Claws of the Tigress, The Firebrand & The Pearls of Bonfadini (3 Historical Adventures in One Edition). Max Brand
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hard fighting was apt to be the greatest requisite in the work that lay before them, therefore he had fitted Tizzo only with a good steel breastplate and a cap of the finest steel also which fitted on under the flow of his big hat. He carried, furthermore, a short, straight dagger which could be of value in hand to hand encounters and whose thin blade could be driven home through the bars of a visor or the eyeholes. He had taken, also, of his own choice, a short-handled woodsman’s ax. This amazed the Englishman. He tried it himself, but the broad blade unbalanced his grasp.
“How can you handle a weight like that, Tizzo?” he asked. “You lack the shoulder and the hand to manage it.”
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.