A Bolt from the Blue

12

The brown mare kept up a swift pace, hauling the three of us with ease along the road south to Pontalba. The road became progressively rougher, however, as we put distance between us and Milan.

At times, what had been a smooth highway dwindled to nothing but ruts running parallel to one another. Along those primitive stretches, the center strip of dirt and rough grass was seeded with rocks large enough to break an axle, so that Rebecca was forced to slow the mare to a careful walk. Despite the slow pace, we still bounced against the wooden seat with force enough to leave one’s hindquarters bruised. But we were fortunate in clear weather and the beauty of the surrounding countryside that was liberally strewn with delicate new buds and leaves in celebration of spring.

For the most part, we had the road to ourselves. We passed but one other small cart, and only a handful of travelers making their way on foot, all of which had come from the direction of Pontalba. None, when queried, however, recalled seeing a large wagon pass them by.

After hearing that same response each time, it was all I could do not to give way to discouragement. More than once I heard Tito mutter, “I told you we were going the wrong way,” making me wonder if he were right, after all. But Rebecca did not yield her course, the loose edge of her wimple flapping triumphantly as she drove the wagon with skill.

“Doesn’t mean nothing,” she shouted in my ear after one such negative response to my questioning. “They coulda joined the road after the wagon passed by. . or maybe they was told not to say they saw it.” Her logic comforted me somewhat; still, I said an extra prayer that we had not gambled wrongly in our choice of destinations.

We had covered a respectable distance by the time a pale sun tucked itself behind the darkening hills. Rebecca insisted that we stop before every bit of light had faded, so that she could safely guide the mare and wagon a short distance from the road to a spot among some hillocks.

“Bandits,” the washerwoman explained when we questioned her, that answer drawing grave nods from both Tito and me.

She needed no further justification. While I’d never actually seen a bandit, I’d heard tales of them since childhood, and how they were the plague of honest travelers everywhere. The fact that we carried nothing of value meant little. Many of these lawless men reputedly terrorized and killed simply for enjoyment, with profit but a secondary motive. Such an assault had been my father’s greatest fear for me in journeying by foot from our home village to Milan.

Find a large group of pilgrims and stay closely among them, he’d instructed. I had been careful to heed his advice and so had managed my journey in safety. But I knew that others were not always so lucky. In fact, it was the regularity of attacks along the byways of Lombardy that explained why no one had questioned the Master’s claim that Constantin had been struck down by such outlaws.

Thus, we took pains to settle the wagon in a low spot a good distance from the main track and tied the mare out of sight. Rebecca allowed us a small fire. We let it smolder long enough to heat several flat rocks that we would later tuck beneath our blankets and so ward off the worst of the night’s chill. While the flames did their work, we ate our simple meal of bread and cheese. I surprised my companions with dried figs that the kitchen maid had added to my sack at the last minute, earning a grin from Tito, who had a fondness for sweets.

Once we finished our repast, I brought up the subject that had been uppermost in my thoughts. . namely, how to gain access to Castle Pontalba and determine if my father and the flying machine were being held there. Tito’s primary concern, however, was the advantage in time the kidnappers had on us.

“If we are going the right way, the duke’s men will have plenty of opportunity to hide the flying machine-and your father, as well-before we get there,” was his doleful prediction. “Even if we can make our way inside the castle, I fear we won’t find them.”

“They can’t be very far ahead of us,” I countered with more confidence than I felt. “And now that they are far from Milan, they won’t have cause to suspect that anyone is in pursuit of them. To my mind, they will have done as we did and made camp at dusk, for surely they would not risk both the wagon and the flying machine on these roads in the dark.”

“Dino’s right,” Rebecca spoke up. She paused to belch and pick a bit of fig from between her teeth.

“Traveling these roads after dark means inviting a broken axle or a lame horse,” she went on with a wise nod. “They’ve found a spot and settled in, just like we did. They’ll be up at first light and reach the castle before midday. If you boys don’t tarry when the cock crows in the morning, we’ll be at Pontalba by midafternoon. That’ll give us time enough to poke around before nightfall.”

“And we will need to gain the trust of the servants there,” I continued. “The arrival of a strange covered wagon will not go unnoticed. Surely a maid or a page will see something and will be glad to gossip.”

My enthusiasm faded a bit, however, as I finished, “But first, we’ll need to figure out how to make our way into the castle itself.”

“We can hide in Rebecca’s laundry baskets and let her drive us inside,” Tito suggested with a snort, pulling his knees to his chest and hunching his shoulders in fair imitation of someone confined to such a space.

I shot him a stern look, but Rebecca merely grinned. I recalled her comment when he’d questioned her about the baskets, and I wondered if she already had formulated a plan that involved laundry. For my own part, I’d had some vague idea that Tito and I might find entry by professing to be itinerant artists. The problem with that disguise was that we had no paints or brushes or panels with us to prove such a claim.

After a few moments’ more discussion, we all agreed that it made no sense to speculate further until we saw what we would face at the castle. We banked our small flame, and the three of us settled beneath the wagon, wrapped in cloaks and blankets and with hot stones at our feet. I had feared that I would spend the entire night staring at the wagon bed above us and counting the wooden pegs in every slat while I worried over my father’s fate. But the day’s events had taken their toll on me so that, despite my concerns, I fell into a fast and dreamless sleep.

I woke at dawn with, not Rebecca’s rooster, but a lark trilling in my ear. Unfortunately, that dulcet greeting to the day was drowned out by Tito’s groans as he dragged himself out from beneath the wagon bed.

“Ah, by the saints, I can barely move! All that bouncing about in the wagon has bruised me like a marketplace pear.”

My snicker at his discomfort promptly turned into a matching groan of my own as I crawled out of my blankets to find my own joints stiff. Indeed, my body ached as if the brown mare had spent all night stomping me with her sturdy hooves. Rebecca appeared impervious to the previous day’s abuses. . doubtless because of her ample natural padding. She had already crawled out from her blankets and was leading the mare back from the tree where she’d been tied overnight.

Furtively rubbing my sore nether regions, I limped my way over to the privacy of a nearby shrub to empty my bladder. For once, I wished my sensible trunk hose were of the foolishly exaggerated style lately favored by many of the nobles. The horsehair filling that gave the trunk hose that rounded shape, as if the wearer had small kegs tied to either hip, would surely have made the previous day’s ride more comfortable.

We quickly broke our fast and climbed atop the wagon. This time, both Tito and I prudently folded our cloaks into seat cushions to make the next leg of our journey less painful. But our precautions proved unnecessary. As the sun rose higher, so did the road begin to improve. While we previously had traversed hilly plains, the byway had dipped into broad forests and stretched into a smooth ribbon of hard-packed dirt.

Thus we were able to travel without jostling the very teeth from our jaws, making greater speed than we had the previous day. Even so, we exchanged but a few words among us, each of us lost in our own thoughts as the morning progressed.

It was not long after the sun had passed its midpoint when I spotted our objective.

“There, between those two trees,” I softly called and pointed. “That must be it. . the Duke of Pontalba’s castle.”

Through gaps in the just-budding trees, I could see glimpses of gray stone towers thrusting against a cloudless blue sky. Rebecca slowed the wagon, both to give the brown mare a well-deserved rest and to allow us to take in our destination before we were on top of it.

“The trees, they should be clearing soon,” she said in a low tone. And, indeed, we could see not far ahead of us that the forest did end abruptly.

The change in terrain was deliberate, I knew. Just as the dukes before Il Moro’s time had commanded a wide swath of forest to be cut down around Castle Sforza, so would the past dukes of Pontalba have done the same here. A broad field of green encircling the castle would force any advancing army into the open long before they reached the castle wall, making a surprise attack upon the castle difficult. Moreover, the bare terrain allowed the defenders to more easily repulse their aggressors. With no cover to be found in that span between the forest and the castle, the approaching soldiers would be easy targets for Pontalba’s archers.

Of course, the open field also meant that the castle’s sentries would see our approach well in advance of our arrival at the castle gates.

The washerwoman halted the cart before we reached the final row of trees. She hopped down from her seat and signaled us to join her.

“Act like you’re checking out the mare and cart, in case they can see us from here,” she instructed in a soft voice as she made a show of inspecting the harnesses.

I nodded and bent to examine one of the cart wheels, well impressed with her tactical knowledge. Emulating her low tone-I knew from working with the Master the strange ways that voices sometimes traveled-I asked, “Do we wait for nightfall and try to scale the walls?”

“What, and risk falling in the dark?”

This came from Tito, who was scrutinizing the mare’s hooves. He straightened and shook his head. “Besides, it would be hard enough to find your way around the place in the daytime. At night, knowing nothing of the castle’s floor plan, it will be nigh impossible.”

“Tito’s right,” the washerwoman replied. “That’s why we’re going to ride right up to the gate and ask to be let in.”

“But how will we convince the guards to open the gate?” I wanted to know.

Rebecca jerked a beefy thumb toward the baskets in the bed of the cart. “We’ll offer to do their laundry, that’s how.”

“You mean, wash clothes?”

The choked question came from Tito, a look of horror settling on his face at the prospect. Rebecca shook her head and gave him a gentle smile, though the gaze she fi xed upon him held more than a hint of steel.

“Don’t worry, my young apprentice, such work is far too undignified for a fine gentleman like you. No, I’ll tell them you two are my sons and that I need you to gather up the linens and load them in the wagon for me. I’ll do all the washing.”

“But what about my father?” I broke in. “When will we search for him?”

“Oh, that’s easy,” she said with a careless wave of one chapped hand. “While we’re gathering up the laundry, we’ll grab a tunic for you from one of the pages. Put it on, and you can wander about the castle with no questions asked.”

“What about me? Do I get a tunic?” Tito wanted to know.

The washerwoman shook her head. “I’ll need you to help sort the clothes. Besides, it’s Dino’s father we’re searching for, so his son should do the looking.”

The familiar mutinous look flashed over Tito’s face. Then he seemingly thought the better of whatever protests he had and simply nodded. “You’re right; it should be Dino. And I can cause a distraction if someone takes note of him.”

The washerwoman’s expression was approving as she gave him a nod. Shrugging, she added, “But it’s a big castle. You’d best let me nose around first and see if anyone knows anything.”

At that, she gestured us back onto the wagon and urged the mare forward.

“How do you know so much about strategy?” I wondered in a respectful voice as we began rolling toward the clearing.

Rebecca flashed her bawdy grin at me. “Comes of bedding lots of soldiers, I guess.”

I heard Tito’s snicker behind me, but I contented myself with an absent nod. We had reached the clearing, and Castle Pontalba was coming into full view, distracting me from any further ribaldry.

My first thought was to acknowledge where the name of the small province must have originated. Ahead of us rose a broad hillock strewn with tiny white flowers, so that it appeared at first glance to be dusted with a light snowfall. Though surely this was a phenomenon that occurred only in the spring months, the periodic sight would capture the fancy of all but the most hardened of men. Whether or not the remainder of the Pontalba lands possessed such charm, I could not guess, but the parcel upon which the stronghold was built deserved its evocative name.

Less charming was the castle itself, which crouched like a malevolent toad atop that scenic rise.

Squat and gray, it rose gracelessly from the blanket of white flowers, commanding in its breadth if not its height. I guessed its age to be far older than the starkly elegant castle at Milan. Even at a distance, I could see that part of the outer wall was crumbling, and at least one tower was in sore need of repair.

I suppressed a reflexive shiver. Once, this castle might have been a proud fortress, but that would have been several generations ago. Each subsequent duke doubtless had modified the original symmetrical design to his own liking, adding a turret here and another storehouse or barracks there. The result was an untidy sprawl that bulged at the seams of the surrounding wall and gave the appearance of a round of bread dough that had slipped to one side of the cooking stone.

Still, nothing of this scenario should have been threatening. I would have shrugged aside my sense of disquiet, had I not known why we were searching out the Duke of Pontalba. The man was guilty of theft and kidnapping and-at least, indirectly-murder. I did not think myself too fanciful to believe that the brazenly careless neglect of the castle reflected the similar shortcoming in the soul of the castle’s owner, as well.

By now, we had reached the foot of the long rocky slope that led to drawbridge and twin gatehouses. Once past that point, and with the bridge raised for the night, we would be trapped within those rugged walls. Thus, any rescue and escape would have to occur in the bold light of day.

I dared not guess how we might accomplish such a thing. Instead, I wondered how my father had felt as he’d been driven up this ramp and into the castle. Surely, he’d been bound-perhaps blindfolded and gagged-and doubtless hidden beneath the same canvas as the flying machine. Did he know where he was? And did his captors yet realize that he was not Leonardo the Florentine. . or did he have them convinced he was the same genius who had invented that craft?

I could only pray that he had; otherwise, his life might well be forfeit.

Two craggy-faced guards started toward us, staves at the ready and their attitude one of distrust. “Keep still, boys,” Rebecca muttered, putting a hand on my knee as I gave a reflexive shudder. “And don’t worry. If I can’t get us past these fine-looking fellows with a few sweet words, I’ll let you strap me to Signor Leonardo’s flying machine and send me sailing off the top of this here castle!”