Novel - Airman Read Online Free PDF

Vigny grunted, then cast an eye around the courtyard. The fire wagon had a ladder hooked on its flank; a rope, too. Neither were long enough to reach the king. “Who designed this thing?” he muttered, hefting the coiled rope onto his shoulder. “Tall towers and short ladders. Just goes to show, there are idiots everywhere.”
    “What are you doing?” asked a member of the fire brigade. “Who said you could take that?”
    Vigny jerked a thumb skyward. “Him.”
    The fireman frowned. “God?”
    The Frenchman winced. Idiots everywhere. “Not quite so lofty, mon ami .”
    The fireman glanced upward, catching sight of the king in the window.
    “Do what he says,” roared Nicholas. “That man has saved my life in the past, and I trust him to do it again.”
    “Yes, Your Majesty. I am at your . . . at his service.”
    Victor pointed at the ladder. “Lean that against the wall, below the window.”
    “It won’t reach,” said the fireman, eager to say something intelligent.
    “Just do it, monsieur . Your king is getting a little hot under the collar.”
    The fireman grabbed a comrade, and together they propped the ladder against the tower. Victor Vigny was halfway up before the stiles hit the wall. The tower transmitted its vibrations into the rungs, and Victor knew that it wouldn’t be long before it blew its top, like a plugged cannon. The king’s apartment and everything above it would soon be no more than dust and memories. He quickly reached the top of the ladder, and threading his legs through the rungs, he slid the rope off his shoulder and down his arm.
    “Nimble, ain’t he?” commented the fireman to his partner. “But as I intelligently said, that there ladder don’t reach.”
    The debris was showering down now, lumps, shards, and entire granite blocks. There was no avoiding it for the three men working at the ladder. They bore the blows with hunched shoulders and grunts.
    “Lean it back,” Victor called down, sweat dripping from his face. He tore his feathered cap off as it caught fire, revealing the shock of spiked hair that had earned him the nickname La Brosse . “You owe me a hat, Nicholas. I’ve had that one since New Orleans.”
    The firemen took the weight of the ladder and the Parisian, pulling him three feet back from the tower wall. Victor Vigny took half a dozen coils in his hand and sent them spinning upward. He had judged the coils accurately, landing the spliced end directly in King Nicholas’s hand.
    “Tie her off strong now, and be quick about it.” Victor cinched the rope to the top rung and then slid down the stiles as fast as he could without stripping the skin from his palms.
    “Ladder don’t reach,” the fireman pointed out, while Victor plunged his hands into the nearest fire bucket.
    “I know that, monsieur . But the ladder reaches the rope, and the rope reaches the king.”
    “Ah,” said the fireman.
    “Now, stand back—if I know your king, that tower has more explosives in it than a similarly sized cannon. I believe we may be about to shoot down the moon.”
    The fire brigade gave up. They couldn’t pump enough pressure to reach the blaze, and even if they could, that fire was all sorts of colors, and pouring water on it might just make it angry.
    So they stood back out of the spitting castle’s range, waiting to see if the last male Trudeau in the line could save himself from death by fire or fall.
    Inside the bathroom, King Nicholas put his Royal Doulton toilet through its most rigorous test. True, the toilet had been constructed to bear the weight of a hefty adult, but possibly not one swinging from a rope tied to its piping. With a dripping towel draped over his forehead, the king put four loops around the evacuation pipe and a few hitches on the end. I really hope that pipe does not burst. Being burned alive is bad enough, without being found covered in waste.
    The bathroom’s stout wooden door was cracking with heat, as though soldiers battered from