“Ah, Beltane, dear lad,” quoth he, “I envy thee and grieve for thee!  To possess such a maid to wife—­and to leave her—­so soon!  May God bring thee safe again to her white arms.  Ah, youth is very sweet, lad, and love—­true love is youth’s fair paradise and—­body o’ me, there sound our tuckets!  See where Ivo formeth his main battle—­and yonder he posteth a goodly company to shut us up within the city.  So must we wait a while until the battle joins—­thy noble father is wondrous wise in war—­O verily he hath seen, behold how he altereth his array!  O wise Beltane!”

Now Duke Ivo threw out a screen of archers and horsemen to harass the powers of Mortain what time he formed his battle in three great companies, a deep and formidable array of knights and men-at-arms whose tall lances rose, a very forest, with pennons and banderols a-flutter in the gentle wind of morning.  Far on the left showed the banner of his marshal Sir Bors; above his right battle flew the Raven banner of Sir Pertolepe the Red, and above his main battle rose his own standard—­ a black lion on a red field.  So mustered he his powers of Pentavalon, gay with stir of pennons and rich trappings; the sun flashed back from ponderous casques and bascinets innumerable and flamed on blazoned shields.  And beholding their might and confident bearing, Beltane clenched nervous hands and his mouth grew hard and grim, so turned he from this formidable host to where, just beyond the woods, his father’s banner flew beside the leopards of Mortain.  Conspicuous upon his white charger he beheld Duke Beltane, a proud and warlike figure, who sat his stamping war-horse deep in converse with Sir Jocelyn, while behind were the dense ranks of Mortain.  Suddenly, Sir Jocelyn wheeled his charger and galloped along Mortain’s front, his rich armour glittering, until he halted at the head of that knightly company posted upon the left.

Meantime, Black Ivo’s archers advancing, fell into arrow formation and began to ply the Mortain ranks with clouds of shafts and bolts ’neath which divers men and horses fell—­what time Black Ivo’s massed columns moved slowly forward to the attack—­yet Duke Beltane, sitting among his knights, stirred not, and the army of Mortain abode very silent and still.  But of a sudden Duke Beltane wheeled his horse, his sword flashed on high, whereat trumpets brayed and on the instant Sir Jocelyn wheeled off to the left, he and all his company, and gathering speed began to skirt Duke Ivo’s advanced pikemen and archers, and so rode down upon those men of Pentavalon who were drawn up against Belsaye.  Hereupon Black Ivo would have launched a counter-charge to check Sir Jocelyn’s attack, but his advanced lines of cross-bowmen and archers hampered him.  Once again Duke Beltane’s sword flashed up, the first line of Mortain’s great array leapt forward and with levelled lances thundered down upon Black Ivo’s ranks, scattering and trampling down his archers; but as they checked before the serried pikes