Martin Valliant slept at the foot of the tower stairway with Mellis’s sword beside him. He fell asleep with one hand gripping the hilt, like a child clutching a toy.  
Mellis did not have to wake him that morning, for he was up before the birds had begun their orisons, his heart full of the great adventure that life had thrust upon him. He had taken it solemnly, like a young man before his knighthood, or a soldier setting forth² on a Crusade, and all that he did that morning in the gray of the dawn betrayed the symbolical³ passion of the lover. He was to enter upon a new state before he touched that white harness, and so he went to the mere⁴, stripped off his clothes, and bathed in the water. Then he knelt awhile, grave-eyed and strong, watching the sun rise on the new day, while the birds were a choir⁵ invisible.
 
When Mellis came down from her chamber⁶ she found him in the garden with the harness spread out upon the leather sack, so that the wet grass should not tarnish⁷ it. He had cut his cassock short above the knees, and was holding the salade in his hands and staring at it like a crystal gazer.
 
He flushed, and glanced at her with an air of bafflement.
 
“These iron clothes are new to me.”
 
Mellis did not smile at his predicament, though she guessed that he had no knowledge of how to arm himself.
 
“You must try the feel of it,” she said, “for a man should test himself with the weight of his harness. Four hands are needed for such a toilet. When we have eaten I will play the page to you.”
 
She was as good as her word, and the arming of Martin Valliant was an event in the life of the garden. Mellis made him seat himself upon the bench, while she picked up the pieces one by one and taught him his lesson by buckling⁸ them on with her own hands. First came the breast- and back-plates, the pauldrons and gorget, the vam-braces and rear-braces. Then she made him stand up.
 
“You may call that half-harness; a man can move lightly and fight on foot, but when bowmen are about, a man-at-arms should be sheathed⁹ from top to toe.”
 
Next she buckled¹⁰ on tassets, loin-guard, cuishes, greaves and solerets, set the salade on his head, and slung¹¹ the green shield by its strap¹² about his neck.
 
“Now, man of the sword!”
 
She stood back and surveyed him.
 
“Yes, it is better than I had hoped. You are a bigger man than my poor brother, but the harness covers you. Of course you should be wearing a wadded coat to save all chafing¹³, and hose of good wool.”
 
Her eyes lit up as she looked him over, and she held her head proudly.
 
“I have no spear to give you, though I doubt not that you will make a better beginning with the sword—if needs be. Try the joints¹⁴, Martin.”
 
He walked up and down before her, raised his arms, spread them wide, folded them over his chest. He seemed made for such heavy harness; the strong, sweeping¹⁵ movements of his limbs were not crabbed¹⁶ or clogged¹⁷ by it.
 
“The thing is like an iron skin.”
 
“Ah! it was made by a fine armorer. The joints are perfect. And the weight of it?”
 
“I’ll swear I could run or leap.”
 
“You are fresh as yet. A man must wear such harness for a day to learn where it irks him. And so I am thinking that I will leave you to master it. There is work for me in the Forest.”
 
He unhelmed himself, and his blue eyes looked at her questioningly.
 
“What! You are venturing abroad?”
 
“Yes; I shall take the horse, and your wallet full of food.”
 
“Why must you go?”
 
“Why, brother-in-arms, because we are not the only people on God’s earth who thirst to humble¹⁸ the Lord of Troy. We have friends in the Forest, and I must see them—take counsel, and plan what can be done. They were waiting for friends from France, and for poor Gilbert to give the word.”
 
He answered her with sudden fire.
 
“I carry your brother’s sword and wear his harness. It is my right to go.”
 
She smiled at him with quiet eyes.
 
“Dear man, that would not help us; you could not prove, as yet, that you are in the secret. Besides, all the wheels of it are in my head. I shall ride to Badger¹⁹ Hill and see John Falconer; he holds the reins²⁰ in the Forest.”
 
“But what of the Lord of Troy? Those dead men——”
 
“What does he know as yet? He may send out riders, but I know the Forest better than any man that Roger Bland²¹ can count on. I shall not be caught in a snare²². Moreover, Martin Valliant, I leave you to guard our stronghold and the precious gear in that cellar.”
 
He was very loth to let her go alone, and bitterly against it, though he saw the wisdom of her argument.
 
“My heart mislikes this venture.”
 
“You run to meet a ghost,” she said. “I shall come to no harm, believe me.”
 
She had her way, and he went to open the gate and lower the bridge while she put on a cloak and hood¹, and filled the wallet with food. She joined him on the causeway, where he stood scanning the woods mistrustfully.
 
“I would to God I might go with you.”
 
Her eyes looked into his.
 
“Your heart goes with me. Bear with that harness, for your bones will ache not a little. And keep good guard.”
 
He watched her cross the grassland²³ toward the thicket²⁴ where they had hidden the horse. Woodmere seemed to lack sunlight of a sudden, and his heart felt heavy when the trees hid her.
 
Nor were Martin’s fears for her safety the mere idle qualms²⁵ of a man in love. There was a saddling of horses at Troy Castle, and Fulk de Lisle, Roger Bland’s bravo, was shut up with him in my lord’s closet.
 
Vance’s archer²⁶ man, who had escaped Martin Valliant’s spade, had come in the night before, after losing his way in the Forest. His tale lost nothing in the telling. Mellis Dale had stabbed the Forest Warden²⁷ with her poniard, and her paramour, the priest, had then beaten him, and John Bunce, to death. If my lord doubted it, let him send men to the Black Moor²⁸, and they would find the bodies.
 
So Fulk de Lisle had his orders. He was a gay, swashbuckling devil, very handsome, very debonair²⁹, a great man with his weapons. He stood before the Lord of Troy, leaning on his sword, his black hair curled under his flat red hat, his sword belt bossed with gold. He wore no armor save a cuirass, and light greaves; the blue sleeves of his doublet were puffed³⁰ with crimson³¹; his hose were striped red and blue.
 
“Take thirty men; let them ride in three troops. Go yourself with one troop to the Black Moor; send Peter Rich with ten men to Badger Hill, and Swartz with the rest to Woodmere. I have sent messengers to Gawdy Town. I want the wench and the priest, both of them. And Vance’s body had better be brought in.”
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