The Walking Drum (Louis L'Amour's Lost Treasures) by Louis L'Amour

Author:Louis L'Amour
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2019-10-28T16:00:00+00:00

32

“Quick!” Julot caught my arm. “Out!” We sprang through a sudden opening in the crowd as a brawl exploded near the door, blocking the path of the soldiers. A glance over my shoulder let me see The Cat struggling along with two other of my attentive listeners.

Ducking around the chimney, we escaped through an almost hidden door in the chimney corner and out through the kitchen.

The stable showed darkly under the trees, yet even as we approached it, two soldiers with pikes intervened. One held his pike leveled at my stomach while the other stepped forward to disarm me.

As the pikeman reached for my sword, I grabbed him by the upper arm and spun him into the man holding the pike, throwing both off-balance. Julot was already moving to the stable. Whipping out my blade, I parried a thrust of the pikeman, and stepping past the pike, I put the point of my blade through his thigh.

As the second man started toward me I said, “My friend, if you wish to see another sun, step back. I have no quarrel with you and want none, but if you step closer, I shall spit you like a duck.”

“Why, I have no quarrel with you, either, so away with you. I shall see to my friend.”

“Thanks,” I said, “and Godspeed.”

Julot appeared with the horses, and I sprang to the saddle, breaking away down the lane between rows of poplars. There was a shading of lemon light in the sky where the sun would be an hour from now.

“Julot,” I said, “this is no quarrel of yours, so be off for Paris and lose yourself there. I’ve a fast horse and can play hare to their hounds as long as it amuses me.”

“You ask me to leave a friend?”

“I do so ask,” I said, “for I have a place to go.”

“Fat Claire would skin me alive. She had a feeling for you, and you have no idea what you missed.”

“There are other women, but I have but one neck. Be off with you now.”

“You take this too lightly, my friend. Talk such as yours is not tolerated. There has been too much freethinking, and even we of the schools must bridle our tongues. If you are found, you will burn as a heretic.”

“But I am a pagan!”

“Who is to say? They’ll burn you, soldier, for there are those about who have a liking for the odor of burning flesh—and no taste at all for the teaching of Peter Abelard.”

The fields were white with frost, and we kept our horses to a brisk trot, saving them for swifter flight if need be. An immediate return to the caravan might involve my friends, for which I had no desire. Yet escape I must, and once with them, they would hide me. It had been done before, with others.

“There’s a small village this side of Melun. Fat Claire told me of it. If we are separated, go there and ask for a man named Persigny.”

“Is it far from the road to Provins?”

“The direction is right.

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