Demon Rider

But then a horseman rode from behind the trees just ahead, with a file of pikemen trotting behind him. In moments they had blocked the road, and a backward glance confirmed that a second squad was closing the trap in that direction — not so many, but armed with arquebuses. The ambush had come a little sooner than he expected.

CHAPTER THREE

They were German mercenaries, the landsknechte the Spanish called lansquenets—mostly big, bearded men who seemed even bigger in their heavily padded doublets and hose. A man unfamiliar with them might laugh at those grandiose multicolored velours and velvets and satins, with piping and padding and pleats, all elaborately slashed to reveal linings of contrasting hues and set off by wide, flat caps with trailing plumes and, in many cases, gold chains around their necks. He would not laugh twice, for landsknechte were tough as anvils, the elite shock troops of the Fiend's army.

Their leader was grizzled and leather-faced as if he had seen many hard campaigns, but he was bedecked in crimson and chartreuse as splendid as any of the younger armored butterflies behind him. While he rode up on a magnificent, skittish black even bigger than Atropos, he seemed to be looking more at Toby than at the don. Or was that only Toby's guilty conscience saying so?

The don halted to let this upstart challenger approach, while the pallor of his anger made the copper mustache burn even brighter than usual. Toby edged in close to his stirrup like a child seeking comfort from its mother. Neither of them had anticipated the ruthless efficiency of landsknechte, who had cleared the entire valley so that there would be no residents to warn northbound travelers about the ambush and yet allowed southbound traffic like Johnson's party to pass undisturbed — clever!

Toby himself should not have underestimated the Inquisition. There was not a friar in sight so far, but he did not doubt that they were close. What a deadly combination! The baron and the Inquisition were an obscene partnership in the first place. It was no surprise that Oreste was willing to pay any price to gain possession of Granny Nan's pretty amethyst, even the indignity of dealing with the Inquisition and assigning it some of his best troops; and perhaps no more unexpected was that the Dominicans would stoop to cooperating with the notorious hexer if it let them snare a nefarious international monster such as Tobias Longdirk had been made out to be. Why, it was a good deal all round! The amethyst would go to the viceroy in Barcelona, and the Inquisition would get the infamous Longdirk as payment for services rendered.

Dona Francisca urged her pony forward a few paces. 'Captain, you are in the presence of the illustrious Don Ramon de Nunez y Pardo, a hidalgo of Castile! By what right do you dispute his progress?'

The mercenary ignored her, directing his answer to the don himself, with frequent sidelong glances at Toby. His men were already closing in on other members of the party, disarming them and taking charge of the horses.

'I bear authority from the Holy Office, senor. The venerable friars have asked for your assistance in answering a few questions. You will dismount now and surrender your weapons, which will be returned to you when—'

'It is outrageous! The viceroy himself will hear of this insult to—'

'You refuse to assist the Holy Office, senor? On what grounds?'

Even Don Ramon could not find an answer to that, but he was shaking with fury. To avoid straining his self-control any longer, Toby removed his baldric and surrendered his sword to a fresh-faced boy as tall as himself, a human maypole of mulberry, sulphur yellow, and cerulean blue, but too young to have earned any gold chains yet. Another man confiscated his staff. As the pilgrims were escorted off along a track through the trees, he was somewhat flattered to note that although the don merited two guards and nobody else more than one, he had a personal escort of six. Six landsknechte were the equivalent of at least a dozen ordinary soldiers.

* * *

The concealed camp was no makeshift affair, for its tents were well staked, the privies decently screened, the livestock paddocks built of stout rails. Prisoners and their baggage were delivered to an empty space at the edge of the clearing, where a dense growth of thorns would provide some shade — and also block off one possible direction of escape, of course. Their mounts were led away to a corral. Half a dozen guards remained, leaning on their pikes and saying nothing.

The ground was overgrazed and fouled by horses, but reasonably comfortable for sitting, certainly better than being shut up in a tent. Three black-robed friars came and made notes of all the names. One departed but two stayed, standing in silence. As they and the landsknechte could overhear anything that might be said, no one spoke at all. The waiting had begun.

Toby had not yet seen any faces he recognized, but he felt a stabbing case of deja vu. Everything he looked at echoed inside his head as if he should have been expecting exactly that. It was only a few hours since his last vision, his last starting-over, and events had not had time to diverge very far. He was sliding down the same drain again. He might even be into an endless loop already, fated to repeat the next week or two over and over for ever.

He leaned back on his elbows with Hamish on one side of him and Gracia on the other, all of them silent. He began counting: five tents, three wagons, six mules, four chained wolfhounds, stacks of animal fodder, a field kitchen, two flagpoles — one bearing the green banner of the Inquisition and the other the Fiend's yellow diamond on black — twenty-five horses, at least a score of soldiers beyond the six he had seen ride out on patrol, at least half a dozen friars, and two or three nondescript civilians. Say thirty or thirty-five in all, which matched the accommodation and the commissary reasonably well. The most incongruous object was a cage of steel bars standing in one of the wagons. It was the sort of cage in which bears were carried to bear baitings, but why should the Inquisition transport wild animals? No bets that that cage was warded against demons.

After a delay of about twenty minutes, when the anxiety level had presumably risen enough, a soldier and one of the mousy clerks came over to the prisoners and led Guillem away to one of the tents.

Obviously the interrogation was going to take all day, but when Toby Longdirk had nothing to do, there was one thing he could always do. He chose a clean spot to lay his head and went to sleep.

* * *

He came awake suddenly, and long training made him remain absolutely still, eyes closed, until he had worked out where he was and what had disturbed him… the landsknechte camp… voices. But several times before he had vaguely registered voices as his companions were led one by one to the tents, and each time he had merely drifted back to sleep again.

This time there was something different.

A voice he knew!

Like Hamish turning back the pages of a book, he dug for it: 'You now, child. Yes, you. And stop that bawling, or I'll kick your pretty little ass. Come on! Move!'

Toby opened his eyes and raised his head. Pepita was being led away by one ear, and the man taking her was one of the clerks. He was stocky more than heavy-set, with a rolling gait that in itself now seemed familiar. But it was his voice that had set bugles a-blowing, for it was the voice of the young tormentor in the vision, the one who had made threats about cojones, the one with the deft line in kidney punches. Oh, yes!

Revenge? Why not? Worth a try…

Toby cursed as he realized that he was the last. How long had poor Pepita been sitting there in terror with her only remaining companion snoring his stupid head off instead of offering comfort? He yawned, rubbed his eyes, and sat up.

Sunset had turned the sky bloody and set a cool wind to trailing dust clouds across the camp and flapping tents. The horses whinnied restlessly in their corral; once in a while a hound bayed. Thunder rumbled faintly to the north — now that might turn out interesting! The hob liked to play with thunderstorms. He had been knocked off