The force of my blow drove him backward, but my weapon pierced him not. Then at once I realized that which made my blood turn cold. He was wearing beneath his doublet a shirt of linked mail; and I, without defense of any sort, was fighting an armored enemy.
“Ho!” I cried, “so thou gard’st thy coward heart with mail, lest peradventure one might fight with thee on even terms.”
The wicked look he gave me in reply reminded me, even in that moment of peril, of that on the face of the Gray Wolf of Carleton when he answered my mother’s challenge as to his errand at the gates of Mountjoy. But he spent no breath in reply, and fought on with fury, bent on pressing his unknightly vantage to the utmost. Twice I narrowly escaped his blade; then once mine grazed his neck, for that was now my mark; and again blood spurted from the gash.
At this he lost all caution and rushed upon me as a bear upon his foe, getting within my guard by some ill chance, and seizing me about the neck and arms. Both our swords were dropped in the struggle; and we wrestled and fought, not like knights and gentlemen, but like drunken lackeys who have fallen out over their games of dice. Now, indeed, did Carleton’s weight and strength befriend him. I strove for my life to topple him beneath me, but all to no purpose. In an instant I was whirled through the air, and came down with a crash on my back, with Carleton’s knee firmly planted on my breast bone.
At once he drew his poniard and pressed the point against my throat.
“Now yield thee, Whelp of Mountjoy,” he panted, “quick, ere thou diest.”
“Thou hast won,” I answered, “but, fighting thus, ’twere more to thy honor to have been overcome.”
“None of thy insolence,” he snarled, “yield thee now as my prisoner and vassal, and say that thou’lt ever yield obedience to the Carleton as thy liege lord.”
At this my gorge rose and the world turned black about me. “Never,” I groaned, “better far to die than suffer such disgrace.”
“Die then,” he shouted, hideously, and drew back his poniard for the thrust.