by Leda Swann
William was leading the spare mount on a long, loose rein. Pierre cantered up on the other side. “What will you do with the horse?”
“She comes from around here,” William said. “When we get close enough, I’ll set her free and she’ll make her own way back to her stable. Suzanne will look after her until I can return.”
Ah, so young William had a sweetheart living on the outskirts of Paris, did he? No wonder the lad had disappeared without fail whenever he was off duty. “Suzanne?”
William scowled, dug his heels into his horse to pull in front once more, and did not answer.
Pierre had little time to ponder over the identity of Wililam’s sweetheart. When he turned his head to see how far they had left Paris behind him, a flicker of movement caught his eye. There were lights behind him – a cluster of lights moving up behind them. By the way they were moving he would guess they were men on horseback carrying torches – and moving rapidly.
He could not fool himself that their presence on this very road was a coincidence. Only three people, Jean-Paul ,the Duc, and his masked friend, had known they would be on this road tonight. One of those three had given them away. On the whole, it thought it was unlikely to have been Jean-Paul. His bet would be with the masked man, if not the Duc himself. It was just the sort of evil trick that the brother of a monarch might play – to lead them into treachery for his sake, only to betray them in the end.
“William, behind us!” he called into the wind.
William turned his head and looked behind him. The sound of his violent cursing carried back on the wind to Pierre. It seemed that William was no more enamoured of the spineless bastard of the Duc than he was.
Pierre dug his heels into his horse’s flanks to increase his pace. “Let the spare horse go free. We will have to outrun them. We have no other choice.”
William swore violently again. “They have lights and we do not. We cannot go as fast as they can. If we push our mounts too hard, one of them at least is bound to stumble and fall or will break a leg on a pothole and then we are doomed. We will have to take shelter where we can and hope they pass us by.”
Pierre shook his head. He had had enough of hiding and sneaking and stabbing his enemy in the back while their head was turned. He was a soldier and a Musketeer. It was time he stood out in the open and fought like one. “I will not cower in a hedge like a coward while they race past us to Brest to arrest the last of our company. By God, I will stand and fight them like a Frenchman and a Musketeer. At least if I die, I will die with honor, my sword in my hand.”
At his words, William slowed his horse to a trot. “So, we stop here and fight?”
The young lad had pluck to face almost certain death with such aplomb. The two of them had little hope against the dozen or so guards who were on their tail. Still, he would do his best to even up the score. “Not here. This open terrain affords us no protection at all. They’ll be able to surround us and come at us from every side. We’ll keep going until we find a place that favors our lack of numbers.”
They went on in silence, each with his own thoughts. Pierre kept his eye out on the lay of the land, searching for anything that would favor them. He discarded each possibility one after another. Slowly but steadily their pursuers crept nearer and nearer.
They were approaching a wooded area where the path wound uphill in narrow curves through an area of undergrowth so dense that any horse would have difficulty fighting its way through. This offered them the best protection he had seen so far. Besides, their pursuers were so close upon them that they could not flee much further. “Through to the crest of the hill,” he called to William. “We shall make our stand there.”
They reached the crest of the small hill and wheeled their mounts around. The pair of them together blocked the path so that no one could pass.
Their horses were glad of the moment’s rest as they stood side by side in the path, their heaving flanks wet with sweat and the warm breath from their nostrils steaming in the cold of the night air.
They did not have to wait long. The sound of hoof beats grew steadily louder, the lights in the distance grew larger and brighter, and before long Pierre could even smell the acrid smoke of the burning pitch from the torches they carried.
All at once their pursuers, flaming torches brandished high above their heads, raced around a corner of the path and were upon them.
There were ten of them at least, maybe even a dozen, flaming torches carried in one hand and heads bent low over their horses’ necks as they urged their mounts on. The foremost riders saw the path in front of them blocked and yelled a warning to those riding behind them as they pulled up on the reins with all their might. The horses screamed with rage and pain, and several of them reared up into the air, their wicked-looking hooves beating wildly at nothing.
“They are the ones we are seeking,” a shout came from one of the foremost riders, as he fought to control his rearing mount. “Get them – alive or dead, I care not, so long as neither of them escape to take ship at Brest.”
Charent, Georges Charent. Now he knew why the man in black in the Duc’s apartments had looked strangely familiar to him, though his face was covered in a mask, and why he had been so sure he knew the man’s voice. It was George Charent, yellow-bellied, bastard son of a two-sou street whore that he was, who had betrayed them. Charent, his old comrade-in-arms and the man he had hated ever since they were together in Lyons.
Beside him he heard William growl with fury as their pursuers retreated around the corner of the path and readied themselves for the attack. “Take down whoever you like,” the lad said to him in a low voice reeking with menace, “but that one is mine. I have a debt to him that I must needs repay. I shall die happy knowing that I have sent his black soul shrieking into Hell before me.”
Pierre would not let any young whippersnapper deprive him of his last act of vengeance. If God still smiled on him, he would still strike a blow for his beloved Courtney and for his own lost honor before he died. “You will have to wait your turn in line for the chance to kill him. I have an old score to settle with him myself.”
William bared his teeth in a challenge. “I will fight you for the right to kill him.”
Pierre rested his head in his hands for a moment for the courage to do what he knew he must. It was enough that he would die - he would not take William with him into death. His last act would be to save Courtney’s cousin from the death that awaited them both. He could only hope that God would look less harshly on his many sins on account of his final generous deed. “Don’t be a fool, William. There is no need for us both to die here. Run, for God’s sake, and save yourself if you can. I can hold them all off for long enough for you to get away and hide.”
The boy looked confused at this answer to his challenge. “Why would you sacrifice yourself for me?”
“It is too late for me. My life is forfeit, and not worth the saving. I have no great desire to keep on living. I ask only one thing in payment. Find your cousin. Keep her from want. And tell her...”
“Tell her what?”
“Tell her that Pierre de Tournay loved her above all other women, that he bitterly repents the wrong he did to her, and that in the end he died with honor.”
Still the boy hesitated.
“For God’s sake, go. You must go. Who will look after your cousin when I am dead if you do not?”
Just at that moment Charent edged cautiously around the corner on his mount. “I hereby arrest you in the name of the King,” he shouted at the pair of them. “Put down your arms, come with us quietly and you will not be harmed. You have my word on it.”
“Your word?” Pierre gave a mocking laugh. Beside him he could see William quietly sidling backwards on his horse, waiting for the moment to break away and run. Please God, the boy would take heed of his pleas and save himself. “I dare say you are forsworn a dozen times before you break your fast each morning. When was the last time your word counted for aught?”
Charent gave a malicious grin. “So we meet again, Pierre de Tournay, my old friend. I had hoped you would had given up your foolish ideals by now. I always warned you they would prove dangerous in the end. Here they are at last, bringing you to the brink of death.”
“Not only me,” he muttered under his breath. He gave his mouth a sudden kick and it sprang forward beneath him. His sword whirling around his head, he attacked Charent with all the pent-up hatred of the man that had festered in his soul for so many months.
Charent recoiled under the brunt of the attack, but he could not fall back far. The rest of his company had come up in his wake and were behind him blocking the narrow path. “Give me room,” he shouted, as his horse whinnied in terror and he tried to calm its fears with one hand on the reins and block Pierre’s battering onslaught with his sword arm at the same time. “Give me space or give me assistance - I care not which.”
There was no room for his comrades to give Charent any help. The path was wide enough for two horses to stand or even to walk slowly abreast, but there was barely width enough for even one rider to swing his sword. The horses behind him shuffled back slowly, but not fast enough to be of any use.
Pierre saw with a gleam in his eye that Charent had run out of room to retreat, or even to maneuver himself into a better position. They traded blows back and forth, their swords clashing together with a ringing that carried through the night. Pierre did not let up on the pressure for an instant. Blow after punishing blow he struck at Charent, at the engineer of his own despair, wanting only to take his enemy into oblivion with him.
Behind him he heard the sound of galloping hooves. He paused for a moment to say thanks to God that William had taken his advice and run for it. Shouts of fury came from the pursuers, trapped helplessly behind Charent in the narrow path, as they watched one of their quarry escape.
Charent looked away for an instant to see what the commotion behind him was all about. That two seconds of inattention cost him his life.
Taking advantage of his momentary distraction, Pierre plunged his sword deep into the unguarded heart of his enemy. Charent looked down at his chest in surprise for a moment, as if he couldn’t believe the sight before his eyes – a sword buried to the hilt in his chest.
Pierre pulled out his sword again, dripping with Charent’s lifeblood. He felt no elation, just a bone-deep satisfaction that justice had at last been served. The man who had goaded him to destroy his soul had himself been destroyed.
Charent’s eyes grew wide at the sight of the blood spurting out of the hole in his chest. He put his hands to his chest to stop the flow, but there was nothing he could do. The blood still streamed from him in thick, viscous stream that spelled his approaching death. His face becoming whiter by the second, he swayed sideways in the saddle, lost his balance, and toppled with a sickening thud into the muddy roadway.
There was a collective groan from the other pursuers as their leader fell. Pierre sat on his horse holding his dripping sword in front of him. There was a hurried conference, and a couple of his pursuers wheeled their horses around and headed back down the path again. He had no time to wonder where they were going or what they were planning as another man was upon him, sword held high.
Back and forward they traded blows until Pierre’s sword arm started to ache. His opponent must have felt it, too, as he dropped back and let another man take his place. The new man was fresh and ready for action and Pierre was starting to tire.
By the time this man retired in his turn and let yet another man take his place, Pierre was so weary he could hardly hold up his sword arm. He had been wounded, too. A flesh cut in his side and another in his leg. Neither of them were dangerously wide or deep, but their insistent ache sapped his strength and slowed his movements, laying him open to further more dangerous cuts.
He hoped that William had gone to ground somewhere he would not easily be found. He doubted he could keep going for much longer. Still, every moment that he kept them from passing him by was another moment that William had to make good his escape. With a supreme effort of will he fought on doggedly. He had no strength left to go on the offensive. All he could do was block the blows that were aimed at him as best he could and prevent his attacker from driving him backwards into the open where he could easily be surrounded and killed or captured.
On he fought, and on, until the sweat was dripping into his eyes and he could barely see for the sting of it.
He heard the sound of hooves behind him but he could not even turn his head to look. There was no possibility that anyone had come to save him and he had no strength left to fight on two fronts.
“Take him alive,” he heard a voice call from in front of him, and there was an answering yell of assent from behind him. “The King wants him alive.”
He swung his sword one last time with all that remained of his strength and the man in front of him cursed volubly as the tip of it grazed his cheek.
He felt an impact on the side of his head that made him reel in the saddle. Slowly the world went black before his eyes and he knew nothing more.
Courtney raced along the lanes as if the devil were after her. Thanks to Pierre, she still had a chance, however slim it might be, of saving both Miriame’s life and her own. She did not know how long Pierre would be able to hold out against their pursuers – she only hoped it would be long enough for her to get safe away.
Her cottage was close by, barely five miles at a guess. She hated to lead the soldiers to her place of refuge by running to ground there, but she could see little choice. Once she were safely ensconced in her cottage, her clothes hidden away and her moustache burned, there would be nothing to connect the well-dressed gentlewoman Courtney Ruthgard with the rebel Musketeer fleeing for his life.
She held on to her horse for grim death as she rode. If she fell off and injured herself now, she would be dead before she knew it.
It seemed forever before her little cottage came in view. There was no sight or sound of her pursuers yet. Pierre must have sold his life dearly. She heaved a sigh of relief as she flung herself off her horse and battered on the door with one hand as she ripped off her false moustache with the other.
Suzanne, her pale, anxious face framed by her white bed cap, opened the door a crack and peered out, a candle in her hand. Seeing Courtney standing there, her face wild with fear and her horse in a lather of sweat, she took the chain off the door and opened it wide.
Courtney wasted no time on explanations. “Take my horse, for the love of God, and pull off his saddle and bridle. Rub him down well and give him a bucket of water and a measure of corn. They must not suspect that he has been ridden hard this night, or my life will be forfeit.”
She was inside before she had finished her explanation, and pulling off her boots.
Suzanne did not wait to be told again. Wearing only a mobcap and her nightgown, she rushed into the yard and led the horse away to the stable around the back.
Never had Courtney undressed so fast. Before she knew it, her clothes were in a heap on the floor. The boots she would keep, but the rest had to go. She bundled them into a heap and shoved them into the fire in the kitchen, prodding at the banked embers with a poker until they burst into flames. The shirt burned quickly, the jacket less so, and the leather breeches smoldered away slowly.
Suzanne dashed back inside and into her bedchamber. “I have taken off the saddle and bridle already, but I could not groom your horse in my nightgown,” she said, as she ran back out again in a moment clad in a sturdy woolen gown. “If they saw me in the stable undressed like that, that would arouse their suspicions for sure.”
There was a bucket of water in the kitchen ready for the morn. Courtney lathered herself up with strong-smelling lavender soap and washed off in the ice-cold water, shivering as it touched her skin. She lathered her hair and dunked it in the basin as well. She did not want the faintest trace of the smell of horse or leather to linger on her body. There must be nothing, nothing at all, to co
nnect her as a woman with her as a Musketeer.
By the time she had thrown on a nightgown and covered her hair with a white cap just like Suzanne’s, the worst of the clothes in the hearth were burned beyond recognition. She carefully picked the pewter buttons from her jacket out of the embers with a pair of long-handled tongs so they could not give her away and dropped them in the bucket of water with a hiss and a sizzle to cool. She would hide them tonight, and bury them in the garden when the coast was clear.
With a careful hand she banked the fire again with slabs of turf that would hide the last scraps of leather from her breeches and keep the embers hot until the morn. Firewood in the middle of winter was as precious as food. A blazing fire in the kitchen hearth in the middle of the night would be a dead giveaway that something was amiss.
The dirty water she threw outside into the mud.
Just as she finished, Suzanne came running back into the cottage and shut the door behind her. “I heard horses,” she said, leaning back against the door and panting hard. “Lots of horses.”
Courtney said a quick prayer that God would not abandon her. “Get your nightgown back on and get back into bed. I will deal with them if they come here.”
Suzanne was shaking with fear. “Won’t they recognize you?”
She could only hope not. With more confidence than she felt, she shook her head. “They are looking for a man and a Musketeer. I am a woman and a mother. At the worst, they may suspect that we are harboring their quarry or hiding him, but they cannot prove a thing. We are quite safe as long as we keep our nerve and do not let them bully us. They will never find what they are looking for. Now off you go into bed. Let me just see my son and I shall join you.”
