The Master of Verona

by David Blixt

  Some poor Paduan stumbled across his path. Keeping in his character of an angry Vicentine, the Toothless Master swung his weapon in an upward stroke. The horrible spiked metal ball hit, and a cloud of pink mist hit the air. The fool's chin came right off, landing on the ground behind him. The man flailed, but Vanni was too busy to do him the favor of killing him. He'd just spied what he was looking for, a bobbing head of chestnut hair where the fighting was heaviest. His prey's back was invitingly turned.

  Asdente veered his horse and set it at an easy canter, to all appearances off to help his lord, weapon held at the ready.

  Following in the Scaliger's wake, Pietro hacked and slashed with his longsword. He tried to remember his one lesson from years ago. The voice of the instructor rose up from memory, shouting, 'Thrust, don't hack! A point always beats an edge!' But when your enemy was running with his back to you, a swing was as good as a stab. Working to control his blade while staying in his saddle, Pietro was too busy to be terrified. His greatest fear was of losing his weapon. It seemed far too big for his hands.

  What astonished him was how fast everything seemed to move. He'd seen the fightbooks with their orderly woodcut prints of stately knights doing slow, measured battle. In the field it was completely different, and the learning curve was deadly. But before him was the best teacher a man could wish for. Even as he chopped at the men around him, Pietro was aware of the easy martial moves of the Capitano's mace — the arcing swings that killed, then looped around for the next victim. Pietro tried his best to emulate the moves.

  Some Paduans were turning now, knowing they couldn't outrun death. Pietro saw an axe rising and quickly hauled his blade up to meet it. He caught the axehead on the upstroke, yanking the weapon from the Paduan's grip. Pietro hurtled past the man, who flung himself to the ground in terror. Already there was another threat looming on Pietro's right, a man with a spear, but the Capitano was there first. A fiery wheel of destruction, the Scaliger bared his teeth in a joyful grimace as he pulled back on the reins. The horse under him checked as Cangrande leaned back in the saddle, dodging a spear thrust that would have caught him under the chin. His left leg flicked out of its stirrup. Snaking out, he wrapped it around the spear, pinning the shaft neatly between the saddle's wooden front and the groove of his left knee. The silver spur at his heel flicked out, slicing into the soldier's arm. The weapon involuntarily released from his grip, the Paduan turned and fled.

  But four more Paduans were already moving in to kill the Scaliger and take his horse. Still leaning back, Cangrande used the mace to fend off an attack on his right side. Sitting up, his left hand grasped the haft of the trapped spear, spinning it over his head to slice through a man's cheek, then reversing the weapon to hammer the butt end into an exposed throat. Jupiter took down another man, pinning him to the ground and snapping at his face. The greyhound's teeth were covered in blood.

  Pietro had pulled up on his reins at the same time as Cangrande, thinking to move to the Scaliger's aid. Now he just watched in amazement. "Good God…" Mouth open, Pietro realized he'd let his sword hang at his side. If a Paduan had come across him, he'd have died a stupid death then and there. But the enemy were all ahead of him, fleeing towards Quartesolo and the bridge over the Tessina to safety.

  Just to be sure there were no Paduans at his back, he wheeled his horse about. The field behind him was littered with the dead and wounded and surrendered, but there were no armed men on foot. Pietro was about pick up the chase again when he noticed a single rider galloping towards them. He carried a Vicentine shield, the castle tower and the winged lion quite visible on the red and white background. But there was something wrong. Pietro was hard pressed to put a name to it.

  The rider wasn't looking at the Paduans running towards the river — his eyes were fixed on Cangrande's back! There was the faintest glimpse of triumph across the snarling wrecked face.

  Pietro shouted, "Cangrande!"

  The Scaliger looked back, but too late — the bastard had already launched his attack, a heavy swing with a morning star, the ball and chain at the peak of its arc. Cangrande's head was bare, his helmet tossed aside in defiant contempt.

  The fingers on the Capitano's right hand relaxed, discarding the mace. The spear came up across the head of his horse, the free hand gripping the spear's lower haft. Thus braced in both hands, the wooden pole whipped up over Cangrande's head. He leaned back over the secondo arcione of his saddle, arching his spine painfully, holding the spear away from him, a bar over his body.

  The hurtling chain bit into the spear's haft and the metal ball curled underneath and around it, passing the Scaliger's face by inches. The chain wrapped itself harmlessly around and around the wooden pole, leaving the spiked ball hanging impotently.

  Cangrande yanked forward, pulling the handle from Asdente's grasp. In a continuation of the same move the spear was reversed and thrust backward. The butt connected with the Paduan's groin. Doubling over in his saddle, Asdente gasped.

  "Be grateful, Vanni," said Cangrande. "I could have used the sharp end."

  "Go — to Hell," gasped the Paduan.

  "You should really stick to making shoes, Asdente," observed the Scaliger. Pietro laughed at the literary allusion, but Asdente looked blank. Cangrande sighed. "For Christ's sake, man, read a poem!" He cracked Asdente's skull with the spear's butt, and the Paduan's limp body toppled out of his saddle to land in an ungainly heap on the trampled earth. For good measure, Jupiter bit him on the upper thigh.

  The Capitano dropped to the ground and retrieved the morning star. Weighing it in his hands, he flashed a bright grin at Pietro. "Sneaky bastard."

  "Yes, my lord," agreed Pietro.

  Cangrande climbed back into his saddle. "Pietro, my darling boy, you just came between me and death. That renders something as formal as 'lord' a trifle ridiculous, don't you think? Come up with another title. And I'll think of one for you."

  Hearing the hinted promise of distinction, Pietro flushed. "Thank you, lord. I mean…"

  But Cangrande was already spurring after the fleeing Paduans. "Giach giach giach giach! Come on!" The Scaliger touched his spurs and his mount raced forward.

  Pietro tried to follow, but his spurless heels did nothing to convince his horse to move. Pietro hissed at it, hit its sides with his fists, shook the reins — nothing. I guess I'm stuck, he thought.

  He glanced around him, looking for danger. If his horse wouldn't move he was a sitting target. The battle was carrying on past him, and try as he might he couldn't get the beast to budge.

  Suddenly loosing a frightened whinny, the horse reared violently. Whatever spooked it, a noise, a wasp, a sudden blinding reflection off someone's armour, all Pietro knew was the lurch beneath him as his horse went up on its hind legs and pawed the air.

  With a fierce thud the front hooves returned to earth. Pietro rocked back, his jaw snapping shut inside his helmet. He fought to sit upright again as the horse gallopped madly towards the battle. "Whoa! Whoa!!"

  At the bridge of Quartesolo the fighting had grown desperate. The bridge was the Paduan path to freedom and the killing field between it and San Pietro was utter chaos.

  It was at the bridge that the score of men gathered by the two Carrarese held their ground. This tight cluster of defenders had begun to notice how few the Scaliger's forces really were. They could turn the fight around with a hard push — as long as the archers on the walls did not open fire. Several men glanced up, wondering why they had not been hit with a hailstorm of arrows. Perhaps the archers didn't want to hit their own men? That made them all the more eager to engage in close fighting.

  The Paduan ring naturally earned the attention of all the unengaged Vicentines. They pressed forward, only to have their horses speared and to fall under a trample of hooves. The bodies of the mounts provided a wall for the Paduans that the next wave of attackers had to navigate, exposing themselves as they did to their enemies' blades.

  "Hold them!" shouted Marsilio, echoing h
is uncle a few feet away. He was again loading his crossbow and scanning the field to find quarry. His uncle disapproved of the weapon, as it was not strictly within the knight's code. But Cangrande had brought bowmen, and Marsilio was feeling rightously vengeful.

  There! Cangrande was in sight, held up in helping some Vicentines deal with a smaller group of men who had turned to fight. It was a tricky shot — sighting down the length of the weapon, Marsilio waited for a clear line of fire. He tracked the riding figure, squinted, braced himself, and triggered the release.

  Suddenly a knight in a plain helmet and gambeson darted into his vision, blocking Cangrande from view. Had the bolt hit its target? Marsilio couldn't tell. All he could see was the madman riding recklessly for the Paduan line. His horse was a giant destrier, fully armoured. A beast that size could tear a hole into the Paduan resistance, opening a gap that the other Vicentines would exploit.

  Il Grande saw the same danger. "Stop him!"

  Such a monster might not even feel anything less than a mortal blow. Marsilio began reloading his crossbow. He couldn't stop the horse, but the rider was easy pickings. His practiced hands racheted the new bolt into place as his angry eyes looked for a clear shot.

  Moments before, Pietro was frantically trying to get his horse under control. It ran willy-nilly, carrying the bone-jolted teen along for the ride. Worse, he could see where it was blindly charging — straight into a tight band of Paduans bristling with spears and halberds and swords. Anywhere but there! "Come on, boy!" he cried as he yanked on the reins again. Perhaps if he'd worn spurs he could have made the beast veer, but reins alone were no good. The most he achieved were slight variations in the horse's angle.

  Looking up into that fearsome band of men by the bridge Pietro saw a dark-haired young knight on horseback adjust behind the front line of Paduans. Then Pietro caught sight of the wooden cross and a long curved piece of metal at its head. A crossbow! The comely Paduan brought it up level with his target, squinting along the bolt for the center of the Scaliger's chest.

  Pietro had no breath left to shout a warning. Instead, he steered his horse directly into the path of the arrow's flight. He saw the bolt release, a faded grey line tracing through the air at him. Fearful of the impending missile but unable to veer off, he closed his eyes. Dear Christ, please..!

  Bows had long been prohibited by the law of men and the rule of the Church, called cowardly by knights and unholy by priests. The closest to a compromise that fighting men had made was employing the crossbow in the place of the bow of yew. Slower to load and heavier, the crossbow still had the power to take a fully armoured knight out of his saddle and leave his body seemingly hanging in midair as his life spilt out of him.

  The bolt did not carry Pietro out of his seat. The moment passed. He felt the horse beneath him, the air around him, but nothing else.

  I'm alive. Oh, dear God, I'm...

  As the horse's hooves met the earth, Pietro dragged air into his lungs and screamed. His eyes opened wide, tears at the corners. He looked down and saw a bolt sticking out of his right thigh just above the knee, continuing on through the meat and out the other side. The power of the bolt at this close range had carried the metal head straight through the leather beneath him and into the metal covering the horse's ribs, pinning Pietro to the massive warhorse.

  The horse plowed on, every hoof-fall shooting lightning through Pietro's leg. Each step moved the powerful horseflesh, in turn tugging and jerking Pietro's leg. The youth slipped right in the saddle to alleviate the pull, but it did no good. Blood seeped from both sides of the wound as Pietro's life force mixed with his mount's.

  Through a blurred veil of sweat and pain, he saw the Paduan reloading. "No." Ducking low and hanging on, his thoughts were incoherent. All he knew was that he had to keep riding.

  In the ring of resisting soldiers Il Grande glanced at his nephew. "If they break, ride like hell." He glanced at the lone rider bearing down on them. "He's brave."

  Marsilio had no comment about the rider's bravery, busy looking for a clear shot. The coward had ducked behind the horse's armoured head. It was no longer about stopping the horse. The rider had cost him his chance at Cangrande, and Carrara was determined to kill the bastard before they were forced to turn and flee. "Come on, show your face!"

  The destrier clambered up over the barricade of dead horses and men, its hooves tearing a purchase through the flesh, plunging forward into a wall of spears. One of those spears penetrated the heavy armour, but it was not nearly enough to check the beast's charge. It lowered its head, the single unicorn spike goring the first two men in the wall.

  The lowered head exposed the rider. "At last!" crowed Marsilio. He pulled the trigger.

  Pietro was barely able to see inside his helmet, but he felt the impact of something bouncing hard off it. The blow snapped his head back and canted him right in the saddle, towards his bad leg. Entirely limp again, Pietro wasn't able to put his weight on his right stirrup, and so began to fall. Through the narrow slit of the helmet, everything was confusion. He thought he saw a sword's blade coming at him, but already he was past it as his steed barreled on. There was a cracking of wood, something ripped in his leg, and he screamed. All he knew for sure was that he was falling. Releasing his sword, he threw his arms wide to find something to catch onto. Cries were all around him, but as his fingers gripped something metal there was a startled shout. For a moment he was suspended in the air, hanging between his saddle and whatever he'd grabbed hold of. Then he toppled to the earth, the bulk of what he had hold of falling with him to land heavily beside him.

  Gasping, eyes filling with tears, Pietro struggled out of a helmet that fit him more snugly than before. On the ground beside him lay the dark youth, holding a broken crossbow. Since he was wearing armour, the fall had been much more damaging for him. Good, thought Pietro. He reached for the fellow's belt and removed a dagger. There were men all around him, and he expected a sword to split his head in two at any moment. Twisting about, he slashed with the knife at — empty air?

  The gap in the Paduan line had broken the last of the men. The Paduan men-at-arms turned tail and ran. Seconds later, Vicentine horses thundered past Pietro to round up and kill the last of them.

  The only Paduan who didn't run appeared to be someone of authority. He remained on horseback, his hands raised in the universal gesture of submission. "I surrender!" he shouted, his eyes on the young archer lying unmoving at Pietro's side.

  Pietro stared around blankly, then thought of his helmet. Picking it up, he discovered a crossbow bolt running all the way through the steel, end to end, just below the crest. He remembered his head rocking back and realized the bolt must have penetrated above his scalp, in the gap just above his head. A shiver of insane laughter ran through him. Thank God for my wide head!

  There was a groan beside him. The young Paduan sat up only to feel the pressure of Pietro's blade against his Adam's apple.

  Marsilio da Carrara blinked, taking in the youth kneeling next to him with a look of contempt.

  Pietro was just grateful to be alive. With his strange half-smile he said, "I guess you're my prisoner."

  Halting the pursuit at Quartesolo, Cangrande set his men to rounding up the Paduans, a chore that would take days. The broken army had scrambled in every direction, throwing themselves down into ditches on either side of the road. Some had jumped into the flowing waters of the rivers that intersected at Quartesolo, whether they could swim or not. Many of them floundered in the muddy waters, weighted down by armour and weapons they struggled furiously to shed. Cangrande's men, who just moments before had been their destroyers, now became their saviors, stripping themselves of their own armour and diving in to rescue their Paduan brothers.

  There was no more fighting. It had never been a battle, it had been a rout. Now the rout was over.

  Under a tree on a hill to the south of Quartesolo, Cangrande dismounted his blood-spattered stolen horse. Walking around to the front of the ani
mal, he unbuckled the testiera that covered its head, let the piece fall to the earth, and began to stroke the long nose absently. Jupiter dropped and lay at his feet, exhausted.

  Kneeling down to pet his hound, the Scaliger did not glance back at the city that was now indisputably his. His gaze was directed south, beyond the men who ran to safety. The south and east, where lands were lush and green, with rivers and vineyards, mills, ranches, farms. Harvest was three weeks away. This was some of the richest land in the world, fought over and died for throughout history. This was the Trevisian Mark. This was the Feltro.

  Cangrande della Scala, titular Vicar of the Trevisian Mark, looked down on the half of the Mark that he did not rule. If anyone could have seen his face in that moment, they would not have been able to decide if his eyes bore responsibility — or delight.

  He was twenty-three years old.

  EIGHT

  Though the battle had seemed to last hours, it was over in less than twenty minutes. Of actual bloodshed there had been little, as armed engagements went. The dead numbered only seven Paduan nobles and fifty-seven foot soldiers. With the exception of the Carrarese, all the mounted knights had fled the field. Of the remaining foot soldiers, many were wounded. But the real surprise came from the number captured. Over a thousand men-at-arms had surrendered themselves to a band of just eighty men.

  A modern Caesar, Cangrande was famous for his clemency towards captured foes, and today he was true to form. Returning to the northern edge of Quartesolo, he welcomed captured Paduan nobles as old friends. The poet Albertino Mussato had been discovered in the moat bearing no fewer than eleven wounds, the worst being a cracked skull and a broken leg. His wrist, too, hung at an ugly angle. It was a miracle he'd survived. Trampled by his own side, he'd flung himself headlong into the foul water of the moat. Addressing him, Cangrande commended his valour. In great pain, lying on a makeshift stretcher, the poet-historian was as gracious as the situation allowed.