Rogue Sword (17 page)

Muntaner ordered the women into armor, each division in charge of a Catalan merchant, that they might guard the walls.

Lucas snatched a little sleep before dawn. He was up in time to hear mass; there would not be much more religion on this Sabbath. Afterward he waited for Violante, who was to seek her own post atop a barbacana. The sky overhead was still dark and full of stars, but eastward it had paled and a dim sourceless light filled the streets. Violante’s tread rang loud on the cobblestones. She saw Lucas and ran to embrace him.

“Behold me, my dearest!”

Her hair was in tight black braids under a morion helmet. Cuirass, tasses, and greaves enclosed her, but the breeches showed what fullness lay within. She had a dagger at her belt, spear in one hand and light leather targe on the other arm. With flared nostrils, teeth gleaming between red wet lips, eyes afire, she could have been some heathen goddess of war.

She crushed herself against him. He had not heard her voice so joyful, even at the heights of love. “Oh, Lucas, my father looks down from Heaven and sees me like this!”

Then she hastened onward.

In mail and pourpoint, Lucas mounted his best horse and went out the gates with En Ramon’s men. The animals whinnied and danced, sensing battle. Their riders sat calmly; but their eyes smoldered beneath the plumed helmets. The Almugavares shook their lances and set up a yell that the hills flung back. They looked no less savage with breastplates above their leather garments. The mariners tramped more stolidly, pikes rising and falling, bordon swords slapping booted legs. A breeze unfurled the banner of Aragon at the army’s head and the banner of St. Peter above the city.

Trumpets blared, kettledrums banged, the Catalans marched forth.

A Genoese galley was already being drawn into the shallows by two boats filled with armed sailors. When those were beached, the men would haul the ship inward till it grounded.
“Desperta ferres! Aur! Aur!”
The defenders rushed to stop them.

Lucas saw an arbalestier stand up in the foresheets and take aim. From the corner of an eye, he saw Muntaner’s standard advance, streaming from the pole. He lowered his spear and urged his own horse into the water, which sheeted over his knees. For a ridiculous moment he was chiefly conscious of the water in his boots . . . the live rippling of muscle between his legs, the cropped mane and the ears that rose and fell in gallop, odors of horse and oiled metal. . . . Crossbow quarrels whizzed past on either side of him. The man at whom he aimed wore a leather doublet but an iron helmet. His face was fleshy, sunburnt, with a big nose, several days’ growth of beard ... an Italian face. . . . His mouth fell open, he screamed and tumbled backward. The lance caught him in the armpit.

Lucas pulled the shaft free and wielded it against the oarsmen like a pike. Confusion churned around the boats. The sailors sprang overboard, weapons in hand. The water was chest high. They struggled shoreward, assailed by the horsemen. As they reached shallower water the Catalan foot attacked. Metal and wood rattled. Men splashed about, cursed, howled, moaned, and gurgled.

Those Genoese who could swim retreated to the galley, which had cut loose and was hurriedly backing water. The rest were hewn down. The first full sunlight struck on corpses awash in red-streaked ripples. The Catalans cheered like wolves yelping.

Several further attempts were made, each halted by Muntaner’s patrols. But about the hour of tierce, as he had known must happen, superior numbers overcame the advantage of ground. Two separate melees near the city occupied his entire band. Meanwhile, a few miles off, ten galleys snatched the opportunity.

From the saddle, where he smote with a saber at men who stood in a wildly rocking shallop and hit back with oars, Lucas glimpsed the enemy landing. A ship grated on sand, anchors were dropped, a gangplank was lowered.

Knights guided restive horses to the water and up onto the beach. Toylike under the cliffs, their surcoats and shields colorful splotches, they moved about planning their battle.

A yell slashed through Lucas’ attention. He waded his horse back toward shore and tried to see what had happened. Muntaner’s standard had swayed above a turmoil on the strand. Now it was gone, the armored tower was gone, hostile mariners raged where Muntaner had been fighting.

“The commander is killed!” Lucas heard the gleeful Genoese roar. They had also seen. “The commander is killed! At them!”

He spurred up to the affray. Others were also converging on it. He saw a knight spit two sailors on a lance, break off the shaft, lay about with the stump as a club, and when it was in splinters draw a sword. He, himself, engaged a pikeman; they sparred until an Almugavare came from behind and stabbed the fellow. By that time the foe had been cleared from around En Ramon. He stood red-splashed, gasping, beside his mortally wounded charger. Blood ran from his own cuts; his left shoe squelched with blood.

An esquire sprang to earth. “Take my horse, Micer!”

Muntaner ignored them all and knelt by his fallen animal. Bewildered agony looked back at him. “Ah,” he breathed, “so, Orlando, my pet, so, so, my lad. Goodnight, and thanks.” His misericord flashed. The horse gave one jerk and lay still. Muntaner climbed painfully up on the other mount, took the esquire behind him, and rode off to have his hurts dressed.

Lucas joined the re-forming Almugavares. They sat down on the beach and panted. Water bottles went from mouth to crack-lipped mouth. They could do nothing more to halt the Genoese landings. They could only resist the attack when it came.

Spinola’s arrangements were complete. He made skillful use of his overwhelmingly greater numbers. One banner with half the crew issued from each galley. If any man in combat got tired or hungry or wounded, he returned and a counterpart--pikeman or crossbowman--took his place. Thus the assault was continuous, which rarely happened in war.

The air grew dark with Genoese quarrels. Lucas’ ears were so full of their buzz that he ceased hearing them. Now and again, one would strike near him, otherwise he paid no heed. In all that shooting, however, no man outside was struck. When the Catalans had been driven back close to their fortress, they saw that some of the women on the barbacana had been hit, and a bolt had gone down a chimney, injuring a cook preparing fowls for the wounded. On the whole, though, the arbalestiers were useless: which somewhat lightened the odds against Aragon.

But it was still a deadly strife. Pike thrust at shield and cuirass, seeking flesh. Sword smote until the edge was so dulled the weapon became a mere club. The long Almuga-vare knives leaped and probed. As the day progressed, men grew too weary and thirsty for battle cries. A strange stillness descended on the beach. The only noises were clatter and thud, grunt and gasp, a whimper of pain.

Lucas fought with the light horse until his own steed was hamstrung. Then he was glad enough to get down among the mariners and wield his blade afoot. He had only acted as a
jinete
because cavalrymen were so few.

The retreat was a foretaste of Hell. Long before it ended, he was stumbling, his lungs a dry fire, the sweat baked out of him. Yet the Catalan lines held firm. They entered their gates about nones in good order.

That maneuver was covered by the women on the stockades. When their javelins and quarrels were expended, they fought with stones piled ready for them. Again and yet again, the Genoese outflanked the Catalans and raised ladders against the barbacana. They were met by shrieking female devils, who stabbed, hurled stones, poured kettles of scalding water, and overthrew the ladders.

When the enemy withdrew to reorganize itself, Muntaner abandoned the outer defense. It had served its purpose. His folk took places atop Gallipoli’s own walls. Men and women intermingled; they fought beyond sundown. The Genoese made bonfires to illuminate the night, and continued to attack at widely scattered points until morning. Their hope was to break through the thin Catalan force, but each attempt failed.

Once past the gates, Lucas had a lengthy rest, for none of those assaults were made near his assigned post. Standing on a battlement in the dark, he took off his helmet and the quilted cap beneath, to let the breeze cool his head. The city was a mountainous gloom behind him, around him, below him, down toward the beach where watchfires picked out galleys like stranded whales. Other fires made red stars over the hills. Far off along the wall he saw torches bobbing, even thought he glimpsed steel as it whirred and hammered. But his ears were his chief source of information. Shouts, clangor, drums and trumpets, made a stirring music--at this distance.

The half-seen woman beside him came closer. Her voice was triumphant: “Before God, this day has been worth all the rest of my life!”

“A day to be proud of,” he agreed. He wondered if the fight was at Violante’s post. He tried to imagine her, wild among the spears. But the image which rose before him was of a tall, spare, limping man, whose countenance meshed in fine lines as he drawled some jest. Now why should I be lonely for Brother Hugh the Hospitaller? Lucas wondered, almost irritated. I hardly knew him.

An answer came: Because this is an honorable combat, not waged for plunder or revenge. Unused to such inward whisperings, half-afraid it might have been a demon--or still more terrifying, an angel--Lucas crossed himself and sought diversion. He traced out the constellations, watched the morning star rise, counted the meteoric streaks crisscrossing in utter silence. But he found no comfort. A sense of the stars’ remoteness filtered into his breast. He shivered and prayed for dawn.

When it came, the night grew unreal in his memory, as if everything had been a dream.

Soon afterward, Spinola recalled his exhausted mariners. From their walls the garrison saw a turmoil among the galleys, until a freshly formed host moved up toward the iron gate. The multiplicity of shields with armorial bearings showed that some four hundred men of the best Genoese families were in the van. Sunlight winked on their metal and burned in their five banners.

An esquire of Muntaner mounted to Lucas’ parapet. “Maestre, En Ramon summons you.” Running down into a courtyard, Lucas discovered that he was to be one of a hundred picked men. The seven knights were there on fully caparisoned horses, but lightly protected themselves. Muntaner addressed them calmly. They were to discard all armor, keeping only a shield; each man would receive spear, sword, and dagger. Then let them take their ease.

Lucas was glad enough to sit in the shade, for already the air quivered with unseasonal heat. A servant proffered bread and beer; an Almugavare and a sailor joined him in lazily rolling dice. The noise of Spinola’s assault on the gates, and the inflexible Catalan resistance, rolled like summer thunder.

“I mislike being in shirt and breeches only, with quarrels flying every which way,” said the mariner.

“Why, you snotnose fool, haven’t you seen they’re firing no more?” replied the Almugavare in an amiable tone. “They spent ’em all yesterday. Me, I’d fear melting down, did I wear iron in this warmth.”

“As the Genoese are doing, while we sit cool and refreshed,” Lucas laughed. “En Ramon’s a leader of my own stripe. . . . Ah, seven.”

The fight at the gate was hot in every sense. Muntaner waited patiently. At last a messenger came to say the Genoese looked almost ready to withdraw. The governor swung into the saddle. Having crossed himself and said an Ave, he reached for his helmet. Banners lifted; the troop moved out of the courtyard; the gates creaked wide.

Knowing this meant a sally, the Genoese pulled back a trifle to dress their disordered lines. Out came Muntaner and his pets.

Lucas felt sick of bloodshed, but his muscles were rested. As the Catalans broke into a trot, he heard
“Desperta ferres!”
roared so loud it shivered his skull. In a vague astonishment, he realized that he had given the challenge.

The enemies shocked against each other. A face glared at Lucas over a shield rim. He saw that the man was gray with dust and thirst had made his lips scummy. He jammed his spear forward. Something yielded. He stabbed deeply.

Now, in among the pikes! Lucas hardly felt the blows that pounded on his buckler. Beyond the gap made in the Genoese line loomed a horseman. A standard bearer! Lucas flung his shaft. Struck, the horse reared and screamed. The rider fought to control it. With a Catalan on either hand, Lucas forced his way up to the flag. Their swords flickered and bit. The rider sank to earth. The standard was trampled underfoot.

Four of the five Genoese banners were cut down in that first blow. Panic broke loose. Spinola’s men threw away their weapons and fled, but he stood his own ground with a number of noblemen. And then the Catalan wave broke over him. A sword piped in the air. Antonio Spinola’s head leaped from his shoulders.

The combat grew fierce again on the beach, where the Genoese rallied. Despite hideous losses suffered while they fled, they still far outnumbered their opponents. Their rear guard covered the launching of the galleys until it was annihilated. Then the Catalans splashed out among the sailors, who were still going up the rope ladders, and boarded. Once more Lucas found himself on a deck. His sword whistled and hewed. He chased two men into the rigging and fought them crawling along the yardarm. One after the other, into the sea! That ship was captured, and three more. The rest escaped, simply because there were not enough Catalans to take them.

Lucas helped bring in the prize. A last struggle continued on a hill. He went there and observed some forty Genoese under a big man they called Antonio Bocanegra. One by one, they were slain, until their captain alone was left, making such thrusts with his sword that none dared approach. Muntaner rode up. Lucas heard the governor order his men back and beg Bocanegra many times to surrender. The Genoese spat refusal. Muntaner gave reluctant orders to an esquire on an armored horse. The esquire rushed in, the poitrail struck Bocanegra and knocked him down. The soldiers cut him into a red unrecognizable heap.

Up and down the beach, from hills and battlements and towers, a hoarse chant of thanksgiving lifted heavenward. Lucas bared his head but did not join the singing. He trudged along a path to the city wall. Now, he thought wearily, I can sleep. Mary, grant me one boon, that I do not see Bocanegra in my dreams.