By My Sword Alone David Black (best story books to read txt) 📖

from the substantial folds of boot leather where they had become hopelessly wrapped.

The Austrian roared something Germanic and incomprehensible at James, who was now opening the balcony shutters. James replied, laughing. ‘Your honour will survive that much faster than a skewered liver, mein herr!’

Then he gave him a smart salute with his blade, and added as he was about to disappear into the night, ‘And untie the poor fraulein, you boor! The bastard who did that to her … a damned scoundrel!’

And then he was gone.

Even before he was leaping into his saddle, James knew the way to head out of the city was to go west. For France. Where else? He wore the uniform of a French guards officer, was widely believed to be an emissary of the French king; if he was heading that way, then so must the fugitive princess be.

As for why the feldmarschall might believe the French king had wanted to kidnap Clementina, James could conjure up not a single argument. And fleeing now, he had not the time to dwell on it. Let all those court sophists divine the reasons; debate upon what vital vested interest must this month be steering the ship of state. Let them blame the entire charade on Louis’ marriage to a Polish noblewoman. There must be some shady intrigue buried there that had made it all so necessary. That was the way the world worked, wasn’t it? Nothing to do with an ordinary soldier like Cornet James Lindsay.

Except he wasn’t even that, anymore. Just another of those Wild Geese now, with no state to claim him. So, on, into the night, at the full gallop, going so fast he could feel the horse’s pleasure beneath him; so fast he knew it was a pace he could not long sustain.

He gave the horse her head until he felt her begin to blow, then he wheeled her directly south off the road that followed the line of the River Inn, up into the forested foothills, and there he dismounted, and lay down to snatch a half hour of sleep.

He was up again, and already doubling back along a small woodsman’s path that followed one of the lower contours of the Stubaier Alpen range where it corralled the south western approaches to the city, when he heard the pounding of many hooves below in the Inn valley. The clouds of earlier had cleared, and there was a moon somewhere behind the mountains, so although there was light enough to ride, there was not enough to see down through the gloom of the trees to the valley floor. Only the shiny snake of the River Inn peeked through the branches from time to time. It must be the pursuit, he reckoned, but could not see them. They had not been very fast in getting moving. But that was not a comforting thought – what if it meant they had sent a fast courier on ahead, carrying all the necessary dispatches to raise every military post along the route and to block the border? None had passed him, certainly. But there might have been one, riding not so far behind. He’d be long gone towards the posts opposite Metz, or Strasbourg, or both. And what if they’d sent a rider in every direction? What if they hadn’t just assumed that yes, they are gone to France, and nowhere else? What if they’d covered all options; just to be safe? A fast courier heading for Bolsano could already be overtaking Aylward and the coach.

The thought put the urgency back into his progress. There would be no more sleeps or stops. The poor horse would just have to endure.

6

The Palazzo del Re

All the glory and the fussing that had followed the success of James’ epic dash from Innsbruck had long since faded. There had been much rejoicing that Princess Clementina had been delivered safe, and there had been the lionising of her saviours. Now she was a familiar face at James Stuart’s court in exile, and the face of James Lindsay was that of just another courtier. Routine had returned.

And so it was this night. The candles and the roaring fire made the king’s private chambers look much warmer than they felt. A very apropos metaphor for the entire Stuart court in exile, thought Chevalier James Lindsay, as he looked down on the chess board and yet another impending defeat at the hands of a better player.

The Roman winter’s evening chill permeated the room, and rain could be heard lashing the shutters. His opponent made his move, and Chevalier Lindsay lost his second knight. Three more moves and it would all be over. Young Lindsay didn’t lose all his games to the middle-aged man before him, the pretender to the throne of Great Britain; over the two years he had been at the Palazzo del Re he reckoned he’d probably won at least three out of every ten games he had played, which was exactly how his opponent liked it. Because the man who would be King James III liked to win, but would have been disdainful of anyone who let him.

It was the custom among the 100-strong court here at the palazzo to treat the man as if he already was king. Everyone always referred to him as, ‘your majesty’, to his face, and ‘his majesty’, in general. So quite quickly James had settled on thinking of this man before him now, purely and simply as the king. And why not? For James Francis Edward became the title far more convincingly than the current incumbent, Georg August, the short, fat, florid and very German son of the not long dead George I. Georg August was widely known among his subjects as ‘the rump’, either because of his reputed martyrdom to piles, or his habit of flicking his coat-tails and showing his backside to anyone who disagreed with him, but