Tallie's Knight (28 page)

Tallie heaved a sigh
of relief when they came to the top of the pass and stopped for a break of
perhaps a minute or two. The view was superb. In every direction lay mountain
peaks —some glittering with snow— sharp against the crisp vivid blue of the
sky. On one side of them was France, down there somewhere below was Italy, and
across in the distance were the peaks of Switzerland. It was a moment to remember,
she thought excitedly, a moment to tell her children. She laid her hand on her
flat stomach, marvelling, still unable to believe that there was a baby growing
inside her.

With a sudden jolt,
she found herself on the move again, this time at a breathtaking pace. The
bearers ran, rather than walked, taking tiny little steps where the path was
most perilous and great bounding strides when it levelled out or widened.

Tallie clung on like
grim death, bouncing and swaying.

Finally they came to
a tiny village, which clung to the side of the mountains in apparent
impossibility. The panting porters set down the litters and one of them came
forward to lift her out. She looked for her husband. He was still in his
litter. She hurried over on stiff legs.

“Magnus was that not
the most terrifyingly thrill… Magnus, are you all right?”

His face was
death-pale, his eyes closed. He did not move.

She pulled her gloves
off and felt his forehead with her hand. Despite the chill in the air, his
forehead was hot and clammy.

“Magnus!”

Slowly he opened his
eyes.

“Oh, there you are,”
he said, and fumbled to get out of the litter. She helped him out, but when he
tried to stand he reeled, and would have fallen if one of the porters had not
grabbed him. Tallie was greatly alarmed.

“He’s ill! Is there a
physician nearby? Maguire!”

Maguire and the head
porter came over and there was a brief discussion.

“He’s ill,” Tallie
repeated. “He needs a physician. Can we take him to an inn or somewhere?”

The porter shook his
head and glanced significantly around. Tallie followed his gaze. The village
consisted of a half-dozen tiny cottages. Certainly there would be no doctor
here. Anxiety gripped her throat.

“I must get him to
the nearest physician,” she insisted.

“I’m all right,”
muttered Magnus thickly. “Just a bit woozy, that’s all.”

Tallie ignored him
and fixed the head porter with a determined stare.

“Please transport us
with all haste to the nearest place where I can get help for my husband,” she
said firmly. “At once, if you please!”

The porter nodded,
then smiled and patted her on the shoulder, saying something in a dialect that
Tallie could not understand. He called out to the others, and to her relief
they soon had a vaguely protesting Magnus safely stowed back in his litter and
were moving off down the mountain. This time Tallie saw nothing amusing in the
sight.

“Hurry,” she urged
the bearers.

The trip down the
mountainside was a nightmare to Tallie. She wished she could see how her husband
was faring, but the path was still too steep and narrow for them to go in
anything except single file. They passed several more tiny hamlets, but Tallie
didn’t even consider them. She had to get to the nearest town big enough to
support a proper physician. Whenever they slowed, even for a moment, she urged them
on.

“Hurry, oh, please
hurry!”

Finally one of the
porters pointed and mumbled something. Tallie followed the direction of his
arm. Far, far below, she could see a town, a tiny sea of terracotta rooftops
and the spire of a church. Her heart leapt. It was still a long distance away.
She nodded.

“Doctor?”

The man nodded back. “Dottore.”

Tallie caught her
breath.

“Oh, thank the Lord.
Now, please hurry.”

The men jogged
onwards. Tallie noticed nothing of the scenery; her eyes went from the bundle
that was her husband, then down to the town, then back again.

Suddenly shots rang
out. Tallie was jerked to a sudden halt. She blinked, and was almost thrown out
of her litter as her bearers dropped it. They had stopped on a corner. Above
them on both sides were steep rocks. She could see nothing ahead, nothing
behind. All around her was sudden silence.

“What is it?” she
called. “Pray, what is the matter? And why have we stopped?”

“No questions,” an
unfamiliar voice shouted in rough Italian above her.

She looked up and saw
a tall, dark-haired man with a large moustache pointing a gleaming silver
pistol in her direction. He was thin, but broad-shouldered, and dressed in a
ragged uniform; there were battered traces of dull yellow embroidery on his
jacket, which she supposed might once have looked gold. Was he a soldier? But
the war was over, surely.

There was a sudden
flurry ahead and a single shot rang out. Tallie’s heart almost stopped. Magnus!
But she could hear or see nothing. The man above called something to someone
unseen and then nimbly leaped down onto the path ahead, bringing a scattering
of small rocks down with him. Immediately a dozen more men appeared, all
dressed in some sort of uniform, one in braided trousers, another in a
waistcoat, all ragged, none of them matching. Each one of them brandished a
knife or a pistol or both.

“What is it? Who are
they?” Tallie whispered to the porter standing nearest her.

He turned to look at
her, his eyes sombre.

“Banditti,” he said.

“Banditti?” gasped
Tallie.

The porter jerked his
head significantly up to the left.

“Bad men. Live up
there.” His lip curled and he spat in scorn. “Not our people.”

More orders rang out
in dialect and the porters moved slowly forward.

The ragged collection
of armed banditti watched every move from their lofty positions on the rocks
above. The party reached a small clearing, bordered on three sides by rock
walls and on the fourth by a plunging precipice along which the narrow track
passed. It would be impossible to escape; only one person at a time could move
along that path. This was obviously a well-planned ambush.

The bandits had
already disarmed the guards and Tallie could see that two porters were injured,
although it didn’t seem as if they were badly hurt; they could still walk,
though with some difficulty. The hired guards, luckily, seemed untouched.

The tall dark man in
the ragged gold braid uttered a sharp order and two bandits with pistols
shepherded the porters and guards to a shallow cave in the rock, and forced
them to sit, hands on heads.

Tallie breathed a
sigh of relief. The bandits did not mean to kill anyone —yet.

Several ruffians
hovered over the prisoners still in their litters, a variety of firearms and gleaming
knives and stilettos pointed menacingly, while the rest fell upon the bundles
of baggage, emptying their belongings onto the mountainside with careless
greed. They removed everything of value, even Magnus’s fine leather boots.

Bundled in her litter,
Tallie waited helplessly. The bindings that had been for her security now kept
her imprisoned. She wondered how Magnus was faring, and struggled
inconspicuously to escape her bonds.

The bandit leader
thrust his silver duelling pistol through his belt and swaggered towards them.

“Aha, what have we
here?” he said in oddly accented but surprisingly urbane Italian. “A lady —no,
two ladies,” he added, lifting a rug to discover Monique cowering underneath.

“And four gentlemen.”
He glanced at the litters containing Magnus, Maguire, John Black, and
Guillaume, Magnus’s valet.

“Which one is the
English milord?” His vivid green eyes examined each man narrowly.

The English milord?
How did he know one of the travellers was an English milord? Wondered Tallie
anxiously. Their majordomo, Luigi Maguire, had stressed that they should appear
as ordinary travellers.

“Naturally, while no
foreign traveller is precisely poor,” he had said in his unique accent, “it is
not a good idea to advertise wealth, so if you will accept my advice, Lord d’Arenville,
you will travel as plain Mr. d’Arenville. Or even Mr. Smith, if you like. And
in your plainest coat and boots. Your good lady, too, in her plainest, most serviceable
gown and cloak.”

And they had taken
his eminently sensible advice. So how did this bandit know there was an English
lord in the party?

“Come, gentlemen, I
know one of you is an English milord, and a fine fat pigeon for my plucking.”

No one said a word.

The bandit leader
strode forward, and with a rough oath he dragged first Maguire, then Guillaume,
then John Black from their litters. He examined each man briefly, then thrust
them towards his men, who stripped them of any valuables they found.

Behind her Tallie
heard Monique shrieking as she was robbed of her finery. A slap rang out and a
bandit laughed. John Black swore in a litany of solid English curses and surged
forward. A scuffle broke out. There was a loud crack and John Black fell to the
ground, groaning and clutching his head. Guillaume and Maguire did not stir.

Guillaume looked
terrified. Maguire seemed unmoved. After a moment, to Tallie’s relief, John
Black struggled to his feet, shaken but apparently still in one piece. A bandit
tied his hands.

The bandit leader
turned and dragged Magnus from his litter.

“Leggo of me, damn y’r
eyes!” muttered Magnus, swaying as he stood, trying to fend off the bandit.

“Aha, our arrogant
English milord, I presume,” said the bandit leader in excellent French, and he
bowed mockingly as he drew the money belt from Magnus’s waist.

Tallie’s eyes
widened. This ragged villain was no simple peasant.

Magnus swayed again,
and the bandit grabbed him by the coat, laughing.

“Is it drunk you are,
my fine English milord? Or are you a coward, like the rest of your kind?”

“He’s nothing of the
sort! He’s ill,” shouted Tallie furiously, struggling to clamber out of her
litter. She freed herself, scrambled out and rushed over to her husband,
thrusting her body between him and the bandit.

“Leave him alone. He’s
ill. Can’t you see?”

The bandit snorted. His
green eyes narrowed.

“He is, otherwise he
would have shot you dead, you villain!” Tallie said fiercely, wedging her
shoulder under Magnus’s to support his swaying form.

The bandit looked at
Magnus again and spat on the ground.

“Pah, look at him! He’s
shaking with fright!”

“He’s shaking with
fever,” Tallie retorted angrily, wiping her husband’s brow with her
handkerchief.

The bandit leader
snorted disbelievingly. He reached out a surprisingly clean hand and took her
ear between his fingers. Tallie froze as he carefully removed her gold studs.
Then he reached for her neck, slipping his fingers inside the neck of her gown,
and she recoiled.

“Take y’r filthy
hands off my wife, you ruffian!” Magnus lurched forward, his arm shooting out
in a clumsy, but well-aimed punch. The bandit reeled back and stood clutching
his chin, while Tallie struggled to help Magnus regain his balance. Her gold
necklace lay broken on the ground.

The bandit stood
silently for a moment, then shrugged.

“We’ll take him
anyway.” He bent and scooped up Tallie’s necklace.

“What do you mean,
take him? Take who? My husband?”

“Si,” said the
bandit, reverting to Italian. He called two of his henchmen over. They grabbed
Magnus by the arms and started to march him away.

“No, stop!” cried
Tallie. “What are you going to do with him?”

The bandit leader
turned back and regarded her impassively for a moment, then shrugged again.

“He is a fine English
milord. Someone will pay gold for his safe return, si?”

“Ransom?” gasped
Tallie. “But you can’t take him. He’s too ill! He needs a physician immediately.”

The bandit shrugged
and turned away.

“No!” shouted Tallie
angrily. “I will not allow it!”

The bandit turned and
regarded her in faint surprise. He grinned, and a gold tooth glinted in the
sunlight.

“You will not allow
it?”

“No, I won’t,” she
retorted defiantly, and moved to rejoin her husband. “You will have to kill me
before I allow you to kidnap my husband!”

“Be quiet, woman.
Stay out of this,” Magnus mumbled angrily. His skin looked white and papery,
but there was a hectic flush across his cheekbones.

“I will do no such
thing. You are in no condition to be dragged off to some horrid bandit lair in
the mountains, and even if you were, I still wouldn’t allow it!”

Magnus staggered and
swore, dashing his hand impatiently across his brow, as if wiping off sweat.

“Hold your tongue and
wait with John Black and Maguire.”

“I have no wish to
wait with John Black and Maguire. My place is beside my husband.” And, with
that, Tallie pushed one of the bandits aside and took Magnus’s arm. She glared
defiantly, first at her husband, who was ineffectively trying to detach her
from his arm, and then at the bandit leader, who watched them both in
amusement. He chuckled, then, sobering, reached out and effortlessly hauled
Tallie to his side. Magnus lunged out to save her, but missed. Another ragged robber
came and held him back.

“R’lease my wife,
damn you,” slurred Magnus, swaying. “Harm a hair on her head and I’ll kill you.”

The bandit leader’s
brilliant green eyes narrowed, and his grip tightened on Tallie.

“Oho, so the English
milord cares for his wife, does he? And she for him? Good. A loving wife will
ensure her husband’s ransom is paid quickly and without fuss.”

“You shall not take—”

The bandit clapped a
hand over Tallie’s mouth.

“Take him,” he
ordered.