The Outlaw of Torn, Edgar Rice Burroughs [parable of the sower read online txt] 📗
- Author: Edgar Rice Burroughs
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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 some one 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 of heavy feet without brought him to a stop, and the jingle of keys as one was fitted to the lock of the door sent him gliding stealthily to the wall beside the doorway, where the inswinging door would conceal him.
As the door was pushed back, a flickering torch lighted up, but dimly, the interior, so that until he had reached the center of the room, the visitor did not see that the cot was empty.
He was a man-at-arms, and at his side hung a sword. That was enough for the Devil of Torn — it was a sword he craved most; and, ere the fellow could assure his slow wits that the cot was empty, steel fingers closed upon his throat, and he went down beneath the giant form of the outlaw.
Without other sound than the scuffing of their bodies on the floor, and the clanking of their armor, they fought, the one to reach the dagger at his side, the other to close forever the windpipe of his adversary.
Presently, the man-at-arms found what he sought, and, after tugging with ever diminishing strength, he felt the blade slip from its sheath. Slowly and feebly he raised it high above the back of the man on top of him; with a last supreme effort he drove the point downward, but ere it reached its goal, there was a sharp snapping sound as of a broken bone, the dagger fell harmlessly from his dead hand, and his head rolled backward upon his broken neck.
Snatching the sword from the body of his dead antagonist, Norman of Torn rushed from the tower room.
As John de Fulm, Earl of Buckingham, laid his vandal hands upon Joan de Tany, she turned upon him like a tigress. Blow after blow she rained upon his head and face until, in mortification and rage, he struck her full upon the mouth with his clenched fist; but even this did not subdue her and, with ever weakening strength, she continued to strike him. And then the great royalist Earl, the chosen friend of the King, took the fair white throat between his great fingers, and the lust of blood supplanted the lust of love, for he would have killed her in his rage.
It was upon this scene that the Outlaw of Torn burst with naked sword. They were at the far end of the apartment, and his cry of anger at the sight caused the Earl to drop his prey, and turn with drawn sword to meet him.
There were no words, for there was no need of words here. The two men were upon each other, and fighting to the death, before the girl had regained her feet. It would have been short shrift for John de
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