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Updated: May 2, 2025
Your lord will not forget the faithfulness you show toward us." "Madame, if I may speak again, put that woman out of the gate. If she lingers around, I may do her some hurt when I have a loaded piece in my hand. She makes me less a man." "But, Klussman, the Sieur de la Tour, whose suspicions of her you have justified, strictly charged that we restrain her here until his return.
To come from a man who broke faith with thee, and offer his faith to me! Bribe me with Penobscot to betray St. John to him!" Marguerite sat on the floor. She whispered, gasping, "Tell not the whole fortress." Klussman ceased to talk, but his heels rung on the stone as he paced the turret. He felt himself grow old as silence became massive betwixt his wife and him.
"My lady," spoke Jean le Prince, the youngest man in the fortress, who was appointed to speak for the second squad when their turn came to sit down at the table, "we also think Edelwald is right in counseling you not to give up Fort St. John. We say nothing of D'Aulnay's hanging Klussman, for Klussman deserved it. But we would rather be shot down man by man than go out by the grace of D'Aulnay."
As his eye traveled recklessly into the women's camp, he encountered her beside him, sitting on the floor behind a settle and matching the red of a burning tree trunk with the red of her bruised eyelids. "Did you put that in my breastplate?" said Klussman, pointing to the hand as it lay palm upwards. Marguerite shuddered and burst out crying.
Though the fewer women there are in the world the better," added Klussman bitterly. "Presume not to call me a woman!" "Why, what art thou?" "I am the nightingale." "By thy red head thou art the woodpecker. Here is my back, clatterbill. Why should I not crawl the ground to be walked over? I have been worse used than that." He grinned fiercely as he bent down with his hands upon his knees.
The only man in the fortress who saw her without superstition was Klussman. He inclined to complain of her antics, but not to find magic in her flights and returns. At that period deformity was the symbol of witchcraft. Blame fell upon this dwarf when toothache or rheumatic pains invaded the barracks, especially if the sufferer had spoken against her unseen excursions with her swan.
He heard his relief stumble at the foot of the turret stairs, and went down the winding darkness to stop and send the soldier back to bed. "I am not sleepy," said Klussman. "I slept last night. Go and rest till daybreak." And the man willingly went. Marguerite had not moved a fold of her gown when her husband again came into the lighted tower.
"But is it so, madame?" "There are three ships standing in." Le Rossignol's russet-colored gown moved nearer to the fire. She stretched her claws to warm and then lifted one of them near her lady's nose. "Madame Marie, if D'Aulnay de Charnisay be coming, put no faith in that Swiss!" "In Klussman?" "Yes, madame." "Klussman is the best soldier now in the fort," said Madame La Tour laughing.
Sentinels in the other two bastions turned with surprise at her cry. They had seen Klussman relieving the guard, but his subtle action escaped their watch-worn eyes. They only noticed that he had the strange woman with him. D'Aulnay's men were at the foot of the wall planting ladders. They were swarming up. Marie met them with the sentinels joining her and the soldiers rushing from below.
Supper was scarcely begun when the Swiss lieutenant came again into the hall and saluted his lady. "What troubles us, Klussman?" she demanded. "There is a stranger outside." "What does he want?" "Madame, he asks to be admitted to Fort St. John." "Is he alone? Hath he a suspicious look?" "No, madame. He bears himself openly and like a man of consequence." "How many followers has he?"
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