“Is that a child?” Bianca asked, following
her sister along the side of the river. “How did he ever get out
there without being swept away?”
“We can ask him after we rescue him,”
Rosalinda responded.
“How are we to do that?” Bianca demanded.
Regarding the short figure on the rock, she suggested, “I could try
to calm him while you ride home as fast as you can and fetch
Bartolomeo and one of the men-at-arms. Tell them to bring a rope
and they can throw it to him and pull him through the water to
land.”
“I don’t think we have time to bring more
help. He doesn’t look to me as if he will calm down until he is
safe on dry land,” Rosalinda objected. “If that child does not stop
hopping around out there, he is going to slip and fall into the
river. Then he will surely drown.”
“We can’t let that happen.” Bianca squinted
against the sun’s glare on the water. “Who is he? I don’t think he
belongs to any of the men-at-arms. Could he be from the village on
the other side of the mountain pass? If so, what is he doing this
far from home?”
“Those are more questions we can ask once
he’s safe.”
Without further comment or speculation on how
the child had gotten where he was, Rosalinda dismounted. To
Bianca’s astonishment, she began to strip off the doublet she wore
for riding and then the wool dress beneath the jacket.
“Rosalinda, I hope you aren’t planning to go
into the water?” Bianca was on the ground, too, now, pulling off
her cloak to free her arms for action. “It must be freezing in
there.”
“That boy will freeze if we don’t help him.”
Rosalinda was down to her shift and was kicking off her boots as
she spoke.
“How are we going to do this?” Bianca
asked.
“I am going to reach across the water to
catch hold of that foolish boy. While I do, you, my dear, are going
to keep me from falling into the river by holding on as tightly as
you can to both of our horses’ reins with one hand. With your other
hand, you are going to hold on to me.”
“
Am I?” A
thrill of fear sliced through Bianca. From the brief explanation,
she understood what Rosalinda was planning and she knew that all of
them – she, her sister, the boy on the rock, and perhaps the horses
as well – could fall into the river and be swept downstream in the
swift current. They might all drown in that icy, choking
coldness.
Recalling another day fifteen years in the
past, when she had not been strong enough to help someone who
needed her, Bianca resolved not to fail at this opportunity to
prove to herself that she was not a coward. She grasped the reins
Rosalinda put into her hands, winding them several times around her
left arm to secure them. She wrapped the fingers of her right hand
around Rosalinda’s left wrist, while Rosalinda held her wrist in
the same manner. With Bianca’ s feet planted at the very edge of
the precipitous slope into the river, Rosalinda stepped toward the
rock, stretching across the water with her free right hand toward
the short figure that watched them, yet never ceased to dance to
and fro from one side of the rock on which it stood to the
other.
“Take my hand,” Rosalinda shouted above the
sound of the rushing water. “Hurry! I can’t hold on much longer.
Stop that bouncing around and grab my hand!”
Bianca could not hear exactly what the person
on the rock said. A few syllables drifted to her ears, startling
her with their vehemence. Surely, the person they were trying so
hard to help could not be cursing them? Then she was distracted by
a new danger. She was so close to the edge that she was about to
lose her footing.
“I’m slipping,” she yelled to the person on
the rock. “For heaven’s sake, we are trying to help you! Do as my
sister says.”
She could not tell whether he heard her or
not, but he did grasp Rosalinda’s outstretched hand. Bianca pulled
on the reins. The horses stepped away from the edge and Bianca,
Rosalinda, and the small person at the end of this chain of rescue
slowly moved out of the water, up the slope, and onto solid footing
in the grass.
Rosalinda dropped to her knees and Bianca at
once took up her discarded cloak, using it to cover her shaking
sister.
“Don’t you have anything to cover me?” the
person they had just saved asked in a complaining voice. “I warn
you, I expect something better than that old cloth.”
Infuriated by his complete lack of gratitude,
Bianca spun around to confront him. He was dripping wet, his black
hair was hanging in lank strands over his forehead, and his dark
eyes were blazing with anger. Bianca saw that he was not a child at
all, but a man so short that he barely reached to her shoulder. She
guessed that he was in his mid-fifties. Every line of his wiry body
radiated an imperious rage.
“How dare you handle me so roughly, you
peasants?” the little man demanded. “Don’t you know a gentleman
when you meet one?”
“What we knew about you,” Bianca said,
bending toward him with her fists planted on her hips, “was that
you were about to be swept off that rock and carried away down the
river. We just saved your life, but if I had known how rude you
were going to be, I might well have let you drown.”
“Ignorant peasants,” the man said, attempting
to brush the water off his clothes.
“That won’t work,” Bianca told him. “You need
to take off your clothes and wring them out thoroughly, then spread
them on the grass in the sun to dry.”
“I didn’t ask for your advice, you stupid
laundress,” the little man snarled at her.
“No, you didn’t, but I am going to give you
more unsolicited advice,” said Bianca. “You are trespassing on
private land. If the owner discovers you are here, it will go hard
with you. I insist that you leave at once.”
“All I wanted was a drink of water,” he said,
glaring at her.
“Then you should have walked downriver to a
calmer spot,” Bianca said.
“Walk? Not I. Walking is for servants and
farmers.”
“Indeed?” Bianca’s nose was high in the air.
Her diminutive opponent did not appear to notice. “Get off these
lands and don’t come back.”
“I am going, you impudent wench. Count
yourself lucky that I do not toss you onto the ground and use you
as a man uses a female.”
“I count myself the most fortunate woman in
the world to escape your embrace,” Bianca shot back at him.
“What are you laughing at, wench?” the little
man exclaimed, turning his attention to Rosalinda, who was still
sitting on the ground, covered with Bianca’s cloak.
“I was wondering what you were planning to do
with me while you were trying to force my sister to the ground,”
Rosalinda said in her most impudent manner.
The man looked from Rosalinda’s glowing face
and water-soaked braid to Bianca’s paler, more angry expression. He
shrugged his shoulders as if the two young women were of no
importance. But he did offer an explanation, of sorts.
“I am here because I am searching for
someone,” he said. “A dark-haired young man, a stranger in these
hills. Do you know him?”
“The only strange man we have seen in many a
year is you,” Bianca told him. She wondered if he realized just how
ridiculous he was, how rude and impolite. Even now, he did not
thank the very people who had saved his life but, instead,
addressed them in a manner that constituted a grave insult to
anyone of gentle birth.
“I know that few people come this way so, if
he did, you must know of it. Are you sure you haven’t seen anyone
new lurking about?” He looked from Bianca to Rosalinda, who merely
shook her head, saying nothing. “You had better be telling the
truth. If you are not, I will discover your lie, and I will see you
punished for it.” With those contemptuous words, he strode off in
the direction of some nearby trees.
Never taking her eyes off the man in case he
had attendants hidden in those trees, Bianca moved closer to her
still shivering sister. A few moments later, the little man rode
out of the trees upon a black stallion so huge it made him look
like a young child on its back. Without another glance at the two
who had rescued him and still without uttering a single word of
thanks, he cantered across the meadow to the bridge.
“See that you never return here!” Bianca
shouted after him.
He did not answer her, but rode over the
bridge and along the Roman road that led across the valley and into
the mountains.
“And learn some manners if you want to get on
in the world!” Rosalinda added to her sister’s remarks. She got up
to stand next to Bianca and, as the little man disappeared into the
distance, she began to laugh.
“No wonder he thought we were peasants,”
Rosalinda said. “Just look at you, Bianca. Your skirts are wet,
your hair is all undone, and with your fists on your hips like
that, you could easily be mistaken for one of the laundresses back
at the villa.”
“Could I?” Bianca turned from contemplation
of the spot where she had last seen the little man to glance at her
sister. Her mouth curved in amusement. “And there you are,
Rosalinda, wearing only a wet shift. What could our ungrateful
friend have thought of you?”
“I am sure he found my demeanor as shocking
as yours.” Rosalinda’s eyes gleamed with humor. “It has been a long
time since I’ve seen you so angry.”
“Shocking or not, I haven’t felt so wonderful
in months,” Bianca said and burst into laughter along with her
sister.
* * * * *
“Damnable wenches, both of them,” Niccolo
Stregone muttered to himself. “It was the sight of those stupid
females riding across the fields that made me drop my bag into the
water. I saw it down there, between the rock and the river’s edge,
and might have dragged it up again if those two hadn’t come along.
But the water pulled the bag open and everything inside spilled
out. Now there was no way for me to recover it. All that lovely
gold lost, and a beautiful ruby ring, too. So this long journey was
made for nothing, unless I can locate that foolish boy before I
must leave. But why the devil would he come to this part of Italy?
There is nothing here but mountains and isolated villages.
“What do you want, you cursed bird?” This
last sentence was shouted at an eagle that had swooped out of the
sky toward him. Pulling his dagger from its sheath, Stregone waved
his arms as if to strike at the bird. But apparently a mere human
was beneath its notice, for the eagle flew straight on to the
river. There it dove to the water to snare a fish in its talons,
after which the eagle flew away again, heading back toward the
mountains with its next meal held in a firm grasp.
“Control yourself, Stregone,” the little man
said to himself. “You are wet and cold and upset at losing part of
your hard-earned treasure, and so you are imagining threats where
none exist. Those two girls were no more than peasants, and that
bird didn’t even notice you. All it wanted was its dinner. Soon
enough, you will be eating your dinner, too, and wearing dry
clothes.”
Stregone sheathed his dagger again. Sparing a
single backward glance for his rescuers, he noted that they were
riding in the opposite direction from the route he was taking. Then
a stand of trees blocked the girls from view, and Stregone put them
out of his thoughts.
* * * * *
“Are you sure that is everything?” Bartolomeo
asked. Frowning deeply, he looked from Rosalinda to Bianca.
The three of them were standing in the stable
yard, where Bianca had espied Bartolomeo as soon as they rode in
from their encounter with the odd little man. They had not gone to
look for early wildflowers after all, but had ridden home
immediately after Rosalinda had pulled on her clothes.
“Bartolomeo, we have told you every detail of
the man’s appearance and every word he spoke. We have repeated the
story twice,” Bianca said, exasperated by his continued
questioning. “Now, let us go, please, so Rosalinda can get into a
hot bath before she catches a serious chill.”
“You were both very brave to attempt such a
rescue,” Bartolomeo said with his eyes on Bianca as if he were
trying to convince her of the truth of his words. “I do have a
request to make of you. Do not disturb your mother with this tale.
You said the man rode away from the estate and toward the
mountains. I will inform the guards about this incident and they
will take extra care to see that he does not set foot upon these
lands.”
“You are right, Bartolomeo,” Rosalinda agreed
before Bianca could voice her opinion. “Let Mother hear of this
afternoon’s adventure and she will keep Bianca and me inside the
house for at least a month. I, for one, could not tolerate the
confinement.”
“Bartolomeo, if you are certain there is no
danger,” said Bianca somewhat more reluctantly, “then I suppose we
needn’t upset Mother, or Valeria, either.”
But Bianca could see that Bartolomeo was
upset by the tale she and Rosalinda had told. She thought he must
have said something to Valeria after all, because over the next few
days, under the guise of cleaning out the dust of a long winter,
Valeria found so many tasks to keep both Rosalinda and Bianca busy
that neither sister had an opportunity to go riding, or even to
venture beyond the garden.
“You know what she is doing,” Rosalinda
muttered to Bianca one morning in the dining room, as they each
polished a chair with a mixture of beeswax and oil, rubbing the
wood with soft cloths until it shone.
“Of course I know,” Bianca responded. “I am
not as stupid as that nasty little man believed. Bartolomeo wants
to be absolutely certain the man has gone before we are allowed out
again, but he doesn’t want you to be annoyed by our confinement or
me to be frightened, so he has convinced Valeria to keep us
occupied.”
“They won’t keep me indoors for long,” said
Rosalinda with an impish smile.