Chapter 10
Murphy’s Laws of Combat #17
“Don’t look conspicuous. It draws fire and irritates everyone around you.”
They found the narrow bridge, wooden and barely wide enough for the horses, but undamaged. The swollen órbigo too turned out to be far wider than Rig remembered. Once across, they climbed the slope, passing deserted farms and vineyards.
“Where is everyone?”
Mel gave him a tired squint. “Hid off to the coast or south—or playing least in sight.”
“All of them? Why?” As soon as he asked the question, he knew what she was going to say, so they said it together. “The French.” He just pressed his lips together and rode on. It wasn’t like him asking questions he could figure out himself. On the other hand, was it safe to assume he could in this place? This time? He gritted his teeth at the implications.
The mists thinned as they climbed, though it still hung thick close to the ground, reminding him of a nineteen-thirties Dracula movie. After a couple of kilometers of bare ground and snow, they came to the rock face Mel had mentioned, and skirted it, passing an area with the earth torn up, smelling of dung, and dotted with garbage. Rig frowned. The cavalry brigade’s campground.
Reaching the gray stone wall surrounding the city, it rose up before him just as it had for him two weeks ago. Wisps of black and white smoke from yesterday’s fires floated high above the stone face.
Rig examined the ground where in 2010 there were tracts of homes and apartments in every direction. A feeling of falling needled his sanity.
He shook it off and scanned the area for a way to climb the wall. Walking his horse along it, he called back. “We shouldn’t walk in the front gate until I can determine who will greet us.”
Mel nodded. “One of the main entries into the town lies perhaps three hundred yards farther west.”
The mountains of Galicia rose before them to the northwest, far in the distance, white and foreboding against the gray skies. A turreted castle stood five stories high less than a mile away. Not the impressive Moorish-gothic structure he’d toured two weeks ago. It now smoldered, an empty shell, its windows blackened, and part of the conical roof collapsed.
He started when Mel spoke. “That was the residence of the Duchess of Ossuna. She fled south in November and two days ago a battalion of British soldiers camped in it. They built fires in the hallways, and one caused the fire damage you see.” He could hear the regret in her voice.
Rig eyed her and the ruined castle, guessing her motive for the little info dump. A real subtle effort, wanting him to believe her, about the year and their danger. Maybe he did, maybe he didn’t. He needed extraordinary proof.
His stubborn streak reared up, so he ignored her, and studied the surrounding area. No trees grew within a hundred meters of the town wall, but the bare branches of a spindly olive grove came into view a respectful distance away with several ladders lying on the ground. Surprisingly, one tall ladder leaned against the city wall, only a few feet short of the top. Perfect.
He told Mel he’d be back in five minutes and handed her the Beretta with the safety on. He gave her brief instructions on how to use it and stuck one of the cavalry pistols in his belt.
Sidling Chief up to the ladder, he was able to drop the reins and step over onto the ladder. The gray never moved. The climb was painfully awkward, but quick.
Rig listened for a moment before he poked his head over the top of the ramparts. Drab stone and whitewashed two-story houses squatted close by, many built up against the city walls. They crowded the cobblestone street he could see, which ended in a cul-de-sac or court below him. It was dingy and the smells wafting up to him did not invite investigation. No sounds of cars. It was Thursday. There should be traffic. He would have given a year’s pay to hear a car honk just once.
A wide walkway ran along the top of the wall and disappeared behind houses in both directions. Across acres of rooftops, drifts of snow hugged the brick-red, ceramic tiles. Rig hauled himself up and stood.
~ ~ ~
Melissa could just see the top of the captain’s wool cap over the ramparts. She watched his ungainly gait as he disappeared out of sight. His oddly shaped pistol felt dense and heavy in her hand. He said he had cocked it, so all she had to do was flip the ‘safety’ switch, hold it tight, and pull the trigger. It would fire when she did fifteen times.
It seemed beyond comprehension that such a small contraption was capable of so many shots. His sheathed rifle hung with his pack, and he claimed it fired twenty times without reloading.
She frowned at the mystifying wonder of the claims, discouraged by her ignorance of the man and his time. He is hundreds of years more knowledgeable than she, but unaware of so much.
It was so bleak on the hilltop. The wall radiated the cold. She felt completely exposed and alone there, visible to anyone on the slope from any direction. She was so tired, her shoulder ached, deep and abiding. She’d woken more than once last night, sweating, nightmares of Frenchmen dancing around her naked body, taunting her with obscenities, only to snap awake when they reached out to grab her.
She shook away those visions and began composing what she would say to the eejit mon when he reappeared—if he reappeared—and she was not discovered first. She gritted her teeth. She planned to burn his ears. Why wouldn’t he believe her? He would only find Frenchmen.
With a sigh, she knew better. The puir mon is lost. He dinnae ken what he does.
If she ever saw him again, she would . . . Melissa pursed her lips. What would she do? Smile with relief? Rejoice? She’d be feeling anything but anger.
~ ~ ~
Rig moved slowly along the six-foot-wide walkway atop the wall. Ramparts elbow-high lined the wall for defenders to hide behind. On the city-side, there was nothing, not even a railing. The walkway just fell away, a twenty-foot drop to the street below. The wall itself curved and angled around different houses that hugged it as close as possible, blocking the view down the walkway to no more than fifteen meters in either direction.
The empty streets and alleyways below were neither straight nor wide, which frustrated him. He could hear sounds of activity coming from the center of the town but couldn’t see more than three houses down the crooked streets.
Up ahead, he heard a crash and yelling. He hobbled to the corner of a building, its roofline higher than the wall and peered around it. Rig held his breath. Below, a dozen French soldiers milled around a doorway. The door lay in the street. A board hanging above the doorway displayed the head of a boar with tusks and words Rig couldn’t read, as the paint had chipped away. One soldier stuck his head out of the doorway and said something, his breath clouding in the frigid air. The soldiers cheered and rushed inside.
A bit later one of the men walked out with a sausage in one hand and a bottle in the other and strolled around the street, peering in other windows and testing doors. Noises of laughter came from inside the invaded house, or it was a tavern. He heard someone shout in French. “Well, at least those chiens hargneux anglais left us something.”
Rig felt sweat on his brow, which quickly chilled. A shiver ran down his spine. He glanced around him and blinked. It was as if he’d removed his aviator glasses in bright sunlight. He pushed down the nausea, staring at moss-covered stones across the walkway, trying to focus on what to do. Suddenly the world’s frightening colors were undeniable. 1808! God damnit! Was he royally fucked. He pressed his fists against his forehead.
No more Blue Moon, no more Michelob Ultra. He loved those beers. His cherry red Mustang—gone. No movies, no football games. He wouldn’t be texting Claire about their Sunday picnic under the Roman aqueduct at Segovia.
The United States Army? In 1808, it barely existed. The men of Company C, his family? Steamer, Rodrigo, Dan, Steve, the Chief—Unborn. His career? His life wasn’t history—it simply didn’t exist. He’d been kidnapped across time.
What am I going to do? How do I get back to 2010?
Mel said that the amulet yanked him through time when the soldier tore it off. She surely couldn’t have known he’d be the one to show up. Does she know how her magical jewelry can send back to him? Does she want to? Is getting her to the British army the solution? He swore some more.
Getting Mel to safety just became far, far more treacherous and to him, critical.
The British!A jolt of panic followed, sending him quickly stumbling down the walkway to view the next street, and then the next, hoping to find any British troops still left, until the walkway ended at an iron-banded door, part of a square stone structure that squatted across the wall and rose high above it. It was the tower covering a city gate. Rig could see the broad street below passing under the closed gate.
Scattered down the middle of the cobblestone avenue, scores of soldiers lounged around fires built in the street of furniture and barrel staves. French soldiers. Rumbling sounds and voices drew his gaze up the wide thoroughfare.
Several blocks away, the road widened into what he recognized as the town square. The square bell tower rose above the rooftops at one end. Men on foot, artillery caissons, wagons and riders, the struggling masses flowed through the plaza like a tidal current, moving west. A tall statue in the center of the square stood like a stone island, while a sea of humanity lapped about it and the surrounding two-story stone buildings. Little eddies of men spilled into the avenue, piling up against the groups hugging the fires.
He slumped against the wall. The distant clamor from the streets an insistent irritant as he stared at the dull sky for an indeterminate time. Shivering in the cold, awe at the history he was witnessing warring with the unimaginable dangers he now faced.
As Rig limped back, sounds from the town rose and voices in the streets called out what were obviously orders. Drums begin to beat, soldiers grumbling, the familiar clack of weapons being shouldered in unison. The French were preparing to march.
Think.
He needed to get back to Mel. A spasm of insight shook his body as he clung to the wall. How could he be so freaking stupid? Mel! She was the only one who knew how he ended up in this situation. Only she would know how to get him back to his own time—his ticket home. He cringed. And like some brain-dead rookie, he’d left her alone.
~ ~ ~
Melissa was having a hard time holding the horses. The beasts were becoming impatient, pulling up their heads and dancing, now that they had shorn all the brown grass sticking up out of the snow for feet in every direction. Where is the dighty mon?
As she scanned the top of the wall for a sight of him, she heard feet crunching in the snow out of sight. Voices. Should she hide? Run? She flipped the safety off on the pistol, cradling it before her on the saddle, out of sight under her poncho.
Three men walked out into the open seventy yards away, each carrying buckets in both hands. They tramped down the slope, talking and laughing. Heads bare, they wore French great coats and white overalls. Whatever was in the buckets they tossed over the rocks below and turned to climb back up. Then they saw her.
The three stopped and stared for a minute. The men spoke to each other, heads close together, and then walked toward her. When they were within fifteen feet of her, the devils all looked at each other and grinned in unison, dropping the buckets, which smelled of the sewer.
Melissa tensed, body rigid. They hadn’t realized she was a woman until now. She’d been hidden under her poncho and hood. The one with gray streaking his beard spoke.
“Buenos días, guapa.” The man’s Spanish was an ugly sound, his heavy French accent all the more guttural because of his gravelly voice. She hadn’t learned enough Spanish since marching with the army out of Lisbon four months ago. Her French was tinged with Braid Scots. She couldn’t pretend to be Spanish or French.
As the men walked up to the horses, memories from yesterday made her shoulder ache, and her stomach churn. She gripped the pistol tighter and licked her dry lips. Under the poncho, she slowly raised the pistol barrel.
The older soldier asked, “?Estás tú aquí sola con tres caballos?” with too friendly a tone. The older man’s eyes quickly went from the ladder behind her against the wall, the packs on the horses, to the green saddle blankets with the gold eagle in the corners.
His eyes narrowed and he said in French, “Qu’y a-t-il?”What’s going on here?