by Leda Swann
She grabbed him by the hair and yanked him to his feet. A bottle of wine fell from his shirt to the floor. She kicked it out of her way without a second thought. “Drop your booty, thief,” she snarled at him, “and help us fight our way out.”
He wriggled out of her grasp and stuffed another onion into his boot. “Do I have to?”
She took hold of the shoulder of his jacket and leaned close in to him, whispering in his ear like the kiss of a lover. “You can fight with us like a man or I shall spit you in the guts with my dagger and leave your entrails on the floor for the dogs to eat. Take your choice.”
With a sigh of disappointment, he took a bottle of wine out of his shirt and looked at it lovingly, loath to part with it. “The best wine, it is, too.”
She prodded him with her sword just hard enough to know that her threat was not an idle one. “Drop it, you little gutter rat. You’ll fight better without it.”
With a mutter of annoyance, he drew his sword and the three of them fought their way out into the tavern again. For all that he was a dirty thief, he fought like a soldier, with the quickest hand she had seen yet.
The brawl was still going full-tilt – chairs were being flung and tables overturned as every soldier in the place fought against his neighbor for the sheer love of fighting. Courtney hoped they would all kill each other – the world would be a better place with a couple of dozen fewer soldiers in it.
They fought along the wall again to the next door. This time Courtney checked it before she ran headlong into another blind alley. Yes – it was the kitchen indeed, heavy with heat and the smell of good rabbit stew.
She cast a look of regret behind her. She would dearly like to stay and fight for longer, but it would not be politic. She had rescued the young Musketeer as she had intended, and had no desire to be taken up by the watch for brawling. They bore no love for the King’s Guard and she would not like to have her sex discovered by an unlucky accident.
She turned to leave the foremost of their pursuers with a few blows to remember her by, when the serving maid who had been the cause of the brawl in the first place rushed past her like a whirling dervish, screeching with all the force of her lungs and brandishing a smoking hot pan above her head. The dervish laid into their attackers with a vengeance, dealing blow after blow with her pan. Courtney put up her sword and watched with amusement as the serving maid, bent on vengeance, laid them low one after another. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the thief take advantage of the rout to slip a couple of carrots into his jacket.
The kitchen was soon emptied as the fallen warriors beat a hasty retreat, backsides on fire and heads ringing from the force of the blows rained down upon them.
The young Musketeer bowed low and murmured some words of thanks to the serving maid.
Courtney’s rage had evaporated into the delight of triumph. She gave a great guffaw of laughter and slapped the maid servant heartily on the back. The woman would make a fine Musketeer – she had the strength of arm and the viciousness of spirit to get the better of any man. “You served that lecherous bastard right enough. You’d do well in uniform. You’re the sort of comrade I’d like to have beside me in battle.”
The maid servant grinned at the compliment and put her rapidly cooling fry pan back on the fire again with pride. “You’d better scarper off, Messieurs,” she said, glowing with the fierce satisfaction of routing her enemies. “The Master will’ve sent a runner for the guards by now, and there’ll be trouble for those caught brawling here. You’ll be taken up for breaking his chairs.”
The other two Musketeers put up their swords and raced for the back door at her words, Courtney following closely on their heels. It seemed as though none of them were willing to risk being taken up by the guards.
The sound of a bugle warned them that the guard was arriving. Courtney looked this way and that down the alley, wondering which way was safe to turn.
With a muttered curse, the thief took the lead. “This way,” he called softly, scrambling up the stone wall on the other side of the alley.
She hesitated to follow him. How could she trust a man with stolen onions in his boots? The sound of horses hooves on the cobbles of the alley decided her. With a grunt of exertion, her booted feet scrabbling to find a foothold on the smooth stones, she swung herself up the wall and over the other side. The young Musketeer followed suit, dropping beside her on the same instant.
She had hesitated a moment too long. The guards caught side of them as they jumped down the other side, and the chase was on.
She looked at the thief for direction. She had no idea where she was or how to avoid capture. He was her best hope. If he would not aid her now, she would give herself up for lost.
The thief gave a loud sigh as if he were reluctantly bowing to the inevitable. “Follow me if you want to get out of here in one piece. But you’ve got to keep up with me. If you slow me down, I’ll ditch you both without a second thought.”
“Coward,” hissed the other Musketeer, disgusted at his words.
“Filthy little gutter rat,” Courtney muttered in agreement, but there was no malice in her voice. After all, he owed neither of them anything. Were it not for her insistence that he help them carve their way out of the tavern, he would still be furtively crouched in the storeroom like a sneaking little weasel, pilfering onions to his heart’s content. She was surprised he had not simply disappeared on them without a word at the first opportunity, leaving them to fend for themselves with the guards.
He ignored their insults and took off at a fast, sloping run. Courtney followed as closely as she could, all her senses alert for danger. She did not trust him not to try to lead them into a trap or to lose them in the darkness.
Through alleys and over walls he went, their boots echoing on the cobbles with the noise of a pistol shot, and squelching through the filth of the city streets.
Just when Courtney thought her sides were going to collapse, he stopped for a moment. She held her aching sides with one hand, gasping air into her burning lungs. She had never run like that in her life before. She would almost rather be caught by the guards than run another step.
The thief was as cool and calm as if he had been taking a pleasant stroll through the streets and not running for his life away from the guards. He tipped his hat with an arrogant smile. “I think we’ve lost them.”
The sound of a nearby bugle made her groan, but the thief shrugged it off with an easy grin. “That’s just for show. We’ll be safe enough once we get off the streets.”
The other Musketeer looked around him in bemusement. “Where are we?”
Now that she had caught her breath again and had the space to look around her, the surroundings were familiar to Courtney. Her lodgings were scarce a quarter of a mile away. Could they but get there and hide out while the chase died down again, they would be safe. She misliked inviting a couple of strange men into her apartments for the evening, but she had little choice – they had to get out of sight. Better take the risk of having them around for a while than be caught by the guards. She’d give them a glass or two of wine she decided. Men were more useless and blind than ever when they had a glass or two in them.
The others accepted her offer to hide them for the night. Crouching low in the shadows and starting at every noise, Courtney led the way through the dark streets to her lodgings. She locked and bolted the door behind her, secure in the knowledge that the guards would not find her now.
She would never brawl in a tavern again however much some rascal of a man was begging to be whipped, she vowed to herself as she sank into her favorite chair, unlaced her boots, and tossed them into a corner. “God in heaven but my feet were killing me in those damned boots.”
The young Musketeer who had started the brawl looked as nervous as if the guards might yet carry him off at any moment. “Gerard Delamanse, at your service, Sirs,” he said, sitting stiffly upright in his chair “And I hope I don’t have to run like that again for a while.”
S
he gave him a lazy salute from the depths of his chair. “William Ruthgard at yours.” Her heart was still racing with the aftereffects of their race through the streets, but at least she could almost speak without panting now.
The thief, as befitted his station in life, was more concerned with his stomach than with his feet. He pulled a bottle of wine out from under his shirt, grabbed a couple of glasses off the sideboard and poured a generous measure into each. She winced at his careless handling of her best Venetian crystal glasses. He may have saved her from the guards, but she would not forgive him if he were to break her favorite goblets. Her father had brought them back all the way from Venice for her.
“Since we are in a formal mood, let me introduce myself to you both,” the thief said with an awkward bow. “I am JeanPaul Metin, at your service. To your health, gentlemen.”
“You carried this all the way in your shirt without breaking it?”
The thief tilted the bottle to his lips, smacking his lips with satisfaction. “It slowed me down some, but it was worth it. The very best Rhenish wine doesn’t come my way every day.”
Courtney took a mouthful and swirled the wine around her mouth, surprised at its quality. The bouquet was fruity and well-matured, but she detected a hint of roughness that was absent in the very finest Rhenish wines. She had been used to drinking finer in her father’s house, but this was better than she had bothered to buy in a long while. “Not the very best, but a damn good bottle, anyway. How did you manage to swipe it when I wasn’t looking?”
The thief laughed as he flexed his fingers. “Years of practice and a good eye.”
What an ill-assorted bunch they were, Courtney thought to herself as she drank down her wine. A Musketeer, a thief, and a woman. She sank back into her chair feeling quite safe. None of her comrades had suspected her secret so far and she had no reason to think that her new companions were any sharper witted.
Still, the young Musketeer was looking at her rather oddly. She turned her head away, but he continued looking at her, oblivious to her growing irritation. She didn’t like his attitude. “What are you staring at?” she challenged him at last.
She was quite unprepared for his reply.
“Your moustache is coming loose,” the Musketeer said. “You need to glue it on again.”
Surely he had not discovered what she had been at pains to hide from the entire world. She would kill him before she would let him interfere with her plans. Her hand on the hilt of her sword she rose out of her chair to stand menacingly in front of him. She would bluff her way out of it if she could. If not, she would fight her way out. “Just what are you implying?”
The thief laughed. “She’s right, you know. You need better glue that doesn’t lose its grip when you sweat. Personally I find that false moustaches are seldom worth the effort. They’re damnably itchy, and it’s so hard to get them looking natural. It’s easier to pretend that you shave religiously every night and morning.”
She froze. What exactly what the thief implying?
The young Musketeer rose up in fury in his turn. “She? You called me “she”?”
The thief put his hands in the air, palms out, in a gesture of conciliation. “Just a guess. Based on the simple observation that your breast wrappings have come a little loose, and you don’t see many men on the streets with a chest like yours.”
She looked where the thief was pointing at the young Musketeer’s chest. She had never noticed before, but all the telltale signs were there, and the wrappings had come very loose indeed. Now that she looked at the young Musketeer with an unjaundiced eye, she carried before her what was unmistakably the chest of a woman.
It was hard for her to comprehend, but the thief had noticed what she had not. She had not thought that any man would ever discover anything that a woman really wanted to hide. Men were more concerned with a person’s outside – they rarely looked beneath the outermost veneer of a person to see what they were like inside. She was truly amazed at the thief’s perspicacity. Unless, of course, the thief was not a man, either.
With a growing sense of suspicion, she looked back at the thief. He was small and slight, his waist was thin and his hips more rounded than most soldiers. His cheeks were as smooth as her own, without the hint of a beard. Surely the thief was a woman, too.
She did not want to ask outright just in case she was mistaken and gave mortal offense when she did not intend to, but she lifted her eyebrows in a query.
The thief nodded and winked her eye.
Courtney sat back in her chair in utmost astonishment. She was not the only woman Musketeer in the King’s Guard as she had thought.
There were three of them.
Chapter 6
Her arms ached the next day from the blows she had struck fighting in the tavern. Her legs ached from the run through the streets. Her hands ached from scrabbling over stone walls. Her head ached worse than all the rest of her put together from the bottles of wine she had drunk with her fellow Musketeers, her comrades and her sisters-in-arms. To find two other women in her company had been worth a real celebration, for all that she regretted it now.
She crawled into the barracks just on noon, late for the first time and seedier than she had ever felt in her life before. Life as a man was harder than she’d expected it to be. Drinking your comrades under the table was not exactly her preferred pursuit. At times like these, all she wanted was to be a woman again – the daughter of a respectable merchant who would never dream of drinking to excess.
Pierre barely noticed the green tinge to her face. He slapped her on the back with approval beaming out of every pore. “You fight like a madman, like you’re possessed with demons,” he said, and he gave a mock shudder. “Remind me never to cross swords with you when you are in a rage like that.”
She grunted, trying to control the nausea that rose up in her throat at the jolt to her stomach. One of these days she would cross swords with him indeed, and make him rue the day he had been born. Not today, though. Today she wanted only to die.
He was not put off by her lack of response. “A mere second or two after you leaped away to fight, I was beset on all sides by a group of rascally Cardinal’s men seizing the opportunity to try and rough up a King’s Musketeer in the melee. My hands were busy enough keeping the seven off them off my back - I could not even carve my way through the rabble to fight alongside you. Not that you needed my assistance. Heaven help your enemies if they ever lift a sword against you in earnest. You’ll send their souls to Hell before they’ve finished saying their prayers.”
She could barely lift a sword at all this morning and she felt as though she was in Hell herself. Her shoulders ached with the mere effort of keeping herself upright. They protested mightily when she even so much as lifted her sword out of its scabbard. She groaned with the pain in her head as she lifted her weapon. “I feel as though all the devils of Hell are carousing in my head this morning,” she complained, wanting his sympathy for her plight, little as she deserved it.
She wished she could forget how much she had once loved and trusted him, but the memory was still too strong and too recent to be easily expunged from her memory. How she wished she could forget the way she had once felt about him, but her treacherous feelings ambushed her in her weaker moments. She felt too sick to hate him very much this morning. Hatred took more energy than she could muster when she felt so frail and sick.
He looked concerned at her words, noticing for the first time how ill she looked. He stepped back and looked at her critically. “Did you take a blow to the head?”
She started to shake her head and then thought better of it when the waves of nausea returned. “Celebrating my victory a little too enthusiastically.”
He grinned with relief – the corners of his mouth turning up in the same grin that had won her heart when she had been a foolish young girl, too naïve to see the knavery that lay cloaked under his fine words. “Put your sword up, you halfwit. You look as though you’re about to p
ass out. There’ll be no fighting for you today.”
She slid her sword back into the scabbard with a sigh of relief. She was in no mood to be pounded half to death in the practice ring. She just wanted to go home and crawl into bed and feel sorry for herself.
He grabbed her by the arm and urged her over to the entrance. “What you need is some of the hair of the dog that bit you.”
“More wine?” She shuddered, but she allowed herself to be pulled along. How long ago had it been since he had last touched her as a woman? Even in her sorry state, the touch of his hand on her sleeve was enough to set her heart racing. “No thank you.”
“Ale, then. Or small beer. It will make you feel better, I guarantee it.”
She swallowed convulsively. Her mouth was dry and her throat parched. Some well-watered small beer sounded like paradise. She allowed herself to be pulled along to the tavern – needless to say a different tavern to the one they had helped destroy the previous evening.
How much better she felt sitting at her ease in a dark corner of the smoky tavern, her aching shoulders supported by a high-backed chair, her feet up on a rough-hewn wooden table, and a glass of well-watered small beer in her hands. She took a long swallow, carefully wiped the foam from her moustache and plunked her mug on the table by her boots. Her head still ached, but not unbearably so, and her stomach was roiling less now that she was seated. “Ah, that feels like Heaven.”
He took a swallow of his own ale. “Better?”
“Much.”
They sat for a few moments in companionable silence. Finally Pierre broke it with a question. “Why did you join the Musketeers? It seems an odd choice for one born of Flemish merchant stock.”
She opened her mouth to speak but he forestalled her. “Don’t give me any of that claptrap about the King’s Musketeers being the flower of France and the fount of all honor again,” he warned. “That is horse shit and you know it.”
She opened her eyes wide in mock innocence. “It is? You have destroyed all my illusions.”