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 Etienne’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 can not 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 Etienne 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 Etienne’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, Etienne Villiers,” said the fat rogue, “we ha’ found ye! Hiding from us is not so easy as hiding from le duc d’Alencon, eh, you dog?”
“What manner of talk is this, Tristan Pelligny?” demanded Etienne, 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 raggamuffin crew, pointing a thick forefinger at each. “See ye here, Etienne Villiers? Jacques of the Warts, Gaston the Wolf, Jehan Crop-ear, 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 Etienne, struggling up on 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!”
Etienne’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.
“Saint Denis!” laughed Tristan. “ ’Tis the wench in breeches of whom the slattern spoke! You slew Thibault? Ha! A pretty lie, but not convincing, to any who knew Thibault. The serving wench heard the fighting, and fled in fright into the forest. When she dared to return, Thibault lay dead, and Etienne and his jade were riding away together. Nay, ’tis too plain. Etienne 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 Etienne, “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 this 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 Etienne’s bed, followed close by the others. Etienne struggled upright, and Tristan struck him with clenched fist, knocking him down again. In that instant the room swam red to my gaze. With a leap I had Etienne’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 exceding 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 thews 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 stoke, the rusty links burst and he fell upon the floor with his bowels spilling out. Then, as in a 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 the 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 Etienne’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 Etienne, 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
