and why did you not affirm that he was indeed your friend?"

"Said I not so at the foot of the stairs upon the first moment of my arrival here?"

"Yea--that you did. But I bethought me that you were but reserving him for your own vengeance. Why--you might have had him free for the snapping of your fingers. Marry--marry! How often do we struggle mightily and in secret for a thing that we might gain in the open, and but for the simple asking."

Deeds that to Sir Richard appeared valorous, and partaking somewhat of the essence of that chivalry which he strove always to emulate, were thus dismissed as mere boyish escapades. His embarrassment and chagrin became more profound than ever.

"By'r lady! An I could but borrow the ears of an ass, I'd be armed at point device," he ruefully declared.

"Nay, nay, Sir Richard, say not thus," replied Douglas. "An all the asses' ears were properly bestowed, let me tell you, our four-legged friends would every one be bereft of those useful appendages. Have done, my young friend, with vain repining. Your act of this night pleases me passing well. Though, an you had left us, as you came perilously near doing, you would have broken your knightly word. For, in the games of to-morrow, did you not agree with Mistress Douglas to break a lance with Bull Bengough? But enough upon that subject. Your head was all awry upon your shoulders. You were not heedful of such slight obligations. Mark you well, Sir Richard, I wished that you should be brought hither so that I might tell you that, upon to-morrow night, following the games, there's to be a conclave held within the council hall. You shall be present. Something then shall you hear that will set your eyes wide open. Some things shall you know that will put you in a better case with yourself than you have ever been. And then, there is another matter of which I wished to speak," he went on, lowering his voice to as soft a tone as he was able to command; "'tis concerning the bit of saffron velvet. You have kept that from me, Sir Richard, but Lady Anna has told me all. What would you say now, my friend, an I told you that I had dispatched emissaries to fetch the maid to your side?"

"What mean you, Lord Douglas? The young lady is imprisoned, and her jailor is even this moment within Castle Yewe."

"How know you that?"

"I saw him through the window of the secret passageway."

"Aye--true, there is a window," returned Douglas in a tone indicating his regret that such was the fact. "And did you hear what he said?"

"Not a word could I hear," Sir Richard openly confessed.

Douglas had been nervously twisting and untwisting his beard. Upon hearing the young knight's negative reply he heaved a deep sigh of relief.

"'Twould have mattered little, an you had," he said. "Well--'twas Tyrrell whom you saw. And henceforward our issues are to be joined. At the meeting to-morrow you shall know everything."

"When will the maid arrive? Through what means will your men effect her freedom? Does Tyrrell know?" was Sir Richard's volley of questions.

"Nay--Tyrrell does not know. 'Twas at the suggestion of your good friend, the Renegade Duke, that I sent for her, who has but just this eve arrived within the castle. He has been laid up with a sickness. But give you a good-night, Sir Richard, and get you to your bed," Douglas concluded, getting up to pull the bell cord above his chair and again tendering the young knight his hand.

Like one walking in a dream, Sir Richard followed the smoking rush-lights of the two pages who were awaiting to lead him to his room. For the third time the words of the unhappy youth, Perkin Warbeck, were recalled vividly to his mind--"A phantom in the midst of phantoms, moving in a fog of mystery."

A sound body overcame an uneasy mind and conscience, however, and he slept peacefully through the fog, with nothing more alarming than a multitude of shadowy de Claverloks to inhabit his dreams. In the morning he was awake betimes, broke his fast, and then wandered out to view the lists, which would soon resound with the huzzas of excited spectators, and the tumult of friendly striving.

To the northward of the walls of the castle tents were thickly dotted over the hillsides, the blue smoke of their fires rising high into the keen, clear air. Horses were tethered to almost every tree; oxen were moving about over the slopes, grazing the frosty grass. In the open spaces knots of men and women were gathered, eating, drinking, and singing. Snatches of their rude songs reached to the young knight's ears as he stood watching the interesting spectacle.

Within the space reserved for the uses of the knights who were to engage in the games, he noted a pavilion bearing his cognizance emblazoned above its entrance. He walked across, stopping in front of it to look up along the decorated stand, with its ribbon-twined pillars, its manifold pennants, its blaze of multi-colored banners all snapping and fluttering in the crisp breeze. It was a brave sight, and sent Sir Richard's blood tingling through his veins. He grew conscious of a keen desire to feel the first shock of the combat.

By now other knights were passing beside him, many of whom were not strangers to Sir Richard's prowess with the sword. They gave him the morning's greeting and passed within their tents. Heralds and pursuivants, dressed in the brightest and gaudiest of liveries, were moving busily about the tilting-yard, engaged upon their tasks of observing that everything was in cap-a-pie order. Presently Lord Douglas and his retinue of inseparable jackdaws entered the stand across the covered bridge that gave into it from the castle. They moved in a body to the front and bowed in concert, wishing him a row of solemn good-morrows. Sir Richard grew to speculating as to what was taking place within their teeming brains. He wished that he might have lifted their coverings for a moment to have a peep within.

Upon returning their ceremonious salutations, he parted the curtained entrance and walked within his tent.

No sooner was he come inside when a seam opened to the right, disclosing a hand holding a parchment with ribbons dangling from its great seal. Sir Richard instantly recognized it to be the document that had been stolen from his wallet. The seam gaped wider then, and Tyrrell's grim visage appeared above the hand.

"Hist!" he whispered low. "I essayed to speak with thee last night within thy chamber, but armed guards were stationed without thy door. Mark ye well what I say, Sir Richard Rohan, for I must perforce say briefly. Here is the message from Henry to Douglas, which I took from thee on the night thou didst tarry within the Red Tavern. Mighty well is it for thee that it was purloined, ... else thou wouldst not have been here to-day. But another of similar import is likely any day to arrive from Kenilworth. Thou art in direst peril. Read it, Sir Richard. But not now.... After I have gone.... I dare not long remain. Thy life and mine would pay instant forfeit were I to be discovered here. Hark ye, ... closer! That red striped lance yonder is worm eaten to the core. I have one for myself hewn from the same piece of wood. When we shall be called opposite in the lists, ... mark ye, now, ... forget not to couch that stick at me. It will shatter to the hilt, as will mine own. At our next meeting, with fair lances, thou shalt have the northern stand. When the trumpet winds, plunge rowels into thy steed's belly and charge at me. But do not engage my shield or person. Gallop by me and make straight for the gate, which will be open and packed with gaping peasantry. I have stationed there two score of brawny men and true, who will part a way for thee. Ride on through and make southward along the Sauchieburn Pass. I will execute a swift demivolte and follow closely at thy heels, appearing to give chase. An, perchance, I fail of getting away with thee, go swift to the Red Tavern and await there my coming. Zenas will be looking out for thee. An I come not, ... well, ... Lord Kennedy shall bear thee messages. Hist! At thy door there. 'Tis the man I have bribed to sew up this rent. Admit him, Sir Richard, and give thyself to the reading of the warrant. Adieu!"

Tyrrell thereupon withdrew his head, and the man went about mending the rent. Sir Richard seated himself upon a stool, holding the unopened parchment. Even now he hesitated before reading its contents, believing that it would be a violation of King Henry's trust. He became convinced, finally, that it was a duty that he owed to himself to do so, whereupon he unfolded and began perusing the warrant. Having finished reading, he crumpled the paper and thrust it beneath his breast-plate. For a long time he sat motionless, with his hands knotted together upon his knees.

"This--this from Henry!" he thought. "Henry whom I have revered and loved and called companion from very childhood! This from the comrade by whose side I fought upon the field of Bosworth!"

A something there was went out of the young knight's life during that bitter moment which he felt that nothing could ever supplant.

Beyond a certain set firmness of his lips that had never been there before, however, when he stepped outside his tent, Sir Richard exhibited no traces of the fierce battle that had been waged within him. He took the seat that had been provided for him in front of his pavilion, and apparently surrendered himself to the full enjoyment of the games, which, by now, were in full swing. He even stamped his feet, clapped together his hands, and "bravaed!" with as unrestrained a vociferance as the most boisterous onlooker in the field.

Beginning next the stand, Sir Richard's tent was the first. Immediately beside it, Tyrrell's had been pitched. The redoubtable Bull Bengough's, who did not put in his appearance till well along in the day, was set beside the gate, the final one of the row.

The young knight remarked well his appearance as he shot into the lists to meet the victor of every preceding combat. The champion up to that hour.

His horse was a silver-gray stallion, broad hoofed, with fetlocks sweeping from above them to the ground. In the matter of gigantic proportions, the warrior bestriding its broad, round back, was in perfect keeping with the steed. He was harnessed in a suit of highly polished steel armor, fluted and damascened. He wore his beaver up, and the features displayed within the opening of his casque were singularly brutal. His eyes were like two glittering beads, hard and pitiless. Above them his black brows marked an uninterrupted and nearly straight line from temple to temple.

When everything was ready and the signal had been given, Bull Bengough charged, bellowing like his bovine namesake, upon his adversary. By sheer force of his superior weight and strength he vanquished his antagonist. Without making the slightest show of acknowledgment of the loud burst of acclamation that greeted his prowess, he rode on to the southern extremity of the lists, where he drew rein, disdainfully awaiting the signal to have at his next opponent.

With the customary long preamble, the heralds announced Sir Richard's name. Two grooms led his stallion to the front of his pavilion. Leaping lightly into his saddle the young knight cantered his horse toward his allotted station in the field.

His name was called through many pairs of lips as he passed beneath the stand. The young knight had won many friends and fair adherents during his stay in Castle Yewe. He signified his appreciation of their good wishes by reining to a halt before the stand and bowing gracefully to the spectators. There followed a renewed burst of applause and laughter when his stallion gravely bent his head, as though in a similar acknowledgment. It was a pretty trick, and one that Sir Richard had spent a great deal of time and patience to teach.

Now, with casques tight closed, Bull Bengough and Sir Richard were awaiting the signal to charge. There was a sinking of many-colored scarves beneath a sea of staring, tense-drawn faces. A profound silence settled over all the field.

They shot away together at the first note of the trumpeted signal. From the start Sir Richard couched his lance at Bull Bengough's helmet. As well might he have attempted to overthrow one of the Pyramids of Egypt, as to have essayed the upsetting of his burly antagonist through engaging the center of his impregnable shield. On account of the young knight's lesser weight, and the superior nimbleness of his horse's hoofs, he met Bengough a yard or more beyond the center of the lists and well within his own territory.

The extreme bulk of his great body rendered the impact of Bengough's treelike lance against Sir Richard's shield like a collision with a mountain avalanche. The young knight felt himself shaken to the very backbone. If the wood had held, it might have been that Bengough would have sustained his wide reputation by sweeping his antagonist off his seat. Luckily for the young knight, however, it shattered to the grasp, and, with speed but slightly diminished, Sir Richard rode on through, with his lance's head wedged fast between the eye-slits of his adversary's helm.

After that it was like sliding a filled hogshead backward off of a moving platform. Sir Richard fancied that he was sensible of a trembling of the earth when Bull Bengough alighted upon it.

Thereupon, amid the loud huzzas of the spectators, the young knight rode to the front of his pavilion and commanded his squire to bring him the red-striped lance. Tyrrell, his next opponent, was riding slowly northward to take his place there at the end of the lists.

Compared with his meeting with Bengough, Sir Richard's contact with the knight in black was almost featherlike in its softness. Their lances, couched well and true, both shattered to their grasps.

It became now the young knight's turn to take the northern stand for the next course. He looked southward toward the open gate. It was choked with humanity, swaying this way and that in wide, serpentine curves. The task of clearing an open space there had already begun.

Upon the sound of the trumpet's blast they made for the meeting place in the lists. But the knight in black was not for a moment in Sir Richard's eye. He saw but the gate, and within it the crowd of densely packed peasantry. Beyond opened out a wide sweep of sloping downs, of free roadways, and welcome forest glades.

He had a fleeting picture as he flashed beneath the arched gateway of a line of determined, stern-faced, brawny men pushing and thrusting as though their very lives depended upon it. They contrived to clear him the narrowest of avenues, which closed together when he had passed through like the waters of a riven sea.

Sir Richard stole a swift look above his shoulder. Tyrrell, moving at a snail's pace, was vainly endeavoring to free himself from the living mass that was eddying about him. Like a pair of long flails, he was waving his arms above his head, and calling down the wrath of Heaven upon his late antagonist for not halting. In the present case his talents as an actor were standing him in good stead. Behind him men were streaming wildly from the stand. Just as the young knight plunged within the forest shadows he heard a bugle wind the _tucket-sonuance_.

Throwing aside the now useless lance, Sir Richard stretched low along his stallion's neck and sent him pounding over the frozen road at top speed.