Poul Anderson: Death and the Knight

Marlow had described the front door as massive. It would be barred on the inside. Speed was vital. When the racket began, neighbors probably wouldn't dare come to help, but they might send someone looking for a squad of the watch, or by itself it might attract that primitive constabulary. Everard's men must be gone before then, leaving no trace that lacked an ordinary explanation.

Yan, who would stand by at the transporter, saluted and swiveled around a mortar mounted on the frame. Everard had suggested the design, after which its forging and testing had taken many man-hours. It boomed. A balk of hardwood sprang out. A crash resounded. The front door sagged, splinterful, half torn from its hinges, the bar snapped. The timber could be left behind, evidence that the marauders had used a battering ram. That they must have been uncommonly strong men would be cause for alarm, but the Templar sensation ought to take minds off it.

Everard was already running. Tabarin, Rosny, Hyman, and Uhl came after. Over the threshold, through the gap and the vestibule — its own inner door open — into the workroom! There they deployed in a line, their leader at the middle, and peered about them.

Pillared and stone-floored, the chamber reached hollow. The kitchen entrance at the far end was shut for the night. The furniture remaining here was an iron coffer, three stools, and the big sales counter, on which four tallow candles in sticks made a wavery dusk to see by. They stank. In the right wall was the door to a separate room below the stairs from the vestibule, formerly for storing valuables, now secured by an ornate built-in lock. A tough-looking man in the brown habit of the Order crouched before it, gripping a halberd and yelling.

"Hold!" Everard cried in the Parisian gutter dialect he had acquired. "Lay down your pole and we'll spare you."

"God's bones, no!" the Templar clamored. Had he been a common soldier before he took his vows? "Jehan! My lord! Help!"

Everard signaled his followers. They dashed for either side of the guard.

They didn't want to kill. Sonic stun guns were nested inside their weapons. Let them close in, distract him, give him a jolt. He'd wake up supposing he'd been whacked from behind — yes, it'd be needful to bang his head with the club, but cautiously.

Two more men sprang out of the vestibule. They were naked, as folk wontedly slept, but armed. The shorter, grubby one likewise carried a halberd. The tall one lifted a long, straight sword. Its blade caught the wan light in a ripple as of fire. Its wielder—

Everard knew that aquiline face. Marlow had often surreptitiously recorded it with a microscanner, to put in his reports along with other views. Did he mean to look at it, over and over, when his mission was done and he must return home?

Fulk de Buchy, Knight of the Temple.

"Ho!" he bayed. "Go for the watch, someone!" Laughter gibed at Everard. "They'll cart away your corpses, swine."

Others clustered in the entry, half a dozen men and boys, unarmed, dismayed, imploring the saints, but witnesses.

Goddamn it, Everard groaned inwardly, Fulk's spending the night, and he's recalled the household staff.

"Careful with the stunners!" he barked in Temporal. Don't strike the opposition down with an invisible, sorcerous blow. Maybe he needn't have warned. These were Patrolmen he commanded. They weren't cops like him, though, they were simply the most promising he'd found among personnel familiar with this milieu, hastily briefed and drilled.

They mixed it up with the halberdiers. Fulk was plunging at him.

Too flinking much visibility here. I can't stun him unless we get so close I can fake something — or I can maneuver him in back of a pillar — and his sword's got the reach of mine, and chances are he's better. I know fencing techniques that haven't been invented yet, but they aren't a lot of use when blades like these play. Not for the first time, Everard saw that he might get killed.

As always, he was too busy to feel scared. It was as if his inner self stood aside, watching, interested in a detached fashion, now and then offering advice. The rest of him was in action.

The longsword flashed at his skull. He blocked with his falchion. Metal rang. Everard shoved. His was the advantage in mass and muscle. He forced Fulk's weapon up. His free fist doubled. No knight would expect an uppercut. Fulk disengaged with feline smoothness and flowed out of range.

For an instant they glared across two yards of stone. Everard realized how the posts hemmed him in. It could prove fatal. Almost, he reversed his sword to use the gun in the pommel. He could then move quickly enough that none would notice his enemy had fallen before being struck. But while others rioted around this chamber, Fulk stepped forward. His glaive leaped.

Everard was in karate stance. Reflex eased the tension he kept on one knee and swung him aside from the slash. It passed within an inch. Everard struck for the wrist.

Again Fulk was too swift. Rising, his blade nearly tore the Patrolman's hilt loose from the hand. He kept his left side half toward the foe, arm slanted over breast. It was as if he bore a phantom crusader shield, cross-emblazoned. Above, he grinned with battle glee. His steel snaked forth.

Everard had already cast himself downward. The sword whined barely above his head. He hit the floor in full control. Such martial arts were unknown here. Fulk would have slain a man who flopped while he tried to scramble erect. Everard was coiled, his torso up. He had perhaps half a second until the knight hewed. His falchion smote the thigh.

It bit to the bone. Blood spouted. Fulk howled. He went to his sound knee. Once more he raised his sword. Once more Everard had time only to strike. Now the metal caught the belly. Momentum drove it deep and across. A loop of gut slipped out through a red torrent.

Fulk crumpled. Everard jumped back to his feet. Both swords lay unheeded. He bent over the sprawled man. Blood had splashed him. It dripped down into what was pumping forth and spreading wide. Even as he stood, the spurt lessened, the strong heart failed.

Teeth gleamed in Fulk's beard. A last snarl at his slayer? His right hand lifted. Shakily, he drew the Christian sign. But the words he gasped were " Hugues, O Hugues —"

The hand fell. Eyes rolled back, mouth gaped, torn bowels went slack. Everard caught the reek of death.

"I'm sorry," he croaked. "I didn't want that."

But he had work to do. He looked around him. Both pikemen were down, unconscious but apparently not seriously hurt. It must have happened seconds ago, or his squad would have come to his aid. Those Templars put up a good fight, they did. Seeing him hale, the Patrolmen turned their attention to the help huddled in the entry.

"Be off or we'll kill you, too!" they bawled.

The attendants weren't schooled in battle. They bolted in abrupt, trampling panic, with a backwash of moans and screams, out the vestibule and the broken door beyond.

Stumbling through the night, they might nonetheless find city guards. "Get busy," Everard ordered. "Collect an armful of loot apiece and we'll clear out. That's as much as a gang who'd raised this kind of ruckus would stop to take." His mind couldn't keep from adding in English, If they hung around, they'd assuredly hang. A thought more real nudged him. "Try for well-made things, and handle with care if you can. They're going to museums uptime, you know."

And so a few bits of loveliness would be saved from oblivion, for the enjoyment of a world that, possibly, this operation had also saved. He couldn't be sure. The Patrol might have managed some different corrective action. Or events might have shaped themselves to restore their long-term course; the continuum has considerable resilience. He had merely done what seemed best.