Checkmate - Dorothy Dunnett [107]
Lymond said, ‘Did you track me here?’
‘Yes,’ said Danny. The hair moved on his scalp at the tone of the question.
‘When did you arrive?’
Piero Strozzi also had stopped grinning. ‘When you took the milk in.’
‘Did you see anyone else?’
‘No one. No one else followed you. Of that you may be sure. And there is no one else round the farm. Why?’ said Piero Strozzi sharply.
‘We are in a Spanish trap,’ Lymond said. ‘Meant for me. But now, of course, they will have you also. I suppose you have all the bloody Calais notes in your jerkin?’
‘I left them at Péronne. The girl betrayed you?’ said Strozzi. He was moving already, his sword drawn, his eyes on the windows.
‘It’s an old woman. I lit a fire for her. Better puddings,’ said Lymond flatly. Danny had never seen him so totally devoid of all that could be called human emotion. ‘Have you horses?’
‘No,’ said Strozzi. ‘And it is too late, in any case. Here they come.’
They were, indeed, Spanish troops: thirty horsemen, under a captain. The Duke of Savoy knew the value of the prize he intended to capture. They combed the trees with their groined shining helmets and took their places in a ring round the buildings, busy as clockwork artefacts of wax and quicksilver. Then the captain rode into the yard and with ten men dismounted beside him, called upon el conde Criafordo to surrender.
‘They have left their horses in the trees,’ said Lymond. ‘And they don’t know as yet that there are eight of you. You should be able to do it. You must have got your bloody bâton for something other than scoutcraft.’
Which made Marshal Strozzi’s temper rise, and events happen commensurately quickly. Danny, obeying orders, kept his mouth shut and saw to it that his six soldiers understood that they were in a good deal more danger from their two leaders than they were from the enemy. And that when they were told to catch pigeons, it meant that they had to catch pigeons, and be quick about it.
In the yard, Captain Alferez Carasco was obeying his orders also. The Herrervelos had not been entrusted with this work, nor had Count Wittgenstein’s Germans. Only Captain Carasco’s light horse could be depended upon to bring back alive and well the important general who, unlikely though it seemed, was to visit this old peasant in person.
Even after the intelligence reached them, the Duke had refused to believe it. Then they had called on the old woman and found that indeed she knew the name of el conde Criafordo and had been nurse long ago to his mother. She was told what to do if the general visited her. And at the first sight of her smoke he, Captain Carasco, had acted.
When, after three summons, there was no answer from the hidden man, Captain Carasco ordered his hackbutters to fire a volley through the shut door of the farmhouse and then, with men on either side, burst it open and began to search through it. He came out redfaced and addressed his lieutenant. ‘The woman says he left. He guessed we were coming.’
‘Mi capitán, no one has left the farm,’ the man said. ‘It is not possible.’
Which was precisely when the flutter of wings from the hayloft drew their attention to the pigeon holes under the barn roof. His good humour restored, Captain Carasco gave the required orders.
They ringed the barn first; and then called for surrender. Next, after firing some shots, six soldiers burst in and gathered on the wet straw under the trapdoor. Above their heads they could hear quite clearly the enemy general’s footsteps in the hayloft. But he must have climbed by rope, and drawn it up after him. There was no ladder.
They reported and returned, their ears burning, with the captain.
It was a very high barn. One of them, upheld by two others, managed to reach the trapdoor and ram it back against no opposition.