The Messenger of the Black Prince

by Thomas A. H. Mawhinney

“That lad has eaten of my food,” he said with the old wheezing whistle in his voice. “I have treated him like a father. And he has brought all this trouble on me,—I’ll remember this when the time comes to settle our accounts.”

With a frown as black as pitch he turned and went wobbling and shaking across the road.

He had about disappeared among the trees when the leader called out, “Ready now for the brush!”

The words had scarcely left his lips when two arrows sped through the openings on either side of the table. On the heels of them a crash resounded against the kitchen-door. I ran back to where Charles had been pacing up and down the floor. The panels shook as though they were of straw. Another crash, and the door fell from its hinges with all the wood scattered into a thousand pieces.

Then there burst in on us two men. Charles swung the broken chair with all his force against the head of the first. I slipped in under his arm and thrust my dagger into the second’s ribs. I might just as well have tried to cut down a log of oak for the point stopped against something hard and by that there went through me the realization that he had on under his jerkin a coat of mail.

I jumped back to safety before he could lay hold of me. The fellow whom Charles had hit with the chair was down on one knee. The chair came up again and descended with great force. If it had struck, the man would have breathed his last. But with an effort he curled his body into a knot and covered his head in his arms. The chair glanced off his elbow and crashed against the floor. The back, which Charles had used as a hold, broke in two and the seat went flying and spinning across the room.

The fellow got to his feet. He was in pain but for all that was filled with wicked wrath. He reached out one hand and caught Charles by the coat. His dagger was over his head ready to descend when the leader of the archers turned and sent an arrow through his neck. He reeled and spun like a top. Then like a weight sank to the floor.

You will remember that all this happened almost in the twinkling of an eye. The man who was my opponent saw the danger that he faced. He had made for me to be sure with his knife ready to drive it into my body. I had taken two or three steps back towards the middle of the room. But when his companion fell, he gave one swift glance at the archer and turned his back. As fast as he could make it, he darted to the kitchen door. I heard his footsteps, as he ran along the wooden floor. He disappeared beyond, out among the trees to hide himself from death.

I breathed a sigh. The arrow of the archer had been our deliverer. I turned to the front of the inn and saw the men guarding the entrance stringing their bows and shooting time after time into the woods. The table was split in a dozen places showing the light in the cracks. By this I judged that while we had been busy with our foes, the enemy without had rained missile after missile at us with the intention of drawing us away while the two invaded the room.

Then came another lull. No doubt by this time the fellow who had escaped had gotten once more among his friends. That there was a council of war going on among them was as sure as fate. We waited a long time. There came no more arrows to crash with a click against the table nor to fly into the room.