In the Palace of the King: A Love Story of Old Madrid by F. Marion Crawford (read my book .TXT) 📕

marched in the middle of the group. No one bothered to grip his arms now; he wasn’t going to run away. From snatches of conversation between Sergeant Brod and his followers, he gathered that he was being held for delivery to certain representatives of the Blue Temple, who had a standing offer of a great reward for the live body of Ben of Purkinje, or some lesser amount for that body dead. To Ben the proposed transaction sounded all too convincing.

      That the Blue Temple wanted him was easy to believe. But that those notorious skinflints would consider paying any reward at all was frightening. It showed how badly they craved getting their hands on him.

* * *

      The little band of freebooters, Ben still with his arms tied in their midst, were angling downhill, approaching the good-sized river which ran only a couple of hundred meters from the barn. On the near bank Ben saw a flatboat tied up. It was a crudely constructed craft, a score of paces long, half that distance wide, fashioned mostly of unpeeled logs.

      As soon as it became obvious that he was being escorted right to the boat, Ben stumbled. Then he dug in his feet. Or gave the impression of trying to do so.

      “Where are we going?” he demanded.

      “Just a little cruise.” Roughly he was pushed along. On being taken aboard the flatboat, the prisoner gave every indication of trying to disguise a deep distrust of water, edging reflexively toward the center of the crude plank deck.

      One of the gang, watching him with shrewd malice, probing for a weakness, smiling slyly, asked him: “Don’t care for the water?”

      Ben, a nervous expression on his ugly face, turned to his questioner. “Not much of a swimmer,” he admitted.

      They were willing to let him sit down approximately amidships. There was a little freight on board as well, a couple of barrow-loads of unidentifiable cargo tied down under a tarpaulin. From where Ben was sitting, he could see one small rowboat, stowed bottom-up on the broad deck. It looked serviceable. He couldn’t see any oars.

      Ben considered making a serious effort to break his bonds. Having got a look at the old rope before they used it, he thought that doing so would not be completely beyond the bounds of possibility. But any such effort would have to wait until he was unwatched.

      While the men began what seemed an unfamiliar process of casting off, the Sarge, as if he wanted to talk, came to sit on a small box facing Ben.

      Any effort at breaking ropes would have to be postponed. Ben, ready to try a different tactic, announced: “If I were this fellow from Purkinje, or wherever, why my friends might pay a better price for me even than my enemies.”

      “Maybe.” Brod sounded doubtful of that proposition, to say the least.

      “Did you ever try to get money for anything out of the Blue Temple?”

      The other looked at his prisoner thoughtfully. “I know what you mean, friend. But they’ll pay this time, in advance, or they won’t get you. ‘Sides, we’ve contracted to do another little job for them.”

      “What’s that?”

      The answer had to be postponed. Brod rose to supervise his unskilled crew’s efforts to get the boat free of the shore.

* * *

      By dint of much poling, and the blaspheming of many gods, along with energetic sweeps of the four long steering oars, the flatboat was at last dislodged from the riverbank and under way downstream. Ben was no great expert in these matters, but in his judgment the men manning the sweeps and poles were being pretty clumsy about it. The difficulty wasn’t entirely their fault, though. Obviously this craft had been designed for use somewhere upriver, maybe for ferrying livestock about, and had somehow been taken over by these goons, who were riding it downriver into waters somewhat rougher than those for which it had been built.

* * *

      At about this time Ben noticed a distracting presence, one he certainly didn’t need just now, maneuvering on the outskirts of the scene. This was a large, gray-feathered bird, and with a sinking feeling he recognized it as a winged messenger from Sarykam. At any other time he would have been pleased to get some word from home, and to have an opportunity to send word back. Just now, though, the hovering presence of the courier threatened the last faint credibility of his pose as Charles the Smith.

      Perhaps the creature was bright enough to understand this in some dim way; as if unable to make up its small mind whether or not to communicate with Ben, the bird came no nearer than the bottom of the upended rowboat, where it perched uncertainly and cocked its small-brained head at him. Presently one of the bandits threw a chip of wood at it, causing it to take wing for the shore. But after being driven from the boat, the messenger just flew along the shore from tree to tree, at a little distance.

      Brod had noted the bird’s presence, and was evidently shrewd enough to understand what it signified.

      “Reckon maybe it wants some blacksmithin’ done? New shoes, maybe, so it can run like a ridin’-beast?” The Sarge enjoyed another laugh.

      Ben did his best to pretend he didn’t know what bird Brod was talking about.

* * *

      Several hours passed in uneventful voyaging, with the current bearing the clumsy craft downstream at a good pace. A tributary came in on the east bank, and the river—Ben had never learned its name—broadened appreciably. Rocky hills on the horizon ahead suggested that the water might get rougher there, when this river became narrower and swifter, forcing itself between them.

      Still the gray-feathered messenger effortlessly kept pace, darting from tree to tree along the shore. Trying to put that problem out of his thoughts for the time being, Ben considered Sergeant Brod. The brawny Sergeant was still smiling at his prisoner from time to time, nodding, appraising him. He seemed to have