Chapter 8: Pursuit

Lefou watched the girl ride off. For a few moments he stood in the doorway of the stables, and then a terrible feeling crossed his mind.

Gaston would find out what he'd done. Despite the hunter's seemingly willful ignorance sometimes, he was not a stupid man. He could put two and two together even if Lefou couldn't. He was an expert tracker and rider besides, and the horse's hoofprints, not to mention Sable's blood, would be easy to follow even into the woods.

What did I just do? What was I thinking?

He knew he hadn't been. What he'd done was the result of nearly twenty years of living in Gaston's shadow, keeping quiet and blindly following orders. It had been an act of defiance. Gaston was not a man who appreciated defiance. Lefou knew the girl and himself both would pay a terrible price if the truth came out.

But, he knew, the truth hadn't come out just yet. He had to think of a story to tell, and fast. He decided to go back to the house and lie as best he could. She'd already planted the seed of an idea. The girl would have knocked him out, then stolen the horse, and ridden off. That was believable, wasn't it?

"Where have you been?"

Lefou felt his blood turn to ice. The voice, and the anger in it, were unmistakable. "Hey, Gaston. Um…I was just, you know, getting some fresh air?"

The hunter must have wondered what was taking so long, then decided to hurry things along the way he always did. He'd come all the way from home in his complete traveling kit: long cloak, tall boots, leather gloves, bow and arrows, and wickedly sharp hunting knife. "Where's the girl? Did you find her?" barked Gaston.

"She's…not here," Lefou said weakly.

"Then where is she? And that shyster boss of hers? We want our money back!"

It was one of the townspeople who spoke; he stood at the head of what seemed to be the entire adult male population of Ste.-Eulalie. Most of them held torches against the fading light, and some held pitchforks, swords, and other weapons. Lefou swallowed hard. This was a lynch mob, pure and simple. They'd want blood, and he just might have to decide whose it would be.

"She must have escaped, then she attacked me and rode out on a stolen horse. I think she went east," blurted Lefou, amazed that he'd gotten the story right.

"Then why aren't you bleeding, or bruised? I saw what that girl could do. You'd be nothing to her." It was Gaston who spoke. His voice was barely above a harsh whisper.

"Um….she just now hit me? Like about five minutes ago?"

"Can anyone confirm this cock-and-bull story?" a shopkeeper interrupted, and was loudly seconded, before Gaston could react. The man beckoned his apprentice to go and check the makeshift prison cell. When the other came back, his face was ashen.

"That stranger, M. Arsenault? He's dead!" Bl…blood all over the place. It's awful!" he stammered.

"She must have killed her own master," guessed Mathieu.

"So she's a cheat and a murderess. She needs to hang!" shouted the blacksmith, and the other men began to take up the chant, brandishing their weapons. It was Gaston, though, who silenced them with a single sweep of his hands in the air. He climbed up onto one of the wooden crates in the alley and spoke in his loud, clear baritone.

"I'm going to find her. She'll pay the price for what she did: not just for taking a man's life, but for stealing from each and every one of the hardworking people of this village. I'll bring her back, dead or alive! Justice will be served!"

His words turned the angry cries to cheers in an instant. Lefou saw what Gaston had done. He'd found a way to both save face and make the townspeople quickly forget that he, Gaston de Valois, their hero, was only mortal. A natural-born leader if there ever had been one.

"Let's hear it for Gaston!" one man shouted, and the rest responded as one.

"It's nothing, really. Just doing what I'm supposed to," Gaston said, preening and basking in the crowd's adulation. "I'll be back before the morning."

Even Lefou found himself grinning despite himself. It was easy to cheer along with everyone else; he'd been doing that his whole life. Then he remembered Gaston's real intent. He was going hunting, and only one outcome ever came of that. And this time, the prey was not the four-legged kind. It was a wounded, scared girl lost in the woods.

"I need a little word with you," Gaston growled, grabbing Lefou roughly by the shoulder and forcing him into the stables. He slammed the heavy door behind him.

Lefou gulped and tried to stall the inevitable. "Please, Gaston. I just got distracted! You know I'm no good at thinking!"

The hunter would hear none of it. He lifted the smaller man as if he weighed nothing and shook him back and forth like a rag doll. "What did I tell you to do? I told you to get my horse and pack us some supplies, tout suite, so we could leave. Is that too much for your pea-brain to manage, or were you addled by the Beaulieu girls again?"

So Gaston wasn't mad about his abetting Sable's escape. He didn't know. Lefou tried not to show his relief. "Really, Gaston, I was in here getting Leonidas, and I didn't hear or see her. Next thing I knew, I woke up and she and that bay mare were gone. Honest."

"Idiot!" Gaston roared, flinging Lefou aside into a pile of hay. "You think I'm a fool like you? Someone, someone in this village, helped her escape. That door wasn't forced open; it was unlocked. I don't know who it was, but when I find out…" He smacked his right fist into his open left hand.

Lefou felt his head spinning. As falls went this one was hardly one of the worst he'd experienced. It was the crazy situation at hand that made him dizzy. He remembered the token Sable had given him, the piece of silver stamped with a heron crest. It was the one piece of evidence connecting him to her. When he reached into his pocket, though, it was gone. Frantic, he reached into the other one, and…

"What's this?"

Gaston reached down and picked up the token from the stable floor. It must have fallen out during all that shaking back and forth. Lefou froze.

"Maybe she dropped that? Do you recognize it?" he said, hopeful that Gaston wouldn't hear the fear and guilt in his quavering voice. He also prayed that it wasn't still warm from sitting in his pocket.

A strange look came over Gaston's handsome face. Was that recognition? Anger? The hint of a wry smile? Lefou couldn't tell, but Gaston clenched the silver tightly in his fist, and then put it in his own pouch.

"Saddle Leonidas, and make it quick. I'm going out."

"Do…do you think she's headed for the hunting lodge? Maybe that farming village across the valley?"

Gaston smiled darkly. "No. But I know exactly where she is going."

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The first few snowflakes had begun to come down from the darkening sky. Any other day Sable might have appreciated the quiet beauty of the scene. Snow, after all, had been rare in New France. But she had no time for beauty. She was running for her life. The horse, so far, had made her own way. That was fine with Sable. Lefou had been right; this was a horse built for the strange country in which she now rode. Rossignole had cantered steadily for the last hour or so over the gradually hillier landscape. All that Sable felt was the cold wind, the lingering pain of her injuries, and the frantic thudding of her own heart.

I have to get out of here. If I don't find shelter soon I'm as good as dead.

When she'd trained with Bertrand all those years ago, he'd told her about the many dangers lurking in any forest. Steep ravines, gopher holes that could break a man's or a horse's leg, low-hanging limbs, quicksand, and especially, wolves. The first of the predators' eerie howls came, from far away, with the snow. Sable had no way of knowing where they were, only that she and the horse needed to get far away from them.

She wanted to rest so badly. She hadn't really slept in two days, and she'd fought a brutal melee, but this wasn't the time or place for sleep. The pursuers, if there were any, could be only minutes away. She hadn't seen or heard them yet, so she decided a few minutes' rest to water herself and the horse were in order. They drew to a halt at the side of a pond.

The mare drank deeply and Sable did the same. The water was almost painfully cold, but it was refreshing and much-needed. In the dying light, she could see her own face, masked and flushed with cold, reflected in the steely surface.

Ugly. That's what I am, and there's nothing for it. Maybe Adrien was right. Maybe all there is for me in this life, if I can't be a melee fighter, is to be the lowest kind of whore. Would he have treated me differently if my face hadn't been ruined? Would I have had a normal life, married to some farmer or merchant?

He was dead now, but his cruel, taunting voice lingered in her mind. Sable had been his servant for only a short part of her life, but it had seemed like an eternity. Even in death Adrien maintained some hold over her. It was a hold she would have to somehow break if she were to survive.

Another sound came to her. This one was much closer than the wolves had been. It was the whinny of another horse. How stupid had she been, stopping like this and wallowing in self-pity? More importantly, how long had she been standing like some helpless deer next to a pond while the snow continued to fall?

Cursing herself and gritting her teeth, Sable moved next to a fallen tree and remounted the mare. Just getting back in the saddle was excruciating, but she forced herself. She put her heels to Rossignole's ribs and they were off again at a trot.

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Gaston reined in his stallion atop a small ridge. The signs had been so obvious, he thought, even a half-blind man could have followed them. Broken foliage everywhere, deep hoofprints along a muddy trail, and most importantly, crimson droplets of blood. The girl was wounded. She was also running scared, and on unfamiliar territory.

She was just ahead, and she couldn't be far. The signs were, at most, ten minutes old.

This would almost be unfair. Perhaps the thing Gaston enjoyed the most about a good hunt was the challenge of it all. In this case, the quarry was weak. He'd have to make his own challenge out of it. Besides, he'd made a promise to his town to bring her back, and he intended to keep it.

He unslung the bow from his broad shoulders and urged Leonidas forward.

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Sable did not hear the phantom horse again. Maybe she'd gotten lucky and taken the right path after all, or else Rossignole had. She'd put her trust fully into the horse. Past the pond, perhaps a hundred yards up, had been a twisting fork in the path. One was well-traveled, but an educated guess told her it went the back way to Ste.-Eulalie and the mob that wanted her dead. The other, twisting like a snake, went into the now pitch-dark woods and swirling snow. She shivered. Winter was early this year, and it would kill her as sure as anything. She had to find shelter, and soon. A thin horse blanket was no defense against the deepening cold.

"What do you think, girl? Do you know anywhere safe?" Sable asked out loud. They'd had to slow to a walk. She felt foolish talking to a horse, but she had no other choice. "A woodsman's cottage, or an old granary, maybe?"

Her thoughts were interrupted in an instant. The arrow came out of the darkness with an evil hiss and buried itself in Sable's left shoulder. She screamed in pain and shock, and the mare beneath her danced uneasily. Sable had thought she had known pain, all the beatings Adrien had inflicted on her, all the brawls with men twice her size that she'd somehow survived. This was true pain, and her world was bright with it.

Rossignole bolted forward, eyes wide with fear. Sable clung to the mare's neck with all the strength she could muster. Every stride, every step was agonizing.

I guess Death finally caught up with me. Lord knows I've cheated him enough, and now he's finally here for me. Adrien, my master, I'll see you in Hell before long.

The dark mare and her rider plunged deeper into the woods, leaving a trail of fresh blood on the snow behind them.

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This was what Gaston truly lived for: the hunt. There were the deer, who were swift, the bears, who were strong, and the boars, perhaps his favorite of all, who were cunning in their own animal way. This quarry was all three.

No man, much less some ugly peasant girl, had ever bested him in a fight. How she'd done so, he'd spent the better part of the day trying to figure out. She was an outsider, a freak of nature with some trickery up her sleeve. Maybe even an enchantress. He had to grudgingly admit she was a plucky little thing. Might have made a fine milkmaid or herdswoman. But no girl, ugly or beautiful, would ever make a fool out of Gaston. He needed to take her down a notch, show her her place. At the same time, he needed to help the people of Ste.-Eulalie forget that he'd ever let them down.

'Dead or alive,' his father had once said, always meant 'dead.'

It had been all too easy to circle around the girl, find high ground, and line up for a shot. What Gaston hadn't counted on was the speed of the horse she rode. It was as if he'd shot the animal and not the girl. That mare had been off and running the minute the arrow had found its mark.

She was fast, but Leonidas was surely faster. Gaston spurred the black, who knew these woods as well as he did, to a canter.

He had a whole quiver of arrows left. Just in case the girl proved as cunning as the boars.

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How long Rossignole ran, Sable didn't know. Whether from the cold or her own exhaustion and fear, she couldn't feel the arrow in her shoulder anymore. Was that bad? Her thoughts raced, and she tried to remember what Bertrand would have said about that. She couldn't. When she tried to picture her mentor's broad, bearded face, she only saw Adrien and his fox-like features instead. His face was bloody and grim, and his lips moved wordlessly.

Three beats of hooves. Murderer. Ugly girl. Going to die.

The hiss of another arrow brought her to. It barely missed her and thudded into the trunk of an oak instead. There was the jingle of another horse's bridle not far behind.

Death, who, she saw as she looked behind her, rode a black horse and wore a scarlet tunic. He couldn't be more than fifty yards behind and was closing fast. She spurred Rossignole one more time and breathed in deeply. He still had to catch them first.

She didn't notice the stone gatepost, etched with the faded crest of a heron and already white with snow, as she shot past.

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Gaston swore under his breath. How could he have missed such an easy shot, even at full gallop? Riding with the confidence of many years in the saddle, he strung another arrow and drew. He would not miss again.

But when he looked up to release the arrow, the bay mare and the girl had disappeared from his sight.

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Death, as it turned out, had cold hands.

In the end Sable had simply fallen from the horse's saddle into the snow. The other rider, whom she'd thought would be her end, was gone. It was winter who would take her. She'd been pushed to her limits and beyond. Numbness had overtaken her injured body and replaced the multitude of pains. If this was how she would die, maybe it wasn't so bad. She'd just go to sleep and not wake up.

As her eyelids drooped, she knew she was seeing things. A single light bobbed towards her from the gloom. With it was a stooped figure carrying a lantern.

Sable's last thought before the night closed in on her was that Death wasn't as tall as she'd expected him to be.