Caprice and Rondo - Dorothy Dunnett [323]
A mile short of the bridge, the new dead began to appear underfoot, white as sheep, their blood still fresh on the snow. The first man Nicholas stopped by was a stranger. The second and third were Charetty men.
Robin said, ‘It must be over. They would never have run, otherwise.’ He cleared his throat. Other riders pounded heedlessly past them, either blind to the signs, or beyond fear. Through the snow, there was no sound of fighting.
‘Campobasso’s men pursued them to here, then returned to the bridge,’ Nicholas said. ‘Do you want to come with me?’ Then he saw Robin’s face and said, ‘I’m sorry.’
Before they got to the bridge, they knew that the company Astorre had brought here was finished. Experienced, stubborn old warrior that he was, he was the last man to fall for an ambush. The signs were that he had tried a feint, and tested at least one way of getting across. Then he had, in his ebullient way, simply issued a challenge to battle. Had Campobasso’s men been half the number, and battle-weary, he might have carried the bridge. As it was, he had achieved a fine, perhaps a satisfactory fight, and left his mark on the ambushers. There were more Italians than Charetty men among the bodies still piled round the approach to the crossing.
No one had come out yet to deal with the dead: it was more rewarding to trap the rich and throw into the part-frozen water the innocents attempting to cross, or to send out swift bands to round up those who held back. Two men could do nothing to retaliate, or not today. But they could, under cover of flurries of action, and God-given flurries of snow, number the fallen, and make sure that no one was living, and find at last, in the bloodiest heap, a broken-backed poke of red plumes and another of blue, which showed where Astorre and his henchmen had died, as they had irritably fought, side by side. Astorre’s sewn eye was shut, but the other was open, fixed round and white in a final, ferocious wink.
Nicholas closed it. After a while Robin said, ‘Sir.’ And indeed, it was time to go. The hundred men lying here would be many times multiplied by the end of the day.
He did not even remember, afterwards, conferring over what they should do. He and the boy — Kathi’s husband — simply turned and rode back to where they judged they might intercept Diniz and the Duke, and the men of their company — his company — who were now in his charge.
It was crazy, of course, because in turning back, they faced the last of the refugees and the first of the oncoming pursuit. It was more ludicrous still when he learned, from someone he knew, that the Duke was still south of Nancy, trapped in the marshy rectangle between streams, and attempting to cross to his old lodging at the Commanderie of St John. If the besieged men of Nancy had raided the Burgundian tents, they would surely have stripped the Commanderie. But there was only one way to find out.
It was only three hours after noon, and Nicholas felt as he had done in the past after many hours of hard riding and hand-to-hand fighting: his sword-hand swollen and aching, his body spent, his mind numb. This battle had lasted only minutes. It was the aftermath which bludgeoned and killed.
About that time, the sky lightened, and the snow