A crash of shattered glass came unheard in the uproar. Men had planted ladders against the wall, and broken in by the oriel; one after another they sprang down into the hall. The first crept round by the wainscotting, climbed the dais, seized Yeoland from behind, and held her fast.
As by instinct the poniard had been pointed at her own throat; the thing was twisted out of her hand, and tossed away along the floor. She struggled with the man in a kind of frenzy, but his brute strength was too stiff and stark for her. Even above the moil and din Flavian heard her cry to him, turned, sprang back, to be met by the men who had entered by the oriel. They hemmed him round and hewed at him, as he charged like a boar at bay. One, two were down. Swords rang on his harness. A fellow dodged in from behind and stabbed at him under the arm. Yeoland saw the black figure reel, recover itself, reel again, as a partisan crashed through his vizor. His sword clattered to the floor. So Colgran's men cut the Lord Flavian down in the sight of his young wife.
The scene appeared to transfer itself to an infinite distance; a mist came before the girl's eyes; the uproar seemed far, faint, and unreal. She tried to cry out, but no voice came; she strove to move, but her limbs seemed as stone. A sound like the surging of a sea sobbed in her ears, and she had a confused vision of men being hunted down and stabbed in the corners of the hall. A mob of wolf-like beings moved before her, cursing, cheering, brandishing smoking steel. She felt herself lifted from her feet, and carried breast-high in a man's arms. Then oblivion swept over her brain.
PART IV
XXXVII
Fortune had not blessed the cause of the people with that torrential triumph toiled for by their captains. The flood of war had risen, had overwhelmed tall castles and goodly cities, yet there were heights that had baulked its frothy turmoil, mountains that had hurled it back upon the valleys. Victory was like a sphere of glass tossed amid the foam of two contending torrents.
In the west, Sir Simon of Imbrecour, that old leopard wise in war, had raised the royal banner at his castle of Avray. The nobles of the western marches had joined him to a spear; many a lusty company had ridden in, to toss sword and shield in faith to the King. From his castle of Avray Sir Simon had marched south with the flower of the western knighthood at his heels. He had caught Malgo on the march from Conan, even as his columns were defiling from the mountains. Sir Simon had leapt upon the wild hillsmen and rebel levies like the fierce and shaggy veteran that he was. A splendid audacity had given the day as by honour to the royal arms. Malgo's troops had been scattered to the winds, and he himself taken and beheaded on the field under the black banner of the house of Imbrecour.
In the east, Godamar the free-lance lay with his troops in Thorney Isle, closed in and leaguered by the warlike Abbot of Rocroy. The churchman had seized the dyke-ways of the fens, and had hemmed the rebels behind the wild morasses. As for the eastern folk, they were poor gizardless creatures; having faced about, they had declared for the King, and left Godamar to rot within the fens. The free-lance had enough ado to keep the abbot out. His marching to join Fulviac was an idle and strategetical dream.
Last of all, the barons of the north--fierce, rugged autocrats, had gathered their half-barbarous retainers, and were marching on Lauretia to uphold the King. They were grim folk, flint and iron, nurtured amid the mountains and the wild woods of the north. They marched south like Winter, black and pitiless, prophetic of storm-winds, sleet, and snow. Some forty thousand men had gathered round the banner of Sir Morolt of Gorm and Regis, and, like the Goths pouring into Italy, they rolled down upon the luxurious provinces of the south.
Fortune had decreed that about Lauretia, the city of the King, the vultures of war should wet their talons. It was a rich region, gemmed thick with sapphire meres set in deep emerald woods. Lauretia, like a golden courtesan, lay with her white limbs cushioned amid gorgeous flowers. Her bosom was full of odours and of music; her lap littered with the fragrant herbs of love. No perils, save those of moonlit passion, had ever threatened her. Thus it befell that when the storm-clouds gathered, she cowered trembling on her ivory couch, the purple wine of pleasure soaking her sinful feet.