“But we have found her,” Agnes cried. “She is safe and unharmed.”
“You lie. You’ve searched. I helped, and no one knows where she is.”
“In the dungeon. We found the door behind the tapestry. She is safe.”
Estanguet howled like a wounded animal. He stalked toward the bed and flicked the tip of his knife toward her.
Agnes kept her body between him and Arsov to protect the older man, pressing her shoulder into Estanguet’s chest, grappling for his knife, knowing Arsov was losing consciousness and couldn’t sustain another injury.
Estanguet stopped aiming his knife at the other man and turned on her. The movement caught her off guard and she lost her hold on him. The blade sliced into her and she spun away. Falling. On her hands and knees she looked over her shoulder and saw Estanguet lean over Arsov. She struggled to breathe, wondering what was wrong. Everything seemed heavy. Gripping the handles of Arsov’s wheelchair, she pulled herself up. First to her knees. She heaved with pain.
Estanguet pulled Arsov to a sitting position, holding the old man, whispering into his ear. Tears rolled down Arsov’s face and Estanguet dropped him to the bed and ran for the door. Agnes tried to follow him, to pull herself up, to stand, but she couldn’t. She felt something sticky under her shirt.
Estanguet reached the tapestry screen at the entrance to the bedroom and stopped to take one last look at the man he had hated for so many decades. The blanket on Arsov’s wheelchair slipped and Agnes lost her grip. Her head hit the seat. It hurt. She opened her eyes, then she smiled.
Nurse Brighton walked through the door carrying a tray of the morning’s medicines and Agnes tried to call out a warning, but the nurse saw Petit on the floor and screamed, dropping the tray. Estanguet twisted to grab her, his knife at the ready.
Agnes watched him turn, watched the arc of his arm, the direction his shoulder tilted. She judged the distance, the movement of air, her own nerves, and found her kneeling stance.
The shot reverberated. The gun she had found in Arsov’s chair dropped from her hand. Estanguet fell backward, an ugly patch of red flowering high on his chest, near his shoulder. She watched him release his knife and go still. Then she passed out.
When she opened her eyes, Julien Vallotton was kneeling over her. In her line of sight blood had pooled on the beautiful parquet floor. Somewhere in the background a woman, one of the maids, she decided, was crying. She turned her head to watch Nurse Brighton lean over Arsov.
“Is he dead?” she murmured.
Julien Vallotton took her hand and followed her gaze. They watched Nurse Brighton pull a clean blanket over Arsov’s face, her eyes brimming with tears.
Agnes tried to pull herself up to a sitting position and failed. “I took a first at Bienne. George was proud.” Her thoughts were disconnected, but she remembered that was the day George met Carnet. In her mind that was also the day she had practiced for, and was the reason she had handled so many weapons, but it was too late to save anyone.
She started to shake. Vallotton removed his coat and laid it over her. She tried to object but her hand struck the floor and she felt the warm stickiness dripping from her side and closed her eyes thinking that now she knew how George had felt. Unafraid. At peace.
Thirty-four
The doorbell rang and Agnes called out to say she would answer it, but her eldest son ran to the door before she could move. She sighed deeply and sat back, not knowing whether to be grateful or worried. The boys hadn’t been allowed to see her the first days in intensive care, and afterward in the hospital she hadn’t wanted them to worry. Now, at home, they had missed the worst of the bandages and the medicines streaming in through tubes, but she knew that their father’s death was on their minds, and now they had nearly lost their mother. It was too great a burden for children.
She heard the murmur of voices from the front hall and adjusted the blanket across her legs, thankful for the fire blazing on the hearth of George’s parents’ home. Even though the air in the weeks following the storm was spring-like, she still couldn’t get warm. The voices got louder and she hoped it wasn’t another neighbor coming to visit. There had been an interminable stream of guests, each one saying they knew she needed rest but that they had to bring something to cheer her up. The visits were always followed by low-voiced arguments with Sybille, who said Agnes wasn’t grateful enough for their interest. An argument that alternated with how reckless she was. How little she cared for her boys.