to send his point clear of my body. It took
me in the shoulder, stinging me, first icy cold then
burning hot, as it went tearing its way through.
For just a second was I daunted, more at knowing
myself touched than by the actual pain. Then
I flung my whole body forward to reach him at the
close quarters to which he had come, and I buried
my dagger in his breast, high up at the base of his
dirty throat.
The force of the blow carried me forward, even as
it bore him backward; and so, with his sword-blade
in my shoulder, and my dagger where I had planted
it, we hurtled over together and lay a second amidst
what seemed a forest of equine legs. Then something
smote me across the head, and I was knocked senseless.
Conceive me, if you can, a sorrier, or more useless
thing. A senseless Fool!
FOOL’S LUCK
My return to consciousness seemed to afford me such
sensations as a diver may experience as he rises up
and up through the depth of water he has plumbed—or
as a disembodied soul may know in its gentle ascent
towards Heaven. Indeed the latter parallel may
be more apt. For through the mist that suffused
my senses there penetrated from overhead a voice that
seemed to invoke every saint in the calendar on the
behalf of some poor mortal. A very litany of
intercession was it, not quite, it would appear, devoid
of self-seeking.
“Sainted Virgin, restore him! Good St.
Paul, who wert done to death with a sword, let him
not perish, else am I lost indeed!” came the
voice.
I took a deep breath, and opened my eyes, whereat
the voice cried out gladly that its intercessions
had been heard, and I knew that it was on my behalf
that the saints of Heaven had been disturbed in their
beatific peace. My head was pillowed in a woman’s
lap, and it took me a moment or two to realise that
that lap was Madonna Paula’s, as was hers the
voice that had reached my awakening senses, the voice
that now welcomed me back to life in terms that were
very different from the last that I could remember
her having used towards me.
“Thank God, Messer Boccadoro!” she exclaimed,
as she bent over me.
Her face was black with shadow, but in her voice I
caught a hint of tears, and I wondered whether they
were shed on my behalf or on her own.
“I do” I answered fervently. “Have
you any notion of what hour it is?”
“None,” she sighed. “You have
been so long unconscious that I was losing hope of
ever hearing your voice again.”
I became aware of a dull ache on the right side of
my head. I put up my hand, and withdrew it moist.
She saw the action.
“One of the horses must have struck you with
its hoof after you fell,” she explained.
“But I was more concerned for your other wound.
I withdrew the sword with my own hands.”
That other wound she spoke of was now making itself
felt as well. It was a gnawing, stinging pain
in the region of my left shoulder, which seemed to
turn me numb to the waist on that side of my body,
and render powerless my arm. I questioned her
touching my three adversaries, and she silently pointed
to three black masses that lay some little distance
from us in the snow.
