“Nay, I know not. He said they were riding an odd mile or two behind, and no time to waste.”
Lady Royd was crying softly in the background, secure in her belief that the worst had happened and that her husband’s hurts were mortal. Rupert did not heed her, did not heed anything except the tingling sense of mastery and strength that was firing his young, unproved soul. Through the long nights and days of self-contempt he had longed for this. When his heart had been sick to find himself among the women and the greybeards, he had fought, as if his life depended on it, for the dim hope that his chance would come one day. And, because he was prepared, there was no surprise in Shackleton’s news, no hurried question as to how this sudden onset must be met.
“My father sent no other message, Ben?” he asked curtly.
“Aye, he did, and he seemed rare and anxious I shouldn’t forget it, like. He said he trusted you—just trusted you.”
Rupert had kept his watch, through the sickness of the waiting-time; and at the end of it was this trumpet-call from the father who had bred him. And Simon Foster, watching him with affection’s close scrutiny, saw the scholarly, lean years slip off from the shoulders that were squared already to the coming stress.
“Bar the outer gate, Simon,” he said. Then, with a soldier’s brisk attention to detail, he turned to Ben Shackleton. “How many of them?” he asked.
“A score or more, so Sir Jasper said.”
“Then step indoors. We need you, Ben.”
Shackleton made a movement to get up to saddle again. “Nay, nay! I’ve the kine to fodder, and a wife waiting for me.”
“I’m in command here,” said the master sharply. “We need you, and you say there’s no time to waste.”