"I thank you, but now that I have the chance of transport I'll go home and fetch me some things to take with me."

Francesca ran to meet Pieter, who was coming back to her. He had been told about Vrouw Vreeburg and forestalled what she was about to say.

"The woman is not an army wife."

"No, but be fair, Pieter! She is the mother of one."

He sighed deeply. "Let's hire a porter for you at the hostelry and then you may bring a traveling chest from your home with all you'll need." One corner of his mouth lifted in a slight smile. "But don't bring an easel."

"I daresay the castle's carpenter will make me one."

When Francesca had finished packing she said farewell to Maria, who was still in bed, for the old woman rose later these days.

"G.o.d be with you, child," Maria said fondly.

Hendrick, well aware that Francesca might be traveling into danger, wanted to say something to cheer her on the way. "When all this is over I'll welcome Aletta back into the fold if she wants to come on a visit."

"She has been hoping for that."

"I never told you, but I was present when she was married."

Francesca held his hand in both of hers. "I know," she admitted. "One day when I was in that art supplier's shop I asked about the anonymous order that was sent to the de Veere house. The description of the customer could only have fitted you."

He grinned broadly at her. "You always were like your mother. I couldn't keep anything secret from her either."

When Francesca arrived back at Dam Square, Vrouw Vreeburg was looking out for her. Pieter, now in the saddle, seeing the porter trundling a sizeable box as well as the chest, guessed that the former contained a roll of canvas and painting materials. These were loaded onto the coach and Francesca stepped in to sit beside her fellow pa.s.senger. The soldiers, refreshed by food and drink, stood ready. Pieter at their head gave the signal and the column moved forward. The march out of the city and on to Muiden had begun.

Francesca and Vrouw Vreeburg found much of interest to talk about. It was not idle chatter but sensible discussion, and each had respect for the other's intelligence. They had both brought food, Vrouw Vreeburg having replenished a basket at the hostelry and Francesca had been well supplied by Griet. When the woman dozed Francesca looked out at the countryside, which was parched from the dry summer, the gra.s.s unnaturally brown at the wayside. It was the hard earth that had enabled the French to move their artillery at such speed and the low water levels had aided crossings.

They had completed half of the journey when Pieter came galloping up to the coach, his face very serious.

"We've sighted the French. They're advancing on us. I'm telling the coachman to detach this equipage from the column and drive on to the castle with all possible speed. Give warning there! There may be enemy troops advancing to attack it other than these! Good luck!"

Francesca heard him shouting to the coachman and then she and Vrouw Vreeburg were almost thrown from their seats as the coach took a leap forward. The horses set up a pace that would have rivaled that of any stage wagon. Her last glimpse of Pieter was as he gave orders to the soldiers, who were running to take up their firing positions.

"Well," Vrouw Vreeburg exclaimed, straightening her cap, "it's a good thing we came. If we should overtake more French troops on the road we can ride past, whereas an army messenger would have been stopped."

The remaining miles were covered without mishap. The round towers of the castle stood high against the sky as they entered the town of Muiden. The way people were standing in groups talking solemnly together in the streets showed that something was wrong.

"I hope the castle hasn't been taken already!" Francesca exclaimed anxiously.

"Pray G.o.d that isn't so!" Vrouw Vreeburg cried.

At Francesca's instructions, the coachman, who had been keeping a moderate pace since they had come through the gates of the town, hailed three bystanders.

"Is anything amiss?"

One man exchanged a quick glance with the other two before answering. "That depends on your personal view, coachman. The fortress over at Naarden surrendered earlier to a troop of French cavalry and their commander has sent five of those marauding troopers here with a representative from Versailles to claim the castle of Muiden."

"I consider that to be bad news."

The man looked satisfied. "Then I'll tell you more. They have warned that resistance is pointless and all they wish to do is to save bloodshed. The magistrates are about to make their way to the castle now with the representative to authorize the handing over of the keys to him."

Francesca, who had heard everything, called quickly to the coachman. "Whip up!"

He obeyed with the same speed as he had done when they had first set out on their own, leaving the three bystanders gaping after him. Vrouw Vreeburg was full of outrage against the French.

"What villains! And what fools, those magistrates! Whatever can they have been promised in personal gain?"

"Maybe they are just frightened men who genuinely want to save the lives of the townsfolk," Francesca suggested.

"You're more charitable than I!" They had been rattling along the narrow streets when suddenly the coach began slowing down again. Vrouw Vreeburg fumed with impatience. "What has happened now?"

Francesca looked out once more and saw that the coachman had found his way blocked by a wider and larger coach gleaming with giltwork, a man mounted beside it in escort.

"It's the magisterial coach that is holding us up!" she explained tensely. Then leaning out farther, she saw a group of the town dignitaries in their official robes come through the entrance door of a courthouse and begin to descend the flight of steps prior to entering the coach.

Urgently she instructed the coachman. "As soon as we come to a side street, turn down it! Somehow we must get to the castle first!"

"Very good, mevrouw."

Francesca was about to draw her head back into the coach when she saw the horseman in escort to the gilded coach half turn in the saddle to speak to someone. A great wave of shock and fear swept over her as she recognized him. All color drained from her face and she sank back onto the seat. Her companion peered at her in alarm.

"My dear young woman, don't pa.s.s out of your senses now!"

"That has never happened to me yet." Francesca sat bolt upright to dismiss the suggestion. "I was unprepared for recognizing the Versailles representative. He is a man called Ludolf van Deventer, a Dutch traitor whom I had hoped never to set eyes on again."

"What misfortune!"

The coachman was finding his way through the narrow streets. Then at last the castle of Muiden came into full view on the far side of the river. Reddish in color, square in shape, it was surrounded by a wide moat with a drawbridge, which was down. Francesca called to the coachman that he should drive straight into the castle as soon as they reached it. Then she glanced back through the window and saw with alarm that the magisterial coach and its escort had already come into sight. Five French cavalrymen were riding in front of the gilded equipage with their officer at the head of the procession.

The Dutch sentries at the gatehouse to the single way across the river to the castle did not bother to examine Vrouw Vreeburg's paper of permission to visit, being used to the comings and goings of the wives and relatives of those in the garrison, and they merely waved the coach through. Their attention was fixed on the approaching procession and they were smartening themselves up for its arrival, a sure sign that they already knew that the castle was to be surrendered.

At Francesca's instruction the coachman whipped up the horses across the river and brought her and her companion into a wide courtyard that lay in front of the moated castle. To her disappointment he was unable to drive straight into it as she had planned. A guard of honor was lined up in front of the drawbridge, barring the way and keeping it clear for the awaited dignitaries. Instead he was directed by a sergeant to drive on to a far corner of the courtyard, where he and his pa.s.sengers would be out of the way. As he obeyed, Francesca and Vrouw Vreeburg had a pa.s.sing glimpse of several wives, one highly pregnant, standing within the castle's entrance to watch the proceedings, some in tears at what was shortly to take place.

"I saw my daughter!" Vrouw Vreeburg exclaimed with relief. "But I wonder why my son-in-law was not with the guard of honor. After all, he is the commanding officer."

The coach had stopped. Francesca sprang out at once and threw herself into a run back across the courtyard, calling out to the soldiers as soon as she was within earshot.

"Don't surrender! If you do the French will have full control of the sluices. Amsterdam is already in danger from the enemy! We need the sea to help in its defense!"

The sergeant in charge, a large man with a protruding beer belly, was glaring. He had enjoyed his easy posting at the castle and intended to retain it under the French. His commanding officer was not of a like mind, but he was presently confined to his bed in the castle with a severe fever and was unable to receive the magisterial party and the Versailles representative. The surrender would be conducted without interference and the sergeant had no intention of letting a slip of a girl stir up trouble now.

"What's all this?" he boomed, setting himself solidly in her path.

"Defend the castle! Draw your men back into it while there is still time and hold it at all costs against the French! Those are the Prince's orders!"

The sergeant's reply was sharp and to the point. "Clear off! At once! Return to your coach and keep your mouth shut or leave! We have important duties here today."

"Listen to me," she implored desperately, clasping her hands in front of her in appeal. "I was traveling with a contingent of our soldiers coming under my husband's command to defend the castle, but they were engaged by a French advance party. The castle of Muiden must not fall into enemy hands!"

The sergeant saw an older woman coming in haste from the coach. It was more than enough to have one female causing a furor, let alone two. A hasty glance over his shoulder showed him that the French troopers were emerging from the avenue, the magisterial coach coming behind them. He snapped an order to three of his guards. "Put this young woman and the other one back in the coach and keep them there! One of you make the coachman drive farther out of sight."

Francesca dodged, but two guards seized her. She kicked and struggled, calling again to the soldiers to make a stand against the French, but not one moved. Suddenly aware that she was in full view of the women gathered in the entrance, she screamed at them with all the force of her lungs as she was dragged away, the cords on her neck standing out.

"Pull up the drawbridge!"

She saw one woman spring into action immediately, but whether the others followed her example she did not know, for she was being taken swiftly away. In sickening realization she accepted that, however willing some of those women might have been, it would be beyond their physical strength to raise a heavy drawbridge. She saw that Vrouw Vreeburg was being hustled back by the third guard, who had gripped her by the arm, and her protests were fierce but in vain.

Francesca could hear the sergeant ordering his men to attention and there was a snap of heels and a clink of muskets. When she heard a single horse cantering forward from the approaching magisterial party, she closed her eyes briefly in despair, knowing whose voice she would hear.

"Release that young woman," Ludolf ordered. "I'll take charge of her."

The soldiers let her go and stepped away as Ludolf dismounted. She turned to him, her expression stony, her eyes blazing.

"You traitor!" she hissed.

He had believed her to be still locked away in Delft, confident that she would still be there when he was ready to collect her, and although his brows drew together in a frown at her fierceness, nothing could dampen his pleasure at coming across her so unexpectedly. "Let's have no harsh words. Come into the castle with me, my dearest, and tell me how it is that you are here."

He reached for her, his intention plain enough that he would kiss her first, his lips parting and his expression elated. She raised both fists as if to hammer them against his chest and then spun about to run from him. One of the soldiers who had previously been holding her saw what was happening and gave her a thrust in the back as she pa.s.sed him. She went crashing face downward, the breath knocked out of her, her arms outflung. Gasping, she would have raised herself up, but Ludolf's booted foot slammed down onto the back of her wrist, crushing it on the cobbles.

"What is that?" he demanded wrathfully.

On her spread hand her gold wedding ring gleamed. She was ashen-faced with pain, fearing her wrist was broken, but she looked up over her shoulder at his brutal features with triumph.

"I'm Pieter van Doorne's wife! We were married yesterday!"

His reaction was to grind her wrist still harder into the cobbles, his face turning an ugly color, distorted by jealousy. In the same instant there came a sudden uproar of shouts and a creaking and rattling. Automatically she switched her gaze, as he did, in that direction. The magisterial procession was in confusion. The cavalry officer at the head was trying to control his horse, which had taken fright when the drawbridge had suddenly begun to rise in front of it! Francesca let her cheek rest on the ground again with a sob of relief. The drawbridge was going up and there was nothing anyone this side of the moat could do to stop it!

"Halt that drawbridge!" Ludolf roared, leaping over her and running to where the magistrates, alarmed and disconcerted by this unexpected turn of events, were voicing their rage through the coach windows at those in the castle. In his inflamed mood Ludolf looked as if he would commit murder as soon as he came face to face with those responsible for the rebellious act and he let forth a torrent of abuse at the sergeant and the magistrates for allowing it to take place.

Francesca, nursing her wrist with no doubt now that it was badly broken and wincing at the excruciating pain, was thankful when one of the guard of honor, all of whom were in disarray, came to a.s.sist her to her feet.

"My felicitations," he said with a confidential wink. "I can tell you now that as many men in the castle's small garrison were against surrender as there were those for it, but any who spoke up were clapped into chains."

"Do you think that some of your comrades in the castle helped the women to haul up the drawbridge?"

"You can be sure of that. How does it feel to have put a spark to tinder?"

"I'm glad of it!"

He was guiding her toward the coach, their steps slow, for every movement jarred her wrist. "That injury of yours needs a splint," he said. "As soon as you're seated I'll find a suitable piece of wood."

"You're most kind." She had to take a pause again, breathing deeply to fight the agony of her broken bones. As soon as she was ready to move on again there came a spatter of gunfire. She and the soldier looked back. All the military men had rushed for cover and the magistrates had crouched down in their coach while Ludolf had drawn his pistols and was shooting back at the castle's apertures. The dismounted French troopers had begun firing their long-barreled matchlock rifles. The horses of the magisterial coach were frightened and restless, their reins held by their coachman, who had leapt down from his box to take shelter by a wheel. The sergeant had bawled an order to his men to fire, but it was noticeable that only about half obeyed him. A lull came, for there had been no return fire from the castle.

Ludolf shouted to those within. "Give up now! You haven't a chance of holding this fortress! It will fall to the French army, never doubt it! Muiden will be put to the flames! Blood will run in rivers through the streets and the moat here will turn red!"

At one of the castle's apertures, from which in centuries past arrows had been shot, a young military clerk looked down the barrel of his wheel-lock rifle and took the Dutch representative of Versailles into his sights. He had never aimed at a man before, and although his fellow countryman was a traitor of the worst kind, it was different from shooting game in the woodlands. His hand trembled as his finger tightened on the trigger. The deafening report of the fired bullet and the acrid smell of the gunpowder were not the cause of his sudden turning aside to vomit. He had not realized a man could look surprised at the moment of death.

Ludolf had fallen, but he was not dead. Two of the guards pulled him out of range and the sergeant knelt to examine the wound. The bullet had torn into the upper left arm. Ludolf's own response to being shot was one of vengeance and frustration.

"The soldier who committed this misdeed must be executed! I'm here as the messenger of the King of France, not a militant." He ignored the fact that he had fired both pistols.

The sergeant was binding up the wound with Ludolf's own sash. "You must be taken to a doctor at once, mijnheer. The bullet appears to be lodged in a bone. Can you stand?"

"Yes, help me to my feet."

The sergeant hauled him upright and supported him. The magistrates were eager to get away, and they reached out their hands from the coach to a.s.sist the sergeant in getting Ludolf up the steps to them. Yet Ludolf resisted, staring toward Francesca.

"I want that woman to come with me. Bring her here!"

Francesca stood appalled, knowing she would faint from the waves of pain sweeping over her if she tried to run away.

"Leave me," she said to the soldier at her side. "This is something I must settle for myself." Then, as the soldier moved, she took one agonizing step forward, cradling her wrist against her chest, and called to Ludolf across the distance between them. "This is as far as I can go unaided. You must either come for me yourself or go out of my life forever!"

Ludolf jerked himself free from the support of the sergeant, who protested at his foolhardiness. "Mijnheer! Don't go! Get into the coach and I'll fetch her. You'll be within range of the castle's fire again!"

"They'll not dare shoot at me a second time," Ludolf growled. With his good arm he thrust himself away from the side of the coach, but there was no time for more. A shout had gone up from the avenue as one of the sentries had come running to yell jubilantly through cupped hands. "Our army is here!"

Ludolf grabbed the sergeant by the sleeve. "Get me on my horse!"

The sergeant ran to fetch it. Ludolf was barely in the saddle when Dutch officers at the head of their running troops came bursting out of the avenue. Swinging his horse around, Ludolf galloped in the opposite direction. As he pa.s.sed Francesca he shouted to her: "Nothing is ended yet! Never doubt that I'll deal with that so-called husband of yours!"

She watched him gallop on to disappear through the border of trees and plunge his horse down into the stretch of water beyond, making for the other sh.o.r.e.

Several hours later, weak from loss of blood, Ludolf lay at the edge of a cornfield. Some time ago he had fallen from his horse, which had galloped off on its own. He could see a farmhouse not far away, but he lacked the strength to crawl there. Yet sooner or later someone would come along and see him. His thirst was terrible, his parched throat making it impossible to shout. He drifted into blackness. When he opened his eyes again it was evening with the first early stars showing in the darkening sky, but he could see no lights at the farmhouse. There had been n.o.body about earlier, but he had thought the workers were all in the fields. Was the place deserted? It came to him in a few minutes of clarity that he had not heard a cow or the bleat of a sheep or the barking of a dog or any of the normal farmyard sounds. In fact, there had been a dearth of livestock for several miles before he had fallen at this spot, too dazed to consider the implication.

When he next emerged from the curious oblivion that kept sucking him down into its depths, the sun was up again and blazing down on him as it had done the day before. He was sweating with heat and fever. Somewhere in the distance was a curious roar and the ground on which he was lying appeared to be trembling. He seemed to see a sparkling in the sky above the corn. Then horrified realization dawned. It was spray from the sea. The sluices must have been opened at Muiden and the land was being flooded.

It was his last conscious thought before mercifully the moment of death came. He had no knowledge of being swept away by the thundering water like a piece of flotsam among fallen trees, broken buildings and pieces of thatch.

AT AMSTERDAM, Francesca had not been to the walls to watch the sea approach as hundreds of citizens had done. She was posing in the studio for Hendrick, seated on a chair with a shawl hiding the binding of her wrist, which was in a sling. It was giving her plenty of time to mull over the events of the previous few days.

Pieter had not been with the first Dutch troops that had arrived at Muiden, but he and his surviving men had reached the castle in time to help ward off and defeat a French attack that had followed soon afterward. The castle of Muiden had been left secure with a garrison of six hundred men when he had brought Francesca back to Amsterdam while there was still time to get through before the sluices took effect.

She had been exhausted by the speedy return journey, her wrist having been set by an army surgeon but still subject to severe pain. Despite her physical suffering, she knew intense relief when Pieter told her of the message he had received upon entering the city. They had hastened with the good news to Hendrick.

"Your troubles are at an end, Master Visser," Pieter had said. "Ludolf van Deventer is dead, presumably drowned. His body, washed up against a bank, was seen by pa.s.sing boatmen, who brought it to the city. As a proven traitor he would have been executed had he been caught. Now, by custom, his a.s.sets will be confiscated by the state while any debts owing to him will be declared null and void."

"I can scarcely believe such news after all this time," Hendrick had answered, almost dazed by this unexpected release from the nightmare that had been hanging over him for so long.

Francesca recalled the brief farewell in the reception hall that she and Pieter had shared. They had faced each other, their eyes full of love.

"Come back safely to me," she had whispered pa.s.sionately.

"One day there'll never be another parting," he had promised vehemently.

They had kissed, his arms wrapped around her. Then he had broken away and she had gone to the door to watch him mount his waiting horse and ride away. At the end of the street he had looked back and swept off his hat to wave it in farewell, the orange plume catching the sunlight. Then he was gone from her sight, riding to rejoin the Prince's forces.