A Bolt from the Blue

After a few moments’ more discussion, we all agreed that it made no sense to speculate further until we saw what we would face at the castle. We banked our small flame, and the three of us settled beneath the wagon, wrapped in cloaks and blankets and with hot stones at our feet. I had feared that I would spend the entire night staring at the wagon bed above us and counting the wooden pegs in every slat while I worried over my father’s fate. But the day’s events had taken their toll on me so that, despite my concerns, I fell into a fast and dreamless sleep.

I woke at dawn with, not Rebecca’s rooster, but a lark trilling in my ear. Unfortunately, that dulcet greeting to the day was drowned out by Tito’s groans as he dragged himself out from beneath the wagon bed.

“Ah, by the saints, I can barely move! All that bouncing about in the wagon has bruised me like a marketplace pear.”

My snicker at his discomfort promptly turned into a matching groan of my own as I crawled out of my blankets to find my own joints stiff. Indeed, my body ached as if the brown mare had spent all night stomping me with her sturdy hooves. Rebecca appeared impervious to the previous day’s abuses… doubtless because of her ample natural padding. She had already crawled out from her blankets and was leading the mare back from the tree where she’d been tied overnight.

Furtively rubbing my sore nether regions, I limped my way over to the privacy of a nearby shrub to empty my bladder. For once, I wished my sensible trunk hose were of the foolishly exaggerated style lately favored by many of the nobles. The horsehair filling that gave the trunk hose that rounded shape, as if the wearer had small kegs tied to either hip, would surely have made the previous day’s ride more comfortable.

We quickly broke our fast and climbed atop the wagon. This time, both Tito and I prudently folded our cloaks into seat cushions to make the next leg of our journey less painful. But our precautions proved unnecessary. As the sun rose higher, so did the road begin to improve. While we previously had traversed hilly plains, the byway had dipped into broad forests and stretched into a smooth ribbon of hard-packed dirt.

Thus we were able to travel without jostling the very teeth from our jaws, making greater speed than we had the previous day. Even so, we exchanged but a few words among us, each of us lost in our own thoughts as the morning progressed.

It was not long after the sun had passed its midpoint when I spotted our objective.

“There, between those two trees,” I softly called and pointed. “That must be it… the Duke of Pontalba’s castle.”

Through gaps in the just-budding trees, I could see glimpses of gray stone towers thrusting against a cloudless blue sky. Rebecca slowed the wagon, both to give the brown mare a well-deserved rest and to allow us to take in our destination before we were on top of it.

“The trees, they should be clearing soon,” she said in a low tone. And, indeed, we could see not far ahead of us that the forest did end abruptly.

The change in terrain was deliberate, I knew. Just as the dukes before Il Moro’s time had commanded a wide swath of forest to be cut down around Castle Sforza, so would the past dukes of Pontalba have done the same here. A broad field of green encircling the castle would force any advancing army into the open long before they reached the castle wall, making a surprise attack upon the castle difficult. Moreover, the bare terrain allowed the defenders to more easily repulse their aggressors. With no cover to be found in that span between the forest and the castle, the approaching soldiers would be easy targets for Pontalba’s archers.

Of course, the open field also meant that the castle’s sentries would see our approach well in advance of our arrival at the castle gates.

The washerwoman halted the cart before we reached the final row of trees. She hopped down from her seat and signaled us to join her.

“Act like you’re checking out the mare and cart, in case they can see us from here,” she instructed in a soft voice as she made a show of inspecting the harnesses.

I nodded and bent to examine one of the cart wheels, well impressed with her tactical knowledge. Emulating her low tone-I knew from working with the Master the strange ways that voices sometimes traveled-I asked, “Do we wait for nightfall and try to scale the walls?”

“What, and risk falling in the dark?”

This came from Tito, who was scrutinizing the mare’s hooves. He straightened and shook his head. “Besides, it would be hard enough to find your way around the place in the daytime. At night, knowing nothing of the castle’s floor plan, it will be nigh impossible.”

“Tito’s right,” the washerwoman replied. “That’s why we’re going to ride right up to the gate and ask to be let in.”

“But how will we convince the guards to open the gate?” I wanted to know.

Rebecca jerked a beefy thumb toward the baskets in the bed of the cart. “We’ll offer to do their laundry, that’s how.”