Marrying the Musketeer (46 page)

She hoped the ruffians would take him down soon before he attracted the attention of more thieves.
 
She would rather take her pickings quickly and leave again – though she would fight for them if she must.

Just as she was starting to think that the ruffians would never make their move, they pounced.

The man on horseback had stopped one more time, looking around him as if he knew he had lost his way, and wheeled his horse around to retrace his steps.
 
In that moment, the six men set upon him with a ferocity all the more fearful because of its silence.

The man drew his sword and tried to beat them back again.
 
“Help, murder, thieves,” he yelled at the top of his voice, but there was none to hear him.
 
None but Miriame, and she could not help him even if she would.

He was no match for his six burly attackers.
 
One of them hung on to his sword arm so he could not raise it, another held his horse by the bridle so he could not spur away, and the other four dragged him off his horse.

He landed on the cobbles with a nasty crunch and lay still, his furious cries of protest suddenly stilled.
 

Miriame crept forward, her senses in high alert, watching for the gold or silver gleam of any stray coins that may roll her way, or for the opportunity to grab some loot while their attention was distracted.
 
Her fingers itched to snatch whatever crumbs she could, and her legs trembled with their readiness to sprint off into the darkness to get away with her booty.

“Is he dead already?” one of them asked in a hoarse whisper.
 
He sounded eerily disappointed, as if half the fun of the robbery was in killing the victim.

Mere robbery, however, was not on the minds of the ruffians.
 
As Miriame watched every move they made, in a fever of impatience to steal enough to get the boots she craved, one of the six drew a knife.
 
The blade gleamed wickedly in the moonlight as it plunged down into the chest of the stranger lying still on the cobbles.

The man with the knife spat on his blade and wiped it clean on his jerkin before sliding it back into the sheath at his belt.
 
“He will be now.”

She stifled a gasp and crept back into the shadows.
 
Murder was a far greater crime than robbery was.
 
You’d hang for simple robbery, sure enough, but for murder?
 
By the time the King’s executioner had finished with you down in the dungeons, you’d be begging for death – if you even had a tongue left with which to beg.

She shuddered, hoping that the six would not find out they had a witness to their crime.
 
If they found her now, she wouldn’t bet so much as a sou for her chance of living till the dawn.

“Are you sure he is dead?” she heard one of them ask in a guttural whisper.
 
The accent was cultured and pure as if he came from the court of the King rather than from the slums where hired murderers were more often to be found.
 

Miriame gave a start, her blood freezing in her heart.
 
She knew that voice, she was sure of it.
 
She had last heard it on the day that Rebecca had died, laughing over her poor dead sister’s body.
 
She made herself as small as a mouse, hoping none of them would think of checking the shadows that surrounded them.
 
If they found her, she would soon be as dead as the man they had just knifed.
 
Heaven help her if they discovered she was a woman before they killed her.
 
She would rather kill herself now – a nice, clean, quick death - and be done with it.

The man with the knife nodded.
 
“As near as makes no difference.
 
He’ll be dead before dawn.”

One of the others reached towards the rings on the man’s hands.
 
Even from this distance, Miriame could see the gleam of avarice on his face.
 

The man with the cultured voice cuffed him viciously around the head.
 
“Leave them be.”
 
His voice, even in a whisper, had the ring of authority – the tone of a man who expected instant obedience.
 
If Miriame had had a knife in her pocket, he would be wearing it in his chest at that instant.
 
She hated him with a deep abiding hatred that went deeper than her instinct to save her own life, deeper than her very soul.
 
One day, she promised herself, keeping her fear in check with her fantasies, one day he would find death at her hands.
 
She owed Rebecca his life.

“But the rings alone must be worth---”

He didn’t finish his sentence.
 
The leader drew his knife and pressed it into the man’s side.
 
“Are you arguing with me?”

The man shook his head sullenly and sidled away from the knife.
 
“No.”

“Good.
 
Because if you are I shall slit your throat as easily as your comrade knifed that fellow on the ground.”
 
He gave the body a contemptuous kick.
 
Miriame shut her eyes for a moment, willing herself not to see the body of her sister in the man’s place.
 
“Our orders were clear.
 
Nothing was to be taken from him but his papers.”

He reached into the man’s jacket pocket and withdrew a bunch of papers.
 
Blood dripped down from them onto the cobbles.
 
He gave a grunt of satisfaction.
 
“That’s what we came for, lads.
 
Now let’s get the hell out of here.”

He turned to face the man who had tried to steal the stranger’s rings.
 
“I would counsel you not to return to rob the body.
 
It will be death for anyone caught with his possessions, and you will be tortured first to tell all you know of his death.
 
I am not willing to risk my life on your silence in the hands of the torturers.
 
If I so much as suspect you of robbing him of even a single sou, I will kill you myself.
 
Do you understand?”

They shuffled their feet uncomfortably and the man who had tried to steal the rings backed away into the darkness towards where Miriame crouched in her hiding place.
 
She shut her eyes and willed him not to come any closer, or to turn around and see her hiding there.

“Now that we have what we came for, let some other poor bastard come along and rob him.
 
Someone else can hang for his death, not you or I.”

All five of them nodded, and without another word being spoken, they melted away into the dark again, leaving the street bare and empty.

Miriame breathed a sigh of relief.
 
By a miracle, she had escaped with her life.
 
She waited in her hole in the shadows for some minutes, but nothing stirred.
 
Her fear and hatred for the man she had just seen warred with her desire for a pair of boots, and eventually the boots won.

As silent as a ghost she crept out again, carefully balancing her weight on the balls of her feet so she could take off running if the leader was still lurking around, waiting to make sure that his instructions were followed.

Not a sound reached her ears but the rustling of the wind and the bark of a lone fox in the distance.

She reached open ground and knelt carefully beside the body.
 
His rings were indeed very fine.
 
She did not wonder at the killer risking a knife blade in his side to get his hands on them.
 
She herself would risk death for them twice over.
 
She pulled them off his fingers and stowed them away in her rags.
 
She’d have a pair of stout new boots before the week was out.

Carefully she felt in his pockets in his greatcoat, dragging out his wallet.
 
It was heavy with gold pieces.
 
She looked inside, and her eyes opened wide.
 
Never in her life had she seen so much wealth.
 
How foolish they had been to leave the money here.
 
One man’s gold piece looked the same as any other.
 
They could never pin aught on a man just for a purse full of gold.
 
Her heart hammering, she tucked that away next to her skin.
 

A rustle of papers caught her ear.
 
She patted his greatcoat and his jacket, finding no pocket.

They must be sewn inside his lining.
 
She felt around on the ground around her until her fingers found a sharp stone.
 
With the tip of the stone she ripped the lining of his jacket, put her hands inside, and drew out a packet of papers tied with ribbon and a couple of loose sheets.

He had been murdered for his papers.
 
They must be even more valuable than the money she had tucked away.
 
She pulled out all the papers she could find and transferred them from his coat to her own.

Just then, the body gave a feeble groan and stirred slightly.
 
Miriame gave a start.
 
She’d thought he was dead and gone already.

She bent her head towards his chest and felt a faint stirring of his chest as he labored to draw his last breaths.
 
He was still alive.
 
Not very alive, and not likely to live for long, but still alive for now.

“Can you hear me?” she said into his ear?
 
“Can you understand what I am saying?”

He gave the tiniest nod, so small she didn’t know whether or not she was imagining it.
 
His eyes flickered open for a brief moment, and then shut again, and he groaned again.
 
He was definitely alive.

She sat back on her heels wondering what to do.
 
She’d had no qualms about robbing a corpse – she was just taking things that were of no use to their owner any more.
 
But to rob a dying man and leave him to breath his last in the mud of the roadway?
 
Living on the streets as she did, she couldn’t afford many morals, but somehow that didn’t sit quite right with her.
 

Besides, the man she hated from the very depths of her soul wanted the man dead.
 
That was reason enough for her to want to save his life.

She touched her hand lightly to the wound on his chest and drew it away again sticky with blood.
 
With a grunt she tore a strip of wool from one of the rags she wore and bound it tightly around his chest to stop the bleeding.
 
She had taken enough wealth from him to replace her garments with better ones twenty times over, but even so she sacrificed it with some unwillingness.
 
She hadn’t survived on the street for this long by giving her clothes to strangers.

“What the hell,” she muttered to herself, as she heaved him to his feet with all the muscles in her strong, wiry body.
 
“You’ve done me a good turn by donating me your wallet.
 
The least I can do is help you to die in your bed, not die a dog in the gutter.”
 

His brief moment of lucidity had not lasted for long.
 
He was quite insensible now, flopping against her shoulder as weak and spineless as the rag doll her mother had once made for her, long, long ago when times had not been so bad.
 
He did not even groan when she accidentally knocked against the wound in his chest, making it bleed anew.

The stranger’s horse was still standing nearby, nosing around the cobblestones in the vain hope of a blade of grass.
 
Miriame nickered softly to it.
 
“Come on my pretty girl, come over here a moment,” she called, and it ambled over in her direction.

Somehow she managed to wrestle the stranger on to his horse’s back, until he was lying face down over the saddle.
 
His face bumped against the horse’s flanks on one side, while his knees bumped against the other side.
 
He could hardly be very comfortable, but they only had a short way to go.
 
She knew of an inn not far away where he would be well-looked after.
 
The landlady there was kind enough and more honest than most.
 
She’d take good enough care of him if she were paid well to do so.
 
She’d not take his money and throw him out on the streets again to die, as some others she knew of would.

More worryingly, the wound in his chest had begun to seep blood again.
 
The horse flared its nostrils and sidestepped uncomfortably down the street with its strange burden, but Miriame held tight to its reins and forced it to follow along behind her.
 
“Come on now,” she murmured to the horse, “easy does it.”
 
The horse snorted uneasily, but did not panic or throw off its burden.