Ramage's Challenge r-15 Page 8

  "Don't fancy it too often," Stafford said airily. "Not that fond of the country. Mosquitoes buzzing most o' the night, scorpiongs waiting -"

  "Scorpions," Jackson corrected.

  "S'what I said, scorpiongs lurking under the rocks to prod you - hey Jacko, wasn't it a scorpiong that did for that Egyptian doxy, her that danced for Caesar?"

  "I think someone else danced, but Cleopatra did herself in by holding an asp to her bosom."

  "An asp? That the same as a scorpiong?"

  "I reckon so," Jackson said carefully. "Then it must be big if she could 'old it. Like a small lobster."

  "Maybe them Egyptian ones are, but those here don't run to more'n a couple of inches."

  '"Ere, 'old 'ard. Mr Ramage said they just give you a nasty sting, but one did poor Cleopatra in."

  "Don't worry," Jackson said reassuringly.

  "S'trewth, I don't remember these scorpiongs when we were last here: and, so help me, the mosquitoes are so much bigger." He slapped the side of his face, and then held out the palm of his hand. "See? Look at the blood in that one. 'Ere, you don't arf look a sight: your face is all swolled up."

  Jackson looked at Stafford and laughed. "My oath! You ought to see yourself: you look as though you've got gumboils all over the place!"

  Stafford pointed to a small turning leading away to the left and crossing the river. "Where's that go?"

  Jackson shrugged. "From what I saw of Mr Ramage's map, it goes across that valley and then twists and turns through those hills. See how the hills get higher and higher? Well, it goes on to the foot o' that mountain. Amiata. We have to keep the same distance and we'll come up on Pitigliano."

  "You've never been there, this Pitigliano, 'ave you?"

  "No. Mr Ramage says it's a hill town and very old."

  "Roaming, you mean?"

  "No, older than Roman. Etruscan, I think he said."

  "Who? I thought the Roamings came first!"

  "No, and the Etruscans gave this area its name, Tuscany. Very clever people, according to Mr Ramage. They built big stone-lined cellars to store the grain and dug caves and painted the walls with things like leopards and people: they painted the women one colour and the men another."

  Stafford looked at Jackson startled. "Why the hell did they do that? Couldn't they tell the difference? Must 'ave been uncomfortable, covered in paint."

  As soon as Jackson realized Stafford's mistake he roared with laughter. "Different colours in the cave paintings! What did you think, the women were gilded and the men striped green?"

  "Well, no," Stafford said, embarrassed, "but don't forget the Druids in England - they used to paint themselves, didn't they?"

  "Yes, at times," Jackson said carefully, knowing he was out of his depth. "But most o' the villages round here were originally Etruscan, so Mr Ramage says. Most of 'em have still got ruins to show for it. Huge rocks, specially carved so one fits perfectly into another. Puzzle how they did it."

  "My feet ache already," Stafford announced. "They're swelling up. How much farther?"

  "Only about twenty miles," Jackson said. "By the time we get there your legs will be worn down to the knees."

  "All this marching is for the Marines," Stafford declared and with the dust drying up his mouth lapsed into silence.

  At the head of the column, in the uniforms, now rumpled, of officers in the Archduke of Tuscany's army, Ramage and Orsini talked. Ramage was surprised to find that the Grand Duke's army of about three thousand men were very poorly paid because the soldiers were allowed (indeed, expected) to carry on their own trade.

  "That's why foreigners find it hard to tell private soldiers from the officers," Paolo said. "The privates like to cut a good figure too, and if they have successful businesses they can afford good tailors."

  "I can see that. This uniform -" Ramage tapped his chest, "- makes me look like a general, and Rossi could be a colonel."

  "Perhaps the archduke is wiser than we think, sir. A man who can strut before the ladies in a smart uniform will be content with less pay."

  Ramage nodded. Pander to a man's vanity or put a guinea in his pocket. Ramage chuckled at the phrase, then realized he had missed a comment by Paolo. "What did you say?"

  "I was saying, sir, that the archduke has done away with the death penalty. I'm not sure if it was the present one or his father. Anyway Tuscany is one of the few states where you can murder someone without fear of execution. Mind you, that might be preferable to a lifetime in a Florentine jail!"

  That reminded Ramage of another remark which Paolo had made but which at the time Ramage had not pursued. "You said we could have cut across the top end of the Maremma if we wanted to get at Pitigliano from the south-west. But what about the marshes?"

  "The archduke is draining them, or he's made a start, anyway. You'll find grain growing where there was marsh. Rice, too. Mind you, it's a vast marshy area to drain!"

  "And the mosquitoes?"

  "The zanzari are flourishing - at least they were when I passed through when I was escaping. They seemed as big as eagles. . ."

  At the other end of the column, Gilbert led his Frenchmen, marching with Hill. He was thoroughly enjoying his role as the officer in charge of the escort, although Hill and the other three frequently teased him. Their uniforms were already baggy and creased: none of the five men had shaved for several days.

  "Citizen," said Hill, who was accustomed to shave every day, "my whole face itches with this damned beard. It's making my neck sore."

  Gilbert shook his head, as though exasperated. "A sensible soldier carries a razor, not a field marshal's baton, in his valise."

  "Oh, but I have both," Hill exclaimed, much to the amusement of the others. "All I lack is water and some soap."

  "I'll speak to the citizen general about it," Gilbert said. "Meanwhile don't drag the butt of your musket on the ground."

  "I'm not!" exclaimed a startled Hill.

  "I know; I was just warning you in advance. What a dust those Tuscans and English aristos are stirring up with their feet. We'll be dried out long before we reach Manciano."

  Louis coughed before saying solemnly: "Have I the citizen captain's permission to speak?"

  "As long as you pay proper respect to my rank and age."

  "Sacrébleu!" Louis exclaimed. "Service in the English King's Navy is preferable to being in this Republican army. Every officer and non-commissioned officer makes his own revolution! Alors, mon général, this citizen would like to point out with respect that there are several farms along this road. Look, two on the right, and one across the river on the left. I would not care to drink the river water here, because the river is in reality a stream and a dozen cattle upstream can turn it into a veritable pissoir, but -"

  "Hurry, citizen," Gilbert said, "we shall be in Manciano before you've finished."

  "But, as I was saying before the citizen interrupted me," Louis said with dignity, "where there is a farm there must be water. Water for the farmer, his oxen -"

  "- his wife, his children, his aged mother, his thirsty aunt who won't take wine, the priest when he visits on feast days, the farmer's donkey -" Auguste interrupted.

  "I understand," Gilbert said. "A well, a rope, a bucket and -"

  "A shave, perhaps?" Hill said with mock plaintiveness.

  "Citizen Hill," Gilbert said gravely, "everyone must make some sacrifice for the Republic, One and Indivisible."

  "Oh indeed," Hill said promptly. "I'll sacrifice my beard! And my indivisible back will ache and my hands blister from the promptness with which I haul up that bucket!"

  "I'll remind you of that, citizen," Gilbert said, "and the other citizens are witnesses."

  "To be serious, do we spend the night in Manciano or do we sleep in the fields again?" Louis asked.

  Gilbert looked at Hill, who said: "Mr Ramage will decide when we get to Manciano. There'll be no inn in such a small town, so it'll probably be a choice of fleas in houses and sleeping on straw, or lying on the gras
s in a meadow giving the mosquitoes a feast."

  "I prefer the mosquitoes," Louis announced. "With mosquitoes you can put a jacket over your face and hands, and they go away in the day. Fleas bite worse, creep in anywhere and travel with you."

  "He's right," Auguste said, his voice sonorous. "We expect you to register our preference this evening when the citizen general from Tuscany calls you to his council of war."

  "There might be some pretty girls in Manciano," Hill speculated. "You never know, in these remote towns."

  Louis gave a cynical laugh. "Citizen, a hill town in Tuscany, a market town in Brittany, a large village famous for its apples in Cornwall... they are all the same. All the eligible unmarried young women are guarded more carefully than emperors guard their treasuries. You forget a reputation for virginity is more highly prized (among the possessors' parents, anyway) than bullion."

  "Well, it'd have to be for love anyway, because none of us have local money," Hill said sadly.

  "Don't worry, it's a long way to Manciano, and by the time we get there you may be more interested in sleeping than flirting with a young lady's grandmother, who will in any case be dressed from head to toe in black and trying to sell you wine about to turn into vinegar."

  "Wait, citizen!" Auguste said. "The revolutionary committee did not make you a captain to commandeer vinegar in the name of the Republic, One and Indivisible. No, you are expected to commandeer only good wine, and decent bread that has been ground properly and is not so full of husks it tastes like chewing a brush. The meat, too. Fresh, even if they have to slaughter a beast and the meat is still warm when they begin to cook it."

  "I'll do my best," Gilbert said wryly, "but I think you have an exaggerated idea of the Republic's influence among these Tuscan hills. I should think of rice, or perhaps polenta, soft and soggy, washed down with the wine they were keeping to make vinegar."

  Auguste, hitching his musket on to the other shoulder, said sourly: "To think that every man we left behind on board the Calypso envied us, thinking we'd eat like kings and drink like seamen should. I never expected that one day I'd be glad to get back on board one of His Britannic Majesty's ships so that I could have a decent meal. . ."

  "My heart bleeds for you!" Gilbert said dramatically, slapping his chest. "Here you are seeing new sights, visiting yet another new country, collecting dozens more improbable stories to tell your grandchildren, and all you do is complain. Yes," Gilbert said sadly, in the voice of a man discovering an unpleasant truth. "I have to admit it: you grumble with the skill and perseverance of an English sailor."

  "And we march with the perseverance of a charcoal burner's donkey bound for home," Auguste added, then qualified it with: "Once you've got him started."

  At that moment Rossi, walking beside Orsini at the head of the column, pointed up the track. "Something is coming. You see the dust?"

  Ramage, having to look into the glare of the rising sun, pulled down the peak of his cap. "Yes - one person, I think, on a horse or donkey. Yes, a donkey, because a horse would make more dust."

  "A farmer going to Orbetello?" Rossi suggested.

  "No threat to us, anyway. He can tell us what there is in Manciano - always assuming there is something in Manciano!"

  As it came nearer, the donkey seemed to be walking along by itself, head down, its large ears flapping and carrying a shapeless sack on its back. Then Ramage thought he could distinguish a barrel at the bottom of the pile, balancing on the wooden frame, shaped rather like a sawing horse, which served as a saddle or repository for whatever load it was carrying. The shapeless mass was in fact a man draped over the flanks of the donkey and partly over the barrel, a man who was either asleep or drunk.

  Ramage held up his hand to halt the column and with Orsini and Rossi walked over to stand in front of the donkey, which seemed grateful for the opportunity to stop.

  This woke the man, who rubbed his eyes but did not seem startled to find himself facing soldiers. "What have I done now?" His tone was surly but deferential; these were the enemy, he seemed to imply, and they made so many rules and regulations that it was impossible for a simple contadino to understand or remember.

  "I do not know yet," Ramage said evenly. "Where have you come from and where are you going?"

  "From just this side of Manciano, and I'm going to Orbetello to sell wine." He slapped the barrel with his hand.

  "Have you seen any strangers in the fields, or along the road: people who are obviously enemies of the Republic?" That, Ramage hoped, would reveal the attitude of at least one contadino towards the French and anyone who might be their enemy.

  "No one. Just Giuseppe, who is my neighbour: he was out at dawn. A wise man gets as much hoeing done as possible before the sun gets hot."

  Ramage nodded affably. "Can't you sell your wine in Manciano? It's a long ride to Orbetello."

  "Manciano?" The man sounded disgusted by the name. "In Manciano half the men press their own grapes and the other half are too mean to pay a decent price."

  "They're thirstier in Orbetello, eh?"

  The man shrugged his shoulders and finally slid off the donkey. He stretched one leg and then the other and, after apparently reassuring himself he could still walk, said: "Different people. In Orbetello, many men fish in the lagoon, others make charcoal. Several shops there. Not many people grow grapes. Most of the land is used for olive trees, so they need to buy wine and sell oil."

  Again Ramage nodded. "And the French troops there - they buy your wine?"

  The man looked him up and down and said nothing.

  "What about the French in Manciano - where do they buy wine, eh?"

  "French troops do not buy wine from anyone," the man said finally, as though explaining something to a child. "They just commandeer what they need. Anyway, there are no French troops in Manciano." He stopped and thought for a moment. "Are you going to Manciano? A garrison, perhaps?"

  "We are just passing through - on our way to Orvieto."

  "Yes, you would be," the man said. "Many French there."

  "And Pitigliano, too?"

  The man looked at him warily, and then agreed. "And Pitigliano, too. Now, Colonel, can I go on?"

  Ramage nodded: there was little more that the man could tell him. Then suddenly he remembered a question. "Why don't you sell your wine in Pitigliano?"

  "The same reason that I can't sell it in Manciano. Too many men grow their own grapes. Anyway, I don't like Pitigliano. My wife's family live there and they've never liked me: think she married beneath her - and her father only a tailor! You'll see his house just inside the town gate. You can't miss his sign, a pair of wooden scissors hanging over the door. Between two falegnami, although I wouldn't recommend either of them if you wanted a table made with four legs the same length. Can I go now?"

  Ramage nodded and watched the man step back a couple of paces and then run at the donkey, jumping on to its back like a boy playing leapfrog. The donkey did not move and the man reached down beside the barrel and found a stick half as thick as his wrist.

  He whacked the donkey with it, but the animal took a deep breath, stretched its neck and brayed, the noise as always reminding Ramage of a cow being strangled. The man whacked again, and reluctantly the donkey began to move. Ramage waved to his column and they continued their march.

  "He didn't seem to know much, sir," Orsini commented.

  "Obviously not a lot happens on the outskirts of Manciano," Ramage said dryly. "But he knows there's something unusual at Pitigliano."

  "Yes, yes," Rossi said excitedly, his Genoese accent strong, "you noticed it too, sir! That was a strange expression on his face after you mentioned French troops in Pitigliano - as though he thought you were trying to trap him."

  "Yes, but I decided more questions would only make him more suspicious. Those hills ahead of us are just the sort where partisan bands live. He saw we were escorting prisoners so he might get word to them . . ."

  "You think there are still partisans, sir?" Orsi
ni asked. "There were when I escaped from Volterra, but that was a long time ago."

  "I'm sure the French have done nothing to make the partisans change their minds about the French Republic, One and Indivisible."

  "But how can partisans survive?"

  "I doubt if they live like a group of bandits on the Maremma; they're probably like the man we've just seen: tilling fields most of the time, and then one night joining up for a raid on a French garrison, or to ambush a convoy of carts carrying supplies for garrisons."

  Rossi nodded his agreement. "That's what happened round Genoa when the French first came," he said. "Accidente, I wish we had some somaro to ride on. That man did not look comfortable, but his feet weren't sore."

  "Not his feet," Paolo said.

  Rossi thought for several moments. "I see what you mean. He could harm himself, too."

  They reached Manciano shortly after noon, and as soon as Ramage had commandeered bread, all the cheese he could find (some extremely strong pecorino fresco, made of goat's milk and, according to Stafford, likely to make your hair fall out) along with several salami sausages and fiaschi of red wine, the column continued along the road to Pitigliano. Ramage soon halted them where they could sit in the narrow shade made by a row of cypress trees. The sun was high - but Ramage remembered the Tropics where, at certain times in the year, the sun was directly overhead and a man made no shadow.

  "Take your boots off, and as soon as you've eaten, rest with your feet up. You have two hours to sleep."

  Hearing Stafford's startled but delighted exclamation, Ramage explained to the men: "No Italians or French would be marching at this time. Any movement during siesta time would make people suspicious."

  The bread was fresh, obviously baked early that morning: the salami was good, the slightly smoky taste almost overpowered by garlic, and the pecorino fresco was as strong as Stafford anticipated but cleaned the mouth of the greasiness left by the salami. Ramage had a sip of wine, curious about the taste of the product of Manciano's vineyards.

  He pulled off his boots, rolled up his coat as a pillow, and lay back on the parched ground, his sword and two pistols beside him. The dark green cypress were like jutting spearheads, he thought sleepily. Cicadas buzzed monotonously - and Ramage realized how much the countryside was part of him because he had not paid them any attention until now, although they were loud enough. A single lark, in line with the sun, sang as if to welcome them. Five minutes later a sparrowhawk (or was it a kestrel - difficult to tell in this bright sun) poised over a small sugarloaf hill; then it dropped like a stone on its prey.