“Is it . . . ?”
“Yes, over.”
Dürer exhaled and opened the door.
“Get dressed,” Dismas said. He left Dürer to his wardrobing and went back to the others.
Markus said, “What if Rostang doesn’t go for it?”
“Then, Markus, we will die.”
Dismas’s legs went out from under him. Markus caught him and put him in a chair.
“We have to stop the bleeding.”
Markus went to the kitchen and shortly emerged with a red-hot poker. He summoned Unks.
“Hold him.”
Unks gripped Dismas’s head. Markus pushed the tip of the poker into the hole in Dismas’s cheek. Dismas passed out and awoke to the smell of roasted flesh.
Markus held out an open palm with one of Paracelsus’s Papaver balls.
“For the pain.”
Dismas shook his head.
They heard a rumble of carriage wheels and hooves on cobblestone. Dismas peered cautiously from the window. Caraffa.
There came a second carriage behind his, with a large trunk strapped to the rear. Dismas counted the riders. Thirty. Caraffa’s bodyguard, his truppa elite.
Dismas went to Dürer’s room. Dürer was dressed now, sitting at his table, the dispatch before him. He looked miserable and pale.
“It’s time, Nars. You know what to say.”
“Yes,” Dürer said. “And when Rostang has me thrown into the dungeon, what shall I say then?”
“Well, he’s a decent old thing. And Charles is Charles the Good. You could appeal to their Christian sense of mercy. Offer to be his court painter. Who knows? You could become the greatest painter in all Savoy.”
Dürer picked up the dispatch. It was sealed, like the other, with the archdeacon’s seal of office.
The two men stared at each other awkwardly, knowing this was likely their last meeting.
“God be with you, Nars.”
“He’d better be.”
At the door, Dürer turned. “Dis.”
“Yes?”
“Get her back.”
48
The Bridge
Dismas, Markus, and Unks left by the Porte Recluse and turned north toward Aix.
They rode hard, spurring their mounts bloody. They kept to the Rue du Bois, the forest road that paralleled the main one. It was imperative they intercept Caraffa before he joined up with Urbino’s train and its hundreds of cavalry and foot soldiers. After that, he would be unassailable. They had to reach the bridge before he did.
The forest road was rough, and tricky work by night, but being on horseback they had the advantage of speed over Caraffa’s carriage. In every other way, the advantage was his.
They made the bridge in under two hours. The horses were nearly dead. Dismas guessed they were less than a half hour ahead of Caraffa.
They left Unks to examine the bridge while they searched for a perch for Markus and his crossbows. There was a group of boulders about fifty yards from the bridge. Beyond them was a dry riverbed and some bushes where they could conceal the horses.
“Is the range too far?”
Markus gave him a rebuking look.
“I wasn’t trying to insult you.”
They left their weapons at the boulders and went to assist Unks at the bridge.
He was grunting with exertion, trying to pull up one of the planks by himself. The bridge was of the kind they’d crossed the day they entered Chambéry: the Italian design, with the planks that could be pulled up to stall an advancing army.
They hitched a rope to one of the horses and pulled up enough planks to make the bridge impassable. With luck, if Caraffa and his train were moving fast in the dark, they might not see the gap in time. They toppled the planks into the waters of the Leysse and watched them flow downstream and washed up against a sandbar.
They returned to the boulders and took up their position. Markus assembled the three crossbows. He reviewed with Dismas and Unks the machinery of the cranequins and the loading, then laid out his bolts neatly on a flattened roll of leather.
“If they come before first light”—Markus shrugged—“I’m good, but I can’t see in the dark.”
Unks proposed that he conceal himself beneath the bridge with two “pomegranates,” as he called the bombs. When Caraffa’s carriage halted, he would toss them inside.
Dismas shook his head. “Magda might be in the carriage with him.”
“I thought you said she was in the trunk.”
“We don’t know for sure, Unks. He might . . .” He didn’t wish to complete the thought.
“Then I’ll look inside first. And if she’s not in there with him, in they go.”
“You’ll be surrounded. They’ll cut you to pieces. There are thirty of them, Unks.”
“I wish there were fifty.”
“Too risky. And, if it’s dark, how will you know who’s in the carriage? We’ll decide later. If he comes after first light . . . then maybe.”
Unks nodded.
Dismas said, “Once Caraffa realizes what’s happening, you know what he will do.”
Dismas had a clear image of the scene: Caraffa holding Magda with a knife to her throat. What then? Pray Markus could kill him at this distance, without killing Magda? Pray he was the second coming of Wilhelm Tell?
“If she’s in the trunk, and they move to get her,” Markus said, “I’ll make it cost them.”
Dismas tried to imagine how it would play out. It was dark, pomegranates were unreliable, Caraffa’s elite wouldn’t just sit still while Markus leisurely porcupined them. Everything depended on Dürer.
And that was . . . Dismas slumped against a boulder, immensely weary.
“Once it starts,” Markus said, “they’ll organize themselves quickly. I’ll get as many as I can. But they’ll come at us, hard.” He grinned. “Remember, at Cerignola? When d’Alègre called retreat, and the fucking jinetes still came at us?”
“Must we relive Cerignola now, Markus?”
“I’m only trying to cheer you up. We survived Cerignola.”
“Thank you for this encouragement.”
The three of them sat in silence. There was nothing left to say. It was cold. Dismas’s cheek hurt very much. He thought of Magda, of what she must be enduring, bound, inside a trunk, bouncing along a rough road; or enduring a hell of a different kind, inside the carriage, prelude to a hell even worse. He forgot his own pain.
Dismas opened his eyes and looked up at the sky to say a prayer. He saw the first traces of the new day turning the sky pink over the Bauges. His last dawn? No matter. That would be settled before the sun, now casting warming rays on the soft hills above, sank tonight beneath the foothills of the Jura. Dismas watched as the sky lightened, feeling a strange calm. He wanted to sleep. Then came a thunder of hooves from the south, on the Aix road.
49
Suggestions, Gentlemen?
There was no need to whisper at such a distance. They did so out of soldiers’ habit.
“In this light, they’ll see the gap.”
“Yes,” Markus said. “But now there’s light for me. Keep me loaded.”
Unks lit his fuse. His pomegranates lay next to him in two rows.
Four horsemen preceded Caraffa’s carriage, two and two. The light was faint. They didn’t see the gap until too late. The two in front reined up sharply but the hooves skidded on the dew-slick wood and slid forward into the gap. They went through into the water.
The two horses behind stopped in time, but the four carriage horses behind them crashed into them, pushing them forward into the gap. The carriage driver braked to a halt. The four riders who’d gone into the river flailed as they made for the riverbank.
Markus murmured to his targets. Dismas had forgotten this habit of his.
“Come on . . . out of the carriage . . . Don’t you want to see what’s happening? Come on, signore.”
But Caraffa did not emerge. The chaos in front of the carriage gave way
to discipline in the rear, as two lines of riders advanced forward, forming a shield on both sides of the carriage.
“Neatly done,” Markus said. “Sure they’re Italian? All right, fellows. Want to be orderly? Let’s be orderly.”
Markus fired. A soldier dropped to the ground off his horse.
“Only twenty-nine to go. Weapon.”
Dismas handed him the loaded crossbow and gave the spent one to Unks to reload. Unks rotated the cranequin deftly and quickly. The string drew back taut and snapped into the catch.
Markus fired. Another man fell.
“Twenty-eight.”
Caraffa’s men were pointing in various directions, trying to locate the attacker’s position.
“It won’t take them long,” Markus murmured, aiming. “We must make the best of it.” He fired. “Twenty-seven.”
Caraffa’s men were pointing now at the boulders.
“Unks, ready,” Dismas said. “Wait till they’re close.”
Six riders charged. Markus dropped two. When the four others were in range, Unks stood and hurled his pomegranates. They sailed through the air, fuses leaving a cindery comet trail. The riders, intent on their charge, didn’t see them.
After the blasts, there was a sickly silence and choking clouds of smoke. Then cries of wounded men and beasts. As always it was the cries of the horses that tugged at the heart. Why? Dismas wondered.
Taking advantage of the stunned confusion, Markus got off two more shots toward the carriage.
“Twenty-three.”
Caraffa’s men were now dismounting and scrambling for cover. A voice came from inside the carriage, livid and commanding. Caraffa. Dismas listened.
“Markus, the trunk!”
Two men were approaching it, covering their movement behind the carriages. Markus fired. A man went down on the ground, screaming and clutching at the bolt embedded in his shin. A remarkable shot.
Markus aimed again. The second man fell writhing, a bolt in his ankle.
“Twenty-one.”
“Do you ever miss, Markus?”
“You asked me that on the Rhine.”
Caraffa’s voice again came from inside the carriage, more furious, shouting commands.
Six of his men remounted and rode directly away from their attackers, protected by the carriage.
“Cowards,” Unks said. “Look how they flee!”
“No,” Dismas said. “They’re flanking us.”
When the riders had put themselves beyond the range of Markus’s crossbow, they turned ninety degrees to the right.
Another six now rode away in a similar maneuver. When they were out of range, they turned ninety degrees to the left.
Dismas looked behind toward the dry riverbed and bushes where the horses were tethered.
“They’ll come at us from behind, there. Suggestions, gentlemen?”
Unks put his pomegranates into a sack and slung it—gently—over his shoulder, lit fuse in his other hand.
“Let them approach,” he said. “Pretend to surrender. Like that day in the forest. Put up your hands. Then quick-quick, down.”
Unks ran off.
“Well, let’s not waste time,” Markus said. He aimed at the carriage, searching for targets. “Now that we know she’s in the trunk and not the carriage, let’s see if we can make Signore Caraffa shit his fine breeches.”
Markus fired. The rear window of the carriage shattered. From inside came a shriek, but one of surprise, not pain.
Markus mimicked an excretory sound.
Dismas looked behind. The first group of riders was approaching the riverbed in a wide circle, keeping out of crossbow range.
The attackers now emerged from the riverbed and made for the boulders, swords out, charging.
“Look scared. Put down the crossbow and stand, arms in the air.”
Dismas and Markus held up their hands in surrender. The sight of charging cavalry made Dismas long for his halberd.
Markus saw it first: a small, round object with a bright little sizzling yellow tail, spinning. Up it went, then downward in a parabola.
“Down!”
Dismas and Markus hugged the earth.
The air ripped, as if torn. A blizzard of glass splinters tinked against the rocks behind them. They lifted their heads and looked out across the smoking field. Another piteous cacophony of beast and men. Four men lay dead. The other two rolled about, clutching their faces.
“Seventeen,” Markus said.
The second group of riders halted a hundred yards away, deciding a course of action.
Had they spotted Unks in the bushes?
“Stay on the trunk,” Dismas told Markus. “Caraffa will be in a rage by now. Sure, he’ll try for it again.”
The six horsemen had now formed a plan. They fanned out, keeping a distance from one another as they spurred their mounts toward the boulders. Unks wouldn’t be able to get more than two with one bomb.
He emerged from his cover and hurled his pomegranate at the closest rider, sealing his fate. Three horsemen wheeled and charged him.
“Down!”
Dismas grabbed the back of Markus’s coat and yanked him down.
The bomb exploded, killing rider and horse. Two riders charged at Dismas and Markus. The other three had reached Unks and were hacking at him with swords.
Markus fired from his hip, dropping one horse. Its rider pitched forward but expertly rolled and came up, sword in hand.
Dismas faced the other. He sidestepped and swung his sword, missing. The rider wheeled and charged again. His sword caught Dismas on the shoulder. But when he turned to finish him, Dismas swung with his blade and knocked him off the horse.
The other was now flailing away at Markus, who deflected blows with his crossbow. Dismas ran at Markus’s attacker from the side, screaming to distract him. The man turned to confront Dismas. In the next instant he went down, a bolt in the side of his skull.
Fourteen.
Dismas looked toward the bushes. Two of the three horses were riderless. The third rider was slumped forward in his saddle, clutching his arm.
Unks?
“Stay on the trunk,” Dismas said. He ran to the bushes.
He found Unks in the bushes, on his back, neck and chest sliced open. They were mortal wounds.
He knelt and put his hand on Unks’s shoulder. Unks nodded.
Dismas picked up the still-lit fuse and ran back to Markus.
“Unks?”
Dismas shook his head.
Markus pointed. “See how the carriage is tilting? Caraffa’s having a conference with his boys through the window. They don’t want to expose their legs—for which I cannot blame them—so they’re standing on the running board.” Markus raised his crossbow and fired.
The bolt went through the center window. A body dropped to the ground on the other side of the carriage. Legs appeared, scampering and hopping madly like crickets, going for cover behind the rocks. The carriage wobbled and righted.
“Count?” Markus asked.
“Thirteen.”
The rider Unks had wounded now reached the carriage. His comrades pulled him from the saddle.
“That’s not good for us,” Dismas said. “He’ll tell them we are only two. They will make another charge, I think.”
“I wonder if they’re eager to charge.”
“Caraffa will be giving them a choice. Charge, or be thrown into a pool of lampreys. Or whatever they do in Urbino to make an example of shirkers.”
Markus cranked the two remaining crossbows. Dismas balanced two bombs in the crook of his arm, fuses in the other.
“Here they come.”
Six, spread out in a wide semicircle.
Markus dropped one rider.
Dismas lit the fuses of both bombs. He tossed them, one after another. Two more riders went down in a vicious hail of glass splinters.
Ten.
Markus fired his last bolt.
Nine.
The two remaini
ng attackers had now reached the boulders. Markus defended himself with his crossbow as before. Dismas threw himself under his attacker’s horse, but as he tried to rise, became entangled in the horse’s hind legs. The horse came down on him.
He felt all the air being squeezed out of him. His eyes bulged as if they might burst from his skull. The animal thrashed and kicked. Everything went black.
50
Why, Hammering?
Dismas opened his eyes.
He looked up at the sky. It was a fine, brilliant blue. Into his view above came Caraffa. He felt a sharp blow between his legs and gasped. He tried to cover his groin but his hands could not move.
He became aware of the sound of hammering. Why, hammering?
When he opened his eyes again, Caraffa was no longer there. He twisted his head to see. There was Markus, next to him. He was stripped to the waist, hands and feet tied to stakes. Ah, so this was why he could not move his own hands.
Now came a sound, a woman. Lamentation. Weeping. He lifted his head.
Magda. Alive, God be thanked. She was tied to the wheel of Caraffa’s carriage.
“Magda!”
“Dismas!”
Caraffa appeared again and there came another painful blow to his groin. Dismas gasped.
More hammering. Were they making coffins?
Dismas craned to see in the direction of the hammering. He saw the two men who were making the noise. He craned some more. They were hammering at planks from the bridge. Were they repairing the bridge? But you had only to slip the planks back in. The whole idea was for the planks to be removable.
He was not thinking clearly. He understood this. He remembered now being crushed by the horse. Perhaps it had squeezed too much blood into his brain.
Again he heard Magda. She was pleading. For him.
Caraffa’s face appeared above Dismas again. No longer scowling. Smiling. Not a warm smile, but a smile, still.
“Master Dismas. You are awake. That’s good. You mustn’t sleep through this. We cannot have that. No, no.”
“Magda.”
“She’s over there. In a moment, you will have a much better view of her. Yes. What can I get you? Something to drink? Some vinegar and gall, perhaps?”
The Relic Master Page 30
