Part 21 (1/2)
There was a pause. ”I drove it here from the square, didn't I?”
An image of the treacherous road down to the sea from Ravello rose in his mind.
Oh, excellent. Just excellent.
Chapter Seventeen.
Kate took a breath and willed her heart to stop pounding. The vampires could not be a threat to them in daylight. With any luck the villagers would still be drowsing. She had the money from her reticule. She was only nervous because Gian was so helpless in the sun, and that meant everything was up to her. Was she up to it?
She took up the reins and clucked to the horse. No danger of this beast careering through the piazza and attracting attention. She willed herself to patience. The cart creaked as it turned. Gravel crunched under the wheels. Did the d.a.m.ned thing have to make so much noise? The horse plodded down the drive and out the open gates. The piazza was quiet. A man dozing on a bench looked up, frowning as they pa.s.sed. Did he recognize the cart?
Just walk on. Clip-clop. The pace was like to drive her mad.
Out of the little town, now. The road turned steeply down in a hairpin curve. She urged the horse into a trot. The cart jolted along between the lemon grove terraces, empty now of workers.
”Be careful.” She jumped at Gian's voice. ”This road is treacherous.”
He was right about that. The narrow road wound at the edge of a deep ravine. The stream was lost in the green gorge below.
She heard a commotion behind her over the rumble of the cart. She glanced back. A horse was coming around the last bend.
And it was coming fast.
b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l! She slapped the reins over her horse's rump as hard as she could. The beast lurched into a canter. She jerked it up short to take the next curve, and the cartwheels slid toward the verge. The cart rocked, then righted itself and careened on.
Kate's cap fluttered over the edge and her hair fell down her back. She imagined the shattered cart and their broken bodies in the stream far below. Three riders galloped into the turn above her.
”Slow down, you fool, you'll ruin my cart!” one shouted.
”Look, Giuseppe, it's a girl.”
Kate slapped the reins over the horse again.
Another turn, barely negotiated. She glanced up. Her only comfort was that the horses chasing her were anything but speedy.
They were probably farm horses, big and heavy-boned. Her pursuers hadn't taken time to saddle them, if these horses had ever even known a saddle. The men were not handy riders either. She had a chance.
”Hah, horse, hah,” she yelled. Another turn, and another. They were only a hundred feet or so above the stream now. The road suddenly forgot how to be a tangled ball of brown string upon a green carpet. It sloped gently downward as the valley widened.
The cart went faster, but so did the horses behind her. She could smell the sea now. The stream widened into an estuary.
What was that mewling sound?
A flock of sheep milled out from behind some cypress. She glanced behind. The horses, their riders bouncing uncomfortably on their backs, were only fifty feet behind her.
She set her lips. ”Hah, horse, hah!” She slapped the reins. The cart bounded ahead. A grunt behind her told her Gian was still alive. The horse veered to the left, trying to miss the sheep. Baaing distress boiled up from the right. The horse was through. The cartwheel grazed the leader of the flock who wore the bell. A man with a crook swore at her.
And they were clear. Kate glanced behind. Sheep jostled the pursuing horses. There must be fifty of the wooly beasts. The horses' alarmed whinnies alternated with snorts of dismay. Two began plunging and rearing. Their riders slid off and disappeared among the sheep. Kate couldn't help but grin. A tidy piece of work, that. She turned onto the coast road, north toward Amalfi.
”Are you all right back there?”
”You do not... I repeat, you do not know how to drive a cart.” The words were m.u.f.fled by the tarpaulin.
Well! ”You'll be glad to know we lost them at the sheep.”
”I'll be glad when we get to the harbor, if I've any senses left at that point.”
What a curmudgeon. Didn't he appreciate that she had driven a cart for the very first time in her life down the Valle del Dragone at breakneck speed and brought them home safely?
They were just clopping into the outskirts of Amalfi when she heard horses approaching behind her again. She turned, shocked.
Were they so determined? She got the horse back into a reluctant canter, but he had spent his strength. Ahead the town marched up the hill to the right, the quays poked into the aquamarine water, and a small forest of masts nodded to each other on the swell. A wide flagstone piazza lay on either side of the road between the harbor and the town.Was there refuge here? Perhaps not. The three horses caught up to her as the cart edged into the piazza.
”Thief! Help!” the butcher shouted to the men unloading provisions from small boats tied at the quay. ”This woman stole my horse and cart.”
The horse stopped in the middle of a gathering crowd.
Wild thoughts of how to explain her actions careened through Kate's head. ”We're running from vampires” didn't have a successful ring to it.
People gathered round the cart. Murmurs of ”she's dressed like a man,” and ”look at that scar,” ran round the crowd.
”Ask for the harbormaster,” Gian suggested sotto voce from the back.
”What can he do?” she shot back, annoyed. He was no help. It was up to her. ”Signori, I had to borrow the cart. But I always meant to pay for it.”
The loud guffaws were led by the butcher. ”Get a magistrate. Gaol is the place for her.”
Kate felt for her reticule. ”I'll buy the cart and contents. You can have the horse.”
”And what would the likes of you pay with?” More loud laughter. ”No coin I would take.”
She peeled off what she thought was the equivalent of thirty pounds sterling, three or four times what the whole was worth.
”Good, because I have soft money. Will that do?”
Silence fell.
”Here, let me see that,” the butcher said, grabbing the money. ”Probably counterfeit.”
”Looks real enough to me,” one of his compatriots observed, sidling closer.
”She still stole the cart and horse. Paying now don't mean she shouldn't go to gaol.”
”Well, then take it back, and I'll keep my money,” Kate said calmly.
”If I got anything ye might want ta steal, gel, let me know,” a seaman said. This provoked laughter from the crowd. The butcher bl.u.s.tered.