Truly, violence and death seemed to dog my trail. Guiscard de Clisson, who taught me the art of the sword, and with whom I was riding to the wars in Italy, had been shot down from ambush by bravos hired by le duc d’Alençon, thinking him to be my friend Étienne Villiers. Étienne had knowledge of intrigue against King François on the part of the Duke, and for that knowledge his life was forfeit. Now I too was being hunted by Renault de Valence, the leader of those bravos, since they thought me to be the only one besides themselves who knew the true facts of de Clisson’s murder.
For de Valence knew that if it were known that he and his bravos had slain de Clisson, the famous general of the mercenaries, d’Alençon would hang them all to pacify de Clisson’s friends. Guiscard’s body was rotting in the river where the bravos had thrown it, and now de Valence was hunting me on his own account, even while he hunted Étienne for the Duke.
Villiers and I had run and hidden and dodged like rats from the dogs, desirous of getting into Italy, but so far being penned in that corner of the world through fear of our enemies, who combed the kingdom for us. Even now I was on my way to a rendezvous with Étienne, who had gone stealthily to the coast, there to find, if he could, a certain pirate named Roger Hawksly, an Englishman, who harried the shores, for to such extremities were we forced that it was imperative that we get out of the country, however we could, since it was certain that we could not forever avoid the bloodhounds on our trail. I was to meet my companion at midnight, at a certain spot on the road that meandered down to the coast.
But as I rode through the twilight, I found no regret in my heart that I had traded my life of drudgery for one of wandering and violence. It was the life for which mysterious Fate had intended me, and I fitted it as well as any man: drinking, brawling, gambling, and fighting. With pistol, dagger or sword I had proved my prowess again and again, and I feared no man who walked the earth. Better a short life of adventure and wild living than a long dreary grind of soul-crushing household toil and child-bearing, cringing under the cudgel of a man I hated.
So I meditated as I came upon a small tavern set beside the forest road, the light of which set my empty belly to quivering anew. I approached warily, but saw none within the common room except the tap-boy and a serving wench, so gave my horse into the care of a stable-boy, and strode into the tavern.
The tap-boy gaped as he brought me a tankard of wine, and the wench stared until her eyes were like to pop out of her head, but I was used to such looks, and I merely bade her bring me food, and sat me down at the board, with my cloak about my shoulders, and my morion still on my head – for it served me well to be alert and full-armed at all times.
Now as I ate, I seemed to hear doors opening and closing stealthily in the back part of the tavern, and a low mumble of voices came to my ears. What this portended I knew not, but I was minded to finish my meal, and feigned to give no heed when the innkeeper, a silent, swarthy man in a leathern apron, came from some inner chamber, stared fixedly at me, and then departed again into the hinterlands of the tavern.
It was not long after his disappearance when another man entered the tavern from a side door – a small, hard-figured man with dark sharp features, somberly dressed, and wrapped in a black silk cloak. I felt his eyes upon me, but did not appear to regard him, except that I stealthily loosed my sword in its scabbard. He came hurriedly toward me, and hissed: “La Balafre!”
As he was obviously speaking to me, I turned, my hand on my hilt, and he gave back, his breath hissing through his teeth. So for an instant we faced each other. Then:
“Saint Denis! A woman! La Balafre, a woman! They did not tell me – I did not know – ”
“Well?” I demanded warily, not understanding his bewilderment, but in no mind to let him know it.
“Well, it’s no matter,” he said at last. “You are not the first woman to wear breeches and a sword. Little matter what sort of a finger pulls the trigger, the ball speeds to the mark. Your master bade me watch for your cloak – it was by the gold thread that I recognized you. Come, come, it grows late. They await you in the secret room.”
Now I realized that this man had mistaken me for the bravo I had slain; doubtless the fellow had been on his way to a tryst for some crime. I knew not what to say. If I denied that I was la Balafre, it was not likely that his friends would allow me to go in peace without explaining how I came by his cloak. I saw no way out except to strike down the dark-faced man, and ride for my life. But with his next words, the whole situation changed.
“Put on your mask and wrap well your cloak about you.” he said. “None knows you here but I, and I only because that cloak was described to me. It was foolish of you to sit here openly in the tavern where any man might have seen you. The task we have to do is of such nature that all our identities must be hidden, not only tonight but henceforward. You know me only as Jehan. You will know none of the others, or they you.”
Now at these words a mad whim seized me, born of recklessness and womanish curiosity. Saying naught, I rose, put on the mask I had found on the body of the real la Balafre, wrapped my cloak about me so that none could have known me for a woman, and followed the man who called himself Jehan.
He led the way through a door at the back of the room, which he closed and bolted behind us, and drawing forth a black mask similar to mine, he donned it. Then, taking a candle from a table, he led on down a narrow corridor with heavy oaken panels. At last he halted, extinguished the candle, and rapped cautiously on the wall. There was a fumbling on the other side, and a dim light glimmered through as a false panel was slid aside. Motioning me to follow him, Jehan glided through the opening, and after I had entered, closed it behind us.
I found myself in a small chamber, without visible doors or windows, though there must have been some subtle system of ventilation. A hooded lanthorn lit the room with a vague and ghostly light. Nine figures huddled against the walls on settles – nine figures wrapped closely in dark cloaks, feathered hats or black morions pulled low to meet the black masks which hid their faces. Only their eyes burned through the holes in the masks. None moved nor spake. It was like a conclave of the damned.
Jehan did not speak, but motioned me to take my place on a settle, and then he glided across the chamber and drew back another panel. Through this opening stalked another figure, masked and cloaked like the rest, but with a subtly different bearing. He strode like a man accustomed to command, and even in his disguise, there was something faintly familiar to me about him.
He stalked to the center of the small chamber, and Jehan motioned toward us on the settles, as if to say that all was in readiness. The tall stranger nodded and said: “You received your instructions before you came here. You know, all of you, that you have but to follow me, and obey my commands. Ask no questions; you are being well paid; that is sufficient for you to know. Speak as little as possible. You do not know me, and I do not know you. The less each man knows of his mates, the better for all. As soon as our task is completed, we scatter, each man for himself. Is that understood?”
Ten hooded heads wagged grimly in the lanthorn light. But I drew back on my settle, gathering my cloak more closely about me; he was understood better than he knew. I had heard that voice, under circumstances I was not likely to forget; it was the voice that had shouted commands to the murderers of Guiscard de Clisson, as I lay wounded in a cleft of the cliff and fought them off with my pistols. The man who commanded these villains amongst whom I had fallen was Renault de Valence, the man who sought my life.
As his steely eyes, burning from his mask, swept over us, I unconsciously tensed myself, gripping my hilt beneath the cloak. But he could not recognize me in my disguise, were he Satan himself.
Motioning to Jehan, mine enemy arose and made toward the panel through which he had entered. Jehan beckoned us, and we followed de Valence through the opening single file, a train of silent black ghosts. Behind us Jehan extinguished the lanthorn, and followed us. We groped our way through utter dark
ness for a short space, then a door swung open, and the broad shoulders of our leader were framed for an instant against the stars. We came out into a small courtyard behind the inn, where twelve horses champed restlessly and pawed the ground. Mine was among them, though I had told the servant to stable him. Evidently everyone in the tavern of the Half Moon had his orders.
Without a word we mounted and followed de Valence across the court, and out into a path which led through the forest. We rode in silence, save for the clop of the hoofs on the hard soil, and the occasional creak of leather or clank of harness. We were headed westward, toward the coast, and presently the forest thinned to brush and scattered trees, and the path dwindled and vanished in a bushy maze. Here we rode no longer single file, but in a ragged clump. And I believed my opportunity had come. Whither we were riding I knew not, nor greatly cared. It must be some work of le duc d’Alençon, since his right-hand man de Valence was in command. But I did know that as long as de Valence lived, neither my life nor the life of Étienne Villiers was worth a piece of broken copper.
It was dark; the moon had not yet risen, and the stars were hidden by rolling masses of clouds, which, though neither stormy nor very black, yet blotted out the light of the heavens in their ceaseless surging from horizon to horizon. We were not following any road, but riding through the wilderness. A night wind moaned through the trees, as I edged my horse closer and closer to that of Renault de Valence, gripping my poniard beneath my cloak.
Now I was drawing up beside him, and heard him mutter to Jehan who rode knee to knee with him, “He was a fool to flout her, when she could have made him greater than the king of France. If Roger Hawksly – ”
Rising in my stirrups I drove my poniard between his shoulders with all the strength of sinews nerved to desperate work. The breath went out of him in a gasp, and he pitched headlong from the saddle, and in that instant I wrenched my horse about and struck the spurs deep.
With a desperate heave and plunge he tore headlong through the shapes that hemmed us in, knocking steeds and riders aside, plunged through the bushes and was gone while they groped for their blades.
Behind me I heard startled oaths and yells, and the clank of steel, Jehan’s voice yelling curses, and de Valence’s, choking and gasping, croaking orders. I cursed my luck. Even with the impact of the blow, I had known I had failed. De Valence wore a shirt of chain mail under his doublet, even as I did. The poniard had bent almost double on it, without wounding him. It was only the terrific force of the blow which had knocked him, half stunned, from his steed. And knowing the man as I did, I knew that it was very likely he would quickly be upon my trail, unless his other business be too urgent to permit it – and urgent indeed would be the business that would interfere with de Valence’s private vengeance. Besides, if Jehan told him that “la Balafre” was a red-headed girl, he would be sure to recognize his old enemy, Agnès de Chastillon.
So I gave the horse the rein and rode at a reckless gallop over bushy expanses and through scattered woodlands, expecting each moment to hear the drum of hoofs behind me. I rode southward, toward the road where I was to meet Étienne Villiers, and came upon it more suddenly that I expected. The road ran westward to the coast, and we had been paralleling its course.
Perhaps a mile to the west stood a roadside cross of stone, where the road split, one branch running west and the other southwest, and it was there that I was to meet Étienne Villiers. It lacked some hours till midnight, and I was not minded to wait in open view until he came, lest de Valence come first. So when I came to the cross, I took refuge among the trees, which grew there in a dense clump, and set myself to wait for my companion.
The night was still, and I heard no sounds of pursuit; I hoped that if the bravos had pursued me, they had lost me in the darkness, which had been easy enough to do.
I tied my horse back among the trees, and hardly had I squatted among the shadows at the roadside when I heard the drumming of hoofs. But this noise came from the southwest, and was but a single horse. I crouched there, sword in hand, as the drumming grew louder and nearer, and presently the rising moon, peeping through the rolling clouds, disclosed a horseman galloping along the white road, his cloak billowing out behind him. And I recognized the lithe figure and feathered cap of Étienne Villiers.
II
HOW A KING’S MISTRESS KNELT TO ME
He pulled up at the cross, and swore beneath his breath, speaking softly aloud to himself, as was his custom: “Too early, by hours; well, I’ll await her here.”
“You’ll not have long to wait,” said I, stepping from the shadows.
He wheeled in his saddle, pistol in hand, then laughed and swung down to earth.
“By Saint Denis, Agnès,” said he, “I should never be surprized to find you anywhere, at any time. What, a horse? And no crow-bait, either! And a fine new cloak! By Satan, comrade, you have had luck – was it dice or the sword?”
“The sword,” I answered.
“But why are you here so early?” he asked. “What portends this?”
“That Renault de Valence is not far from us,” I answered, and heard his breath hiss between his teeth, saw his hand lock again on his pistol butt. So quickly I told him what had passed, and he shook his head.
“The Devil takes care of his own,” he muttered. “Renault is hard to kill. But listen, I have a strange tale to tell, and until it is told, this is as good a place as another. Here we can watch and listen, and death cannot steal upon us behind closed doors and through secret corridors. And when my tale is told, we must take counsel as to our next move, because we can no longer count on Roger Hawksly.
“Listen: last night, just at moonrise, I approached the small isolated bay in which I knew the Englishman lay at anchor. We rogues have ways of learning secrets, as you know, Agnès. The coast thereabouts is rugged, with cliffs and headlands and inlets. The bay in question is surrounded by trees which grow down rugged slopes to the very edge of the water. I crept through them, and saw his ship, The Resolute Friend, lying at anchor, true enough, and all on board her apparently in drunken sleep. These pirates be fools, especially the English, who keep vile watch. I could see men stretched on the deck, with broken casks near them, and judged that those who were supposed to keep watch, had drunken themselves into helplessness.
“Now as I meditated whether to hail them, or to swim out to the ship, I heard the sound of muffled oars, and saw three longboats round the headland and sweep down on the silent ship. The boats were packed with men, and I saw the glint of steel in the moon. All unseen by the sleeping pirates, they drew up alongside, and I knew not whether to shout or be still, for I thought it might be Roger and his men returning from some raid.
“In the moonlight I saw them swarming up the chains – Englishmen, beyond doubt, dressed in the garb of common sailors. Then as I watched, one of the drunkards on deck stirred in his sleep, gaped, and then suddenly scrambled up, screaming a warning. Up out of the hold and out of the cabin rushed Roger Hawksly and his men, in their shirts, half asleep, grasping their weapons in bewilderment, and over the rail swarmed these newcomers, who fell on the pirates sword in hand.
“It was a massacre rather than a fight. The pirates, half asleep and evidently half drunk as well, were cut down, almost to a man. I saw their bodies hurled overboard. Some few leaped into the water and swam ashore, but most died.
“Then the victors hauled up the anchor, and some of them returning into the boats, towed The Resolute Friend out of the inlet, and watching from where I lay, I presently saw her spread her sails and stand out to sea. Presently another ship rounded the headland and followed her.
“Of the survivors of the pirate crew I know nothing, for they fled into the woods and vanished. But Roger Hawksly is no longer master of a ship, and whether he lives or died, I know not, but we must find another man who will take us to Italy.
“But herein is a mystery: some of the Englishmen who took The Resolute Friend were but rough seamen. But others were not.
I understand English; I know a high-born voice when I hear it, and tarry breeches cannot always conceal rank from a sharp eye. The moon was bright as day. Agnès, those seamen were led by noblemen disguised in mean apparel.”
“Why?” I wondered.
“Aye, why! ’Tis easy to see how the trick was done. They sailed up to the headland, where they anchored, out of sight from the inlet, and sent men in boats to take their prey. But why take such a desperate chance? Luck was on their side, else Hawksly and his sea-wolves had been sober and alert, and had blown them out of the water as they came on. There is but one solution: secrecy. That likewise explains the noblemen in seamen’s shirts and breeks. For some reason someone wished to destroy the pirates swiftly, silently, and secretly. As to the reason for that, I do not know, since Hawksly was a man hated equally by the French and the English.”
“Why, as to that – hark!”
Down the road, from the east, sounded the pound of racing hoofs. Clouds had rolled again over the moon, and it was dark as Erebus.
“De Valence!” I hissed. “He is following me – and alone. Give me a pistol! He will not escape this time!”
“We had best be sure he is alone,” expostulated Étienne as he handed me a pistol.
“He’s alone,” I snarled. “ ’Tis but one rider – but if the Devil himself rode with him – ha!”
A flying shape loomed out of the night; at that instant a single moonbeam cut through the clouds and faintly illumined the racing horse and its rider. And I fired pointblank.
The great horse reared and plunged headlong, and a piteous cry cut the night. It was echoed by Étienne. He had seen, as had I, in the flash of the shot, a woman clinging to the reins of the flying steed.
We ran forward, seeing a slender figure stirring on the ground beside the steed – a figure which knelt and lifted helpless arms, whimpering in fright.
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