Ramage's Challenge (13 page)

B
OTH Rossi and Ramage sniffed at the same moment, like hunting dogs, as they marched up the hill, and Ramage held up his arm to halt the column. In fact, there was an odd, almost contradictory mixture of smells—bread baking, thyme, rotting cabbage, rosemary, donkey stables (caves, more likely) that should have been cleaned out months ago.

“Pitigliano must be just round this next corner,” Ramage said, pointing to windward.

On the left of the road, as it climbed a small hill, there was a valley of scoured rock on which a few bushes clung, out of reach of goats. Orsini commented that it was obviously the bed of an old river—a river which many centuries ago had run deep and fast.

“I remember now,” Orsini said. “Pitigliano is in the middle of the valley, built on an old rocky, mountainous island, which looks like a back tooth. The river must once have divided, swept on round each side of the island like a moat, and then joined up again. That was probably why the Etruscans came here originally: they paddled across to the island and dug caves in which they could live safely. It's all soft tufa. Easy to cut, and then it hardens when the air gets to it and becomes like rock.”

“Come with me,” Ramage said, telling the rest of the column to stand fast and the “prisoners” to be ready with their arm irons. The two of them walked to the top of the hill, rounded a corner, and saw Pitigliano across the valley like a huge painting on a distant wall.

“You were right,” Ramage muttered to Paolo. “An enormous tooth. Yes, and a river used to sluice along both sides … it would have joined just there, below where we left the men … There's the town gate … yes, and the Orsini Palace with the battlements.”

The road in front of them turned sharply and went down steeply to the bottom of the valley—the old river-bed—before turning at a sharp cliff and running beside several caves, now used to stable donkeys (Ramage could see two of them, both grey with a black stripe running along their backs from head to tail), and then climbing up the side of the great rock on which the town stood. And at the top, commanding the road and forcing it to take another sharp turn to the left to reach the town centre, was the town gate.

“Well, sir, no chance of surprising ‘em. Pity we haven't a band!”

“I'd settle for a bring-'em-near. I wonder how many sentries there are?”

“The whole place seems to be asleep. Ah, there's a man coming through the gate on a donkey. And yes, his wife walking behind.”

“That's a familiar sight,” Ramage commented. “But no sign of a sentry checking them.”

“No, sir, everyone else is still asleep!”

“They are guarding the emperor's hostages, don't forget,” Ramage said sharply. “It's a great mistake to underestimate the enemy. That's how you get a pistol ball between the eyes.”

“I understand, sir,” said a chastened Paolo. “Actually I'm not underestimating them. I'm not looking forward to going in. The walls round the town, that huge gate, the long drop from the walls into the valley …”

“We're lucky. We'll be marching in through the gate in broad daylight. But how would you like to cross that valley and then have to climb the walls in the dark?”

“Mamma mia,”
muttered Paolo. “Even climbing in daylight with no French to greet us would be bad enough. Far too steep, even for goats!”

“Go back and bring up the column. The longer we wait here the more impossible it all seems.”

A few minutes later, as the column swung round the corner, Ramage resumed his place and, with Rossi and Orsini, led the way down the hill. A donkey, looking sleepily over the half-door closing off its cave, brayed at them and was answered by another up in the town. Half a dozen dogs came rushing out of the town gates, the first one yelping in terror and the rest barking as they chased it, and the old woman lashed at them with a long staff as they raced past. Neither her husband nor his donkey took any notice. The donkey had a small sack balanced on its wooden frame. The man sitting astride the animal and, it seemed to Ramage, in grave danger of falling off, tugged at the brim of his big, black hat. The wide brim flopped with the donkey's jerking, helping to keep off the flies. Then, adjusting the angle of the hat so that the brim kept the sun out of his eyes, the man whacked the donkey with a stick. The donkey took no notice; Ramage guessed that the man did it out of habit, and would repeat it every hundred yards until they reached their destination.

Ramage half-turned as he marched and called back, “Come on, now smarten yourselves up. Only the hostages may speak English. Gilbert—be ready to come up forward with those papers of yours. Remember, Aitken—you and the rest of the prisoners are foreigners and can talk and stare and point. Your men, Gilbert, just take it all in your stride, you've seen it all before, so act as though you're hot, bored, and tired.”

By then they were at the bottom of the hill and rounding the bend. At the top of the hill in front of them, the town gate,
la Porta della Cittadella,
seemed to be growing bigger, but the shadow the archway cast and the dark line under the battlements made it seem as menacing as the gateway to an enemy city.

They met the old couple with the donkey almost halfway up the hill, and the man looked directly at the donkey's flopping ears. The woman, her face seamed like old leather left too long in the sun and dressed in black that had a rusty hue from too many summers and winters out in the open fields, looked up for a moment, spotted Ramage as the officer most likely in charge, and nodded her head nervously. To Ramage she seemed to be asking him to ignore her husband's snub—and, at the same time, fearful of what these extra soldiers might mean to their lives.

Looking across the valley at the base of the great tooth of rock, Ramage could now see dozens of caves cut into the tufa like a vast rabbit warren, and there were tracks in the valley floor where the
contadini
walked daily to and fro between the caves and their fields. They must keep their implements in them, and their donkeys—and perhaps for the unluckier people, some of the higher caves were homes. Certainly a peasant coming home weary from working his land (because land was divided among all his children on the owner's death, a
contadino
might own a dozen small strips, each a mile from another) would be thankful to rest in a cool cave with a jug of wine and postpone the weary trudge up to the town.

And, of course, the caves provided fine, cool storage for the big casks in which the year's wine was kept until sold at the next pressing: huge casks lying on their sides, with the bung higher than its owner was tall. Every day (if he was a careful man and the weather hot) the
contadino
would come to the casks, pour some wine into a jug from a small barrel, and then climb the short ladder and remove the bung from the cask to see if the level of wine had dropped because of seepage between the staves. He would then top up the wine from the jug and replace the bung. Air getting at wine could turn it all to vinegar.

Topping up was usually done in the evening, and the wine left in the jug disappeared down the owner's throat. The heavy drinkers—besotted men who every day stumbled through their work in a drunken daze, cursing their wives and cuffing their children, kicking their donkeys—topped up their casks first thing in the morning. The leavings in the jug (which was often topped up in its turn) was their breakfast.

The door of the last cave on the right of the road swung back and a protesting donkey lurched out, its wooden saddle empty, and turned up the hill towards the gates. The owner, with black hat awry and wearing a faded blue woollen shirt with black trousers tied just below the knee, staggered after it, not seeing the marching column, and seized its tail, whacking it with a stick in his left hand and screaming a stream of blasphemy. The donkey plodded up the hill, apparently oblivious to the stick and ignoring the curses, dragging its master behind.

“That's what you call getting a lift to windward,” Ramage muttered. “I hope that tail is firmly attached.”

Man and donkey proceeded up the hill thirty yards ahead of the column, and judging from the man's wavering course, he was very drunk. “That's a bit of luck. We'll be able to see what the sentries at the gate do about him.”

“Do about the donkey,” Rossi murmured. “The man's too
spronzato
to answer questions!”

The donkey reached the gate but no uniformed man stepped from the shadows. The man was pulled through the gate and he neither looked round nor appeared likely to even notice if all the stonework suddenly fell on his head.

“Twenty-five … twenty … fifteen …” Ramage counted the remaining yards to himself as they marched towards the gate. They seemed to be moving faster, although their pace did not change. In fact, time was playing its usual tricks. Ten … five … and then he was under the archway and in its shadow. Apart from the column, no one else moved, except that he just caught sight of the donkey as it hauled its owner round the corner into the piazza. He saw only an old man dozing in the shade on the steps of a house, a sleeping dog which had ignored the pack, two goats tied to a stone hitching post on the right …

Through the archway … no lounging soldiers … and there, towering over the town, was the Orsini Palace. The family, once powerful in Tuscany, had long since gone. This palace, one of many they must have built for themselves through the centuries (or did they inherit it from the Aldobrandeschi? He recalled a mention of it), had buttressed walls. And there were the wide stone steps leading up to the entrance. The heavy wooden door was shut; no soldiers lounged. There were no sentries, no carts that the army would use, no horses. One might have expected a carriage or two; the officers of such an egalitarian army were not expected to march.

Then Ramage realized what must have happened: the hostages were not being held in the Orsini Palace. There would be enough rooms, surely, but perhaps hostages need not be so carefully guarded. A lieutenant or young post captain might be expected to try to escape, but rheumatic admirals, quirkish generals, and bucolic landed gentry were unlikely to steal off across the Tuscan landscape, seeking their freedom. They were, in all fairness, equally unlikely to give their parole. There was a vast difference between not escaping and actually promising the enemy not to try.

He held up his arm and the column halted outside the palace. Yes, he had seen the scissors sign hanging over the door of the Manciano peasant's father-in-law, but the peasant could not have been here for some time because only one of the two
falegnami
who were his father-in-law's neighbours was still in business; the door of the other one was boarded up.

Now what? That was the splendid thing about Tuscany and the Tuscans—always expect a surprise to arrive at siesta time. Pitigliano slept just at the moment he expected to be using his wits (and those of Gilbert) to bamboozle French guards, or all of them would be fighting their way out, with the hostages. He expected to be outnumbered three or four to one. Instead he could tell Orsini and Rossi to capture Pitigliano using only belaying pins as weapons.

Unless … there were several unlesses. Why should French soldiers expect there would (or could) be an attempt to rescue the hostages? It sounded too unlikely to disturb the siesta of the most nervous of Frenchmen, be he a private soldier or one of the emperor's best generals. After all,
mon ami,
Tuscany sleeps through the siesta, and the nearest Englishman is probably having his afternoon nap in Gibraltar.

So, Ramage admitted, there was nothing very surprising about the lack of French soldiers. The great doorway of the Orsini Palace with its enormous lock was shut, but that could just be for the siesta. After all, a locked door kept someone inside just as securely as it kept a stranger out. Lock the door and sleep off a heavy meal. A sergeant's guard inside a palace with walls this high and this thick and such a door would be enough to keep the hostages under control. A summer's day in Pitigliano was the most peaceful thing he could think of, so either the French had shut the palace door, or they were in another part of the town. Or perhaps they had moved to a house outside the town. Somewhere cooler?

There was only one way to find out. He beckoned to Gilbert and together they mounted the steps. Ramage drew his sword and used the hilt to bang on the door. The thuds echoed, but no one gave an answering shout. Ramage banged again. A woman came to an upper window of a house opposite, ostensibly to take in some bedding which was airing. Ramage waved to her and pointed at the door.

“It's empty,” she shouted back, her voice shrill and nervous. “The French left several weeks ago.”

And who the devil would know where they had gone? The mayor? If the French really had left Pitigliano for good, the senior person left would be the mayor.

“Where is the mayor?”

“At home having his siesta.”

“Which is his house?” Ramage asked, trying to keep a grip on his patience.

“This one. I am his wife.”

“Please ask him to come down here.”

“He is asleep.”

“Three minutes,” Ramage snarled. “Then I send some of my men to fetch him!”

The woman vanished and Ramage and Gilbert walked over to the house. In less than three minutes the front door suddenly burst open and a dishevelled and still sleepy man hurried out, saw Ramage and stopped suddenly, obviously expecting to find him at the door of the Orsini Palace.

The man bowed and introduced himself, his voice and manner polite but neutral. “Can I help you, sir?” he said in Italian.

“The French troops over there,” Ramage gestured towards the palace, “do you know where they have gone?”

“They left—well, almost a month ago.”

“Where have they gone?” Ramage repeated.

“I am not authorized to say, sir,” the mayor said. “You must understand that such information is secret, and if I …”