LITMIR.BIZ

Скачать книгу

to his belt and stood, looking down at her. “Well? Are you coming with me?”

      Simone held up her hands so he could raise her to her feet. Her eyes were somber. “You said I could help you, a while back. Now tell me how.”

      “I’ve reason to believe these murderers communicate with one another. They know I’m somewhere between Paris and Artois. They’ll be expecting me, but they won’t be expecting me to have a wife with me.”

      “Ah, you begin to make sense.”

      She pushed a sandaled foot into the stirrup and rose to the saddle, her brown woolen skirt riding back from a bare and shapely leg. Jean bent and kissed the smooth skin of her thigh.

      Simone laughed and pushed him away. “What man kisses his wife’s leg when he sees a bit of bared flesh?”

      “A newlywed,” he grinned.

      Her eyebrows arched. “You think of everything, it seems.”

      Then she reined the heavy horse away from the brook and kicked it into a canter. Jean watched her for a long moment, lips pursed. This idea that had come to him so suddenly was not so poor in merit, at that. True, his wife would need more clothes than she wore at the moment to act out the part he had in mind, but his purse was heavy with livres tournois. Excitement began to build in his blood.

      The common room of the Inn of the Gray Mule, which lay on the Montmirail road just beyond the town, was heavy with excitement in this early hour of the evening. A dozen young bloods from neighboring manor houses were crowding about the dice table, where Étienne Aymon was meeting a run of bad luck. Already a large pile of gold ecus lay before a swaggering young cockerel, whose laughter rang out with uninhibited delight. The rattle of the dice was loud in his cupped hand. Except for the patter of the barmaid’s feet as she carried a tray of wine bottles across the rush-strewn floor, it was the only sound in the room.

      “I win again!” the young man in the leather jerkin shouted, as the dice rolled to a stop.

      “Devil take it,” snarled Aymon.

      “Mayhap the devil does take it, milord,” whispered a slim, sly man at Aymon’s elbow.

      Jean le Bâtard reached across the gaming table. His hand closed down on the shirt front of the speaker and dragged him halfway across the tabletop. His dagger point pressed against the man’s throat.

      “We French burn scorcerers, mon ami,” he whispered softly to the terrified man, who lay staring up at him with bulging eyes. “I wouldn’t like to think some careless words of yours might bring me to the stake.”

      Aymon growled, “My Pinchon only joked.”

      “I spoke to Pinchon, milord. Let him answer for himself.”

      Pinchon nodded, sweat staining his pinched face. He could read death for him in the hard eyes and sun-browned face above him. The others—the young ones from the manor houses—were just drunk enough to regard it as a good joke. He had seen evidences of the crude humor of the young bloods before now. His good friend Gilles Drouet had had to have a leg cut off because a group of nobles’ sons had staked him out in an outer court during a snowstorm and then forgot about him.

      He babbled, “I jested, good sir, as milord Etienne says. A jest, young lord. Only a matter to laugh about.”

      Jean grinned down at him mirthlessly. “Have you ever seen anybody burned alive, Pinchon?”

      Pinchon shook his head back and forth.

      “I have. A young woman accused of being a witch, in Dauphiné. It wasn’t a pretty sight.”

      His hand yanked the man across the gaming table to fall at his feet. “I think we ought to give you a taste of the flames yourself to teach you proper manners.”

      The young bloods began to laugh and talk among themselves. Jean hoped they would not like the idea too much; he threatened only to rouse Etienne Aymon to the protection of his manservant. His quarrel was with the older man, not with the servant.

      Aymon came forward, as Jean had intended. “Here now, no need to go to such lengths. No need at all. There’s no harm done. My Pinchon spoke in jest. You heard him yourself.”

      “He accused me of serving the devil!” Jean rasped.

      “Non, non!” Pinchon begged on his knees. “You misunderstood. It was only a figure of speech.”

      “Pah!” Jean snapped, thrusting the man away and reaching for the pile of golden ecus on the table. “Your master’s a poor loser, Pinchon. You only spoke to placate him.”

      Étienne Aymon made a long face. “You’ve a sharp tongue there, young man. It might be necessary for you yourself to take a lesson in good manners.”

      The younger men shouted, scenting blood. Jean paused amid their cries and laughter, his hands over the gold coins. His dark eyes raked the older man as he said, “If you weren’t old enough to be my father, I’d call you out for that, seigneur”.

      Aymon grinned coldly. “I was killing men while you were in swaddling garments. I haven’t forgotten the knack.”

      “With odds of seventeen to one in your favor, it takes no courage to hack a man to bloody bits.”

      Étienne Aymon paled and looked about him. Few men these days knew he was one of that band who’d cut down the Duke of Orleans outside the Hotel Montagu in Paris, eighteen years before. Ever since this handsome upstart had crossed glances with him earlier in the evening, he had been aware of his strong dislike. He thought now that dislike might be too mild a term. What he read in that hard face was actual hatred. For a brief moment he wondered if he faced The Bastard himself, Jean de Valois, that headstrong son of Louis of Orleans who had adopted the task, so gossip went, of ridding the world of the men who had taken Burgundian gold to slay his father.

      No, that thought was madness. This was no more than an ordinary soldier of fortune with a sharp tongue. He could not visualize the cousin of the Dauphin coming to a lonely tavern in Brie alone, without retainers, clad in plain leather and cavalier boots, with only a longsword at his side and a new bride waiting in an upstairs solar.

      He said gruffly, “Come, now. We’re all friends still, I trust. No need for lost tempers.”

      Jean smiled coldly. “A sensible about face. Lost tempers often result in lost blood.”

      The older man roared, “By God, young one! Don’t force me to cut you down. You’re on your honeymoon, you said. Go upstairs to your wife with your winnings and account yourself lucky.”

      Jean swept the last of the coins into the sack. Still on the gaming table was a silver brooch and a ring, which Aymon had lost on the final toss of the dice. Jean palmed them, swept them into the sack as well. He drew the tie strings and knotted them.

      He turned on a heel and moved toward the outer hall, past one of the long tables still laden with overturned wine goblets and the dregs of a meal. He looked triumphant and pleased with himself, but inside he seethed with anger. Somewhere he had bungled, he knew. By now, Étienne Aymon should be standing out in the inn yard with him, naked swords in their hands. Instead the murderer was going home to his manor house while he went upstairs to Simone.

      Eh, bien! He would make another try tomorrow.

      “Stranger!”

      The voice rang clear and loud across the common room. Jean turned in the doorway, not troubling to conceal his feelings. He did not know it, but there was an imperious manner to his Valois stance that was like a slap in the face to these country seigneurs.

      Aymon growled, “I was about to ask you to share a last hanap of claret with me, but now I’m damned if I will.” His face revealed the tortured thoughts that ran through him as his eyes assessed this hard-bitten stranger.

      “It’s just as well. I only drink with equals.”

      Ah,

Скачать книгу