Diane Stuckart - A Bolt from the Blue

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.”

“You mean, wash clothes?”

The choked question came from Tito, a look of horror settling on his face at the prospect. Rebecca shook her head and gave him a gentle smile, though the gaze she fi xed upon him held more than a hint of steel.

“Don’t worry, my young apprentice, such work is far too undignified for a fine gentleman like you. No, I’ll tell them you two are my sons and that I need you to gather up the linens and load them in the wagon for me. I’ll do all the washing.”

“But what about my father?” I broke in. “When will we search for him?”

“Oh, that’s easy,” she said with a careless wave of one chapped hand. “While we’re gathering up the laundry, we’ll grab a tunic for you from one of the pages. Put it on, and you can wander about the castle with no questions asked.”

“What about me? Do I get a tunic?” Tito wanted to know.

The washerwoman shook her head. “I’ll need you to help sort the clothes. Besides, it’s Dino’s father we’re searching for, so his son should do the looking.”

The familiar mutinous look flashed over Tito’s face. Then he seemingly thought the better of whatever protests he had and simply nodded. “You’re right; it should be Dino. And I can cause a distraction if someone takes note of him.”

The washerwoman’s expression was approving as she gave him a nod. Shrugging, she added, “But it’s a big castle. You’d best let me nose around first and see if anyone knows anything.”

At that, she gestured us back onto the wagon and urged the mare forward.

“How do you know so much about strategy?” I wondered in a respectful voice as we began rolling toward the clearing.

Rebecca flashed her bawdy grin at me. “Comes of bedding lots of soldiers, I guess.”

I heard Tito’s snicker behind me, but I contented myself with an absent nod. We had reached the clearing, and Castle Pontalba was coming into full view, distracting me from any further ribaldry.

My first thought was to acknowledge where the name of the small province must have originated. Ahead of us rose a broad hillock strewn with tiny white flowers, so that it appeared at first glance to be dusted with a light snowfall. Though surely this was a phenomenon that occurred only in the spring months, the periodic sight would capture the fancy of all but the most hardened of men. Whether or not the remainder of the Pontalba lands possessed such charm, I could not guess, but the parcel upon which the stronghold was built deserved its evocative name.

Less charming was the castle itself, which crouched like a malevolent toad atop that scenic rise.

Squat and gray, it rose gracelessly from the blanket of white flowers, commanding in its breadth if not its height. I guessed its age to be far older than the starkly elegant castle at Milan. Even at a distance, I could see that part of the outer wall was crumbling, and at least one tower was in sore need of repair.

I suppressed a reflexive shiver. Once, this castle might have been a proud fortress, but that would have been several generations ago. Each subsequent duke doubtless had modified the original symmetrical design to his own liking, adding a turret here and another storehouse or barracks there. The result was an untidy sprawl that bulged at the seams of the surrounding wall and gave the appearance of a round of bread dough that had slipped to one side of the cooking stone.