Heretic Dawn Read Online Free PDF Page B

a deaf man’s ears, and the highwaymen were frozen in their tracks and stood open-mouthed in disbelief, changed into pillars of salt like Lot’s wife. We shot them like pigeons, and except for one among them who thought to throw himself on the ground, we mortally wounded or killed all of them. Coulondre Iron-arm leapt forward to dispatch the sole survivor, but my father prevented him from this, and, hoping to interrogate him, ordered that his hands be tied and that he be brought back through the tunnel to Mespech.
    This was a good-looking fellow, about thirty years of age, black of hair and of skin like a Saracen, with fiery eyes and a proud mien, and well spoken, it appeared.
    We threw him down on the ground in the great hall of Mespech, and my father, standing over him, hands on hips, said with his usual jolly and playful manner, “Your name, you rascal!”
    “Captain Bouillac, Monsieur,” the fellow answered proudly, his black eyes emitting sparks.
    “Captain!” replied Jean de Siorac. “Some sort of captain you are!”
    “At your service, Monsieur.”
    “You serve me ill, villain! I intend to hang you.”
    “Monsieur!” answered Bouillac without dropping his proud manner. “May I not buy my freedom?”
    “What?” spat my father. “Take stolen money from a blackguard?”
    “How now? All money is good when given,” returned Bouillac. “What’s more, this money’s honest wages. I was paid for my services.”
    “I think,” said Sauveterre, stepping forward into the hall with a furled brow and his usual limp, causing all our people to give way to his dark humours, “I think we should hang this blackguard straightaway.”
    “But wait!” replied my father. “None among us was killed or wounded.”
    “I still think we should hang the bastard.”
    “But wait! Bouillac, where did you get this money?”
    “I’ll be glad to tell you, Monsieur, if you accept my offer.”
    “You’ll tell all once I put you on the rack!” answered Sauveterre, his eyes burning with anger.
    “True enough,” said Bouillac without losing his haughty demeanour, “but torture takes time and you’re very pressed for time. As for me, since I’m destined for the noose in any case, I have an eternity to kill!”
    At this flash of wit, which was not without its salt, aftertaste or piquancy, my father broke out laughing in admiration of the bravery of this rascal, and very interested in what he still might learn from him.
    “Bouillac,” said he, “let’s talk frankly. How much will you offer us for your life?”
    “One hundred écus.”
    We all fell silent and looked at each other, so struck were we that a highwayman should have such a hoard. But at the sound of these coins, Sauveterre changed his expression and said, with a cutting tone, “Two hundred.”
    “For shame, Monsieur!” said Bouillac. “Bargaining with a beggar!”
    “A good Huguenot always bargains!” laughed my father.
    “Two hundred,” repeated Sauveterre.
    “Oh, Monsieur, you’re strangling me!”
    “Perhaps you’d prefer another kind of strangling!”
    “Agreed! Agreed!” confessed Bouillac with a huge sigh. “My neck will have it no other way.”
    “We have a bargain!” crowed my father. “But now we have a battle against time!”
    “Monsieur, while we were preparing to kill your swine and burn your mill, Captain Belves’s band was heading to le Breuil to massacre your sheep.”
    “By the belly of St Vitus!” cried my father. “I thought so! How many are they?”
    “Seven, with Belves.”
    “I thank you, Bouillac. I’m going to head off this attack.”
    Rushing from the room, my father ordered Miroul, Faujanet, Petremol and the two Siorac brothers to saddle up immediately and gallop to help Cabusse, who luckily wasn’t alone since he had the Herculean Jonas with him and possibly Alazaïs as well, if she’d been able to reach the sheepfold, which I calculated she would have since she was a crafty wench.
    “Bouillac,” said my