Swords From the Desert Read Online Free PDF Page A

intently to the scraps of talk she caught in the halls, she went with the pikeman obediently as far as the door of a tower room that seemed to be a private reception chamber. "Now verily," she said wistfully, "I have never seen my lord of Burgundy. Is it his wont to pass this way?"
    "Nay-he walks i' the garden, and thou'lt not see him."
    But Jeanne thought otherwise. Humming to herself, she rested her head against a bar, listening patiently. Her guardian tired of watching her and yawned heartily, then strolled out into the corridor. When she heard him in talk with another soldier she slipped to the door.
    Without a sound she edged behind the two and into the corridor away from them.
    Almost running-for the guard in the tower room might miss her any moment-Jeanne reached a narrow door and opened it swiftly, giving inward thanks that no sentry stood there. Closing the door behind her, she glanced up, and down the stretch of lawn and tulip beds, at the Burgundian nobles who sat in talk by a fountain-at the distant group of squires and servants, and at the two figures who walked apart, opposite her, in the shade of a high myrtle hedge.
    One, in a plain gray mantle, thin and stooped, she knew to be the sick Louis. The taller man in a green hunting jerkin, with a horn at his belt and a whip in his hand, must be John of Burgundy.
    Without hesitating, as if she had been summoned to do that, the girl raised the fiddle on her arm and drew the bow across the strings. It was a dance she played-"Gentilz galans de France"-as she moved out over the grass, the sunlight striking on her red-gold head.
    The two figures by the hedge were nearer, but they paid no heed to her. Instead, a man in a long velvet tabard who carried an ivory staff strode toward her, overtaking her.
    "What mummery is this?" he demanded.
    "'Tis the doing of my lord the Duke," she retorted, without ceasing her playing. But, as she did so, she caught a glimpse of the pikeman who had her in charge emerging from the door. And the staff bearer caught her arm.
    She lowered the fiddle and cried out in a clear voice:
    "Sire-"
    The pale face of Louis turned toward her irresolutely, when the pikeman came up, swearing under his breath, and at a word from him she was pulled back and bustled toward the door. Behind her she heard the voice of John of Burgundy:
    "A fiddling wench, Sire, seeking a coin." And then, louder, "Give her silver, from my hand."
    "Hearest thou?" grunted the pikeman in her ear. "His Grace will have a word with thee, anon, when Renault is here. Nay, thou red vixen, we'll bide his coming here, within sight of His Grace. I'll have no more of thy trickery! "
    Renault, however, was delayed. With two mounted men and a spy in beggar's garb he was searching the alley by the market to finish the work that he had begun the night before-having heard from the pseudo-beggar that Hugh of Bearn still breathed in a rogue's cellar, after a sorcerer had brought him back to life by black enchantment. Renault swore that a good knife-thrust would put an end to any spell.
    At that hour Giron and Pied-a-Botte were warming themselves in the sun at the alley's mouth, waiting for Hugh to come out. One glimpse of the Burgundian helmets, and the two rogues were flying to hiding. Down the cellar stair they tumbled, hissing to the wounded man to hold his tongue, for the Gardener was riding by with two armed churls.
    "Eschec!" Giron whispered. '"Tis the big Mark wi' two blades, come to the spot of his night's work."
    In a moment Giron began to feel the skin crawl upon his back and skull. For the horses did not trot by. They halted, stamping, and iron clanked as men dropped from the stirrups. Then slow steps came upon the stair, and the gloom of the cellar was lightened by the gleam of a lantern. Giron shrank back into a corner.
    A man in a mail shirt appeared, the lantern lifted high in one hand, a drawn sword in the other. At his shoulder walked the silent lieutenant, the point of his red