Chapter 18

Both horses and men were fairly exhausted from the gruelling strain of many days of marching and fighting, so Norman of Torn went into camp that night; nor did he again take up his march until the second morning, three days after the battle of Lewes.

He bent his direction toward the north and Leicester's castle, where he had reason to believe he would find a certain young woman, and though it galled his sore heart to think upon the humiliation that lay waiting his coming, he could not do less than that which he felt his honor demanded.

Beside him on the march rode the fierce red giant, Shandy, and the wiry, gray little man of Torn, whom the outlaw called father.

In no way, save the gray hair and the parchment-surfaced skin, had the old fellow changed in all these years. Without bodily vices, and clinging ever to the open air and the exercise of the foil, he was still young in muscle and endurance.

For five years, he had not crossed foils with Norman of Torn, but he constantly practiced with the best swordsmen of the wild horde, so that it had become a subject often discussed among the men as to which of the two, father or son, was the greater swordsman.

Always taciturn, the old fellow rode in his usual silence. Long since had Norman of Torn usurped by the force of his strong character and masterful ways, the position of authority in the castle of Torn. The old man simply rode and fought with the others when it pleased him; and he had come on this trip because he felt that there was that impending for which he had waited over twenty years.

Cold and hard, he looked with no love upon the man he still called "my son." If he held any sentiment toward Norman of Torn, it was one of pride which began and ended in the almost fiendish skill of his pupil's mighty sword arm.

The little army had been marching for some hours when the advance guard halted a party bound south upon a crossroad. There were some twenty or thirty men, mostly servants, and a half dozen richly garbed knights.

As Norman of Torn drew rein beside them, he saw that the leader of the party was a very handsome man of about his own age, and evidently a person of distinction; a profitable prize, thought the outlaw.

"Who are you," said the gentleman, in French, "that stops a prince of France upon the highroad as though he were an escaped criminal ? Are you of the King's forces, or De Montfort's ?"

"Be this Prince Philip of France ?" asked Norman of Torn.

"Yes, but who be you ?"

"And be you riding to meet my Lady Bertrade de Montfort ?" continued the outlaw, ignoring the Prince's question.

"Yes, an it be any of your affair," replied Philip curtly.

"It be," said the Devil of Torn, "for I be a friend of My Lady Bertrade, and as the way be beset with dangers from disorganized bands of roving soldiery, it is unsafe for Monsieur le Prince to