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Published in REH: Lone Star Fictioneer, #2 (Summer 1975).
| 1. Res Adventura 2 |
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“Agnes! You red-haired spawn of the devil, where are you?” It was my father calling me, after his usual fashion. I raked my sweat-dampened hair out of my eyes and heaved the bundle of fagots back on my shoulder. Little of rest was there in my life.
My father parted the bushes and called into the glade—a tall man, gaunt and bitter, darkened with the suns of many campaigns, marked with scars gotten in the service of greedy kings and avaricious dukes. He scowled at me, and faith, I would hardly have recognized him had he worn another expression.
“What are you about?” he snarled.
“You sent me into the forest for wood,” I answered sullenly.
“Did I bid you begone a whole day?” he roared, aiming a slap at my head which I avoided with a skill born of much practise. “Have you forgot this is your wedding day?”
At that my fingers went limp and the cord slipped through them, so the bundle of fagots tumbled to the ground and burst apart. The gold went out of the sunlight, and the joy from the trilling of the birds.
“I had forgot,” I whispered, from lips suddenly dry.
“Well, take up your sticks and come along,” he scowled. “The sun heels westward. Ungrateful wench—accursed jade!—that your father should be forced to drag his old bones through the forest to bring you to your husband.”
“Husband!” I muttered. “François! Hoofs of the devil!”
“Will you swear, wench?” snarled my father. “Must I lesson you again? Will you flout the man I have chosen for you? François is as fine a young man as you can find in all Normandy.”
“A fat pig” I muttered; “a very munching, guzzling, nuzzling swine!”
“Be silent!” he yelled. “He will be a prop to my old age. I cannot much longer guide the plough handles. My old wounds pain me. Your sister Ysabel’s husband is a dog; he will give me no aid. François will be different. He will tame you, I warrant me. He will not humor you, as have I. You will eat stick from his hand, my fine lady.”
At that a red mist waved across my sight. It was ever thus at such talk of taming. I dashed down the fagots I had mechanically taken up, and all the fire in my blood rushed to my lips.
“May he rot in hell, and you with him!” I shrieked. “I’ll not wed him. Beat me—kill me! Use me as you wish! But I’ll never share François’ bed!”
At that hell flamed into my father’s eyes, so that I should have trembled but for the madness that gripped me. I saw mirrored there all the fury and violence and passion that had been his when he looted and murdered and raped as a Free Companion. With a wordless roar he lunged for me and dealt a buffet at my head with his right fist. I avoided the blow, and he smote with his left. Again his fist flailed empty air as I dodged, and then with a cry like the yell of a wolf, he caught my loose hair in his fingers, wrapping the tresses around his hand and wrenching my head back until it seemed my neck would break; and he smote me on the chin with his clubbed right fist, so that the sunlight went out in a wave of blackness.
I must have been senseless for some time—long enough for my father to drag me through the forest and into the village by the hair of my head. Regaining consciousness after a beating was no new experience, but I was sick and weak and dizzy, and my limbs ached from the rough ground over which he had dragged me. I was lying in our wretched hut, and when I staggered up into a sitting position, I found that my plain woolen tunic had been taken from me, and that I was decked in wedding finery. By Saint Denis, the feel of it was more loathsome than the slimy touch of a serpent, and a quick panic assailed me, so I would have torn it from me; but then a giddiness and a sickness overcame me, and I sank back with a groan. And blackness deeper than that of a bruised brain sank over me, in which I saw myself caught in a trap in which I struggled in vain. All strength flowed out of me, and I would have wept if I could. But I never could weep; and now I was too crushed to curse, and I lay staring dumbly at the rat-gnawed beams of the hut.
Then I was aware that some one had entered the room. From without sounded a noise of talking and laughter, as the people gathered. The one who had come into the hut was my sister Ysabel, bearing her youngest child on her hip. She looked down at me, and I noted how bent and stooped she was, and how gnarled from toil her hands, and how lined her features from weariness and pain. The holiday garments she wore seemed to bring these things out; I had not noticed them when she wore her usual peasant woman’s attire.
“They make ready for the wedding, Agnes,” she said, in her hesitant way. I did not reply. She set down the baby and knelt beside me, looking into my face with a strange wistfulness.
“You are young and strong and fresh, Agnes,” she said, yet as though she spake more to herself than to me. “Almost beautiful in your wedding finery. Are you not happy?”
I closed my eyes wearily.
“You should laugh and be gay,” she sighed—it seemed she moaned, rather. “ ’Tis but once in a girl’s life. You do not love François. But I did not love Guillaume. Life is a hard thing for a woman. Your tall supple body will grow bent like mine, and broken with child-bearing; your hands will become twisted—and your mind will grow strange and grey—with the toil and the weariness—and the everlasting face of a man you hate—”
At that I opened my eyes and stared up at her.
“I am but a few years older than you, Agnes,” she murmured. “Yet look at me. Would you become as I?”
“What can a girl do?” I asked helplessly.
Her eyes burned into mine with a shadow of the fierceness I had so often seen smolder in the eyes of our father.
“One thing!” she whispered.“The only thing a woman can do, to free herself. Do not cling by your fingers to life, to become as our mother, and as your sister; do not live to become as me. Go while you are strong and supple and handsome. Here!”
She bent quickly, pressed something into my hand, then snatched up the child and was gone. And I lay staring fixedly at the slim-bladed dagger in my hand.
I stared up at the dingy rafters, and I knew her meaning. But as I lay there with my fingers curled about the slender hilt, strange new thoughts flooded my mind. The touch of that hilt sent a tingling through the veins of my arm; a strange sense of familiarity, as if its feet started a dim train of associations I could not understand but somehow felt. Never had I fingered a weapon before, or any edged thing more than a woodman’s axe or a cabbage knife. This slim lethal thing shimmering in my hand seemed somehow like an old friend come home again.
Outside the door voices rose and feet shuffled, and I quickly slipped the dagger into my bosom. The door opened and fingers caught at the jamb, and faces leered at me. I saw my mother, stolid, colorless, a work animal with the emotions of a work animal, and over her shoulder, my sister. And I saw sudden disappointment and a haunting sorrow flood her expression as she saw me still alive; and she turned away.
But the others flooded into the hut and dragged me from the bunk, laughing and shouting in their peasant hilarity. Whether they put down my reluctance to virginal shyness, or knew my hatred for François, mattered little. My father’s iron grasp was on one wrist, and some great mare of a loud-mouthed woman had my other wrist, and so they dragged me forth from the hut into a ring of shouting, laughing folk, who were already more than half drunk, men and women. Their rude jests and obscene comments fell on heedless ears. I was fighting like a wild thing, blind and reasonless, and it took all the strength of my captors to drag me along. I heard my father cursing me under his breath, and he twisted my wrist till it was like to break, but all he got out of me was a panting oath that consigned his soul to the hell it deserved.
I saw the priest coming forward, a wizened, blinking old fool, whom I hated as I hated them all. And François was coming to meet me—François, in new jerkin and breeches, with a chain of flowers about his fat red neck, and the smirk on his thick distended lips that made my flesh crawl. There he stood, grinning like a mindless ape, yet with vindictive triumph and lustful meaning in his little pig eyes.
At the sight of him I ceased my struggles like one struck motionless, and my captors released me and drew back; and so I stood facing him for an instant, almost crouching, glaring unspeaking. “Kiss her, lad!” bellowed some drunken lout; and then as a taut spring snaps, I jerked the dagger from my bosom and sprang at François. My act was too quick for those slow-witted clowns even to comprehend, much less prevent. My dagger was sheathed in his pig’s heart before he realized I had struck, and I yelped with mad glee to see the stupid expression of incredulous surprise and pain flood his red countenance, as I tore the dagger free and he fell, gurgling like a stuck pig, and spouting blood between his clawing fingers—to which clung petals from his bridal chain.
What has taken long to tell needed but an instant to transpire. I leapt, struck, tore away and fled, all in an instant. My father, the soldier, quicker in wit and action than the others, yelled and sprang to catch me, but his groping hands closed on empty air. I shot through the startled crowd and into the forest, and as I gained the trees, my father caught up a bow and let fly at me. I shrank aside and the arrow thudded venomously into a tree.
“Drunken fool!” I cried, with a shriek of wild laughter. “You are in your dotage, to miss such a mark!”
“Come back, you slut!” he roared, mad with passion.
“To the fires of hell with you,” I retorted; “and may the devil feast upon your black heart!” And that was my farewell to my father, as I turned and fled through the forest.
How far I fled I do not know. Behind me I heard the howls of the villagers, and their stumbling and blundering pursuit. Then only the yells, and those distant and far away, and then even they faded out. For few of my brave villagers had stomach to follow me into the deep woods, where the shadows were already stealing. I ran until my breath was jerked out of me in racking gasps, and my knees buckled, hurling me headlong in the soft leaf-carpeted loam, where I lay in a half-faint, until the moon climbed up, sheathing the higher branches in frosty silver, and cutting out the shadows yet more blackly. About me I heard rustlings and movements that betokened beasts, and perchance worse—werewolves and goblins and vampires, for all I knew. Yet I was not afraid. I had slept in the forest ere now, when night caught me far from the village with a load of fagots, or my father in his drink had driven me forth from the hut.
I rose and went on through the moonlight and the darkness, taking scant heed of the direction, so I put as much distance as possible between me and the village. In the darkness before dawn sleep overcame me, and throwing myself on the loam, I fell into deep slumber, careless of whether beast or ghoul devoured me before day broke.
But when dawn rose over the forest, it found me alive and whole, and possessed of a ravenous hunger. I sat up, wondering for an instant at the strangeness of it all, then sight of my torn wedding robes and the blood-crusted dagger in my girdle brought it all back. And I laughed again as I remembered François’ expression as he fell, and a wild surge of freedom flooded me, so I felt like dancing and singing like a mad woman. But instead I cleansed the dagger on some fresh leaves, and putting it again in my girdle, I went toward the rising sun.
Presently I came upon a road which wound through the forest and was glad of it, because my wedding shoes, being shoddy things, were mostly worn out. I was accustomed to going barefoot, but even so, the briars and twigs of the forest hurt my feet.
The sun was not well up, when, coming to a curve in the road, which indeed was little more than a forest trail, I heard the sound of horse’s hoofs. Instinct told me to hide in the bushes. But another instinct checked me. I searched my soul for fear and found it not. So I was standing in the middle of the path, unmoving, my dagger in my hand, when the horseman came around the bend, and pulled up short with a startled oath.
He stared at me and I gave back his glance, unspeaking. He was handsome in a dark way, somewhat above medium height, and rather slender. His horse was a fine black stallion, with trappings of red leather and bright metal, and he himself was clad in silk hosen and velvet doublet, somewhat shabby, with a scarlet cloak flung about him, and a feather in his cap. He wore no baldric, but a sword hung at his girdle in a worn leather sheath.
“By Saint Denis!” he exclaimed; “what sprite of the forest, or goddess of dawn are you, girl?”
“Who are you to ask?” I demanded, finding myself neither fearful nor overly timid.
“Why, I am Étienne Villiers, once of Aquitaine,” he answered, and an instant later bit his lip and shook his head as if in irritation that he had so spoken. He looked at me, then, from crown to slippers and back, and laughed.
“Out of what mad tale did you step?” he asked. “A red-haired girl in tattered wedding finery, dagger in hand, in the green woodlands just at sunrise! ’Tis better than a romaunt! Come, good wench, tell me the jest.”
“Here is no jest,” I muttered sullenly.
“But who are you?” he persisted.
“My name is Agnes de Chastillon,” I answered.
He laughed and slapped his thigh.
“A noble lady in disguise!” he mocked. “Saint Ives, the tale grows more spicy! From what shaded bower in what giant-guarded castle have you escaped, in these trappings of a peasant, my lady?” And he doffed his chaperon in a sweeping bow.
“I have as much right to the name as many who wear high-bellied titles,” I answered, angered. “My father was the bastard son of a peasant woman and the Duc de Chastillon. He has ever used the name, and his daughters after him. If you like not my name go your way. I have not asked you to stop and mock me.”
“Nay, I did not mean to mock you,” he protested, his gaze running up and down my figure avidly. “By Saint Trignan, you fit a high and noble name better than many high born ladies I have seen simpering and languishing under it. Zeus and Apollo, but you are a tall lithe wench—a Norman peach, on my honor! I would be your friend; tell me why you are alone in the forest at this hour, with tattered wedding gown and worn shoes.”
He swung supply down from the tall horse, and stood cap in hand before me. His lips were not smiling now, and his dark eyes did not mock me, though me-seemed they glowed with an inward vagrant fire. His words suddenly brought home to me how alone and helpless I was, with nowhere to turn. Perchance it was natural that I should unburden myself to this first friendly stranger—besides Étienne Villiers had a manner about him which induced women to trust him
“I fled last night from the village of La Fere,” I said. “They wished to wed me to a man I hated.”
“And you spent the night alone in the forest?”
“Why not?”
He shook his head as if he found it difficult of belief.
“But what will you do now?” he asked. “Have you friends near by?”
“I have no friends,” I answered. “I will go on until I die of starvation or something else befalls me.”
He mused awhile, tugging at his clean-shaven chin with thumb and forefinger. Thrice he lifted his head and swept his gaze over me; and once I thought I saw a darkling shadow pass over his features, making him for an instant appear almost like another man. Then he raised his head and spoke: “You are too handsome a girl to perish in the woods or be carried off by outlaws. If you will, I will take you to Chartres, where you can obtain employ as a serving wench and earn your keep. You can work?”
“No man in La Fere can do more,” I answered.
“By Saint Ives, I believe it,” he said, with an admiring shake of his head. “There is something almost pagan about you, with your height and suppleness. Come, will you trust me?”
“I would not cause you trouble,” I answered. “Men from La Fere will be following me.”
“Tush!” quoth he in scorn. “Who ever heard of a peasant going further than a league from his village? You are safe enough.”
“Not from my father,” I answered grimly. “He is no mere peasant. He has been a soldier. He will follow me far, and kill me when he finds me.”
“In that case,” muttered Étienne, “we must find a way to befool him. Ha! I have it! I mind me less than a mile back I passed a youth whose garments should fit you. Bide ye here until I return. We’ll make a boy of you!”
So saying he wheeled and thundered off, and I watched him, wondering if I should see him again, or if he but made sport of me. I waited, and the hoofs faded away in the distance. Silence reigned over the green wood, and I was aware of a fierce and gnawing hunger. Then, after what seemed an infinite time, again the hoofs beat through the forest, and Étienne Villiers galloped up, laughing gaily, and waving a bundle of clothes.
“Did you slay him?” I asked.
“Not I!” laughed Étienne. “I but sent him blubbering on his way naked as Adam. Here, wench, go into yonder copse and don these garments hastily. We must be on our way, and it is many a league to Chartres. Cast yours maiden’s clothing out to me, and I will take them and leave them on the banks of that stream which turns through the forest a short way off. Mayhap they will be found, and men think you drowned.”
He was back before I had finished putting on the strange garments, and chatting to me through the screening bushes.
“Your revered father will be searching for a maid,” he laughed. “Not for a boy. When he asks the peasants if they have seen a tall red-haired wench, they will shake their bullet heads. Ha! ha! ha! ’Tis a good jest on the old villain.”
Presently I came forth from the bushes, and he stared hard at me where I stood in shirt, breeches and cap. The garments felt strange to me, but gave me a freedom I had never experienced in petticoats.
“Zeus!” he muttered. “ ’Tis less perfect disguise than I had hoped for. The blindest clod in the fields could tell ‘twas no man those garments hid. Here; let me lop those red locks with my dagger; mayhap that will aid.”
But when he had cut my hair into a square mane that fell short of my shoulders, he shrugged his own shoulders. “Even so you are all woman,” quoth he. “Yet perchance a stranger, passed hastily on the road, would be befooled. Yet we must chance it.”
“Why do you concern yourself over me?” I asked curiously; for I was unused to kindness.
“Why, by God,” quoth he, “would any man worthy of the name leave a young girl to wander and starve in the forest? My purse holds more copper than silver, and my velvet is worn, but Étienne Villiers holds his honor as high as any belted knight or castled baron; and never shall weakness suffer while his purse hold a coin or his scabbard a sword.”
Hearing these words I felt humble and strangely ashamed; for I was unlearned and untaught, and had no words to speak the gratitude I felt. I stumbled and stammered, and he smiled and gently chided me to silence, saying that he needed not thanks, for goodness carried its own reward.
Then he mounted and gave me a hand. I swung up behind him, and we thundered off down the road, I holding to his girdle, and half enveloped by his cloak which blew out behind him in the morning breeze. And I felt sure that any one seeing us thundering by, would swear it was a young man and a lad, instead of a man and a girl.
My hunger mounted with the sun, but the sensation was no uncommon one in my life, so I made no complaint. We were travelling in a south-eastward direction, and it seemed to me that as we progressed a strange nervousness made itself evident in Étienne. He spoke little, and kept to the less traveled roads, frequently following bridle-paths or wood-cutters’ trails that wound in and out among the trees. We met few folk, and they only yokels with axe on shoulder or fagots on back, who gaped at us, and doffed their ragged caps.
Midday was nigh when he halted at a tavern—a woodland inn, lonely and isolated, the sign of which was poorly done, and almost obliterated; but Étienne called it the Knaves’ Fingers. The host came forth, a stooped, hulking lout, with a twisted leer, wiping his hands on his greasy leather apron, and bobbing his bullet head.
“We desire food and lodging,” said Étienne loudly. “I am Gerard de Bretagne, of Montauban, and this my young brother. We have been to Caen, and are travelling to Tours. Tend my horse and set a roasted capon on the table, host.”
The host bobbed and mumbled, and took the stallion’s rein. But he lingered as Étienne lifted me off, for I was stiff from the long ride, and I did not believe my disguise was as complete as I had hoped. For the long glance mine host cast at me was not such as a man gives a lad.
As we entered the tavern, we saw only one man seated on a settle and guzzling wine from a leather jack—a fat, gross man, his belly bulging over his leather belt. He looked up as we entered, started and opened his mouth as if to speak. Étienne did not speak but looked full at him, and I saw or felt a quick spark of understanding pass between them. The fat man returned to his wine jack in silence, and Étienne and I made our way to the board on which a slatternly serving wench placed the capon ordered, pease, trenchoirs of bread, a great vessel of Caen tripe, and two flagons of wine.
I fell to avidly, with my dagger, but Étienne ate little. He toyed with his food, his gaze shifting from the fat man on the settle, who now seemed to sleep, back to me, and then out the dingy windows with their diamond shaped panes, or even up to the heavy smoke-stained beams. But he drank much, refilling his flagon again and again, and finally asked me why I did not touch mine.
“I have been too busy eating to drink,” I admitted, and took it up uncertainly, for I had never tasted wine before. All the liquor which ever found its way into our miserable hut, my father had guzzled himself. I emptied the flagon as I had seen him do, and choked and strangled, but found the tang pleasing to my palate.
Étienne swore under his breath.
“By Saint Michel, in all my life I never saw a woman drain a flagon like that! You will be drunk, girl.”
“You forget I am a girl no longer,” I reproved in the same low tone. “Shall we ride on?”
He shook his head.
“We will remain here until morning. You must be weary and in need of rest,”
“My limbs are stiff because I am not used to riding,” I answered. “But I am not tired.”
“Never the less,” he said with a touch of impatience, “we shall rest here until tomorrow. I think it will be safe enough.”
“As you wish,” I replied. “I am utterly in your hands, and wish to do only as you bid in all things.”
“Well and good,” he said; “naught becomes a young girl like cheerful obedience.” Lifting his voice he called to the host who was returned from the stables, and hovered in the background. “Host, my brother is weary. Bring him to a room where he can sleep. We have ridden far.”
“Aye, your honor!” the host bobbed and mumbled, rubbing his hands together; for Étienne had a way of impressing common folk with his importance, as if he were a count at the very least. But of that later.
The innkeeper shambled through a low ceilinged room adjoining the tap-room, and which opened out into another, more spacious room above. It was under the steep roof, and barely furnished, but even so more elaborate than anything to which I had ever been accustomed. I saw—for somehow I had begun instinctively to note such details—that the only entrance or egress was through the door which opened on to the ladder; there was but one window, and that too small even to admit my lithe form. And there was no bolt for the door from within. I saw Étienne scowl and shoot a quick suspicious glance at the innkeeper, but that lout did not seem to notice, rubbing his hands and discoursing on the excellent qualities of the den into which he had brought us.
“Sleep, brother,” said Étienne for our host’s benefit; then as he turned away, he whispered in my ear, “I trust him not; we will move on as soon as night falls. Rest meantime. I will come for you at dusk.”
Whether it was the wine, after all, or unsuspected weariness, I cannot say; but laying myself down on the straw pallet in my clothing, I fell asleep before I knew it, and slumbered long.
What woke me was the gentle opening of the door. I wakened to darkness, relieved but little by the starlight in the tiny window. No one spoke, but something moved in the darkness. I heard a beam creak and thought I caught the sounds of suppressed breathing.
“Is that you, Étienne?” I whispered. There was no answer, and I spoke a trifle louder. “Étienne! Is that you, Étienne Villiers?”
I thought I heard breath hiss softly between teeth, then the beam creaked again, and a stealthy shuffle receded from me. I heard the door open and close softly, and knew I was once more alone in the room. I sprang up, drawing my dagger. That had not been Étienne, coming for me as he had promised, and I wished to know who it was that had sought to creep upon me in the darkness.
Gliding to the door I opened it and gazed down into the lower room. There was only darkness, as if I looked into a well, but I heard someone moving across the room, and then a fumbling at the outer door. Taking my dagger in my teeth, I slid silently down the ladder, with an ease and stealth that surprised myself. As my feet touched the floor and I seized my dagger and crouched in the darkness, I saw the outer door swing open, and a bulk was framed in the opening for an instant. I recognized the stooped top-heavy figure of the innkeeper. He was breathing so heavily that he could not have heard the faint sounds I made. He ran clumsily but quickly across the court-like space behind the tavern, and I saw him vanish into space behind the tavern, and I saw him vanish into the stables. I watched, straining my eyes in the dim starlight, and presently he came forth leading a horse. He did not mount the beast, but led him into the forest, showing every evidence of a desire for silence and secrecy. A short time after he had vanished, I caught the faint sound of a horse galloping. Evidently mine host had mounted after attaining a descreet distance from the inn, and was now riding hard to some unknown goal.
All I could think of was that somehow he recognized me, knew of me, and was riding to bear word to my father. I turned and opened the door a crack into the tap-room, and peered in. No one was there but the serving wench, asleep on the floor. A candle burned on the table, and moths fluttered about it. From somewhere there came a faint indistinct mumble of voices.
I glided out the back door and stole around the tavern. Silence hung over the black shadowed forest, except for a faint far cry of a night bird, and the restless movement of the great stallion in his stall.
Candle light streamed from the window of a small room on the other side of the tavern, separated from the common-room by a short passage. As I glided past this window, I halted suddenly, hearing my name spoken. I nestled close to the wall listening shamelessly. I heard the quick, clear though low-pitched voice of Étienne, and the rumble of another.
“—Agnes de Chastillon, she said. What does it matter what a peasant wench calls herself? Is she not a handsome baggage?”
“I’ve seen prettier in Paris, aye, and in Chartres, too,” answered the rumbling voice; which came, I knew, from the fat man who had occupied the settle when we first entered the tavern.
“Pretty!” There was scorn in Étienne’s voice. “The girl’s more than pretty. There’s something wild and untamable about her. Something fresh and vital, I tell you. Any worn-out noble would pay high for her; she would renew the youth of the most jaded debauchee. Look you, Thibault, I would not be offering you this prize, were it not that the risk is too great for me to ride on to Chartres with her. I am suspicious of this dog of an innkeeper, too.”
“If he does recognize you as the man for whose head the Duc d’Alençon yearns—“’ muttered Thibault.
“Be quiet, fool!” hissed Étienne. “That is another reason I must be rid of the wench. I was surprised into telling her my true name. But by the saints, Thibault, my meeting with her was enough to jolt the calm of a saint! I rounded a bend in the road, and there she stood, straight and tall against the green wood in her torn wedding gown, with her blue eyes smoldering, and the rising sun glinting red in her hair and turning to a streak of blood the dagger in her hand! For an instant I doubted me if she were human, and a strange thrill, almost of terror, swept over me.”
“A country wench in a woods road frightens Étienne Villiers, a rake among rakes,” snorted Thibault, drinking from a jack with a loud sucking noise.
“She was more than that,” retorted Étienne. “There was something fateful about her, like a figure in a tragic drama; something terrible. She is fair, yet there is something strange and dark about her. I cannot explain nor understand it.”
“Enough, enough!” yawned Thibault. “You weave a romaunt about a Norman jade. Come to the point.”
“I have come to it,” snapped Étienne. “I had intended taking her on to Chartes and selling her to a brothelkeeper I wot of, myself; but I realize my folly. I would have to pass too close to the domain of the Duke of Alençon, and if he learned I was in the lands—”
“He has not forgotten,” grunted Thibault. “He would pay high for information regarding your whereabouts. He dares not arrest you openly; it will be a dagger in the dark, a shot from the bushes. He would close your mouth in secrecy and silence, if he might.”
“I know,” snarled Étienne with a shudder. “I was a fool to come this far east. Dawn shall find me far away. But you can take the girl to Chartres without fear, aye, or to Paris, for that matter. Give me the price I ask, and she is yours.”
“It is too high,” protested Thibault. “Suppose she fights like a wildcat?”
“That is your look out,” callously answered Étienne. “You have tamed enough wenches so you should be able to handle this one. Though I warn you, there is fire in the girl. But that is your business. You have told me your companions lie in a village not far from here. Get them to aid you. If you cannot make a pretty profit of her in Chartres, or in Orléans, or in Paris, you are a greater fool than I am.”
“Well, well,” grumbled Thibault. “I’ll take a chance; after all, that is what a business man must do.”
I heard the clink of silver coins on the table, and the sound was like a knell to me.
And indeed it was my knell for as I leaned blindly and sickly against the tavern wall, there died in me the girl I had been, and in her stead rose the woman I have become. My sickness passed, and cold fury turned me brittle as steel and pliant as fire.
“A drink to seal the bargain,” I heard Étienne say; “then I must ride. When you go for the wench—”
I hurled open the door, and Étienne’s hand froze with the goblet at his lips. Thibault’s eyes bulged at me over the rim of his wine cup. A greeting died on Étienne’s lips, and he went suddenly pale at the death in my eyes.
“Agnes!” he exclaimed, rising. I stepped through the door and my blade was sheathed in Thibault’s heart before he could rise. An agonized grunt bubbled from his fat lips, and he sank from his bench, spurting red.
“Agnes!” cried Étienne again, throwing out his arms as if to fend me off. “Wait girl—”
“You filthy dog!” I screamed, blazing into mad fury. “You swine—swine—swine!” Only my own blind fury saved him as I rushed and stabbed.
I was on him before he could put himself into a position of defense, and my blindly driven steel tore the skin over his ribs. Thrice more I struck, silent and murderous, and he somehow fended the blade from his heart, though the point drew blood from hand, arm and shoulder. Desperately he grasped my wrist and sought to break it, and close-locked we tumbled against the table, over the edge of which he bent me and tried to strangle me. But to grasp my throat he must perforce … my wrist with one hand, and twisting it free of his single grip, I struck for his life. The point snapped on a metal buckle and the jagged shard tore through doublet and shirt, and ploughed along his breast; blood spurted and a groan escaped him. In anguish his grasp weakened, and I twisted from beneath him and dealt him a buffet with my clenched fist that rocked back his head and brought streams of blood from his nostrils. Groping for me he clutched me, and as I gouged at his eyes, he hurled me from him with such force that I hurtled backward across the room and crashed into the wall, thence toppling to the floor.
I was half dazed, but I rebounded with a snarl, gripping a broken table leg. He was wiping blood from his eyes with one hand and fumbling for his sword with the other, but again he misjudged the speed of my attack, and the table leg crashed full on his crown, laying open the scalp and bringing blood in torrents. He threw up his arms to ward off the strokes, and on them and on his head I rained blow after blow, driving him backward, half bent, blind and reeling, until he crashed down into the ruins of the table.
“God, girl,” he whimpered; “would you slay me?”
“With a joyful heart!” I laughed, as I had never laughed before, and I struck him over the ear, knocking him back down among the ruins out of which he was groping.
A moaning cry sobbed through his crushed lips. “In God’s name, girl,” he moaned, extending his hands blindly toward me, “have mercy! Hold your hand, in the name of the saints! I am not fit to die!”
He struggled to his knees, streaming blood from his battered head, his garments dripping crimson. “Hold your hand, Agnes,” he croaked. “Pity, in God’s name!”
I hesitated, staring somberly down at him. Then I threw aside my bludgeon.
“Take your life,” I said in bitter scorn. “You are too poor a thing to stain my hands. Go your ways!”
He sought to rise, then sank down again.
“I cannot rise,” he groaned. “The room swims to my gaze, and grows dark. Oh, Agnes, it is a bitter kiss you have given me! God have mercy on me, for I die in sin. I have laughed at death, but now that it is upon me, I am afraid. Ah, God, I fear! Leave me not, Agnes! Leave me not to die like a dog!”
“Why should I not?” I asked bitterly. “I trusted you, and thought you nobler than common men, with your lying words of chivalry and honor. Pah! You would have sold me into slavery viler than a Turk’s harem.”
“I know,” he moaned. “My soul is blacker than the night that steals upon me. Call the innkeeper and let him fetch a priest.”
“He is gone on some mission of his own,” I answered. “He stole out the back door and rode into the forest.”
“He is gone to betray me to the Duke of Alençon,” muttered Étienne. “He recognized me, after all. I am indeed lost.”
Now it came to me that it was because of my calling Étienne’s name in the darkness of the room above that the innkeeper became aware of my false friend’s true identity. So it might be said that if the Duke laid Étienne by the heels, it would be because of my unconscious betrayal. And like most country people, I had only fear and distrust of the nobility.
“I’ll take you hence,” I said. “Not even a dog shall fall into the hands of the law by my will.”
I left the tavern hurriedly and went to the stables. Of the slattern I saw nothing. Either she had fled to the woods, or else was too drunk to heed. I saddled and bridled Étienne’s stallion, though it laid back its ears and snapped and kicked at me, and led it to the door. Then I went within and spoke to Étienne; and indeed a fearsome sight he was, bruised and battered, with tattered doublet and shirt, and all covered with blood.
“I have brought your horse,” I said.
“I cannot rise,” he mumbled.
“Set your teeth,” I commanded. “I will carry you.”
“You can never do it, girl,” he protested, but even as he spoke, I heaved him up on my shoulders and bore him through the door, and a dead weight he was, with limbs trailing like a dead man’s. Getting him upon the horse was a heart-breaking task, for it was little he could do to aid himself, but at last it was accomplished, and I swung up behind the saddle and held him in place.
Then as I hesitated, in doubt as to where to go, he seemed to sense my uncertainty, for he mumbled: “Take the road westward, to Saint Girault. There is a tavern there, a mile this side the town, the Red Boar, whose keeper is my friend.”
Of that ride through the night, I will speak but briefly. We met no one, riding through a ribbon of starlight, walled by black forest trees. My hand grew sticky with Étienne’s blood, for the jolting of the pace set his many wounds to bleeding afresh, and presently he grew delirious and spake disjointedly of other times and people strange to me. Anon he mentioned names known to me by reputation, lords, ladies, soldiers, outlaws and pirates, and he raved of dark deeds and sordid crimes and feats of curious heroism. And betimes he sang snatches of marching songs and drinking songs and bawdy ballads and love lyrics, and maundered in alien tongues unintelligible to me. Ah—I have ridden many roads since that night, of intrigue or violence, but never stranger ride rode I than that ride in the night through the forest to Saint Girault.
Dawn was a hint in the branch-scarred sky when I drew up at a tavern I believed was the one Étienne meant. The picture on the board proved such to be the case, and I shouted for the keeper. A lout of a boy came forth in his shirt, yawning, and digging his fists into his sluggish eyes, and when he saw the great stallion and its riders, all dabbled and splashed with blood, he bawled with fear and amaze and scudded back into the tavern with his shirt tail flapping about his rump. Presently then a window was cautiously pushed open upstairs, and a night-capped head was thrust out behind the muzzle of a great arquebuse.
“Go your ways,” quoth the night-cap; “we have no dealings with bandits and bloody murderers.”
“Here are no bandits,” I answered angrily, being weary and short of patience. “Here is a man who has been set upon and nearly slain. If you are the innkeeper of the Red Boar, he is a friend of yours—Étienne Villiers, of Aquitaine.”
“Étienne!” exclaimed mine host. “I will be down. Assuredly I will be down. Why did you not say it was Étienne?”
The window slammed and there was a sound of stairs being rapidly descended. I slid from the stallion and received Étienne’s toppling form in my arms, easing him to the ground as the keeper rushed forth with servants bearing torches.
Étienne lay like one dead, his face livid where it was not masked with blood, but his heart beat strongly, and I knew he was partly conscious.
“Who did this, in God’s name?” demanded mine host in horror.
“I did,” I answered shortly. He gave back from me, paling in the torchlight.
“God ha’ mercy on us! A youth like—holy Denis protest us! It’s a woman!”
“Enough of this babble!” I exclaimed, angered. “Take him up and bear him into your best chamber.”
“B-b-but—“ began mine host, still bewildered, while the menials backed away.
I stamped my foot and swore, which is a custom always common to me.
“Death of the devil and Judas Iscariot!” quoth I. “Will you allow your friend to die while you gape and stare? Take him up!” I laid hand on his dagger, which I had girdled to mine own waist, and they hastened to obey me, staring as though I were the arch-fiend’s daughter.
“Étienne is always welcome,” mumbled mine host, “but a she-devil in breeches—”
“You will wear your own longer if you talk less and work more,” I assured him, plucking a bell-mouthed pistol from the girdle of a servant who was too frightened even to remember he had it. “Do as I say, and there will be no more slaying tonight. Onward!”
Aye, verily, the happenings of the night had matured me. I was not yet fully a woman, but on the way to being one.
They bore Étienne to what mine host—whose name was Perducas—swore was the best chamber in the tavern, and sooth to say, it was much finer than anything in the Knave’s Fingers. It was an upper room, opening out upon the landing of a winding stair, and it had windows of a proper size, though no other door.
Perducas swore that he was as good a leech as any man, and we stripped Étienne and set to work reviving him. Indeed, he showed to be as roughly handled as any man I had ever seen, not to be mortally wounded. But when we had washed the blood and dust off his body, we found that none of his dagger-wounds had touched a vital spot, nor was his skull fractured, though the scalp had been split in several places. His right arm was broken and the other black with bruises, and the broken bone we set, I helping Perducas with some skill, for accidents and wounds had always been common enough in La Fere.
When we had his wounds bandaged, and him laid in a clean bed, he recovered his senses enough to gulp wine and inquire where he was. When I told him, he muttered: “Leave me not, Agnes; Perducas is a man among men, but I require a woman’s tender care.”
“Saint Denis deliver me from such tender care as this hell-cat has shown,” quoth Perducas under his breath. And I said: “I will remain until you are upon your feet again, Étienne.” And he seemed satisfied therewith, and went into a calm slumber.
I then demanded a room for myself, and Perducas, having sent a boy to attend the stallion, showed me a chamber adjoining that of Étienne’s, though not connected with it by any door. I laid myself down on the bed just as the sun was coming up, it being the first feather bed I had ever seen, much less lain on, and slept for many hours.
When I came again to Étienne, I found him in full possession of his senses, and free of delirium. Indeed, in those days men were iron, and if their wounds were not instantly mortal, they quickly recovered, unless their hurts became poisoned through the carelessness or ignorance of the leeches. Perducas would have none of the nauseous and childish remedies praised by the physicians, but divers clean herbs and plants he gathered in the depths of the woods. He told me that he learned his art from the hakims of the Saracens, among whom he had traveled in his youth. He was a man of many unexpected sides, was Perducas.
Together he and I tended Étienne, who healed rapidly. Little speech passed between us. He and Perducas talked much together, but most of the time Étienne merely lay and looked silently at me.
Perducas talked to me a little, but seemed to fear me. When I spoke of my score, he replied that I owed him naught; that as long as Étienne desired my presence, food and lodging were mine, without pay. But he earnestly desired me not to converse with the towns’ people, lest their curiosity lead to the discovery of Étienne. His servants, he said, could be trusted to silence. I asked him naught of the reason for the Duc d’Alençon’s hatred for Étienne, but quoth he: “It is no common score which the Duke holdeth against Étienne Villiers. Étienne was once in this nobleman’s train, and was unwise enough to perform for him a most delicate mission. D’Alençon is ambitious; ’tis whispered that naught but the rank of constable of France will satisfy him. He is now high in favor with the king; that favor might not shine with such lustre were it known what letters once passed between the Duke and Charles of Germany, whom men now know as the emperor of the Holy Roman Empire.
“Étienne alone knows the full extent of that plotted treason. Therefore d’Alençon burns for Étienne’s death, yet dares not strike openly, lest his victim damn him forever with his dying breath. He would strike subtly and silently, by hidden dagger, poison or ambush. As long as Étienne is within his reach, Étienne’s only safety lies in secrecy.”
“Suppose there are others like that rogue Thibault?” I demanded.
“Nay,” quoth he. “ ’Tis no doubt there are. I know that band of gallows’ bait well. But ’tis their one point of honor that they betray not one of comrades. And in time past Étienne was one of them—cut-purses, women-snatchers, thieves and murderers that they are.”
I shook my head, musing on the strangeness of men, insomuch that Perducas, an honest man, was friend to a rogue like Étienne, knowing well his villainies. Well, many an honest man secretly admires a rogue, seeing in him that which he himself would be, if he lacked not the courage.
Ah well, I heeded well Perducas’ desires, and time dragged heavily on my hands. I seldom left the tavern, save at night, and then only to wander in the woods, avoiding the people of the countryside and of the market-town. And a growing restlessness stirred me, and a feeling that I was waiting for something I knew not what, and that I be up and doing—I knew not what. A week had passed in this manner, when I met Guiscard de Clisson.
Beyond the creak of rat-gnawed beams in squalid peasant huts:
Above the groan of ox-wain wheels that ground the muddy rats:
I heard the beat of distant drums that call me night and day.
To roads where armored captains ride, in steel and roses panoplied,
With banners flowing crimson-dyed—over the world away!
—Drums in My Ears.
I entered into the tavern one morning, after an early walk in the woods, and halted at the sight of the stranger gnawing a beef-bone at the board. He too stopped short in his gorging and stared at me. He was a tall man, rangy and hard of frame. A scar seamed his lean features, and his grey eyes were cold as steel. He was, indeed, a man of steel, clad in cuirass, thigh-pieces and greaves. His broadsword lay across his knees, his morion rested on the bench beside him.
“By God!” quoth he. “Are you man or woman?”
“What do you think?” I asked, leaning my hands on the board and looking down at him.
“Only a fool would ask the question I asked,” said he, with a shake of his head. “You are all woman; yet your attire strangely becomes you. A pistol in your girdle, too. You remind me of a woman I once knew; she marched and fought like a man, and died of a pistol ball on the field of battle. She was dark where you are fair, but there is something similar in the set of your chin, in your carriage—nay, I know not. Sit ye down and converse with me. I am Guiscard de Clisson. Have you heard of me?"
“Many a time,” I answered, seating myself. “In my native village they tell tales of you. You are a leader of mercenaries and Free Companions.”
“When men have guts enough to be led,” quoth he, quaffing, and holding out the flagon to me. “Ha, by the tripe and blood of Judas, you guzzle like a man! Mayhap women are becoming men, for ’tis truth, by Saint Trignan, that men are become women, these days. Not a recruit for my company have I gained in this province, where, in days I can remember, men fought for the honor of following a captain of mercenaries. Death of Satan! With the Emperor gathering his accursed Lanzknecht to sweep de Lautrec out of Milan, and the king in such dire need of soldiers—to say nothing of the rich loot in Italy—every able-bodied Frenchman ought to be marching southward, by God! Ah, for the old-time spirit of men!”
Now as I looked at this war-scarred veteran, and heard his talk, my heart beat quick with a strange longing, and I seemed to hear, as I had heard so often in my dreams, the distant beating of drums.
“I will ride with you!” I exclaimed. “I am weary of being a woman. I will make one of your company!”
He laughed and slapped the board with his open hand, as if at a great jest.
“By Saint Denis, girl,” quoth he, “you have a proper spirit, but it take more than a pair of breeches to make a man.”
“If that other woman of whom you spoke could march and fight, so can I!” I cried.
“Nay.” He shook his head. “Black Margot of Avignon was one in a million. Forget this foolish fancy, girl. Don thy petticoats and become a proper woman once more. Then—well, in your proper place I might be glad to have you ride with me!”
Ripping out an oath that made him start, I sprang up, knocking my bench backward so it fell with a crash. I stood before him, clenching and unclenching my hands, seething with the rage that always rose quickly in me.
“Ever the man in men!” I said between my teeth. “Let a woman know her proper place: let her milk and spin and sew and bake and bear children, not look beyond her threshold or the command of her lord and master! Bah! I spit on you all! There is no man alive who can face me with weapons and live, and before I die, I’ll prove it to the world. Women! Cows! Slaves! Whimpering, cringing serfs, crouching to blows, revenging themselves by taking their own lives, as my sister urged me to do. Ha! You deny me a place among men? By God, I’ll live as I please and die as God wills, but if I’m not fit to be a man’s comrade, at least I’ll be no man’s mistress. So go ye to hell, Guiscard de Clisson, and may the devil tear your heart!”
So saying I wheeled and strode away, leaving him gaping after me. I mounted the stair and came into Étienne’s chamber, where I found him lying on his bed, much improved, though still pale and weak, and his arm like to be in its sling for weeks to come.
“How fares it with you?” I demanded.
“Well enough,” he answered, and after staring at me a space: “Agnes,” said he, “why did you spare my life when you could have taken it?”
“Because of the woman in me,” I answered morosely; “that cannot bear to hear a helpless thing beg for life.”
“I deserved death at your hands,” he muttered “more than Thibault. Why have you tended and cared for me?”
“I did not wish you to fall into the hands of the Duke because of me,” I answered, “since it was I who unwittingly betrayed you. And now you have asked me these questions, I will e’en ask you one; why be such a damnable rogue?”
“God knows,” he answered, closing his eyes. “I have never been anything else, as far back as I can remember, and my memory runs back to the gutters of Poitiers, where I snatched for crusts and lied for pennies as a child, and got my first knowledge of the ways of the world. I have been soldier, smuggler, pander, cut-throat, thief—always a black rogue. Saint Denis, some of my deeds have been too black to repeat. And yet somewhere, somehow, there has always been an Étienne Villiers hidden deep in the depths of the creature that is myself, untarnished by the rest of me. There lies remorse and fear, and makes for misery. So I begged for life when I should have welcomed death, and now lie here speaking truth when I should be framing lies for your seduction. Would I were all saint or all rogue.”
At that instant feet stamped on the stair, and rough voices rose. I sprang to bar the door, hearing Étienne’s name called, but he halted me with a lifted hand, harkened, then sank back with a sigh of relief.
“Nay, I recognize the voice. Enter, comrades!” he called.
Then into the chamber trooped a foul and ruffianly band, led by a pot-bellied rogue in enormous boots. Behind him came four others, ragged, scarred, with cropped ears, patched eyes, or flattened noses. They leered at me, and then glared at the man on the bed.
“So, Étienne Villiers,” said the fat rogue, “we ha’ fund ye! Hiding from us is not so easy as hiding from the Duc d’Alençon, eh, you dog?”
“What manner of talk is this, Tristan Pelligny?” demanded Étienne, in unfeigned astonishment. “Have you come to greet a wounded comrade, or—”
“We have come to do justice on a rat!” roared Pelligny. He turned and ponderously indicated his ragamuffin crew, pointing a thick forefinger at each. “See ye here, Étienne Villiers? Jacques of the Warts, Gaston the Wolf, Jehan Cropear, and Conrad the German. And myself maketh five, good men and true, once your comrades, come to do justice upon you for foul murder!”
“You are mad!” exclaimed Étienne, struggling upon his elbows. “Whom have I murdered that you should be wroth thereat? When I was one of you did I not always bear my share of the toil and dangers of thievery, and divide the loot fairly?”
“We talk not now of loot!” bellowed Tristan. “We speak of our comrade Thibault Bazas, foully murdered by you in the tavern of the Knave’s Fingers!”
Étienne’s mouth started open, he hesitated, glanced in a startled way at me, then closed his mouth again. I started forward.
“Fools!” I exclaimed. “He did not slay that fat swine Thibault. I killed him.”
“Saint Denis!” laughed Tristan. “ ’Tis the wench in the breeches of whom the slattern spoke! You slew Thibault? Ha! A pretty lie, but not convincing, to any whom knew Thibault. The serving wench heard the fighting, and fled in fright into the forest. When she dared to return, Thibault lay dead, and Étienne and his jade were riding away together. Nay, ’tis too plain. Étienne slew Thibault, doubtless over this very hussy. Well, when we have disposed of him, we will take care of his leman, eh lads?”
A babble of profane and obscene agreement answered him.
“Agnes,” said Étienne, “call Perducas.”
“Call and be damned,” said Tristan. “Perducas and all the servants are out in the stable, drenching Guiscard de Clisson’s nag. We’ll have our task done before they return. Here—stretch his traitor out on yonder bench. Before I cut his throat, I’d fain try my knife edge on other parts of him.”
He brushed me aside contemptuously, and strode to Étienne’s bed, followed close by the others. Étienne struggled upright, and Tristan struck him with clenched fist, knocking him down again. In that instant the room swam red in my gaze. With a leap I had Étienne’s sword in my hand and at the feel of the hilt, power and a strange confidence rushed like fire through my veins.
With a fierce exultant cry I ran at Tristan, and he wheeled, bellowing, fumbling at his sword. I cut that bellow short as my sword sheared through his thick neck muscles and he went down, spouting blood, his head hanging by a shred of flesh. The other ruffians gave tongue like a pack of hounds and turned on me in fear and fury. And remembering suddenly the pistol in my girdle, I plucked it forth and fired point-blank into the face of Jacques, blasting his skull into a red ruin. In the hanging smoke the others made at me, bawling foul curses.
There are actions to which we are born, and for which we have a talent exceeding mere teaching. I, who had never before had a sword in my grasp, found it like a living thing in my hand, wielded by unguessed instinct. And I found, again, my quickness of eye and hand and foot was not to be matched by these dull clods. They bellowed and flailed blindly, wasting strength and motion, as if their swords were cleavers, while I smote in deadly silence, and with deadly certainty.
I do not remember much of that fight; it is a crimson haze in which a few details stand out. My thoughts were moving too swiftly for my brain to record, and I know not fully how, with what leaps, ducks, side-steps and parries I avoided those flailing blades. I know that I split the head of Conrad the German, as a man splits a melon, and his brains gushed sickeningly over the blade. And I remember that the one called Gaston the Wolf trusted too much in a brigandine he wore among his rags, and that under my desperate stroke, the rusty links burst and he fell upon the floor with his bowels spilling out. Then as in red cloud, only Jehan was rushing at me, and flailing down with his sword. And I caught his descending wrist on my edge. His hand, holding the sword, jumped from his wrist on an arch of crimson, and as he stared stupidly at the spouting stump, I ran him through with such ferocity that the cross-piece struck hard against his breast, and I pitched over him as he fell.
I do not remember rising and wrenching free my blade. On wide braced legs, sword trailing, I reeled among the corpses, then a deadly sickness overcame me, and I staggered to the window and leaning my head over the sill, retched fearfully. I found that blood was streaming down my arm from a slash in my shoulder, and my shirt was in ribbons. The room swam to my gaze, and the scent of fresh blood, swimming in the entrails of the slain, revolted me. As if through a mist I saw Étienne’s white face.
Then there came a pound of feet on the stair and Guiscard de Clisson burst through the door, sword in hand, followed by Perducas. They stared like men struck dead, and de Clisson swore appallingly.
“Did I not tell you?” gasped Perducas. “The devil in breeches! Saint Denis, what a slaughter!”
“Is this your work, girl?” asked Guiscard in a strange small voice. I shook back my damp hair and struggled to my feet, swaying dizzily.
“Aye; it was a debt I had to pay.”
“By God!” muttered he, staring. “There is something dark and strange about you, for all your fairness.”
“Aye, Dark Agnes!” said Étienne, lifting himself on elbow. “A star of darkness shone on her birth, of darkness and unrest. Where ever she goes shall be blood spilling and men dying. I knew it when I saw her standing against the sunrise that turned to blood the dagger in her hand.”
“I have paid my debt to you,” I said. “If I placed your life in jeopardy, I have bought it back with blood.” And casting his dripping sword at his feet, I turned toward the door.
Guiscard, who had been staring like one daft, shook himself as if from a trance, and strode after me.
“Nails of the Devil!” quoth he. “What has just passed has altered my mind entirely! You are such another as Black Margot of Avignon. A true sword-woman is worth a score of men. Would you still march with me?”
“As a companion-in-arms,” I answered. “I’m mistress to none.”
“None save Death,” he answered, glancing at the corpses.
Her sisters bend above their looms
And gnaw their moldy crumbs:
But she rides forth in silk and steel
To follow the phantom drums.
—The Ballad of Dark Agnes.
A week after the fight in Étienne’s chamber, Guiscard de Clisson and I rode from the tavern of the Red Boar and took the road to the east. I bestrode a mettlesome destrier and was clad as became a comrade of de Clisson. Velvet doublet and silk trunk-hose I wore, with long Spanish boots; beneath my doublet plaint steel mail guarded red locks. Pistols were in my girdle, and a sword hung from a richly-worked baldric. Over all was flung a cloak of crimson silk. These things Guiscard had purchased for me, swearing when I protested at his lavishness:
“Cans’t pay me back from the loot we take in Italy,” said he. “But a comrade of Guiscard de Clisson go bravely clad!”
Sometimes I misdoubt me that Guiscard’s acceptance of me as a man was as complete as he would have had me think. Perchance he still secretly cherished his original idea—no matter.
That week had been a crowded one. For hours each day Guiscard had instructed me in the art of swordsmanship. He himself was accounted the finest blade in France, and he swore that he had never encountered apter pupil than I. I learned the rogueries of the blade as if I had been born to it, and the speed of my eye and hand often brought amazed oaths from his lips. For the rest, he had me shoot at marks with pistol and matchlock, and showed me many crafty and savage tricks of hand to hand fighting. No novice had ever more able teacher; no teacher had ever more eager pupil. I was afire with the urge to learn all pertaining to the trade. I seemed to have been born into a new world, and yet a world for which I was intended from birth. My former life seemed like a dream, soon to be forgotten.
So that early morning, the sun not yet up, we swung on to our horses in the courtyard of the Red Boar, while Perducas bade us God-speed. As we reined around, a voice called my name, and I perceived a white face at an upper casement.
“Agnes!” cried Étienne. “Are you leaving without so much as bidding me farewell?”
“Why should there be such ceremony between us?” I asked. “There is no debt on either side. There should be no friendship, as far as I can see. You are well enough to tend yourself, and need my care no longer.”
And saying no more, I reined away and rode with Guiscard up the winding forest road. He looked at me sidewise and shrugged his shoulders.
“A strange woman you are, Dark Agnes,” quoth he. “You seem to move through life like one of the Fates, unmoved, unchangeable, potent with tragedy and doom. I think men who ride with you will not live long.”
I did not reply, and so we rode on through the green wood. The sun came up, flooding the leaves with gold as they swayed in the morning wind; a deer flashed across the path ahead of us, and the birds were chanting their joy of Life.
We were following the road over which I had carried Étienne after the fight in the Knave’s Fingers, but toward midday we turned off on another, broader road which slanted southeastward. Nor had we ridden far, after the turn, when: “Where man is not ’tis peaceful enough,” quoth Guiscard, then: “What now?”
A fellow snoozing beneath a tree had woken, started up, stared at us, and then turning quickly aside, plunged among the great oaks which lined the road, and vanished. I had but a glimpse of him, seeing that he was an ill-visaged rogue, wearing the hood and smock of a wood-cutter.
“Our martial appearance frightened the clown,” laughed Guiscard, but a strange uneasiness possessed me, causing me to stare nervously at the green forest walls that hemmed us in.
“There are no bandits in this forest,” I muttered. “He had no cause to flee from us. I like it not. Hark!”
A high, shrill, quavering whistle rose in the air, from somewhere out among the trees. After a few seconds it was answered by another, far to the east, faint with distance. Straining my ears, I seemed to catch yet a third response, still further on.
“I like it not,” I repeated.
“A bird calling its mate,” he scoffed.
“I was born and raised in the forest,” I answered impatiently. “Yonder was no bird. Men are signalling one another out there in the forest. Somehow I believe ’tis connected with that rogue who fled from the path.”
"You have the instincts of an old soldier,” laughed Guiscard, doffing his helmet for the coolness and hanging it on his saddle bow. “Suspicious—alert—’tis well enough. But your wariness is wasted in this wood, Agnes. I have no enemies hereabouts. Nay, I am well known and friend to all. And since there are no robbers nigh, it follows that we have naught to fear from anyone.”
“I tell you,” I protested as we rode on, “I have a haunting presentiment that all is not well. Why should that rogue run from us, and then whistle to some hidden mate as we passed? Let us leave the road and take to a path.”
By this time we had passed some distance beyond where we had heard the first whistle, and had entered a broken region traversed by a shallow river. Here the road broadened out somewhat, though still walled by thick trees and bushes. On the left hand the bushes grew densely, close to the road. On the right hand they were straggling, bordering a shallow stream whose opposite bank rose in sheer cliffs. The brush-grown space between road and stream was perhaps a hundred paces broad.
“Agnes, girl,” Guiscard was saying, “I tell thee, we are as safe as—”
Crash! A thundering volley ripped out of the bushes on the left, masking the road with whirling smoke. My horse screamed and I felt him stagger. I saw Guiscard de Clisson throw up his hands and sway backward in his saddle, then his horse reared and fell with him. All this I saw in a brief instant, for my horse bolted, crashing frantically through the bushes on the right hand side of the road, and a branch knocked me from the saddle, to lie half stunned among the bushes.
As I lay there, unable to see the road for the denseness of the covert, I heard loud rough voices, and the sound of men coming out of their ambush into the road.
“Dead as Judas Iscariot!” bawled one. “Where did the wench go?”
“Yonder goes her horse, splashing across the stream, gushing blood, and with empty saddle,” quoth another. “She fell among the bushes somewhere.”
“Would we could have taken her alive,” said yet another. “She would have furnished rare sport. But take no chances, the Duke said. Ah, here is Captain d’Valence!”
There was a drumming of hoofs up the road, and the rider shouted: “I heard the volley, where is the girl?”
“Lying dead among the bushes somewhere,” he was answered. “Here is the man.”
An instance silence, then: “Thunders of hell!” roared the captain. “Fools! Bunglers! Dogs! This is not Étienne Villiers! You’ve murdered Guiscard de Clisson!”
A babble of confusion rose, curses, accusations and denials, dominated by the voice of him they called d’Valence.
“I tell you, I would know de Clisson in hell, and this is he, for all his head is a mass of blood. Oh, you fools!”
“We but obeyed orders,” another growled. “When you heard the signal, you put us in ambush and bade us shoot who ever came down the road. How did we know who it was we were to murder? You never spoke his name; our business was but to shoot the man you should designate. Why did you not remain with us and see it well done?”
“Because this is the Duke’s service, fool!” snapped d’Valence. “I am too well known. I could not take the chance of being seen and recognized, if the ambush failed.”
They then turned on some one else. There was the sound of a blow, and yelp of pain.
“Dog!” swore d’Valence. “Did you not give the signal that Étienne Villiers was riding this way?”
“ ’Tis not my fault!” howled the wretch, a peasant by his accent. “I knew him not. The taverner of the Knave’s Fingers bade me watch for a man riding with a red-haired wench in a man’s garb, and when I saw her riding by with the soldier, I thought he must be this Étienne Villiers—ahhhmercy!”
There was a report, a shriek and the sound of a falling body.
“We will hang for this, if the Duke learns of it,” said the captain. “Guiscard was high in the favor of the Vicomte de Lautrec, governor of Milan. D’Alençon will hang us to conciliate the Vicomte. We must guard our own necks. We will hide the bodies in the stream, and none will be the wiser. Scatter now, and look for the corpse of the girl. If she still lives, we must close her mouth for ever.”
At that, I began to edge my way backwards, towards the stream. Glancing across, I saw that the opposite bank was low and level, grown with bushes, and walled by the cliffs I have mentioned, in which I saw what looked like the mouth of a ravine. That seemed to offer a way of retreat. Crawling until I came nearly to the water’s edge, I rose and ran lightly toward the stream, which glided over a rocky bed scarcely knee-deep there. The bravos had spread out in a sort of crescent, beating the bushes. I heard them behind me, and, further away, on either side of me. And suddenly one gave tongue like a hound who sights the prey.
“There she goes! Halt, damn you!”
A matchlock cracked and the bullet whined past my ear, but I ran fleetly on. They came crashing and roaring through the bushes after me—a dozen men in morions and cuirasses, with swords in their hands.
One broke cover on the very edge of the stream, as I was splashing across, and fearing a thrust in the back, I turned and met him in midstream. He came on splashing like a bull, a great, whiskered, roaring swashbuckler, sword in hand.
We fell to it, thrusting, slashing and parrying, in water knee-deep, and I was at disadvantage, for the swirling stream hindered my foot-work. His sword beat down on my helmet, making sparks glint before my eyes, and seeing the others closing in, I cast all on a desperate attack, and drove my sword so fiercely through his teeth that the point transfixed his skull and rang on the lining of his morion.
I wrenched my blade free as he sank down, crimsoning the stream, and even at that instant a pistol ball struck me in the thigh. I staggered, then recovered myself and limped swiftly out of the water and across the shore. The bravos were across the stream, bawling threats and waving their swords. Some loosed pistols at me, but their aim was vile, and I reached the cliff, dragging my injured leg. My boot was full of blood, and the whole limb numbed.
I plunged through the bushes at the mouth of the ravine—then halted with icy despair gripping my heart. I was in a trap. It was no ravine into which I had come, but merely a wide cleft in the rock of the cliff, which ran back a few yards and then narrowed to a crack. It formed a sharp triangle, the walls of which were too high and sheer to be climbed, wounded leg or no.
The bravos realized my plight, and came on with shouts of triumph. Dropping on my uninjured knee, behind the bushes at the cleft’s mouth, I drew pistol and shot the foremost ruffian through the head. That halted their rush and sent them scattering for cover. Those on the other side of the stream ducked back into the trees, while those who had gained this side spread out among the bushes near the bank.
I reloaded my pistol and lay close, while they bawled to one another, and began loosing at my covert with matchlocks. But the heavy balls whined high over head or spattered futilely on the rocky walls, and presently, noting a black-whiskered rogue squirming across an open space toward a bush nearer my retreat, I put a ball through his body, whereat the others yelled blood-thirstily and renewed their fire. But the range was too far for those across the stream to do good shooting, and the others were shooting from difficult angles, not daring to show any part of themselves.
Presently one shouted: “Why do not some of you bastards go down stream and find a place to climb the cliff, and so come at the wench from above?”
“Because we could not injure her without showing ourselves,” answered d’Valence from his covert; “and she shoots like the devil himself. Wait! Night will soon fall, and in the darkness she can not aim. She cannot escape. When it is too dusky for good shooting, we’ll rush her and finish this matter with the steel. The bitch is wounded, I know. Bide your time!”
I chanced a long shot at the bushes whence d’Valence’s voice issued, and from the burst of scorching profanity evoked thereby, do guess that my lead came too close for comfort.
Then followed a period of waiting, punctuated now and then by a shot from the trees. My injured leg throbbed, and flies gathered in a cloud about me. The sun, which had at first beat down fiercely into the crevice, withdrew, leaving me in deep shade, for which I was thankful. But hunger bit me, until my thirst grew so fierce that it drove hunger from mind. The sight and rippling noise of the stream nigh maddened. And the ball in my thigh burned so intolerably that I made shift to cut it out with my dagger, and then stanched the bleeding by cramming crumpled leaves into the wound.
I saw no way out; it seemed I must die there, perish all my dreams of pageantry and glory and the bright splendor and adventure. The dim drums whose beat I had sought to follow seemed fading and receding, like a distant knell, leaving only the dying ashes of death and oblivion.
But when I searched my soul for fear I found it not, nor regret nor any sorrow. Better to die there than live and grow old as the women I had known had grown old. I thought of Guiscard de Clisson, lying beside his dead horse, with his head in a pool of blood, and knew regret that death had come to him in such a sorry way, and that he had not died as he would have wished, on a field of battle, with the banner of his king flowing above him, and the blast of the trumpets in his ears.
The slow hours dragged on. Once I thought I heard a horse galloping, but the sound faded and ceased. I shifted my numb body and cursed the gnats, wishing mine enemies would charge while there was yet enough light for shooting.
Then, even as I heard them begin to shout to each other in the gathering dusk, a voice above and behind me brought me about, pistols raised, thinking they had climbed the cliff after all.
“Agnes!” The voice was low and urgent. “Hold your fire! It is I, Étienne!” The bushes were thrust aside, and a pale face looked over the brink of the cleft.
“Back, fool!” I exclaimed. “They’ll shoot you like a pigeon!”
“They cannot see me from where they hide,” he assured. “Speak softly, girl. Look, I lower this rope. It is knotted. Can you climb? I can never haul you up, with but one good arm.”
Quick hope fired my nerves.
“Aye!” I hissed. “Let it down swiftly, and make the end fast. I hear them splashing across the stream.”
Quickly then, in the gathering darkness, a snaky length came sliding down the cliff, and I laid hands upon it.
Crooking a knee about it, I dragged myself up hand over hand, and sinew-stretching work it was, for the lower end of the rope dangled free, and I turned like a pendulum. Then the whole task must be done by my hands alone, for my injured leg was stiff as a sword sheath, and anyway, my Spanish boots were not made for rope-climbing.
But I accomplished it, and dragged myself over the lip of cliff just as the cautious scrape of leather on sand, and the clink of steel told me that the bravos were gathering close to the crevice mouth for the rush.
Étienne swiftly gathered up the rope, and motioning to me, led the way through the bushes, talking in a hurried, nervous undertone. “I heard the shooting as I came along the road; left my horse tied in the forest and stole forward on foot to see what was forward. I saw Guiscard lying dead in the road, and understood from the shouts of the bravos that you were at bay. I know this place from of old. I stole back to my horse, rode along the stream until I found a place where I could ride up on the cliffs through a ravine. The rope I made of my cloak, torn to strips and spliced with my girdle and bridle-reins. Hark!”
Behind and below us broke out a mad clamor of yells and oaths.
“D’Alençon yearns indeed for my head,” muttered Étienne. “I heard the bravos’ talk while I crouched among the trees. Every road within leagues of Alençon is being patrolled by such bands as these since that dog of an innkeeper divulged to the Duke that I was again in this part of the kingdom.
“And now you will be hunted as desperately. I know Renault d’Valence, captain of those rogues. So long as he lives, your life will not be safe, for he will endeavor to destroy all proof that it was his knaves who slew Guiscard de Clisson. Here is my horse. We must not tarry.”
“But why did you follow me?” I asked.
He turned and faced me, a pale-faced shadow in the dusk.
“You were wrong when you said no debt lay between us,” quoth he. “I owe you my life. It was for me that you fought and slew Tristan Pelligny and his thieves. Why cling to your old hatred of me? You have well avenged a plotted wrong. You accepted Guiscard de Clisson as comrade. Will you not let me ride to the wars with you?”
“As comrade, no more,” I said. “Remember, I am woman no longer.”
“As brothers-in-arms,” he agreed.
I thrust forth my hand, and he his, and our fingers locked briefly.
“Once more we must ride both on the same horse,” he laughed, with a gay lilt of his old-time spirit. “Let us begone before those dogs find their way up here. D’Alençon has blocked the roads to Chartres, to Paris and to Orléans, but the world is ours! I think there are brave times ahead of us, adventures and wars and plunder! Then hey for Italy, and all brave adventurers!”