Chapter 6: Publicly Humiliated

Gaston had two things happen to him, in quick succession, for the first time in his landed a blow at him, and he actually felt it.

The girl, whoever she was, knew how to fight. She lunged at him before he had a chance to go into a defensive crouch and lashed out with a right-left combination. The punches weren't just light touches, either. They hardly made an impression on Gaston's massive chest, and they certainly weren't enough to knock him down, but they let him know that this was no joke, no lark.

Only one of them would walk away, and he knew who that had to be. Rules or no rules, this was going to be a fight to the death.

Bellowing, he charged at her. She easily sidestepped and his momentum carried him almost face-forward into the hard cobblestones. He broke the fall with his powerful arms and turned back. The girl stood ready, fists held in front of her. Not a simple milkmaid or seamstress, but a real fighter after all.

And she was smiling. She was enjoying herself.

He decided that two could play at this game. Circling around her, his blue eyes met her darker ones. As with any hunt, even the most cunning prey could be taken down. It was just a matter of wearing the stupid things down.

They continued this way for perhaps five seconds, hearing the crowd's chants and encouragement, all for Gaston. Neither made a move until Gaston lunged. He let the momentum carry toward her for what would have been a pinning leap against any other person in town.

She was quick as a gust of wind, easily dodging again and slamming her left leg into Gaston's midsection. He went down with an oomph! , and realized through the gasps for breath that this was another first. Nobody had even knocked him down. Now he wasn't just angry, but furious. He saw his opponent through a red haze. He didn't just want to beat this ugly girl. He wanted to humiliate her, drive her out of town and make everyone in town see it.

"Gaston! Get up!" It was a shrill female voice, probably one of the Beaulieus. Whoever it was sounded horrified.

He did, and felt a fresh wave of energy flow through him. If he couldn't beat the girl at her own game, he'd simply have to do what he always did with his prey. Overpower her.

He got close enough for her to throw another of the combination punches. One connected and the other did not. Lifting her as if she weighed no more than a bale of hay, he tossed her.

Sable was used to such tactics, and prepared to land on all fours the way a cat would. But this man was quick as well as strong. He was on her again in half a second. She slammed the flat of her hand into the bridge of his nose the way the Basque sailor had shown her.

There was a satisfying crack and she saw a scarlet ribbon of blood trailing from Gaston's nose. Maybe not broken, but hurt. So he could bleed after all. He wasn't invincible. She unleashed another flurry of punches which connected. Still, she felt like a bee trying to sting an ox. Gaston was, by far, the best competitor she'd faced. Nothing she could do would do much other than irritate him. When he looked at her with those stunning blue eyes, she was surprised to see determination along with the fury and hatred.

His aggressive punches, one after the other, missed. He wasn't used to fighting someone half his size with quick reflexes. But one, when Sable let down her guard for a split second, connected, and she felt as if she'd been hit by a boulder to her temple. Stars spun in her field of vision and she thought she might faint. Somewhere, and it sounded like a thousand miles away, the crowd was cheering. She struggled to get up and found she couldn't get past a pathetic rise to all fours. A drop of blood…her own…fell to the cobblestones.

So this is it. At least give me a clean death, she thought through the throbbing pain.

Gaston smirked. He stood over the prone body of the girl, triumphant. One more blow like that and she was finished. She was feisty, he'd give her that, like a badger caught in a trap. But she was no match for him in the end. No one ever was.

"What do you say? Had enough?" he asked, not so much to the girl as the crowd. They'd seen him fight, and win, many times over the years. This one had just taken longer, but the result was exactly the same.

Over the whoops of the townspeople, only Gaston was able to hear Sable's raspy response to his own question.

"No, I haven't." Summoning the last of her fading strength, she sprang up and lunged. Faster than Gaston's eyes could follow, her fingers shot out and found the tender area above his collarbones.

The effect was instantaneous. He dropped to his knees and gasped like a gaffed fish. She'd never actually used this particular move and had no idea what to expect. Her trainer, the Basque, had mentioned that it would bring down the strongest man, turn him into a whimpering child. And so it did; Gaston struggled for breath as if he were choking.

A minute at most, she remembered the Basque telling her grimly. That's all they have before they die, or else you reverse it.

"What is this trickery?" one of the villagers called out angrily, and his cry was echoed by someone else.

"He's turning blue!" Melisande shrieked.

And so he was. On his knees, Gaston frantically gasped for a breath that never came.

Sable knew he had perhaps thirty seconds left. She also knew that if he died, then her life was also forfeit, and it wouldn't be clean. These people would tear her to pieces for killing their town hero. She'd killed before and she never wanted to do it again. It had taken away part of her soul, part of her own will to live.

I hate to do this, because this man is a senseless, vain brute…but I have to keep him alive.

She repeated the harsh jab, praying silently that it would work. Apparently it did, for in the very next instant, Gaston was sucking down mouthfuls of air. He collapsed to the hard surface of the street and stayed there.

The next thing she knew, a hand was clamped firmly on her arm, which had been shaking with fear and the heat of battle. Expecting to see some angry villager, she instead looked up into the eyes of the last person she'd ever expected to be happy to see. Adrien. Where he'd been during the fight she didn't know, but he was here now. And he might just be the difference between her life and death.

"Madames et Messieurs, we seem to have a winner!" he crowed, raising her arm along with his.

"She cheated!" protested one of Gaston's cronies. "Used some witch's spell on him!" Everyone else began to shout in anger and frustration.

Sable knew she hadn't. No matter how right she was, though, it wouldn't stop the whole village turning on her, so she decided to stay silent and let Adrien do the talking. Although he maintained a wide smile, she saw something else in his eyes as he tried to placate the crowd. She knew what it was; it was the same look the vultures gave to the deer that was about to die. And she was the deer.

"Let's say for a moment that you are right, monsieur. Let's say that this mademoiselle used an illegal move, one which almost took the life of your champion, one which even I didn't know she was capable of," he said, tossing her a sideways glance.

"Damn right." Everyone turned to look at Gaston, who had recovered sufficiently to rise to his feet. He was still breathing heavily, but every part of his handsome face was taut with fury. "I thought this wasn't supposed to be a fight to the death. Didn't I hear you say that?"

Adrien smiled. "Indeed. I did say that. So, since we are at an impasse, what shall we do?"

Sable didn't like the direction this was going, or the tone in her master's voice. She stood in place and wished she could disappear.

"I have a solution, at least a temporary one, if you will have it," said Adrien. "You take the mademoiselle and let her face justice here if she has in fact cheated. Meanwhile, we shall discuss the matter of the wagers at the tavern. I think everyone here could use a good drink while we talk it over, which I shall provide. Fair enough?"

"Deal. We meet in one hour," Mathieu said, looking to the mayor as well as Gaston for confirmation.

"We will find a reasonable solution, I'm sure." Adrien nodded. "As for you, mademoiselle, you'll need to be secured until we can decide what to do with you."

Before Sable could protest, two of the bigger men had stepped forward and clamped down on her shoulders. They frog-marched her away, but not before she saw the look in Adrien's eyes when she passed him and their eyes met. Pure, white-hot anger.

I was supposed to lose the fight, she thought wildly. He never expected me to pull that one from my bag of tricks. He had something else in mind, and it didn't involve me.

As for Gaston, she expected to see the same burning hatred in those stunning blue eyes of his, but as far as she could tell, he had fled the scene of his defeat. The distinctive red tunic was nowhere in sight.

It wasn't a long walk to the alley behind the tavern. Without a word one of the men opened a door with a long silver key from his belt. Inside the small storage room it was dark, and there was a strong smell of earth and rot. The other shoved her roughly inside and slammed the door behind.

Whatever fate awaited her, it wouldn't be long now.

Lefou had, as usual, trailed meekly behind the crowd. Two of his steps barely covered one of Gaston's. Like everyone else he'd seen the whole sequence of events in the town square. He'd seen Gaston not only lose, but to a girl, and half his size at that. Even he knew what was coming after a humiliation like that. As he trotted toward the de Valois house, he only hoped he wouldn't bear the brunt of it.

The door was ajar when he arrived. Immediately Lefou knew something was wrong. The whole house looked as if a storm had blown through. Furniture had been overturned, crockery shattered, trophies roughly torn from their mounts on the walls. It was a storm, all right, a storm called Gaston in a bad temper. Though, thought Lefou, it had never been half this bad. This was a full-blown rage.

Afraid to keep going, but just as afraid not to see, he pressed on through the wrecked rooms. Somewhere upstairs, he heard breaking glass. He turned and ran up the stairs, taking them two at a time.

Gaston was in his bedroom. The current target of his fury was the framed mirror opposite the bed, which had shattered into a hundred pieces when he flung it down.

"Um…Gaston? Are you okay?" Lefou said.

The look the hunter gave him could have melted iron. "Where the hell have you been? Does it look like I'm okay?" he shouted. "Losing to a girl in front of the whole town? I'll never live this down."

Nothing Lefou could have said would calm Gaston down, but he had to try. "Maybe she cheated," he suggested.

"Of course she cheated! How else would she beat me?" Gaston turned his attention to his favorite carved wooden hand mirror, which likewise smashed into pieces. "I'm never going to be able to live this down."

Lefou heard something strange in his idol's voice. Beneath all the terrible anger and cold fury, Gaston was actually hurt. A memory came to him unbidden: the two of them, eight or so, returning from a hunt and crossing over the bridge at Fox Creek. Gaston accidentally dropping his child-size bow into the rushing water. The fit that followed was so much like what was happening right now.

"You knew about her the whole time, didn't you?" Now Gaston turned his anger to a much easier target, which he always seemed to. "Why didn't you say something?" He picked Lefou up by the collar so they could see eye to eye.

"All…all I knew is that she was new in town, that she and her master kept their carthorse in the stables. That's it, I swear. I had no idea she was a fighter," Lefou said, squirming. He kept out the part about the masked girl showing him a bit of kindness. Gaston wouldn't want to hear that.

Whatever it was, his words seemed to placate Gaston. He felt himself being lowered to the ground.

Still obviously agitated, Gaston paced the room. "So what am I going to do? I can't show myself in town. I can't stay here, either," he mused, maybe having realized he had smashed almost every piece of usable furniture in the place.

Another idea came to Lefou. It had been since childhood since he'd been to the place, but he thought of it now. "What about your father's lodge? Isn't it still up beyond the pass?"

Gaston's face turned from brooding to pleased in an instant. "Of course! There's enough stored there to last the whole winter if need be, plus plenty of good hunting. And there's enough for two, since you're coming too. I can't be cleaning and cooking for myself."

"Me?" Lefou sputtered. "I can't go up there. It's at least a day's ride through the woods! I hate the woods!"

"You're coming if I say you're coming," said Gaston dangerously. Lefou knew if he didn't obey, Gaston might very well do to him what he'd done to the furniture. "Now go to the stables and saddle Leonidas and that pony of yours. We ride tomorrow at dawn."

"What about the girl? The meeting at the tavern? They're probably gonna ask where you've gone."

Gaston's voice was low and dangerous. "Make up something. Tell them I'm sick, or I went off hunting. Tell them I'll be back whenever. Oh, and, Lefou?"

He had turned to leave, but stopped. "What?"

"Find out where that girl is being kept. I have a little bit of personal business to attend to before we ride."