The Spring of the Ram - Dorothy Dunnett [179]
As at every stop they had made, he had already searched out the best place for ambush. Here the track ran above a fast, cold stream which had carved itself deep sloping banks thick with thorns and low alders. He pitched the tents there, on the rising ground to one side of the stream, and by a pool which promised good fishing. Fires were lit and blankets spread: the tent skins glowed like honey from the candles within. He made horse lines and attached to them some of their least valuable ponies. The rest he took uphill away from the stream to where the Bayburt road ran like a shelf round the mountain. Above the road was an embankment, and above that the failing light showed the ribs of the mountain above, covered with turf patched with snow, and rearing up to the snow shoulders themselves.
Dark on the snow was a group of derelict huts, once used for summer grazing. The turf roofs had half gone and so had the doors, or perhaps they had never had anything but hides pinned across them. To the most searching eye, they were patently empty. On the other hand, a group of men and their horses could lie perfectly hidden behind them. He put eight men there, their chain mail hidden by dark cloaks, their swords and shields and helmets to hand. His six bowmen he placed below the road but above his own empty encampment. He had put a bale of hay between his own tent wall and the lamp: punched into the shape of a man it looked not unrealistic. Some of the others had done the same. The wind blew, chilling them as they took their positions: down among the bushes the tents moved and shook and lamps wavered. The scout he had placed to the north crept up and whispered. An advance group was coming.
Now it was full dark. At sea, it was never completely dark, especially in the north. The sky had its starlight, the water its phosphorescence. The lights of the fishing boats repeated themselves in the waves: the lighthouse burned, the harbour flares wavered. Bruges was never dark, or Milan or Florence. Cressets flamed in the streets; by the canals, the bridges, the rivers. Windows glowed, and people flocked by carrying torches. Pious candles pointed to shrines and to statues: lanterns shone over doorways to taverns, to churches, to brothels. And the sounds heard in the dark were domestic sounds of vermin and small hunting animals. Here, he didn’t know the names of all the night birds when they screamed, or recognise the smell of a rustling marauder, although he asked his guides where he could. His men were better off than he was: although used to lit, busy camps, they had all done their share of scouting and skirmishing. They were well fed and well slept and nervously boisterous: his only concern was keeping them quiet. For the rest, he took the experience and assimilated it, for the future.
Put yourself…Why send a party ahead? A parley, to hold his attention while the rest of the force took their places? Would Doria risk it? And what would he gain, except an encounter face to face? A scouting party? He might have thought so, except that he could hear horses’ hooves now. For whatever reason, Doria was giving his presence away. His captain said, “They’re coming along the road, Messer Niccolò. Four of them, by the sound. They’ll see the tents soon. Unless we shoot them, they’ll find out they’re empty.”
His orders to the men with him had been specific. Harm no one until they attack. If they have come to kill, then kill in return. Except the lord Pagano Doria. Nicholas said, “No, don’t shoot. Tell the bowmen. We’ll take and truss them and put them into the tents. Come on. Now.” They mounted as he was speaking. He led them at a dash from behind the huts: four to leap down to the pathway ahead of the oncoming horse, and four to cut off their rear. Somewhere behind the newcomers, presumably, were sixteen others; but far enough off to hear nothing, he hoped, but confused shouting. By the time they came, the confused shouting would come from the tents.
It was a reasonably good