The Conqueror by Georgette Heyer Read Free Book Online Page B

and struck the shoulder. As the head went home there was heard the snap of a breaking shaft. A sort of sigh went up from the group of watching men. The Duke let a great oath, and sprang back, casting the broken shaft away from him. A fallen tree-branch lay across the ground, and caught his heel. He fell heavily, and the bear, shaking himself momentarily clear of the pack, came at him in a lumbering rush.
    In that dreadful moment, and even as he raced across the clearing to cut the bear off from William, Raoul realized that not one of the men behind him had made a movement to go to the Duke’s rescue.
    He ran desperately. A hound, darting in, had closed his fangs on the bear’s shoulder, but though he checked he could not turn the brute. The instant’s respite allowed Raoul to fling himself between the beast and the man. William had leaped to his feet, and was tearing the fleshing-knife from his belt, but it was Raoul who struck the final blow, a true thrust, deep and sure.
    ‘Back, beau sire! back!’ he shouted.
    The bear seemed to lurch forward, and fell with a crash, and a gush of blood at nostrils and mouth.
    Others came hurrying up. Had they really hesitated, or had he only imagined that they held back? Mechanically wiping his spear, Raoul watched Guy of Burgundy clasp William affectionately, and heard him say: ‘Cousin, cousin, why would you not let another man take that risk? Christ’s wounds! if the brute had reached you!’
    Raoul felt an insane desire to laugh. He moved away from the group round the Duke, shaken by the shock of having seen his master helpless before a horrible death, and out of breath from his own headlong rush to the rescue. He wiped the sweat from his face with an unsteady hand, angry with himself for being so easily discomposed. Then he saw William put the Burgundian aside, very much as a man might push away a troublesome puppy, and walk with his quick, yet deliberate step towards him.
    He was beside Raoul before Raoul could move a step to meet him. ‘My thanks to you, Raoul de Harcourt,’ he said. He held out his hand in a gesture of friendliness, and while his gaze scrutinized Raoul’s face, his stern lips curled upward in a smile.
    Words choked in Raoul’s throat. He had dreamed often of what he would say if ever the Duke noticed him above his fellows, but now that the moment had come, he found that he could not say anything at all. He looked quickly up at William; then, letting fall his spear, he dropped on his knee, and kissed the Duke’s hand.
    William glanced over his shoulder, as though to be assured that no one was within earshot. He looked down again at Raoul’s bent head. ‘You are the knight who guards my sleep,’ he said.
    ‘Yes, beau sire,’ Raoul muttered, wondering how he knew. He rose to his feet, and spoke the thought that was foremost in his mind. ‘Seigneur, your spear – should not have snapped.’
    William gave a short laugh. ‘A fault in the shaft,’ he said.
    Raoul whispered urgently: ‘Beau sire, I pray you have a care to yourself!’
    His eyes encountered the Duke’s keen look, and for a moment the glance held. Then the Duke gave a brief nod, and walked back to join the group that watched the skinning of the bear.

Three
    After the bear-hunt Raoul began to feel an added hostility in the air, hostility now directed towards himself. Men looked scowlingly at the marplot; he had the dubious satisfaction of knowing that the plotters – if plotters they indeed were, and he had not allowed his imagination to deceive him – considered him a danger to the safe carriage of their plans. He went abroad thereafter with ears on the prick, and his dagger loose in its sheath. When an arrow sang past his head one day at a hunting of deer he thought only that someone’s aim was badly at fault, but when he tripped at the head of the stairway in the dark, and only by the veriest chance saved himself from falling headlong down, he began to realize that some man or