‘One reason is enough,’ I snapped. ‘Avanti, then.’
Another gate and another courtyard brought us to the shelter of a stone wall, where we collapsed to catch our breath.
‘The gardens begin here,’ I said softly. ‘Plenty of cover in all that fancy landscaping. We should be all right now.’
Squatting on all fours like a nervous rabbit, John suddenly stiffened and lifted his head.
‘Look.’
Atop the hill the villa loomed up against the stars. It should have been a dark and shapely silhouette. But as we watched, lights sprang up in window after window, like a fireworks display. I was still staring in dismay at this lovely but ominous spectacle when a light went on right next to me, as if one of the trees had sprouted light bulbs instead of leaves. I transferred my horrified glance to John. I could even see the drops of sweat on his forehead, and the dark pupils of his dilated eyes. The pupils started to shrink.
‘We should be all right now,’ John repeated bitterly. ‘Damn it! Some bright soul has turned on the garden illumination.’
Chapter Nine
PIETRO HAD BOASTED that the night lights of the garden made them as bright as day. He hadn’t exaggerated by much. There were patches of shadow, but the lights made our job of getting out of the gardens about a thousand percent harder.
A cute little dangling lantern was practically on top of us. We moved away from it into the concealment of a giant rhododendron, and sat there musing aloud.
‘How many of them are there?’ I asked. ‘The bad guys, I mean.’
‘I know what you mean. Not many of the servants are in on the plot, but that doesn’t matter. They will all be looking for us, you can bank on that. The Boss will have concocted some plausible story to explain why we must be apprehended. And,’ he added, ‘don’t get your hopes up. Some of them will be armed. We won’t know which ones until they shoot at us. What’s the quickest way out of here? I haven’t explored the grounds as thoroughly as you have.’
I closed my eyes and tried to remember. I think better with my eyes closed. The plan of the gardens was fairly clear in my mind.
‘The quickest way isn’t the safest,’ I said, after a while. ‘But if we cross the English garden and pass the Fountain of the Turtles, we’ll be in the rose garden. After that it isn’t far to the wall . . .’
My voice trailed off in dismay as I remembered that wall. It was twelve feet high, with barbed wire on top.
‘We’ll worry about the wall when we come to it,’ John said. ‘The way my adrenaline is pumping, I could probably get over it in a standing jump.’
I really hated to leave that rhododendron. It had gorgeous purple flowers and lots of nice thick foliage. We went scuttling along behind the wall, which ended in an open, trellised summerhouse. We skirted this and struck out across the grounds. I was thankful it was spring, when the grass was lush and soft, and there were no fallen leaves underfoot to crackle.
The English garden was enclosed by a high hedge of boxwood. This particular plant gets very thick and high when it is old. It is sometimes used for mazes because it is so difficult to break through. Keeping in its shadow, we found a place where the hedge was a little thinner, and peered through.
The garden was one of Pietro’s favourites. He had not stinted on the lights. One look and I knew it would be impossible to cut directly across. It would be like walking onto a lighted stage.
We didn’t cross the English garden. We circumnavigated it, crawling on our stomachs next to the roots of the boxwood. I do not recommend that means of locomotion. But we saw no one, and when we reached the entrance to the long avenue, I thought we had it made. Tall, pointed cypresses lined the way like living pillars. There was plenty of shade under the trees, and the low lights lining the path did not reach far into the shadows. The avenue sloped down, following the contours of the hillside. We made good time. We were almost at the end of it, near the rose garden, when I heard a sound that startled me so much I tripped over a petunia. It was a dog barking.
‘Bloodhounds!’ I gasped.
‘Don’t be an idiot.’ John had stopped to listen. ‘It’s worse than bloodhounds. It’s Caesar.’
‘Oh, no!’
‘Oh, yes. He’s the only dog on the premises. You would have to be an animal lover, wouldn’t you? Hurry.’
We plunged down the hillside, abandoning caution in the need for haste. Caesar could mean big trouble for us. Bloodhounds would follow a trail out of a sense of duty, but good old Caesar would be anxious to find his buddy who had fed him the pâté and the smoked oysters, and rolled around on the grass with him. Dogs have long memories for things like that, bless their hearts. They also have excellent senses of smell.
When we reached the bottom of the avenue, I veered left, towards the rose garden. John’s hand closed on my arm and yanked me around.
‘What the hell,’ I began.
‘Forget the rose garden, we need water. Running water . . . Get that damn dog off the trail . . .’ He was panting, and I didn’t blame him.
There was plenty of water. However, the fountains were magnificently illuminated. We splashed recklessly through one of the largest of them, tripping over nymphs and water gods. John slipped on the wet stone and clutched at one of the nymphs to keep his balance. The affectionate tableau was so funny I started to laugh. A spray of water hit me in the mouth, and the laugh turned to a gargle, which won me a hateful look from John as he untangled himself from the outstretched marble arms. He was too out of breath to comment, which was probably just as well.
We climbed over the parapet of the fountain and rushed on. I had completely lost my sense of direction, but John seemed to know where he was going, so I followed him, spurred on by the sound of joyful barking somewhere in the distance. But when I saw what he had in mind, I stopped dead.
One of the showpieces of the Villa d’Este is the Avenue of a Hundred Fountains. Each ‘fountain’ is a simple jet of water, but en masse they look impressive, lined up as they are in a long basin. Not to be outdone, Pietro’s ancestor had constructed an avenue of two hundred fountains. From where we stood at the bottom of the slope, looking up, the fine spray seemed to mount straight up into the sky. John took a long running jump, landed flat, and made swimming motions.
I don’t know what was the matter with me. Hysteria, perhaps. I laughed so hard I had to hang on to a carved dolphin to keep from falling.
John pulled himself to his feet, clutched another dolphin – the fountain was lined with them, all the way up – and glared at me.
‘The salmon do it,’ I gurgled. ‘Upstream. To spawn.’
He was streaming with water, from his soaked hair to the bottoms of his pants. He flung out his arm, his forefinger extended.
‘Swim, damn it!’ he shouted, and started to climb.
The rush of falling water almost drowned out his voice, but I got the idea. I climbed into the basin.
We didn’t swim. It would have been impossible, the fountain was only three or four feet deep and about six wide, and the water poured down like a flood. It would have been hard enough to climb without the current dragging at our feet, but we did it, thanks to the dolphins. The two hundred fountains of water poured from their mouths, and there was one of them every three or four feet, so we were able to pull ourselves along by means of them. I wish I had a movie of that performance. Even then I was occasionally convulsed with laughter at the sight of John’s drenched figure doggedly dragging itself forwards just ahead of me.