Page:Harper's New Monthly Magazine - v109.djvu/196

182 where a single taper burned—the bedchamber of Sire Bertrand's young wife. There was a great bed in one corner, carven richly, and garnished with gold and painted escutcheons. Its pillars were gilt-work, its tester purple silk. On the bed was seated a young girl, with jet-black hair falling about her face, streaking her white night-gear even to her knees. Her eyes were dark, wonderful to look upon, yet full of fear. She had thrust her little feet into a pair of embroidered slippers. Her face was pale as apple-blossom, and she shivered like an aspen as she sat.

Alain knelt to her and touched her hand. Her tirewoman took a cloak of blue and spread it over her lady's shoulders. Together, in hurried words, they told her of her peril and their plan for baffling it that night. The girl heard them with a torpid stare of fear. Even as they spoke to her a din of steel shivered through the silence. Guiscard and his men had broken in, and had come hand to hand with Hanotin and the Gascon at the gate.

In the bedchamber there was a great cupboard, full of samites, robes of silk, fine linen, and rich girdles. A stout latch closed the door. Dame Jake, taking her lady by the shoulders, thrust her in straightway, smothered her behind the clothes, and latched the door. Turning, she flung night-gear and a cloak at Alain's feet, and going out, stood listening in the outer chamber.

The clash of steel had ceased at the gate. In its stead came the tramp of mailed feet in the court, a babel of hoarse voices resounding from wall to wall. A cresset waved across the gloom, casting a weird light on armor and on casement. Sinister sounds arose from the guard-room—a grim, whimpering cry, for the Avray men were putting the drunkards to the sword.

Soon stairway and gallery resounded to the clangor of Guiscard's soldiery. Blows were dealt against the door. One burly ruffian, setting his shoulders to the panelling, burst the bolts like willow withes; the whole rout streamed in.

On the bed sat Alain, with his black curls upon his shoulders, his boy's figure wrapped in a green mantle, closely bound by a girdle of silver. Dame Jake, with her head hid in the mock lady's bosom, knelt on the floor, clasping Alain's knees. The single taper cast a thin radiance over the scene, showing the mailed men crowding the threshold, the crouching woman, the stiff, white-faced figure on the bed.

Guiscard, black of beard and black of eye, came into the room with sword sheathed, a foppish smirk upon his face.

"Madame, your pardon for a Christmas greeting. The night is fair, though frosty. I must bid you make ready to ride with us to Avray."

"Ah!"

"Sire Bertrand will be our debtor."

"For vengeance, the saints see to it."

They took the woman Jake, two of them together, dragged her aside, and cast her headlong into a corner. Alain, whimpering and covering his eyes with his sleeve, was seized by Guiscard and carried bodily from the room. He made brave outcry enough, while Dame Jake's screams followed him down the gallery.

Guiscard of Avray bore his burden into the court, smiling into his black beard, and licking his long, red lips. By the gate, Alain had a grim vision of black Hanotin, lying dead against the wall, with his skull cleft, his axe splintered in his hand. Over the Mere they passed, the moonlight pointing their shadows in the water. Guiscard's men trailed after him, hot and lusty, their breath steaming to the heavens, their armor twinkling in the gloom.

So they took horse again and cantered away over the snow, singing a rough wassail song to match the clangor of their arms. The woods received them, and the mild moon stared down on the snow, scarred and trampled under the boughs.

By dawn that morning, Dame Jake and her lady had taken horse and fled for Domvrault over the moors. By evening, when the torches were red in the west, they were safely housed within honest walls. But Alain lay dead in the castle ditch at Avray, with a poniard wound over his heart.