XXIX
WHAT SIMON FOUND IN THE FOREST
Simon made his way through the forest idly and at all adventure. He was trying to think what the world would have been like if a girl of the kind of Argathona had chosen to take him for mate. But by-and-by he found this manner of musing too melancholy, and did his best to banish it by pricking a lively interest in his surroundings, looking hither and thither at woodland sights that pleased him, reminding him of Normandy. So by degrees he made some way across the wood, steering, as he guessed, in the direction of the highway, when suddenly he became aware of something bright and golden glancing through the tree-trunks. Curious to see what that could be which glittered and twinkled so brilliantly through those sombre aisles, Simon pushed his way rapidly till he came to a little open space where the trees were thinner, and there he saw a strange sight.
From the boughs of one of the trees a man was hanging that was clad in coat of gold and had a cloth bound about the lower part of his face, but the man was not hanging free, for his feet were firmly planted on the saddle of a dappled horse that seemed to wait very contentedly beneath him. As Simon came into the clearing he saw the eyes of the poor wretch that was pinioned and gibbeted thus fixed upon him in the very eloquence of entreaty, and Simon's purpose was very instant to answer the appeal. He trod at a brisk trot across the interval of grass that divided him from the piteous fellow in that perilous pillory, and when he had come near him he coaxed and wooed the horse cunningly for a moment or so lest he should start and put his surmounter's neck in danger. But the horse stood still and allowed him to come close, and when he was hard by Simon caught at the bridle with a gentle firmness to stay the animal from stirring. Slipping the bridle over the hook of his left elbow, he clasped that arm around the legs of the pendulous fellow, while with his right hand he plucked his sword from its sheath and sheared at the rope that was about the pinioned man's neck. In another moment the captive was safe in his arms, and the next Simon had set him on his legs on the grass. Simon cut the bonds that bound his wrists, and then, pulling the gagging-cloth from the victim's face, recognized to his astonishment the page Bohemond, that was wont to wait so dapper and alert upon the Duchess of Thebes.
At first the poor lad could scarcely speak, but when he had wit and skill to articulate he cried in an awful voice: "The duchess, the duchess, where is the duchess?" Then it seemed as if he could say no more, but after Simon had plied him with a little of the scanty liquor that yet remained in his flagon the boy grew voluble, and told in scraps and tags of passion and anguish a most monstrous story.
It seemed that overnight the Duchess of Thebes had asked Ximenes to lend her men of the Catalan Grand Company for a certain purpose, and when he had refused her she bade Bohemond find for her the men she needed. What the duchess's purpose was Bohemond did not know, further than that he believed she wished to make sure of some enemy of hers that she held to be lurking in the secrecy of the Eleusinian wood. Chance had made Bohemond acquainted with a kind of freebooter whom, from the lad's description, Simon had little difficulty in recognizing as his one-time waylayer Captain Fox. This footpad promised to pick up a fellowship, and he kept his word. Early in the present morning Esclaramonde, with Bohemond for companion, slipped away from Athens, joined a band of six spadassins outside the walls, and rode for the forest, the duchess ahead in a rigid spirit of silence. At first all went well enough, though it showed strange to Bohemond to see his duchess travelling in the company of half a dozen ruffians. But it seemed that when the party had got within the confines of the wood the bearing of the men suddenly changed towards the lady that led them. The fellow that no doubt was Captain Fox had fallen somewhat behind as they rode with one of his pillagers. The pair kept whispering apart, and between them it is probable that they changed their plans from one crime to another crime. The first that Bohemond knew of their intent was when he suddenly found himself stricken from his horse by a brace of the knaves, while the rest of the malefactors set upon the duchess and snatched her from her saddle though she raged at them like a fury. Two of the miscreants dragged the screaming, struggling woman—whose clamor was now the more horrid in contrast with her former silence—into the wood, while Captain Fox gave the horses in charge of another, and bade the two that had hold of Bohemond to treat him in the fashion in which Simon had found him. "For," quoth the rogue, "I would not have the lad's blood on my hands, since he helped us to this booty, but if it pleases Heaven to hang him by spurring his horse to stir, why then let him swing for me." So Bohemond had remained there, for how long he knew not, standing on his steed that by the bounty of Providence was content to keep still until Simon came through the trees to save his rider.
All this amazing tale was blurted and stuttered out in gasps and spasms of speech, its hearer grasping at half words and interpreting much from little. Now when Simon had heard it, and it took but a few hot seconds in the telling, he saw one thing plain for him to do, which was to try to rescue the duchess, much as he hated her. Simon would willingly have left Bohemond behind, thinking him too pretty a stripling to be of grave use in a scuffle. But Bohemond would by no means be persuaded to stay, seeing which Simon liked his mettle and clapped him on the back. Then noting that the rogues had stolen the lad's sword, he lent him his great dagger. "For," said Simon, "if we find the fly-by-nights, you may busy yourself in putting out of their pain any that I chance to leave unfinished."
Now as they started on their search, which did not prove a long one, as you shall hear, Bohemond, babbling at his companion very incoherently, for he was weeping himself sick for his wicked mistress, told all that had chanced in Athens after the slaughter in the marsh. How of Duke Baldwin's knights only two came off with their lives that were made prisoners by special charge of Fernand Ximenes, and these twain were Count Ernault of Toulouse and Sir Jaufre de Brabant. How the Catalan Grand Company, marching on the track of the scattered army, entered the city of Athens unopposed and unimpeded. How the estates of the slain knights were divided among the followers of Ximenes and their women distributed among the victors, so that many a sturdy Catalan mercenary received for wife some noble lady for whom the day before the battle he would have counted it an honor to carry a basin for her washing of the hands. How Ximenes compelled the archbishop of Athens to wed him in state to Esclaramonde, insisting that she was a widow, which was, indeed, the common belief. Simon already knew how, on the morning after her latest marriage, Esclaramonde had left the city to seek for Argathona in the forest with the intent to slay her.
While Bohemond was moaning out his story Simon was using his eyes as well as his feet. Indeed, there was little difficulty for a keen campaigner in getting on the track of the duchess and her abductors. A scrap of silk clinging to a twig, and recognized by the page as being of the color of his lady's gown, first set them on a trail that thereafter proved easy to follow. Simon's keen glances could read the record of the journey in snapped branches and trampled grasses, even if his guesses had not been confirmed again and again by bits of silk and bits of lace and once a fallen pearl. So, going warily, Simon and Bohemond came by-and-by to the edge of a little hollow place in the thick of the trees, and there, looking down, saw that which would have made the boy cry aloud in rage but that Simon clapped his great hand over his loyal mouth and silenced him.
There was a single tree in the little hollow, and to that tree Esclaramonde was bound, quite naked, with her hair about her face. The six bandits were huddled together a little way from her, kneeling on their leader's mantle which was spread upon the grass, and all were intently absorbed in playing at dice. Simon was an old battle-hand, and such ugly sights were familiar enough, yet he could not help raging to think of that beautiful evil being as the prey of those filthy fingers. The boy's fury was not to be restrained, and, drawing his dagger, he began to spring down the slope regardless of odds. In a moment Simon was after him, and the astonished robbers, looking up from their sport, beheld a giant and a lad come thundering towards them. As they scrambled to their feet and snatched at their weapons their foes were close at hand. Simon was first in the field, his long legs outstripping Bohemond, and he was upon the desperadoes with his great sword sweeping and swinging like the sails of a windmill.
The caitiffs were six to one, or, at best, six to one and a quarter. For a lad with no more than a dagger was no match for the meanest of that gang, but for all their advantage they could make no head against the whirlwind assault of Simon. Two of the felons were headless before the band could rally, and now they were but four to two, for Bohemond had caught up a sword that had fallen from one of the dead scoundrels and showed that he knew how to handle it. Simon's mighty weapon rose and fell, and another of the rapscallions was despatched, while Bohemond wounded a fourth. Then, while the woman tied to the tree lifted her head and stared through her black hair at the battle, the three recreants turned and fled in different directions.
Captain Fox as he ran made for where the prisoner was pinioned, and before Simon could reach him he passed his sword through her body. Then, with his weapon red with the woman's blood, he turned on Simon, his face all warped and white, hideous with lust and hate and fear, and he began to scream out something to the effect that Simon should not have her; but he never finished the sentence, for Simon sliced him like a pear, and the sword bit to the breastbone. Wrenching his weapon free, Simon turned to where Bohemond was being pressed by the two remaining rogues, who, finding only a lad at their heels, had turned to tackle him. Again they fled, but Simon was swifter than they and slew them as they ran. Thus in a little pinch of time there were six dead men and one dying woman in that dismal hollow, where still the white dice shone ironically, scattered over the black mantle on the grass.
Simon unbound the duchess, for Bohemond, now that the fight was over, could do nothing but bite at his hands to keep himself from crying, and indeed she was a tragic sight with the blood dabbling her whiteness. Simon wrapped her decently and tenderly in a mantle, for, after all, she was a woman, and a dying woman, and he laid her gently on the grass. The simplest knowledge of wounds was sufficent to assure him that her hurt was mortal, and, indeed, in a few seconds she expired without having spoken a word. To the end of his days Simon, when he remembered that time, wondered what were the thoughts of the duchess as she peered through her hair at the battle.