The Outlaw of Torn
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Edgar Rice Burroughs >> The Outlaw of Torn
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15 EDGAR RICE BURROUGHS
THE OUTLAW OF TORN
To My Friend
JOSEPH E. BRAY
CHAPTER I
HERE is a story that has lain dormant for seven hun-
dred years. At first it was suppressed by one of the
Plantagenet kings of England. Later it was forgotten. I
happened to dig it up by accident. The accident being
the relationship of my wife's cousin to a certain Father
Superior in a very ancient monastery in Europe.
He let me pry about among a quantity of mildewed
and musty manuscripts and I came across this. It is
very interesting--partially since it is a bit of hitherto
unrecorded history, but principally from the fact that it
records the story of a most remarkable revenge and the
adventurous life of its innocent victim--Richard, the
lost prince of England.
In the retelling of it I have left out most of the history.
What interested me was the unique character about
whom the tale revolves--the visored horseman who--
but let us wait until we get to him.
It all happened in the thirteenth century, and while
it was happening it shook England from north to south
and from east to west; and reached across the channel
and shook France. It started, directly, in the London
palace of Henry III, and was the result of a quarrel
between the King and his powerful brother-in-law, Si-
mon de Montfort, Earl of Leicester.
Never mind the quarrel, that's history, and you can
read all about it at your leisure. But on this June day in
the year of our Lord 1243, Henry so forgot himself as
to very unjustly accuse De Montfort of treason in the
presence of a number of the King's gentlemen.
De Montfort paled. He was a tall, handsome man,
and when he drew himself to his full height and turned
those gray eyes on the victim of his wrath, as he did
that day, he was very imposing. A power in England,
second only to the King himself, and with the heart of
a lion in him, he answered the King as no other man
in all England would have dared answer him.
"My Lord King," he cried, "that you be my Lord
King alone prevents Simon de Montfort from demand-
ing satisfaction for such a gross insult. That you take
advantage of your kingship to say what you would
never dare say were you not king, brands me not a
traitor, though it does brand you a coward."
Tense silence fell upon the little company of lords
and courtiers as these awful words fell from the lips of
a subject, addressed to his king. They were horrified,
for De Montfort's bold challenge was to them but little
short of sacrilege.
Henry, flushing in mortification and anger, rose to
advance upon De Montfort, but suddenly recollecting
the power which he represented, he thought better of
whatever action he contemplated, and with a haughty
sneer turned to his courtiers.
"Come, my gentlemen," he said, "methought that we
were to have a turn with the foils this morning. Already
it waxeth late. Come, De Fulm! Come, Leybourn!" and
the King left the apartment followed by his gentlemen,
all of whom had drawn away from the Earl of Leicester
when it became apparent that the royal displeasure was
strong against him. As the arras fell behind the depart-
ing King, De Montfort shrugged his broad shoulders,
and turning, left the apartment by another door.
When the King, with his gentlemen, entered the
armory he was still smarting from the humiliation of
De Montfort's reproaches, and as he laid aside his sur-
coat and plumed hat to take the foils with De Fulm
his eyes alighted on the master of fence, Sir Jules de
Vac, who was advancing with the King's foil and helmet.
Henry felt in no mood for fencing with De Fulm, who,
like the other sycophants that surrounded him, always
allowed the King easily to best him in every encounter.
De Vac he knew to be too jealous of his fame as a
swordsman to permit himself to be overcome by aught
but superior skill, and this day Henry felt that he could
best the devil himself.
The armory was a great room on the main floor of
the palace, off the guard room. It was built in a small
wing of the building so that it had light from three
sides. In charge of it was the lean, grizzled, leather-
skinned Sir Jules de Vac, and it was he whom Henry
commanded to face him in mimic combat with the foils,
for the King wished to go with hammer and tongs at
someone to vent his suppressed rage.
So he let De Vac assume to his mind's eye the person
of the hated De Montfort, and it followed that De Vac
was nearly surprised into an early and mortifying defeat
by the King's sudden and clever attack.
Henry III had always been accounted a good swords-
man, but that day he quite outdid himself, and in his
imagination was about to run the pseudo De Montfort
through the heart, to the wild acclaim of his audience.
For this fell purpose he had backed the astounded De
Vac twice around the hall when, with a clever feint,
and backward step, the master of fence drew the King
into the position he wanted him, and with the sudden-
ness of lightning, a little twist of his foil sent Henry's
weapon clanging across the floor of the armory.
For an instant the King stood as tense and white as
though the hand of death had reached out and touched
his heart with its icy fingers. The episode meant more
to him than being bested in play by the best swordsman
in England--for that surely was no disgrace--to Henry
it seemed prophetic of the outcome of a future struggle
when he should stand face to face with the real De
Montfort; and then, seeing in De Vac only the creature
of his imagination with which he had vested the like-
ness of his powerful brother-in-law, Henry did what he
should like to have done to the real Leicester. Drawing
off his gauntlet he advanced close to De Vac.
"Dog!" he hissed, and struck the master of fence a
stinging blow across the face, and spat upon him. Then
he turned on his heel and strode from the armory.
De Vac had grown old in the service of the kings of
England, but he hated all things English and all Eng-
lishmen. The dead King John, though hated by all
others, he had loved, but with the dead King's bones
De Vac's loyalty to the house he served had been buried
in the Cathedral of Worcester.
During the years he had served as master of fence at
the English Court the sons of royalty had learned to
thrust and parry and cut as only De Vac could teach the
art; and he had been as conscientious in the discharge
of his duties as he had been in his unswerving hatred
and contempt for his pupils.
And now the English King had put upon him such
an insult as might only be wiped out by blood.
As the blow fell the wiry Frenchman clicked his heels
together, and throwing down his foil, he stood erect and
rigid as a marble statue before his master. White and
livid was his tense drawn face, but he spoke no word.
He might have struck the King, but then there would
have been left to him no alternative save death by his
own hand; for a king may not fight with a lesser mor-
tal, and he who strikes a king may not live--the king's
honor must be satisfied.
Had a French king struck him De Vac would have
struck back, and gloried in the fate which permitted
him to die for the honor of France; but an English King
--pooh! a dog; and who would die for a dog? No, De
Vac would find other means of satisfying his wounded
pride, he would revel in revenge against this man for
whom he felt no loyalty. If possible, he would harm
the whole of England if he could, but he would bide
his time. He could afford to wait for his opportunity
if by waiting he could encompass a more terrible re-
venge.
De Vac had been born in Paris, the son of a French
officer reputed the best swordsman in France. The son
had followed closely in the footsteps of his father until
on the latter's death, he could easily claim the title of
his sire. How he had left France and entered the ser-
vice of John of England is not of this story. All the bear-
ing that the life of Jules de Vac has upon the history
of England hinges upon but two of his many attributes
--his wonderful swordsmanship and his fearful hatred
for his adopted country.
CHAPTER II
SOUTH of the armory of Westminster Palace lay the
gardens, and here, on the third day following the King's
affront to De Vac, might have been a seen a black-
haired woman gowned in a violet cyclas, richly em-
broidered with gold about the yoke and at the bottom
of the loose-pointed sleeves, which reached almost to
the similar bordering on the lower hem of the garment.
A richly wrought leathern girdle, studded with precious
stones, and held in place by a huge carved buckle of
gold, clasped the garment about her waist so that the
upper portion fell outward over the girdle after the
manner of a blouse. In the girdle was a long dagger
of beautiful workmanship. Dainty sandals encased her
feet, while a wimple of violet silk bordered in gold
fringe, lay becomingly over her head and shoulders.
By her side walked a handsome boy of about three,
clad, like his companion, in gay colors. His tiny surcoat
of scarlet velvet was rich with embroidery, while be-
neath was a close-fitting tunic of white silk. His doublet
was of scarlet, while his long hose of white were cross-
gartered with scarlet from his tiny sandals to his knees.
On the back of his brown curls sat a flat-brimmed,
round-crowned hat in which a single plume of white
waved and nodded bravely at each move of the proud
little head.
The child's features were well molded, and his frank,
bright eyes gave an expression of boyish generosity to
a face which otherwise would have been too arrogant
and haughty for such a mere baby. As he talked with
his companion, little flashes of peremptory authority
and dignity, which sat strangely upon one so tiny,
caused the young woman at times to turn her head
from him that he might not see the smiles which she
could scarce repress.
Presently the boy took a ball from his tunic, and,
pointing at a little bush near them, said, "Stand you
there, Lady Maud, by yonder bush, I would play at
toss."
The young woman did as she was bid, and when she
had taken her place and turned to face him the boy
threw the ball to her. Thus they played beneath the
windows of the armory, the boy running blithely after
the ball when he missed it, and laughing and shouting
in happy glee when he made a particularly good catch.
In one of the windows of the armory overlooking the
garden stood a grim, gray, old man, leaning upon his
folded arms, his brows drawn together in a malignant
scowl, the corners of his mouth set in a stern, cold line.
He looked upon the garden and the playing child,
and upon the lovely young woman beneath him, but
with eyes which did not see, for De Vac was working
out a great problem, the greatest of all his life.
For three days the old man had brooded over his
grievance, seeking for some means to be revenged upon
the King for the insult which Henry had put upon him.
Many schemes had presented themselves to his shrewd
and cunning mind, but so far all had been rejected as
unworthy of the terrible satisfaction which his wounded
pride demanded.
His fancies had for the most part revolved about the
unsettled political conditions of Henry's reign, for from
these he felt he might wrest that opportunity which
could be turned to his own personal uses and to the
harm, and possibly the undoing, of the King.
For years an inmate of the palace, and often a listen-
er in the armory when the King played at sword with
his friends and favorites, De Vac had heard much
which passed between Henry III and his intimates that
could well be turned to the King's harm by a shrewd
and resourceful enemy.
With all England he knew the utter contempt in
which Henry held the terms of the Magna Charta
which he so often violated along with his kingly oath
to maintain it. But what all England did not know De
Vac had gleaned from scraps of conversation dropped
in the armory: that Henry was even now negotiating
with the leaders of foreign mercenaries, and with Louis
IX of France, for a sufficient force of knights and men-
at-arms to wage a relentless war upon his own barons
that he might effectively put a stop to all future inter-
ference by them with the royal prerogative of the Plan-
tagenets to misrule England.
If he could but learn the details of this plan, thought
De Vac: the point of landing of the foreign troops;
their numbers; the first point of attack. Ah, would it
not be sweet revenge indeed to balk the King in this
venture so dear to his heart!
A word to De Clare, or De Montfort would bring
the barons and their retainers forty thousand strong to
overwhelm the King's forces.
And he would let the King know to whom, and for
what cause, he was beholden for his defeat and dis-
comfiture. Possibly the barons would depose Henry,
and place a new king upon England's throne, and then
De Vac would mock the Plantagenet to his face. Sweet,
kind, delectable vengeance, indeed! and the old man
licked his thin lips as though to taste the last sweet
vestige of some dainty morsel.
And then Chance carried a little leather ball beneath
the window where the old man stood; and as the child
ran, laughing, to recover it, De Vac's eyes fell upon him,
and his former plan for revenge melted as the fog
before the noonday sun; and in its stead there opened
to him the whole hideous plot of fearsome vengeance
as clearly as it were writ upon the leaves of a great
book that had been thrown wide before him. And, in
so far as he could direct, he varied not one jot from
the details of that vividly conceived masterpiece of
hellishness during the twenty years which followed.
The little boy who so innocently played in the garden
of his royal father was Prince Richard, the three-year-
old son of Henry III of England. No published history
mentions this little lost prince; only the secret archives
of the kings of England tell the story of his strange
and adventurous life. His name has been blotted from
the records of men; and the revenge of De Vac has
passed from the eyes of the world; though in his time it
was a real and terrible thing in the hearts of the Eng-
lish.
CHAPTER III
FOR nearly a month the old man haunted the palace,
and watched in the gardens for the little Prince until
he knew the daily routine of his tiny life with his nurses
and governesses.
He saw that when the Lady Maud accompanied him
they were wont to repair to the farthermost extremities
of the palace grounds where, by a little postern gate,
she admitted a certain officer of the Guards to whom
the Queen had forbidden the privilege of the court.
There, in a secluded bower, the two lovers whispered
their hopes and plans, unmindful of the royal charge
playing neglected among the flowers and shrubbery of
the garden.
Toward the middle of July De Vac had his plans
well laid. He had managed to coax old Brus, the gar-
dener, into letting him have the key to the little postern
gate on the plea that he wished to indulge in a mid-
night escapade, hinting broadly of a fair lady who
was to be the partner of his adventure, and, what was
more to the point with Brus, at the same time slipping
a couple of golden zecchins into the gardener's palm.
Brus, like the other palace servants, considered De
Vac a loyal retainer of the house of Plantagenet. What-
ever else of mischief De Vac might be up to, Brus was
quite sure that in so far as the King was concerned, the
key to the postern gate was as safe in De Vac's hands
as though Henry himself had it.
The old fellow wondered a little that the morose
old master of fence should, at his time in life, indulge
in frivolous escapades more befitting the younger sprigs
of gentility, but, then, what concern was it of his? Did
he not have enough to think about to keep the gardens
so that his royal master and mistress might find pleas-
ure in the shaded walks, the well-kept sward, and the
gorgeous beds of foliage plants and blooming flowers
which he set with such wondrous precision in the formal
garden?
Further, two gold zecchins were not often come by
so easily as this; and if the dear Lord Jesus saw fit, in
his infinite wisdom, to take this means of rewarding his
poor servant it ill became such a worm as he to ignore
the divine favor. So Brus took the gold zecchins and
De Vac the key, and the little prince played happily
among the flowers of his royal father's garden, and all
were satisfied; which was as it should have been.
That night De Vac took the key to a locksmith on the
far side of London; one who could not possibly know
him or recognize the key as belonging to the palace.
Here he had a duplicate made, waiting impatiently
while the old man fashioned it with the crude instru-
ments of his time.
From this little shop De Vac threaded his way
through the dirty lanes and alleys of ancient London,
lighted at far intervals by an occasional smoky lantern,
until he came to a squalid tenement but a short distance
from the palace.
A narrow alley ran past the building, ending abruptly
at the bank of the Thames in a moldering wooden dock,
beneath which the inky waters of the river rose and fell,
lapping the decaying piles and surging far beneath the
dock to the remote fastnesses inhabited by the great
fierce dock rats and their fiercer human antitypes.
Several times De Vac paced the length of this black
alley in search of the little doorway of the building he
sought. At length he came upon it, and, after repeated
pounding with the pommel of his sword, it was opened
by a slatternly old hag.
"What would ye of a decent woman at such an un-
godly hour?" she grumbled. "Ah, 'tis ye, my lord?" she
added, hastily, as the flickering rays of the candle she
bore lighted up De Vac's face. "Welcome, my Lord,
thrice welcome. The daughter of the devil welcomes
her brother."
"Silence, old hag," cried De Vac. "Is it not enough
that you leech me of good marks of such a quantity
that you may ever after wear mantles of villosa and
feast on simnel bread and malmsey, that you must
needs burden me still further with the affliction of thy
vile tongue?
"Hast thou the clothes ready bundled and the key,
also, to this gate to perdition? And the room: didst set
to rights the furnishings I had delivered here, and
sweep the century-old accumulation of filth and cob-
webs from the floor and rafters? Why, the very air
reeked of the dead Romans who builded London twelve
hundred years ago. Methinks, too, from the stink, they
must have been Roman swineherd who habited this sty
with their herds, an' I venture that thou, old sow, hast
never touched broom to the place for fear of disturb-
ing the ancient relics of thy kin."
"Cease thy babbling, Lord Satan," cried the woman.
"I would rather hear thy money talk than thou, for
though it come accursed and tainted from thy rogue
hand, yet it speaks with the same sweet and command-
ing voice as it were fresh from the coffers of the holy
church.
"The bundle is ready," she continued, closing the
door after De Vac, who had now entered, "and here be
the key; but first let us have a payment. I know not
what thy foul work may be, but foul it is I know from
the secrecy which you have demanded, an' I dare say
there will be some who would pay well to learn the
whereabouts of the old woman and the child, thy sister
and her son you tell me they be, who you are so anxious
to hide away in old Til's garret. So it be well for you,
my Lord, to pay old Til well and add a few guilders
for the peace of her tongue if you would that your
prisoner find peace in old Til's house."
"Fetch me the bundle, hag," replied De Vac, "and
you shall have gold against a final settlement; more
even than we bargained for if all goes well and thou
holdest thy vile tongue."
But the old woman's threats had already caused De
Vac a feeling of uneasiness, which would have been
reflected to an exaggerated degree in the old woman
had she known the determination her words had caused
in the mind of the old master of fence.
His venture was far too serious, and the results of
exposure too fraught with danger, to permit of his tak-
ing any chances with a disloyal fellow-conspirator. True,
he had not even hinted at the enormity of the plot in
which he was involving the old woman, but, as she
had said, his stern commands for secrecy had told
enough to arouse her suspicions, and with them her
curiosity and cupidity. So it was that old Til might
well have quailed in her tattered sandals had she but
even vaguely guessed the thoughts which passed in De
Vac's mind; but the extra gold pieces he dropped into
her withered palm as she delivered the bundle to him,
together with the promise of more, quite effectually
won her loyalty and her silence for the time being.
Slipping the key into the pocket of his tunic and
covering the bundle with his long surcoat, De Vac
stepped out into the darkness of the alley and hastened
toward the dock.
Beneath the planks he found a skiff which he had
moored there earlier in the evening, and underneath
one of the thwarts he hid the bundle. Then, casting off,
he rowed slowly up the Thames until, below the palace
walls, he moored near to the little postern gate which
let into the lower end of the garden.
Hiding the skiff as best he could in some tangled
bushes which grew to the water's edge, set there by
order of the King to add to the beauty of the aspect
from the river side, De Vac crept warily to the postern
and, unchallenged, entered and sought his apartments
in the palace.
The next day he returned the original key to Brus,
telling the old man that he had not used it after all,
since mature reflection had convinced him of the folly
of his contemplated adventure, especially in one whose
youth was past, and in whose joints the night damp of
the Thames might find lodgement for rheumatism.
"Ha, Sir Jules," laughed the old gardener, "Virtue
and Vice be twin sisters who come running to do the
bidding of the same father, Desire. Were there no
desire there would be no virtue, and because one man
desires what another does not, who shall say whether
the child of his desire be vice or virtue? Or on the other
hand if my friend desires his own wife and if that be
virtue, then if I also desire his wife, is not that likewise
virtue, since we desire the same thing? But if to obtain
our desire it be necessary to expose our joints to the
Thames' fog then it were virtue to remain at home."
"Right you sound, old mole," said De Vac, smiling,
"would that I might learn to reason by your wondrous
logic; methinks it might stand me in good stead before
I be much older."
"The best sword arm in all Christendom needs no
other logic than the sword, I should think," said Brus,
returning to his work.
That afternoon De Vac stood in a window of the
armory looking out upon the beautiful garden which
spread before him to the river wall two hundred yards
away. In the foreground were box-bordered walks,
smooth, sleek lawns, and formal beds of gorgeous flow-
ering plants, while here and there marble statues of
wood nymph and satyr gleamed, sparkling in the bril-
liant sunlight, or, half shaded by an overhanging bush,
took on a semblance of life from the riotous play of
light and shadow as the leaves above them moved to
and fro in the faint breeze. Farther in the distance the
river wall was hidden by more closely massed bushes,
and the formal, geometric precision of the nearer view
was relieved by a background of vine-colored bowers,
and a profusion of small trees and flowering shrubs
arranged in studied disorder.
Through this seeming jungle ran tortuous paths, and
the carved stone benches of the open garden gave place
to rustic seats, and swings suspended from the branches
of fruit trees.
Toward this enchanting spot slowly were walking the
Lady Maud and her little charge, Prince Richard; all
ignorant of the malicious watcher in the window be-
hind them.
A great peacock strutted proudly across the walk be-
fore them, and, as Richard ran, childlike, after it, Lady
Maud hastened on to the little postern gate which she
quickly unlocked admitting her lover who had been
waiting without. Relocking the gate the two strolled
arm in arm to the little bower which was their trysting
place.
As the lovers talked, all self-engrossed, the little
Prince played happily about among the trees and flow-
ers, and none saw the stern, determined face which
peered through the foliage at a little distance from the
playing boy.
Richard was devoting his royal energies to chasing an
elusive butterfly which fate led nearer and nearer to the
cold, hard watcher in the bushes. Closer and closer
came the little Prince, and in another moment he had
burst through the flowering shrubs, and stood facing
the implacable master of fence.
"Your Highness," said De Vac, bowing to the little
fellow, "let old De Vac help you catch the pretty insect."
Richard, having often seen De Vac, did not fear him,
and so together they started in pursuit of the butter-
fly which by now had passed out of sight. De Vac
turned their steps toward the little postern gate, but
when he would have passed through with the tiny
Prince the latter rebelled.
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