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Updated: June 14, 2025
Forthwith, pikemen and archers fell into array with Cnut at their head, while behind the spreading ranks of pikes Prat and his archers were ranged, bows strung and quivers slung before; and presently, at Beltane's word, they swung forth of the sheltering green, fierce-eyed, grim-lipped, bascinet and pike-head a-twinkle.
But, all at once, he heard a bitter, broken cry, and glancing up, it chanced that from his lofty perch he could look within the lighted window, and thus beheld a nun, whose slender, black-robed body writhed and twisted in the clasp of two leathern-clad arms; vicious arms, that bent her back and back across the rough table, until into Beltane's vision came the leathern-clad form of him that held her: a black-haired, shapely man, whose glowing eyes and eager mouth stooped ever nearer above the nun's white loveliness.
And Roger sprang down the bank and heedless of the water, plunged in to catch Beltane's hands and kiss them. "Master!" he cried. And thus it was these two met again. And presently, having donned clothes and harness, Beltane sat down him beside the brook, head upon hand, staring at the swift-running water, whiles Roger, sitting near, watched him in a silent ecstasy. "Whence come ye, Roger?"
Quoth he: "By thy size and knightly gear, by thy thy yellow hair, methinks thou art Beltane, son of Beltane the Strong?" "Verily, 'tis so that I am called. What would you of me?" "This, messire." Herewith the stranger knight loosed belt and surcoat and drew forth a long sword whose broad blade glittered in the firelight, and gave its massy hilt to Beltane's grasp.
And drink good wine, wake and eat!" Then Beltane's clutching fingers relaxed and he raised his head, blinking in the rays of the lanthorn; and looking upon his rumpled hair, the gaoler stared and peered more close. Quoth he: "Methought thou wert a golden man, yet art silver also, meseemeth."
"Ho, tall brother a sweet affray!" he panted, "the fools give back already: they cry that Pertolepe is slain and the woods full of outlaws; they be falling back from the village had I but a few shafts in my quiver, now " but here, beholding the face of Beltane's captive, Giles let fall his sword, staring round-eyed. "Holy St.
But now the press thinned out, broke and yielded before Beltane's whirling axe, and turning, he found Roger beside him all a-sweat and direfully besplashed, his mailed breast heaving as he leaned gasping upon a broadsword red from point to hilt. "Ha, master!" he panted, "'tis done already see, they break and fly!" "On!" cried Beltane, "on pursue! pursue! after them to the gate!"
Within Belsaye men aye, and women too! have endured the torment, Orson. To-day, at sundown, a noble man doth burn, Jenkyn." "Why, look'ee, master," spake Jenkyn, bold-voiced yet blenching from Beltane's unswerving gaze, "look'ee, good master, here is no matter for honest woodsmen, look'ee " "Aye," nodded tall Orson, "'tis no matter of ours, so wherefore should us meddle?"
Within the camp was prodigious stir, a fanfare of trumpets and hoarse commands, where archers and pikemen, knights and men-at-arms were mustering; but nowhere was hurry or confusion, wherefore Beltane's heart rejoiced and he smiled glad-eyed as he came where, before Sir Benedict and the assembled council, stood Roger and Ulf with fifteen of their twenty men.
So came they where the road broadened out and where the battle raged swaying and surging above the form of Sir Brian prostrate in the dust where horsemen and footmen strove together in desperate grapple, where knightly shields, aflare with proud devices, rang 'neath the blows of Beltane's lusty foresters and Sir Benedict's veteran pikemen.
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