They grinned at each other like fierce dogs, and Peter Rich rode off. But he left two men in the woods to watch the place, which was a trick of no great moment, for John Falconer guessed that he would be watched.
“Thank God the girl left betimes, and by the other road. And God grant she may not find a trap at Woodmere House.”
Chapter XXII
Martin Valliant was as restless as a dog whose master had gone out and left him chained to his kennel.
His activities were various and many that morning. He took off his arm-plates, covered his breast-plate with a sack, and completed the walling up of the kitchen gateway. The defense of the causeway and the bridge exercised him still further, and he built a rough ladder and stage to one of the loopholes of the gate-house, so that a man with a bow could command the bridge. The matter of archery piqued him to try what skill he had left. He raised the roof stone of the cellar, searched out a bow and some arrows, and going up on the leads of the tower, tried shooting at a bush on the far side of the mere. Five arrows missed the mark, but the sixth got home. And this testing of his skill taught him something of value, in that he discovered the tower to be the right and proper place for a watchman. He could scan the woods, the whole of the valley, and the island, and see into nearly every corner of the ruined house itself. The battlements were breast high, and gave good cover for a man with a bow.
His armor was beginning to sit heavy on him, for he was raw to it; but as to humoring his body, that was a surrender that he refused to make. He returned to the courtyard, took his sword, and practiced striking and thrusting at an imaginary mark. It was a “hand and a half” sword, heavy, and long in the blade, but very finely balanced. To Martin it felt no heavier than a willow wand; he played with it half the morning, cutting off the heads of nettles, learning to judge his distances and the sweep of a full-armed blow. From time to time he climbed the tower and took a view of the woods and the valley.
The sun stood at noon when Martin Valliant caught his first glimpse of the Lord of Troy’s gentry. He was on the leads of the tower and looking toward the great beech wood when he saw a man skulking under the trees. The fellow wore the Troy livery of green and silver, and carried a cross-bow on his shoulder.
Martin kept very still, and the steel of his helmet may have toned with the gray stone of the battlements, for the man with the cross-bow did not appear to see him. He came out from the wood shade into the open, and stood awhile looking at the island and the house. Then he put a horn to his lips and blew a short blast.
Martin was still asking himself whether the man was an enemy or a friend, when Swartz and his troop came riding out of the beech wood. The sun flashed on their breast-plates and helmets, and on the points of their spears. Swartz, mounted on a roan horse, and wearing a tabard of green and silver, rode a little ahead of his men.
Martin crouched low, watching them. He had no doubt now as to whence these gentry had come and as to what their business was. They were from Troy Castle, adventurous rogues, the scum of the Yorkist armies, for Roger Bland had good cause to keep a crowd of bullies around him. He was no born lord; men had not served his father before him; the fealty sworn to him was lip service; he paid with gold for such faith as men would sell.