A Bolt From the Blue (25 page)

She flicked a look at Tito.

“You and Dino, both of you shield yourselves as best you can until he has fired his weapon,” she instructed in the same quiet voice. “With luck, we’ll take him by surprise, and his aim will be off. My plan is to run him into the earth. Otherwise, if you and Dino can wrestle him down, I will put your blade into his black heart.”

Though once I might have balked at so casual a plan of murder, I was no longer a sheltered girl with no knowledge of the cruel world. I had seen examples enough of man’s depravity these past months to know that righteous self-preservation was the logical response to such a crisis. And so I gave a swift nod, while Tito murmured his assent.

But even this brief delay appeared to have enraged our assailant. He was moving toward us at a quick pace, his blond mustachioed lips—all that we could see of his face—twisted into a sneer as he shouted, “Get down, now!”

“Pray, do not harm us!” Rebecca cried in a high voice unlike her usual hoarse tones. “I am but a poor washerwoman. My boys and I have nothing of value. By the saints, let us pass in peace!”

“You have horse and wagon,” he retorted, waving his crossbow in a threatening manner.

Then the man’s sneer softened into what I assumed he intended to be a magnanimous smile. Lowering the weapon so that it pointed to the ground, he grandly added, “Don’t be afraid, lady. You give me horse and wagon, I let you go.”

“Don’t believe him,” Tito hissed, clutching the seat back and peering between us at the bandit. “He’ll make us lie in the dirt, and keep the others at bay with his crossbow as he kills us one by one with his knife.”

“I know,” Rebecca murmured, and then called out, “May the saints bless you, sir. You may have our horse and cart, and welcome to it.
Yah!
”

With that harsh cry, she whipped up the brown mare. The horse gave an angry snort and leaped into motion, jerking the wagon forward. I made equal haste to slide down onto the boards at our feet, allowing Rebecca room to crouch low as she flailed the reins and drove straight toward the bandit.

In the instant before I shut my eyes and commenced praying, I saw his jaw drop in shock. Then, his lips twisting in outrage, he whipped his crossbow to his shoulder again and fired straight at us.

I heard the distinctive thwang as bolt left bow, and I flattened myself as best I could against the splintered boards. A heartbeat later, I simultaneously heard a sharp cry—Rebecca’s or Tito’s, I was not certain—and the crack of splintering wood as the bolt passed through the wagon.

And then I heard the most gruesome sound of all . . . a harsh scream and a series of soft thuds before Rebecca jerked the mare to a halt a few mere inches from the fallen tree.

17

—Leonardo da Vinci,
Manuscript Sul Volo

 

 

 

 

 

Q
uiet reigned for but an instant, broken by the mare’s angry whinny and Rebecca’s gasp of pain. I unfolded myself from my safe spot at her feet to see her grasping the upper portion of her left arm.

“Bastard nicked me with his arrow,” she cried in surprise, while I sagged in relief to see that she’d not been pierced in a more vital spot. The splintering sound of wood I’d heard had been the bolt lodging itself in the wagon’s sturdy rear panel. Tito was staring at the lethal projectile with wide eyes, and I guessed it had come flying within inches of where he’d lain.

“No, pay me no mind,” she protested as I would have examined her wound. “We must be sure the scoundrel is dead.”

Tito needed no further urging to action. With a warrior’s cry, he plucked his knife from his tunic and, brandishing the blade most threateningly, leaped from the back of the wagon. I clambered from my own seat and followed after him, wishing in desperation I had a weapon of my own to wave about.

I soon found, however, that I did not need any arms. The bandit lay crumpled on the road a couple of wagon lengths behind us, his spent crossbow dangling from his hand. Knife held high, Tito approached the injured man, halting a few feet from him.

It was apparent that the bandit’s wounds from where he’d been trampled by horse and wagon were mortal. His lower body twisted at an unnatural angle from the rest of his torso, while bright blood frothed from between his lips. The impact had knocked the helmet from his head, finally revealing his face.

Unexpected sadness swept me as I saw he was not the older warrior that I had pictured from his weapon and posture. Rather, he was a man just past the flush of youth. What evil within had driven him to his murderous life, I could not guess, though I wondered if he regretted his choices in the face of imminent damnation.

Tito appeared to feel no such comparable sorrow. “Ha, you fiend, you got what you deserved,” he cried, grabbing the crossbow from the man’s slack fingers. “I shall finish you off, so that you do not prey upon honest citizens ever again.”

“Then I . . . bless you . . . as savior,” the bandit sputtered, teeth bared in a bloody red grin as he raised a weak gloved hand in parody of a consecration.

Shaken by that response, Tito lowered his knife and glanced at me uncertainly.

“Don’t you see?” I murmured, clutching his arm. “In his condition, a swift death would be a blessing. It would be far crueler to leave him suffering here, easy prey for the carrion eaters and whatever other beasts wander these woods.”

“Better we leave him, instead,” Tito replied, though now his bravado rang false. “He would have let us suffer.”

“But we are not like him.”

“Fine, you kill him,” Tito cried, face darkening as he pressed his blade into my hand.

My fingers closed reflexively around the fancy hilt, but my stomach lurched as I stared down upon the dying man. Though I had been involved in more bloody confl icts than any other young woman of my station could possibly imagine, I had wielded a weapon only in my own or the Master’s defense. And never had I inflicted a killing blow upon anyone. But when simple humanity decreed that a merciful blade was the kindest action, I stood frozen in indecision.

Strong fingers abruptly pried the knife from my grasp.

“This is not the work for innocents,” Rebecca decreed. “You boys are too young to suffer such a stain upon your souls, no matter that it is to bring release to one who does not deserve it.”

I saw in some shock that she had stripped off her wimple to bandage her injured arm. Thus uncovered, she revealed for the first time a glorious crown of red hair—a stark contrast to her black brows—elaborately braided and wrapped about her head. As she knelt awkwardly beside the bandit, sunlight gleamed upon those fiery locks. The reflected light bathed her plump face in an almost saintly glow, which lent her a certain beauty I might not otherwise have seen.

“Quickly, make your last prayers and repentances,” she commanded with stern calm, cutting the man’s jerkin laces to bare his breast and pressing the blade tip to his heart.

She placed a beefy hand across his eyes and added, “You will be free of your suffering in but a moment, and perhaps God shall show greater mercy to you than you did to others.”

“No,” he gasped and reached up to pull her hand from his face. “I am . . . soldier. I see . . . death come.”

“As you wish.”

Not being a soldier myself, I could not bear to watch what followed but shut my eyes to block the sight. Still, I could not help but hear Rebecca’s soft grunt as she shoved the blade home, nor could I block out the sound of the bandit’s last groan. I waited until the shuffling noise that accompanied his body’s struggle with death had ceased before I dared look again.

By that time, the bandit lay still, and Rebecca was cleaning the knife blade in the dirt. She crossed herself; then, rising with an old woman’s awkward moves, she heaved a weary sigh and handed the knife to Tito.

“We’ve no time to give him a decent burial. Carry him away into the trees, and hurry back. We must move the log blocking the road before we can continue our journey.”

Between us, Tito and I handled the grim task of dragging the dead bandit into the dark glade. When I went to cover him with a few fallen branches, however, Tito gestured me to stop.

“Wait; we’ll need this,” he declared.

Heedless of the blood and urine that stained the dead man’s clothes, he tugged at the man’s belt until he’d freed the large pouch which had hung from it. I saw that the bag contained several fresh bolts, crudely carved but lethal, nonetheless. I nodded at the prudence of this move—had we not just witnessed a most frightening demonstration of why one should travel armed?—and waited while he did a swift search of the bandit’s jerkin for any other weapons.

Finding none, he gave me a quick nod and headed back toward the road. I spared a few more moments to toss the branches atop the still form; then, offering up a fleeting prayer for the repose of the bandit’s cruel soul, I hurried after Tito.

By the time I reached him, the apprentice had already retrieved the crossbow from the road where he’d left it and had hooked the pulling mechanism to his belt. Stepping foot into the stirrup mounted on the weapon’s stock, he managed with an effort to fletch another bolt. He left the armed crossbow in the wagon bed, and he and I joined Rebecca where she stood staring at the fallen tree.

“It can’t be that heavy, not for one man to move it about by himself. See how the large end is propped on a stump?”

She pointed to the half-circular swath in front of the log, which gave the appearance that something had scraped across that portion of the road multiple times. “He would have dragged the tree trunk by the smaller end.”

We found that the log did move easily, almost as if poised upon a pivot. A few moments later, we had cleared the path and were prepared to board the wagon again.

“Here,” Rebecca said with a sigh and tossed the reins to Tito. “My arm is paining me too much to drive.”

While Tito checked over the doughty mare to make certain she’d suffered no harm in the trampling, I helped settle Rebecca upon the blankets we’d brought. I was relieved to see that her injured arm no longer appeared to be bleeding, while the wimple she’d used as a bandage was tied as neatly as any wrapped by a surgeon. But I knew that putrefaction remained a real danger. As soon as we returned from Milan, I would ask Signor Luigi for the same healing salve that, once before, the tailor had used upon me.

“Drive quickly, Tito,” I told him, “but be mindful of Rebecca’s injury.”

He started off at a brisk pace, handling mare and wagon with surprising skill. I did what I could to shield the washerwoman from the worst of the bumps, but I could see her biting back moans of pain each time he rumbled across a particularly rough patch. Seeking to distract her, I spent some minutes describing to her the latest fresco we’d been helping the Master to paint.

“All in all, the images are quite glorious,” I finished, “though some are unaccountably strange. Still, if our Lord did walk upon the water, could it not be possible that he might also have floated above the ground?”

Then I sighed. “It is sometimes difficult to reconcile all I have been taught with what I have learned from the Master. Indeed, sometimes I do not know if Signor Leonardo is merely mocking God, or if his vision is genuine and he sees more than the rest of us.”

“Pah, do not worry, child,” the washerwoman wheezed with a small grin. “I have found in my time that those who protest the loudest against God are those who mostly desperately wish to believe in his existence. Learn what you can from your master, but never fear to stand up for your beliefs.”

“Rebecca, how did you become so wise?” I impulsively asked. “You know so much of the world, and yet you are just a—”

I broke off abruptly and blushed, realizing the affront couched in my intended praise. Yet, rather than take offense, Rebecca merely chuckled.

“Just a washerwoman,” she finished for me. “You may say the word, my boy . . . It is no insult, despite what some might think. And surely you must see that my job is far more than washing clothes.”

When I looked at her quizzically, she went on. “Why, I am more a confessor to my customers than any priest. By looking at a man’s soiled linens, I can tell if he is a glutton or a drunkard . . . if he is celibate or licentious, or if he beds women other than his wife. And yet my lips are sealed, safe as if he had gone to a confessional. But unlike many priests, I keep all my secrets to the grave.”

I gave this revelation careful measure before regarding her in good-natured dismay. “I had never considered such a thing,” I said with a shake of my head. “But you may be assured that in the future, I shall treat my linens as the open book they are!”

She grinned again and settled back down to rest. For myself, I took the time that followed to reflect upon the recent suspicions I’d had regarding her loyalty. It had taken more than a bit of bravery to face down the armed bandit, and as much courage to dispatch him, rather than leave him to die an agonizing death. And all through this journey, she seemingly had devoted herself to keeping Tito and me from harm.