Edgar the Ready: A Tale of the Third Edward's Reign

by W. P. Shervill

"Get thee gone, Wintour," cried Aymery recklessly. "This is well-merited punishment, and interfere thou shalt not."

For answer, Edgar sprang at the speaker, seized him round the waist, and flung him heavily against the wall. Then he turned fiercely upon Roland; but that worthy shrank back before his pale face and flashing eyes, and, letting go Peter, fled to the wall and tore down a sword.

Finding himself free, Peter crawled from the table and dragged himself into the inner room, the door of which Edgar flung open while he faced and kept watch upon his furious comrades. He, too, had snatched a sword from the wall, and he now placed himself squarely in the doorway and waited. The moment Aymery had recovered his balance, he felt at his side and grasped the hilt of his sword. But Duplessis laid firm hand upon his arm and whispered an urgent warning, and Aymery was not so mad but that he was able to realize the dangerous folly of attacking Edgar with sharpened and pointed weapon. Abandoning his first impulse, he followed Roland's example, and, possessing himself of one of the blunted, pointless weapons used in their practices, instantly attacked the figure standing in the doorway of the room in which the cripple lad had taken refuge, standing with ready poise as though prepared to dispute with all present their right to pass unchallenged.

The encounter that ensued was so reckless and desperate that none present had seen the like before. Aymery at first seemed too angry to trouble about defending, and hacked at his adversary with a fierce rapidity that gave Edgar little time for other than parrying. In a minute or two, however, he managed to give Aymery so strong a thrust with his pointless weapon against his unjerkined chest that he was compelled to cease pressing in to close quarters and to pay some attention to defence.

"Smite home, Aymery," cried Roland, thinking his friend was giving back. "Smite home, or let me have my fling at the braggart!"

Stung into more reckless activity, Aymery sprang again to the attack, leaving his head for the moment unguarded. Before his own blow had fallen, the flat of Edgar's weapon caught him heavily upon the side of the head, and he fell back against the table, sick and half-fainting. Edgar had scarcely stepped back into position before Roland was savagely attacking him in his turn, secure in the possession of headpiece and jerkin, which he had cautiously donned whilst the fight with Aymery was proceeding.

"Once thou didst gibe at me for fearing the weight of my comrades' blows," laughed Edgar, as their blades ground together. "Why then this jerkin? Why then this headpiece? Methinks 'tis another that most fears the shock of blows upon skull and body."

"Bah!" cried Roland, "if thou thinkest I care for thy blows I will tear them off."

"The result will be the same," retorted Edgar. "I care neither way. Look to thy guard, or I vow thy headpiece will help thee little."

Though fighting keenly, Edgar kept an eye upon the room as well as upon his adversary. Aymery, he could see, was recovering from the blow he had received, and in a moment might be expected to renew the fight with temper little improved by the sharpness of his punishment. Others of his comrades were whispering together, and he fancied they meditated an attack to overcome his resistance and put an end to the conflict.