“What’s that?”
“We lost Guillem. She killed him.”
“One woman against six of you?”
“We thought we had her. One each side of her, coming up from behind, grab the bottom of her dress, lift it right over her head like a bag. You’d expect a woman to start shrieking ‘rape’ and be too frightened to fight, arms trapped and her legs bare.”
“So?”
“She had some kind of gutting knife in her belt. Slashed her own dress right open, stabbed Guillem right through the heart while he was trying to grab her arm. Then I hit her one and she went down. Kept on fighting, though, while we gagged her. We did it in an alley behind the well, only women around and I don’t think anyone saw. I hope she has no brothers. I wouldn’t want to have to fight one of them, if that’s what the women are like.”
“Guillem has earned his release,” said the perfectus. “May we all leave the world as well, and earn the right to pass out of it. Go on, Thierry. I will leave the message and then follow.”
The mule-train passed through the guarded gate, headed across the plain and up into the nearby mountains, Svandis slung bound, gagged, near-naked but conscious over the lead-beast.