“You filthy dog!” I screamed, blazing into mad fury. “You swine – swine –
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 release 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 can not 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 Alencon,” muttered Etienne. “He recognized me, after all. I am indeed lost.”
Now it came to me that it was because of my calling Etienne’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 Etienne 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 Etienne’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 Etienne; 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 can not 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 hands grew sticky with Etienne’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 Etienne 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 – Etienne Villiers, of Aquitaine.”
“Etienne!” exclaimed mine host. “I will be down. Assuredly I will be down. Why did you not say it was Etienne?”
The window slammed and there was a sound of stairs being rapidly descended. I slid from the stallion and received Etienne’s toppling form in my arms, easing him to the ground as the keeper rushed forth with servants bearing torches.
Etienne 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 protect 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.
“Etienne 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 Etienne 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
