Mary Gentle

by A Sundial in a Grave-1610

  She threw the dagger into my face.

  I had not expected it, not from her. It was no hardship to bring my blade up and smash the weapon down and away—but she ran past me in that heartbeat of time, scooping up her own rapier from where it lay against the wall under the window, and came instantly back into the attack.

  I stepped back, of necessity, as I parried—

  And she neatly caught up her dagger.

  “Now!” She grinned, tossing back her short hair, breathing hard, her face rosy. I made the attempt to strike her while she spoke. She moved backwards, her feet gliding flawlessly across the planks, parrying me with rapier and then dagger, and with no break in her words. “Messire, I’m going to stripe your arse for you!”

  I forgot that these were rebated weapons, although my hand kept the bad balance corrected; I forgot we inhabited an English School of Defence, and that what I did was the worst of manners in any salle d’armes.

  I began to fight as if to kill.

  Breathing hard, I drove her about the floor, from the window to the stair-end of the long room and back again. Students dived out of the way, putting themselves behind the structural oak beams that shut off the combat area, cheering.

  Cheering Dariole, the under-dog.

  The unfairness of that—again!—drove me to heights of skill: we thrust, parried, with sword and dagger together and in the same heartbeat, dodged, slashed, thrust, hacked, ducked. She slid out from my body-charge. Yes, you may well avoid a grapple, girl—

  She lost the merest fraction of her balance and mis-stepped.

  I brought my rapier’s blunt edge down hard enough on her forearm that she let go of her dagger. Had it been a sharp edge, I would, with that impact, have severed the arm. I grinned wolfishly at the marks I must be leaving on her.

  “Go suck your cock!” she exclaimed, flexing her empty fingers.

  I could do nothing but laugh as I pressed my attack. I have her now. The silvered blades flickered in the sun from the salon’s end. Her breast rose and fell heavily. I have the stamina, which a young man—or woman—does not.

  Will I drive her to surrender? Better, will I drive “him” to confess herself a woman, and seek mercy on that account? That would be a greater humiliation than dying at my hand. Though here, she cannot die.

  I heard my own thoughts. Cannot die.

  My parry came in late. Her rebated point glanced off my shoulder.

  I did not riposte.

  The thought completed itself in my head. Here, I cannot kill her—and that is why I am here.

  Rochefort, Memoirs

  17

  I t felt as if I took a bad fall from a horse and winded myself. I took her blade with mine, circled it, and thrust straight through to hit her on the tenth button of her doublet. She swore, flushed, and—That is all. A wound to her pride, and nothing else.

  If we carried unbated swords, I would in that instant have killed her. We are both dead, several times over.

  The full realisation came as shock enough that I lost the rhythm of my step, stumbling back in a flurry of defensive blows. I could do nothing but be stunned by the sudden realisation. If I did have the unbated weapons to kill her—

  I could not bear to fight.

  Her eyes gleamed; her teeth showed in a wide grin. She slashed a cut towards my head—pressing me without mercy or relief. I ducked away. Shock thrummed through my body and my mind.

  I have seen many dead men in my time, and made more of them than I care to think of; to imagine of Mlle Dariole bleeding between her ribs and teeth should not send a wave of nausea through me.

  I wish her dead. I wish her dead at my hand, and humbled in the way to which there is no answer!

  No . No, it is a lie. I do not wish her dead. I want her humiliated, and for her to wish herself dead, yes. But not stark, cold; not truly dead.

  If this were a brawl in the street with live blades—

  If this were a brawl in the street, I would have no option but to end the fight, throw down my weapons, and throw myself on her mercy.

  At that sudden, vivid mental image, I felt myself stiffen in my under-linen.

  I halted, staggering, mid-way down the long room.

  Her backward pace took her away from me and into the borders of the sun, where dust swirled in the beams of light. Her face stayed hidden in shadow, but the white light made a perfect outline of her stance, rapier held extended towards me, dagger loose and deceptively casual in her other hand, every line and curve of her body a poised thing made all of energy. Her chest rose and fell under her doublet with her breathing from the exertion.

  Coldly, in myself, I pursued the matter. As if the first thought were not bad enough—think further:

  If she cannot be harmed—why, then, neither can you, Rochefort.

  Rochefort the fool! Rochefort the clown!

  She can give you the defeat you are seeking.

  And only that defeat.

  If, appallingly, I cannot countenance the thought of killing her, rebated swords in a salle d’armes allow me to duel with her. But, even more truly, a rebated duel allows me, without harm to my body, to lose to her. To be most shamefully disgraced. As I was at Paris. At Ivry…

  My head spun with a dizziness I did not find unfamiliar. I had reason to be glad of my English trunk-hose, there being so much volume of material that a man might be fairly upright without any other man noticing.

  The onlookers would wonder at my stillness, in a moment, I knew. As will she.

  “Messire.” Although she breathed hard, her point did not lower, the small tied bag of sand on a level with my chest. The sun gave me her profile as she moved, slightly. I saw that she smiled.

  And stopped.

  Every muscle still, no more expression on her face than there is on a man’s when he first takes a wound, only a similar kind of blank surprise. I watched it fade. Slowly, she began to smile again.

  “Not in the mood for running around, messire?”

  She knows what hampers me.

  I could not have said how I knew—how I deduced with utter certainty, from her eye, that she knew what bodily indisposition I laboured under.

  “No lunge, messire?” A tone of complete innocence. “No overwhelming me with the sheer force of your charge?”

  “I stand here, do what you can!” I growled, and felt heat travel up my face. Dear God, let them only assume I am short of breath!

  Dariole paced forward, the light sliding down the central ridge of her blade. She was a thing of beauty as much as the weapon. I shifted my feet awkwardly, turning my back to the watching students of the School, to be the more certain that no man might see my indisposition. She came up within lunge of me, but not so close that I might put my blade to her without violent movement.

  And she knows I cannot, safely. The bitch—

  Quietly enough to keep it between the two of us alone, Dariole said, “I can do more than touch doublet-buttons, messire. I can show you up, to these Englishmen. Think you can stop me?”

  And here I am brought to the point where I would beg.

  I looked for a long moment into her face.

  And she knows it.

  I wondered, coldly, how long it had been apparent to her—this thing I had not known myself. Or not allowed myself to know.

  Inside my breeches, I grew stiffer still.

  “There are some things a man may not bear,” I said levelly, and she smiled as if I had been pitiful.

  The breath came harsh in my lungs. I felt my body swell, and arousal and shame both bring my heartbeat to a high rate. I am begging her, I realised. And I both desire and loathe it.

  Her eyes half-shut for a moment. She looked up with a new expression. “You’ll do what I say, won’t you? I’ve got you right here, messire.”

  Since Ivry, I have dreamed of her.

  More telling, I have had those dreams that lie only on the borders of sleep, that are somewhat under our own control. And here is one of them to the life. I am
beaten and must beg. And, if the worst happens, I will spill seed, as I do in dreams now, and have not since I was a boy.

  “Yes.” I could barely speak, both wanting to, and desperately needing not to, say such things out loud. “Yes.”

  She glanced at the men calling out, now, demanding what was the matter, and why no more of the duel? Her smile widened. The last few days laid themselves out in my mind: she has been humiliated by her cousin; how must she have felt when I spoke in public of that?

  She feinted—in case I should still disarm her by force. The point of her bated rapier came to rest against the underside of my chin. It was a true deception, but I think she might merely have put it there; I was in no state to fight. I stood, chest heaving, watching her face.

  She met my gaze, and moved the bated point into the cloth at my neck.

  “Drop the sword and dagger,” she said quietly.

  You cannot hurt me!

  The pressure of the covered point at my throat was in no way like a live weapon. I could bat it out of her hand with no more cost than bruises.

  Without a word, I loosed my grip on both hilts and threw the sword and dagger aside.

  The clatter of metal on wood made every man startle.

  Light flashed on the floor, in the corner of my vision. The drop-handled dagger lay with its blade in the dust. I could see only the hilts of the sword, further off in shadow.

  In Zaton’s she could have, would have, cut my throat—and that hurt less.

  Quietly enough that no man should hear but us two, I said, as I should have said then: “Mademoiselle, you have the victory. I am done.”

  “Down.” Her eyes all but glowed. “Beg.”

  “Mademoiselle—”

  “Beg.” She held my gaze. “Get down on your knees, Rochefort. Beg my pardon!”

  She spoke it loud enough to be heard. The keen audience froze; their bets and jeers died down. Even with my back to most, I felt how each man’s face turned to me. Heat flooded both my face and my belly—at that latter, I shuddered.

  And this, clearly, is why I sought a private place.

  What a man will not let himself know!

  I felt a pulling sensation in the front of my breeches. My prick, taut as it was, felt both hot and wet, as if it wept the dampness before the act into my linen. Her gaze dropped.

  She can see , I realised. And realised, too, she knows enough of what lies between us to look.

  “Dariole.” I do not know what else I would have said, and my voice was too harsh and dry for any plea to be understood by her.

  Chatter rose up behind us. Off to one side, the maître folded his arms with a long-suffering expression. Whether it was the presence of the actors, or this room sunlit so like a theatre stage, I do not know; it seemed to me that this was no more than a waking dream. I may do as I like.

  The thought sent shuddering hot shivers down my back and belly, concentrating in my groin.

  “Well?” Exertion still sounded in her voice. Her chest rose and fell, her face pink and damp. She sheathed her dagger without looking, and with that hand unbuttoned the bottom six or seven buttons of her doublet, disclosing a creased strip of linen shirt. Short hair clung in sweat-dampened curls to her forehead. The sleek gathered wool of her Venetian hose rounded over her hips.

  I looked down at her, standing in perfect Defence textbook position, her chin up, her blade poised. Something of the theatrical clung to her, also.

  I cannot be about to do this! some part of me protested.

  “Beg,” she repeated.

  She held the rebated sword just as if she held sharpened steel to my throat.

  Stumbling and awkward, I got down first on one knee, and then on the other.

  My clothing pulled at my crotch. I knelt on the hard boards. Barely, I was aware of indrawn breaths behind me; one man’s exclamation, another’s raucous scorn.

  She gave me the smile of one of Henri the Third’s young louts. “I can humiliate you, messire. You can’t stop me.”

  “Yes.” I managed not to say, I know.

  Bad enough that I should have to face it. For Mlle Dariole to know, also….

  “You can, but I beg you will not.” I contrived to speak aloud, voice harsh, and varying between squeak and growl like a boy. I could feel my face colouring, hot as fire. If I am not allowed some respite, the cock-stand in my breeches will do her work for her!

  With my back turned to the other men present, I reached down covertly and adjusted myself. Dariole stepped forward, closer. Before I realised what she might be about, the blunted edge of her sword dropped and I felt it pressing against the inside of my thigh.

  The pressure of the blade increased.

  I gave in to it, shifting my knee on the hard wooden boards. Immediately she put her point to my other knee, pushing it wide apart, and leaving me kneeling splayed, as I had been to Fludd, and helpless. My prick throbbed and swelled, pushing against the cloth. That it might be visible to others flooded me with shame.

  Fludd’s voice sounded in my mind. “You will remember this, but not for the pain.”

  I will remember to cut your throat for you, you son-of-a-bitch! I thought, and did not for a moment know whether I addressed in my mind Robert Fludd or Dariole.

  She held the rebated rapier blade between my thighs, some three or four inches below my crotch.

  The heat in my body was such that I knew she had only to lift the blade up into my scrotum and I must spend on the instant.

  “Mademoiselle…pardon me.” I sounded wretched. I twisted away from her gaze—and realised that by doing so, I hung down my head. Behind a curtain of hair, I felt myself flush. I have said precisely this, many times, to her, in the privacy of my thoughts.

  In the appalling silence, I at last lifted my head and met Dariole’s gaze.

  Her smile of joy in fighting faded. One corner of her mouth pulled up, and she gave me the most ironic look I have ever received from so young a duelist.

  “I never knew this was such an effective weapon….” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “What would you give me, not to make you spend in front of all of them?”

  She speaks the lines I have imagined for her, in the theatre that a man keeps private in his mind.

  I ached to spend. Every inch of my skin felt alive, conscious of the rub of under-linen and silk hose.

  The low rumble of voices at my back brought me to consciousness of the falsity of it all. Men do not sound so, when another man is in danger of death. This is not the atmosphere of a duel—God He knows I should know that!

  This is gossip, salacious comment, the tones of actors in play-rehearsal. This is theatre: a masque, a play-scene, a game. This is not real.

  Embarrassment quite without eroticism flooded through me.

  I swallowed, forcing myself to speak. “Mademoiselle, I have perhaps alluded to…things it were wiser not to have mentioned.”

  She said, “Only half an apology?”

  The tone of her voice changed. I stared. Anger and malice alike vanished; she spoke with a light, wry irony—with something that, if it had been any woman other than her, I would have sworn to be sympathy.

  I swallowed, hard. “Mademoiselle, please.”

  I could not tell whether I desired more to squirm with shame and horror, to spend, or simply to throw myself down and weep. That I must look absurdly comic, beaten with false weapons, made me desire the earth to open up. If I could have stood to hurt her, I would have fetched her a punch in the face to break her bones.

  If she teases a man’s prick—well, it was I who invited her to this dance.

  It is hardly her fault if she brings this to the—conclusion I no longer desire. Or do not desire here, or not in this way!

  I felt cold with embarrassment at my absurd, straining body.

  “Messire,” she said quietly.

  A look passed from her to me.

  I realised, slowly, that this was no part of the game. Or was, perhaps, only no part of her parading of
her skills for her theatre friends. I could not read her. Genuine embarrassment made me deflate.

  “Dariole…”

  “Oh, get out of here!” She pulled back her blade from my throat.

  Every finger of my hands quivered as if the duel had been real.

  My knees shook; the sheer effort of getting up off the floor made me stagger, and half-fall again. I made to go for my Saxony rapier, where I had left my live weapons.

  “No. Leave those. I’ll take care of them. Just to remind you, messire.”

  I got to my feet, grabbed my boots, and stumbled, bent over, out of the salon.

  I took no notice of the raucous jeers and calls of the players behind me. That I was without weapons, and in stocking-feet in the streets, for the moment I did not even notice.

  How could I have done such a thing!

  To act out such a vile fantasy, and in public; how could I embarrass myself in such a manner!

  Relief that I had not further embarrassed myself—that at least I did not stand here in wet, sticky linen—brought me to shame. I stood with the dusty earth beneath my stockinged feet, the warm wind blowing all the smells of Southwark to me. My heart hammered, and my faced burned; a thousand gold louis could not have moved me to turn around and go back into the School of Defence.

  But I should.

  The knowledge came to me with a feeling as of waking from deep sleep, or a trance. My head cleared. I rubbed my hand over my face, bringing it away wet with sweat.

  I should return. I owe her a true apology—more than an apology. It was I who encouraged her to that, back there; to every word, every act.

  My own voice still sounded in my mind. Mademoiselle, please.

  My knees and my balls both ache, I thought, and for the same perverse reason. I wish to fall down before her.

  I am a thing beyond contempt.

  It was perhaps an hour later, with the sun past one of the clock, that Dariole came back to the lodging house in Dead Man’s Place.

  I got up from where I had been sitting, waiting for her, on a horse block. She stopped in the middle of the deserted street, lifting her chin as I came up to her.

  She had my sword and dagger in their scabbards, with my hanger and belt, all clasped together in her left hand. Without a word, she held them out to me.