Ramage Page 8

  The peasant was still waiting for the cutlass to plunge into his stomach, so Ramage stepped back a pace, as if to gain more room to strike the fatal blow, then suddenly thrust the blade down vertically into the ground. Before the startled peasant realized what was happening Ramage seized him by the arm, leaving the cutlass in the ground, pushed him back into the hut remembering to duck under the low doorway – and said gaily: ‘Allora, Nina, siamo amici!’

  ‘Dio! Perche? Chi siete voi?’

  ‘Why? We are friends because I am an English naval officer and I have come to help these people. Now, Nino, before we join them, what about some wine and bread; we have come a long way and we are hungry.’

  ‘“We”, signor?’

  It was working: the suddenly friendly voice, the request for wine…

  ‘Jackson, come in here,’ he called in English, ‘and say something to me in English; anything man!’

  Damn, it was dark in the hut: they could easily stick a knife in his ribs…

  Jackson came in, stopping just inside the door, uncertain where Ramage was standing. ‘Do you think this chap knows where they are, sir?’

  ‘Yes, he does,’ said Ramage, also speaking slowly. ‘But I’ve got to convince him we are English.’ He turned to the Italian. ‘Nino, let us have some light with the wine, then you can look at me well.’

  He heard the rustling of straw: it sounded as though a man – not Nino, whose arm he was still holding – was moving.

  ‘Who is that?’

  ‘My brother.’

  The woman stopped sobbing: that was a good sign: some reassurance was spreading through the hut, which stank of sweat, urine, cheese and sour, spilled wine.

  The wine, only a few days old, would still be soaking into the casks and seeping out between the staves, so that it had to be topped up each day to expel the air which would otherwise turn it into vinegar.

  The brother began striking a flint to light a candle, but Nino told him impatiently to use embers from the charcoal furnace outside. In a few moments he returned, one hand cupping the flame of a rush candle. The light was dim, but enough to illuminate the tiny hut. The wife, a black-eyed dumpling, was sitting up on a straw mattress in a corner, hands clasped across her breasts, as if she was naked, instead of being dressed in a flannel nightdress reaching up to her chin. An old woman, presumably the mother, with a face brown and wrinkled like a walnut, was crouching beside her, clearly terrified and plucking at the well-worn beads of a rosary with claw-like fingers. In another corner a goat munched contentedly and began to urinate with odorous unconcern.

  Ramage saw that Nino was a stocky, black-haired man. Several days’ growth of beard sprouted out from a smoke-grimed but open face, and his eyes were bloodshot. He wore black corduroy trousers and, despite the heat, a thick woollen vest – he ‘turned in all standing’, as a seaman would say, except for his corduroy jacket, which was slung across the only chair in the room. Black corduroy – the uniform of the carbonaio, the charcoal burner.

  ‘Where are the children, Nino?’

  ‘I sent them to stay with my sister in Orbetello.’

  ‘Yes, they would be safer there at a time like this.’

  Nino fell into the trap. ‘Yes, we thought so.’

  ‘Some wine, Nino, eh?’

  ‘I am sorry, Commandante, of course,’ said Nino, ‘we are not used to having visitors in the night.’

  ‘But in the daytime?’

  The Italian did not answer as he took his coat from the chair and flung it towards his wife.

  ‘Will you be seated, Commandante? We are poor people. There is no chair for your attendant.’

  Ramage sat down, and while Nino collected some bottles from the far corner of the room, his brother reached up into the rafters and brought down a round cheese and the remains of a long sausage. ‘We have no bread,’ he apologized.

  The brother took a clasp knife from his pocket, opened out the curved blade, and wiped it on his trouser leg before cutting two segments of cheese and several slices of sausage. In the meantime Nino retrieved his jacket and used it to wipe the neck of two bottles.

  ‘My uncle’s wine, from near Port’ Ercole,’ said Nino, proffering a bottle to each of them.

  Suddenly there was a raucous bellow outside and Jackson sprang to the door, cutlass in hand, shouting, ‘What the hell’s that?’

  Nino roared with laughter and, guessing Jackson’s question, said: ‘At least I know you are not French soldiers: that’s my donkey.’

  Ramage laughed too: although for a moment alarmed, he recognized the noise almost at once. Presumably Jackson’s seafaring life had prevented him recognizing the hoarse and agonized, starved-of-air bellowing of a peasant’s most valued possession, his somaro.

  ‘It’s all right, Jackson, it’s only a donkey.’

  ‘My God, I thought someone was being strangled!’

  ‘It’s done the trick, though; he’s realized a French soldier would recognize it immediately.’

  Then Ramage remembered a remark Jackson had made earlier.

  ‘If you were a woodsman, why didn’t you recognize it?’

  Jackson snorted indignantly, ‘Sir! We used horses, not bloody mules!’

  Ramage sipped the wine and Nino watched him carefully, for the moment more concerned about the stranger’s verdict on the wine than the reason for the midnight visit.

  ‘It’s good, Nino: very good. It’s a long time since I tasted such as this. A very long time,’ he repeated, hoping Nino would start questioning him.

  ‘You speak Italian very well, Commandante.’

  ‘Before I entered the Navy I lived for many years in Italy.’

  ‘In Tuscany, no doubt.’

  ‘Yes – Siena, most of the time. And Volterra.’

  ‘With friends, perhaps?’

  ‘No, with my parents. But we had many friends there.’

  ‘Yes?’ said Nino politely. Then as if satisfied with the information: ‘The Commandante was asking about some nobles, I believe?’

  Could one be sure of these peasants, even now? Yet Ramage had to take a risk, otherwise this polite talk would go on all night.

  ‘Nino, I think you are a man of honour. Allora, I will be honest with you because I trust you. If you cannot help, I ask only that you do not betray me. My Admiral has sent me not to kill people, not to destroy lives, but to save them.’

  The two brothers were watching him, listening carefully and patiently. He found himself using his hands to emphasize words: strange how difficult it was to speak Italian without gesticulating.

  The candle flickered because the sacking normally covering the tiny window had been drawn back to let some air in. Not sufficient, God knows, to get rid of the stench of goat, wine, urine, sweat and cheese, but enough to make the flame dance. The shadows it threw across the brothers’ faces, and their natural peasant impassiveness, made it hard to guess their thoughts.

  ‘My Admiral told me’ (the exaggeration was permissible, Ramage thought) ‘that at least five nobles escaped to here when the French entered Leghorn. My Admiral also told me there was a lady among them; a famous lady, a lady who would know about such things as alabaster…’

  He paused, wondering if the two men knew of the alabaster mines at Volterra and would therefore guess he was referring to the Marchesa. If they did, then he’d soon gain their confidence.

  Nino gave a nod which implied that although he agreed there might be a lady who knew about alabaster, it did not mean he knew her.

  ‘Nino, I will be frank: there is no reason why you should trust me, so I won’t ask you to take me to these people…’

  ‘Where is the Commandante’s ship?’

  ‘Out there,’ said Ramage, pointing seaward, ‘beyond the reach of prying French eyes.’

  ‘You landed by boat?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘The Commandante’s hair is matted with dried blood, or something similar.’

  ‘It is dried blood: we had a battle and I
was wounded by the French.’

  ‘Would you like my wife to make a poultice for it, Commandante?’

  ‘No,’ said Ramage rather too hastily for politeness. ‘No, thank you: there is no need: it heals itself well. Now,’ he said, indicating he assumed they were satisfied, ‘as I said, I do not ask you to take me to these people; only that you take a message.’

  ‘If it was possible that we could help the Commandante by taking a message to someone he wished to receive a message,’ Nino said guardedly, speaking formally and still not admitting he knew anything, ‘it would have need to be in Italian.’

  ‘Of course,’ Ramage replied, adopting Nino’s roundabout manner. ‘The message I have in mind would be to a lady who knew about alabaster, telling her the English have arrived to take her and her friends on a voyage. And to reassure this lady – so that she can identify the English officer – tell her that when he was a boy she made him recite Dante in Italian, and she was angry with him because of his bad accent. And she said to this boy, that of all Dante wrote, to remember specially one line: “L’amor che muove il sole e l’altre stelle” – “The love that moves the sun and the other stars”.’

  Nino repeated the phrase. ‘Did this man Dante write that?’

  Ramage nodded.

  ‘It is beautiful,’ said the brother, speaking for the first time. ‘But why was the lady angry because of your accent, Commandante? You pronounce it as if you were a real Tuscan.’

  ‘Now I do, but then I was a small boy; still learning the language in fact.’

  ‘This message, Commandante. Supposing it could be delivered: where would you like to wait?’

  ‘Where you wish. My sword – that is outside, and you may take it, and that of my attendant, and hide them where you wish.’

  Nino stood up as if he had decided what he must do.

  ‘Commandante, you and your attendant are tired. Perhaps you would care to sleep here–’ he waved towards the mattresses. ‘In the meantime, I have some work to do. My brother has no work, so he will stay here.’

  Ramage and Jackson stretched out on one mattress. The old woman whimpered – her eyes were watery, and she had long since ceased to do anything with her life but eat and sleep. The wife whispered something reassuring.

  The brother put the candle in a corner behind a box, and draped a jacket round it to hide most of the light. Ramage suddenly realized how tired he was, and the cut in his head was throbbing. Just before he slid into a deep sleep he felt a spasm of fear: he had trusted the peasants, but would the next bang on the door herald the arrival of real French troops?

  Chapter Seven

  ‘Commandante! Commandante! Someone was shaking him. In an instant – thanks to many years’ training and several scares in the past couple of days – he was wide awake and felt Jackson spring up beside him. It took a moment to realize where he was, but the inside of the tiny hut quickly came into focus. Strange shadows chased each other across the walls as the candle Nino held in his hand wobbled slightly.

  ‘Oh – Nino, all goes well?’

  ‘No, Commandante – at least, not entirely so.’

  ‘Why is that?’

  ‘We have to move from here.’

  ‘Why – are the French coming?’

  ‘No, Commandante; but it will be more convenient for us to talk elsewhere.’

  ‘Where do we go?’

  ‘To a place near here.’

  Was it a trap? Ramage decided not, since the Italian could have brought back French soldiers who would have seized them as they slept. There was no choice; he would have to go with Nino. Perhaps Nino was going to take them to the refugees…

  He and Jackson followed the two brothers along a track which, from the stars, Ramage could see ran almost parallel with the coast. After about fifteen minutes, through a break in the bushes, he could see they had been skirting Lake Burano only a few yards away on the right, and the Tower was just ahead. He quickly slipped his knife, hilt first, up his sleeve.

  The moon had moved round far enough to leave the nearest side of the Tower in deep shadow, and it looked so menacing that Ramage could not repress a shiver.

  Soon they were beside the Tower and Ramage looked up at it. Curious how the walls sloped in to the bottom of the embrasures and then out again. He leaned against the wall, looked up and saw the reason: slots cut under the embrasures, out of sight until you were right below the wall, allowed the defenders to shoot down vertically while still protected by the parapet.

  The entrance was a door almost halfway up the north wall, but the stone steps did not reach the Tower: between the wall and the structure of the steps was a gap eight feet wide, spanned by a temporary wooden platform, like a drawbridge.

  In case of attack the defenders merely had to remove the platform and no one could reach the door.

  As he started climbing the steps he saw the two brothers waiting for him at the top. They must have gone ahead. The wooden platform creaked as he stepped on it – he noted that the noise would give him a useful warning of intruders.

  ‘After you,’ he said to Nino, disguising his wariness with politeness.

  ‘Certainly, Commandante,’ the Italian said, as if he understood Ramage’s caution. ‘Wait while I light a candle.’

  As soon as the light began to flicker, Ramage walked inside. The room was huge, like a cavern, occupying the whole length and width of the Tower. Overhead the domed ceiling was at least twenty feet high. He looked round for the staircase leading to the roof, but there was none: only a small door in the wall on his left – the wall facing the lake. Presumably it led to the staircase, so the wall must be double.

  Nino put the candle on a small table, which, with a chair, was the only furniture in the room. Ramage saw a large fireplace just to the left of the entrance door and went over to it. There were some pieces of charcoal in the hearth, but, judging from the cobwebs hanging down like miniature fishing nets, it had not been used for a long time.

  ‘Well, Nino?’

  ‘As I told you, Commandante, there are difficulties. The message you mentioned, Commandante. By chance I met a person who knew something of alabaster but nothing about a little boy and Dante. This person was expecting friends, Commandante, but is worried.’

  Ramage guessed the Italian was deliberately not referring to the person’s sex. Well, it was many years ago, and there was no particular reason, he supposed, why the Marchesa di Volterra should remember his Dante. But she must remember his mother. Perhaps she was so old her memory had gone. She must be – well, more than seventy now… A sudden thought struck him.

  ‘This lady of the alabaster, Nino: is she very old?’

  Nino’s eyes narrowed. ‘No, she is not old. On the contrary!’ he exclaimed, as if the idea outraged him.

  So the person is a woman, Ramage thought, and she is very young. Therefore the old Marchesa must be dead, and this is her daughter. Yes! Gina… Gianna: that’s it: she was younger than himself; pretty too, from what he could remember, but impulsive and unpredictable, and very self-possessed for a child. Wasn’t there some bitterness in the family because the old Marchesa had no son? The girl must have inherited the title by some dispensation or other, and those vast estates: hmm, she’ll be a handful for a man to handle unless she’s changed a lot.

  ‘Nino, perhaps the old lady I refer to is dead and this is her daughter. I cannot be certain.’

  ‘Commandante, name this lady, and tell us yours, or we cannot help you.’

  Ramage hesitated: there was sudden tension in the cavernous room: it seemed to reach out from the two brothers, from each dark corner and from the shadowy vaulted ceiling. The Italians, standing by the table, were facing him squarely while Jackson, who had been examining the small door which apparently led to the stairs, quietly turned and watched, recognizing the threatening tone of their voices although not understanding the words.

  ‘Are we having trouble, sir?’

  ‘No, I don’t think so.’

  Rama
ge looked at Nino straight in the eyes.

  ‘I give you my name willingly, because it is of no consequence; but’ – he searched for a strong phrase – ‘but may the Madonna strike you dead if you ever repeat the lady’s name. It is – the Marchesa di Volterra.’

  ‘Ah,’ the relief was obvious in Nino’s voice.

  The little door creaked for a moment and was flung wide open. Jackson leapt to one side and as the draught made the candle flicker, putting the room almost in darkness for a few moments, there was a swirl of movement. As the flame recovered, Ramage saw someone almost completely hidden in a long black-hooded cape standing just inside the room.

  How it happened, Ramage was not quite sure; but equally suddenly Jackson made a quick cat-like movement which put him behind the hooded figure, the point of his cutlass pressing between the stranger’s shoulder blades. He kicked back and shut the door. Ramage was surprised to see how small the stranger was, compared with Jackson.

  A hand – a small hand, Ramage noticed – came from among the folds of the cape, and it was holding a pistol: a pistol whose blue steel barrel, shining dully in the candlelight, was pointing straight at his stomach, and which was cocked, ready for firing. He glanced from the muzzle – which in a moment seemed to have grown to the calibre of a cannon – to the stranger’s face, but it was hidden in the shadows thrown by the hood. Just as he glanced sideways at the candle, measuring the distance to it, the hooded figure spoke.

  ‘If the gentleman behind me does not remove his sword, I shall be forced to use my pistol.’

  The voice spoke in English, but had a heavy accent; it was calm but quite determined; and it was a girl’s voice. From sheer relief Ramage started laughing and just stopped himself in time from gesturing to Jackson: a sudden movement might lead the girl to squeeze the trigger…

  ‘Stow the cutlass, Jackson.’

  The American sheepishly put the cutlass behind his back. The two brothers did not understand what had been said, but smiled when they saw Jackson’s embarrassed movement and heard Ramage’s spontaneous laugh: not, Ramage felt, because they saw anything funny in the situation, but their peasant instinct – stronger and wiser than that of more cultured people – told them only maniacs killed while laughing.