The Master of Verona

The thunder. Too late, Pietro realized what it was. The horsemen duped by Carrara had finally realized their mistake and reversed their direction up the Corso Mastino where it became the Strade di Porta Palio. Chance brought them to this intersection at the same moment the leaders were trying to cross it.

The knight in front of Pietro was about to break the plane of the building and cross the street. Pietro tried to shout a warning, but it was too late. The instant the knight burst out on the street he was struck broadside by another horse. The horse began to fall sideways, steam from its last breath escaping from its nostrils.

If that had been all, the knight might have lived. But two more sets of riders rode over him, mauling him with punishing blows. Then five more horsemen, pulling frantically back on their reins, reached the wreckage and became a part of it. The new knight fell under his horse as it was pitched onto its side and then trampled. Crimson darker than the flag above speckled his Tyrian purple.

Horses kept streaming past the mouth of the alley, and Pietro was still racing for them. He yanked frantically on his reins as a sound rose between the four and five-story buildings that ringed the intersection. It was a horrible noise, thick and wet, a cacophony of limbs twisting, shattering, disintegrating. In the chill air the noise had a bizarre resonance. Horses screamed. Men yelled. Forty-one riders collided, brought from full gallop to dead stop by the living barrier across their path.

Pietro's horse wasn't checking fast enough. He was about to be thrown into that swirling mass of flailing hooves. Just a length behind the lead rider, he was along the right-hand side of the street. Desperately he steered left, still heaving on the reins. As momentum carried him out of the sheltering alley Pietro changed direction again, steering right to join the flowing river of men and beasts. He jostled hard in self-defence to avoid being rammed into a wall. The horses around him were frightened. They had heard the screams of their kindred. It was all the remaining riders could do to keep them from rearing.

One of the onrushing knights leapt from his saddle and landed sideways across the tail of Pietro's palfrey. Pietro shot out a hand and hauled him up. It was Pietro's friend from the tunnel. "My thanks," he murmured, clinging to Pietro's shoulder as he looked back at the carnage.

"Are you hurt?" shouted Pietro.

"Dear God!" cried the man, unhearing.

All around there were screams under the clatter of hooves. Pietro gagged as the smell of blood assaulted his nose. On a battlefield it was one thing to taste the metallic tang in the air. It was quite another on a holy day, surrounded by friends and allies. But he was being swept along, his horse instinctively pushing to get clear from the horror. In a moment he was out of the press, the rescued man hanging on behind the saddle.

Pietro lifted his head to the open sky above, his whole body trembling. I'm alive. Jesucristo, I'm alive.

His next thought was of the race. Could it still go on? He glanced back. The horses were steadying. There was the gap in the alley, crowded by horsemen trying to clear themselves off the corpses of the fallen men and beasts.

Suddenly he saw Carrara trying to thread his horse through the carnage. After causing this, the bastard was trying to win! Pietro couldn't allow that.

He tried to turn his horse but was too far away to reach the alley. He saw Mari and Antony just behind Carrara and said a quick prayer for their victory. "See that cunnus loses, boys."

Pietro's horse lifted its head. "Not talking to you," soothed Pietro, rubbing the palfrey's neck. "We're done."

Pietro missed the scene in the alley moments before when Marsilio had kicked his way past Antony and Mari, who had both stopped short at the mouth of the alley. "Move, dullards!"

"Bastard," growled Mariotto. "After this he's still thinking about winning?"

Antony smiled, his hands open. "Well, are we going to let him?"

Mari shot his friend a searching look, then smiled back. Together they edged their mounts away from the pulped carcasses and into the street.