eBooks Base 2000

Aelward lost his shamefastness and
his slow blood fired as flesh met flesh and sinew strained against sinew.
His great arms crushed the Frenchman till the ribs cracked, but always the
other slipped through and evaded the fatal hug. And as the struggle
continued Aelward's heart warmed to his enemy. When their swords crossed he
had hated him like death; now he seemed to be striving with a kinsman.
Suddenly, when victory looked very near, he found the earth moving from
beneath him, and a mountain descended on his skull. When he blinked himself
into consciousness again, Jehan was laving his head from a pool in an
oak-root.
"I will teach you that throw some -day, friend," he was saying. "Had I not
known the trick of it, you had mauled me sadly. I had liefer grapple with a
bear.
Aelward moistened his lips. "You have beat me fairly, armed and
weaponless," he said, and his voice had no anger in it.
"Talk not of beating between neighbours," was the answer. "We have played
together and I have had the luck of it.


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