Universe Twister - Keith Laumer [118]
"Why did I sit around half the night trying to drink Rodolpho under the table, while Lady Andragorre rode off into the distance?" he groaned. "In fact, why am I here at all? If I do find her, I'll probable end up getting that riding crop Rudy mentioned across the chops for my pains. But what else could I do? If she isn't Daphne, she's her twin. I can't very well let her fall into the clutches of this Lorenzo the Lanky character. Or is it Lancelot the Lucky?"
He shifted in the saddle. The cold had numbed his toes and ears and fingers. Was he gaining on the quarry or falling behind? The tracks looked no fresher than they had when he started.
He flapped the reins, urging his mount into a canter. The beast clattered up the trail, snorting steam, while Lafayette crouched low on its neck, ducking under the pine boughs that brushed his back. He rounded a turn, caught a glimpse of something bulky blocking the path ahead. He reined in sharply.
"Oh-oh," he said, feeling a sudden dryness in his mouth. "Dirty work's afoot . . ."
It was Lady Andragorre's pink coach, standing silent in the center of the track, one door swinging in the gusty wind. Lafayette dismounted, wincing at the ache behind his eyes, walked up beside it, glanced into the rose-velvet interior. A lacy handkerchief lay on the pink lamb's-wool rug. He picked it up, sniffed it.
"Moonlight Rose, Daphne's favorite," he groaned.
The traces, he found, had been cut. There was no sign of the four splendid blacks, or of the escort, other than a confused spoor leading on up the trail.
"Funny there are no bodies lying around," Lafayette muttered. "But I suppose the cowardly louses surrendered without a struggle." As he turned back toward his horse, there was a crackling in the underbrush beside the trail. Lafayette grabbed for the ornamental sword with which the duke's servants had provided him.
"Not another move, or I'll punch a hole through your treacherous weasand," a voice rasped behind him. He spun, looked into a scowling, mustachioed face, and the tip of a bared blade inches from his throat. Other men were emerging from concealment, swords in hand. Lafayette was just realizing that they wore the yellow livery of the Lady Andragorre's household, when rough hands seized his arms from behind.
"Came back to gloat, did you? Or was it loot you had in mind?" The captain poked the sword at Lafayette's midriff. "Where is she, miserable wretch?"
"I w-was just going to ask you that question!"
"Speak—or I may not be able to restrain my lads from ripping your carcass limb from limb!"
"You were escorting her," Lafayette found his voice. "Why ask me where she is? What did you do, run off and leave her?"
"Ah-hah, so that's the game, is it? Next I suppose you'll demand ransom for her return!" Lafayette yipped as the point pinked him again. "I'll ransom you, you sneaking snake in the underbrush! Talk! What have you done with the finest little mistress a squadron of cavalry ever had!"
"I'm on official business," Lafayette panted. "Take a look at the signet on my left hand."
Hard hands fumbled with the massive ring.
"It won't come off," a corporal reported. "Want me to cut it off?"
"You think to bribe us with this bauble?" the captain barked.
"Of course not! It belongs to Duke Rodolpho! But the finger's mine. Do you mind leaving it where it is?"
"Boy, what a nerve, to swipe the duke's ring and then have the gall to brag about it," the troop sergeant growled.
"I didn't steal it, he gave it to me!"
"Let's run the bum through, Cap'n," a trooper spoke up. "I got no use for guys which they're such lousy liars. Everybody knows his Grace is tighter than a thumbscrew."
"Can't you get it through your thick heads I'm not a kidnapper? I'm on an important mission, and—"
"What mission?"
"To catch up with the Lady Andragorre, and bring