by Dave Duncan
The new order mixed up the groups to some extent and promoted a little more friendliness. Senora Collel and Eulalia were seen talking with the wives of Miguel and Rafael, both of whom were named Elinor. Brother Bernat rarely sought out conversation but would respond to anyone who addressed him, and even a ferocious argument on the ethics of trade between Salvador Brusi and Father Guillem could be regarded as an improvement. The don remained aloof, locked away in his own grandiose world.
Other, less conspicuous, relationships had developed also. Hamish became much given to quoting Catalan poetry and noticeably goggle-eyed in the presence of Eulalia, but his eyes goggled so easily that Toby thought nothing of it until the second morning, when he was striding along the line and Senora Collel snapped at him.
"Monsieur Longdirk!" She glared down from the giddy height of her horse-home throne.
He knew to expect trouble when she spoke French. "Madame?"
"Your companion Jaume is debauching my servant!"
"He is?" Toby shot a glance back at Eulalia, whose turn it was to ride on the other silla. She tossed her head disdainfully at him, but there was certainly a hint of triumph there also. Perhaps she understood more French than her mistress suspected. It was quite similar to Catalan.
"You are not much of a sentry if you did not see them sharing a blanket in the night!" the senora sneered.
"A sentry's job is not to spy on his friends, madame. Besides, I am quite certain my young friend has never progressed beyond holding hands in the past, so who is debauching whom? Can you say the same of her?"
And bully for Hamish! Toby would not grudge him his good fortune.
"He is taking advantage of her. The girl is simple."
"I really find that hard to credit, madame."
"Then what of Madame Gomez?"
Toby's heart skipped a beat. The senora must have seen his reaction, for she curled her hairy lip at him. "You did not know about her either?"
"I am sure that you slander the lady, madame. Besides, her tragic experiences have left her in a highly disturbed emotional state, and if you are implying that I would exploit —"
"Not you. The don."
That snotty aristocratic pervert! How dare he! "I cannot believe that they are more than friends! How can you doubt her virtue or his honor?" But Toby had wondered what the two of them found to talk about—the prospect made his mind reel. Imaginary armies or imaginary ghosts?
"They, too, share a blanket," Senora Collel announced triumphantly. Her pleasure came from seeing Toby's anger, not from outraged morality. "Gentry like him think casual seduction is a game, yes? That they have the right to defile any woman they fancy?"
"Madame Gomez is a grown woman and I am not an abbess; Nor, if I may say so, are you, madame!" Feeling his face burning under her scorn, he lengthened his stride and stalked away.
Poor, foolish Gracia! All she needed was affection to support her in her bereavement, and she was not likely to find it in the fantasy world of Don Ramon. If Toby himself developed ambitions toward her, he could do nothing about them. So why this furious urge to punch a certain arrogant stuck-up nose until it sprayed blue blood all over its ridiculous mustache?
Yes, the company was coming together, if slowly, and on that fourth morning he had some reason for optimism as he strode along the column. He also had serious worries, because the last of his food had vanished the previous evening. Father Guillem admitted that the clerics were down to their last crumbs. The devastation of the Valencian countryside had been rumored in Toledo, but none of the pilgrims had comprehended the scale of it. There were no inhabitants to offer charity, no markets in which to shop, no crops to pillage. At noon Toby would have to propose that the haves start sharing with the have-nots, but he was hard put to see the four peasants doing that, while Salvador Brusi would expect to be recompensed liberally for every lentil they wrung out of him.
The don paraded in front with his squire, followed by Josep and Father Guillem, Pepita and Brother Bernat and Gracia, then old man Brusi and his horses, Senora Collel and Eulalia riding, and the two Elinors and Thunderbolt. Hamish, Rafael, and Miguel brought up the rear. Toby mostly patrolled back and forth, exhorting, encouraging, and keeping watch for stragglers—usually Pepita, who kept running off to search for berries or butterflies. Although he approved in general of the don's disposition of forces, he always tended to loiter near the center of the group, uneasy about that vulnerable midriff.
The sun still scorched as if it were summer. The country was a melange of overgrown pasture, weed-covered fields, burned hamlets, and groves of mutilated trees, a landscape broken up by walls and hedges and imperceptible ridges, a paradise for ambushers. It seemed deserted, but that was illusion. A sharp eye could gather evidence that people had used the road recently, and at sundown thin columns of smoke wrote warnings in the sky. Distant dogs barked in the night. Whoever the inhabitants might be, they were likely to be lawless and desperate. The calm was deceptive.
Around mid-morning, catching up with Brusi, Toby said, "Senor? Have you any idea of where we are? How many days to go?"
"No." The old man was hunched in the saddle like a bundle of sticks. "We still have not crossed the Ebro. It is utterly shameful to destroy olive trees like that. It takes many, many years to grow an olive tree. The destruction of wealth is mindless criminality."
"It is more shameful to destroy people, surely."
"People can run away, olive trees cannot. How will the cities prosper when the countryside has been blighted? The Fiend has destroyed what he has won. I do not see how he hopes to drive the Tartars out of Europe when he is worse than they ever were. He must be crazy."
"His purpose is not to liberate Europe. It is to inflict as much pain and suffering as possible." Toby knew he would not be believed, but the rich man's indifference to the plight of the poor enraged him. "He enjoys tormenting his own people as much as the enemy. I doubt he would accept the Khan's surrender were it offered. He is a demon incarnate—literally. I have that on very good authority."
The prune face wrinkled up in scorn. "Good authority? You? Some drunk in a tavern, I do not doubt. And you are privy to Nevil's secret strategy? I did not realize I was in the company of an international statesman. You are a worthy flunky for the don."
Toby shrugged and scanned the trees that had provoked the discussion. "It is not easy to kill an olive, senor. They will not burn. It is hard to uproot them. Most of these will recover sooner than the people will, for it takes twenty years to make a citizen. And the ash trees have not suffered."
He pointed to the coppice on the other side of the trail, a forest of massive, shoulder-high stumps, each of which bore a crown of high vertical shoots. Coppices provided tool handles and staves for many purposes, and the rebels had been able to inflict no more damage than a normal harvesting would.
Brusi looked where he gestured, and thus both of them were facing the trap when it was sprung. Weedy undergrowth had concealed the shallow stream bed that flanked the track and also concealed the dozen or so men hiding in it. They had planned their ambush well, letting the armed vanguard go past before they leaped up, yelling to panic the horses. They charged, brandishing cudgels and a few swords, screaming as loud as they could.
The horses did panic, naturally. Brusi's roan reared, toppling him back into the confusion of the pack animals he led. By that time Toby had already dropped his bundle and dived under the flailing hooves. He cut his sword free from its rope baldric and thrust the point into an assailant even before he himself was fully upright. He tugged it from the falling body and somehow managed to dodge a whirling club wielded by a skinny youth who reeled off-balance before him, staring eyes and open mouth in a stark white face, both hands struggling to swing the cudgel up for a second blow. Toby stabbed at his neck and connected again—blood!—only vaguely aware of the screaming women and horses behind him, the crash of bodies and animals meeting branches. He parried a slash and riposted. A man with white hair ... blood!
>
The odds were impossible, because he was facing the whole assault singlehanded. His supporters at either end of the line needed time to arrive, and their progress was blocked by the melee of fallen horses and baggage. He lashed out with a foot, parried a sword, thrust his blade into a leg, and reconciled himself to dying at any second.
Then help arrived on Atropos. Ancient the warhorse might be, but he remembered his days of glory and for a few seconds made the ground tremble beneath mighty hooves. With a piercing war cry of, "King Pedro and Castile!" Don Ramon thundered down the line like a fusillade of cannon. His lance impaled a man and nailed him to another before it broke. Atropos bowled over two more and then went by, riderless. His shield still slung on his back, the ever-agile don hit the ground with his feet and a foe with his broadsword, cleaving helmet and head both. Oh, magnificent!
As the enemy faltered before this nemesis, Toby claimed another victim. The don cut yet another in half with a mighty two-handed stroke. Hamish, Rafael, and Miguel arrived from the rear, Josep and Father Guillem from the van, but by then the fight was finished and the survivors were crashing away through the coppice. The road was a litter of baggage and bodies—some dead, some wounded, not all strangers—and one injured horse. Eulalia sat in the weeds screaming hysterically. The rest of the horses had vanished into the olive grove, leaving a trail of sacks and garments. Toby bounded across the track to where Brusi's roan had entangled its reins on a branch and caught it before it broke free. He squirmed onto the saddle and prepared to go after the runaways. His last glimpse of the battlefield was of Hamish lifting Eulalia bodily to her feet and kissing her. Her screams choked off into silence.
Full gallop through an olive grove was an exciting exercise, because he had not yet managed to find the stirrups. Fortunately the rows of trees had been set wide apart so that the ground between them could be planted in grain, but branches still slashed along his back. Lying prone, he clung grimly to his mount's neck, concentrating on not dropping his sword. It was highly probable that the enemy would have posted men to catch the fleeing horses.
In moments he was through the grove and into open pasture, where the missing animals were bucking and milling, turning away from a line of people. He sat up, slid his feet into the stirrups, and put the roan into a charge at the foe. They had not expected this attack, but he saw with dismay that they were women. One of them was already wrestling with a horse, clinging to the reins and being lifted off her feet by its struggles. Howling the don's war cry—for he had none of his own—he headed straight for her, waving his sword, wondering if he could ever bring himself to cut a woman down in cold blood. She saw him coming and lost her grip on the horse. It ran free, she fell headlong, and Toby could ignore her. The others had already taken to their heels.
He rounded up the little herd, being aided by a timely whinny from the don's warhorse, which drew them in the right direction. Doña Francisca appeared on her pony and waved cheerfully. Between them, the two riders drove the stock back to the trail.
The emergency was over. A victory, he supposed. His greatest relief was that the hob had stayed out of it.
He had not been away for long, and the scene on the road had changed very little. The ground was still littered with baggage, and someone had put Senora Collel's packhorse out of its misery, but it was the litter of human corpses that appalled him. Only then did he understand how he had come to be so splattered with blood, his right arm especially, soaked to the elbow. His eyes shied away from counting the bodies and fixed instead on the circle of pilgrims. They were kneeling before Father Guillem as he declaimed words of comfort. Brother Bernat stood in the background with his head bowed.
Toby slid from his saddle and hitched the roan to a tree. His legs were curiously shaky. He stalked over to the group, arriving as the brief ceremony ended and the mourners rose to their feet. He stared in disbelief at the body, was conscious of everybody's eyes turning to look at him and odd murmurs that he could not take time to understand.
"How did that happen?" he said stupidly. He could not recall any of the enemy getting past him.
It was Josep who answered, a chalk-faced Josep with water on his cheeks and eyes like festering wounds. "He was thrown, senor."
Broken neck? Heart failure? The Council of One Hundred was down to ninety-nine. The rich man was a dead man, and all his wealth could not save him from that.
"I ... Oh friend, I'm sorry!" Toby transferred his sword to his left hand and had started to offer his right before he realized that it was bright red and still sticky. He pulled it back hastily.
Josep nodded, smiled faintly in acknowledgment, and walked away as if he wanted to be alone.
"Captain!"
Toby jumped and turned to the don. He faced a man almost as blood-soaked as himself, but one who looked inches taller and years younger than usual. The blue eyes blazed with triumph and boyish glee. "A redoubtable passage of arms, Captain! Give me your sword!"
"What?" How many bodies? Eight? Nine? Spirits, but most of them were only boys, younger than himself. Three were silver-haired oldsters. The starving, desperate survivors of some community bereft of its fighting men.
A hand tried to take his sword, and Toby swung it away defensively. "What?"
"Kneel!" proclaimed the don.
"What?"
"Give me your sword and kneel! Here on this glorious field, I shall gird thee with the belt of knighthood, Sir Tobias! Such feats of valor and prowess as we have rarely seen shall not —"
Toby's temper exploded like a peal of thunder. "Don't play your stupid games with me!" he roared. "This wasn't valor and prowess, it was bloody murder! Look at them! They weren't soldiers. Half of them were only kids. Brusi's dead, Josep's father. You promised. You took his—"
He stopped himself just in time, seeing the instant change in the caballero's face, the coiling surge of madness. No, the don had not taken Brusi's money. His mother had, and he refused to know that. In any case, the old man's death had been an accident, so Toby was being unfair. But gleeful boy had become furious man already, reaching for his sword, and that would be a fight Toby could never win.
He bowed curtly. "Your pardon, senor. When we arrive at our destination there will be time enough for honors. Now we must ... With respect, senor, the baggage must be collected and redistributed on the horses. The enemy may return. If the caballero will excuse me, I shall make arrangements for the burial and reorganize the train." He turned his back on the don's quivering rage and looked around the pale faces. "Anyone injured?"
"Senora de Gomez," Hamish said. What was wrong with Hamish? He'd seen violent death before, so why did he look like that? "She was badly shaken by her fall, but ... but Brother Bernat healed her, Toby." His face was saying more than his words were. "Nobody else. Just bruises and scratches."
"Healed her? Oh. Well, that's good." Something else to think about. Meanwhile they must bury the old man, gather up their litter, and move on, although he doubted there would be any reprisals after such a massacre. The survivors would come and bury their own dead. "Manuel, Rafael—either of you know anything about butchering?"
They both shook their heads, but that meant little, and he could do it himself if necessary. The food problem had been solved for the time being. They could eat horse today and tomorrow and every day until it began to rot.
2
"We owe our lives to you, Senor Toby," Josep said solemnly. He was walking, leading his two packhorses, because he had given his father's roan to Senora Collel to replace hers. "Without you we should have lost all the livestock, and then none of us could ever reach Barcelona."
"That is nonsense!" Toby had explained this four times already to other people and apparently had to explain it again. "It was the don who saved the day, not me. Without him, I was about to die. Without me, he would still have beaten them. He is the finest fighting man I have ever seen—he put a destrier at full gallop through a riot like a seamstress sliding a needle through cloth."
&nb
sp; "You killed more men than he did."
"I had more time."
"He had a horse and a lance."
"Honestly, that made very little difference. He is a fighter, I'm just a big lad. Josep, this I swear—if you matched up the two us with the same arms, he would skin me as nimbly as he skinned the horse!"
The don had attended to the butchery, asserting that the dead animal was the handsomest ten-point stag he had seen in years and explaining all the time to his helpers, the two Elinors, the joys of hunting boar. Fortunately, they would have understood little of his Castilian. Mad or not, he was as skilled with a skinning knife as he was with a broadsword.
Josep smiled disbelievingly. "I do not know on what terms Don Ramon hired you that morning we met, senor, but when I pay him off at my door, I shall give you the same amount I give him, and gladly. My father's death is not to be laid to the fault of either of you."
Toby swallowed a twinge of pride he could not afford and thanked him for this unwarranted generosity. He and Hamish might not starve in the gutters of Barcelona after all, or not immediately.
Josep shot another thin smile at him. "You think the spendthrift boy will soon fritter away the Brusi fortune. You may be right, Tobias, but I am convinced that the most valuable aid a man of business can have—apart from a reputation for honesty, of course—is a team of trustworthy employees. If you will be seeking work in Barcelona, I shall outbid anyone else for your services."
"The senor requires a strong porter?"
The thin boyish face flushed scarlet. "That was not what I meant! Many of our workers have fled or were slain in the fighting and must be replaced. I will make you foreman in our warehouse without a moment's hesitation. Do you wish to discuss wages now?"
