Gar looked up at Gianni. “Asleep.”
“Yes.” Gianni realized he was staring, his mouth gaping open. He closed it and said, “Yes, they are.” He felt the eldritch prickling up over his back and neck and scalp again. What kind of half-wit was he leading, anyway?
Then he remembered the Wizard in his mind. No doubt he was in Gar’s mind, too—but there being less thought in the giant’s mind than usual, the Wizard could take up residence there with no trouble. Gianni resolved to be very careful around Gar in the future.
He gave himself a shake and said, “Well, then! Nothing to keep up from leaving if we want to, is there?”
“No,” Gar said. He seemed doubtful, but followed Gianni out from under the wagon, imitated him in pulling on his boots, and trailed after him, off into the darkness.
They trudged a good distance that night, back down the road to hide their tracks among the wagon ruts, then off through the woods, up one slope and down another until they found another trackway. They went south on that trail—or the direction Gianni hoped was south—with some idea of returning to Pirogia again, until Gianni’s legs gave out. Gar didn’t seem to be in much better shape, but he managed to scoop Gianni up and carry him, protesting, to the shelter of a rocky corner, where they were at least shielded from the wind. There they slept till morning, and mercifully, Gianni saw neither the Wizard’s face nor the dancing woman.
They were shocked from sleep by the sound of horse hooves and loud calling. Gianni bolted upright. His bruises immediately protested, but he ignored them. He looked around the huge rock that sheltered them, his heart hammering, and saw a score of soldiers, but not mercenaries—they wore livery, coats of red and yellow, and in their center rode a man in purple velvet doublet and black hose with a coronet about his brow. He was arguing loudly with a grizzle-bearded man in a robe and soft circular hat, with a heavy golden chain about his neck that supported a medallion on his breast. To either side of them strode another dozen soldiers, swatting at the brush with sticks and peering behind every log and into every nook and cranny in the rock faces that flanked the trail.
“Bad?” Gar asked behind him.
Gianni jumped a mile inside, but managed to hold himself down by gripping the rock. “Probably bad—a prince and his chancellor, by the look of them. Best we hide.” He turned away, to see Gar already huddling beneath the curve of the boulder, against the side of the cliff. Gianni joined him, but listened as sharply as he could.
“But Highness, they could not have come so far in so short a time!” the chancellor protested. “Even if they had, what harm could they do, two men afoot, and unarmed?”
“You did not think them so harmless when you roused me from my pavilion and set us to hunting them,” the prince answered sourly. “If you are right, and they are merchants in disguise, we must capture them to punish them, at least.”
“They most probably are such merchant spies,” the chancellor admitted. “The Gypsies said they had taken in two vagabonds who had asked their help, then fled in the night. I knew at once they were most likely from that group of merchants the Stilettos ambushed two days ago.”
Gianni almost erupted in outrage at the false Gypsies right then. The cowards, to sic the aristocrats on them, instead of doing their own dirty work! The hypocrites!
“Yes, and when they brought back their captives, and we found their master’s mark on the trade-good bags and tortured the drivers to make them tell who their employer was, what did they say? Gianni Braccalese! The son of that rabble-rousing merchant who is trying to forge an alliance of merchant cities against us!”
Gianni stiffened. Were they hunting him?
“Yes, and the Stiletto captain assured us they had left him for dead,” the chancellor said heavily, “but what did they find when they went back for the body? Gone! A dead body stood up and walked away! Can there be any doubt that young Braccalese is still alive? Any doubt that he and his bodyguard were the two men who sought refuge with the Gypsies?”
“No doubt at all,” the chancellor sighed, “considering that both the Gypsies and the Stilettos described his companion as a giant. But are they really any threat, these two?”
Gianni heard the thwacking and swishing of the searchers growing closer and huddled in on himself, wishing the Gypsies had given him a weapon, even a small dagger. He groped about, knowing the soldiers were bound to find him. His hand closed on a large rock.
“The father is a threat,” the prince answered, “and if we hold his son as hostage, he may stop trying to form his league against us.”
The chancellor sighed. “Highness Raginaldi, I do not understand why you do not counter his threatened merchants’ league with an alliance of aristocrats! Even those Gypsies said as much.”
They would, Gianni thought darkly. When this was done, he would have a score to settle with those false Gypsies.
“I cannot bear the thought of such an alliance,” the prince snapped. “The Raginaldi ally with the Vecchio, not to mention the lesser houses? It goes too much against the grain to make common cause with old enemies—but I could almost begin to believe that the merchants may be a bigger threat than any of my fellow aristocrats.”
His words chilled Gianni’s blood—especially the fact that he had used the word “fellow,” not “rival” or “enemy.”
But there was no time to brood about that—the thwacking sticks of the searchers were coming closer and closer; Gianni could hear the tread of their boots crunching the underbrush now! He lifted the rock, tensing himself to spring …
A shadow fell across him, darkening the niche where they hid—the shadow of a man in helmet and breastplate: a soldier!
CHAPTER 9
Armor rattled, the stick thwacked, and the heavy boots paused at a shout from the other side of the road. “What?” The soldier sounded as though he were right in Gianni’s lap—as he would be, in a minute. “What was that?”
“Only a hare,” the other soldier’s voice came, disgusted. “But for a moment, I hoped.”
Hoped! Why? He was as lowborn as Gianni, they were both commoners … Or was that why …? The tramp of boots began again—incredibly, moving away!
“Make sure you search every cranny,” a deeper voice commanded.
“I have, Sergeant,” the trooper said, his voice growing distant. “No crannies over here.”
Gianni sat frozen, unable to believe his ears, unable to believe his luck. Had the man really not noticed? Impossible!
The hare. It had to have been the hare. Saved by a rabbit!
But that was only one soldier, and the first in line on their side of the road. Gianni tightened his grip on his rock once more, gathering himself, tensing to fight all over again. One of them had to grow curious about this nook between boulder and wall …
But they didn’t. One by one they passed by, calling to one another and hurling joking insults, with the sergeant barking them back to work whenever they laughed too loudly. Maybe it was because they didn’t want to find the fugitives, maybe it was because they didn’t care—or maybe it was some other, eldritch reason; but they passed. One by one, they passed by, the horses’ hooves passed by, and the voices of the chancellor and his prince receded with them, off into the distance, gone.