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Updated: June 13, 2025
"Ye men!" quoth Beltane, hoarse-voiced, "O my good comrades all, your deeds this day shall speak when we are dust, methinks! Your foes this day did muster three thousand strong, and ye do number scarce a thousand yet have ye scattered them, for that your cause is just 'tis thus ye shall lift Pentavalon from shame and give to her peace at last!"
I do swear never to look upon a woman to love " "Master master!" BELTANE. "Nor to suffer woman's love to come 'twixt me and my duty " "O master, swear it not swear it not " BELTANE. "Nor shall aught let or stay me until Pentavalon win to freedom or my poor soul return whence it came. And this do I swear to the ears of God!" Now turned he to Roger, bright-eyed and with hands tight-clenched.
So now thou shalt swear to a dying woman that thou wilt not rest nor stay until thou shalt free this lady Abbess, for on her safety doth hang thy life and the freedom of Pentavalon. Swear, O swear me this, my lord Beltane, so shall I die in peace. Swear O swear!" Now, looking within her glowing eyes, feeling the tremble of her passionate-pleading hands, Beltane bowed his head. "I swear!" said he.
Then Tall Orson shook aloft his battered pike and shouted amain, and on the instant, others took up the cry a hoarse roar that rolled from rank to rank; lance and sword, axe and pike were flourished high in air, and from these men who had marched so grimly silent all the day a great and mighty shout went up: "Arise, Pentavalon! Ha! Beltane Pentavalon!"
Thus, Pentavalon needeth men, strong-armed and resolute: if such ye be, march ye this hour to Thrasfordham within Bourne, and say to Sir Benedict that God having given you new life, so now will ye give your lives to Pentavalon, that tyranny may cease and the Duchy be cleansed of evil. Who now among ye will draw sword for freedom and Pentavalon?"
Behold here Sir Bertrand, that was thy father's seneschal of Pentavalon City. Here, Sir John of Griswold whose sire bare thy father's banner, wherefore Griswold is ashes long since. Here Hubert of Erdington, that was thy father's marshal-of-the-field. Here, Hacon of Trant, that was wont to lead thy father's vanward, and here, Sir Brian of Hartismere, brother to Eric, called the Wry-neck.
And lo! Gurth's cheek was pale, his eye wide and vacant, and his soul sat numbed within him. So Beltane took him by the throat, and, laughing fierce, shook him to and fro. "Beast!" said he, "unfit art thou to march with these my comrades. Now therefore do I cast thee out. Take thy life and go, and let any follow thee that will Pentavalon needeth not thy kind.
Forsooth, I will this night fall to work upon the good saint and plague him right prayerfully that thy Duchess may come and save thee and thy Duchy in despite of thee, and having made thee Duke of Pentavalon with her lances, thereafter make thee Duke of Mortain in her own sweet body, for as I do know "
And there, within his little hut, the hermit Ambrose, Duke of Pentavalon that was, girt the armour upon Beltane the mighty, Duke of Pentavalon to be, if so God willed; first the gambeson of stuffed and quilted leather, and, thereafter, coifed hauberk and chausses, with wide sword-belt clamped with broad plates of silver and studs of gold, until my Beltane stood up armed in shining mail from head to foot.
So by reason of this poor second rogue, Pentavalon doth rejoice in freedom. To-day is singing on every village green happiness is in the very air, for 'tis Pentavalon's Beltane, and Beltane is a sweet season; so doth this poor second rogue find him recompense.
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