by Jack London
And the Italian, Fortini, leaned to my shoulder and whispered:
“One who desires to speak.”
“One who must wait my pleasure,” I answered shortly.
“I wait no man’s pleasure,” was his equally short reply.
And, while my blood boiled, I remembered the priest, Martinelli, and the gray old man at Rome . The thing was clear. It was deliberate. It was the long arm. Fortini smiled lazily at me while I thus paused for the moment to debate, but in his smile was the essence of all insolence.
This, of all times, was the time I should have been cool. But the old red anger began to kindle in me. This was the work of the priest. This was the Fortini, poverished of all save lineage, reckoned the best sword come up out of Italy in half a score of years. To-night it was Fortini. If he failed the gray old man’s command to-morrow it would be another sword, the next day another. And, perchance still failing, then might I expect the common bravo’s steel in my back or the common poisoner’s philter in my wine, my meat, or bread.
“I am busy,” I said. “Begone.”
“My business with you presses,” was his reply.
Insensibly our voices had slightly risen, so that Philippa heard.
“Begone, you Italian hound,” I said. “Take your howling from my door. I shall attend to you presently.”
“The moon is up,” he said. “The grass is dry and excellent. There is no dew. Beyond the fish-pond, an arrow’s flight to the left, is an open space, quiet and private.”
“Presently you shall have your desire,” I muttered impatiently.
But still he persisted in waiting at my shoulder.
“Presently,” I said. “Presently I shall attend to you.”
Then spoke Philippa, in all the daring spirit and the iron of her.
“Satisfy the gentleman’s desire, Sainte-Maure. Attend to him now. And good fortune go with you.” She paused to beckon to her her uncle, Jean de Joinville, who was passing—uncle on her mother’s side, of the de Joinvilles of Anjou . “Good fortune go with you,” she repeated, and then leaned to me so that she could whisper: “And my heart goes with you, Sainte-Maure. Do not be long. I shall await you in the big hall.”
I was in the seventh heaven. I trod on air. It was the first frank admittance of her love. And with such benediction I was made so strong that I knew I could kill a score of Fortinis and snap my fingers at a score of gray old men in Rome .
Jean de Joinville bore Philippa away in the press, and Fortini and I settled our arrangements in a trice. We separated—he to find a friend or so, and I to find a friend or so, and all to meet at the appointed place beyond the fish-pond.
First I found Robert Lanfranc, and, next, Henry Bohemond. But before I found them I encountered a windlestraw which showed which way blew the wind and gave promise of a very gale. I knew the windlestraw, Guy de Villehardouin, a raw young provincial, come up the first time to Court, but a fiery little cockerel for all of that. He was red-haired. His blue eyes, small and pinched close to ether, were likewise red, at least in the whites of them; and his skin, of the sort that goes with such types, was red and freckled. He had quite a parboiled appearance.
As I passed him by a sudden movement he jostled me. Oh, of course, the thing was deliberate. And he flamed at me while his hand dropped to his rapier.
“Faith,” thought I, “the gray old man has many and strange tools,” while to the cockerel I bowed and murmured, “Your pardon for my clumsiness. The fault was mine. Your pardon, Villehardouin.”
But he was not to be appeased thus easily. And while he fumed and strutted I glimpsed Robert Lanfranc, beckoned him to us, and explained the happening.
“Sainte-Maure has accorded you satisfaction,” was his judgment. “He has prayed your pardon.”
“In truth, yes,” I interrupted in my suavest tones. “And I pray your pardon again, Villehardouin, for my very great clumsiness. I pray your pardon a thousand times. The fault was mine, though unintentioned. In my haste to an engagement I was clumsy, most woful clumsy, but without intention.”
What could the dolt do but grudgingly accept the amends I so freely proffered him? Yet I knew, as Lanfranc and I hastened on, that ere many days, or hours, the flame-headed youth would see to it that we measured steel together on the grass.
I explained no more to Lanfranc than my need of him, and he was little interested to pry deeper into the matter. He was himself a lively youngster of no more than twenty, but he had been trained to arms, had fought in Spain , and had an honourable record on the grass. Merely his black eyes flashed when he learned what was toward, and such was his eagerness that it was he who gathered Henry Bohemond in to our number.
When the three of us arrived in the open space beyond the fish-pond Fortini and two friends were already waiting us. One was Felix Pasquini, nephew to the Cardinal of that name, and as close in his uncle’s confidence as was his uncle close in the confidence of the gray old man. The other was Raoul de Goncourt, whose presence surprised me, he being too good and noble a man for the company he kept.
We saluted properly, and properly went about the business. It was nothing new to any of us. The footing was good, as promised. There was no dew. The moon shone fair, and Fortini’s blade and mine were out and at earnest play.
This I knew: good swordsman as they reckoned me in France, Fortini was a better. This, too, I knew: that I carried my lady’s heart with me this night, and that this night, because of me, there would be one Italian less in the world. I say I knew it. In my mind the issue could not be in doubt. And as our rapiers played I pondered the manner I should kill him. I was not minded for a long contest. Quick and brilliant had always been my way. And further, what of my past gay months of carousal and of singing “Sing cucu, sing cucu, sing cucu,” at ungodly hours, I knew I was not conditioned for a long contest. Quick and brilliant was my decision.
But quick and brilliant was a difficult matter with so consummate a swordsman as Fortini opposed to me. Besides, as luck would have it, Fortini, always the cold one, always the tireless-wristed, always sure and long, as report had it, in going about such business, on this night elected, too, the quick and brilliant.
It was nervous, tingling work, for as surely as I sensed his intention of briefness, just as surely had he sensed mine. I doubt that I could have done the trick had it been broad day instead of moonlight. The dim light aided me. Also was I aided by divining, the moment in advance, what he had in mind. It was the time attack, a common but perilous trick that every novice knows, that has laid on his back many a good man who attempted it, and that is so fraught with danger to the perpetrator that swordsmen are not enamoured of it.
We had been at work barely a minute, when I knew under all his darting, flashing show of offence that Fortini meditated this very time attack. He desired of me a thrust and lunge, not that he might parry it but that he might time it and deflect it by the customary slight turn of the wrist, his rapier point directed to meet me as my body followed in the lunge. A ticklish thing—ay, a ticklish thing in the best of light. Did he deflect a fraction of a second too early, I should be warned and saved. Did he deflect a fraction of a second too late, my thrust would go home to him.
“Quick and brilliant is it?” was my thought. “Very well, my Italian friend, quick and brilliant shall it be, and especially shall it be quick.”
In a way, it was time attack against time attack, but I would fool him on the time by being over-quick. And I was quick. As I said, we had been at work scarcely a minute when it happened. Quick? That thrust and lunge of mine were one. A snap of action it was, an explosion, an instantaneousness. I swear my thrust and lunge were a fraction of a second quicker than any man is supposed to thrust and lunge. I won the fraction of a second. By that fraction of a second too late Fortini attempted to deflect my blade and impale me on his. But it was his blade that was deflected. It flashed past my breast, and I was in—inside his weapon, which extended full length in the empty air behind me—and my blade
was inside of him, and through him, heart-high, from right side of him to left side of him and outside of him beyond.
It is a strange thing to do, to spit a live man on a length of steel. I sit here in my cell, and cease from writing a space, while I consider the matter. And I have considered it often, that moonlight night in France of long ago, when I taught the Italian hound quick and brilliant. It was so easy a thing, that perforation of a torso. One would have expected more resistance. There would have been resistance had my rapier point touched bone. As it was, it encountered only the softness of flesh. Still it perforated so easily. I have the sensation of it now, in my hand, my brain, as I write. A woman’s hat-pin could go through a plum pudding not more easily than did my blade go through the Italian. Oh, there was nothing amazing about it at the time to Guillaume de Sainte-Maure, but amazing it is to me, Darrell Standing, as I recollect and ponder it across the centuries. It is easy, most easy, to kill a strong, live, breathing man with so crude a weapon as a piece of steel. Why, men are like soft-shell crabs, so tender, frail, and vulnerable are they.
But to return to the moonlight on the grass. My thrust made home, there was a perceptible pause. Not at once did Fortini fall. Not at once did I withdraw the blade. For a full second we stood in pause—I, with legs spread, and arched and tense, body thrown forward, right arm horizontal and straight out; Fortini, his blade beyond me so far that hilt and hand just rested lightly against my left breast, his body rigid, his eyes open and shining.
So statuesque were we for that second that I swear those about us were not immediately aware of what had happened. Then Fortini gasped and coughed slightly. The rigidity of his pose slackened. The hilt and hand against my breast wavered, then the arm drooped to his side till the rapier point rested on the lawn. By this time Pasquini and de Goncourt had sprung to him and he was sinking into their arms. In faith, it was harder for me to withdraw the steel than to drive it in. His flesh clung about it as if jealous to let it depart. Oh, believe me, it required a distinct physical effort to get clear of what I had done.
But the pang of the withdrawal must have stung him back to life and purpose, for he shook off his friends, straightened himself, and lifted his rapier into position. I, too, took position, marvelling that it was possible I had spitted him heart-high and yet missed any vital spot. Then, and before his friends could catch him, his legs crumpled under him and he went heavily to grass. They laid him on his back, but he was already dead, his face ghastly still under the moon, his right hand still a-clutch of the rapier.
Yes; it is indeed a marvellous easy thing to kill a man.
We saluted his friends and were about to depart, when Felix Pasquini detained me.
“Pardon me,” I said. “Let it be to-morrow.”
“We have but to move a step aside,” he urged, “where the grass is still dry.”
“Let me then wet it for you, Sainte-Maure,” Lanfranc asked of me, eager himself to do for an Italian.
I shook my head.
“Pasquini is mine,” I answered. “He shall be first to-morrow.”
“Are there others?” Lanfranc demanded.
“Ask de Goncourt,” I grinned. “I imagine he is already laying claim to the honour of being the third.”
At this, de Goncourt showed distressed acquiescence. Lanfranc looked inquiry at him, and de Goncourt nodded.
“And after him I doubt not comes the cockerel,” I went on.
And even as I spoke the red-haired Guy de Villehardouin, alone, strode to us across the moonlit grass.
“At least I shall have him,” Lanfranc cried, his voice almost wheedling, so great was his desire.
“Ask him,” I laughed, then turned to Pasquini. “To-morrow,” I said. “Do you name time and place, and I shall be there.”
“The grass is most excellent,” he teased, “the place is most excellent, and I am minded that Fortini has you for company this night.”
“’Twere better he were accompanied by a friend,” I quipped. “And now your pardon, for I must go.”
But he blocked my path.
“Whoever it be,” he said, “let it be now.”
For the first time, with him, my anger began to rise.
“You serve your master well,” I sneered.
“I serve but my pleasure,” was his answer. “Master I have none.”
“Pardon me if I presume to tell you the truth,” I said.
“Which is?” he queried softly.
“That you are a liar, Pasquini, a liar like all Italians.”
He turned immediately to Lanfranc and Bohemond.
“You heard,” he said. “And after that you cannot deny me him.”
They hesitated and looked to me for counsel of my wishes. But Pasquini did not wait.
“And if you still have any scruples,” he hurried on, “then allow me to remove them . . . thus.”
And he spat in the grass at my feet. Then my anger seized me and was beyond me. The red wrath I call it—an overwhelming, all-mastering desire to kill and destroy. I forgot that Philippa waited for me in the great hall. All I knew was my wrongs—the unpardonable interference in my affairs by the gray old man, the errand of the priest, the insolence of Fortini, the impudence of Villehardouin, and here Pasquini standing in my way and spitting in the grass. I saw red. I thought red. I looked upon all these creatures as rank and noisome growths that must be hewn out of my path, out of the world. As a netted lion may rage against the meshes, so raged I against these creatures. They were all about me. In truth, I was in the trap. The one way out was to cut them down, to crush them into the earth and stamp upon them.
“Very well,” I said, calmly enough, although my passion was such that my frame shook. “You first, Pasquini. And you next, de Goncourt? And at the end, de Villehardouin?”
Each nodded in turn and Pasquini and I prepared to step aside.
“Since you are in haste,” Henry Bohemond proposed to me, “and since there are three of them and three of us, why not settle it at the one time?”
“Yes, yes,” was Lanfranc’s eager cry. “Do you take de Goncourt. De Villehardouin for mine.”
But I waved my good friends back.
“They are here by command,” I explained. “It is I they desire so strongly that by my faith I have caught the contagion of their desire, so that now I want them and will have them for myself.”
I had observed that Pasquini fretted at my delay of speech-making, and I resolved to fret him further.
“You, Pasquini,” I announced, “I shall settle with in short account. I would not that you tarried while Fortini waits your companionship. You, Raoul de Goncourt, I shall punish as you deserve for being in such bad company. You are getting fat and wheezy. I shall take my time with you until your fat melts and your lungs pant and wheeze like leaky bellows. You, de Villehardouin, I have not decided in what manner I shall kill.”
And then I saluted Pasquini, and we were at it. Oh, I was minded to be rarely devilish this night. Quick and brilliant—that was the thing. Nor was I unmindful of that deceptive moonlight. As with Fortini would I settle with him if he dared the time attack. If he did not, and quickly, then I would dare it.
Despite the fret I had put him in, he was cautious. Nevertheless I compelled the play to be rapid, and in the dim light, depending less than usual on sight and more than usual on feel, our blades were in continual touch.
Barely was the first minute of play past when I did the trick. I feigned a slight slip of the foot, and, in the recovery, feigned loss of touch with Pasquini’s blade. He thrust tentatively, and again I feigned, this time making a needlessly wide parry. The consequent exposure of myself was the bait I had purposely dangled to draw him on. And draw him on I did. Like a flash he took advantage of what he deemed an involuntary exposure. Straight and true was his thrust, and all his will and body were heartily in the weight of the lunge he made. And all had been feigned on my part and I was ready for him. Just lightly did my steel meet his as our blades slithered
. And just firmly enough and no more did my wrist twist and deflect his blade on my basket hilt. Oh, such a slight deflection, a matter of inches, just barely sufficient to send his point past me so that it pierced a fold of my satin doublet in passing. Of course, his body followed his rapier in the lunge, while, heart-high, right side, my rapier point met his body. And my outstretched arm was stiff and straight as the steel into which it elongated, and behind the arm and the steel my body was braced and solid.
Heart-high, I say, my rapier entered Pasquini’s side on the right, but it did not emerge, on the left, for, well-nigh through him, it met a rib (oh, man-killing is butcher’s work!) with such a will that the forcing overbalanced him, so that he fell part backward and part sidewise to the ground. And even as he fell, and ere he struck, with jerk and wrench I cleared my weapon of him.
De Goncourt was to him, but he waved de Goncourt to attend on me. Not so swiftly as Fortini did Pasquini pass. He coughed and spat, and, helped by de Villehardouin, propped his elbow under him, rested his head on hand, and coughed and spat again.
“A pleasant journey, Pasquini,” I laughed to him in my red anger. “Pray hasten, for the grass where you lie is become suddenly wet and if you linger you will catch your death of cold.”
When I made immediately to begin with de Goncourt, Bohemond protested that I should rest a space.
“Nay,” I said. “I have not properly warmed up.” And to de Goncourt, “Now will we have you dance and wheeze—Salute!”
De Goncourt’s heart was not in the work. It was patent that he fought under the compulsion of command. His play was old-fashioned, as any middle-aged man’s is apt to be, but he was not an indifferent swordsman. He was cool, determined, dogged. But he was not brilliant, and he was oppressed with foreknowledge of defeat. A score of times, by quick and brilliant, he was mine. But I refrained. I have said that I was devilish-minded. Indeed I was. I wore him down. I backed him away from the moon so that he could see little of me because I fought in my own shadow. And while I wore him down until he began to wheeze as I had predicted, Pasquini, head on hand and watching, coughed and spat out his life.