Delphi Collected Works of Max Brand US

by Max Brand

  Tizzo, with his careless laughter, loosened the ax from its place at his saddle bow and swung it about his head, cleaving this way and that. The thing became a feather. It whirled and danced. It swayed to this side and that as though parrying showers of blows — and all of this while in the grasp of a single hand.

  “Practice will make even a bear dance!” said Tizzo. And then gripping the handle of the ax in both hands, he struck a thick branch from a tree under which the road passed at that moment. The big bough fell with a rustling sound to the highway, and Tizzo rode on, still laughing; but the baron paused a moment to examine the depth and the cleanness of the wound and to try the hardness of the wood with his dagger point.

  “God help the head that trusts its helmet against your ax, Tizzo,” he said. “A battle ax is a thing I have used, but a woodsman’s ax never.”

  “If a battle ax were swung for half a day to fell trees,” said Tizzo, “the strongest knight would begin to curse it. But a woodsman will know the balance of his ax as you know the balance of your sword, and the hours he works teaches him to manage it like nothing. I’ve seen them fighting with axes too, and using them to ward as well as to strike. So I spent some time with them every day for years.”

  They came in sight now of a fork in the road, and as they drew closer a carriage drawn by four horses swung out of a small wood and waited for them.

  “There are our friends,” said the baron. “Inside that coach is the lad we’re taking to a safer home than the one he’s been in. His name is Tomaso, and that’s enough for you to know about him. Except that to take him safely and deliver him will bring us a good, handsome sum of money for our purses.”

  “I shall ask no questions,” agreed Tizzo, delighted by this touch of mystery.

  About the coach, which was heavy enough to need the stronger of the four horses to pull it over the rutted, unsurfaced roads, there were grouped a number of armed men, two on the driver’s seat and two as postillions, while another pair stood at the heads of their horses. And each one of the six, it seemed to Tizzo, looked a more complete villain than the other. They were half fine and half in tatters, with a good weight of armor and weapons on every man of the lot.

  A slender lad in a very plain black doublet and hose with a red cap on his head was another matter.

  “Tomaso, I’ve told you to keep inside the carriage,” said the baron angrily, as he rode up.

  “What does it matter where there’s nothing but blue sky and winds to see me?” asked Tomaso, in a voice surprisingly light, so that Tizzo put down the age of the lad at two or three years younger than the sixteen or seventeen which had been his first guess.

  “Whatever you may be in other places,” said Melrose, sternly, “when you ride with me, I am the master. Get into the carriage!”

  Tomaso, in spite of this sternness, moved in the most leisurely manner to re-enter the carriage, with a shrug of his shoulders and a glance of contempt from his brown eyes.

  After he was out of sight, one of the guards refastened the curtains that shut Tomaso from view.

  “Why,” said Tizzo, “he’s only a child.”

  The baron pointed a finger at him. “Let me tell you,” he said, “that you’re apt to find more danger in Tomaso than in any man you’ll meet in the whole course of your life. To horse, my lads. I’m glad to see you all safely here; and I’ve been true to my promise and found a good man to add to our party. My friends, this is Tizzo. They call him Firebrand because his hair is red; but his nature is as quiet as that of a pet dog. Value him as I do — which is highly. He will help us to get to the end of our journey.”

  There were only a few muttered greetings. One fellow with a long face and a patch over one eye protested: “It’s a bad business stirring up hornets and then waiting for them to sting; or making these long halts in the middle of enemy country. Already we’ve been noted.”

  “By whom, Enrico?” asked the baron. “Who would think of searching this place? And you covered the marks of the wheels when you drove the carriage into hiding?”

  “I covered the marks well enough. But a dog uses its nose, not its eyes, and it was a dog that led the man into the wood.”

  “Did you catch the fellow?” asked the baron, anxiously.

  “How could we? There was not a single horse saddled. He came on us suddenly, whirled about, and was off. I caught up a crossbow and tried for him but missed,” answered Enrico. “He rode away between those hills, and ever since, I’ve been watching to see trouble come through the pass at us. I was never for making the halt.”

  “Tush,” said Melrose. “Everything will be well. Did that stranger who spied on you — did he see Tomaso?”

  “He did — clearly — and Tomaso shouted to him.”

  “By God, Enrico, do you mean that Tomaso recognized him?”

  “I don’t know. It seemed that way. Very likely, too, because a thousand men are hunting for — Tomaso.”

  The baron groaned and ordered an instant start. He left Enrico and Tizzo as a rear guard to follow at a little distance, out of the dust raised by the clumsy wheels of the carriage; for his own part, the baron of Melrose went forward to spy out the way.

  As they started forward, their horses at a trot, Enrico turned his ugly face to Tizzo and said: “So my lord found his redhead, eh? You’re the prize, are you?”

  Tizzo had felt himself on the verge of a mystery. Now he was sure that he was involved in the mystery itself. For some definite and singular purpose, the baron certainly wanted him. It was above all strange that in Italy he should be looking for redheaded young men. Might it be that he intended to use Tizzo to impersonate another character? In any event, it was certain that the baron was not a man to bother over small scruples. And Tizzo determined to be more wakeful than a hungry cat. He had a liking for the baron; he respected his strength and his courage; he hoped that through him the golden door of adventure might be opened; but he half expected that the big man was using him as the slightest of pawns in some great game.

  The carriage horses dragged their burden through the hills, where the road wound blazing white among the vineyards and the dusty gray of the olive trees, often silvered by a touch of wind. The day was hot, the work was hard, and presently the team had to be rested.

  As they halted to take breath, the baron rode apart with Tizzo, and dismounting behind a tall stone wall, he pulled out his sword. “For the first lesson!” he said, and as Tizzo drew his own blade, Melrose showed him, with the slowest movement of the hand, the details of that maneuver which had opened the guard of Tizzo like a handstroke. For several minutes he studied and practiced that strange combination of ward and counterstroke. He had not mastered it with his hand but he understood it with his mind before they went back to the others.

  Tizzo asked him, on the way, why he had not used the irresistible force of that ward and counter earlier during their encounter in the kitchen. At this the baron chuckled. “Because I’m a fool,” he said. “I was enjoying the sight of your good swordsmanship too much to want the thing to end.”

  “Yes,” agreed Tizzo, smiling. “And besides, you were wearing a lucky buckle.”

  “Luck is the best friend that any soldier ever had,” answered the baron. “When you learn to trust it, you have learned how to be happy. But, Tizzo, trust me, also!”

  He said this with a certain gravity that impressed his companion. But when the journey through the late afternoon commenced again, there was still a pregnant doubt in the mind of Tizzo. That matter of the search for the redheaded young man — that unknown role for which he had been selected weighed much on his mind.

  He kept his concerns to himself, however, as they drew on into the cooler evening. A wind had begun in the upper sky, whirling the clouds into thin, twisted streamers, but it had not yet reached the surface of the ground.

  The carriage was being dragged up a fairly easy slope when the baron halted it by raising his hand. He reined his horse back at the same time, calling: “Enrico,
do you see anything in those trees?”

  Enrico, staring fixedly at the small grove of willows — thick, pollarded stumps, exclaimed: “I can’t see into the trees, but I can see a dust over them that the wind never put there.”

  Now that it was pointed out, Tizzo could see the same thing — a few drifting wisps of dust high above the tops of the trees. If the baron paid heed to such small tokens as these, it proved the intensity of his care.

  “If we go on, the road takes us straight past that place,” he said, “Cesare, ride into those trees and see what sort of birds you can stir up.”

  But before Cesare could stir to execute the order, something whirred in a streak through the air and Tizzo received a heavy blow against his breastplate. A broken quarrel dropped to the ground, the steel point of it fixed deeply in the armor; and Tizzo heard at the same time the humming clang of the crossbow string, which sounded from the edge of the wood. As though this were the signal, a shout burst out from many throats and the brush at the edge of the willows appeared alive with men.

  CHAPTER 5

  THE BARON SHOUTED to get the horses turned. The team was swinging around when a full volley of half a dozen of crossbow bolts darted from the brush and stopped the maneuver. One of the team dropped dead. Two others, badly wounded, began to squeal and plunge, dragging the carriage to the side of the road and smashing a wheel against a rock.

  “Charge before they reload!” shouted the baron. “Tizzo! Enrico! With me, friends!”

  He set the example, yelling over his shoulder: “Andrea, hold Tomaso; the rest, follow me!”

  The other fellows of the baron’s troop left the carriage and ran on foot to help their master, four of them sword in hand. But Tizzo rushed at the side of Enrico toward the brush. Crossbowmen, usually lightly armored, would make easy game; but there were enemies of a different quality to deal with in the woods. For out of them rode no fewer than five men-at-arms in complete armor, lances at rest. Those on either side were equipped in the most complete fashion, but he in the center wore flowing plumes from his helmet and the evening light brightened on the rich inlay of his armor.

  With closed visors, like five death’s-heads, the horsemen charged, shouting: “Marozzo! Marozzo!”

  It was a name that Tizzo knew very well. No man in Perugia, not even among the family of the high and mighty Baglioni, was richer than gallant young Mateo Marozzo, the last heir of his family name.

  Anxiously, Tizzo glanced toward the baron, because it seemed a madness to engage, half armed as they were, with five fully equipped riders like these. Their long spears threatened quick death and an ending to the fight before sword or ax or dagger ever could come into play.

  But Baron Melrose did not slacken his pace for all the odds against him. As the men-at-arms appeared, he merely stood up in his stirrups and shouted in a thundering voice: “Ah, ha! Melrose! Melrose! Strike in! Strike in!” And with this battle cry he rushed first of the three against his enemy, swinging his sword for a stroke. Enrico did not hang back; and Tizzo was last of the trio to come to action.

  The spears were not so dangerous as they looked. Tizzo could see that at once. On smooth ground that charge of the five ponderous warriors would have overwhelmed the baron’s men at once; but the brush, the uneven ground staggered the galloping horses and made the lances waver from a true aim. Tizzo, hurling himself toward that brilliant plumed figure in the center, grasped his woodsman’s ax, rode seated high in his saddle, and at the last moment dipped low. The lance of his enemy drove over his shoulder; the backstroke of the ax, in passing, glanced off the polished shoulder armor, and descending on the mailed arm of the rider, knocked the spear from his grasp.

  As he turned his horse, Tizzo could see the crossbowmen in the shrubbery struggling energetically to reload their weapons, but they were armed with those powerful arbalests whose cords were pulled back by the use of a complicated tackle of pulleys and rope. The fastest of them still did not have a second quarrel in place as Tizzo reined in his horse and flung himself again at the knight.

  He saw, as he swerved, that Enrico’s horse was falling; injured by a misdirected thrust of a spear; and big Baron Melrose had engaged with his sword two of the men-at-arms. As for the three fellows on foot, they had paused. They saw their master overmatched, one of his best fighters already dismounted, and the battle definitely lost, it seemed.

  Those two glances were enough to discourage Tizzo. But, if he were to die, he was determined to die fighting. The plumed knight, wheeling toward him, had unsheathed a long sword and now drove in his horse at a trot, wielding the sword with both hands.

  “Marozzo!” he was shouting. “Marozzo! Marozzo!”

  And Tizzo answered with a yell of: “Melrose! Long live Melrose!”

  Then he swung up the axhead to meet the terrible downward sway of the sword. A sure eye and a swift hand made that parry true. The sword blade shattered with a tinkling sound, splintering and breaking at the point of impact.

  But Marozzo — if this were in fact he — was still full of fight. He could see his fourth companion whirling and running his horse at a gallop to come to the rescue, so the knight of the plumed helmet snatched a mace from his saddlebow and drove at Tizzo.

  The first ax-stroke had glanced. The second would not, Tizzo swore — not if he had truly learned from the woodsmen how to strike to a line. He aimed at the central one of the three plumes and then struck like a whirling flash of light.

  The blow was true and deep and good. As the blade bit in, a savage hope came up in Tizzo that he had cloven the skull of the leader of the ambuscade. But it was only the crest that he shore away, while from the heavier, conical steel of the helmet itself the ax glanced a second time.

  The weight of that blow made the helmet ring like a bell; and Marozzo fell helplessly forward on the pommel of his saddle and the neck of his horse.

  The course of the battle was instantly changed.

  The trotting horse of Marozzo moved him from the next stroke of that flashing ax, which certainly would have been a death blow. And as Tizzo swung his own horse about, with his cry of “Melrose! Melrose!” the four men-at-arms left off their individual battles and rushed to the rescue of their leader, who was sliding helplessly out of the saddle, stunned.

  “Away!” shouted one of the ambushers. “Rescue the signore! Away, away! If he’s dead, our necks will be stretched for it! Crossbowmen, cover us! The signore is hurt!”

  In a moment the men-at-arms were withdrawing, one of them supporting their hurt master and the other three reining back their horses in the rear to keep a steady front against a new attack. The crossbowmen — there were eight of them in all — issued from the woods and fell in behind the riders, keeping their quarrels ready for discharge but making no offer to loose them at the baron’s men. Quickly the entire troop was lost among the trees.

  From the melee, two horses were left dead and one dying, but, what seemed a miracle, not a single man had received so much as a scratch. Luck had been with the baron and the plate armor of the men-at-arms had saved them. Only the leader had been injured to an unknown degree.

  It was dusk before the dying horse was put out of pain; the carriage was abandoned; and with Tomaso mounted behind Melrose the party started on through the hills. The twilight gradually grew more and more dim and yet there had been light enough for Tomaso to look long and fixedly at Tizzo with a curious expression of admiration and hate in his brown eyes.

  Baron Henry of Melrose was in high spirits in spite of the loss of the carriage. He said to Enrico: “You see what a redheaded man is worth, Enrico? And that was the famous knight Mateo Marozzo, you understand? Tell me, Tomaso! Was it not young Mateo? You ought to know his voice and he was shouting loudly enough until Tizzo tapped on his headpiece.”

  “I don’t know,” answered Tomaso.

  He kept his one hand on the shoulder of the baron and the other gripped the high back of the saddle while Tomaso looked dreamily off across the hills.
/>   “Answer me, Tomaso!” commanded the baron.

  “My lord,” said Tomaso, in his musical and quiet voice, “you could not get an answer from me with whips. Let me be quiet with my thoughts.”

  This calm insolence seemed very strange to Tizzo; it was still stranger that the rough baron made no retort; but perhaps that was because the spirits of Melrose were naturally very high since their lucky escape.

  Luck was the theme of his talk — luck and the swift hand and the courage of Tizzo — until the falling of night left them all in silence except for the steady creaking of the saddle leather. Finally Tomaso began to sing in a pleasant but oddly small voice, to which Tizzo listened with such a singular pleasure that he paid no attention to the words; the voice and the music fed in him a hunger which he had never felt before.

  Presently on a hilltop vague towers loomed against the sky and toward these they made their way, entering the streets of a ruined village such as one could find frequently throughout Italy. Fire had ravished the place and all of the smaller houses were tumbled this way and that while grass had begun to grow in the streets. The castle which topped the height was only partially destroyed during the sacking of the place ten years before, and it was here that the baron intended to spend the night. In the courtyard they built a fire and roasted meat on small spits, like soldiers. Some skins of wine, warm and muddy from the jostling of the day’s riding, were opened. And while they ate, Tizzo kept looking from the pale, handsome face of the silent Tomaso to the upper casements of the castle which stared down at the firelight with dark and empty eyes.

  Melrose said briefly: “One more good night of watching, my friends, and we shall be far away from the grip of the Baglioni with our treasure. This night — and afterwards we shall be at ease. Keep a good ward. Tizzo will be here in the court until midnight, and Enrico at the door of Tomaso’s room. At midnight I’ll take the watch here. Tizzo, be wary and alive. If you hear so much as a nightingale’s song, call me. Up, Tomaso, and follow me. You sleep in one of the rooms above.”