Beauvallet Read online

  The Frenchman sprang up, steady enough upon his feet, but flushed, and somewhat wild-eyed. He had not drunk as much as Beauvallet. ‘A last toast!’ he cried, and slopped more wine into the empty cups. ‘To a speedy journey, say I!’

  ‘God save you!’ said Beauvallet. He drank deep, and sent the empty cup spinning over his shoulder to crash against the wall behind him. ‘One candle between the two of us.’ He picked it up, and the hot tallow dripped on to the floor. ‘Up with you, youngling.’ He stood at the foot of the rickety stairs, holding the candle unsteadily aloft. The dim light flickered over the steps; the Frenchman went up, with a hand against the wall.

  Upstairs a lantern, burning low, was discovered. The French man took it, called a good-night, and went into his chamber. Sir Nicholas, yawning prodigiously, sought his own, and stumbled over the low truckle-bed on which Joshua lay peacefully asleep. ‘God's Death!’ swore Sir Nicholas.

  Joshua was awakened by a drop of tallow alighting on his nose, and started up, rubbing the afflicted member.

  Beauvallet set down the candle, laughing. ‘My poor Joshua!’

  ‘Master, you are in your cups,’ Joshua said severely.

  ‘None so deep,’ said Sir Nicholas cheerfully, and found the basin and ewer that stood upon a rude chest. There was a great splashing of water, and a spluttering. ‘Pouf !’ said Sir Nicholas, towelling his head. ‘Go to sleep, starveling. What are you at?’

  Joshua was for rising. ‘You’ve need to come out of those clothes, sir,’ said he.

  ‘Oh, let be!’ said Beauvallet, and flung himself down as he was upon the bed.

  The candle went out, but the moonlight shone in at the uncurtained window. It lit Beauvallet's face, but could not keep him awake. Soon a snore disturbed the stillness, and then another.

  He was awakened out of a deep sleep by a hand shaking his shoulder, and a hissing whisper in his ear. He came groping out of the mists, felt the clutch upon his shoulder, and of instinct shot out a pair of hands to grasp the unknown's throat. ‘Ha, dog!’

  Joshua choked, and tried to tear apart the gripping fingers. ‘’Tis I – Joshua!’ he gasped.

  The grip slackened at once. Sir Nicholas sat up, and was shaken with laughter. ‘Ye were nigh sped that time, chewet! What a-plague ails you to come pawing me!’

  ‘Matter enough,’ Joshua said. ‘Ha’ done with your laughter, sir! Yon Frenchman's crept below stairs to steal the mare.’

  ‘What!’ Beauvallet swung his legs off the bed, and felt for his shoon. ‘Cock's passion, that whey-faced malt-warm! How learned you this?’

  Joshua was groping for his breeches. ‘I waked to hear one go creeping down the stairs. A step creaked. Be sure I was alert upon the instant! I do not fall cup-shotten into a stupor.’

  ‘Peace, you elf-skin! What then?’

  ‘Then might I hear the door open stealthily below, and in a moment a cloaked fellow with a lantern crosses the yard to the barn. Ho, thinks I –’

  ‘Give me my sword,’ Beauvallet interrupted, and made for the door.

  ‘I shall be with you on the instant!’ Joshua hissed after him. ‘A plague on these points!’

  Sir Nicholas went swiftly down the stairs, sword in hand, and crossed the taproom in two bounds to the door. Outside in the yard was bright moonlight, and to the right the barn cast a great black shadow. Through the door came the glimmer of a lantern, and the muffled sound of movement.

  Beauvallet gave his head a little shake, as though to cast off the lingering fumes of the wine he had drunk, and went forward, cat-like, over the cobbles.

  Inside the barn the Frenchman was hurriedly buckling saddle-girths. Beauvallet's mare was bridled already. A lantern stood upon the baked mud floor, and the Frenchman's cloak and hat were flung down beside it. His fingers trembled a little as he tugged at the straps; his back was turned towards the door.

  There came a sound to make him jump well-nigh out of his skin, and spin round and face the door. Sir Nicholas stood there with a naked sword in his hand, laughing at him.

  ‘Oho, my young iniquity!’ said Sir Nicholas, and laughed again. ‘Now I think you are shent!’

  For an instant the Frenchman stood at gaze, his face all twisted with fury. And Beauvallet set his sword point to the ground, and laughed at his discomfiture. Then, suddenly, the Frenchman sprang forward, tearing his sword from the scabbard, and in his leap contrived to kick over the lantern, and put out its frail light. Sir Nicholas stood in the shaft of moonlight in the open doorway, but all else in the barn was pitch dark.

  Beauvallet's sword flashed out before him; he sprang lightly to one side, felt a blade thrust within a hair's breadth of his shoulder, and lunged swiftly forward. His point went home; there was a choked gurgle, the clatter of a sword falling to earth, and a dull thud.

  Beauvallet swore beneath his breath, and stood listening, back against the wall, with a shortened sword. Only the uneasy snorting and pawing of the horses broke the silence. He moved forward cautiously, and stumbled against something that lay on the ground at his feet. ‘God's Body, have I killed the boy?’ he muttered, and bent over the still figure.

  Across the yard Joshua came running at full tilt, and bounded into the barn, ‘’Swounds! What's here? Master? Sir Nicholas!’

  ‘A plague on your screechings! Help me with this carcass.’

  ‘What, dead?’ gasped Joshua, feeling in the darkness.

  ‘I know not.’ Sir Nicholas spoke curtly. ‘Take you his legs, and help me to bear him out. So!’

  They carried their burden out into the moonlight, and laid it down on the cobbles. Beauvallet knelt, and stripped open the elegant doublet, feeling for the heart. A clean-edged wound was there, deep and true.

  ‘Peste, I thrust better than I knew,’ Beauvallet muttered. ‘The devil! But the young traitor sought to murder me. What's this?’

  A silken packet was in his hand, attached to a riband about the dead man's neck.

  ‘Open,’ said Joshua, shivering. ‘Perchance you might learn his name.’

  ‘What should that benefit me, fool?’ But Sir Nicholas took the packet, and thrust it into his doublet. ‘This is to ruin all. We must bury him, Joshua, and that speedily. No noise, mind!’

  ‘Bury! With your sword?’ Joshua said. ‘The evil hour! Nay, wait! As I remember there are tools within the barn.’

  An hour later, the grim work done, Sir Nicholas, thoroughly sobered now, came softly back to the inn. He was frowning a little. This was an ill-happening, and had gone otherwise than he had planned. Yet who would have thought the young fool would play the traitor so? He mounted silently to his chamber again, and sat down on the bed, while Joshua relit the lantern.

  It was set upon the chest. Beauvallet slowly wiped his sword, and returned it to its scabbard. He drew forth the packet from his breast, and slit open the silk with his dagger. Crackling sheets of paper were inside. Beauvallet bent towards the lamp. His eyes ran over the first sheet frowningly, and came to rest on the signature. A short exclamation broke from him, and he pulled the lantern nearer yet. He held a letter from the Guise to King Philip in his hand, but the bulk of it was writ in cypher.

  Joshua, inquisitively hovering at hand, ventured a question. ‘What is it, master? Doth the writing give his name, perchance?’

  Beauvallet was looking now at a fair-inscribed pass. ‘It seems, my Joshua,’ he said, ‘that I have slain a scion of the house of Guise.’

  ‘God mend my soul!’ quoth Joshua. ‘Shall it serve, master? Shall we turn it to good account?’

  ‘Since these purport to be papers writ to his Catholic Majesty it seems we may turn it to very good account,’ Sir Nicholas said, poring over the first paper again. ‘Now, I have some knowledge of cyphers, as I believe…’ He looked up. ‘Get you to bed, rogue, get you to bed!’

  An hour later Joshua, waking as he turned on his bed, saw Sir Nicholas seated still by the chest, with a soaked cloth bound about a head which Joshua judged had good cause to ache, and his bro