[CHAPTER XIV]
OF A SERIES OF REMARKABLE DUELS, AND DE CLAVERLOK'S PERIL
Their meeting place was within the larger of the bailey-courts, when day was just on the dawn. Towering round about them were the rough walls of the huge castle. Sir Richard noted that every embrasure had suddenly sprouted a multiple of bright eyes, all gazing down at the combatants making ready to begin their battle at the bottom of the damp well.
The meeting turned out to be but the merest trifle for the young knight. Duke Francis was a past master of the arts of war-craft and had taught him thoroughly well. Once, Sir Richard was proud to remember, when the old Duke happened to have been in an uncommonly amiable mood, he had assured him that he was the most apt of all his pupils. The young knight fought only when there was a just cause at issue, and then with his whole heart set upon winning the battle. Upon this occasion he had very little trouble in disabling his adversary's sword arm. But not, however, before playing with him a considerable time in deference to the astonishingly early risers, who had dared the chill blasts to peer through the open windows.
"Brava, Sir Richard!" the plaudits swept from opening to opening around the gray walls when the business was over, upon which the young knight made a slight bow of acknowledgment and went hastily back to his warm bed, carrying with him there, besides somewhat of an aching head from excesses of the night before, the regret that he had been unable to give his auditors a prettier play in return for all their pains.
That morning's encounter, however, proved to be but a drowsy prelude to a veritable whirlwind of fighting duels. Without so much as a "By thy leave, sir," they would jostle Sir Richard roughly about, fling gauntlets at his feet, and hurl insults into his very teeth. Indeed, dueling grew to be an accepted part of his daily routine, and a day without its fight would have left him with the feeling that something important had remained undone. But Fortune continued to smile brightly upon him; and, saving for a few slight scratches, he carried no mark to bear him witness of the amazingly great number of personal combats in which he became engaged.
By nature Sir Richard was of a peace-loving disposition. Only upon one occasion had he deliberately set out to pick a quarrel, and that was with the Renegade Duke, for the purpose of aiding his escape from captivity. He was accordingly much puzzled as to the cause of this sudden plethora of insults and challenges. That the men were all envious of the open favors that Lady Anna continued to bestow upon him, was the only possible reason to which he could ascribe them. He appreciated that she must have an infinite number of admirers to be thus jealously guarded. Another circumstance that appealed to him as most singular, was the fact that once he had finished having it out with his enemies they became immediately his fast friends. Sir Richard's encounters were attended by a strangely favorable issue of events, for only in one instance had he been forced to inflict upon his adversary anything like a dangerous wound; and Sandufferin, the unfortunate exception and mightiest wielder of a blade in Scotland, made an ultimate recovery from his injuries. It grew to be a current subject of amused talk that when the latest comer had declared his intention of facing the young knight's deft sword, those whom he had met and vanquished would gather about him and convey their knowledge to him of the newcomer's particular methods of fighting.
"Look at them, Anna," Lord Douglas remarked upon an occasion when a number of men, many with bandaged hands and arms, were gathered close about Sir Richard. "They are giving points to their master, I take it. Never, within my knowledge, has there crossed the borders of Scotland a greater swordsman than this youthful knight. Marry, and how he seemeth to enjoy it, Anna, preserving the happiest of good humor through it all! But soon will I call a halt to the saturnalia of fighting and acquaint him with the contents of Henry's warrant. He'll make us a right brave chief of horse, Anna—that will he. He grows impatient to fare away southward. Every day now does he inquire of me whether his sovereign's business here is done. An he but guessed that he is held captive, I miss my shot an the gates and bars of Yewe would long hold him."
"Nay—that they would not," Lady Anna agreed. "'Tis the cutting of saffron velvet that beckons him away, my lord. Valiantly though I have striven, I cannot wean his regard from that bit of cloth. Many times lately have I observed him sitting in lonely corners and regarding it with soulful eyes. Would that I had him for pupil in the place of that silly boy, Warbeck."
"Ah! But that was a stroke, Lady Anna!" said Douglas admiringly. "The oftener I look upon him, the more perfect seemeth his resemblance to the Yorkist brood. How doth he progress?"