The Outlaw of Torn by Edgar Rice Burroughs (robert munsch read aloud .TXT) đź“•
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- Author: Edgar Rice Burroughs
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Wheeling their horses toward one another, the two combatants, who were some ninety feet apart, charged at full tilt. As they came together the impact was so great that both horses were nearly overturned and the two powerful war lances were splintered into a hundred fragments as each struck the exact center of his opponent’s shield. Then, wheeling their horses and throwing away the butts of their now useless lances, De Conde and the officer advanced with drawn swords.
The fellow made a most vicious return assault upon De Conde, attempting to ride him down in one mad rush, but his thrust passed harmlessly from the tip of the outlaw’s sword, and as the officer wheeled back to renew the battle, they settled down to fierce combat, their horses wheeling and turning shoulder to shoulder.
The two girls sat rigid in their saddles watching the encounter, the eyes of Joan de Tany alight with the fire of battle as she followed every move of the wondrous swordplay of Roger de Conde.
He had not even taken the precaution to lower his visor, and the grim and haughty smile that played upon his lips spoke louder than many words the utter contempt in which he held the sword of his adversary. And as Joan de Tany watched, she saw the smile suddenly freeze to a cold, hard line, and the eyes of the man narrow to mere slits, and her woman’s intuition read the death warrant of the King’s officer ere the sword of the outlaw buried itself in his heart.
The other members of the two bodies of royalist soldiers had sat spellbound as they watched the battle, but now, as their leader’s corpse rolled from the saddle, they spurred furiously in upon De Conde and his little party.
The Baron’s men put up a noble fight, but the odds were heavy and even with the mighty arm of Norman of Torn upon their side the outcome was apparent from the first.
Five swords were flashing about the outlaw, but his blade was equal to the thrust and one after another of his assailants crumpled up in their saddles as his leaping point found their vitals.
Nearly all of the Baron’s men were down, when one, an old servitor, spurred to the side of Joan de Tany and Mary de Stutevill.
“Come, my ladies,” he cried, “quick and you may escape. They be so busy with the battle that they will never notice.”
“Take the Lady Mary, John,” cried Joan, “I brought Roger de Conde to this pass against the advice of all and I remain with him to the end.”
“But, My Lady—” cried John.
“But nothing, sirrah!” she interrupted sharply. “Do as you are bid. Follow my Lady Mary, and see that she comes to my father’s castle in safety,” and raising her riding whip, she struck Mary’s palfrey across the rump so that the animal nearly unseated his fair rider as he leaped frantically to one side and started madly up the road down which they had come.
“After her, John,” commanded Joan peremptorily, “and see that you turn not back until she be safe within the castle walls; then you may bring aid.”
The old fellow had been wont to obey the imperious little Lady Joan from her earliest childhood, and the habit was so strong upon him that he wheeled his horse and galloped after the flying palfrey of the Lady Mary de Stutevill.
As Joan de Tany turned again to the encounter before her, she saw fully twenty men surrounding Roger de Conde, and while he was taking heavy toll of those before him, he could not cope with the men who attacked him from behind; and even as she looked, she saw a battle axe fall full upon his helm, and his sword drop from his nerveless fingers as his lifeless body rolled from the back of Sir Mortimer to the battle-tramped clay of the highroad.
She slid quickly from her palfrey and ran fearlessly toward his prostrate form, reckless of the tangled mass of snorting, trampling, steel-clad horses, and surging fighting-men that surrounded him. And well it was for Norman of Torn that this brave girl was there that day, for even as she reached his side, the sword point of one of the soldiers was at his throat for the coup de grace.
With a cry, Joan de Tany threw herself across the outlaw’s body, shielding him as best she could from the threatening sword.
Cursing loudly, the soldier grasped her roughly by the arm to drag her from his prey, but at this juncture, a richly armored knight galloped up and drew rein beside the party.
The newcomer was a man of about forty-five or fifty; tall, handsome, black-mustached and with the haughty arrogance of pride most often seen upon the faces of those who have been raised by unmerited favor to positions of power and affluence.
He was John de Fulm, Earl of Buckingham, a foreigner by birth and for years one of the King’s favorites; the bitterest enemy of De Montfort and the barons.
“What now?” he cried. “What goes on here?”
The soldiers fell back, and one of them replied:
“A party of the King’s enemies attacked us, My Lord Earl, but we routed them, taking these two prisoners.”
“Who be ye?” he said, turning toward Joan who was kneeling beside De Conde, and as she raised her head, “My God! The daughter of De Tany! a noble prize indeed my men. And who be the knight?”
“Look for yourself, My Lord Earl,” replied the girl removing the helm, which she had been unlacing from the fallen man.
“Edward?” he ejaculated. “But no, it cannot be, I did but yesterday leave Edward in Dover.”
“I know not who he be,” said Joan de Tany, “except that he be the most marvelous fighter and the bravest man it has ever been given me to see. He called himself Roger de Conde, but I know nothing of him other than that he looks like a prince, and fights like a devil. I think he has no quarrel with either side, My Lord, and so, as you certainly do not make war on women, you will let us go our way in peace as we were when your soldiers wantonly set upon us.”
“A De Tany, madam, were a great and valuable capture in these troublous times,” replied the Earl, “and that alone were enough to necessitate my keeping you; but a beautiful De Tany is yet a different matter and so I will grant you at least one favor. I will not take you to the King, but a prisoner you shall be in mine own castle for I am alone, and need the cheering company of a fair and loving lady.”
The girl’s head went high as she looked the Earl full in the eye.
“Think you, John de Fulm, Earl of Buckingham, that you be talking to some comely scullery maid? Do you forget that my house is honored in England, even though it does not share the King’s favors with his foreign favorites, and you owe respect to a daughter of a De Tany?”
“All be fair in war, my beauty,” replied the Earl. “Egad,” he continued, “methinks all would be fair in hell were they like unto you. It has been some years since I have seen you and I did not know the old fox Richard de Tany kept such a package as this hid in his grimy old castle.”
“Then you refuse to release us?” said Joan de Tany.
“Let us not put it thus harshly,” countered the Earl. “Rather let us say that it be so late in the day, and the way so beset with dangers that the Earl of Buckingham could not bring himself to expose the beautiful daughter of his old friend to the perils of the road, and so—”
“Let us have an end to such foolishness,” cried the girl. “I might have expected naught better from a turncoat foreign knave such as thee, who once joined in the councils of De Montfort, and then betrayed his friends to curry favor with the King.”
The Earl paled with rage, and pressed forward as though to strike the girl, but thinking better of it, he turned to one of the soldiers, saying:
“Bring the prisoner with you. If the man lives bring him also. I would learn more of this fellow who masquerades in the countenance of a crown prince.”
And turning, he spurred on towards the neighboring castle of a rebel baron which had been captured by the royalists, and was now used as headquarters by De Fulm.
When Norman of Torn regained his senses, he found himself in a small tower room in a strange castle. His head ached horribly, and he felt sick and sore; but he managed to crawl from the cot on which he lay, and by steadying his swaying body with hands pressed against the wall, he was able to reach the door. To his disappointment, he found this locked from without and, in his weakened condition, he made no attempt to force it.
He was fully dressed and in armor, as he had been when struck down, but his helmet was gone, as were also his sword and dagger.
The day was drawing to a close and, as dusk fell and the room darkened, he became more and more impatient. Repeated pounding upon the door brought no response and finally he gave up in despair. Going to the window, he saw that his room was some thirty feet above the stone-flagged courtyard, and also that it looked at an angle upon other windows in the old castle where lights were beginning to show. He saw men-at-arms moving about, and once he thought he caught a glimpse of a woman’s figure, but he was not sure.
He wondered what had become of Joan de Tany and Mary de Stutevill. He hoped that they had escaped, and yet—no, Joan certainly had not, for now he distinctly remembered that his eyes had met hers for an instant just before the blow fell upon him, and he thought of the faith and confidence that he had read in that quick glance. Such a look would nerve a jackal to attack a drove of lions, thought the outlaw. What a beautiful creature she was; and she had stayed there with him during the fight. He remembered now. Mary de Stutevill had not been with her as he had caught that glimpse of her, no, she had been all alone. Ah! That was friendship indeed!
What else was it that tried to force its way above the threshold of his bruised and wavering memory? Words? Words of love? And lips pressed to his? No, it must be but a figment of his wounded brain.
What was that which clicked against his breastplate? He felt, and found a metal bauble linked to a mesh of his steel armor by a strand of silken hair. He carried the little thing to the window, and in the waning light made it out to be a golden hair ornament set with precious stones, but he could not tell if the little strand of silken hair were black or brown. Carefully he detached the little thing, and, winding the filmy tress about it, placed it within the breast of his tunic. He was vaguely troubled by it, yet why he could scarcely have told, himself.
Again turning to the window, he watched the lighted rooms within his vision, and presently his view was rewarded by the sight of a knight coming within the scope of the narrow casement of a nearby chamber.
From his apparel, he was a man of position, and he was evidently in heated discussion with someone whom Norman of Torn could not see. The man, a great, tall, black-haired and mustached nobleman, was pounding upon a table to emphasize his words, and presently he sprang up as though rushing toward the one to whom he had been speaking. He disappeared from the watcher’s view for a moment and then, at the far side of the apartment, Norman of Torn saw him again just as he roughly grasped the figure of a woman who evidently was attempting to escape him. As she turned to face her tormentor, all the devil in the Devil of Torn surged in his aching head, for the face he saw was that of Joan de Tany.
With a muttered oath, the imprisoned man turned to hurl himself against the bolted door, but ere he had taken a single step, the sound
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