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- Author: Edgar Rice Burroughs
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The room in which she was imprisoned was in the west tower of the castle, fully a hundred feet above the moat, which the single embrasure overlooked. There was, therefore, no avenue of escape in this direction. The solitary door was furnished with huge oaken bars, and itself composed of mighty planks of the same wood, cross barred with iron.
If she could but get the old woman out, thought Bertrade, she could barricade herself within and thus delay, at least, her impending fate in the hope that succor might come from some source. But her most subtle wiles proved ineffectual in ridding her, even for a moment, of her harpy jailer; and now that the final summons had come, she was beside herself for a lack of means to thwart her captor.
Her dagger had been taken from her, but one hung from the girdle of the old woman and this Bertrade determined to have.
Feigning trouble with the buckle of her own girdle, she called upon the old woman to aid her, and as the hag bent her head close to the girl’s body to see what was wrong with the girdle clasp, Bertrade reached quickly to her side and snatched the weapon from its sheath. Quickly she sprang back from the old woman who, with a cry of anger and alarm, rushed upon her.
“Back !” cried the girl. “Stand back, old hag, or thou shalt feel the length of thine own blade.”
The woman hesitated and then fell to cursing and blaspheming in a most horrible manner, at the same time calling for help.
Bertrade backed to the door, commanding the old woman to remain where she was, on pain of death, and quickly dropped the mighty bars into place. Scarcely had the last great bolt been slipped than Peter of Colfax, with a dozen servants and men-at-arms, were pounding loudly upon the outside.
“What’s wrong within, Coll,” cried the Baron.
“The wench has wrested my dagger from me and is murdering me,” shrieked the old woman.
“An’ that I will truly do, Peter of Colfax,” spoke Bertrade, “if you do not immediately send for my friends to conduct me from thy castle, for I will not step my foot from this room until I know that mine own people stand without.”
Peter of Colfax pled and threatened, commanded and coaxed, but all in vain. So passed the afternoon, and as darkness settled upon the castle the Baron desisted from his attempts, intending to starve his prisoner out.
Within the little room, Bertrade de Montfort sat upon a bench guarding her prisoner, from whom she did not dare move her eyes for a single second. All that long night she sat thus, and when morning dawned, it found her position unchanged, her tired eyes still fixed upon the hag.
Early in the morning, Peter of Colfax resumed his endeavors to persuade her to come out; he even admitted defeat and promised her safe conduct to her father’s castle, but Bertrade de Montfort was not one to be fooled by his lying tongue.
“Then will I starve you out,” he cried at length.
“Gladly will I starve in preference to falling into thy foul hands,” replied the girl. “But thy old servant here will starve first, for she be very old and not so strong as I. Therefore, how will it profit you to kill two and still be robbed of thy prey ?”
Peter of Colfax entertained no doubt but that his fair prisoner would carry out her threat and so he set his men to work with cold chisels, axes and saws upon the huge door.
For hours, they labored upon that mighty work of defence, and it was late at night ere they made a little opening large enough to admit a hand and arm, but the first one intruded within the room to raise the bars was drawn quickly back with a howl of pain from its owner. Thus the keen dagger in the girl’s hand put an end to all hopes of entering without completely demolishing the door.
To this work, the men without then set themselves diligently while Peter of Colfax renewed his entreaties, through the small opening they had made. Bertrade replied but once.
“Seest thou this poniard ?” she asked. “When that door falls, this point enters my heart. There is nothing beyond that door, with thou, poltroon, to which death in this little chamber would not be preferable.”
As she spoke, she turned toward the man she was addressing, for the first time during all those weary, hideous hours removing her glance from the old hag. It was enough. Silently, but with the quickness of a tigress the old woman was upon her back, one claw-like paw grasping the wrist which held the dagger.
“Quick, My Lord !” she shrieked, “the bolts, quick.”
Instantly Peter of Colfax ran his arm through the tiny opening in the door and a second later four of his men rushed to the aid of the old woman.
Easily they wrested the dagger from Bertrade’s fingers, and at the Baron’s bidding, they dragged her to the great hall below.
As his retainers left the room at his command, Peter of Colfax strode back and forth upon the rushes which strewed the floor. Finally he stopped before the girl standing rigid in the center of the room.
“Hast come to thy senses yet, Bertrade de Montfort ?” he asked angrily. “I have offered you your choice; to be the honored wife of Peter of Colfax, or, by force, his mistress. The good priest waits without, what be your answer now ?”
“The same as it has been these past two days,” she replied with haughty scorn. “The same that it shall always be. I will be neither wife nor mistress to a coward; a hideous, abhorrent pig of a man. I would die, it seems, if I felt the touch of your hand upon me. You do not dare to touch me, you craven. I, the daughter of an earl, the niece of a king, wed to the warty toad, Peter of Colfax !”
“Hold, chit !” cried the Baron, livid with rage. “You have gone too far. Enough of this; and you love me not now, I shall learn you to love ere the sun rises.” And with a vile oath he grasped the girl roughly by the arm, and dragged her toward the little doorway at the side of the room.
For three weeks after his meeting with Bertrade de Montfort and his sojourn at the castle of John de Stutevill, Norman of Torn was busy with his wild horde in reducing and sacking the castle of John de Grey, a royalist baron who had captured and hanged two of the outlaw’s fighting men; and never again after his meeting with the daughter of the chief of the barons did Norman of Torn raise a hand against the rebels or their friends.
Shortly after his return to Torn, following the successful outcome of his expedition, the watch upon the tower reported the approach of a dozen armed knights. Norman sent Red Shandy to the outer walls to learn the mission of the party, for visitors seldom came to this inaccessible and unhospitable fortress; and he well knew that no party of a dozen knights would venture with hostile intent within the clutches of his great band of villains.
The great red giant soon returned to say that it was Henry de Montfort, oldest son of the Earl of Leicester, who had come under a flag of truce and would have speech with the master of Torn.
“Admit them, Shandy,” commanded Norman of Torn, “I will speak with them here.”
When the party, a few moments later, was ushered into his presence it found itself facing a mailed knight with drawn visor.
Henry de Montfort advanced with haughty dignity until he faced the outlaw.
“Be ye Norman of Torn ?” he asked. And, did he try to conceal the hatred and loathing which he felt, he was poorly successful.
“They call me so,” replied the visored knight. “And what may bring a De Montfort after so many years to visit his old neighbor ?”
“Well ye know what brings me, Norman of Torn,” replied the young man. “It is useless to waste words, and we cannot resort to arms, for you have us entirely in your power. Name your price and it shall be paid, only be quick and let me hence with my sister.”
“What wild words be these, Henry de Montfort ? Your sister ! What mean you ?”
“Yes, my sister Bertrade, whom you stole upon the highroad two days since, after murdering the knights of John de Stutevill who were fetching her home from a visit upon the Baron’s daughter. We know that it was you for the foreheads of the dead men bore your devil’s mark.”
“Shandy !” roared Norman of Torn. “WHAT MEANS THIS ? Who has been upon the road, attacking women, in my absence ? You were here and in charge during my visit to my Lord de Grey. As you value your hide, Shandy, the truth !”
“Since you laid me low in the hut of the good priest, I have served you well, Norman of Torn. You should know my loyalty by this time and that never have I lied to you. No man of yours has done this thing, nor is it the first time that vile scoundrels have placed your mark upon their dead that they might thus escape suspicion, themselves.”
“Henry de Montfort,” said Norman of Torn, turning to his visitor, “we of Torn bear no savory name, that I know full well, but no man may say that we unsheath our swords against women. Your sister is not here. I give you the word of honor of Norman of Torn. Is it not enough ?”
“They say you never lie,” replied De Montfort. “Would to God I knew who had done this thing, or which way to search for my sister.”
Norman of Torn made no reply, his thoughts were in wild confusion, and it was with difficulty that he hid the fierce anxiety of his heart or his rage against the perpetrators of this dastardly act which tore his whole being.
In silence De Montfort turned and left, nor had his party scarce passed the drawbridge ere the castle of Torn was filled with hurrying men and the noise and uproar of a sudden call to arms.
Some thirty minutes later, five hundred iron-clad horses carried their mailed riders beneath the portcullis of the grim pile, and Norman the Devil, riding at their head, spurred rapidly in the direction of the castle of Peter of Colfax.
The great troop, winding down the rocky trail from Torn’s buttressed gates, presented a picture of wild barbaric splendor.
The armor of the men was of every style and metal from the ancient banded mail of the Saxon to the richly ornamented plate armor of Milan. Gold and silver and precious stones set in plumed crest and breastplate and shield, and even in the steel spiked chamfrons of the horses’ head armor showed the rich loot which had fallen to the portion of Norman of Torn’s wild raiders.
Fluttering pennons streamed from five hundred lance points, and the gray banner of Torn, with the black falcon’s wing, flew above each of the five companies. The great linden wood shields of the men were covered with gray leather and, in the upper right hand corner of each, was the black falcon’s wing. The surcoats of the riders were also uniform, being of dark gray villosa faced with black wolf skin, so that notwithstanding the richness of
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