Читать книгу 21 MYSTERY & ROMANCE NOVELS - Robert Barr - Страница 49

Table of Contents

Rodolph's first thought ran toward the safety of the Countess. He resolved at once to send her down the hill they had so recently climbed, and, under escort of Conrad, ask her to cross on horseback to the other side of the river, reaching the castle as soon as might be, while he held Count Bertrich and the two men in check; but a moment's reflection convinced him that the Count, having intercepted them by cutting across country to the south of the Moselle, had most likely placed on the opposite bank a company of troops in ambush, ready to capture whoever came within its radius. The crossing must be done under shadow of the castle, so that any lurking enemy might be over-awed by the menace of its presence, and thus they could ascend unhindered to its frowning portal. That their situation was already attracting attention at Thuron was evident, for the Emperor saw bodies of men grouped upon the walls, while several horsemen were collected at the entrance as if in readiness to ride, should occasion demand their interference. But there was no signal by which Rodolph could call for aid, and, of course, Black Heinrich had little suspicion that his own niece was probably about to be captured almost within the shadow of his strong castle.

There was, however, scant time for pondering. Now that concealment was no longer possible, Count Bertrich, adjusting his lance for the encounter, was advancing, closely followed by the two men.

"Conrad," cried the Emperor, "take the Countess down the hill till you lose sight of our assailants, then, as speedily as possible, bend through the forest to the north, circling this spot so that you come upon the Moselle opposite Thuron. Cross the river and make for the castle gates."

"But you, my Lord, unarmed, cannot oppose three armoured men," objected Conrad.

"I stand by his Lordship," said the archer, with an unruffled confidence, that in spite of the strait they were in brought the suggestion of a smile to the lips of the Emperor.

"We will hold our ground, with what success may befall us," replied Rodolph, "but lose no time in your circuit, and keep strict watch for ambush."

The Countess, Conrad, and Hilda departed, leaving Rodolph and the bowman alone on the top of the hill, in serious jeopardy, for neither man wore armour, and the Emperor had no weapon except his slight rapier.

The archer, seeing from the first that trouble was ahead, but having too little curiosity regarding its origin to cause him to venture inquiry, so long as no attempt was made to smooth away difficulty and bring about a peaceful understanding, caring not a jot whether the side of the quarrel he expected to champion was just, or the reverse, had unslung his bow, giving a hitch to the full quiver so that the ends of the arrows were convenient to his right hand, and now stood with left foot slightly forward as a bowman should, measuring critically with his half shut eye the distance between himself and the three horsemen.

"Is it your Lordship's pleasure," he asked, "that I kill all three, or do you purpose to try conclusion yourself with one or other of them? If so, which shall I spare?"

"These men are cased in iron, and proof against your shafts. I will parley with them and offer single combat to their leader; we cannot hope to prosper in a general onset."

"Their faces are bare, which is all the kindness I ask of any man who sets himself up as target."

"If choice is to be made, spare the leader, and leave him for me to deal with," said Rodolph, stepping forward and raising his voice, as he accosted the hostile party.

"My Lord, Count Bertrich," he cried, "I ask of you a truce and a parley, when we may each disclose our intentions to the other, and find if amicable adjustment be possible."

An exclamation of intense disgust escaped the impatient archer at this pacific proclamation, but his drooping spirits revived on hearing the defiant tone of the Count.

"Who are you, whelp, to propose a conference with me? Were it not that I promised to take you alive so Beilstein may have the pleasure of hanging you, I would now ride you down and put a good end upon mischievous interference. Therefore surrender, and appeal for clemency to Beilstein, for you will have none from me."

"Spoken like a brave man and a warrior," exclaimed the archer, with enthusiasm. "Would there were more nobles in Germany resembling him. Now, my Lord, surely the insult anent your hanging, demands that instant defiance be hurled at him."

"Peace, peace," whispered Rodolph, "you will have your fighting, never fear. I must gain time so that the others may escape." Then he cried aloud, "If I surrender, my Lord Count, it must be on terms distinctly set forth, with conditions stated and guaranteed by your knightly word."

The Emperor's diplomatic efforts were without avail. Count Bertrich made no reply, but giving a quick word of command to his followers, levelled lance and dug spurs into his horse. The three came on together, the Count slightly in advance, his men at right and left of him, the pulsation of the beating hoofs on the hard turf breaking the intense stillness. The Emperor stood firm with tightened lips awaiting the onslaught, having little hope that it would end favourably to him. The archer, however, gave forth a joyous cry that was half-cheer, half-chuckle, and, without awaiting for command, drew swiftly the string of his bow to his ear, letting fly twice in succession with a twang that sounded like a note from a harp. The arrows, with the hum of angry bees, passed first by one ear and then by the other of the advancing warrior, who instinctively swayed his head this way and that to avoid the light-winged missiles, thinking he was shot at and missed, but the piercing death-shriek first from the man at his left and then from the one at his right, speedily acquainted him with the true result. Before him he saw the deadly weapon again raised, and felt intuitively that this time the shaft was directed against himself, although the archer paused in the launching of it, apparently awaiting orders from his superior. The Emperor raised his right hand menacingly and cried in a voice that might almost have been heard at the castle:

"Back, my Lord Count. There is certain death to meet you in two horse-lengths more."

The impetus of the Count's steed was so great that it was impossible to check it in time, but he at once raised his lance in token that he had abandoned attack, and, pulling on the left bridle rein, swerved his course so that he described a semi-circle and came to a stand facing his foes, with the two dead men lying stark between him and his intended victims.

With a downward sweep of the hand that had been lifted, the Emperor signalled to his ally to lower his bow, which the archer reluctantly did, drawing a deep sigh that the battle should be so quickly done with.

Rodolph advanced a few steps and once more accosted his foe.

"My Lord," he said, "you see, I trust, that I hold your life at my mercy. I am willing to give terms to a brave antagonist, which he refused to me."

"In truth," grumbled the archer, "I see nothing brave in one who attacks with three, all heavily armoured and mounted, two on foot, one of whom is without weapons. I beg you to tell him so, or allow me to speak my mind to him, for he is a proud man and I doubt not with proper goading, he may be urged to a fresh onset."

Rodolph paid no attention to the interruption, but continued:

"If you will give me your word that you will return to Cochem, you may pass unharmed, and we will not attempt to molest you further."

The Count, however, made no reply, but sat like a statue on his black horse, gazing on his fallen comrades and meditating on the changed situation. Then he groped in a receptacle that hung by his saddle and drew forth, not a new weapon, as the archer, peering at him, suspected, but a filmy web that glittered like an array of diamonds. This, removing his gauntlets, he clasped about his neck, fastening it to the lower part of his helmet, shaking the folds over his shoulders like a cape.

"Fine chain armour of Milan steel," murmured the archer, seemingly hovering between anxiety regarding the defensive qualities of the new accoutrement and delight at the thought that the Count was again about to venture himself against them. With a clank of iron on iron the warrior brought down his barred visor over his face, and, drawing on his gauntlets which during these preparations had rested on his saddle bow, grasped his lance and lowered it, presenting now no pregnable point of his person to the flying arrow.

"By Saint George," cried the archer, "I would fain take service with that man. He displays a persistence in combat which warms my heart towards him."

But the softness of the archer's heart did not cause him to take any precaution the less, for he drew out a sheaf of arrows, selecting carefully three that seemed to be thinner at the point than the others. Two of these he placed in his mouth, letting their feathered ends stick out far to his left, so that his bow arm was free from their interference; the third he notched, with some minuteness, on the string.

"My Lord, I must shoot now," he mumbled with his encumbered mouth, looking anxiously at Rodolph, who in turn was viewing no less anxiously the silent preparations of Bertrich. The Count, however, was in little hurry to begin, apparently wishing to satisfy himself that he had neglected no expedient necessary for his own safety.

"There is no help for it," said the Emperor. "Do your best, and Heaven speed the shaft."

The bowman twanged the string, bending forward eagerly to watch the fate of his arrow. The shaft sang an ever lowering song, as it flew, falling fairly against the bars of the visor with an impact that rang back to them, palpably penetrating an interstice of the helmet, for it hung there in plain sight. The Count angrily shook his head, like an impatient horse tormented by the bite of a fly, but he sat steady, which showed the archer there was an arrow wasted. The toss of his head did not dislodge the missile, and the Count, with a sweep of his gauntlet, broke it away and cast it contemptuously from him.

"Alas!" groaned the archer, fitting the second to the string, "it was the thinnest bolt I had."

Count Bertrich waited not for the second, but came eagerly to meet it, bending down as a man does who faces a storm—levelling lance and striking spur. The horse gallantly responded. The second arrow struck the helmet and fell shivered, the third was aimed at the chain armour on the neck, and striking it, glanced into the wood, disappearing among the thick foliage. Still Bertrich came on unchecked, raising his head now to see through the apertures of his visor to the transfixing of the archer, who, well knowing there was but scant time for further experiment, hastily plucked a fourth arrow from his quiver, and, without taking aim, launched it with a wail of grief at the charger, driving the arrow up to its very wing in the horse's neck just above the steel breastplate. The horse, with a roar of terror, fell forward on its knees, its rider's lance thrusting point into the earth some distance ahead, whereupon Bertrich, like an acrobat vaulting on a pole, described an arc in the air and fell, with jangling clash of armour, at the feet of the Emperor, relaxing his limbs and lying there with a smothered moan.

The archer paid no attention to the fallen noble, but running forward to the horse began to bewail the necessity that had encompassed its destruction. He however thriftily pulled the arrow from its stiffening neck, wiped it on the grass, and spoke, as if to the dead horse, of the celerity of its end, and the generally satisfactory nature of bow-shot wounds, wishing that the animal might have had a realisation of its escape from being mauled to its death by clumsy Germans.

Rodolph stooped over his foe to throw back on its hinges his visor, whose opening revealed the unconscious face of the Count.

"It seems inhuman to leave him thus," he said, "but there is a woman's safety in question, and I fear he must take the chance he drove down upon."

"He can make no complaint of that," replied the archer, "and is like to come speedily to his contentious self again, if I may judge by the flutter of his eyelids. Indeed, I grieve not for his bruises, but for the hurt his obstinacy forced me to inflict upon his poor horse, a noble animal which I never would have slain did not necessity compel."

"Capture a horse belonging to one of the fallen men, and accompany me down the hill," said Rodolph, briefly.

The archer first recovered the two arrows that had overthrown his unknown opponents, bestowing on their bodies none of the sympathy he had lavished on the horse, for, as he muttered to himself, it was their trade, and a well-met shaft should occasion them little surprise, which undoubtedly was the fact.

Having, with some difficulty, secured one of the horses, and with still more trouble succeeded in seating himself in the saddle—for, as he said, he was more accustomed to the broad of his foot than the back of a horse—he followed his leader, who, with grave anxiety, was scanning the river bank opposite Alken, hoping to see some indication of the Countess emerging from the forest.

"Archer," said Rodolph, turning to his follower, "your great skill, and no less indomitable courage, has to-day saved my life, and has placed me otherwise under more obligation to you than you can easily estimate. I hope yet to make good my debt, but in the meantime I may cheer your heart by telling you that your expert bowmanship has made inevitable what was before extremely probable, which is, that these valleys will shortly ring with war, and the Lord only knows when the conflict shall cease—possibly not until yonder castle is destroyed, or the Archbishop returns defeated to Treves."

"Say you so, my Lord? Then indeed is virtue rewarded, as I have always been taught, though seeing little confirmation of it in my wandering over this earth. I winged my shafts for the pure pleasure of seeing them speed, not forgetting my duty to you in the earning of my threepence a day, duly advanced into my palm before service was asked, the which, I know to my grief, is not customary among nobles, although fair encouragement in spoils gives compensation for backwardness in pay; still I had no hope for such outcome as war, when I drew string to ear, and am the more encouraged to think that a wholesome act, thus unselfishly accomplished, brings fitting recompense so trippingly on its trail. You spoke of the Archbishop (God bless his Lordship), do I fight, think you, for, or against him?"

"As the man you have so recently overturned is the friend, favourite, and in general the right hand of the Archbishop, judge you in which camp your neck is hereafter the safer."

"I have long desired to fight for the Church, but, for a devout man, it seems ever my fate to be on the opposite side. Ah well, it matters little, and it serves the Archbishop right for the inhospitality of his gate at Treves, where they know not a useful soldier when they see one. We are like to be beleaguered in yon castle then?"

"Very like, indeed."

"Know you aught of how they are provisioned for a siege?"

"That will be among the first things I shall inquire when I enter."

"It is a most important particular, and in the inquiry it might not be a waste of breath to give some hint regarding the plenishing of the wine vaults."

"I understand Black Heinrich has a secret passage to the river, so we are not likely to suffer from thirst."

"'Tis a sensible precaution; I would not say a word against water, which I have often found to be useful in the washing of wounds and otherwise, still when a man is expected to fight, I think there is nothing puts such heart in him as a drop of good sound wine, so it be not taken to excess, although the limit of its usefulness, in my own case, I have never yet had a sufficiency of the beverage to gauge."

"The Black Count, from what I hear of him, is not one to neglect the laying in of wine; it however may be well to question him closely regarding his cellarage before you take service with him, for I surmise that he who finds lodgment in the castle will not soon get abroad again, as the troops of the Archbishop will shortly encircle it closely."

"The prospect," said the archer, drawing the back of his hand across his mouth as if his lips were already moist with good vintage, "is so alluring that I can scarce credit it, and fear the Archbishop may give or accept apology, for we seem to be in a region where compromise is held in high esteem, and his Lordship has already acquired the reputation of being a cautious man (may I be forgiven if I do him an injustice); still, if the Count who plunged so bravely against us, hath the ear of him, he may whisper some courage into it, for he acquitted himself on the hilltop as a man should. I must confess that I should dearly cherish the privilege of being beleaguered in a strong castle, for it hath ever been my fortune to fight hitherto in the field, directing my shafts against various strongholds, and living with scant protection while launching them, sleeping where I might, in a ditch or in a tent, as the gods willed, and ever like to have my slumbers broken by a stampede or sortie when least expecting it. I was never one who yearned for luxury, but it must be a delight to rest under continual cover with a well-stocked cellar underneath, and the protection of a stout stone parapet while taking deliberate aim, not to mention the advantage that accrues to an archer who lets fly at one below him, rather than continually craning his neck to send his arrow among the clouds, the which gives little chance for accurate marksmanship. On one of yonder towers a man might well aspire to the delight of loosing string at the great Archbishop himself, and may such luck attend me, although I am the least covetous of mortals."

"Well, archer, we shall presently see what befalls and I feel myself the safer that you did not take fee from the Archbishop when you applied at the gates of Treves."

The archer looked gratefully at his leader for the compliment, and together they rode in silence to the waterside opposite Alken.

As yet there was nothing visible of Conrad's party, who had probably taken a longer circuit than the occasion demanded, but the Emperor saw the cavalry of the castle, which had watched the conflict motionless, now descend towards Alken, and he rightly considered this move in his favour, did more of Bertrich's men lie in ambush in the opposite forest. Rodolph hoped that the Black Count himself was at the head of his men, but at that distance could distinguish nothing.

As they drew near the spot Rodolph was gratified to perceive Conrad emerging from the forest, where he had asked his charge to remain until he had reconnoitred and proved that the way was clear. The horsemen from the castle had reached Alken, and now stood drawn up fronting the river, ready to assist at the landing of the new-comers, or prevent the same, as might prove to be convenient.

Rodolph shouted across, asking that a boat be sent over, for he saw several lying on the beach, but those on the other side made no movement to comply with his wishes; in fact, it was doubtful if they understood, for here the Moselle is wide, with water flowing slow and deep.

Conrad, at a word from his master, plunged his horse into the flood, entering below the spot where Heinrich had placed a chain across the river for the encouragement of traffic, and, when he had landed, a boat was shoved off in which the Countess and Hilda were ferried over, the others following on swimming horses.