"Only if they're another train of merchants." Gianni stumbled to his feet, looking down the road to where Gar was pointing, amazed to realize that it was midafternoon. Had the mercenary kept watch all that time, and not slept?

But he saw the cloud of dust already a little way past the horizon, heard the faint drum of hoofbeats, saw the glitter of sunlight off steel, and said, "That's not a troop of merchants."

"No," Gar agreed, "it's a troop of cavalry. You know this land better than I do, Gianni. Where can we hide?"

Gianni looked about him, feeling the first faint tendrils of panic reaching out about his mind. "Nowhere! This is table land-there's only the ditch beside the road!"

"And they'll see us if we try to run for the shelter of a granary-if we can find one."

Gar was tense, alert, his eyes luminous, but seemed quite poised, quite cool- headed. The mere sight of him calmed Gianni a bit. "There is the ditch," the mercenary went on, "but they're sure to glance down and see us crouching in the mud ... Hold! The mud!"

Gianni stared. "What about it?"

"Off with your doublet-quickly!" Gar yanked open his jerkin and leaped across the ditch, dropping the garment into the tall gra.s.s at the edge of the field of green shoots. "Off with your shirt, too! Quickly, before they can see us clearly!"

Gianni stared. Had the man gone mad?

Then he remembered that he was supposedly paying Gar to defend them both, and decided not to waste his father's money that he wasn't paying. He leaped across the ditch to join Gar in a race to strip to bare flesh, leaving only his hose, which were badly ripped from the fighting and the fleeing anyway.

Gar knelt to yank up fistfuls of straw and throw them over the heap of clothing.

"Quickly, hide them!"

Gianni bent to help him cover the clothing, and in a minute, only a heap of dried gra.s.s lay there at the edge of the field.

"Now, get down! And dirty!" Gar leaped down into the ditch, scooped up some mud, and began to daub it over his chest and shoulders.

"I already am," Gianni protested, but he overcame distaste and slid down beside Gar, rubbing himself with dirt. "What are we doing, making ourselves look like complete vagabonds?"

"Exactly!" Gar told him. "You can't rob a wandering beggar, can you? Paint my back!" He turned about, daubing mud on his face. Gianni rubbed mud over his back, then turned for Gar to do the same to him. "More than vagabonds-brain- sick fools! Pretend you are mad, though harmless."

Gianni felt a surge of hope. It might work. "And you?"

"I'm a half-wit, a simpleton! You're my brother, guiding me and caring for me in spite of your madness!"

"The mad leading the feebleminded?" That had too much of the ring of truth to it for Gianni's liking but he remembered the lunatic beggar who sat at the foot of the Bridge of Hope at home, and found himself imitating the man's loose-lipped smile. "What if they ask for our names?"

"Don't give your true one, whatever you do-one of them might think you could fetch a fat ransom, or that I might be of use in the ranks! No, we give false names.

Yours is Giorgio and mine is Lenni!"

Gianni stared. "How did you think of them so quickly?"

The thunder of approaching hooves prevented Gar's answer. He clapped a hand on Gianni's shoulder. "They come! Stay down-no one would think it odd for wayfarers to hide from condotierri, even if they were mad! Remember, you have so little mind that no one could care about you!"

"What does a madman say?" Gianni asked, feeling panic reach out for him again.

"Uhhhh ... Giorgio, look! Horsies!" Gar crouched down and pointed up.

Gianni turned to him in exasperation-and saw the troop approach out of the corner of his eye. "Yes, G-Lenni! But those horsies are carrying nasty men!

Down!" He found himself talking as he would to a baby. How would the beggar of the Bridge of Hope talk? He crouched beside Gar, hoping the hors.e.m.e.n would pa.s.s by without looking at them, hoping they would emerge unscathed ...

Not to be. The captain rode by, talking in restless tones with his lieutenants about the Raginaldi and their displeasure that the Stilettoes had not punished those presumptuous merchants of Pirogia yet-but one of the troopers, bored, looked down, saw them, and his face lit in antic.i.p.ation of fun. "Captain! See what we've found!"

The troop slowed; a lieutenant barked, "Halt!" and they stopped.

The captain rode back, looked down, and wrinkled his nose. "What are these?"

"Horsie." Gar beamed up at the cavalrymen with a loose-lipped grin.

"A simpleton," his lieutenant said with disgust, "and a beggar, from the look of him."

Gianni plucked up his courage and took his cue. He held up cupped hands, crying, "Alms, rich captain! Alms for the poor!"

"Alms? I should more likely give you arms," the captain said in disgust, "force of arms! Why do you not work, like an honest fellow?"

"Honest," Gar repeated sagely.

Gianni elbowed him in the ribs, snapping, "Hush, you great b.o.o.by! I can't say why for the life of me, Captain! They'll give me work, yes, and I'm a hard and willing worker, but they never keep me long." He remembered what the beggar at the Bridge of Hope would have done, and looked up, startled, above the captain's head.

The captain frowned, glanced up, saw nothing, and scowled down at Gianni.

"Why do they send you away?"

"I can't say, for the life of me," Gianni said, still gazing above the man's head. "I do as I'm bid, and scare the thieves away from the master's goods, or the farmer's . . ." He broke off, waving angrily and crying, "Away! Get away from the captain, you leather-winged nuisance! Leave him be!"

The captain and half the troopers looked up in alarm-"leather-winged" could only refer to two kinds of beings-but there was nothing in sight. The captain turned back to Gianni with the beginnings of suspicion in his eyes. "What thieves do you speak of?"

"Why, the leathern ones, such as I have just now afrighted, and the slimy crawling ones, and the little big-eyed ... Ho! Away from his boots, small one!"

Gianni lunged at the captain's feet, clapping his hands, then rocked back, nodding with satisfaction. "Oh, you know when someone's watching, don't you?"

"Brownie?" Gar asked. "Goblin?"

"Goblin," Gianni confirmed.

A whisper of superst.i.tious fear went through the ranks: "He can see the spirits!"

"Spirits that aren't there!" The captain realized these beggars could be bad for morale. "He's mad!" The men stared, appalled, and the nearest ones backed their mounts away.

Gianni spun, stabbing a finger at the air behind him. "Sneaking up on me, are you? Get hence, beaky-face! Lenni, knock him away for me!"

Gar obediently swung a backhanded blow at empty s.p.a.ce, but said, "Can't see him, Giorgio."

"No need," Gianni said, with satisfaction. "You scared him away."

"Mad indeed!" the captain said quickly and loudly, before the troopers could start muttering again. "No wonder no man will keep you! Where are you bound, beggars? How do you think you shall live?"

"Oh, by honest labor, Captain!" Gianni swung back to the leader, all wide-eyed sincerity. "All we seek is an acre to farm, where we may raise doves and hares."

A hard finger tapped his shoulder, and in a dreamy voice, Gar said, "Tell me about the rabbits, Giorgio." Gianni shrugged him off in irritation. Didn't the big clown know not to interrupt when he was trying to pretend? "Now, good Captain, if you had an acre of ground to spare . . ."

"An acre of ground?" the captain snorted. "Fool! We're mercenary soldiers! None of us expects to own land here!"

"Wherever your home is, then," Gianni pleaded. "Only a half-acre, good signor!"

"Giorgio," Gar pleaded, "tell me about the rabbits"

"Hares, Lenni!" Gianni snapped. "I keep telling you--hares, not rabbits!"

"Rabbits," Gar said, with absolute certainty. "Little, fuzzy, cuddly bunnies. You raise hares. Tell me about the rabbits, Giorgio."

"He plagues me with his demands for hare-raising stories," Gianni said, exasperated. "Please, your worship! If I can't give him land to farm, who knows what he'll do! Only half an acre, signor!"

"The only land I shall give you is six feet long and three wide!" the captain said with contempt, and to his lieutenants, "They're fools indeed. Spurn them and ride on."

"Shall we not have some fun with them first?" One of the troopers gave Gianni a leering grin that fairly froze his blood.

"Oh, very well!" the captain said impatiently. "But only a minute or two, mind! I can't linger here all day."

The troopers whooped and fell on the two unfortunates. A huge fist slammed into Gianni's belly and he folded in agony. Hard boots kicked his side, his hip, his chest, his belly again. He heard Gar roar, had a glimpse of the huge man shaking off troopers as though they were leeches, laying about him with fist and foot in blundering, clumsy movements that nonetheless laid condotierri about him like chaff on a threshing floor. Then a boot toe cracked into the side of Gianni's head, and he saw only darkness again.

Get up, get up! the white-bearded face was commanding. You cannot tarry here!

I can and shall, Gianni snarled. I listened to you last time, and look what happened!

Are you so afraid of a little pain, then?

Gianni winced at the thought of enduring more, but said, Of course not, if there's a good reason. But I accomplish nothing by my suffering-I fail wherever I try!

Who could succeed, against an army of bandits? But you can warn Pirogia of the mercenaries who seek to destroy it!

Destroy? Gianni's blood quickened; his attention suddenly focused on the swirling face.Who said to destroy them?

That captain! The lord who had hired him was angry because they had not punished the insolent merchants! What sort of punishment do you think he expected?

Why--I thought that was only-the ambushing of our ... Gianni stopped, thinking.

No--they had done that, hadn't they? And burned Signor Ludovico's storehouse.

Even so. It's Pirogia they seek to punish-Pirogia, and your mother, your father!

I must warn them! Gianni struggled to sit up. But who are you?

CHAPTER 4.

"Only me," the face said, but it was pulling in on itself, the hair calming in its swirl, the beard fading, the lines vanishing, nose shrinking, eyes growing larger.

The hair turned brown, light brown, held by an enameled band, blowing in the breeze; the eyes were brown, too, but the face was young, and very, very feminine, with high cheekbones and a wide mouth with full, red lips that moved and said, "It is only Medallia, only a Gypsy woman going in advance of her tribe."

Gianni stared up at this vision of loveliness, unable to believe so bright a sight in the midst of the darkness his life had suddenly become. "What ... where . . ."

"Lie still," she advised, "but let me lift your head into my lap; I must bandage that ugly wound in your scalp."

So that was why his head ached so abominably. Gianni let her lift his head (though it sent a lance of pain from temple to temple), then lower it against the softness of her skirt. With his head up, he could see Gar, blinking at the woman- Medallia, had she called herself? Gar had apparently already had the benefit of her nursing, for he wore one bandage across his chest and another wrapped about his brow, like a headband.

Then pain stabbed again, and Gianni squeezed his eyes shut. As the spasm pa.s.sed, he could feel soft hands winding a bandage around his head, and savored the sensation of the gentle caress, so calming, so soothing ... He shook off the mood; he must remain vigilant. Opening his eyes again, he asked, "How did you find us?"

"I was following the road," Medallia explained, still working, "and I saw you lying in the ditch. I knew the soldiers had pa.s.sed, so I feared they had robbed and beaten you."

"Well, there was another band who robbed us first," Gianni said, "but you're right-this band beat us even worse."

"How did you know there were soldiers ahead?" Gar asked, his tone so gentle that Gianni knew it must be false. What did he suspect?

"Soldiers are dangerous, for a woman alone," Medallia replied. "When I heard them coming behind me, I drove off the road and waited till they had pa.s.sed- waited long, you may be sure."

"Wise," Gianni said, but between the gentleness of her touch and the beauty of her eyes, he was beginning to feel that he would have praised anything she said.

Would he have felt this way if he had not met her binding his wounds?

Gar certainly didn't feel that way. All he said was, "Drove?" and looked about, then stared. Gianni frowned, turning his head very carefully, to see what Gar saw- but not carefully enough; pain stabbed again. He saw only what he had expected- a yellow Gypsy caravan, a high-wheeled wagon with a pair of donkeys to pull it, curve-roofed and with two windows on each side, a high chimney rising from the back with wires to hold it against swaying on b.u.mpy roads. It was unusual for a Gypsy woman to travel alone, but surely the caravan wasn't surprising. Why did Gar stare so? "Have you never seen a Gypsy's home?" he asked.

"The Gypsies of my homeland have nothing of this sort," Gar answered slowly.

Medallia looked up in surprise. Then she frowned in thought, but looked away just before Gar turned back to gaze at her. She tied Gianni's bandage, saying, "You're merchants, then?"

"We were," Gianni said bitterly, "until we were robbed. Now we're beggars-and my friend thought it wise to pretend to be madmen."

"It almost worked," Gar said, aggrieved.

"It worked quite well," Medallia corrected. "You're still alive."

Gar looked at her in pleased surprise. "I thank you-again."

Gianni a.s.sumed he must already have thanked her for his bandages. "It's good of you, very good of you, to stop to help us. Few travelers would be so kind."

"We who live on the open road become accustomed to the notion that we must help one another," Medallia told him. "You're welcome to what aid I can give-and you're cold. I must find you clothing."

"Oh, but we have our own." Gianni turned to the mound of clothing-then stopped, staring in horror. "Ah," Gar said, following his gaze. "Yes, when they came to beat us, they rode their horses everywhere, didn't they?"

"Is there anything left?"