Marrying the Musketeer (19 page)

She looked back at Charent.
 
His eyes still carried the grim knowledge of how close he had come to death by her hands.
 
He glared back at her with a hatred that nearly matched her own – the hatred of an enemy who has been temporarily vanquished, but not defeated.
 
There would be time and enough to kill him another day.
 
Besides her fiercest quarrel was not with him, but with Pierre de Tournay.
 
She would do nothing that would jeopardize the realization of her revenge.
 
She put up her sword.

She would take care from now on not to let her rage carry her away.
 
She would rein in her hatred, her hunger and her thirst for justice.
 
She would not lose herself in a practice battle again.
 
She would keep command of herself, control herself, until she fought to kill in earnest.

“No finesse, but the enthusiasm of a Berserker,” was D’Artagnan’s verdict on her performance as they sat in the mess hall at noon over a tankard of ale.
 
“I would have no fear of death if you were at my side in battle.”

She raised her tankard at him in a salute.
 
Indeed, she felt like one of those fabled Scandinavian warriors of old who fought like demons possessed and knew no fear, carving through their opponents in a orgy of blood lust and drunk on the squandered lives of their enemies.
 
Expecting a grim rebuke from her Captain for getting so carried away, she was more than content with such a verdict.

Her reputation as a Berserker carried quickly over the entire barracks.
 
Other young recruits turned out to watch her fight, battering her opponents into the ground with brute force rather than skill.
 
Even some of the older soldiers watched her – though none of them as intently or with as much hatred as Charent.
 
Never again did she let herself go as she had when she fought with him.
 
She kept the white-hot spark of rage in her soul banked, drawing on only enough of it to make her sword arm strong and her blows fierce.
 
She did not let herself become intoxicated with the rage of battle and fight to kill.

With each blow that she struck, with each opponent that she fought, she felt her desire for justice grow stronger.
 
The seed of hatred inside her grew hotter than ever until it was in danger of overpowering her soul.

At every turn, Pierre de Tournay sought her out, eager to speak with her, yet tormented to his soul to be in her company.
 
She suffered his presence gladly, letting it feed her determination to visit justice on his head.

“You are nothing like your cousin,” he said to her one day as she walked off the practice field, sweating with exertion after battering yet another opponent into the ground with the sheer strength of her determination.
 
“Your cousin was sweet-tempered and gentle.
 
Her favorite pastime was to feed squirrels in the grounds of the churchyard.
 
She would never hurt a fly.”

She had to grin at the irony of his words.
 
“My cousin is no saint.
 
Who knows what she would do if she felt the need of it.
 
I’d wager she could flay half the soldiers in the barracks if she had a mind to it.”

He shook his head emphatically.
 
“Mademoiselle Ruthgard is no soldier.
 
I could not even imagine her with a sword in her hand, standing staunchly in the lists as you do each day.
 
She could not strike a blow in anger.
 
She is so tender-hearted she would faint at the sight of blood.”

She brushed the dirt from her hands on to her breeches and put her sword back in its scabbard.
 
Was it really her that he was talking about?
 
Had her true nature been so little apparent when he had first courted her?
 
Had he not seen her true colors under the silks and satins that she wore.
 
Or had his treachery left a mark on her soul that had changed her for all time?

Whatever the reason for it, Pierre had made the fatal mistake of underestimating his enemy.
 
She felt no need to enlighten him.
 
He would be all the easier to destroy as he sat at his ease, never suspecting that his enemy was so close to him, readying her venom for the mortal strike.
 
Men were such fools – such blind, deluded fools.
 
“She is a woman, Pierre,” was all she said.
 
“For all the sweet softness they may seem to possess, women make the most deadly enemies of all.”
 

He shook his head.
 
“Not your cousin.”

She shrugged.
 
He did not deserve even that much of a warning.
 
More fool him if he could not see her for what she truly was – and arm himself against her.
 
She had armed herself against him and was merely biding her time until she could strike.
 
“Come, will you drink with me in the tavern this evening?”

The tavern was crowded with soldiers of all shapes and sizes, many of them Musketeers of their own company.
 
She downed a tankard of ale in morose silence, hating the man who sat at the table with her drinking as if he had not a care in the world.
 
She stared at his breastbone with icy eyes.
 
She wanted to kill him now – to run a sword right through his faithless heart.
 
If her father was free and her son had never been born, she would do so without hesitation and damn the consequences.
 
But her son needed his mother, and her father was not yet free…

Above the general hubbub of the inn she heard the shriek of a woman in distress.
 
A serving maid was being held down against her will by a huge oaf in uniform as he pawed at her breasts.
 
As she watched, a young Musketeer rushed to the woman’s defense, taking on the bigger soldier, though he was twice his size.

How unusual it was, she thought with a cynical sneer, to see a soldier use his sword to protect a mere woman.
 
He must be too young and naive to know any better.

The young Musketeer was being hard pressed and no one came to his defense.
 
She felt the rage that she had kept bottled up inside her suddenly boil over.
 
She was spoiling for a fight.
 
She may as well vent some of her rage on some of those who well deserved it.

Without a word to Pierre she jumped into the fray, careless of her own safety in her delight to at last be striking a blow against her enemies.
 
She would rescue the young fool with his odd notions of gallantry and take the edge off her own anger in the process.

Her sword whistling around her head in a vicious song of destruction, she made her way to the young Musketeer’s side.
 
He glanced at her with relief before turning back to his attackers.
 
“Follow me,” she said, clearing a path for them along the wall, aiming for a door in the wall she had seen the landlady go in an out of several times that evening.
 
“We’ll go out the back way, though the kitchen.”

She cursed with fury when they popped through the door, slammed it behind them, and found themselves not in the kitchen, but in a storeroom.

A small, dark Musketeer was on his hands and knees, grubbing up onions in the corner.
 
She spat at him as the filthy thief he was.
 
He was the one who should by rights be locked away in the Bastille, not her innocent father.
 
Still, seeing as they had to fight their way out again, three swords would be better than two – even the sword of a filthy thief.
 

She grabbed him by the hair and yanked him to his feet.
 
A bottle of wine fell from his shirt to the floor.
 
She kicked it out of her way without a second thought.
 
“Drop your booty, thief,” she snarled at him, “and help us fight our way out.”

He wriggled out of her grasp and stuffed another onion into his boot.
 
“Do I have to?”

She took hold of the shoulder of his jacket and leaned close in to him, whispering in his ear like the kiss of a lover.
 
“You can fight with us like a man or I shall spit you in the guts with my dagger and leave your entrails on the floor for the dogs to eat.
 
Take your choice.”

With a sigh of disappointment, he took a bottle of wine out of his shirt and looked at it lovingly, loath to part with it.
 
“The best wine, it is, too.”

She prodded him with her sword just hard enough to know that her threat was not an idle one.
 
“Drop it, you little gutter rat.
 
You’ll fight better without it.”

With a mutter of annoyance, he drew his sword and the three of them fought their way out into the tavern again.
 
For all that he was a dirty thief, he fought like a soldier, with the quickest hand she had seen yet.

The brawl was still going full-tilt – chairs were being flung and tables overturned as every soldier in the place fought against his neighbor for the sheer love of fighting.
 
Courtney hoped they would all kill each other – the world would be a better place with a couple of dozen fewer soldiers in it.

They fought along the wall again to the next door.
 
This time Courtney checked it before she ran headlong into another blind alley.
 
Yes – it was the kitchen indeed, heavy with heat and the smell of good rabbit stew.
 

She cast a look of regret behind her.
 
She would dearly like to stay and fight for longer, but it would not be politic.
 
She had rescued the young Musketeer as she had intended, and had no desire to be taken up by the watch for brawling.
 
They bore no love for the King’s Guard and she would not like to have her sex discovered by an unlucky accident.

She turned to leave the foremost of their pursuers with a few blows to remember her by, when the serving maid who had been the cause of the brawl in the first place rushed past her like a whirling dervish, screeching with all the force of her lungs and brandishing a smoking hot pan above her head.
 
The dervish laid into their attackers with a vengeance, dealing blow after blow with her pan.
 
Courtney put up her sword and watched with amusement as the serving maid, bent on vengeance, laid them low one after another.
 
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the thief take advantage of the rout to slip a couple of carrots into his jacket.

The kitchen was soon emptied as the fallen warriors beat a hasty retreat, backsides on fire and heads ringing from the force of the blows rained down upon them.
 

The young Musketeer bowed low and murmured some words of thanks to the serving maid.
 

Courtney’s rage had evaporated into the delight of triumph.
 
She gave a great guffaw of laughter and slapped the maid servant heartily on the back.
 
The woman would make a fine Musketeer – she had the strength of arm and the viciousness of spirit to get the better of any man.
 
“You served that lecherous bastard right enough.
 
You’d do well in uniform.
 
You’re the sort of comrade I’d like to have beside me in battle.”

The maid servant grinned at the compliment and put her rapidly cooling fry pan back on the fire again with pride.
 
“You’d better scarper off, Messieurs,” she said, glowing with the fierce satisfaction of routing her enemies.
 
“The Master will’ve sent a runner for the guards by now, and there’ll be trouble for those caught brawling here.
 
You’ll be taken up for breaking his chairs.”

The other two Musketeers put up their swords and raced for the back door at her words, Courtney following closely on their heels.
 
It seemed as though none of them were willing to risk being taken up by the guards.

The sound of a bugle warned them that the guard was arriving.
 
Courtney looked this way and that down the alley, wondering which way was safe to turn.

With a muttered curse, the thief took the lead.
 
“This way,” he called softly, scrambling up the stone wall on the other side of the alley.

She hesitated to follow him.
 
How could she trust a man with stolen onions in his boots?
 
The sound of horses hooves on the cobbles of the alley decided her.
 
With a grunt of exertion, her booted feet scrabbling to find a foothold on the smooth stones, she swung herself up the wall and over the other side.
 
The young Musketeer followed suit, dropping beside her on the same instant.