Yes, several of the animals' haunches showed long bloody welts. Thur had to allow, Ferrante's cavalrymen were just as cruel to their own beasts, and to each other. The sweat-stained, filthy soldier's features were lined with a fatigue scarcely less than that of the drooping mules. But the mules lacked his greedy elation.
"Pi ... didn't the packmaster ... I take it the pack-master objected?" Thur struggled to keep his voice cool, disinterested.
"A length of my officer's Spanish steel settled the argument soon enough." The soldier paused thoughtfully. "Didn't much care for what he did to the boy. The lad wouldn't stop trying to fight us, after it was over. Half-mad, I think, though his elder brother had a better head, and tried to hold him. Well, t'was no worse than some of the things that happened after the last siege of Pisa."
"Did he ... what did he do to the boy?"
"Half chopped off his head. It stopped the screaming, right enough, which was a relief.
"Killed him? Thur choked.
"Outright." The soldier spat reflectively. "Could've been worse."
Thur gripped his hands behind his back, to hide their trembling. "Did he ... kill both boys?"
"Naw. The smarter one ran off." The soldier glanced up. "Ah. Here we go."
Thur followed his gaze to the doors to the castle. Just descending into the garden was Lord Ferrante, dressed in the same fine mail tunic and leather leggings as yesterday morning. A clean white linen undercollar shone at his neck, and a gold badge in his green hat winked diamonds in the sun. Flanking him stamped another dirty and fatigued cavalryman. A dusty black beard framed a dark smile missing several front teeth. Thur stiffened—but there was no reason to suppose the man would recognize him from Catti's inn. It had been dusk in the innyard, and Thur had hung in the background till things went so terribly wrong. I should have recognized the man from his methods, though, Thur thought wearily.
"So," said Ferrante bluffly, coming up to Thur. "What value have we here, German?"
Thur walked to a saddlebag, and pretended to examine its contents. "Finest Swiss copper, my lord."
"Is it fit for our needs? Is it sufficient?"
"More than sufficient." Thur fingered Master Kunz's mark, stamped on the soft red bar. "I've ... heard of this forge. Very pure."
"Very good." Lord Ferrante turned to his men, and took a purse from his waist. He poured gold coins into his hand, held them up for all to see, poured them back, and handed the purse to his gap-toothed minion for distribution. The men cheered.
"Unload these beasts, then send your men to eat,"
Ferrante directed his lieutenant. "Deliver the mules to my quartermaster's constable, outside the walls." Ferrante frowned, walking down the line of mules. "See that they get water and hay, and their harness off, before you eat. Tell my head groom to check that dun's off-hind hoof. My mules must be made to last."
Ferrante wheeled away, and strode back into the castle. Under Thur's wooden direction, the hungry men made short work of unloading and stacking the copper pigs on the ground beside the furnace. Laughing and joking about their new-won gold, the soldiers led the mules back into the castle stable.
A bird trilled from the white blossoms of a plum tree espaliered to the garden wall. The workmen returned to their digging, shovels scraping through the hard-packed earth. The line of light creeping across the ground as the sun rose higher reached the stack of copper, edging it with blinding red fire. Thur swallowed nausea.
"I'm ... going to the garderobe," he said, turned, and stumbled from the garden.
Chapter Thirteen
Thur really did go to the garderobe, a slit cut into the castle wall at the back of the stables and used by the grooms and the workmen. But he exited again without, as he had at first feared, being violently ill. He leaned shakily against a stall partition and listened to the steady munching of a horse eating its hay. The presence of the big animals soothed him, a little. The dumb beasts were innocent. Though God had made Balaam's ass speak out against injustice, or so Brother Glarus had told the story. Why not Pico's mules?
An unfamiliar trembling shortened Thur's breath. Hatred. Wrath, as the list of the seven deadly sins had it. The murder of Pico's boy Zilio, so bluntly described, burned in his imagination, angered him almost more than the death of Uri. Uri had been a man, taking a man's risks. The Losimons hadn't any call to kill a child. They could have knocked him aside, or tied him up, or something.... His righteousness died as an image of the whey-faced boy groom across Ferrante's saddlebow troubled his mind. He shook his aching head in bewilderment.
He made his way to the stable door into the main court. A couple of grooms had taken Pico's mules outside, and tied them to ringbolts in the wall in the narrowing shade. They had watered them and stripped them of their harness, and now were rubbing them down and daubing goose grease on their sores. The mules snatched at little piles of hay, and grumpily laid their long ears back and nipped at each other. Thur squinted into the heat of the courtyard, and the light reflecting blindingly off the bulbous marble staircase. The sun was higher. Did it always climb this fast, of a morning? Across the pavement at the base of the northern gate-tower, two guards stood flanking a small entry arch.
Thur felt in his tunic for the two remaining ears, and studied the men. They looked harder-faced, more alert than the fellow who'd been sitting tiredly by the dungeon door last night. Dare Thur try his thin story about checking the bolts and bars a second time?
While Thur stood trying to muster up his courage, the little door swung inward and the guards came to attention. A Losimon officer exited, followed by three women who stood blinking in the light. Two women and a girl, Thur corrected himself. The first was a dark-haired, prettily plump matron of perhaps twenty-five, wearing a crocus-yellow linen gown. The second, older woman wore black and white silk. She was a little, faded blonde; sandy-haired, sandy-complexioned, her face drawn and stiff in the shade of a brimmed hat. The girl, almost as tall, wore pale green linen and a close cap, a braided rope of gold hair falling from her nape. She clung tightly to the faded woman s arm.
The officer gestured them onwards, palms open like a man herding sheep. Frowning at him, they scuffled across the courtyard and up the marble stairs, disappearing into the castle. Thur bit his lip, then walked quickly back through the stable and climbed over the rear gate into the castle garden. His work mates made a few sharp comments about shirkers as he hurried past the brick pile. But he had not strode half the length of the garden when the women reappeared at its main entry and then descended into the open, still dogged by the officer. Thur hesitated, and bent to pretend to knock a bit of gravel from his shoe. The silk-gowned woman went to sit on a marble bench under a grape arbor, the tender green leaves making a woven shade. The girl and the dark woman in crocus-yellow linked arms protectively, and strolled upon a gravel walk. The noble prisoners were being aired, it seemed.
For how long? Dare he just walk up to them? The officer lingered close by, within hearing. Confused by this ambiguous near-opportunity, Thur retreated to his brick pile and made to lay on another course, all the time watching down the garden. The Duchess's hat turned toward him once, then away; the strollers paused by her bench. Then they strolled toward him. Thur held his breath. The officer made a step to follow, but then changed his mind and waited near the Duchess, leaning on an arbor post with his arms crossed.
The two young women drew nearer. The girl must be Lady Julia, the matron some sort of lady-in-waiting. One or the workmen made a coarse comment under his breath.