Cedric, the Forester

by Bernard Gay Marshall

“Ah! ’tis thou, then, Kate of Montmorency. I have somewhat pressing business of my own to forward ere I send final answer to the King. Now deliver to me the keys of this my castle of Mountjoy. Or mayhap thou wilt send yonder leather-coated varlet to act as thy champion ’gainst one of my kitchen knaves. Now lower thy bridge, and all shall be well. I will send thee and the boy there with a convoy of trusty knights to the Convent of St. Anne. If thou hast the folly to attempt to stay me, I will take the place by storm; thy varlets shall hang, every one; and thine own fate thou canst guess. Come now! which, shall it be? I am not accustomed to stay long for answers.”

“Traitor and Hound of Bedlam!” cried my mother in such a voice as I knew not she possessed, “thine own head with the gray locks thou dishonorest shall hang from my battlements ere thou gainest aught by this attack on what thou thinkest to be a defenseless woman. While my lord fights for his country under the banner of the King, thou sendest back lying messengers, and arm thy crew for robbing him of his lands. Now back, with all thy bloody-handed band, or my cross-bowmen shall see if they cannot find with their bolts the joints of your harness. I give no more time to parley. Back with you!”

Already my cross-bow was leveled at the gray beard of the leader on the other side of the moat. I would make good my boast made to my father but a week since. I was trembling and my hair stood up like that of a dog that meets his bitter enemy. Muttering a little prayer for the bolt, and closing my eyes with a sudden, foolish dread, I pulled the trigger. But my mother, just then seeing my design, struck up the weapon with one swift blow, so that the bolt sped harmlessly over the heads of the horsemen.

“Hold thy arrows, boy,” she commanded, “we cannot shoot men down at parley, be they never so villainous. And we shall have fighting enough ere long.”

Lord Carleton made a move of defiance; but he wheeled his steed and led his men down the road by which they came. In the shadow of the woods they halted; and the Gray Wolf called about him three or four knights to whom he gave hurried orders. Very soon his troop broke into three parties. One rode to the right and another to the left, while the third, under the old lord’s command, remained opposite the main gate and drawbridge. Then our watchers on the battlements saw the other parties posted at points of vantage around the castle and a young squire riding at full gallop along the road to Teramore. The siege of Castle Mountjoy had begun.

We passed some weary hours while the Carleton knights gave no sign of meaning to attack. The approaches to the drawbridge are steep and rocky, and the moat is commanded by the cross-bowmen from the slits in the towers and from the battlements above. I well knew that Carleton was an old and skillful soldier, even though a cruel and bloodthirsty one; and it was easy to be seen that he had no mind to lose any of his armored knights in vain attempts to reach us. Now and again a cross-bow bolt sped from our battlements toward the besiegers; and some of these rang on their helmets or breastplates; but the hounds had good Toledo armor, and no bolt found its way to joint or visor. I found none to stay me now; and stood by a firing slit, sending arrow after arrow at our enemies.

Twice old Marvin had dinted with well-aimed bolts the hauberk on which rested the long gray beard of the leader of the pack. A younger knight, whom I took to be Ronald of Egleston, seemed to beg him to take to the shelter of the trees; but the Old Wolf just shook his head with impatience, and rode on from one to another of the sentry posts.

At noon we could see in the edge of the wood, beneath the oak branches not yet clothed with leaves, leathern wallets opened and bread and meat passed around, this being followed by horns of ale and skins of wine from the load of a pack-mule tethered near by.

Then my mother, aided by old Dame Franklin, her nurse as a child and ever her faithful servitor, and by me as the Heir of Mountjoy and the representative of my father here, carried to the sentinels on the ramparts and at the arrow slits bounteous refreshments of bread and cheese and ale, encouraging them the while by friendly, confident words and by her dauntless demeanor in readiness for the attack which we all well knew was to come.

“Marvin,” she said, as we came near my old friend and worthy teacher of the arts of war, “shall we give them as good or better than they can send?”