Diane Stuckart - A Bolt from the Blue

Rebecca, meanwhile, favored us both with a dark look. “It’s not too late to change your minds, boys,” she told us. “We can still head back to the castle and tell my friend Fritz-he’s the captain of the guard-what happened. He’ll send his men out, if I ask him nice.”

I gave my head a stubborn shake. “We already told you, Rebecca, no one else must know what has happened. . not unless the Master himself approves it. We’ll go on to Pontalba, with or without you, and find out the fate of my father and the flying machine. Tito and I are not afraid, are we?”

That last was directed at my fellow apprentice. Tito met my questioning gaze with a sharp shake of his head and a telling pat of his chest.

“We’re not afraid,” he boldly echoed. “You can go back to your laundry, washerwoman, if you’re frightened. We don’t need you. No matter what, Dino and I are traveling to Pontalba.”

“Pah, you need me if you don’t want to wear out your shoe leather,” she said with a snort. “Now, hold tight. We’ve got a lot of miles to go before the sun sets on us tonight.”

Taking the reins from me, she gave them a snap. The brown mare rolled an annoyed eye but obediently took off at a smart clip, heading south toward the province of white hills, where I prayed that my father would be found.

The brown mare kept up a swift pace, hauling the three of us with ease along the road south to Pontalba. The road became progressively rougher, however, as we put distance between us and Milan.

At times, what had been a smooth highway dwindled to nothing but ruts running parallel to one another. Along those primitive stretches, the center strip of dirt and rough grass was seeded with rocks large enough to break an axle, so that Rebecca was forced to slow the mare to a careful walk. Despite the slow pace, we still bounced against the wooden seat with force enough to leave one’s hindquarters bruised. But we were fortunate in clear weather and the beauty of the surrounding countryside that was liberally strewn with delicate new buds and leaves in celebration of spring.

For the most part, we had the road to ourselves. We passed but one other small cart, and only a handful of travelers making their way on foot, all of which had come from the direction of Pontalba. None, when queried, however, recalled seeing a large wagon pass them by.

After hearing that same response each time, it was all I could do not to give way to discouragement. More than once I heard Tito mutter, “I told you we were going the wrong way,” making me wonder if he were right, after all. But Rebecca did not yield her course, the loose edge of her wimple flapping triumphantly as she drove the wagon with skill.

“Doesn’t mean nothing,” she shouted in my ear after one such negative response to my questioning. “They coulda joined the road after the wagon passed by. . or maybe they was told not to say they saw it.” Her logic comforted me somewhat; still, I said an extra prayer that we had not gambled wrongly in our choice of destinations.

We had covered a respectable distance by the time a pale sun tucked itself behind the darkening hills. Rebecca insisted that we stop before every bit of light had faded, so that she could safely guide the mare and wagon a short distance from the road to a spot among some hillocks.

“Bandits,” the washerwoman explained when we questioned her, that answer drawing grave nods from both Tito and me.

She needed no further justification. While I’d never actually seen a bandit, I’d heard tales of them since childhood, and how they were the plague of honest travelers everywhere. The fact that we carried nothing of value meant little. Many of these lawless men reputedly terrorized and killed simply for enjoyment, with profit but a secondary motive. Such an assault had been my father’s greatest fear for me in journeying by foot from our home village to Milan.

Find a large group of pilgrims and stay closely among them, he’d instructed. I had been careful to heed his advice and so had managed my journey in safety. But I knew that others were not always so lucky. In fact, it was the regularity of attacks along the byways of Lombardy that explained why no one had questioned the Master’s claim that Constantin had been struck down by such outlaws.

Thus, we took pains to settle the wagon in a low spot a good distance from the main track and tied the mare out of sight. Rebecca allowed us a small fire. We let it smolder long enough to heat several flat rocks that we would later tuck beneath our blankets and so ward off the worst of the night’s chill. While the flames did their work, we ate our simple meal of bread and cheese. I surprised my companions with dried figs that the kitchen maid had added to my sack at the last minute, earning a grin from Tito, who had a fondness for sweets.

Once we finished our repast, I brought up the subject that had been uppermost in my thoughts. . namely, how to gain access to Castle Pontalba and determine if my father and the flying machine were being held there. Tito’s primary concern, however, was the advantage in time the kidnappers had on us.

“If we are going the right way, the duke’s men will have plenty of opportunity to hide the flying machine-and your father, as well-before we get there,” was his doleful prediction. “Even if we can make our way inside the castle, I fear we won’t find them.”

“They can’t be very far ahead of us,” I countered with more confidence than I felt. “And now that they are far from Milan, they won’t have cause to suspect that anyone is in pursuit of them. To my mind, they will have done as we did and made camp at dusk, for surely they would not risk both the wagon and the flying machine on these roads in the dark.”

“Dino’s right,” Rebecca spoke up. She paused to belch and pick a bit of fig from between her teeth.

“Traveling these roads after dark means inviting a broken axle or a lame horse,” she went on with a wise nod. “They’ve found a spot and settled in, just like we did. They’ll be up at first light and reach the castle before midday. If you boys don’t tarry when the cock crows in the morning, we’ll be at Pontalba by midafternoon. That’ll give us time enough to poke around before nightfall.”

“And we will need to gain the trust of the servants there,” I continued. “The arrival of a strange covered wagon will not go unnoticed. Surely a maid or a page will see something and will be glad to gossip.”

My enthusiasm faded a bit, however, as I finished, “But first, we’ll need to figure out how to make our way into the castle itself.”

“We can hide in Rebecca’s laundry baskets and let her drive us inside,” Tito suggested with a snort, pulling his knees to his chest and hunching his shoulders in fair imitation of someone confined to such a space.

I shot him a stern look, but Rebecca merely grinned. I recalled her comment when he’d questioned her about the baskets, and I wondered if she already had formulated a plan that involved laundry. For my own part, I’d had some vague idea that Tito and I might find entry by professing to be itinerant artists. The problem with that disguise was that we had no paints or brushes or panels with us to prove such a claim.

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.