“What does a madman say?” Gianni asked, feeling panic reach out for him again.
“Uhhhh … Giorgio, look! Horsies!” Gar crouched down and pointed up.
Gianni turned to him in exasperation—and saw the troop approach out of the corner of his eye. “Yes, G—Lenni! But those horsies are carrying nasty men! Down!” He found himself talking as he would to a baby. How would the beggar of the Bridge of Hope talk? He crouched beside Gar, hoping the horsemen would pass by without looking at them, hoping they would emerge unscathed …
Not to be. The captain rode by, talking in restless tones with his lieutenants about the Raginaldi and their displeasure that the Stilettoes had not punished those presumptuous merchants of Pirogia yet—but one of the troopers, bored, looked down, saw them, and his face lit in anticipation of fun. “Captain! See what we’ve found!”
The troop slowed; a lieutenant barked, “Halt!” and they stopped.
The captain rode back, looked down, and wrinkled his nose. “What are these?”
“Horsie.” Gar beamed up at the cavalrymen with a loose-lipped grin.
“A simpleton,” his lieutenant said with disgust, “and a beggar, from the look of him.”
Gianni plucked up his courage and took his cue. He held up cupped hands, crying, “Alms, rich captain! Alms for the poor!”
“Alms? I should more likely give you arms,” the captain said in disgust, “force of arms! Why do you not work, like an honest fellow?”
“Honest,” Gar repeated sagely.
Gianni elbowed him in the ribs, snapping, “Hush, you great booby! I can’t say why for the life of me, Captain! They’ll give me work, yes, and I’m a hard and willing worker, but they never keep me long.” He remembered what the beggar at the Bridge of Hope would have done, and looked up, startled, above the captain’s head.
The captain frowned, glanced up, saw nothing, and scowled down at Gianni. “Why do they send you away?”
“I can’t say, for the life of me,” Gianni said, still gazing above the man’s head. “I do as I’m bid, and scare the thieves away from the master’s goods, or the farmer’s …” He broke off, waving angrily and crying, “Away! Get away from the captain, you leather-winged nuisance! Leave him be!”
The captain and half the troopers looked up in alarm—“leather-winged” could only refer to two kinds of beings—but there was nothing in sight. The captain turned back to Gianni with the beginnings of suspicion in his eyes. “What thieves do you speak of?”
“Why, the leathern ones, such as I have just now afrighted, and the slimy crawling ones, and the little big-eyed … Ho! Away from his boots, small one!” Gianni lunged at the captain’s feet, clapping his hands, then rocked back, nodding with satisfaction. “Oh, you know when someone’s watching, don’t you?”
“Brownie?” Gar asked. “Goblin?”
“Goblin,” Gianni confirmed.
A whisper of superstitious fear went through the ranks: “He can see the spirits!”
“Spirits that aren’t there!” The captain realized these beggars could be bad for morale. “He’s mad!” The men stared, appalled, and the nearest ones backed their mounts away.
Gianni spun, stabbing a finger at the air behind him. “Sneaking up on me, are you? Get hence, beaky-face! Lenni, knock him away for me!”
Gar obediently swung a backhanded blow at empty space, but said, “Can’t see him, Giorgio.”
“No need,” Gianni said, with satisfaction. “You scared him away.”
“Mad indeed!” the captain said quickly and loudly, before the troopers could start muttering again. “No wonder no man will keep you! Where are you bound, beggars? How do you think you shall live?”
“Oh, by honest labor, Captain!” Gianni swung back to the leader, all wide-eyed sincerity. “All we seek is an acre to farm, where we may raise doves and hares.”
A hard finger tapped his shoulder, and in a dreamy voice, Gar said, “Tell me about the rabbits, Giorgio.” Gianni shrugged him off in irritation. Didn’t the big clown know not to interrupt when he was trying to pretend? “Now, good Captain, if you had an acre of ground to spare …”
“An acre of ground?” the captain snorted. “Fool! We’re mercenary soldiers! None of us expects to own land here!”
“Wherever your home is, then,” Gianni pleaded. “Only a half-acre, good signor!”
“Giorgio,” Gar pleaded, “tell me about the rabbits”
“Hares, Lenni!” Gianni snapped. “I keep telling you—hares, not rabbits!”
“Rabbits,” Gar said, with absolute certainty. “Little, fuzzy, cuddly bunnies. You raise hares. Tell me about the rabbits, Giorgio.”
“He plagues me with his demands for hare-raising stories,” Gianni said, exasperated. “Please, your worship! If I can’t give him land to farm, who knows what he’ll do! Only half an acre, signor!”
“The only land I shall give you is six feet long and three wide!” the captain said with contempt, and to his lieutenants, “They’re fools indeed. Spurn them and ride on.”
“Shall we not have some fun with them first?” One of the troopers gave Gianni a leering grin that fairly froze his blood.
“Oh, very well!” the captain said impatiently. “But only a minute or two, mind! I can’t linger here all day.”
The troopers whooped and fell on the two unfortunates. A huge fist slammed into Gianni’s belly and he folded in agony. Hard boots kicked his side, his hip, his chest, his belly again. He heard Gar roar, had a glimpse of the huge man shaking off troopers as though they were leeches, laying about him with fist and foot in blundering, clumsy movements that nonetheless laid condotierri about him like chaff on a threshing floor. Then a boot toe cracked into the side of Gianni’s head, and he saw only darkness again.
Get up, get up! the white-bearded face was commanding. You cannot tarry here!
I can and shall, Gianni snarled. I listened to you last time, and look what happened!
Are you so afraid of a little pain, then?
Gianni winced at the thought of enduring more, but said, Of course not, if there’s a good reason. But I accomplish nothing by my suffering—I fail wherever I try!
Who could succeed, against an army of bandits? But you can warn Pirogia of the mercenaries who seek to destroy it!
Destroy? Gianni’s blood quickened; his attention suddenly focused on the swirling face. Who said to destroy them?
That captain! The lord who had hired him was angry because they had not punished the insolent merchants! What sort of punishment do you think he expected?
Why—I thought that was only—the ambushing of our … Gianni stopped, thinking. No—they had done that, hadn’t they? And burned Signor Ludovico’s storehouse.
Even so. It’s Pirogia they seek to punish—Pirogia, and your mother, your father!
I must warn them! Gianni struggled to sit up. But who are you?
CHAPTER 4
Only me,” the face said, but it was pulling in on itself, the hair calming in its swirl, the beard fading, the lines vanishing, nose shrinking, eyes growing larger. The hair turned brown, light brown, held by an enameled band, blowing in the breeze; the eyes were brown, too, but the face was young, and very, very feminine, with high cheekbones and a wide mouth with full, red lips that moved and said, “It is only Medallia, only a Gypsy woman going in advance of her tribe.”