Race of Scorpions - Dorothy Dunnett [45]
After a time he could not count, he realised that his wing was prevailing. At first it was only a thinning of the opposing horse. Then it became, here and there, a movement away from them. Then, suddenly, the Angevins broke, and he and Astorre and the men of Ferrante were thundering after a retreating foe. They killed as they went, and only stopped when summoned by trumpet. To turn, and to engage Piccinino’s troops at the rear.
At the rear was Piccinino’s third line of foot, the Genoese and the Calabrians. Pushed back by Skanderbeg’s attack on the two lines before them, they now received the impact of Ferrante’s attack from the rear. They gave way, fighting, and broke, back to back, into the corps of the army behind them. At that point, all order in the enemy’s ranks was disrupted. For moments, ally and enemy were indistinguishable. And then, suddenly, the army of Piccinino and the Angevins gave way and, running, determined to save themselves. It became a rout; then a bloody rout; then a victory. Then the aftermath of victory.
Astorre, drawing rein, said to anyone he knew within earshot, ‘I told you! That was a fight to be proud of. They’ll never come back. My view is they’ll never come back. That’s Ferrante made King of Naples at last. And we did it.’
He said it again to Tobie, as they regrouped in due course on the silent battlefield, and began to look for their dead and their wounded. Tobie said, ‘A great victory. Twenty-five enemy flags. A thousand prisoners. Four thousand enemy dead.’
‘A victory,’ said Astorre with satisfaction. ‘How many of ours?’
‘Only a thousand,’ said Tobie. ‘A few hundred wounded, of course. They didn’t capture John of Calabria?’
‘Escaped,’ said Astorre. ‘Fled to Troia. The bastards hauled him in with a rope, and he’s probably on his way to Genoa by now. Good riddance. Where’s Nicholas?’
Tobie’s horse stopped. He said, ‘He fought in your company. Don’t you know?’
Astorre stared. ‘Fought very well. Lost sight of him when the Angevin wing took to flight. There’s the dead. He’s not among them.’
‘Or the wounded,’ said Tobie.
Astorre rubbed his nose. ‘Well, that’s all right. He’ll be with Ferrante, or Skanderbeg. Without the men he brought down from the north, it might have been a different story. They owe him something.’
‘You mean you think he’s getting happily drunk in someone’s pavilion? It’s possible,’ Tobie said. ‘But I’d like to know. After all, I gather he’s our employer. You find out. I’m going to be busy.’
Astorre viewed him without rancour. ‘That’s all right,’ he said. ‘You go off. I’ll track him down somewhere.’
‘Now,’ said Tobie. ‘Go and find where he is now.’
In the hospital tent, as in battle, time lost all shape and importance. But once, moving from patient to patient, Tobie thought to summon a boy and send him with a question to Captain Astorre.
It was Astorre himself who came to walk through the tent, stopping where he saw a man that he knew, until he reached Tobie. Tobie straightened.
Astorre said, ‘That’s odd.’
‘What?’ said Tobie.
‘He’s not here,’ said Astorre. ‘Not in the camp. Not left on the field. Not to be found anywhere. He didn’t run off. He wasn’t killed.’
‘He might have been captured,’ said Tobie.
‘By a retreating army? Who would want to capture him?’ said Astorre.
‘Almost anyone,’ said Tobie wearily.
Chapter 8
OF HIS OWN volition, Nicholas had gone nowhere except into oblivion. When he emerged from it, he was at first conscious only that he was extremely unwell. He recognised the signs of past fever: the weakness, the thudding headache, the shirt sodden with sweat. He was lying somewhere in darkness on a sheet and mattress equally clammy