Buoyed by his success at the tables of Le Tonneau de Vin a few days earlier, the chevalier de Saint-Sauvan decides to revisit the tavern to try his luck once more. He pays no mind when one of the servants of the Hôtel de Galbert politely inquires about where monsieur le chevalier is going for the evening, and does not notice when the servant slips out of the door of the lodging a moment later.

The fall air is warm as Saint-Sauvan cheerfully walks the night-dark streets to the tavern. There is no warning when a rapier flashes out of a shadow and slips deep into his side, followed by the form of a man. As Saint-Sauvan staggers, his hand grasping at his own sword, he catches a glimpse of his attacker, the pale glow from a nearby window revealing the clean-shaven face of the bravo, La Gautier.

La Gautier’s rapier slices through the air as Saint-Sauvan desperately draws his own blade. The bravo’s sword bites deep into his right arm, and a gush of blood stains his sleeve black in the night as the limb drops, lifeless, at the chevalier’s side. The bravo aims a thrust at Saint-Sauvan’s throat, which he barely parries.

The pain from his wounds races through his body like a fire, and weakness makes his limbs unsteady as he parries a thrust aimed at his throat from La Gautier’s blade, and the bravo turns aside Saint-Sauvan’s own attack. As the blades ring and spark in the darkess, the chevalier sees clearly the imminence of his death, and for a moment he thinks to retreat, to flee.

But his honor, thin and tattered as it may be, compels him to stand his ground, and so he raises the guard of his rapier to parry the slash he expects La Gautier to deliver. Instead the bravo thrusts his blade through the chevalier’s doublet and deep into his chest, and the flash of fire Saint-Sauvan feels is replaced by a wave of cold that swiftly spreads through his limbs as he crumples to the ground and breathes his last.

La Gautier kneels down next to the still body. The chevalier’s eyes are half-open but see nothing. The bravo slashes the laces on Saint-Sauvan’s doublet, and reaching inside he draws out a purse heavy with silver. With a malevolent grin etched on his face, he wipes his blade twice on the dead man’s doublet, and disappears into the shadows from which he came.

Ask not for whom the bell tolls. It tolls for thee. – John Donne

The actual play log may be seen here.