"Smith, Clark Ashton - Tales of Averoigne" - читать интересную книгу автора (Smith Clark Ashton)

Guillaume Cochin; and had become more sincerely enamored of her
blonde piquancy than was to be expected from one who had been so
frequently susceptible in such matters. He had managed to make his
feelings known to her; and, after a month of billets-doux, ballades, and
stolen interviews contrived by the help of a complaisant waiting-
woman, she had made this woodland tryst with him in the absence of
her father from Vyones. Accompanied by her maid and a man-servant,. _ў
she was to leave the town early that afternoon and meet Gerard under a
certain beech-tree of enormous age and size. The servants would then
withdraw discreetly; and the lovers, to all intents and purposes, would
be alone. It was not likely that they would be seen or interrupted; for
the gnarled and immemorial wood possessed an ill repute among the
peasantry. Somewhere in this wood there was the ruinous and haunted
Chateau des Faussesflammes; and, also, there was a double tomb,
within which the Sieur Hugh du Malinbois and his chatelaine, who
were notorious for sorcery in their time, had lain unconsecrated for
more than two hundred years. Of these, and their phantoms, there were
grisly tales; and there were stories of loup-garous and goblins, of fays
and devils and vampires that infested Averoigne. But to these tales
Gerard had given little heed, considering it improbable that such
creatures would fare abroad in open daylight. The madcap Fleurette
had professed herself unafraid also; but it had been necessary to
promise the servants a substantial pourboire, since they shared fully the
local superstitions.
Gerard had wholly forgotten the legendry of Averoigne, as he
hastened along the sun-flecked path. He was nearing the appointed
beech-tree, which a turn of the path would soon reveal; and his pulses
quickened and became tremulous, as he wondered if Fleurette had
already reached the trysting-place. He abandoned all effort to continue
his ballade, which, in the three miles he had walked from La Frenaie,
had not progressed beyond the middle of a tentative first stanza.
His thoughts were such as would befit an ardent and impatient
lover. They were now interrupted by a shrill scream that rose to an
unendurable pitch of fear and horror, issuing from the green stillness of
the pines beside the way. Startled, he peered at the thick branches; and
as the scream fell back to silence, he heard the sound of dull and
hurrying footfalls, and a scuffling as of several bodies. Again the
scream arose. It was plainly the voice of a woman in some distressful
peril. Loosening his dagger in its sheath, and clutching more firmly a
long hornbeam staff which he had brought with him as a protection
against the vipers which were said to lurk in Averoigne, he plunged
without hesitation or premeditation among the low-hanging boughs
from which the voice had seemed to emerge.
In a small open space beyond the trees, he saw a woman who was
struggling with three ruffians of exceptionally brutal and evil aspect.
Even in the haste and vehemence of the moment, Gerard realized that
he had never before seen such men or such a woman. The woman was
clad in a gown of emerald green that matched her eyes; in her face was
the pallor of dead things, together with a faery beauty; and her lips.Ў
were dyed as with the scarlet of newly flowing blood. The men were