Return to Paradise (Torres Family Saga) (20 page)

      
Pescara's voice, always alive with wit and boldness, cut into Benjamin's grim reverie as the general addressed his men. “I cannot feed you, my boys, but before you lies the camp where there is bread in plenty, meat and wine.”

      
Benjamin could swear he saw the little Spanish-Italian wink as an earth-shattering roar went up, spreading in waves through the ranks. Men followed their commanders to prearranged destinations. The plan was set. The fight would be fearsome. Over fifty thousand men were arranged between the two sides. There were but a handful of surgeons. Benjamin waited in the darkness.

      
As the first faint rays of light rent the winter sky with dirty pink, Spanish arquebuesers and lances, accompanied by light cavalry, moved forward across the flat, open ground in an attempt to circle around the French forces and link up with DeLeyva in the city. The German
landsknechts
waited behind cover of trees to see what the French would do.

      
The French turned their expert artillery loose almost immediately. Although Benjamin had heard Paracelsus describe the horror and carnage of war, nothing could have prepared him for this. From the cover of a trench, he watched in disbelieving horror, recalling the terse words of his father when describing his experiences in the Moorish wars and Indian rebellions on Española. But this was worse, on a far grander scale. The Spanish were being cut to ribbons—arms and legs were hurled across the frozen earth after cannons dismembered them. Disemboweled men screamed and headless corpses twitched while the cavalry horses slashed and trampled their own men underfoot as one deafening fusillade after another belched from the French guns.

      
Benjamin scrambled from his cover, yelling for his attendants to follow as he dragged a bleeding cavalry officer behind a tree and began to examine his wound. “Why in God's name did Papa or Rigo ever choose such a life?” he muttered as he poured yarrow on the gash. When the blood had clotted a bit he bound the injured arm and began to crawl to another man, more gravely injured.

      
The Imperials dove for cover into the trenches left behind by Francois’ infantry. The bold young king was now advancing toward the routed Spanish, leading his finest seasoned cavalry into the thick of the fray. Soon it would all be over, another glorious victory for France, even greater than Marignano. By this time the sun had risen fully, reflecting a dull glow on the king's silver cloth-covered armor. His great charger pranced proudly forward.

Then Benjamin heard the silence. Too busy with wounded and dying men to take note of the battle, now he stood up and climbed from the shelter. “Why have the cannons ceased?” he asked of a lancer.

      
“The French poxmaster has masked his own artillery! He rides with his best men between us and his own cannon. They cannot fire upon us without hitting him!” With that the young man raced to join a unit of men who had begun to spread out across the field.

      
All was chaos now as the German
landsknechts
hammered their way around the French, causing one wing of the French formation to collapse. Pescara's lances and light arms took their toll at close range, bringing down French cavalry, surrounding Francois. What had seemed a victory turned into a debacle.

      
“Madness, tis madness,” Benjamin whispered, watching the brave and feckless French as they and their foolish young king were hacked and blasted to bits. With so many wounded being brought to him, Benjamin had neither time nor heart to watch the end of the battle when Pescara took the French king prisoner. He heard the hoarse cries of jubilation erupt the length of the battlefield. “Victory! Spain! Spain!” It was not yet nine in the morning. Over ten thousand men were dead and countless more would die of wounds, filth and fever. Benjamin Torres did not sleep for nearly two days after the battle for Pavia.

      
Pescara had not lied about the loot in the French encampment. Imperial soldiers walked about guzzling jugs of wine and pinching plump whores. Others tore at whole roasted chickens, chewing bones and meat together, wiping their greasy, bloodied hands on bolts of silk and velvet pilfered from Italian merchants unlucky enough to have provisioned the losing side. The greed and debauchery of the winners sickened Benjamin almost as much as the senseless carnage.

      
He covered a dead arquebuser whose mangled leg had been sawed off. The man had died in the midst of surgery. “The next battle, it could be any one of them who ends such as this poor devil did.”

      
“Tis precisely why they sport themselves as they do,” Pescara said quietly. His face was a grim mask as he looked around the drafty old inn that had been turned into a makeshift hospital. “Every soldier knows he may not live beyond the next cannon blast. Rigo is well away from this life. You should be, too, although, I vow, I shall miss your healing skills.”

      
Benjamin's expression was bleak. “Never in my life have I felt more helpless, less a healer. Most die and I can do naught to save them.”

      
“You have worked ceaselessly for days. Tis exhaustion that speaks now. There is little else to be done here that cannot be attended by less skilled men. Go, rest, Benjamin, you have earned it.”

* * * *

      
The sun was brilliant and warming, the brisk March air hinting of spring. The icy grip of Alpine winter had loosed its hold on the woods and plains of Lombardy. Benjamin reined in his mount and took a deep breath. “How clean tis here, away from the stench of wounds and dysentery. I grow to like army life less and less,” he said aloud, patting his sleek chestnut's neck. “Truth be told, I am homesick for Espanola.”

      
He began to retrace his path back to Pavia when a woman's scream rent the air. Benjamin quickly wheeled the big stallion around and headed toward the copse of willow trees at the foot of the hill below him. Pulling his sword from its scabbard, he entered the densely wooded area and rounded a large boulder. In a small clearing he saw two burly men, Spanish arquebusers, probably deserters by the look of them. They were attacking a peasant girl who flailed on the ground, biting and kicking at her tormentors with a ferocity that far belied her small size. One brute had her arms pinned down while the other was struggling to shove her brightly colored skirts up as she writhed and thrashed. His pantaloons were already pulled down, his sex pulsing and ready for the obscene act he was intent on completing.

      
“Whoreson bastard, you are too vile for dogs to piss upon,” the girl shrieked in Spanish just before her sharp white teeth sank into the fleshy hand of the man holding her arms. He released her with an oath of pain, but just as quickly raised his other meaty fist to bludgeon her.

      
Neither man had heard Benjamin's approach, so occupied were they with their fierce little trophy of war. He reined in the chestnut beside the one about to strike and leaned from his saddle to press cold steel into the man's neck. “I would not do that if you fancy your arm.”

      
At once the soldier jerked about, loosing the girl who gave a mighty kick with one slim leg, scoring a direct hit at the tumescence of her would-be rapist. He gave a gurgle of agony and pitched sideways, his hands clawing at his groin as he collapsed in a fetal ball.

      
“Off me, you goat's offal, pig's shit, vulture's vomit!” She shoved at the unconscious man and wriggled free as her other attacker stood up and backed away with Benjamin's sword at his throat.

      
“Remove your knife and toss it on the ground. Then gather up this bag of guts and lug him back to Pavia ere I change my mind and slit your gullet...or let the wench here deal with you as she did him.” The man paled, bobbed his head and did as commanded.

      
Benjamin watched him scoop up his unconscious companion without pausing to pull up the fellow's pantaloons. His great hamlike buttocks shone whitely in the noonday sunlight as his bearer vanished over the hill at a brisk trot.

      
“Vero!” The girl ran across the clearing to where a great gray dog lay unmoving in the brown winter grass. She knelt and began to examine its fur.

      
Benjamin dismounted and walked nearer, then froze. “Get back! Tis a wolf,” he cried, once again drawing his blade.

      
The girl tossed her waist-length ragged mane of ebony hair across her shoulder as she whirled to glare at him with fierce gold-coin eyes. “Of course, tis
my
wolf, Vero,” she snapped, turning again to croon to the beast in some strange tongue Benjamin had never before heard.

      
“
Your
wolf—a pet?” he asked incredulously as the huge animal opened its gold eyes, which bore an uncanny resemblance to those of his mistress.

      
“I raised him from a suckling when his band deserted him,” she replied, once more switching to Spanish. “There, Vero, there, twill be all right. If only I had yarrow to stop the bleeding,” she whispered.

      
“You know herbal remedies?” he asked, returning to his horse to take his medical satchel from the saddle. He never traveled without it or his weapons.

      
“Of course I know yarrow clots the blood,” she said impatiently, pressing a torn piece of filthy red petticoat to the bloody furrow running along the wolf's head. “He would have killed them both if that fat swine had not shot him.”

      
“Here, let me—if you can assure Vero I am a friend.” He opened his satchel and took out a bottle of yellow powder.

      
“You are a physician?” she asked incredulously, her eyes narrowing as she truly looked at him for the first time. He sprinkled the yarrow powder across the furrow with the skill of one used to such work. One curly lock of hair fell across his forehead as he bent over the wolf.
You will meet a golden man
. Rani scooted back.

      
“Yes, I am a physician,” he replied as he tossed the filthy red cloth into the bushes and extracted a piece of snowy linen from his bag, “but never before has my patient been an injured wolf—horses, yes, but this is a first.”

      
“Will—will he be all right?” she asked in a subdued voice. This man was as beautiful as one of the golden statues she had seen in the Christian's churches. When he turned to smile at her, revealing blindingly white teeth, she felt ready to swoon.

      
“Yes. The ball stunned him, but tis not a deep wound.” As if to prove him right, the wolf gave his hand a slurping lick and shook his head.

      
“Vero has never taken kindly to a man before. Tis a good sign,” she added uncertainly as the
phuri dai's
warnings rang in her mind. He was richly dressed in fine woolen hose and soft leather boots, with the miniver fur-lined cloak of a physician slung carelessly across his wide shoulders. “Thank you for helping me,” she said. “Those cockroaches would have raped and killed me without a moment's thought.”

      
“What are you doing out here all alone and afoot?” he asked.

      
“I was not alone. Vero is usually more than ample protection. Anyway, my people are not far from here.” She rearranged the tangle of gold chains and lockets hanging around her neck with surprisingly small dainty fingers, for all their grimy coating.

      
“You speak Spanish, an oddity in the north of Italy,” he said, noting the delicate, almost patrician features, beneath layers of caked filth.

      
“Those whoresons who attacked me spoke Spanish, did they not? How else to communicate? I also speak Tuscan,” she said, switching effortlessly to the northern Italian dialect.

      
Benjamin shook his head in disbelief. “How are you called and where do you live?”

      
“I am Rani Janos, and as to where I live, right now, I live on these plains, but—”

      
The pounding of horses' hooves interrupted her as masculine voices called out her name and other words in that strange tongue he had heard her speaking to Vero.

      
“You must go! Those are my brothers, come searching for me. If they find you they will kill you before I can explain!” She gestured to her torn clothing and the injured wolf, then shoved him to his feet.

      
“I am far from defenseless,” he replied dryly. “You are certain you will be all right?”

      
“Yes, yes, only hurry before they find me!” She watched as he walked to his big chestnut and swung easily into the saddle.

      
“Good-bye, Rani Janos,” he said with a puzzled salute.

      
Her small mouth curved in a puckish grin as she said, “We will meet again, Golden Man.” She watched him vanish into the trees before Django and Rasvan came thundering into the clearing.

Chapter Eleven

Marseilles, January 1525

      
Miriam stood staring out the window at the gray splash of rain hitting the courtyard fountain. She could still see the falsely solicitous expression on Richard DuBay's face last evening when he and Judah completed the betrothal agreement. She shivered in revulsion, praying that her dowry would satisfy the greedy merchant so he would not bed her.
If he touches me, I shall die!
Even imagining his doing the intimate things to her body that Rigo had done made her cringe. She knew beneath his polite facade he hated her and bitterly resented having to claim a Spanish half-caste's bastard as his child, but his cupidity exceeded his disgust. Her father had bought her a husband to cover her shame.