But the massive soldier was as pleased as punch with the slender, foppish-seeming Roman knight, although he would never have allowed the object of his pleasure to know it. Sir Ugo, never once complaining, had endured every mile and hour of the brutally hard trip in or close behind the van of the party.
Timoteo had spent a good portion of his life proving to an unbelieving world that Italians—scorned by a multitude of races as brutish peasants, impractical artisans, or spineless effetes—were the equal of any mercenaries in the world, if properly trained and led. This young Roman nobleman had proved himself to be a bit more proof of the di Bolgia pudding, as it were. If an untried member of the old nobility—many of
whom were, if the truth be known, nothing less than effete— could will himself to keep pace on a ride that had left even Timoteo’s strong body and hard muscles sore and aching with strain and exertion, then perhaps there might be still a measure of hope for the class. If a way could be arranged, he meant to keep this Sir Ugo by him for a few years and see just what he was made of. Mayhap . . . ? This one might be the one, the worthy heir of a hard-won duchy, a crack condotta, and a not inconsiderable fortune.
Timoteo had sired a daughter and two sons of his first wife and a daughter by his second, and at least a dozen by-blows were scattered in the wake of his campaignings, but none of his male offspring seemed to have inherited their father’s own unique blend of talents and strengths and there would likely never be more, for he had not quickened any woman since that hellish day that the forsworn Sforzas and their torturers had kept him in torment before Roberto and the condotta had burst in and rescued him.
He smiled grimJy to himself. Saints’ swelling cocks, but it had been sweet to hear the screams and pleadings of those Sforza scum as all that they had planned for Timoteo was wreaked upon their own flesh and bones. That alone had been almost worth getting as good as gelded by them!
Sir Ugo did not dismount when he called at the inn which Timoteo and his soldiers had virtually taken over. The young man sat a richly caparisoned roan mule in the innyard until di Bolgia and his men were making ready to mount, then he kneed the hybrid closer and said, “Your grace, I will be escorting you to your initial meeting with his eminence. One or two of your own men will be allowed as far as the outer gates of the palace, but to bring more . . . well, his eminence might conclude that you distrust either the Archcount of Palermo or him.”
Timoteo looked up at the young Roman and shrugged. “His eminence can think whatsoever he likes. Like any man successful in my business, I own a multitude of enemies, precious few proven friends, and I long ago learned that to stand an even chance of being alive tomorrow, it were wise to guard one’s back today. My dragoons and axmen ride with me, excepting only a corporal’s guard who remain here to watch over our gear and beasts.
“If his eminence sees me, it will be my way, Sir Ugo. Yes, the most of the guards will halt at the gates, but you, I, and Lieutenant Pandolfo di Crespa will go on from there. If you feel your employer will stick at one extra man, then I’ll not bother to put foot to stirrup. He can just come down here to see me, by the well-worn cooze of Mary Magdalene!”
Di Bolgia noted with satisfaction that the young knight no longer cringed or even paled at the sound of blasphemies. Good, he was growing up, if somewhat hard and fast.
Sir Ugo detached one of his own attendants to ride ahead to the palace and perhaps smooth the way for the unexpected change of plans, but the column caught up to the man a little over halfway to his assigned destination, his way and theirs blocked solidly by a milling mass of people filling a piazza through which they must pass. At a growled word from the duce, the riders all backed their mounts some yards the way they had come, then the dragoons took the forefront of the column, drew their sabers, and put their big troop horses to the trot.
Bellowing a deep-throated chorus of “Way for his grace, the illustrious Captain Sir Timoteo, Duce di Bolgia! ‘Way, you scum!” and riding four abreast, they bore down upon the shouting crowd in the piazza.
No one of the big, hard-faced, half-armored men used the edge of his razor-sharp saber, depending rather upon the weight and impetus of their horses to break up the crowd, while encouraging speed of laggards by judicious use of the blade flats. Some few deaths and injuries were, indeed, inflicted by horsehoof, mainly those too slow or feeble or unlucky to avoid the progress of the column. But the vast majority of those killed and hurt in that piazza were knocked down and/or trampled by their fellow townsfolk as they overenthusiastically “made way” for their betters.
Fortunately for the retention of his breakfast, Sir Ugo did not get a glimpse of what that piazza looked like in the first moments after the column had trotted through it.
The second catch of the Revenge was a Gascon coaster running a cargo of raw wool, tallow, beeswax, and saffron from San Sebastian to St. Malo in Brittany. No tricks or false ensigns were used to draw the small, dumpy, two-masted, virtually unarmed carrack close, nor was one cannon shot needed. The Revenge very nearly collided with the little vessel in a fog bank. By the time the fog had somewhat cleared, the master and small crew of the Gascon carrack were become more than aware, most uncomfortably aware, that they were vastly outnumbered and tremendously outgunned, and all of them seemed overjoyed to clamber down into their trailing longboat and begin to pull with a true will toward the smudge on the horizon that was the French coast.
Bass did not get drunk on the night of return from that voyage. He was not aware that one of the small companion vessels Bigod had loaned had followed after and sunk that longboat with all hands almost within sight of land; no blood-thirstiness was involved, of course, only the need to conceal for as long as possible reports and accurate descriptions of the English raider operating in these waters. The officer who sent the pursuit vessel off assumed that in the press of affairs, his grace had simply neglected to order so obviously needful a ‘thing.
I Sir Paul Bigod was overjoyed, rubbing his palms rapidly together in an excess of visible glee. “Marvelous, your grace, simply marvelous! Again, no treasure ship, this, but still, a treasure of sorts, by the Rood. And taken without loss of a single man. Luck is assuredly sailing with your grace.
“Let’s see to her lading, here. Hmm. Tallow and beeswax, capital; I’ll take all of those off your grace’s hands, along yith any ships’ stores or powder your grace doesn’t want for bis own fleet, as before. Wool? Your grace’s agents will get tetter prices for it if they cart or pack it inland. Saffron? This Ml doesn’t state what grade it is. His majesty would no doubt * most appreciative of a few pounds; he’s quite fond of fowl with saffron sauces. For the rest, I’d keep it, your grace—it stores well and, dear as it and all spices have become of late in our England, it should be as good a nest egg as minted gold onzas.
“Once your grace has taken all he wants out of the carrack, have her sailed up here. I’ll have my men go over her, see that she’s sound, determine just how much weight of gun she can carry without adversely affecting her balance or maneuverability—surely something more and heavier than those six pitiful little falcons!—then pierce her and mount such ordnance as is then available. God willing, your grace will soon have another ship for his private fleet.”
Bundled tightly in his warm boatcloak against the cold mist as the barge conveyed him back out to where the Revenge lay moored in the channel, his grace, the Duke of Norfolk, Earl of Rutland, Markgraf von Velegrad, Baron of Strathtyne, and now red-handed sea robber, Sir Bass Foster thought furiously, “How in hell do I manage to keep getting myself into these bloody messes, time after time after time? All I want, all I’ve wanted for years, is simply to settle down somewhere and live a quiet, uncomplicated, nonviolent life with Krystal and little Joe, my son, maybe find the time and opportunity to give him a sibling or three before I get too old to cut the mustard.