“Could I touch you but in love? No; but do not tempt me.” Patrick became silent, and as he stood there, Leggitt and de Garcia removed panels for themselves and for Lydia.
The latter turned her pale face to Patrick, looking at him through her hazel eye. She spoke in a tender voice, though only in a whisper, “No, you would not hurt me, though I would myself. If I were the devil, you would not refuse me; and if he were God you would not repent. For that I love you, though I have not the strength to show it.”
Patrick smiled at the change he had seen many times before. Then, with hands skilled in carpentry, he removed the window from its frame with a dagger. When the way to the roof was clear, he turned to the others and said, “Do as I do.”
He held the wooden panel in front of his stomach and dove through the window. When he landed on the roof the panel was below him and it glided over the slippery tile as if over ice. His momentum multiplied with the incline to bring him speed. As he neared the upward curve of the roof’s edge, he was going fast enough that he could not stop. Yet he did not want to. The pliable panel curved up the ramp and he was thrown over the garden to the houses beyond, whose flat roofs stood waiting. There was a muffled thud and a slight groan, then he landed safely. The others were right behind him.
“Come,” he said as he stood and turned to leave, “For our enemy pursues.”
Five minutes before this, Vladimir and his soldiers had entered the house. There were six of them with him, mounted and armed heavily. The young officer led them at a feverish pace, as if fleeing the spawn of hell; and indeed Montague was no less, though he did not pursue him at that moment.
“Hurry, men,” he hesitated. “There is no one else but de Casanova, so de Casanova it will be.”
At that moment they arrived at the door. Vladimir came forward and knocked three times in a heavy fashion. Then he turned and waited, resting his hand on the door handle in his haste. He stood that way for ten seconds, then could bear no more and tried the handle – albeit with the vain energy of the unexpecting. Yet, to his surprise, it turned and opened, revealing the inner scene to him. The butler was prostrate on the floor, the furnishings disarranged.
“Has de Garcia’s wrath been shown here, as well?” he sighed. “It is as they say: the warrior within is never broken.” Then, in a louder voice, he called, “De Casanova, what has happened?”
“Damnation!” a voice called from the garden room and Vladimir and his men ran back to see what was about.
There, lying in the garden beyond the broken window, was de Casanova, in a swoon. Vladimir ran over and pulled him further into the garden, onto a small spread of Spanish moss.
“Awake, friend!” and Vladimir shook him.
“Damnation,” the other moaned, rolling to the left.
Vladimir shook him a second time, and he leapt to his feet, in a heavy fever.
“Damnation!” he cried, “They escaped you, Vladimir!”
“Yes,” the other lowered his head.
“I am disappointed,” de Casanova grew angry. But then, with a press of the lips, he stopped himself and spoke quietly. “Yet look what they have done to me. I did not know Leggitt was among them, and Gylain does not choose his friends without cause; nor his enemies, as we have seen. But look, they are still above us.” He picked his sword up from the ground where it had fallen in his fall and put his foot within the glass room, remaining, however, in the garden. “They will not fly by us again.”
As he spoke, Patrick McConnell sailed by overhead, flying on a wooden panel. Neither de Casanova nor Vladimir could speak for a moment, but stood with their heads extended upwards as the others passed over the gap between the houses.
“How quickly I have forgotten,” de Casanova said, “The man who ruined the Spanish rebellion and the man who started the English rebellion together, with Gylain’s trusted deputy at their side. But we outnumber them.” He placed his sword within its sheath and ran around the narrow garden to the street beyond. The soldiers’ horses stood there, tied to a post alongside de Casanova’s. “Hurry,” he yelled back to those following, “For they will not delay!”
In the meantime, Patrick was leading the others to the next house, whose roof was directly adjacent to the first in the row of houses. They jumped across the narrow gap, doing the same for the next three before they came to the end of the street, just as de Casanova was mounting his horse. A hay wagon happened to be passing by underneath the roof. Patrick did not hesitate as he jumped over the edge and landed squarely in the back, his companions beside him.
“You there, driver,” Patrick called out, “Ten crowns if you fly as the wind! To the docks!”
The driver – a stale old man – started back in his chair and turned to face them.
“I have lived to see ten kings,” he said, “But never ten crowns!” and he spurred the hairy horse until it could go no faster. Even then the cart knocked the passers-by over, as if they were but weeds by the roadside. There was nowhere to run in the narrow streets. Yet danger is the mother of genius and poverty the father of the French. None of the peasants were injured.
Meanwhile de Casanova, Vladimir, and the half dozen soldiers were at a full gallop. The pilfered peasants were looking at the cart to see who had bounced them, and when the soldiers came through everything was upset again. They were slowed by the tumult that followed.
“Through them,” shouted the chevalier, “We have larger beasts to slay!” He dug his heels into his horse’s flanks. The beast dove into the crowd. The peasants were thrown aside, though still they saved themselves from harm.
“Death to the king!” some of them shouted, though they hid their faces even as they offered rebellion.
Yet the soldiers took no notice of them – they were foreign soldiers with a foreign mission. Rather, they followed de Casanova and the escaping cart. Their gallop far surpassed the wagon’s, and after a moment the fugitives came into view. They were half way down a long lane of houses that emptied into the customs house. It was a long, low rectangle with one end in the docks and one in the city.
“Vladimir,” de Casanova called out as they charged, “Take three men and circle around to the other end of the avenue. If we can trap them between us the battle will begin. So fly – fly like the anger of a prince, lest it come for you!” And Vladimir did, rushing forward at a deadly speed.
“Our horse is tiring,” de Garcia whispered to Patrick and Leggitt, who were looking back at the troop of horsemen thundering down the lane.
“Yes, and the promise of money will not motivate that poor beast,” Leggitt added, turning around and glancing at the driver. “Are you clever enough to have ten crowns?”
“Clever enough to say so,” and Patrick winked at his companions, who returned it with a laugh.
“A bad time for joking, children,” sneered the blue-eyed Lydia. Then she turned and her hazel visage said, “Yet laughter eases pain. Be glad the old man does not hear.” Indeed, the fat-eyed driver leaned forward on his bench and laid a challenge to the customs house, daring it to flee him.
Yet the horsemen were but ten yards away and quickly coming up. The row of buildings continued without a break in either direction. The customs house blocked the lane in front of them. The only escape was through the building itself or through a narrow lane to its right. But for them, neither was open.
“We are trapped!” Leggitt yelled, “They have circled around!”
Vladimir and his men charged through the narrow lane. Then they came to a stop in front of the customs house. The driver stopped the horse, having no where to turn, and de Casanova and the other soldiers formed a circle around the wagon, with de Casanova standing between the fugitives and the customs house. There were eight with de Casanova, as opposed to five in the cart, one of whom was an old man and another an unarmed woman.
“I cannot be defeated, Patrick,” and de Casanova dismounted and drew his sword, “In love or in war. Come, Lydia, return to my side.”
Lydia looked at them, her blue side facing de Casanova and her hazel Patrick. For a time she was silent, as if in deep thought, then she spoke in a hurry: “No, you are mistaken, old man. For I am already with my lover!” Blood charged into her face and its paleness retreated until it became as livid as her glowing hair. She went to Patrick’s side, holding herself with the grace of a princess, and sat down upon the hay with as much bearing as if she were a queen returning to her throne.
De Casanova was equally as livid, though from anger rather than love. “So it will be,” he whispered hoarsely,
