The Rising Storm rb-3

by Dennis Wheatley

His first movement beat down his antagonist's blade, the second pierced his right side. But the force of the man's own thrust had not been fully spent. His sword entered Roger's boot above the ankle, tore through the tendons on the inner side of his foot, came out at the back of the boot and buried its point in the flank of his mare.

  As she whinnied with pain, and reared in an attempt to throw him, Roger caught a glimpse of his enemy. His face had suddenly gone deathly white beneath his mask and his sword had fallen from his hand. Next second Roger's mare lowered her head, dragging fiercely at the reins, lifted it again, and plunged wildly forward down the hill.

  Roger still held his drawn sword in one hand; his other was weakened from the first wound he had received. His instep, too, was now paining him so severely that he could no longer exert the full grip of his right knee on the saddle. As the mare dashed down the slope it was all he could do to keep his balance.

  In an effort to check her wild career he hauled on the reins, but all he succeeded in doing was to pull her head round slightly to the left. Leaving the road, she galloped through the clearing among the trees out on to the open heath.

  For over a quarter of a mile he fought to regain control of her, while she avoided ditches and foxholes only by a miracle. His efforts gradually became weaker and he realized that he was powerless to do anything until she slowed down of her own accord. Suddenly she stumbled, recovered, shivered violently; then, without warning, fell to her knees, pitching him forward over her head.

  He let go the reins and flung out both hands in an attempt to save himself. His left arm doubled under him, his forehead struck the hilt of his out-thrust sword, and the blow knocked him unconscious.

  It was some time before he came to; but when he did the pain from his wounds swiftly brought back to him .the events which had led to his having been flung there, face downward in the young bracken. After a moment he raised himself on his good elbow and turned over. As he moved his injured foot the stab of pain from it was so acute that he gasped and shut his eyes. When he opened them he realized that it was now nearly dark.

  Gingerly settling himself a trifle more comfortably he looked about him. He was lying in a shallow-bottomed gully, so he could not see more than half a dozen yards in any direction; but a faint, pinkish-orange glow breaking the dark night sky over his right shoulder told him that he was facing south-east, so the road must be somewhere in his rear.

  From that he judged that his pull on the left-hand rein of the mare must have brought her round nearly in a half-circle before she threw him. Anxiously he looked to right and left in search of her; then screwed his head round as far as it would go. There she was, immediately behind him, about three yards away on the slope of the gully. She was lying quite still on her side, with her near hind leg sticking stiffly out at an angle. The light was still just sufficient for him to see a dark pool on the ground in front of her where the blood had poured from the wound in her neck. One glance was enough to tell him that she was dead.

  He wondered what the devil he was going to do now. Night was fast approaching and he doubted very much if he could stagger even as far as the road. His head, foot and arm were all hurting him abominably. From the latter he had lost quite a lot of blood, and it was still bleeding. If he could not get his wounds attended to he might quite well die of weakness and cold before morning.

  The coach had driven off; but even had he believed it to be still in the vicinity he would not have dared to shout for help. He thought that he had rendered three of the rogues hors de combat, but he was by no means certain. The wound of the man he had run through the side might be only superficial. Then there was the fellow whose horse had bolted with him after being shot in the buttocks by the footman. Either or both might still be quite close by. They would be furious with anger at the wrecking of their plan, and thirsting for vengeance. If the} found him in his present helpless state it was a certainty that they would murder him.

  Nevertheless he knew that he must get help somehow. All over France wolves still abounded. In winter they often invaded villages and. made fierce by hunger, attacked men as well as women and children. Even now, when they had retired to their lairs in the higher ground, they still came down to roam the more desolate areas at night in search of stray cattle. Weakened as he was he knew with a horrid sinking feeling that he might easily fall a prey to them.

  He felt that whatever pain it cost him he must somehow manage to crawl back to the roadside, as only there would he have any chance to attract the attention of some late passer-by. To do that was to risk an encounter with one of the highwaymen, but it was a gamble that had to be taken. To remain lying where he had fallen was to invite death, and perhaps a horrible death, in a ditch.

  Turning over on his stomach he got slowly to his knees. Then he began to crawl forward, dragging his wounded foot behind him. He had not covered more than four feet when it knocked against a stone. The spasm of agony that went through him was so acute that he nearly fainted.

  For a moment he lay there dizzy and helpless. As he did so the monstrous ill-luck of which he had been the victim came to his mind again. But for that chance encounter he would by now be dining in the warmth and comfort of the inn at Nevers. By interfering in someone else's quarrel, he had had his mare killed, was grievously wounded and likely to die himself.

  Suddenly he began to curse, loud, long and fluently, in English, French and German. Then, as he paused at last from lack of breath, a soft voice just behind him said:

  "Hush, Monsieur, I pray! That is no language to use in the presence of a lady."

  Jerking round his head he stared up at the cloaked and hooded figure of a woman. It was now too dark to see her face, but he would have known that voice anywhere. It was that of Isabella d'Aranda.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  THE ROAD TO THE SOUTH

  ROGER drew a hand wearily across his eyes. He could only suppose that the state to which he had been reduced had sent him temporarily off his head, and that he was suffering from an hallucination. But the cloaked figure ran down the bank, sank in a flurry of skirts beside him, and grasped his hands. He caught a heady whiff of the scent of gardenias, and the soft voice came again.

  "Mon brave Chevalier! Thank God that I have found you! Are you gravely hurt? Oh, I pray that your wounds be not serious!"

  "I have no vital injury," Roger croaked, "though I am in some pain and weak from loss of blood. But by what miracle can it be you who have come to my assistance, Senorita?"

  " 'Twas my coach that you protected from those villains. I leant out of the window and recognized you, but you were much too heavily engaged to see me. When we drove off and you failed to follow I felt sure you must be wounded. Pedro, my footman, confirmed my fears. He said the last glimpse he had of you was being carried away by your horse on to the heath. So we returned to search for you."

  Still greatly puzzled, Roger murmured: "I thought you on your way to Spain."

  But she was no longer listening to him; she had stood up and was calling to her servants. There came an answering shout and from the gathering shadows Pedro emerged. He was accompanied by a buxom, fat-faced maid, whom Isabella addressed as Maria, and in addition to his blunderbuss he carried a lantern. By its light the two young women examined Roger's wounds, exclaiming in sympathy and gabbling away to one another in Spanish while they attended to his arm and head. Both had bled copiously, making him a horrid sight, but his arm had been no more than laid open by the bullet and the skin of his forehead only torn where it had struck the rim of his sword-hilt. He was much more worried about his instep, which they had not so far noticed. When he pointed it out to the Senorita, she exclaimed:

  "Alas, yet another wound! And to get at it your boot will have to be cut off. But there is little blood and that about the slits where the sword passed through is dry already. I think we had best get you to the coach now, and so to Nevers, where you can receive proper treatment."

  Taking the lantern from Pedro she told him what she
wished done. With the assistance of the two women the big Spaniard hoisted Roger across his shoulders; Isabella then led the way with the light and Maria, supporting Roger's bad foot to prevent it from bumping, brought up the rear. Fortunately it was no great distance to the road and after five minutes' puffing and grunting Pedro lowered his heavy burden on to the back seat of the coach.

  It was a huge vehicle and could have held eight people comfortably. In the other back-seat corner sat the old woman he had seen hauled out of it, and next to her was Quetzal. Although the roof of the coach was piled high with luggage, most of its front seat was also occupied with packages of all sorts and sizes; so Maria, still supporting Roger's foot, squatted on the floor, while Isabella sat down between him and her Indian.

  Having sent Pedro to fetch Roger's sword, saddlery, valise and bedroll from the back of his dead mare, Isabella said: "Monsieur de Breuc, I wish to present you to the Senora Poeblar. The Senora was my governess until I entered the service of Madame Marie Antoinette, and recently undertook the long journey from Spain in order to act as my companion when I left the Court of France."

  Roger was in no state to make graceful compliments, but the Senora made up for the brevity of his greeting by breaking into a spate of Spanish, and when she had done Quetzal added a few phrases.

  "The Senora thanks you for having rescued us, Monsieur," Isabella interrupted. "She is desolated at not being able to do so in a language you understand; but during her previous sojourn in France she hardly left our Embassy, so she knows only a few words of French. Quetzal also thanks you. He calls you Monsieur Blue-Eyes, and says that later he will give you a red feather to wear in your hair, because that is a mark given to especially brave men in his country to distinguish them from others."

  With an effort Roger murmured his appreciation; but to speak at all made worse the throbbing of his head, so he was much relieved when Pedro had fetched his things, and the coach set off.

  Fortunately, Nevers being a place of some size, the inn there was a good one, and before the hold-up Isabella had already sent her outrider ahead to secure the best accommodation at it. Roger was carried in, made as comfortable as possible on Isabella's own travelling mattress, and a chirurgeon was sent for.

  Even when the boot had been slit down, getting the injured foot out of it proved a most painful business, but the result of the chirurgeon's examination was reassuring. He said that all use of the foot would greatly retard its healing, so he meant to encase it in plaster in the morning; but that if it was kept rigid for from two to three weeks he thought that the patient would be able to walk again without developing a permanent limp.

  Isabella, the plump, fat-faced Maria and the old Senora were all present at the conference and all three of them assisted the chirurgeon to wash and bandage their hero's wounds. Flattered as Roger might have been had he felt more his normal self, he now wished fervently that they would go away with the doctor and leave him in peace; but he knew there was no hope of that. He had been carried up to the largest room in the hostelry, which Isabella's outrider had reserved for her and her women, and clearly they had no thought of going to another. Maria began to lay the table for supper with her mistress's travelling cutlery, and an inn servant brought up two screens for them to undress behind afterwards.

  When the meal arrived the two ladies and Quetzal sat down to it while Maria waited upon them. They conversed only in hushed voices but every ten minutes or so Isabella could not resist asking him how he was feeling and if she could get anything for him. At length he took refuge in pretending to be asleep. But he had now become feverish, and his restless tossing brought their further ministrations upon him before they retired for the night.

  Evidently having decided that his foot was the seat of the trouble they undid the bandage. The Senora then produced a small packet of oiled silk and a square of cardboard from her medicine chest. The oiled silk contained some tacky greyish stuff that looked like dirty cobwebs, and Roger began to protest vigorously when he saw that she was about to put it on the red gash across his inflamed and swollen instep.

  He gave in only because he dared not struggle for fear of restarting the bleeding, and on receiving Isabella's assurance that this old-wives' salve was a sovereign remedy for reducing fever in angry flesh wounds; but his apprehension was hardly lessened when he saw that the piece of cardboard, which the Senora placed immediately over the salve, was a picture of St. Sebastian.

  While Isabella rebandaged his foot the Senora took a glass phial from her chest, poured some of the liquid it held into a glass and, after adding a little water, brought it over to Roger. Thinking “in for a penny in for a pound", he drank it down; but this time no further qualms assailed him, as he recognized it to be Cordial Poppy Water; and ten minutes later he dropped off to sleep.

  When he woke in the morning he felt decidedly better; and, whether he owed it to the cobwebs or the intervention of St. Sebastian, there was no doubt that the inflammation of his instep had subsided. Nevertheless, the Senora Poeblar evidently had no wish to flaunt her triumph over the chirurgeon, as she removed both before his arrival and, having done so, put her finger to her lips to enjoin secrecy on Roger.

  It was the first opportunity he had had to regard her with any attention, and as he smiled his understanding and thanks, he thought she looked rather a nice old lady. She was very swarthy and fat, but big-built and strong-limbed. Her age might have been anything between fifty and seventy, since her face was much wrinkled, but her beady eyes showed liveliness and humour. Had it not been for their smallness Roger thought that when young she would probably have passed as a beauty, for she still had good features. She was dressed entirely in black and in addition to a rosary of ebony beads her ample bosom was hung all over with a variety of sacred emblems.

  When the chirurgeon arrived he expressed himself as both surprised and gratified at the improvement in the patient's foot, but, all the same, maintained his view that it should be set in plaster. Roger had been hoping that he might now escape so crippling a treatment, but both Isabella and her duenna backed up this opinion, and as he had no wish to risk being lame for life he submitted with the best grace he could muster.

  As the day happened to be Sunday Isabella and her entire entourage would normally have attended High Mass, but she excused herself on the plea that someone must stay with Roger. In view of the invalid's still weak condition, and the unlikelihood of his committing an amorous assault on her charge with a heavy plaster cast round his foot, the Senora agreed that the conventions would not be outraged by her leaving the two young people; so at a quarter to ten she set off, taking Quetzal and all the servants with her.

  Directly they had gone Isabella made a pile of the travelling cushions near the head of Roger's bed and settled herself comfortably upon them. Taking her hand he kissed it, then smiled up into her dark eyes and said:

  "Senorita, this is the chance I have been waiting for, to thank you for coming back to search for me last night. Had you not done so I might have suffered a most horrid fate."

  She returned his smile. "Knowing that, how could I have abandoned so brave a gentleman ?"

  "Yet you ran a grave risk. You could not have known that I suc­ceeded in wounding the last two of those cut-throats; and, had I not, they might have set upon you again."

  "True, but forewarned is forearmed. They would not have found us such easy game as at the first encounter, for then they took us by surprise. On our return both Pedro and my coachman, Manuel, had their blunderbusses out ready, and I had my pistol on my lap."

  "Then, Senorita, I count you braver still, since you returned anticipating a fight and were prepared to enter it yourself."

  "Monsieur, I am a General's daughter," she said lightly, "so reared to have no fear of arms. But a truce to compliments. Pleased as I am that we should meet again, I am nonetheless surprised at it; and somewhat concerned by your apparent dilatoriness in Her Majesty's service. How comes it that having been five days on the road you ar
e got no further?"

  Roger cocked an eyebrow. "I was under the impression that Her Majesty attached more importance to the safe than the speedy delivery of her letter."

  " 'Tis true; and, in view of the injuries you have sustained, now most fortunate that should be so. I meant only that such a leisurely progress seemed most unlike the opinion I had formed of you. More­over I am still at a loss to understand how I, who have travelled but a grandmother's pace of twenty-five miles a day, should have passed you; as I must have done, seeing that you left Fontainebleau a night ahead of me."

  "That is easy to explain. Before setting out for Italy I had certain private business that required my attention in Paris; so I directed the royal carriage in which you left me, thither, and did not leave again till Tuesday morning. Therefore 'twas you who had two days plus near forty miles start of me; and although I was covering some sixty miles a day it was only last night that I caught up with you."

  She gave a not very convincing laugh and remarked: "I might have guessed that any gentleman of so dashing an appearance as Monsieur would have had tender adieux to make before departing on so long a journey."

  The way she said it, and the way her dark eyebrows drew together afterwards in a little frown, revealed more clearly than anything had yet done her feelings towards him. For an instant he was tempted to let her think her supposition correct, but his natural kindness overcame the impulse, and he said:

  "Nay, Senorita; but there were numerous invitations I had accepted, and in common politeness I could not leave without making suitable excuses to my friends; also I had to convert some of my English letters of Credit into Italian bills of Exchange, and these things are not done in a couple of hours. Yet, if you were surprised to see me again I was equally so to see you. I had thought of you as nearing Chateauroux by this time, on your way to Spain."

  "You had not forgotten me then?" She could not keep the eagerness out of her voice, and her slightly uneven teeth showed in a smile.