The Snow Driver/Chapter 3

ALPH THORNE had been born, his comrades said, with a lucky hood on his head. Which was indeed only another way of saying that the boy managed to accomplish what he set out to do. His father, a merchant, was too wrapped up in the mystery of cosmography to thrive at barter and trade. The goods of the Thornes and then the ships and finally the manor in Suffolk had gone into the hands of those who had sharper wits.

Left to his own devices by a father who pored over globe and chart, for years young Thorne kept apart from other boys, who, after the fashion of children, made mock of him for his father's oddities, calling him the brat of the “Mad Cosmographer.” He trained hawks, built bird houses in the oaks behind the Orfordnesse cottage, and ran with his dogs when the nights were clear.

Something of woodcraft he learned; he could keep still by a stream for half a day to watch the deer that came down to drink; he could bring down a charging boar with a spear; he could follow the trace of a stag and read, when the snow was on the ground, the stories told by the tracks.

Robert Thorne, after the way of parents, bade him follow the new pursuit of gentlemen, that of mariner adventurer. It irked the cosmographer that his son cared little for his maps and naught for his talk of ships and unknown seas, and bitter words passed between them.

But when a kinsman of his mother, wounded in a northern feud, abode at the cottage until his hurt mended and taught Ralph how to use a sword, the boy went to court with his relative and became an armiger, a squire-at-arms.

There he became devoted to sword-play, but remained what his early years had made him—a boy silent and grave beyond his years, with few friends and his full share of quarrels, because of a passionate temper, the heritage of the northern Thornes.

Having lacked parents and comrades and patrons, he liked best to be left to himself, but there was in him a burning loyalty to those who won his esteem.

ND now, on a misty morning, he rode from the stables of the Stratfords in high spirits, though his eyes and lips were somber. He had been given a charge by his king.

“To do what lies in me to aid Sir Hugh,” he repeated under his breath, “to win to Cathay. For his majesty hath this venture much at heart.”

That this was a large command did not trouble him; a youth of eighteen is nothing loath to tilt against windmills or seek, in his thoughts, the stronghold of legendary Prester John. And it often happens that good comes of high thoughts.

At the gate opening upon the northern highway he trotted into a group of men-at-arms who carried halberds though they did not seem to be on duty. They were lean and dark skinned; they wore finely wrought and polished armor, with thigh pieces and crested morions, inlaid with silver and gold. Thorne knew them for Spaniards.

One of them rose and took his rein as he would have passed.

“Holà, young sir. Thy name?”

Except for the light sword at his hip and the old-style leathern buckler strapped over his back, the squire was unarmed. On one wrist was a hawking gantlet; his favorite gerfalcon perched on it, and a velvet wallet bearing food for the bird was slung over the other shoulder.

“Stand back, knave,” he made prompt answer in Spanish. “Loose my rein and curb your tongue to respect. Whose men are you?”

The one who had spoken did as he was bidden, though sullenly. Thorne wondered how Spaniards came to be posted as a guard.

“Signior, I kiss your hands,” grinned the leader, “and would have of you your name. We are ordered to deliver a letter to a certain caballero who will pass through here.”

“I am Ralph Thorne. Is your missive for me?”

The halberdier looked at his mates and then at the pavilions. “Ride on, signior,” he responded. “Nay, go free, for all of us.”

Thorne, without a backward glance, struck into the highway and left the last of the hedge taverns of Greenwich behind. The mist pressed about the fields on either hand, shrouding the oaks that lined the road, and to rid himself of the morning chill, he put his horse into a brisk trot. After a little he looked up from adjusting the hood tighter about the hawk, and listened.

Then he reined to one side and half turned his beast so that he could see the road behind him, winding at the same time his cloak over his left arm. Another horse was coming up swiftly through the mist, and he had no wish to be stripped and perhaps knocked on the head by thieves.

Seeing that the newcomer was a Spanish gentleman, mounted on a fine Arab, he was about to take up his reins again, when the stranger spurred his beast so close that Thorne's horse tossed its head and edged back, while the other shied.

“Now out upon thee for a mannerless lout!” D'Alaber exclaimed. “To block the road against thy betters!”

Thorne glanced at him swiftly, seeing under a plumed velvet hat a face small and white with intent eyes.

“Nay, Sir Stranger,” he laughed, “the shoe is upon the other foot. For a man who can not manage such a mettled beast as that of yours is mannerless, indeed.”

The other smiled indifferently.

“A pox on thy clownish merriment. Here's to requite thee for thy wit, my witless jester!”

So saying he drew the long rapier at his hip and, bending forward suddenly, ran the blade through the falcon that, blinded by its hood, perched on the young squire's wrist. The hawk screamed and fell the length of its chain, its wings threshing. Thorne stared down at his stricken pet, and the blood drained from his face.

“If you were Renard himself,” he cried, “you should suffer for this.”

Whipping out his rapier, he shortened his rein and kneed his horse toward the other, who awaited his coming with the same indifferent smile.

This smile stirred Thorne to recklessness; sheer anger made the tears come into his eyes and he attacked incautiously. A thrust of the long rapier through the cloak on his left arm brought him to his senses in time to parry the point that might otherwise have passed into his side.

'ALABER was a man of moods. His retainers at the highway gate could have disposed of the troublesome armiger without risk to himself, but he wished it otherwise. He might have shot Thorne with one of the pistols at his belt, yet he chose to rouse the boy and then to spit him with a certain trick of the sword that he fancied.

The mist hid them from observers, and he could not dally because other riders might come up.

So he engaged Thorne's blade, parried a lunge at his throat and whirled his point. But when his arm went out, the armiger had caught his blade and turned it aside.

“A pretty conceit,” muttered the squire, “clumsily executed.”

He warded a second ripost, and reined his horse nearer. “You should—blindfold me, as well as the hawk.”

Now D'Alber prided himself on his swordsmanship which was more than good and the gibe rankled. It was Thorne's trick to talk when steel was out or lead was flying and the Spaniard's pride was touched. He had the better horse and determined to end matters at once.

He saw his chance when Thorne's beast shied. The dying hawk had fluttered into the road and startled the horses, but D'Alaber's was under control at once. He plunged in his spurs and leaned forward. The two rapiers flashed and sang together, and the Arab swerved away. D'Alaber dropped his weapon and clutched the mane of his horse.

“Por Dios!” he cried faintly.

Thorne dismounted swiftly and came to his side, helping him to the ground, where the Spaniard lay moaning, one fist pressed under his heart. His breath came jerkily and his eyes stared up into Thorne's. By an effort of will he opened his lips.

“Tell Master Durforth,” he whispered, “on the road a league toward Harwich—tell him D'Alaber is down. The Fox must know. Will you do this?”

Thorne was silent a moment.

“Aye, that I will.”

The Spaniard continued to stare at him, and even after the dark eyes held no life in them they seemed to smolder with vindictive rage. Thorne drew the body to one side of the road and tied the Arab's reins to a branch. This done he mounted again and rode on with furrowed forehead.

“It likes me not,” he mused. “The don was a fellow of Renard's and 'tis ill meddling with such. He set upon me with full intent, and there were none to see it. If I am charged with his taking off”

He was riding on the king's business and did not mean to be delayed. But a pledge to a dying man must be kept, and he wanted a glance at this Master Durforth.

“My lord of Stratford did say that the Spaniards wished us evil, and here is one full of it already, and requited therefor, poor knave. He meant to ride, it would appear, with Durforth, and I must keep his rendezvous for him."

Some moments later he spurred out of the mist at a crossroads where several men had dismounted, evidently to wait for some one.

“Is Master Durforth in this company?” he called out, reining in.

“Aye, so.”

A tall man in a fur-trimmed mantle looked up from his seat under a sign post.

“A Spaniard did put it upon me to tell you his sorry case. He lies by the hedge, a league toward Greenwich, and his horse is tethered there. It was his wish that a certain Renard should know of it. And so—keep you better company, my master.”

Without waiting, Thorne spurred on and, when the mist closed around the forms of the astonished watchers, bent low in the saddle. A second later a pistol roared behind him and a ball whipped close to his hat. For a while he heard hoof beats coming after him, then they dwindled as the unseen riders perceived the folly of pursuit in the heavy fog.

Not until the sun broke through the mist and he could see the road ahead and behind did he allow his horse a breathing spell. Then he jogged on toward Orfordnesse, sorely puzzled.