A Boy's Ride Part 19

"Knaves, sayest thou?" said the canon. "Wherefore hast thou a camp?

Wherefore lodgest thou not in towns? What doest thou wandering through the fens?"

"We be pursued," answered Humphrey.

"Pursued? and by whom? Why, who should pursue the nephew of Roger Aungerville?"

"It is a king's man, and he hath with him three men-at-arms," answered Humphrey.

"A king's man, sayest thou? Nay, then, I meddle not in the king's matters." And he made as if to hand back the ring.

"And wilt thou not, then, aid me to rescue my young master?"

"Nay," answered the canon. "I may not do such a thing except upon compulsion. The dean is now absent, and I am in his place."

Beside himself with impatience over what seemed to him needless delay, and with disappointment over what seemed to promise failure altogether, Humphrey cried out roughly: "Compulsion, sayest thou? Then, since 'tis compulsion thou lackest, compulsion thou shalt have." And he laid hands on him.

At this two servants came running in. "Ye see," said the canon, turning to them. "This is the ring of my friend, Roger Aungerville, prior of St. Wilfrid's. It bindeth me to do all in reason for his nephew. This is his nephew's servant, who hath come to me to seek my aid to rescue his young master from the clutches of a king's man and three men-at-arms. I tell him I may not do such a thing except upon compulsion, and he layeth hands upon me." And he smiled upon them whimsically.

They understood the canon and his smile, and the first said: "If thou be compelled to aid this fellow, were it not best that I call up Herebald and Bernulf also? They be two, as thou knowest, swift of foot, and long of wind, and strong of arm; and they have two good staves, moreover."

"Why," said the canon, whimsically, "it were doubtless wholly evil that I should undergo compulsion in mine own domain by a strange serving-man, and be compelled to render aid even against the king's men. Still, since I be compelled to render aid, it were good to render the best possible, and so take with ye Herebald and Bernulf; and spare not for blows, so that ye bring off the young man safe."

Then he handed the prior's ring to Humphrey, who returned it to its pouch with great satisfaction. "I will ne'er say aught against a fish,"

he thought, "when it surmounteth a circlet of gold and doth belong to a prior. Methinks this canon liketh not the king nor his men, or he would not be so easily compelled to go against them, and so all shall yet be well with us."

The two servants now withdrew from the canon's presence, taking Humphrey with them, and, calling up Herebald and Bernulf, all four made speed to depart with the impatient serving-man.

"If the mist hold, we have them," said the first servant, as he rode beside Humphrey. "And it be heavier now than it was two hours agone."

"Ay, if we lose not our way," was the response.

"That we cannot do with Herebald and Bernulf," was the confident answer. "They were born and bred in these fens. And because they do hate the king and all his men they will be swift on the track this morn. If the king's man come not off with a broken pate, it will be a wonder. And the same is like to be the fate of the three men-at-arms."

The mist held, and, gleaming through it, as they neared the camp, they saw the red fire. Cautiously they approached. Richard Wood and his hungry men-at-arms had been making free with the packs so liberally provided by Humphrey at Lincoln, and were now resting on the rushes, with Hugo in their midst. They were in no mood to journey farther in the dimness of the mist, and Richard Wood was putting question after question to Hugo in the hope of eliciting some information which might be valuable to him, while the men-at-arms listened. They were Le Falconer's men, and they cared nothing for the fate of De Aldithely's son.

"Where hideth away thy mother?" asked Richard Wood.

"Even in the tomb," answered Hugo, truthfully, for his mother was dead.

For a moment Richard Wood was taken aback. "I had not heard of it," he said at length. "I knew not that thy mother was dead. The king had hoped to capture her also. But it seemeth death hath been beforehand with him."

And then the four servants of the canon, who had surrounded the little group unseen, lifted their staves and struck as one man. Over rolled Richard Wood and his three men-at-arms, stunned and unconscious.

Humphrey at once brought up Hugo's horse and Fleetfoot, and the rescuers departed, leaving the four unconscious men to come to themselves at their leisure.

"Thou art to return to the hospitium," said the first servant to Humphrey. "It is the canon's order. He will see this nephew of the prior's and inquire more narrowly concerning his journey. And say thou naught of this rescue to any man. We four do the canon's bidding at all times, but our tongues wag not of the matter."

"When the canon is compelled, thou doest his bidding?" asked Humphrey.

"Ay, when he is compelled. He hath those of his kin who have suffered wrong at the king's hands. Therefore is he often compelled, as thou sayest, but he sayeth naught, and so the king knoweth naught. May he be long ignorant."

The first servant now withdrew himself from Humphrey's side, and in due time, still under cover of the friendly mist which spread its curtain over the streets of the town, the little party regained the hospitium unseen. As soon as their arrival was known Hugo was summoned to the presence of the canon; and the handsome, fearless youth, as he entered the room where the canon awaited him, seemed to strike his host with surprise.

"Thou the nephew of Roger Aungerville!" he exclaimed, when they were alone. "Thou shouldst be a De Aldithely."

"I am Hugo Aungerville," answered the boy. And then, drawing nearer, he half whispered something further to the canon, who seemed to find the explanation satisfactory.

"Why dost thou skulk and hide in this manner through the fens?" asked the canon. "And why art thou pursued?"

"I personate Josceline, son of Lord De Aldithely, and so draw pursuit from him. When I am come to Lord De Aldithely in France, then I shall make myself known, if need be."

"There will be no need," said the canon, decidedly. "And now, though I am glad to have succored the nephew of my friend, the prior, I am twice glad to do a service to Lord De Aldithely. Thou hast my blessing. Go now to thy rest, even though it be day. To-morrow morn I will send thee forth, if it seem best."

CHAPTER XVI

The king and his party rode on to Clipstone Palace. The attendant to whom the spy had been consigned hastily summoned a bailiff, to whom he made over his charge, and then galloped off to overtake the party. And Walter Skinner, hardly understanding what had come to pa.s.s, was left behind in Newark.

The king had thought to spend a week of pleasure at Clipstone, but the intelligence brought by the spy changed his plans. Of all his barons he hated Lord De Aldithely most. He would have struck at him more quickly and forcibly but for Lord De Aldithely's great popularity, and his own somewhat cowardly fear. And now here was the son escaped. And suddenly the evil temper of the king blazed forth so that his attendants, in so far as they dared, shrank from him.

The king waited not to reach Clipstone, but turning to two of his attendants he said: "Go thou, De Skirlaw, and thou, De Kellaw, to De Aldithely Castle. Put spurs to your horses and tarry not. See what is come to pa.s.s and bring me word again."

De Skirlaw and De Kellaw galloped off; and the king, shortly after coming to Clipstone, entered his private apartments and excluded the party from them.

"There is treachery somewhere," he said to himself, aloud, "and the guilty shall not escape me. Why, what is this Josceline but a boy of fourteen? And what is his mother but a woman? And do they both bid successful defiance to me, the king? I will have their castle down over their heads, and no counsels shall longer prevent me from doing it.

Without the boy and his mother the father is sure aid to Louis. And where De Aldithely goeth, there goeth victory."

"Nay, not alway, my liege," responded a voice.

The king started, and turned to see one of his courtiers, more bold than the rest, who had quietly entered the chamber.

"I knew not of thy presence, De Kirkham," he said. "What sayest thou?"

"I say that victory is not alway with De Aldithely since he is a fugitive and his son a wanderer, and his castle in thy power."

"True. Thou sayest true," responded the king, after a pause. "Thou dost ever bolster up my failing courage. And I will have this silly boy, if the madman I did put in custody spake true. Yea, I will have him, though I set half England on the chase. His father is my enemy. And shall the son defy me? I will hale him to a dungeon, and so I tell thee, De Kirkham."

It was not a long ride to De Aldithely castle for those who need neither skulk nor hide, and the messengers of the king were at Selby ere nightfall. Here they determined to rest and go on the next morning.

They heard no news in the town; nor did they see anything until they came to the castle itself. Birds of prey were screaming above the moat near the postern, and there was a stillness about the place that would have argued desertion if the flag had not still floated from one of the towers.

"I like not this stillness," said De Skirlaw.

"It hath a menacing air," observed De Kellaw.

A while the two waited in the outskirts of the wood near the cleared place about the castle. Then said De Skirlaw, "I go forward boldly to the bridge and summon the warder in the king's name."