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Page 381
in. It was much less likely that the people of the manor would hear a fight taking place in the inner room, where the two narrow windows, closed for the winter anyway, opened only on the garden.
He had hoped he could kill Walter quickly and quietly, get his body out of the place without drawing attention, and dump it somewhere on the road. The body would soon be found, but there would be no evidence about how or by whom the murder had been committed. In that case, when his troop rode in they would do no harm but merely accompany him away from Hay. However, if the murder could not be carried out in secret and the folk of the manor became aware of what was happening, Heribert was prepared to have his troop sack Hay and kill every person who was there.
As the last thought passed through his mind, Heribert decided it was not a choice he favored. There was always a chance of someone escaping his men or someone seeing his troop coming or leaving. He and three men should be capable of finishing off Walter. He discounted Marie's presence. She would hold her tongue, owing to her complicity in the crime.
There had been a brief silence after Walter's angry question during which Heribert made his decision, and then Marie cried out, "I want nothing, only to love you."
Heribert signaled his men and threw open the door at which he had been listening, but he had not realized that Marie was still so close to it. The door struck against her and then rebounded; it knocked Marie off balance, so that she staggered a step or two sideways. But that was warning enough. Walter had been uneasy from the moment Marie had urged him into the inner room. The sense had ebbed and flowed in him but had never disappeared. Thus, in the moment granted him by the rebound of the door, he lifted his shield and drew his sword.
Marie had screamed wordlessly when the door struck her, but as Heribert and one man leapt into the room she screeched, "Heribert, not now! It is too soon, you fool! Oh, you fool!"
Naturally neither Heribert nor his man paid her any mind, particularly as Walter had surged forward to meet them, thrusting so hard with his shield that Heribert's own shield hit him in the face and he himself was shoved back into the main chamber. His man launched a blow, however, which Walter caught on his sword, and a second man slid around

 
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