Beauvallet Read online

  He heard her voice and threw up his head. ‘Cheerly, my bird, cheerly!’ he called. ‘I shall be with you in a little!’

  She leaned against the door, sobbing and laughing at once. Might she not have known that he would come, and come in time, too.

  Downstairs in the hall Don Diego had recovered from his first daze of horror. The colour came back into his cheeks. He tore his dagger from its sheath, and crouched, facing Beauvallet. ‘Dog of a pirate! You shall speed to hell this night!’

  ‘After you, señor, after you!’ said Sir Nicholas blithely, and caught the thrusting rapier point on his blade. There was a scuffle of daggers, steel clashed against steel, and Don Diego sprang back, disengaging over the arm.

  Sir Nicholas drove him rigorously; they circled a little; there was a lunge, and a dexterous parry, the flash of an upthrust dagger, scurry of blades, and the quick shifting of light feet on the wooden floor.

  Don Diego fought furiously, lips drawn back in a snarling grimace, brows close knit. He lunged forward to the heart, was parried by that lightning blade from the hand of Ferrara, and recovered his guard only just in time. Sir Nicholas was on his toes; the laugh was back in his eyes, and on his lips; larger issues were forgot in the present joy of battle. He had made no idle boast to his brother when he had said he was a master of the art of foiling with the point. Don Diego had thought himself no mean swordsman, but he knew himself outmatched. This man, sprung on wires; this devil who laughed as he lunged, had a dashing skill that brought Diego face to face with death a dozen times. He was fighting for very life, and he had thought to run through his opponent almost at once.

  ‘Laugh, laugh, dog!’ he gasped, beating aside that flickering blade for an instant. ‘You shall laugh soon in hell!’

  ‘Go warn them there of my coming, señor,’ said Sir Nicholas gaily, and seemed to quicken.

  The fight grew more desperate; Don Diego was losing ground, and knew it. It was all he could do to keep that dancing sword-point at bay, and ever he fell back before it. The point quivered to his throat, he sprang back, was forced on farther still, hard-breathing, sweating, but fighting every inch of the way.

  Faintly in the distance came the thud of galloping horses. Joshua's voice called urgently: ‘Master, master, make an end!’

  Don Diego thrust viciously to the heart. ‘You shall go hence – shackled!’ he gasped.

  The steel blades hissed together; one of them snaked out in a straight lunge, driven by a strong wrist. ‘My bite is sure! ’ quoth Sir Nicholas, and wrenched his sword free of the deep wound.

  Don Diego's weapon fell clattering; he threw up his hands with a choking sound, and pitched forward on to his face.

  The thud of the horses’ hooves was drawing nearer; Sir Nicholas was down on his knee, turning Don Diego over. The black eyes were glazing fast, but gleamed hatred still. Sir Nicholas felt in the elegant doublet, found the key he sought, and sprang up.

  Joshua ran in. ‘Trapped, trapped!’ he cried. ‘They are hard on us!’

  ‘Round with you to the back!’ Beauvallet answered instantly. ‘Wait beneath my lady's window, and when I send her down to you, off with you!’

  Joshua made a gesture of despair and ran out. Plainly to be heard now were the galloping hooves.

  Sir Nicholas went bounding up the stairs. ‘Where, my heart, where?’ he called.

  Her voice led him to the door. He fitted the key into the

  272 lock and turned it, listening to the thunder of hooves drawing closer and ever closer.

  The door was open, and Dominica sobbing on his breast.

  ‘You are safe?’ he asked urgently.

  ‘Safe! safe!’ she answered.

  ‘God be praised!’ He put her quickly aside and strode to the bed. The heavy quilt was flung off, the sheets snatched up and knotted. ‘The chase is hard upon me. I must let you down through your window, my bird.’ He jerked at his knot. The horses were at hand, and trampling now as they were pulled up outside the lodge. Sir Nicholas reached the window, ‘Joshua?’

  ‘Ready, master!’ came the stealthy whisper.

  He turned. ‘Come, fondling! Trust me to let you safely down.’

  She let him lift her on to the window-ledge, but her hands clung to him. Downstairs blows were being rained on the shut door. ‘But you? But you?’

  ‘Never fear,’ he said. His voice was cool and reassuring. ‘Twist the sheet about your hands, so, and hold fast, child. Brave lass! Are you ready?’

  Clinging tightly to her improvised rope she was lowered over the sill, hung dangling on the end of the sheet, and was let down into Joshua's ready arms. He set her down, caught her hand, and led her away at the double across the garden to the hedge that shut it off from the forest.

  ‘Hist, bist for your life!’ he breathed. ‘Do as I bid you, mistress, and not a word out of you!’

  Behind them the guards were in at the door of the lodge, stumbling over Don Diego's body.

  ‘Ah, he has been here, the villain!’ cried Cruza. ‘He is here still! search the house!’

  Upstairs Beauvallet tore the key from the lock of Dominica's door, and fitted it in again on the inside. He pulled the door to behind him just as Cruza came bounding up the stairs, a drawn sword in his hand.

  ‘Well met, Señor Cruza!’ said Beauvallet cheerfully, and held sword and dagger ready.

  Cruza sent a shout echoing through the house. ‘To me! To me!’

  The men came stamping up the stairs. ‘Why, what a pack of you!’ said Sir Nicholas, amused.

  ‘Yield you, señor!’ Cruza cried. ‘You are outmatched!’

  ‘Yield?’ said Sir Nicholas. Up went his comical eyebrow. ‘God's Son, Cruza, do you know who I am?’

  ‘You are El Beauvallet, and I have sworn to take you! We are six to your one. Yield, yield!’

  ‘You will be forsworn, good señor. I am El Beauvallet, so the odds are fair enough. Now who will take Nick Beauvallet?’ He looked inquiringly, and wondered whether Joshua had got Dominica away yet.

  ‘Insolent dog!’ Cruza dashed in with levelled sword. ‘On to him, and take him alive!’ he cried.

  Sir Nicholas’ blade swept a circle before him. He laughed and shook the sweat from his eyes. ‘Alas, alas, for vain ambition! So-so! What, winded, my man?’ A guard fell back with a slash across the forearm. Sir Nicholas beat down a big double-edged sword, and slipped his dagger-hand behind him, feeling for the handle of the door.

  The Toledo blade bit shrewdly and sure indeed. Cruza staggered as the point went home in his shoulder, and recovered again. ‘Alive, I want him alive!’ he gasped out.

  Sir Nicholas’ fingers had found the door-handle, and turned it now in one quick movement. The door was flung open; he sprang back, fighting his way, sent the foremost guard sprawling with a wound in the breast, and slammed the door home behind him.

  Cruza threw himself upon it, thrusting with all his might. ‘Quick fools!’ he cried, and heard the key grate in the lock. ‘Two of you down into the garden, under the window!’ he jerked out. ‘Break down this door, you others. Break it down!’

  Two of the guards went running down the stairs and round to the back; the rest set their shoulders to the door. The lock gave under the weight, the door flew wide, and the guards were in.

  The room was empty. An overturned chair lay asprawl by the window; a casement swung open on its hinge, and the curtain beside it was rent from end to end.

  With one accord his men followed Cruza to the window and tried to crane out. From the arras behind the door Sir Nicholas slipped out, kissed his fingers silently to the backs of the guards, and was off without a sound across the upper hall to the stairs.

  He went down in a series of bounds, reached the hall, and stepped over Don Diego's body to the door. A beam of light cast through the opening showed him a guard standing to the horses’ heads. He went forward in a rush then, and his sword-hilt took the guard on the chin almost before he was aware, and sent him sprawling in the road. Sir Nich