On My Lady's Honor (All for one, and one for all) (11 page)

The blond Musketeer grabbed the thief by his hair and yanked him to his feet.
 
He clinked and clanked as he stumbled to his feet and a bottle of pilfered wine fell out of his shirt to smash on the stone flags of the floor.
 
A red stain that looked uncomfortably like blood began to spread out through the gaps where the stones were joined.

The blond Musketeer kicked the shards into a corner.
 
“Drop your booty, thief, and help us fight our way out.
 
Three of us together stand more of a chance than two.”

The thief groaned as he began to pull the onions out of his boots.
 
“Do I have to?
 
I’d really much rather stay here.”

“Coward,” Sophie hissed at him from over her shoulder, her sword clashing fast and furious as she held the door against all comers.
 
“You shame the uniform you wear.”

The thief took a bottle of wine out of his shirt and gazed lovingly at it.
 
“I can fight as well as you when I’m in the mood, but I have just scored a couple of bottles of truly fine wine and my heart aches to have to leave them behind.”

The blond Musketeer laughed as he prodded the thief with the tip of his sword.
 
“Drop them, you little gutter rat.
 
They’ll only weigh you down.”

The thief put the bottle carefully down in the corner and drew his sword.
 
“For liberty and justice and three square meals a day,” he muttered.
 
“Let’s get out of here.”

Standing shoulder to shoulder, the three of them forced their way out of the storeroom and along the wall to the next door - into the noise and heat of the kitchen.

“Get out of here, you brawling sons of whores,” the landlady screeched at them as they edged their way in, swords flying.
 
“Get out of my tavern and take your quarrels elsewhere.”

Sophie ducked the moldy onion thrown at her head.
 
It hit one of her attackers with a dull thud, splattering rotten flesh over his cheek.

He shook his raised fist at the red-faced landlady and shouted a string of obscenities at her.

The irate landlady gave one last screech of protest and fled through a side door, shooting the bolts into place behind her as she went.

The maid servant was no such coward.
 
Besides, she had an insult to avenge, and the kitchen was her own territory.
 
Seizing a sizzling hot pan from the fire she swung it around her head and laid into Sophie’s attackers with a vengeance.
 
“Take that,” she screamed, as she swatted the oaf on his overgrown backside with the fiery pan.
 
“And that.
 
And that.”
 
Every word was punctuated with another blow to his breeches.

The oaf squealed like a pig being slaughtered and dropped his sword.
 
He danced around from one foot to the other, holding his smoking backside in his hands and yowling with anguish.

Emboldened by her success, the maid servant clocked another of the combatants with a vicious blow to the back of his head.
 
There was a dull thud as the pan hit his thick skull, and then a clatter and crash of broken crockery as he fell to the floor, knocked out stone cold.

Seeing their comrades felled by such a virago, the rest of the attackers beat a hasty retreat back out into the tumult of the tavern.

The maidservant dropped her pan and stood, arms akimbo, gazing at them with fierce exultation as they decamped in defeat.
 
“Get out with ye, you scurvy sons of dogs,” she screeched at their backs.
 
“Don’t be coming in here again or ye’ll get more of the same.”

Sophie bowed to the maidservant.
 
“You have a fierce arm on you, Miss, and a fierce weapon to boot.
 
You have our thanks for rescuing our sorry skins.”

“Thanks be to you, Sir,” she said with a grin.
 
“I didna like being pawed over by that beast, but I couldna clock him with the mugs or I wouldna have eaten for a week.
 
He’ll think twice afore messing with me again now.”

The blond Musketeer guffawed with laughter.
 
“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 maidservant laid the pan back on the fire.
 
“You’d best scarper off yourself, Sirs.
 
The Master will have sent a runner for the guards by now and there’ll be trouble if you’re caught brawling here.
 
He’ll have you taken up for breaking his chairs.”

Without wasting another second, Sophie raced for the door, with the blond Musketeer and the thief both close on her heels.
 
It seemed as though all three of them had their own good reasons for not wanting to be caught by the guard.

The alley out the back was covered in stinking refuse.
 
Sophie started to pick her way over delicately, unwilling to get her boots covered in such filth.
 
She had only one pair.

A bugle blast and the sound of horses hooves on the cobbled stone decided her that dirty boots were the least of her problems.
 
She stood stock still, not knowing which way to turn to avoid capture and the punishment that was always dealt out to brawlers.

The thief wasted no time in looking about him.
 
With a muttered curse, he took off running.
 
“Come on,” he called softly back at the two others.
 
“This way.”

With surprising agility he scrambled up to the top of the stone wall on the other side of the alley.
 
“Up here,” he called, as he dropped down the other side.

Sophie and the blond Musketeer followed as best they could, clambering up the wall and dropping down the other side.

They were only just in time.
 
As they leaped down, a couple of mounted guards turned into the alley.
 
The foremost guard gave a shout as he saw them escape over the wall.
 
“After them!”

Sophie and the blond Musketeer both turned to look at the thief at the same time.
 
He gave an exaggerated sigh.
 
“Follow me if you want to get out of here in one piece.
 
But you’ve got to keep up with me.
 
If you slow me down, I’ll ditch you both without a second thought.”

Coward
, Sophie thought to herself.

“Dirty little gutter rat,” muttered the blond Musketeer, aiming a filthy look at the thief.

Still, he was their best chance and they knew it, so they both followed him.
 
For the next half hour, he led them a merry dance, over rooftops and walls, into courtyards, under archways and through dirty back alleys.
 
Sophie’s side hurt with running and her feet were rubbed raw on the harsh leather of her boots.
 
The blonde Musketeer beside her was panting heavily.

At last the thief stopped, and they doubled over, their hands on their knees, to regain their breath.
 
“I think we’ve thrown them off the scent.”

The sound of a bugle close by made them groan.
 
The chase was not yet over.

Sophie thought of her blistered heels with near panic.
 
She wasn’t sure she could run another step.
 
“Or maybe not.”

The thief shrugged his shoulders.
 
“We should get inside if we can.
 
That horn is only for show.
 
They won’t find us now if we can get off the street.”

The surroundings were completely unfamiliar to Sophie.
 
All she knew of Paris was her lodging house and the street that ran to the barracks.
 
She was utterly lost.
 
“Where are we?”

The street the thief named was of no help to her.
 
The blond Musketeer, however, brightened up at the name.
 
“My lodgings are only a quarter mile away.
 
They’re big enough for all three of us to hide out there until the hue and cry dies away.”

Much as she misliked this suggestion, Sophie had no choice but to accept.
 
She had no desire to be dragged in front of the tribunal to be punished for brawling in the streets.
 
As instigator of the ruckus, she would be sure to be punished most harshly of all.
 
If the captain was in a foul mood that day, she could even be deprived of her commission and sent home in disgrace.

She had joined the Musketeers to bring honor to Gerard’s name, not to drag it through the gutters.
 
Her blistered heels complaining at every step, she followed the others through the darkening streets, staying in the shadows as much as possible and keeping a wary eye out for any guards who might still be on the prowl.

The blond Muskeeter lodged in a fine house not three streets away from her own.
 
Sophie started to relax a little now that she was in familiar territory, and not lost in the dark in some back alley in an unidentifiable part of Paris.

Like a trio of thieves, they crept in the front door as quietly as possible and dashed up the stairs to the blond Musketeer’s apartments on the second floor.

The blond Musketeer sank into a comfortable chair with a sigh of relief and motioned his visitors to do likewise.
 
“God in heaven but my feet are killing me in those damned boots,” he said, unlacing his boots and tossing them into a corner.
 
He wiggled his toes with relief.
 
His feet, Sophie noticed, were surprisingly small and dainty for such a tall man.

She resisted the temptation to do likewise.
 
“Gerard Delamanse, at your service, Sirs,” she said, as she sank into a chair in her turn.
 
“And I hope I don’t have to run like that again for a while.”

The blond Musketeer gave her a lazy salute from the depths of his chair.
 
“William Ruthgard at yours.”

The thief pulled a bottle of wine out from under his shirt with a flourish.
 
He grabbed a couple of glasses off the sideboard and poured a generous measure into each, before tilting the bottle to his own lips, taking a long drink and wiping his mouth clean again with the back of his hand.
 
“Since we are in a formal mood, let me introduce myself to you both,” he said, and he aimed a mocking bow in their general direction.
 
“I am JeanPaul Metin, at your service.
 
To your health, gentlemen.”

Sophie glugged a mouthful of the rich, warm wine.
 
It trickled down her dry throat like manna from heaven.
 
“You carried this all the way in your shirt without breaking it?”

The thief tilted the bottle to his lips again, smacking his lips with satisfaction.
 
“It slowed me down some, but it was worth it.
 
The very best Rhenish wine doesn’t come my way every day.”

The blond Musketeer swirled the wine around his mouth and then shook his head.
 
“Not the very best, but a damn good bottle, anyway.
 
How did you manage to swipe it when I wasn’t looking?”

The thief laughed as he flexed his fingers.
 
“Years of practice and a good eye.”

She was drinking stolen wine, Sophie thought with an uncomfortable feeling in the pit of her belly.
 
The landlord had been duly punished for his callousness by having his tavern destroyed in a brawl.
 
Drinking his wine without paying for it was adding insult to injury.
 
Still, she was very thirsty and the wine was too good to waste.
 
She would pay him for it on the morrow, she decided, as she drank another mouthful.

A few more mouthfuls and Sophie started to feel lightheaded and bone weary to boot.
 
She closed her eyes briefly for a moment, and then shook herself awake again with a start.
 
She did not dare fall asleep in company.
 
She must concentrate on staying awake.
 
Her eyes focused on the blond Musketeer’s face.
 
Something was awry – she couldn’t put her finger on exactly what it was.

The blond Musketeer grew uncomfortable under her scrutiny.
 
“What are you staring at?”
 
His voice was brusque and less than friendly.