The Painted War Read Online Free PDF Page A

tall mounting-block to hide her face while she listened. She didn’t know anything about horses in battle, but she was sure this tack was a lot more flashy than protective. Would the Baron really be riding it into a fight?
    She risked peering around the block. The stablehand was talking to a man who was dressed as showily as the horse, in the Oscuritan fashion Bianca had come to know – a nearly-black blue robe that swept the ground behind him, trimmed with very bright blue silk.
    â€˜Are you questioning your orders, stable girl?’ he sneered.
    â€˜No, sir! One horse for the Baron’s sortie, sir!’ The stablehand snapped to attention and fired off a salute.
    â€˜You, laundry girl!’ Pietro suddenly snapped, and Bianca almost dropped her laundry in a pile of horse dung. She looked up and saw Pietro giving her an exaggerated angry look. ‘Stop slacking. Mistress Flavia wants those sheets at once!’ he barked.
    â€˜Yes, sir!’ Bianca yelped, and ran after him.
    Saralinda was waiting for them at a small door on the other side of the courtyard. ‘What were you doing?’ she muttered to Bianca.
    â€˜That woman said something about a horse for the Baron,’ Bianca whispered back. ‘I didn’t hear enough,’ she added with a frown. ‘They said they only wanted one horse, but that doesn’t make any sense  …  Why would they only want one horse for a whole army?’
    CLONG! CLONG! CLONG!
    Bianca looked up, her heart in her mouth, as a bell rang out somewhere above her.
    â€˜That’s the alarm,’ said Pietro. ‘Go, quickly.’ He opened the door and Saralinda slipped out.
    Bianca cast a last glance back at the glossy black horse, then heard voices shouting. She caught the words ‘pretender’, ‘escape’, and ‘find them’.
    Bianca quickly turned away and followed Saralinda out of the courtyard, down a dark and steeply sloping cobbled alleyway where black-thorned ivy grew between the bricks of the walls. Light crackled at the end of the alley, and Bianca sucked in a deep breath of cool air as she stepped onto an ordinary street outside the castle.
    If anything, the bells sounded even louder outside the castle. As Bianca, Saralinda and Pietro crossed a bridge over the canal, they passed a pair of women carrying black wicker baskets who’d stopped to stare up at the bell tower, muttering to each other. Then they hurried on their way, their pale Oscuritan faces taking on a sickly greenish look.
    â€˜Why do they look so afraid?’ Bianca whispered to her mother. ‘It’s not them Edita’s looking for.’
    â€˜The bells mean trouble for somebody,’ said Saralinda grimly. ‘And if Edita doesn’t find whoever she’s hunting, she’ll take their friends, or their relatives, or just some poor soul who was in the wrong place at the wrong time.’
    Bianca glanced at Pietro, and didn’t find any comfort in his face. The muscles in his jaw worked as he gritted his teeth.
    â€˜We were hoping to get you out as soon as we heard Edita had opened the passages, but she doubled the guard on the Tower. I’d hoped to have longer to get you to  … ’ He walked around a corner in front of her and then backed up so quickly she almost walked into him. He held his spear out to stop Saralinda turning the corner. ‘Wait here,’ he whispered.
    Bianca and Saralinda huddled close to the wall as he adjusted his cloak and walked on, at a sort of hurried strolling pace.
    â€˜Ho there, friend,’ Bianca heard him call out. ‘What’s all this racket from the castle? Has a prisoner escaped?’
    â€˜Haven’t you heard? The pretender’s got out of her tower. All units are ordered to drop everything until she’s found,’ replied a woman’s voice.
    â€˜God’s teeth!’ Pietro swore.
    Bianca edged carefully to the corner of the