The Conqueror Read Online Free Page A

sight of the woman who had gone off to fetch her daughter, and he forgot Raoul’s audacity. ‘Aha!’ he cried, ‘she was not so far away!’ He jumped down from the saddle, and stood waiting with a flushed face and hot floating eyes for the two women to come up with him. The elder woman was dragging her daughter by one wrist, but the girl cried, and hung back, turning her pretty face away as though she were afraid to see the lustful eyes that watched her so greedily. She was very young, and frightened, and she kept calling in a fluttering voice on her father to aid her. Her startled gaze fell on his inert body, and she gave a whimper of horror. Gilbert caught her and pulled her close up to him. His eyes devoured her while she stood shivering, and he brought up one hand to her throat, fondling it. She shrank away, but his grip on her tightened, and his fingers closing on the neck of her gown tore it away suddenly from her shoulder. ‘Well, my shy bird!’ he muttered thickly. ‘So you come at last, do you? I have a mind to you, my girl, I think.’
    There was a movement behind him. Gilbert jerked up his head, but was too late to fend off Raoul’s blow. It took him unawares, a tremendous buffet that knocked him clean off his balance. He and the girl went down in a sprawling heap. The girl scrambled up in a moment, and ran to where her father lay, but Gilbert stayed propped on his elbow, glaring up into Raoul’s face.
    Raoul’s sword was out, and shortened for the thrust. ‘Lie still!’ he snapped. ‘I have something to say before I let you up.’
    ‘You!’ Gilbert spluttered. ‘You nithing! you insolent whelp! God’s belly, if I do not crack your skull for this!’
    ‘That’s as may be,’ Raoul retorted, ‘but for the present you will be very ill-advised to move a finger. You can tell that scum you keep for bodyguard to stand still until I have said my say.’ Then, as Gilbert only swore at him, he added in a matter-of-fact voice: – ‘It will be better for you to do as I bid you, for by the Cross I am in a mood to stick you like a pig with no more ado!’
    ‘Stick me? Why – why – Holy Virgin, the whelp is bewitched in good sooth!’ Gilbert gasped. ‘Let me up, you young fool! God’s eyes, if I do not flay you for this!’
    ‘First you shall swear to let the wench go,’ said Raoul. ‘Afterwards it shall be as the better man decides.’
    ‘Let the wench go at your bidding? Ha, now you provoke me!’ Gilbert cried. ‘What traffic have you with the girl, Master Saint?’
    ‘None. Do I kennel with serfs? I shall certainly slay you if you don’t swear. I will count up to twenty, Gilbert, and no more.’
    At the eighteenth count Gilbert left blaspheming and growled a reluctant oath. Raoul drew back his sword then. ‘We will ride home together,’ he said, keeping a weather-eye on his brother’s sword-hand. ‘Mount, there is no more for you to do here.’
    Gilbert stood hesitating for a moment, his fingers gripping the hilt of his sword, but Raoul clinched the matter by turning his unarmed back to him. His first blind fury having had time to abate, Gilbert knew that he could not draw steel upon a young brother who was not expecting it. Astonishment at Raoul’s conduct again consumed him, and as one in a bewildered muse he got upon his horse, trying to puzzle it all out in his slow brain. His roving eye caught sight of the sly grins upon the faces of his men, and flushing angrily he rasped out an order to get to horse. Without waiting to see what Raoul would do next he clapped his spurs into his destrier’s flanks, and set off at a canter through the trees.
    The serf had recovered his senses, and lay moaning at Raoul’s feet. The women, kneeling beside him, looked up in some alarm at the young knight. That he was nobly born they knew, and they were at once suspicious of him, finding it hard to believe that he could have intervened for them in a spirit of pure chivalry.
    Raoul pulled his purse