Tallie's Knight

by Anna Gracie

magnificent husband. And she was almost in Italy, where she should be

  able to discover the truth about her mother's death. And she was going

  to have a baby. The cold mountain air prickled at her eyes and she had

  to grope for a handkerchief to wipe her eyes. It was odd how easily

  she cried these days, she reflected, when really she had nothing to cry

  about.

  She finished wiping her eyes, then, noticing one of the porters

  watching her, began to clap her cold hands in time to the music,

  humming along to the tune. With the singing, the time passed more

  quickly, until at last the porters stopped and Magnus came to lift her

  out of the basket.

  "Could you hear the singing from up ahead? Wasn't it utterly

  wonderful?" she said, stretching her cramped limbs.

  "Very nice," he responded.

  "Are you warm enough?" He took her small cold hands in his and began

  to chafe them gently. His hands were not exactly warm themselves, and

  she became concerned when she saw he looked rather heavy-eyed and

  preoccupied.

  "Are you all right?" she asked.

  He shrugged.

  "Picked up a bit of a chill, I suspect. Nothing to worry about. Now,

  I think those fellows have brandy, or some such local brew. I want you

  to have a little--keep the cold out."

  She looked around.

  "Magnus, what are they doing?"

  The porters were unloading the mules. Magnus went to discuss it with

  them. He came back, a faint grin on his face.

  "This is as far as the mules go. And now, my dear, you will have to

  resign yourself to being carried."

  Sure enough, the men had brought out some rough-looking woven wicker

  litters attached to crude poles. They gestured to Magnus, and Tallie

  went forward reluctantly.

  In minutes she was installed in a litter, tied down--for safety, they

  said--and packed in straw, as well as bearskins, for warmth.

  "I feel ridiculous," she said. Magnus chuckled and wound a thick

  woollen shawl around her face.

  "You look quite delightful, my dear."

  Tallie could hardly move, so she directed an almost invisible glare at

  him.

  "Monsieur?" said a porter. Magnus turned. The porter gestured to

  another litter, sitting beside Tallie's.

  "Please, monsieur, we must hurry."

  "What? I don't need a blasted litter!" said Magnus, outraged.

  The porter shrugged.

  "It is the only way, monsieur. The way we move, no one who was not

  born in these mountains can keep up with us. You must go in the

  chair."

  A muffled giggle came from the bundle that was Tallie. Magnus

  hesitated, stiff with annoyance.

  "An inexperienced person will slow us down. And there are wolves,

  monsieur, and bears."

  Magnus didn't budge.

  "And madame, she is getting cold, monsieur."

  "Oh, very well--damn your eyes!" said Magnus, and allowed himself to

  be strapped into the litter. Tallie watched in glee as her immaculate,

  elegant husband was bundled into a litter and wrapped until he looked

  like a pile of old washing. Two porters hoisted his litter onto their

  shoulders with a jolt. They moved forward.

  "Oh, Magnus?" called Tallie as he came alongside her. The porters

  paused.

  Magnus glared across at her.

  "What?" he snapped.

  "Sometimes we must sacrifice dignity for expediency, my dear," she said

  solemnly.

  Magnus swore and ordered the porters to move on.

  "Don't worry, my dear," she called.

  "You look delightful in your litter, too."

  He swore again, and her laughter followed him up the steep pathway.

  The porters must be part mountain goat, Tallie decided breathlessly

  after an hour of climbing. There were four for each litter and they

  leaped up impossibly steep slopes at a pace which Tallie doubted she

  could maintain on flat ground for more than a minute.

  On one side, the narrow, winding path dropped away to a bottomless

  precipice, on the other were violently soaring peaks and huge vertical

  slabs of rock. There was no room to manoeuvre; the slightest misstep

  would have them plunging hundreds of feet over the precipice, to perish

  on the ragged rocks below. The porters didn't even pause or blink when

  Tallie heard what she was sure were wolves howling in the not very far

  distance. She hardly dared to breathe.

  Tallie heaved a sigh of relief when they came to the top of the pass

  and stopped for a break of perhaps a minute or two. The view was

  superb. In every direction lay mountain peaks-some glittering with

  snow--sharp against the crisp vivid blue of the sky. On one side of

  them was France, down there somewhere below was Italy, and across in

  the distance were the peaks of Switzerland. It was a moment to

  remember, she thought excitedly, a moment to tell her children. She

  laid her hand on her flat stomach, marvelling, still unable to believe

  that there was a baby growing inside her.

  With a sudden jolt, she found herself on the move again, this time at a

  breathtaking pace. The bearers ran, rather than walked, taking tiny

  little steps where the path was most perilous and great bounding

  strides when it levelled out or widened.

  Tallie clung on like grim death, bouncing and swaying.

  Finally they came to a tiny village, which clung to the side of the

  mountains in apparent impossibility. The panting porters set down the

  litters and one of them came forward to lift her out. She looked for

  her husband. He was still in his litter. She hurried over on stiff

  legs.

  "Magnus was that not the most terrifyingly thril?-Magnus, are you all

  right?"

  His face was death-pale, his eyes closed. He did not move.

  She pulled her gloves off and felt his forehead with her hand. Despite

  the chill in the air, his forehead was hot and clammy.

  "Magnus!"

  Slowly he opened his eyes.

  "Oh, there you are," he said, and fumbled to get out of the litter. She

  helped him out, but when he tried to stand he reeled, and would have

  fallen if one of the porters had not grabbed him. Tallie was greatly

  alarmed.

  "He's ill! Is there a physician nearby? Maguire!"

  Maguire and the head porter came over and there was a brief

  discussion.

  "He's ill," Tallie repeated.

  "He needs a physician. Can we take him to an inn or somewhere?"

  The porter shook his head and glanced significantly around. Tallie

  followed his gaze. The village consisted of a half-dozen tiny

  cottages. Certainly there would be no doctor here. Anxiety gripped

  her throat.

  "I must get him to the nearest physician," she insisted.

  "I'm all right," muttered Magnus thickly.

  "Just a bit woozy, that's all."

  Tallie ignored him and fixed the head porter with a determined stare.

  "Please transport us with all haste to the nearest place where I can

  get help for my husband," she said firmly.

  "At once, if you please!"

  The porter nodded, then smiled and patted her on the shoulder, saying

  something in a dialect that Tallie coul
d not understand. He called out

  to the others, and to her relief they soon had a vaguely protesting

  Magnus safely stowed back in his litter and were moving off down the

  mountain. This time Tallie saw nothing amusing in the sight.

  "Hurry," she urged the bearers.

  The trip down the mountainside was a nightmare to Tallie. She wished

  she could see how her husband was faring, but the path was still too

  steep and narrow for them to go in anything except single file.

  They passed several more tiny hamlets, but Tallie didn't even consider

  them. She had to get to the nearest town big enough to support a

  proper physician. Whenever they slowed, even for a moment, she urged

  them on.

  "Hurry, oh, please hurry!"

  Finally one of the porters pointed and mumbled something. Tallie

  followed the direction of his arm. Far, far below, she could see a

  town, a tiny sea of terra cotta rooftops and the spire of a church. Her

  heart leapt. It was still a long distance away. She nodded.

  "Doctor?"

  The man nodded back.

  "Dottore."

  Tallie caught her breath.

  "Oh, thank the Lord. Now, please hurry."

  The men jogged onwards. Tallie noticed nothing of the scenery; her

  eyes went from the bundle that was her husband, then down to the town,

  then back again.

  Suddenly shots rang out. Tallie was jerked to a sudden halt. She

  blinked, and was almost thrown out of her litter as her bearers dropped

  it. They had stopped on a corner. Above them on both sides were steep

  rocks. She could see nothing ahead, nothing behind. All around her

  was sudden silence.

  "What is it?" she called.

  "Pray, what is the matter? And why have we stopped?"

  "No questions," an unfamiliar voice shouted in rough Italian above her.

  She looked up and saw a tall, dark-haired man with a large moustache

  pointing a gleaming silver pistol in her direction. He was thin, but

  broad-shouldered, and dressed in a ragged uniform; there were battered

  traces of dull yellow embroidery on his jacket, which she supposed

  might once have looked gold. Was he a soldier? But the war was over,

  surely.

  There was a sudden flurry ahead and a single shot rang out. Tallie's

  heart almost stopped. Magnus! But she could hear or see nothing. The

  man above called something to someone unseen and then nimbly leaped

  down onto the path ahead, bringing a scattering of small rocks down

  with him. Immediately a dozen more men appeared, all dressed in some

  sort of uniform, one in braided trousers, another in a waistcoat, all

  ragged, none of them matching. Each one of them brandished a knife or

  a pistol or both.

  "What is it? Who are they?" Tallie whispered to the porter standing

  nearest her.

  He turned to look at her, his eyes sombre.

  "Banditti," he said.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Banditti? gasped Tallie.

  The porter jerked his head significantly up to the left.

  "Bad men.

  Live up there. " His lip curled and he spat in scorn.

  "Not our people."

  More orders rang out in dialect and the porters moved slowly forward.

  The ragged collection of armed banditti watched every move from their

  lofty positions on the rocks above. The party reached a small

  clearing, bordered on three sides by rock walls and on the fourth by a

  plunging precipice along which the narrow track passed. It would be

  impossible to escape; only one person at a time could move along that

  path. This was obviously a well-planned ambush.

  The bandits had already disarmed the guards and Tallie could see that

  two porters were injured, although it didn't seem as if they were badly

  hurt; they could still walk, though with some difficulty. The hired

  guards, luckily, seemed untouched.

  The tall dark man in the ragged gold braid uttered a sharp order and

  two bandits with pistols shepherded the porters and guards to a shallow

  cave in the rock, and forced them to sit, hands on heads.

  Tallie breathed a sigh of relief. The bandits did not mean to kill

  anyone--yet.

  Several ruffians hovered over the prisoners still in their litters, a

  variety of firearms and gleaming knives and stilettos pointed

  menacingly, while the rest fell upon the bundles of baggage, emptying

  their belongings onto the mountainside with careless greed. They

  removed everything of value, even Magnus's fine leather boots.

  Bundled in her litter, Tallie waited helplessly. The bindings that had

  been for her security now kept her imprisoned. She wondered how Magnus

  was faring, and struggled inconspicuously to escape her bonds.

  The bandit leader thrust his silver duelling pistol through his belt

  and swaggered towards them.

  "Aha, what have we here?" he said in oddly accented but surprisingly

  urbane Italian.

  "A lady--no, two ladies," he added, lifting a rug to discover Monique

  cowering underneath.

  "And four gentlemen." He glanced at the litters containing Magnus,

  Maguire, John Black, and Guillaume, Magnus's valet.

  "Which one is the English milord?" His vivid green eyes examined each

  man narrowly.

  The English milord? How did he know one of the travellers was an

  English milord? wondered Tallie anxiously. Their majordomo, Luigi

  Maguire, had stressed that they should appear as ordinary travellers.

  "Naturally, while no foreign traveller is precisely poor," he had said

  in his unique accent, 'it is not a good idea to advertise wealth, so if

  you will accept my advice, Lord d'Arenville, you will travel as plain

  Mr. d'Arenville. Or even Mr. Smith, if you like. And in your

  plainest coat and boots. Your good lady, too, in her plainest, most

  serviceable gown and cloak. "

  And they had taken his eminently sensible advice. So how did this

  bandit know there was an English lord in the party?

  "Come, gentlemen, I know one of you is an English milord, and a fine

  fat pigeon for my plucking."

  No one said a word.

  The bandit leader strode forward, and with a rough oath he dragged

  first Maguire, then Guillaume, then John Black from their litters. He

  examined each man briefly, then thrust them towards his men, who

  stripped them of any valuables they found.

  Behind her Tallie heard Monique shrieking as she was robbed of her

  finery. A slap rang out and a bandit laughed. John Black swore in a

  litany of solid English curses and surged forward. A scuffle broke

  out. There was a loud crack and John Black fell to the ground,

  groaning and clutching his head. Guillaume and Maguire did not stir.

  Guillaume looked terrified. Maguire seemed unmoved. After a moment,

  to Tallie's relief, John Black struggled to his feet, shaken but

  apparently still in one piece. A bandit tied his hands.

  The bandit leader turned and dragged Magnus from his litter.

  "Leggo of me, damn y'r eyes!" muttered Magnus, swaying as he stood,

  trying to fend off the bandit.

  "Aha, our arrogant English milord, I presume," said the bandit leader

  in excellent French, and he bowed mockingl
y as he drew the money belt

  from Magnus's waist.

  Tallie's eyes widened. This ragged villain was no simple peasant.

  Magnus swayed again, and the bandit grabbed him by the coat,

  laughing.

  "Is it drunk you are, my fine English milord? Or are you a coward,

  like the rest of your kind?"

  "He's nothing of the sort! He's ill," shouted Tallie furiously,

  struggling to clamber out of her litter. She freed herself, scrambled

  out and rushed over to her husband, thrusting her body between him and

  the bandit.

  "Leave him alone. He's ill. Can't you see?"

  The bandit snorted. His green eyes narrowed.

  "He is, otherwise he would have shot you dead, you villain!" Tallie

  said fiercely, wedging her shoulder under Magnus's to support his

  swaying form.

  The bandit looked at Magnus again and spat on the ground.

  "Pah, look at him! He's shaking with fright!"

  "He's shaking with fever Tallie retorted angrily, wiping her husband's