Fortini, always the cold one, always the tireless-wristed, always
sure and long, as report had it, in going about such business, on
this night elected, too, the quick and
brilliant.
It was
nervous, tingling work, for as surely as I sensed his
intention of briefness, just as surely had he sensed mine. I doubt
that I could have done the trick had it been broad day instead of
moonlight. The dim light aided me. Also was I aided by divining,
the moment in advance, what he had in mind. It was the time attack,
a common but
perilous trick that every
novice knows, that has laid
on his back many a good man who attempted it, and that is so fraught
with danger to the perpetrator that swordsmen are not enamoured of
it.
We had been at work
barely a minute, when I knew under all his
darting, flashing show of offence that Fortini meditated this very
time attack. He desired of me a
thrust and lunge, not that he might
parry it but that he might time it and deflect it by the customary
slight turn of the wrist, his rapier point directed to meet me as my
body followed in the lunge. A ticklish thing--ay, a ticklish thing
in the best of light. Did he deflect a
fraction of a second too
early, I should be warned and saved. Did he deflect a
fraction of a
second too late, my
thrust would go home to him.
"Quick and
brilliant is it?" was my thought. "Very well, my Italian
friend, quick and
brilliant shall it be, and especially shall it be
quick."
In a way, it was time attack against time attack, but I would fool
him on the time by being over-quick. And I was quick. As I said,
we had been at work scarcely a minute when it happened. Quick?
That
thrust and lunge of mine were one. A snap of action it was, an
explosion, an instantaneousness. I swear my
thrust and lunge were a
fraction of a second quicker than any man is
supposed to
thrust and
lunge. I won the
fraction of a second. By that
fraction of a
second too late Fortini attempted to deflect my blade and impale me
on his. But it was his blade that was deflected. It flashed past
my breast, and I was in--inside his
weapon, which
extended full
length in the empty air behind me--and my blade was inside of him,
and through him, heart-high, from right side of him to left side of
him and outside of him beyond.
It is a strange thing to do, to spit a live man on a length of
steel. I sit here in my cell, and cease from
writing a space, while
I consider the matter. And I have considered it often, that
moonlight night in France of long ago, when I taught the Italian
hound quick and
brilliant. It was so easy a thing, that perforation
of a torso. One would have expected more
resistance. There would
have been
resistance had my rapier point touched bone. As it was,
it encountered only the
softness of flesh. Still it perforated so
easily. I have the
sensation of it now, in my hand, my brain, as I
write. A woman's hat-pin could go through a plum
pudding not more
easily than did my blade go through the Italian. Oh, there was
nothing
amazing about it at the time to Guillaume de Sainte-Maure,
but
amazing it is to me, Darrell Standing, as I
recollect and ponder
it across the centuries. It is easy, most easy, to kill a strong,
live, breathing man with so crude a
weapon as a piece of steel.
Why, men are like soft-shell crabs, so tender, frail, and vulnerable
are they.
But to return to the
moonlight on the grass. My
thrust made home,
there was a
perceptible pause. Not at once did Fortini fall. Not
at once did I
withdraw the blade. For a full second we stood in
pause--I, with legs spread, and
arched and tense, body thrown
forward, right arm
horizontal and straight out; Fortini, his blade
beyond me so far that hilt and hand just rested
lightly against my
left breast, his body rigid, his eyes open and shining.
So statuesque were we for that second that I swear those about us
were not immediately aware of what had happened. Then Fortini
gasped and coughed s
lightly. The rigidity of his pose slackened.
The hilt and hand against my breast wavered, then the arm drooped to
his side till the rapier point rested on the lawn. By this time
Pasquini and de Goncourt had
sprung to him and he was sinking into
their arms. In faith, it was harder for me to
withdraw the steel
than to drive it in. His flesh clung about it as if
jealous to let
it depart. Oh, believe me, it required a
distinctphysical effort
to get clear of what I had done.
But the pang of the
withdrawal must have stung him back to life and
purpose, for he shook off his friends, straightened himself, and
lifted his rapier into position. I, too, took position, marvelling
that it was possible I had spitted him heart-high and yet missed any
vital spot. Then, and before his friends could catch him, his legs
crumpled under him and he went heavily to grass. They laid him on
his back, but he was already dead, his face
ghastly still under the
moon, his right hand still a-clutch of the rapier.
Yes; it is indeed a marvellous easy thing to kill a man.
We saluted his friends and were about to depart, when Felix Pasquini
detained me.
"Pardon me," I said. "Let it be to-morrow."
"We have but to move a step aside," he urged, "where the grass is
still dry."
"Let me then wet it for you, Sainte-Maure," Lanfranc asked of me,
eager himself to do for an Italian.
I shook my head.
"Pasquini is mine," I answered. "He shall be first to-morrow."
"Are there others?" Lanfranc demanded.
"Ask de Goncourt," I grinned. "I imagine he is already laying claim
to the honour of being the third."
At this, de Goncourt showed distressed acquiescence. Lanfranc
looked
inquiry at him, and de Goncourt nodded.
"And after him I doubt not comes the cockerel," I went on.
And even as I spoke the red-haired Guy de Villehardouin, alone,
strode to us across the
moonlit grass.
"At least I shall have him," Lanfranc cried, his voice almost
wheedling, so great was his desire.
"Ask him," I laughed, then turned to Pasquini. "To-morrow," I said.
"Do you name time and place, and I shall be there."
"The grass is most excellent," he teased, "the place is most
excellent, and I am
minded that Fortini has you for company this
night."
"'Twere better he were accompanied by a friend," I quipped. "And
now your
pardon, for I must go."
But he blocked my path.
"Whoever it be," he said, "let it be now."
For the first time, with him, my anger began to rise.
"You serve your master well," I sneered.
"I serve but my pleasure," was his answer. "Master I have none."
"Pardon me if I
presume to tell you the truth," I said.
"Which is?" he queried softly.
"That you are a liar, Pasquini, a liar like all Italians."
He turned immediately to Lanfranc and Bohemond.
"You heard," he said. "And after that you cannot deny me him."
They hesitated and looked to me for
counsel of my wishes. But
Pasquini did not wait.
"And if you still have any scruples," he
hurried on, "then allow me
to remove them . . . thus."
And he spat in the grass at my feet. Then my anger seized me and
was beyond me. The red wrath I call it--an
overwhelming, all-
mastering desire to kill and destroy. I forgot that Philippa waited
for me in the great hall. All I knew was my wrongs--the