Race of Scorpions - Dorothy Dunnett [44]
‘You’ve time to cross over to his side,’ said Tobie. ‘I’m staying to enjoy the Albanians. All that cloth. And the smell. And all the time they must save by not shaving. Where are they going to fight?’
‘Infantry mixed with the rest in the centre,’ Nicholas said, ‘and cavalry on the right wing; the Dibrians under Moses Golento, and the Macedonians under Giurize. What are you worried about? At nineteen, Skanderbeg led five thousand horse for the Sultan, and was later commander for all Lesser Asia.’
‘Commanded Turks,’ Tobie said. ‘These are nephews and cousins. I’ve heard about Moses. He’s been thirty years with George Castriot, barring the time he went off and fought for the opposite side. They’d cheat their grandfathers.’
‘So would I, given the chance,’ Nicholas said. ‘Are you going to stay with us, after the fight? Stay with Astorre? Help build the company?’
‘Let’s have the fight first,’ Tobie said. ‘And there they are. Piccinino’s banner. The banners of Anjou. Three lines of battle to our two. Artillery coming up to the front. Pikes, hackbutters and crossbows in the line behind that, and two rows of plain infantry to the rear of them. Boys from Naples, boys from Apulia, Genoese French … they should do better than us: they’ve a common language. They’ve split the cavalry too. Look at the flags. Anjou to his right, Naples to his left. Nicholas my boy, you’re in the block opposite Anjou if you stay with Ferrante. Join the Albanians. That’s my advice.’
‘I will if you will,’ said Nicholas. Together, they turned their backs on the Albanians and rode amicably over to the left of the assembling army, where the cavalry of King Ferrante was taking its stance. Astorre awaited them, his mighty crest wagging above his red, bearded face. ‘Now we’ll show ’em!’ he said. His sewn eye was convulsed with delight. With heady determination, Ferrante’s horse took their places around them, and the two lines of their foot assembled with clattering vigour.
Nicholas laughed and said, ‘What do you shout when you charge?’
The wicked smile spread. ‘Niccolò!’ said Astorre. ‘That’s what I’m going to shout. Niccolò!’
Tobie opened his mouth. It stayed, wordlessly open. A blaring trumpet had sounded just behind them. In a moment, it was joined by another, and an immediate and shocking crashing of drums. A moment later, and all of it was drowned by a bellow: a moose-like roar from the ranks of the Albanians, and the combined crash of handguns fired violently into the air. The army shuddered. Astorre said, ‘Attack! We aren’t –’
‘Go,’ Nicholas said. ‘Go, go. It’s Skanderbeg’s order. We’re not ready, but neither’s the enemy.’
They were on the move as he spoke. Crazily, chasing into position as it went, the army of Ferrante and Skanderbeg rolled down the slope, racing, galloping, shrieking, to crash into the totally unprepared army of Piccinino.
Nicholas, urging his horse, saw Piccinino’s guns fire, grey carnations in the hot sunlight, and then saw them tossed aside as the terrified trace-horses reared at the noise. He heard the crackle and flash of hackbuts, and the soaring whine of cross-bolts, but in the packed throng about him saw hardly anyone fall. With a sense of awe at the sheer naked effrontery of it, he found himself there, his horse’s shoulders blundering against Angevin horse, his sword engaged, while Piccinino’s left wing, disrupted by panicking animals, took the brunt of the Albanian cavalry and fell staggering back. Nicholas wished the Albanians luck.
Here, facing his wing, were not, this time, the amateur army of Rimini. These were soldiers from Provence and from Anjou. Some of them were French, displaced by the rising in Genoa, or even Genoese, flung out with them by those who disliked friends of the French. Nicholas had time to think it ironic that his round ship that had brought Urbino’s army was still called the Doria, that most famous of Genoese names. Then he had no time to think. He fought on the level he perceived was required