The Forest had sounded its war-horn, and the woods and heaths and leaf-hidden hamlets gave up their men. They gathered in Woodmere valley, foresters, laborers2, charcoal3 burners, breeders of horses, swineherds, and a scattering4 of broken men. The gentry5 and their tenants6 were passably horsed and harnessed; the foresters had their bows; but there was many a fellow who had no more than an oak cudgel or a scythe7 blade lashed8 to a pole.
They brought cattle and sheep with them and tumbrils laden9 with sacks of flour. Booths were built, fires lit, scouts10 sent to watch the woodland ways and the gray menace of Troy Castle. The vault11 at Woodmere was emptied of its arms, and a new bridge built in place of Martin’s single beam.
As for Martin Valliant, he held aloof12 from the mesne lords and slept at night across Mellis’s door.
Now the Forest was superstitious13, and devout14 with the devoutness15 of ignorance. There was no wild thing that could not happen, no marvel16 that might not be believed. God, the Virgin17 and the Saints, the devil and his progeny18 were part of the Forest life, mysterious beings to be prayed to and to be feared. There were holy wells, wonder-working images in more than one of the churches, places that were accursed, goblin stones, devil’s hounds that ran by night, headless horsemen, ghosts, fairies, haunted trees. The people of the Forest were obstinate19, credulous20 children. They believed all that the Church taught them, even though many a priest spat21 at his own conscience.
Martin Valliant had been a priest. He had shed blood, and he slept at night outside the door of a woman’s bed-chamber22. The facts were flagrant, fiercely honest. Your pious23 savage24 does not love honesty; he lives in a world of make-believe; he will not quarrel with imperfections that spue their slime in dark and hidden corners. He will even laugh and delight in the lewd25 tales that are told of priests. But let some priest be honest, shake off his vows26, and declare himself a clean man, then he has committed the unforgivable sin, and any foul27 sot or filthy28 hag may sit in judgment29 upon him.
So it proved with these rough Forest gentry. Martin Valliant had sensed things truly. That sudden shadowy foreboding had heralded30 a real darkness that was spreading toward him from the mistrusts and prejudices of these common men. They looked at the facts baldly as they would have looked at pigs in a sty. The strange, tragic31, sacrificial beauty of the thing was lost on them. To them love was a giggling32 scrimmage. Their religion was so much bogey33 worship, a rude mysticism that was shaped to suit their lives.
Before a day had passed Martin Valliant found himself outlawed34 by a vague and reticent35 distrust. He cast a shadow. The common men looked askance at him and held aloof. The gentry were more open, and more brutal36 in their displeasure; with them it was not a mere1 matter of superstition37; there were young men among them, and Mellis was very comely38. And this fellow had the insolence39 to sleep across her door.
Falconer was the only man who spoke40 to Martin Valliant, and it was done grudgingly42 and with an ill grace.
The rest looked through him, over him, at his feet. There was no place for Martin at the table that had been set up under a shelter of boughs43 in the hall. Even Peter Swartz was better treated; he was half prisoner, half comrade, but he drank and ate with them, diced44 with them, told tales.
Martin took his meals on the leads of the tower or in the garden. His heart grew heavy in him, and a kind of fierce sadness showed in his eyes.
These English worthies45 were ready with their judgments46 as they sat at table.
“The wench is mad.”
“The fellow is wearing her brother Gilbert’s harness.”
“Such a thing cannot be stomached, sirs. We lack godliness if we carry such an unclean vagabond with us. My men are grumbling47 already, and seeing a curse in the fellow.”
“Send him back to Paradise.”
“The prior will thank you for nothing. One kicks a mangy dog out of the gate, and that’s the end of it.”
Swartz listened and said nothing. He was a rough god compared with these boors48; he had seen the world and tasted the wine of many countries, and he knew that it is mere foolishness to step in between a clown and his drink.
Falconer tried to speak up, but they were against him to a man.
“I choose to live with honest men, sir, not with vermin.”
Such was the Forest’s verdict.
On the second day the gentlemen of the Rose marched into Woodmere, Sir Gregory at their head. There was much cheering, much shaking of hands. “The King was upon the sea.” That night they drank much ale. And women had come from Gawdy Town, bold-eyed wenches dressed as men. Some of the wilder spirits made a rough night of it, shouting, quarreling, and singing songs, and Mellis was kept awake by their clowning. Nor did Martin Valliant get much sleep, for he had to take more than one drunken man by the shoulders and prove to him that the threshold of Mellis’s chamber was sacred ground.
The coming of Sir Gregory and the gentlemen from France made matters more sinister50 for Martin Valliant. Sir Gregory was a man of violent self-pride, obstinate as sin, and far more cruel.
He bearded John Falconer.
“A pretty chaplain you have found us! This fellow must go, or I’ll not answer for the men.”
“We owe him some gratitude51.”
“And for what? Bloodying52 our game for us? Dale was a fool in the beginning, and you have been little better than his shadow. I’ll have no women picking and choosing in my company.”
Falconer owned as rough a temper as this crop-headed <............