the clouds and flooded the road with silvery light. I looked in amaze at the richness of our captive’s garments, and the beauty of her oval face, framed in a glory of hair that was like dark foam; her dark eyes glowed like black jewels in the moonlight. And from Etienne came a strangled cry.
“My lady!” He doffed his feathered cap, and dropped to his knee. “Kneel, Agnes, kneel, girl! It is Francoise de Foix!”
“Why should an honest woman kneel to a royal strumpet?” I demanded, thrusting my thumbs into my girdle and bracing my legs wide as I faced her.
Etienne was stricken dumb, and the girl seemed to wince at my peasant candor.
“Rise, I beg of you,” she said humbly to Etienne, and he did so, cap in hand.
“But this was most unwise, my lady!” said he. “To have come alone and at night – ”
“Oh,” she cried suddenly, catching at her temples, as if reminded of her mission. “Even now they may be slaying him! Oh, sir, if you be a man, aid me!”
She seized Etienne by the doublet and shook him in the agony of her insistence.
“Listen,” she begged, though Etienne was listening with all his ears. “I came here tonight, alone, as you see, to endeavor to right a wrong, and to save a life.
“You know me as Francoise de Foix, the mistress of the king – ”
“I have seen you at court, where I was not always a stranger,” said Etienne, speaking with a strange difficulty. “I know you for the most beautiful woman in all France.”
“I thank you, my friend,” she said, still clinging to him. “But the world sees little of what goes on behind the palace doors. Men say I twist the king about my finger, God help me – but I swear I am but a pawn in a game I do not understand – the slave of a greater will than that of Francois.”
“Louise de Savoie,” muttered Etienne.
“Aye, who through me, rules her son, and through him, all France. It was she who made me what I am. Else I had been, not the mistress of a king, but the honest wife of some honest man.
“Listen, my friend, oh listen and believe me! Tonight a man is riding toward the coast, and death! And the letter which lured him there was written by me! Oh, I am a hateful thing, to thus serve one who – who loves me –
“But I am not my own mistress. I am the slave of Louise de Savoie. What she bids me do, that I do, or else I smart for it. She dominates me and I dare not resist her. This – this man was in Alencon, when he received the letter begging him to meet me at a certain tavern near the coast. Only for me would he have gone, for he well knows of his powerful enemies. But me he trusts – oh God pity me!”
She sobbed hysterically for an instant, while I watched in wonder, for I could never weep, my whole life.
“It is a plot of Louise,” she said. “Once she loved this man, but he scorned her, and she plots his ruin. Already she has shorn him of titles and honor; now she would rob him of life itself.
“At the tavern of the Hawk he will be met, not by my miserable self, but by a band of hired bravos, who will slay his servants and take him captive and deliver him to the pirate Roger Hawksly, who has been paid well to dispose of him forever.”
“Why so much planning and elaborate work?” I demanded. “Surely a dagger in the back would do the job as well.”
“Not even Louise dares discovery,” she answered. “The – the man is too powerful – ”
“There is only one man in France whom Louise hates so fiercely,” said Etienne, looking full into Francoise’s eyes. She bowed her head, then lifted it and returned the look with her lustrous dark eyes.
“Aye!” she said simply.
“A blow to France,” muttered Etienne, “if
“Then the bravos will slay him themselves,” she said with a shudder. “They will never dare let him go. They are led by Jehan, the right hand man of Louise – ”
“And by Renault de Valence,” muttered Etienne. “I see it all now; you were with that band, Agnes. I wonder if d’Alencon knows of the plot.”
“No,” answered Francoise. “But Louise plans to raise him to the rank of her victim; so she uses his most trusted man, Renault de Valence, for her schemes. But oh, we waste time! Please will you not aid him? Ride with me to the tavern of the Hawk. Perchance we may rescue him – may reach him in time to get him away before they arrive. I stole away, and have ridden all night at top speed – please, please aid me!”
“Francoise de Foix has never to ask twice of Etienne Villiers,” said Etienne, in that strange unnatural voice, standing in the moonlight, cap in hand. Perhaps it was the moon, but a strange expression was on his face, softening the lines of cynicism and wild living, and making him seem another and nobler man.
“And you, mademoiselle!” The court beauty turned to me, with her arms outstretched. “You would not kneel to me, Dark Agnes; look, I kneel to you!”
And so she did – down in the dust on her knees, her white hands clasped and her dark eyes sparkling with tears.
“Get up, girl,” I said awkwardly, ashamed for some obscure reason. “Kneel not to me. I’ll do all I can. I know nothing of court intrigues and what you have said buzzes in my skull until I am dizzy, but what we can do, that we will do!”
With a sob she rose and threw both her soft arms about my neck and kissed me on the lips, so I was further ashamed. It was the first time I remembered anyone ever kissing me.
“Come,” I said roughly. “We waste time.”
Etienne lifted the girl into his saddle and swung up behind her, and I mounted the great black horse.
“What do you plan?” he asked me.
“I have no plan. We must be guided by the circumstances which confront us. Let us ride as swiftly as may be for the inn of the Hawk. If Renault wasted much time in looking for me – as doubtless he did – he and his bravos may not yet have reached the tavern. If they have – well, we are but two swords, but we can but do our best.”
And so I fell to recharging the pistol I had taken from Etienne, and a tedious task it was, in the darkness, and riding hard. So what speech passed between Etienne and Francoise de Foix I know not, but the murmur of their voices reached me from time to time, and in his voice was an unfamiliar softness – strange in a rogue like Etienne Villiers.
So we came at last upon the tavern of the Hawk, which loomed stark against the night, dark save for a single lanthorn in the common room. Silence reigned utterly, and there was the scent of fresh-spilled blood –
In the road before the tavern lay a man in the livery of a lackey, his white staring face turned to the stars, and dabbled with blood. Near the door lay a shape in a black cloak, and the fragments of a black mask, soaked in blood, lay beside it, with a feathered hat. But the features of the man were but a ghastly mask of hacked and slashed flesh, unrecognizable.
Just inside the door lay another lackey, his brains oozing from his crushed head, a broken sword still gripped in his hand. Inside the tavern was a waste of broken settles and smashed tables, with great gouts of blood fouling the floor. A third lackey lay huddled in the corner, his blood-stained doublet showing a dozen sword-thrusts. Over all hung silence like a pall.
Francoise had fallen with a moan when she saw the horror of it all, and now Etienne half led, half carried her in his arms.
“Renault and his cutthroats were here,” he said. “They have taken their prey and gone. But where? All the servants would have fled in terror, not to return until daylight.”
But peering here and there, sword in hand, I saw something huddled under an over-turned settle, and dragging it forth, disclosed a terrified serving wench who fell on her knees and bawled for mercy.
“Have done, jade,” I said impatiently. “Here is none to harm you. But say quickly what has occurred.”
“The men in masks,” she whimpered. “They came suddenly in at the door – ”
“Did you not hear their horses?” demanded Etienne.
“Would Renault warn his victim?” I asked impatiently. “Doubtless they left their steeds a short distance away and came softly on foot. Go on, girl.”
