“To your knees, I tell you!” Sir Richard was shouting. “I’ll teach you how to show yourself before a king!”
“Now, please …” John began. He tried to laugh but laughter died in his throat. Those eyes, glaring at him with maniacal fury, impossible … to …
“Down on your knees!” Six Richard ground the words between his teeth.
He slipped to his knees to escape the sword. “Sir Richard — listen to me! All right — king, whatever you are — Lady Mary was right — there is a treasure — it’s on the table yonder — your royal scepter — a king’s ransom — you’ll keep your castle. Put down your sword. You don’t need it, I tell you. I’ll call Lady Mary and tell her you are waiting for her with the treasure — the treasure, man!”
Sir Richard was staring at him, but the fury was fading. He looked puzzled. His right hand dropped, he went to the table uncertainly and putting down the sword, he took up the scepter.
John stood upright again and edged his way toward the table and the sword, still talking.
“Webster will know how to dispose of the scepter — it’s a fortune in itself.”
He reached for the sword. Ah, thank God, he was in control now. He could open the door and get help; but he had no sooner grasped the sword than he saw Sir Richard lift the heavy scepter high in both hands and to his amazement prepare to bring it down on his head, as though it were a mace. He stepped back and thrust the sword in fencing position to fend him off, feinting this way and that, diverting each blow that Sir Richard dealt, but by so narrow a margin that he knew he could not relent for the fraction of a second. He saved himself once by leaping aside as the scepter glittered above his head. It fell then on a corner of the oaken table and split it off.
And while the mad duel went on, he trying not to wound Sir Richard but only to save his own life, he was aware, though dimly, of a constant muttering in his ears, a gasping groaning stream of broken talk pouring from Sir Richard’s foaming mouth.
“His body ashes — my son, my son! Wells knew. Where’s Wells? Wells — Wells — Wells—”
Sir Richard’s voice rose to, a shriek and he lifted the scepter again, high over his head, and staggered forward.
Out of the welter of words John heard the scream and dared not pause. The scepter was above his head. He feinted and darted right and left, escaping from corner to corner. Sir Richard pursued him erratically, managing somehow to pin him at one side or the other, using the scepter like a club. Once it skinned his cheek, once it struck his left arm, now it fell on his shoulder. Ah, but the sword was strong, a gem of a sword, as he could tell, and his hand had not lost its cunning. Sir Richard played for strength and he for skill, he in silence trying not to wound his opponent, and Sir Richard gasping and muttering beneath the scepter’s weight. Scepter and sword locked. They were face to face and Sir Richard hissed in his face.
“You want my scepter. I know you. I know your sort. Smooth tongue … black heart … traitors, all of you. I’ll brain you. That sword’s mine… my father’s sword… put it down … I’ll deal with you as I did with Dunsten. I trusted him … these years … raised him from a commoner … the only one who had my confidence. I … I … gave him my son … my only son … told him my secret. How else could he have got a wife like her? He let her die in childbirth. Killed her, likely. And then let them kill my son. There’s only a girl left… no heir … a girl …”
He heard these groans, these mutterings, his ears alert and his mind whirling with what they meant. This mystery, this hidden secret story. And the man gone mad with fear at the thought of losing all he had. Oh, who was Kate? Would he ever know, now that Wells was dead?
“Fool,” Sir Richard was saying between clenched teeth, “I’ve been the fool — thinking myself safe because I had the castle … all these wild peoples rising everywhere in the world … British lion — the castle’s besieged … lost. They’re coming … I see them … I see them … I see them … I give my life …”
He lifted the scepter high above his head again, his arms trembling under its weight, and charged at John, forcing him back, back toward the trapdoor.
“Down — down!” he bellowed. “Down where traitors belong!”
“Take care — for yourself!” John cried.
His feet caught on the edge of the trapdoor. He thrust the sword upward to ward off the descending weapon. The scepter fell on the sword, the blade broke at the hilt. He was flung to one side by the impact. He rolled on the floor, ducking like a football player. Sir Richard, unable to save himself, was hurled head first into the trapdoor.
John Blayne crawled to the door, dazed, his bead aching from the blow, the broken sword still in his right hand. The body of Wells lay there, unmoved by all the strife. With his left hand John put the limbs gently aside so that he could open the door. Still clutching the broken sword, scarcely knowing that he did so, he worked the last bolt from its hasp and opened the door.
They were waiting outside and they stared at him.
Kate cried out at sight of him. “You’re bleeding!”
She snatched the little ruffled apron from about her waist and ran to him and began wiping his face, talking all the while. “We heard the most dreadful — oh, John — such a bruise! How did it happen? And you with the sword broken—”
“Where is Sir Richard?”
It was Lady Mary, standing in the doorway, her eyes searching the room. She pushed her way in and saw the body on the floor.
“Oh Richard,” she whispered. “Oh no — How could you, how could you …”
Now she saw the scepter. She went to it, took it up and dropped it as though it burned her hands. For there before her the hole gaped and he was nowhere … nowhere …
She turned, her eyes searching, comprehending, until they rested on John. She stood looking at him, trying to speak. When her voice came it was a whisper, a gasp.
“Take this castle away. Take it … it’s evil. I always knew it was. It’s full of … ghosts.” She swayed, and caught herself and stood leaning against the table, her face white and cold.
“Kate, take care of her!” John cried.
But Lady Mary pushed them all away when they came to her side.
“I am quite all right,” she said. She tried to moisten her lips, her mouth dry. She turned to them with a wild sad smile, her haunted eyes unseeing.
“They were no help at all — no help! So perhaps they simply don’t exist!”
This she said in her high clear voice, and repulsing the hands stretched out to help her, she walked away from them all.
… The day was cool, the air clear with the delicate sunshine of an English morning in summer. The castle had never been more beautiful, John thought. He had strolled up from the village, needing time to be alone before he met Kate. The landscape was still and calm, the village too had been silent. People stayed in their houses, talking quietly of the shadow that had fallen upon the countryside. The inquest had been held — accidental death. So Sir Richard was dead, the last of the Sedgeleys, and who was to have the castle now? John had ordered his breakfast sent to his room, but Thomas had waylaid him at the door.
“What will we all be doing now, sir?” he asked. “We looked up to Sir Richard, you know, sir. Fussy he was at times, and a man of his own mind, but we was used to that from him and his father. High and mighty, but they’d a right to be. The likes of them made old England. So what’s to happen to us?”
“I don’t know, Thomas,” he said. “I don’t think anybody knows just yet. But you’ll be told, doubtless.”
“We’ll have to wait,” Thomas said dolefully.
John had nodded and gone his way along the cobbled road to the edge of the village, and then the country road through the meadows and the wood. Kate would be waiting for him in the yew walk. Last night when he had seen to it that all was arranged for the funeral today, they had clasped hands at parting.