Race of Scorpions - Dorothy Dunnett [39]
There came to Nicholas again the half-promise, the hint of fulfilment that had reached him in Trebizond, and again in November: the realisation that accuracy and precision could be deployed in this field as in any other. Since, if he did not kill, he would be killed, he chose his targets deftly, and dispatched them. The blows he took in return fell as weights, or vibrations: it did not even occur to him that they might matter. No man, in any case, could know whether he was drenched in water, or blood. The shouts, the clanging, the screams, the swishing of water in turmoil produced in him a sense of isolation. The most immediate sounds were his own: his breathing; the scream, with blue sparks, from his sword-edge. The spray struck his arms and sides like a harp. Then he realised there were louder sounds still, emerging from the darkness behind. The rest of the army had come.
Malatesta hadn’t seen them. Half drawn up on the opposite bank was Malatesta’s rearguard, clearly told off to deal with the nuisance. Behind the rearguard was Malatesta’s main army, about to move off to Fano, with Malatesta himself at its head.
The moon brightened, emerging from veils, and showed to Nicholas the beaked and hideous profile of Urbino his leader before him, his sword aloft, his one eye bent on his trumpeters. The charge sounded. And with trumpets braying and every man roaring for joy, the Pope’s army lunged forward through the little stream of Cesano and hurtled straight into the small, tidy squadron which had been instructed to wait and get rid of them.
The shock of the impact flung Malatesta’s rearguard backwards and into the body of its own troops. Urbino’s cavalry followed up. Behind the cavalry came Urbino’s foot, surging out of the stream like a storm wave. The Rimini rearguard staggered, fought wildly, and broke. Urbino’s force, grinding through them, came upon and engaged the central body, disordered itself by the collision. The fighting became dense, at the closest quarters, with Nicholas in the thick of it.
With the moon to go by, there was some chance of telling friend from enemy while the order of battle still held. Then the lines fractured, and it was less easy. Every man in a helm is anonymous. Only the shields, the crests, the arm bands and blazons told who they were. Nicholas fought carefully, marking and striking; using his seat in the saddle to get himself out of trouble. Well taught by Astorre, as Astorre would be the first to agree. And by the Duke of Milan’s tutors. And by the best horses in the world, from an Imperial stable. His right arm had just begun to grow heavy when he saw that the crowd round him was thinner, and that most were men of his own side. One of his engineer friends rode alongside, his sword dripping black and stuck with wads of cut hair.
‘Malatesta’s van has taken to flight. Orders to follow and harass, but stay within trumpet call. They’ll scatter. We can’t go too far.’
Nicholas slowed his horse. ‘So where’s Malatesta?’
‘Also taken to flight, so they say. To Mondolfo, maybe, or Fano. He’s got his eldest son with him.’
‘The Corinthian wars,’ Nicholas said. ‘After all that strategy, no conclusion.’
‘What do you mean, no conclusion?’ said the engineer. ‘Urbino won.’
In the event, the chase was short, because Malatesta’s cavalry, once they put their minds to it, disappeared very fast and the foot soldiers went to earth, bounding like antelopes. The signal for Urbino’s recall made itself heard when Nicholas, with the rest, was only a mile or two beyond the Cesano, and they obeyed it, if reluctantly. The towns in these parts were held by Malatesta. And towards the sea, a vague bloom told of the nearness of dawn.
The sky to the east was illumined by