Commedia della Morte (48 page)

“We must be mad to be out in this,” Feo muttered. “How are we going to see the Guards and the coaches? I can barely make out the road as it is.”

“We did not choose the time or the place, so we must make the best we can; it’s likely the Guards won’t be expecting us in this weather,” da San-Germain said quietly, testing the ground underfoot, then stepping onto the narrow verge.

“Or anyone else,” Feo added.

“We can avoid the ruts if we walk this way,” da San-Germain said, moving forward.

The other two fell in behind him, and as they climbed up the short rise, they were glad for the matting of decaying plants that kept them from slipping. Roger moved to the head of the line, saying, “Let me find my way.”

“Gladly,” said da San-Germain.

They trudged on for a short distance; then Roger stopped and pointed. “There. This is the turning into the inn-yard. The gate will be open; I’ve paid them for that, and promised a bonus for their help.”

“You continue to amaze me, old friend,” said da San-Germain, assuming a German accent. “Your choice of this posting inn was inspired.”

The three of them went through the gate, accompanied by the barking of dogs from their kennel. Ahead was the door to the stable, and in the lantern-lit main aisle were three strings of saddled horses. A bearded ostler came up to Roger and bowed. “We have what you asked for, Citizen.”

“I will need a few minutes to inspect the horses and tack, as we agreed,” said Roger, seizing the man’s elbow and propelling him toward the stable.

Feo watched them go. “Should we join them?”

“No,” said da San-Germain. “They will become more leery of us than they are already. Roger is one man dealing with one man, which makes the ostler sure he’s safe.”

“If you say so.” Feo moved back into the shadows, adjusting his hat as he went.

“Be ready to ride,” da San-Germain told him.

Feo nodded, and bent over to be certain that his pistol was safely tucked in the top of his boot. “Do you think we’ll have to kill anyone?”

“I hope not,” said da San-Germain, and turned toward the stable as Roger emerged, mounted on a dark dun and leading a string of five horses.

“I’ve checked them all. The horses are sound enough, and the tack is adequate; they’ve all been fed and watered,” he said as he came up to them; he patted his pocket, and there was the unmistakable clink of coins. “As soon as you’re mounted and we’re at the gate, I’ll pay the rest of the money—we won’t have another Gonder here.”

“Prudent as always,” said da San-Germain, having a swift memory of the troubles they had had with the pilgrims in Ethiopia, over five hundred years before; he shook off the disturbing recollection and headed for the stable where the bearded ostler was holding two more strings of horses. “You take the larger horse; I’ll take the smaller.”

“Good,” said Feo, and swung up into the saddle of a square-built dapple-gray gelding. He settled into the saddle, then moved to adjust the length of the stirrup-leathers. “Seems hearty enough.”

“I should hope so,” said da San-Germain; he had mounted a neat mouse-colored Spanish mare, and was also adjusting stirrup-leathers.

“Careful with her,” the ostler advised da San-Germain, “she’s touchy. Don’t job the bit.”

“I’ll bear that in mind, thank you.” He reached for the leads, and started the mare moving, and as soon as he was out of the stable, heard Feo come after him.

At the gate, Roger handed the ostler a small purse. “As agreed, and a bonus.”

“My thanks, Citizen.” The ostler ducked his head in the old-fashioned way, then made a sign for luck as he moved aside so that the three men and their horses could leave the posting inn, and return to the old Saone River Road. As soon as they had cleared the gate, the ostler closed it behind them with a thud.

Making the turn onto the old Saone River Road, da San-Germain brought his string up next to Roger’s. “What did you tell him?”

“The ostler? About why we needed the horses? That we are here to escort a group of Protestants to Holland, and with the war we have to—”

“—guide them at night. A clever ruse. Do you think he believes it?” Da San-Germain drew rein as he spoke, for the road was beginning to descend again; his back twinged as he shifted in the saddle.

“I doubt he cares,” Feo observed. “He’s been paid well enough not to.”

Da San-Germain held up his hand, signaling a halt. “Listen,” he said. The night was quiet but for the sound of the horses they were leading; after a minute or two, he motioned them on, his mouth pressed to a grim line.

Roger saw da San-Germain’s apprehension, and said, “There’s another dip up ahead, with a bridge over a stream.”

“This is the place you mentioned?”

“It is. The coaches should be along within the hour. We ought to move the horses away from the road as soon as we can.”

“That seems wise,” said da San-Germain. “How deep is the stream and how wide is the bridge? I assume you discovered that, too.”

Now it was Roger’s turn to frown. “The stream is running fairly high now; up to your chest at its deepest point. The current is not very fast, but fast enough to be risky to anyone caught in it. The bridge is old, and narrow. The flanking Guards will have to move between the coaches to cross it, and that will provide the greatest opportunity for us to act.”

Da San-Germain summoned up the ghost of a smile. “I’d just as soon not wait in the water. Is there room enough on the edge of the road to conceal ourselves?”

“What do we do with the horses? Surely you don’t mean to keep them with us?” Feo had pulled his string up so close to the horse he rode that the gelding kicked out at the closest one on the string.

“There’s a little meadow not far off the road just before we reach the stream.” Roger pointed off to the right.

“You did a good job of scouting,” Feo approved, regarding Roger with a mix of curiosity and deference he had not shown before.

“He knows how to observe without being noticed,” da San-Germain said.

“I’ve had some experience,” said Roger levelly. “There’s a goat-track the other side of that stand of willows; it leads to a clearing. We can tie them there.” He tugged on the lead and pulled his string of horses off the river road onto the narrow pathway; da San-Germain fell in behind the last horse in Roger’s string, and could hear Feo prepare to leave the road as well.

A few minutes later they reached the small meadow. They dismounted and put up a remuda-line, then secured all the horses but their mounts to it.

“Will it be safe to leave them here?” Feo asked.

“In this fog?” da San-Germain responded. “Had Roger not found this place, I would never have suspected it was here.”

They remounted and went back toward the road and the bridge over the stream. When they found a place behind a boulder near the bridge, they took up their station behind it.

“Pistols,” said Roger, handing a second one to Feo, and one to da San-Germain. “Do you want the duck’s-foot, or shall I keep it?”

“Give me the long-barreled Tower and Crown flintlock, and six cords; you take the duck’s-foot,” he said, reaching out for the weapon and the restraints. “I want the escort to see what they’re facing.”

Roger gave the pistol to him, then the cords. “Do you intend to stop the coaches from the front?”

“If Feo will take the flank, and you take the rear, then I’ll put myself ahead of them, as soon as the first coach is on the bridge. The front escort won’t have got all the way across, which will block it. That sharp turn will force the coaches to slow to a walk, and once on the bridge, they won’t be able to retreat.” He tapped his mount with his heels, moving back toward the road. “I expect the coaches will be along shortly. We’ll need to be in position before then.”

“Should we stay mounted?” Feo asked.

Da San-Germain nodded. “Yes; you don’t want to scramble into the saddle and try to block the escorts all at once.”

“But if these horses should whinny, they could give us away.” Feo had raised his voice to be heard, and could barely make out the gesture da San-Germain gave to quiet him.

“Speak softly. Our voices are more of a danger than a whinny,” da San-Germain said in an undervoice. “There are other horses along the road, and the Guards will pay no attention to any sound our horses make.”

Concealing his annoyance, Feo whispered, “I’ll get on the other side of the road, near the turn.”

“I’ll cross the bridge and move back into the brush. Remember to pull your hat down, so they won’t see your features.” Da San-Germain watched Feo move off, then gave a quick sign to Roger, indicating that he was ready for what was to come. For nearly half an hour they waited in silence, the dank cold seeping into them, their horses fretting occasionally; da San-Germain’s thoughts wandered back to another bridge, in the Audiencia de Peru, and Acana Tupac, a memory he turned away from in favor of an afternoon, not quite fifty years before, when he and Madelaine had talked on a bridge, when she had learned more of his true nature. He let this hold his attention until there were the first sounds of the approaching coaches and their escorts. At once he shifted his mind to his present task: he moved in the saddle, readying his mare to bound out in front of the Guards riding in the lead; he drew his English pistol and pulled his hat lower on his brow.

The lead horses were moving at a walk—anything faster would not be safe on such a poor road in the fog; the rest of the Guards were holding to the same pace, the postilions concentrating on the road while the Guards worked to maintain their formation. The center lead Guard held a lantern, which cast a soft, unsteady glow on the deep ruts and rendered the night darker by comparison, and all three coaches had lanterns on either sides of their vehicles. The first coach was two horse-lengths behind the three Guards, the postilion on the on-side lead struggling to stay in the saddle as the coachman pulled the four mincing horses in for the slope and the turn; the off-side wheeler sank above the pastern in mud, and the coachman tugged on the reins to keep the horse from falling.

“There’s more mud. The road’s softer!” the postilion for the front coach called out to the coachman on the box behind him.

The coachman cursed by the Devil and his imps. “Be careful, Houle,” he ordered the postilion. “All we need now is a broken wheel, or a crippled horse.”

Da San-Germain could see Feo move a little closer, pistol in hand, reins in his teeth. He watched him as closely as he watched the escort and coaches, fearing that Feo might do something impetuous. He sensed Madelaine’s nearness, and her fear.

The first three riders were on the bridge, paying more attention to the coach behind them trying to negotiate the turn onto the bridge than they were to their own progress. This was what da San-Germain had been waiting for: he clapped his heels to the mare’s sides, pulled in her head, and felt her jump onto the road, coming to a jarring halt, his pistol directed at the lead Guard. “Hands up!” he ordered in a strong German accent. “At once!”

The lead Guard stared at him, then flung the lantern at da San-Germain; it fell short of him and went out just as Roger and Feo emerged from their cover.

“What do you want?” the lead Guard asked, the slight tremor in his voice revealing his fear.

“Your prisoners. All of them.” Da San-Germain swung around in his saddle and fired at the lead postilion, who had just drawn a pistol; the man cried out, dropped his weapon, and clung to the neck of the horse he was riding. “Toss down your weapons. I don’t want to have to shoot more of you, but if you insist…” He let the words fade so that the Guards could consider their situation. “Pistols, guns, knives, the lot. Throw them down now.”

Most of the Guards complied, some more reluctantly than others. Feo noticed one of the Guards riding between the first and second coaches had only pretended to drop his weapon. “You, too, Guard,” he ordered, preparing to fire.

The Guard swore, but flung his pistol away from him. “There.”

Roger, at the rear of the group, rode up behind the three Guards at the back, and, pulling several lengths of heavy cording from his pommel D-ring, soon tied the hands of the Guards before ordering them to dismount. As soon as they were on the road, Roger took their horses in charge, then went to open the door of the rear coach. “If you want to live, get out,” he said.

Just as the eight men began to descend from the rear coach, the lead Guard charged da San-Germain, yelling and waving his arms to frighten the mouse-colored mare; remembering the ostler’s warning, da San-Germain used his lower legs to hold the mare in place while he drew one of the two franciscas from under his cincture and flicked it in the direction of the lead Guard. The little knife caught him on the side of the face, slicing into his cheek and removing his earlobe.

The Guard bellowed, trying to turn his horse around in the confines of the bridge; his horse reared, and the Guard fell backward into the stream. The two Guards riding with him backed their horses away from where he had fallen. There were shouts coming from inside the first coach, demands to know what was going on.

“Gui, are you all right?” one of the two mounted Guards called down over the bridge-rail.

Da San-Germain caught the lead Guard’s horse as the animal attempted to bolt, and held him in, calming him.

A sputtering cry came from the stream, and was met by a hesitant cheer from the prisoners who were now out of the rear coach, and more exclamations from the first coach, where the coachman on the first coach started to climb down from his box, shouting, “We’ll get you out, Gui!”

“Stay where you are,” da San-Germain ordered him.

“He’ll freeze if we don’t get him out,” the coachman said, stopping as soon as he reached the surface of the bridge.

“Secure the hands of these two first,” said da San-Germain. “Then you may go alone to pull him out of the stream, if he’s unable to manage that for himself.” The thrashing from the water, accompanied by coughs and obscenities, grew more purposeful. “Here are some cords,” he said, holding out a few.

The coachman took them, and went to tie the Guards’ hands. “What about the postilion?” he asked.