CHAPTER XLIII. FACE-OF-GOD LOOKETH ON SILVER-DALE: THE BOWMEN’S BATTLE.
THERE then they rested, as folk wearied with the toilsome journey, whenthey had set sure watches round about their campment; and they atequietly what meat they had with them, and so gat them to sleep in thewood on the eve of battle.
But not all slept; for the two captains went about amongst the companies,Folk-might to the east, Face-of-god to the west, to look to the watches,and to see that all was ordered duly. Also the Sun-beam slept not, butshe lay beside Bow-may at the foot of an oak-tree; she watchedFace-of-god as he went away amidst the men of the Host, and watched andwaked abiding his returning footsteps.
The night was well worn by then he came back to his place in the vanward,and on his way back he passed through the folk of the Steer laid along onthe grass, all save those of the watch, and the light of the moon highaloft was mingled with the light of the earliest dawn; and as it happedhe looked down, and lo! close to his feet the face of the Bride as shelay beside her grand-sire, her head pillowed on a bundle of bracken. Shewas sleeping soundly like a child who has been playing all day, and whosesleep has come to him unsought and happily. Her hands were laid togetherby her side; her cheek was as fair and clear as it was wont to be at herbest; her face looked calm and happy, and a lock of her dark-red hairstrayed from her uncovered head over her breast and lay across herwrists, so peacefully she slept.
Face-of-god turned his eyes from her at once, and went by swiftly, andcame to his own company. The Sun-beam saw him coming, and rosestraightway to her feet from beside Bow-may, who lay fast asleep, and sheheld out her hands to him; and he took them and kissed them, and he casthis arms about her and kissed her mouth and her face, and she his inlikewise; and she said:
‘O Gold-mane, if this were but the morrow of to-morrow! Yet shall all bewell; shall it not?’
Her voice was low, but it waked Bow-may, who sat up at once broad awake,after the manner of a hunter of the waste ever ready for the next thingto betide, and moreover the Sun-beam had been in her thoughts these twodays, and she feared for her, lest she should be slain or maimed. Nowshe smiled on the Sun-beam and said:
‘What is it? Does thy mind forebode evil? That needeth not. I tellthee it is not so ill for us of the sword to be in Silver-dale. Thricehave I been there since the Overthrow, and never more than a half-scorein company, and yet am I whole to-day.’
‘Yea, sister,’ said Face-of-god, ‘but in past times ye did your deed andthen fled away; but now we come to abide here, and this night is the lastof lurking.’
‘Ah,’ she said, ‘a little way from this I saw such things that we hadgood will to abide here longer, few as we were, but that we feared to betaken alive.’
‘What things were these?’ said Face-of-god.
‘Nay,’ she said, ‘I will not tell thee now; but mayhap in the lightedwinter feast-hall, when the kindred are so nigh us and about us that theyseem to us as if they were all the world, I may tell it thee; or mayhap Inever shall.’
Said the Sun-beam, smiling: ‘Thou wilt ever be talking, Bow-may. Now letthe War-leader depart, for he will have much to do.’
And she was well at ease that she had seen Face-of-god again; but hesaid:
‘Nay, not so much; all is well-nigh done; in an hour it will be broadday, and two hours thereafter shall the Banner be displayed on the edgeof Silver-dale.’
The cheek of the Sun-beam flushed, and paled again, as she said: ‘Yea, weshall stand even as our Fathers stood on the day when, coming from offthe waste, they beheld it, and knew it would be theirs. Ah me! how haveI longed for this morn. But now—Tell me, Gold-mane, dost thou deem thatI am afraid? And I whom thou hast deemed to be a God.’
Quoth Bow-may: ‘Thou shalt deem her twice a God ere noon-tide, brotherGold-mane. But come now! the hour of deadly battle is at hand, and wemay not laugh that away; and therefore I bid thee remember, Gold-mane,how thou didst promise to kiss me once more on the verge of deadlybattle.’
Therewith she stood up before him, and he tarried not, but kind andsmiling took her face between his two hands and kissed her lips, and shecast her arms about him and kissed him, and then sank down on the grassagain, and turned from him, and laid her face amongst the grass and thebracken, and they could see that she was weeping, and her body was shakenwith sobs. But the Sun-beam knelt down to her, and caressed her with herhand, and spake kind words to her softly, while Face-of-god went his waysto meet Folk-might.
Now was the dawn fading into full daylight; and between dawn and sunrisewere all men stirring; for the watch had waked the hundred-leaders, andthey the leaders of scores and half-scores, and they the whole folk; andthey sat quietly in the wood and made no noise.
In the night the watch of the Sickle had fallen in with a thrall who hadstolen up from the Dale to set gins for hares, and now in the earlymorning they brought him to the War-leader. He was even such a man asthose with whom Face-of-god had fallen in before, neither better norworse than most of them: he was sore afraid at first, but by then he wascome to the captains he understood that he had happened upon friends; buthe was dull of comprehension and slow of speech. Albeit Folk-mightgathered from him that the Dusky Men had some inkling of the onslaught;for he said that they had been gathering together in the marketplace ofSilver-stead, and would do so again soon. Moreover, the captains deemedfrom his speech that those new tribes had come to hand sooner than waslooked for, and were even now in the Dale. Folk-might smiled as one whois not best pleased when he heard these tidings; but Face-of-god was gladto hear thereof; for what he loathed most was that the war should dragout in hunting of scattered bands of the foe. Herewith came Dallach tothem as they talked (for Face-of-god had sent for him), and he fell toquestioning the man further; by whose answers it seemed that many menalso had come into the Dale from Rose-dale, so that they of the kindredswere like to have their hands full. Lastly Dallach drew from the thrallthat it was on that very morning that the great Folk-mote of the DuskyMen should be holden in the market-place of the Stead, which was rightgreat, and about it were the biggest of the houses wherein the men of thekindred had once dwelt.
So when they had made an end of questioning the thrall, and had given himmeat and drink, they asked him if he would take weapons in his hand andlead them on the ways into the Dale, bidding him look about the wood andnote how great and mighty an host they were. And the carle yeasaid this,after staring about him a while, and they gave him spear and shield, andhe went with the vanward as a way-leader.
Again presently came a watch of the Shepherds, and they had found a manand a woman dead and stark naked hanging to the boughs of a greatoak-tree deep in the wood. This men knew for some vengeance of the DuskyMen, for it was clear to see that these poor people had been sorelytormented before they were slain. Also the same watch had stumbled onthe dead body of an old woman, clad in rags, lying amongst the rank grassabout a little flow; she was exceeding lean and hunger-starved, and inher hand was a frog which she had half eaten. And Dallach, when he heardof this, said that it was the wont of the Dusky Men to slay their thrallswhen they were past work, or to drive them into the wilderness to die.
Lastly came a watch from the men of the Face, having with them two morethralls, lusty young men; these they had come upon in company of theirmaster, who had brought them up into the wood to shoot him a buck, andtherefore they bare bows and arrows. The watch had slain the masterstraightway while the thralls stood looking on. They were much afraid ofthe weaponed men, but answered to the questioning much readier than thefirst man; for they were household thralls, and better fed and clad thanhe, who was but a toiler in the fields. They yeasaid all his tale, andsaid moreover that the Folk-mote of the Dusky Men should be holden in themarket-place that forenoon, and that most of the warriors should bethere, both the new-comers and the Rose-dale lords, and that withoutdoubt they should be under arms.
To these men also they gave a good sword and a helm each, and bade thembe brisk with their b
ows, and they said yea to marching with the Host;and indeed they feared nothing so much as being left behind; for if theyfell into the hands of the Dusky Men, and their master missing, theyshould first be questioned with torments, and then slain in the evillestmanner.
Now whereas things had thus betid, and that they knew thus much of theirfoemen, Face-of-god called all the chieftains together, and they sat onthe green grass and held counsel amongst them, and to one and all itseemed good that they should suffer the Dusky Men to gather togetherbefore they meddled with them, and then fall upon them in such order andsuch time as should seem good to the captains watching how things went;and this would be easy, whereas they were all lying in the wood in thesame order as they would stand in battle-array if they were all drawn uptogether on the brow of the hill. Albeit Face-of-god deemed it good,after he had heard all that they who had been in the Stead could tell himthereof, that the Shepherd-Folk, who were more than three long hundreds,and they of the Steer, the Bridge, and the Bull, four hundreds in all,should take their places eastward of the Woodlanders who had led thevanward.
Straightway the word was borne to these men, and the shift was made: sothat presently the Woodlanders were amidmost of the Host, and had withthem on their right hands the Men of the Steer, the Bridge, and the Bull,and beyond them the Shepherd-Folk. But on their left hand lay the Men ofthe Vine, then they of the Sickle, and lastly the Men of the Face, andthese three kindreds were over five hundreds of warriors: as for the Menof the Wolf, they abode at first with those companies which they had ledthrough the wastes, though this was changed afterwards.
All this being done, Face-of-god gave out that all men should break theirfast in peace and leisure; and while men were at their meat, Folk-mightspake to Face-of-god and said: ‘Come, brother, for I would show thee agoodly thing; and thou, Dallach, come with us.’
Then he brought them by paths in the wood till Face-of-god saw the skyshine white between the tree-boles, and in a little while they were comewell-nigh out of the thicket, and then they went warily; for before themwas nought but the slopes of Wood-dale, going down steeply intoSilver-dale, with nought to hinder the sight of it, save here and therebushes or scattered trees; and so fair and lovely it was that Face-of-godcould scarce forbear to cry out. He saw that it was only at the upper oreastern end, where the mountains of the Waste went round about it, thatthe Dale was narrow; it soon widened out toward the west, and for themost part was encompassed by no such straight-sided a wall as wasBurgdale, but by sloping hills and bents, mostly indeed somewhat higherand steeper than the pass wherein they were, but such as men could wellclimb if they had a mind to, and there were any end to their journey.The Dale went due west a good way, and then winded about to thesouthwest, and so was hidden from them thereaway by the bents that lay ontheir left hand. As it was wider, so it was not so plain a ground as wasBurgdale, but rose in knolls and little hills here and there. A rivergreater than the Weltering Water wound about amongst the said mounds; andalong the side of it out in the open dale were many goodly houses andhomesteads of stone. The knolls were mostly covered over with vines, andthere were goodly and great trees in groves and clumps, chiefly oak andsweet chestnut and linden; many were the orchards, now in blossom, aboutthe homesteads; the pastures of the neat and horses spread out brightgreen up from the water-side, and deeper green showed the acres of thewheat on the lower slopes of the knolls, and in wide fields away from theriver.
Just below the pitch of the hill whereon they were, lay Silver-stead, thetown of the Dale. Hitherto it had been an unfenced place; but Folk-mightpointed to where on the western side a new white wall was rising, and onwhich, young as the day yet was, men were busy laying the stones andspreading the mortar. Fair seemed that town to Face-of-god: the houseswere all builded of stone, and some of the biggest were roofed with lead,which also as well as silver was dug out of the mountains at the easternend of the Dale. The market-place was clear to see from where theystood, though there were houses on all sides of it, so wide it was. Fromtheir standing-place it was but three furlongs to this heart ofSilver-dale; and Face-of-god could see brightly-clad men moving about init already. High above their heads he beheld two great clots of scarletand yellow raised on poles and pitched in front of a great stone-builthall roofed with lead, which stood amidmost of the west end of the Place,and betwixt those poles he saw on a mound with long slopes at its sidessomewhat of white stone, and amidmost of the whole Place a great stack offaggot-wood built up four-square. Those red and yellow things on thepoles he deemed would be the banners of the murder-carles; and Folk-mighttold him that even so it was, and that they were but big bunches ofstrips of woollen cloth, much like to great ragmops, save that the ragswere larger and longer: no other token of war, said Folk-might, did thosefolk carry, save a crookbladed sword, smeared with man’s blood, andbigger than any man might wield in battle.
‘Art thou far-seeing, War-leader?’ quoth he. ‘What canst thou see in themarket-place?’
Said Face-of-god: ‘Far-seeing am I above most men, and I see in the Placea man in scarlet standing by the banner, which is pitched in front of thegreat stone hall, near to the mound with the white stone on it; andmeseemeth he beareth a great horn in his hand.’
Said Folk-might: ‘Yea, and that stone hall was our Mote-house when wewere lords of the Dale, and thence it was that they who are now thrallsof the Dusky Men sent to them their message and token of yielding. Andas for that white stone, it is the altar of their god; for they have butone, and he is that same crook-bladed sword. And now that I look, I seea great stack of wood amidmost the market-place, and well I know whatthat betokeneth.’
‘Lo you!’ said Face-of-god, ‘the man with the horn is gone up on to thealtar-mound, and meseemeth he is setting the little end of the horn tohis mouth.’
‘Hearken then!’ said Folk-might. And in a moment came the hoarsetuneless sound of the horn down the wind towards them; and Folk-mightsaid:
‘I deem I should know what that blast meaneth; and now is it time thatthe Host drew nigher to set them in array behind these very trees. Butif ye will, War-leader, we will abide here and watch the ways of thefoemen, and send Dallach with the word to the Host; also I would havethee suffer me to bid hither at once two score and ten of the best of thebowmen of our folk and the Woodlanders, and Wood-wise to lead them, forhe knoweth well the land hereabout, and what is good to do.’
‘It is good,’ said Face-of-god. ‘Be speedy, Dallach!’
So Dallach departed, running lightly, and the two chiefs abode there; andthe horn in Silver-stead blew at whiles for a little, and then stayed;and Folk-might said:
‘Lo you! they come flockmeal to the Mote-stead; the Place will be filledere long.’
Said Face-of-god: ‘Will they make offerings to their god at the hallowingin of their Folk-mote? Where then are the slaughter-beasts?’
‘They shall not long be lacking,’ said Folk-might. ‘See you it isgetting thronged about the altar and the Mote-house.’
Now there were four ways into the Market-place of Silver-stead turnedtoward the four aírts, and the midmost of the kindreds’ battle lookedright down the southern one, which went up to the wood, but stopped therein a mere woodland path, and the more part of the town lay north and westof this way, albeit there was a way from the east also. But thehill-side just below the two captains lay two furlongs west of thissouthern way; and it went down softly till it was gotten quite near tothe backs of the houses on the south side of the Market-place, and wassprinkled scantly with bushes and trees as aforesaid; but at last werethere more bushes, which well-nigh made a hedge across it, reaching fromthe side of the southern way; and a foot or two beyond these bushes theground fell by a steep and broken bent down to the level of theMarket-place, and betwixt that fringe of bushes and the backs of thehouses on the south side of the Place was less it maybe than a fullfurlong: but the southern road aforesaid went down softly into theMarket-place, since it had been fashioned so by men.
Now th
e two chiefs heard a loud blast of horns come up from the town, andlo! a great crowd of men wending their ways down the road from the north,and they came into the market-place with spears and other weapons tossingin the air, and amidst of these men, who seemed to be all of thewarriors, they saw as they drew nigher some two score and ten of men cladin long raiment of yellow and scarlet, with tall spiring hats of strangefashion on their heads, and in their hands long staves with great bladeslike scythes done on to them; and again, in the midst of these yellow andred glaive-bearers, in the very heart of the throng were some score ofnaked folk, they deemed both men and women, but were not sure, so closewas the throng; nor could they see if they were utterly naked.
‘Lo you, brother!’ quoth Folk-might, ‘said I not that the beasts for thehewing should not tarry? Yonder naked folk are even they: and ye maywell deem that they are the thralls of the Dusky Men; and meseemeth bythe whiteness of their skins they be of the best of them. For thesefelons, it is like, look to winning great plenty of thralls in Burgdale,and so set the less store on them they have, and may expend them freely.’
As he spake they heard the sound of men marching in the wood behind them,and they turned about and saw that there was come Wood-wise, and with himupwards of two score and ten of the bowmen of the Woodlanders and theWolf—huntsmen, cragsmen, and scourers of the Waste; men who could shootthe chaffinch on the twig a hundred yards aloof; who could make ahiding-place of the bennets of the wayside grass, or the stem of theslender birch-tree. With these must needs be Bow-may, who was theclosest shooter of all the kindreds.
So then Wood-wise told the War-leader that Dallach had given the word tothe Host, and that all men were astir and would be there presently intheir ordered companies; and Face-of-god spake to Folk-might, and said:‘Chief of the Wolf, wilt thou not give command to these bowmen, and setthem to the work; for thou wottest thereof.’
‘Yea, that will I,’ said Folk-might, and turned to Wood-wise, and said:‘Wood-wise, get ye down the slope, and loose on these felons, who have amurder on hand, if so be ye have a chance to do it wisely. But in anycase come ye all back; for all shall be needed yet to-day. So flee ifthey pursue, for ye shall have us to flee to. Now be ye wary, nor letthe curse of the Wolf and the Face lie on your slothfulness.’
Wood-wise did but nod his head and lift his hand to his fellows, who setoff after him down the slope without more tarrying. They went verywarily, as if they were hunting a quarry which would flee from them; andthey crept amongst the grass and stones from bush to bush like serpents,and so, unseen by the Dusky Men, who indeed were busied over their ownmatters, they came to the fringe of bushes above the broken groundaforesaid, and there they took their stand, and before them below thosesteep banks was but the space at the back of the houses. As to thehouses, as aforesaid, they were not so high as elsewhere about theMarket-place; and at the end of a long low hall there was a gap betweenits gable and the next house, whereby they had a clear sight of the Placeabout the god’s altar and the banners, and the great hall of Silver-dale,with the double stair that went up to the door thereof.
There then they made them ready, and Wood-wise set men to watch that noneshould come sidelong on them unawares; their bows were bent and theirquivers open, and they were eager for the fray.
Thus they beheld the Market-place from their cover, and saw that thosefolk who were to be hewn to the god were now standing facing the altar ina half-ring, and behind them in another half-ring the glaive-bearers whohad brought them thither stood glaive in hand ready to hew them down whenthe token should be given; and these were indeed the priests of the god.
There was clear space round about these poor slaughter-thralls, so thatthe bowmen could see them well, and they told up a score of them, halfmen, half women, and they were all stark naked save for wreaths offlowers about their middles and their necks; and they had shackles oflead about their wrists; which same lead should be taken out of the firewherein they should be burned, and from the shape it should take after ithad passed through the fire would the priests foretell the luck of thedeed to be done.
It was clear to be seen from thence that Folk-might was right when hesaid that these slaughter-thralls were of the best of the house-thrallsand bed-mates of the Dusky Men, and that these felons were open-handed totheir god, and would not cheat him, or withhold from him the best andmost delicate of all they had.
Now spake Wood-wise to those about him: ‘It is sure that Folk-might wouldhave us give these poor thralls a chance, and that we must loose upon thefelons who would hew them down; and if we are to come back again, we cango no nigher. What sayest thou, Bow-may? Is it nigh enough? Can aughtbe done?’
‘Yea, yea,’ she said, ‘nigh enough it is; but let Gold-ring be with meand half a score of the very best, whether they be of our folk or theWoodlanders, men who cannot miss such a mark; and when we have loosed,then let all loose, and stay not till our shot be spent. Haste, nowhaste! time presseth; for if the Host showeth on the brow of the hill,these felons will hew down their slaughter-beasts before they turn ontheir foemen. Let the grey-goose wing speed trouble and confusionamongst them.’
But ere she had done her words Wood-wise had got to speaking quietly withthe Woodlanders; and Bears-bane, who was amidst them, chose out eight ofthe best of his folk, men who doubted nothing of hitting whatever theycould see in the Market-place; and they took their stand for shooting,and with them besides Bow-may were two women and four men of the Wolf,and Gold-ring withal, a carle of fifty winters, long, lean, and wiry, afell shooter if ever anyone were.
So all these notched their shafts and laid them on the yew, and each hadbetween the two last fingers of the shaft-hand another shaft ready, and ahalf score more stuck into the ground before him.
Now giveth Wood-wise the word to these sixteen as to which of the felonswith the glaives they shall each one aim at; and he saith withal in asoft voice: ‘Help cometh from the Hill; soon shall battle be joined inSilver-dale.’
Thus stand they watching Bow-may and Gold-ring till they draw home thenotches; and amidst their waiting the glaive-bearing felons falla-singing a harsh and ugly hymn to their crooked-sword god, and theMarket-stead is thronged endlong and overthwart with the tribes of theDusky Men.
There now standeth Bow-may far-sighted and keen-eyed, her face as pale asa linen sleeve, an awful smile on her glittering eyes and close-set lips,and she feeling the twisted string of the red yew and the polished sidesof the notch, while the yelling song of the Dusky priests quavers now andends with a wild shrill cry, and she noteth the midmost of the priestsbeginning to handle his weapon: then swift and steady she draweth homethe notches, while the yew bow standeth still as the oak-bole ere thesummer storm ariseth, and the twang of the sixteen strings maketh but onefell sound as the feathered bane of men goeth on its way.
There was silence for a moment of time in the Market of Silver-stead, asif the bolt of the Gods had fallen there; and then arose a huge wordlessyell from those about the altar, and one of the priests who was left hoveup his glaive two-handed to smite the naked slaughter-thralls; but orever the stroke fell, Bow-may’s second shaft was through his throat, andhe rolled over amidst his dead fellows; and the other fifteen had loosedwith her, and then even as they could Wood-wise and the others of theircompany; and all they notched and loosed without tarrying, and no shout,no word came from their lips, only the twanging strings spake for them;for they deemed the minutes that hurried by were worth much joy of theirlives to be. And few indeed were the passing minutes ere the dead menlay in heaps about the Altar of the Crooked Sword, and the wounded menwallowed amidst them.