Chapter 25
Twenty-Five
Shieldmaiden
“Fiore,” said Dorotèa with glee. “Remedy one.”
She’d scarcely been so excited to step into the basics, and she’d even brought along the fencing manual her father showed her as a girl to present the engravings to the other women. Dorotèa credited the old Italian master for leading her to choose a Venetian mask as her infamous persona’s disguise.
After a couple lessons during previous days on body control and unarmed attacks, she thought it was about time to introduce defense against weapons. Fiore’s instructions were always destined to be the first she’d teach, just as it had gone for her.
The ladies had pushed aside the empty baths in the back spa and cleared the rest of the floor of puddles, stray towels, and stools.
Once set, they went through the motions of drawing the blinds and locking the doors.
Only then did they pin their hair fully back, remove any excess layers and jewelry, and stand together to begin.
A giddy bout of stretching and final giggles of gossip about the day’s patrons saw them ready to complete the lesson.
“This is a counter, if you’re attacked with a small blade,” lectured Dorotèa. “Jeanne and I are going to repeat it very, very slowly. I encourage you all to walk circles around us while we do. Pay special attention to my wrist. Good?”
“Good, Maistre!” Flourie exclaimed. After she’d used the title during the first class, it had stuck on with the others. Even if it was said in jest half the time, Dorotèa didn’t know what to make of how good it felt to hear it.
Jeanne slowly stabbed outward with a blunt wooden practice dagger.
Dorotèa responded to it just as slowly, protecting her body with her hook, grab, rotation, and ending counterstrike.
Dorotèa opted to rotate between a strike to the nose and one between the legs each time she and Jeanne repeated it.
The Orensanz heiress, of course, was not actually hit during the demonstrations.
Dorotèa couldn’t have forgiven herself if she broke Jeanne’s nose, which she found especially lovely.
They went about it quicker, and repeated it until Ragonde, Symonne, Flourie, and their two companions confirmed they had the motion down. Dorotèa walked them through it next, but made sure to replace even the practice weapons of the inexperienced pairs with harmless scrubbing brushes.
Watching the girls go from hesitant to making the block at full speed made everything, for once, feel nothing less than worthwhile.
“Well, ladies, you lot were so quick to get it that I’ve got time to show you another little trick for a counter.
” Dorotèa grinned and wiped the sweat from her brow.
“This one takes a bit more precision, so it may be some days of practicing with each other before it becomes natural. What will happen is—”
A heavy weight slammed into the locked door out front. She fell silent, and the other girls jumped. The smiles they all wore swiftly fell off their faces.
“What was—” Ragonde started, but then it came again.
Jeanne raised her brows in alarm. “Some drunkard?”
Bang! Bang!
Dorotèa whipped her head around. “How strong is that lock?”
“I’ve never worried about it, if that’s what you mean?” Ragonde shot back.
Bang!
Dorotèa snapped her fingers, then pointed at the exit leading to the back alley. “Unlock this one for us.”
“Why?”
“Do you want to be stuck in here if someone gets in?”
That got the point across. Color began to drain from their faces, but none so much as little Flourie, who trembled.
Ragonde fidgeted with her ring of keys and drove the correct one into the lock.
It started to jam; it always did, the girls had told Dorotèa when they first went to lock the bathhouse up.
Its frozen state made half the girls yelp when the slamming sounds, which had quieted, gave way to that of shattering glass.
Finally, Ragonde got the door open.
“Out, out. Stay together; we’ll fetch a constable. Better robbed than dead,” Dorotèa murmured, then started to push the girls out into the open, starting with Flourie.
More glass shattered, and then she heard the thud of boots.
Boudiou.
“Jeanne—Jeanne, stay with them.” Dorotèa looked desperately over her shoulder and noticed Ragonde had wandered off.
Ragonde, who was now a few paces off and staring around towards the front, gasped. “Someone got in. I think he got in.”
“Dorotèa!” Jeanne snapped.
“I’m right behind you. Ragonde!”
She ought to have been more frightened than she was, but her father always did tell her that her nonchalance made her a better swordswoman.
Her tranquility made her mind drift to thoughts beyond the simple act of fleeing.
What if this was the killer returned? What if she could get a quick look, or better yet, stop him in his tracks with her own sword?
Dorotèa drew her rapier regardless. If she was to bring up the rear, then, by God, she was going to protect these girls.
She lunged beside Ragonde and jerked her arm with her free hand, which finally led her to whirl around and make for the door.
Jeanne was still standing in it and gesturing at Dorotèa to come along.
She took a step towards it but allowed herself another brief moment to look behind her when she heard heavy footsteps dart into the back spa.
“Oh.” Dorotèa’s monotone greeted the musket leveled at her. “I suppose that’s that.”
She kicked the door behind her and slammed it crudely into Jeanne. It did not open again as she stared down Capitaine Tirel. Dorotèa sniffed the air and inclined her head.
“Drop the rapier,” Tirel commanded. She had to give him some credit; he had demanding bravado mastered.
“Is that even primed?” But Dorotèa smelled the smoke, and knew that it was.
“Do you want to find out?”
“Well, I take no pleasure in a man bringing a gun into a swordfight,” Dorotèa huffed. “Why don’t you put that down and face me honorably with a blade? It would only be proper to—”
She snapped her teeth together when Tirel marched right up to her with his firearm leveled.
Dorotèa held fast and retained her breath to match, but when the muzzle pressed right up against her bosom, heavy and cold, she dropped her rapier with a strangled sound.
A scowl worked its way onto her features.
She started. “This isn’t—”
Tirel jammed her with it, then grabbed her arm and hauled her backwards. Dorotèa stumbled, and he leveled the musket against her back. “Isn’t play. Get moving and do as I say. Faster!”
Dorotèa might have moved along in wide-eyed apprehension, but she dragged her heels with enough resistance that the captain continued to prod her with his weapon like it was a gardian’s bull staff.
They made it all the way to the hatch leading down into the vents and watery underground.
Their tangled knot was briefly loosened when Tirel hulked past her and threw open the trapdoor.
It was then that she saw him more closely.
His right arm was smeared and splattered with blood. Droplets, too, dappled his chest.
That was when the first semblance of fear started to set in.
She’d started to get the inclination that the captain was their killer—if his barging in and hurried flight to the underground wasn’t obvious enough.
But that blood, this night… Dorotèa only scheduled this training in this place because Oste and Jehan were in Cordeliers conducting the inspections.
Had they confronted him? Is that why he’d run?
All blood looked the same, but it could be her husband’s.
Rage and horror consumed her in equal parts.
When Tirel pointed the musket back at her and barked his command to descend, she drew her own side dagger in a swift, fluid motion.
She’d practiced it so many times over after reading her manuals and imagining some unseen foe, but she’d not needed to draw to kill, until now—if it came to that.
Her maneuver caught Tirel by surprise; he was slow on the uptake to side-step the stab directed at his ribs, where she was confident her rondel might pierce through the armor’s buckling at his flank.
Her blow guided almost true; his dodge saw it cut his off-arm, where it caught his shirt and his inner layer of skin and muscle.
Dorotèa choked just after when the captain squeezed that same arm in to catch hers despite it leading his blood to spurt, and held fast her dagger from her ensuing attack.
Dorotèa jerked back to haul herself free but saw stars instead.
Crack!
She was on her knees, and then being pulled back up.
She swayed in a daze, dimly aware of the ruthless pulsing of pain at her brow.
Dorotèa raised a shaky hand up to it, and when she withdrew her fingers they came back wet with blood.
Her head stung and ached in tandem, and the blurry shape of Tirel and the musket told her everything she needed to know about his capabilities, and what had happened. A firearm wasn’t only used to shoot.
This time, when Tirel kicked her rear and forced her to march down into the depths, she didn’t resist. Dorotèa was scarcely aware of her surroundings and what had happened in the last sixty seconds. Her vision blurred.
Shocked. You’re shocked, she thought to herself, and it was the only thought she could properly formulate for the first minute below. Even her mouth felt numb and fuzzy.
He didn’t even hit me there, did he?