The Master of Verona

— where they ran into the waiting jaws of the Nogarola brothers. Fully armoured, Bailardino resembled a huge bear and Antonio looked like a stocky one-armed ferret. They'd brought their horsemen up at the first sound of real fighting, and now the Paduans came running headlong into a wall of Vicentine spears. Still more crossbowmen on the roofs took down the second row of knights, so that the third row was facing a wall of their own dead.

Carrara screamed at Pietro, "Damn your eyes, you traitor! I'll see you dead for this!"

"Come and try it!" called Pietro, not bothering to disguise his voice.

But Carrara was no longer paying attention. Pietro traced his gaze to the gate the Paduans had come through. The hidden Vicentines had rushed forward to heave it shut to cut Carrara off from reinforcements. The Paduan leader was spurring hard in the direction of the gate. If Padua was going to win, that gate had to stay open.

"Stop him!" cried Pietro.

Carrara ducked low as a half dozen bolts hissed overhead. Dozens of Paduan soldiers were huddled behind wounded or dead horses, every one waiting for the moment to charge and take their revenge. Carrara called out for them to follow as he pressed on towards the gate. Recognizing the dire need for reinforcements, they obeyed, hacking furiously.

Pietro saw a youth working hard to close the gate against the tide of invaders. Pietro had seen him three years before, in Cangrande's palace. Muzio, the fellow who had today pretended to betray Vicenza. Now that the charade was done, he was straining along with a dozen Vicentines assigned to this single vital chore. They all pulled the ropes that swung the doors, hauling against the press of Paduan bodies on the far side.

Pietro kicked and kicked, but there was no room for his horse to maneuver out of the struggle. He watched as Carrara carved a path towards the rope. Muzio's back was to the fray, so he never saw the blow that separated his head from his shoulders. His hands continued to pull for a long moment, then the body crumpled. Vicentines scattered under the fury of Carrara's attack, freeing him to turn his rage on the thick rope controlling the door. One cut, two, three, four. The thick braid parted. With no more resistance, the vanguard of Asdente's fifteen hundred troops began to swing the gate open again.

Pietro felt the change in the momentum at once. The yard was thick with struggling bodies pressed against each other, fighting for room to maneuver. But more Paduans were appearing every second. Soon sheer numbers would force the Vicentines out of the yard. Leaving his thirty men in the middle of the fray to be unhorsed and run through.

The sun now broke the horizon, glinting off the bloody armour of the Paduans and Vicentines battling for possession of the city's heart. Pietro could hear Carrara urging on Asdente's reinforcements pouring through the widening gap. Then the Paduan turned his mind to the bowmen, pointing at torches in brackets along the city wall, still lit from the night just ending. "Burn them! Burn them out!" Carrara lifted a hanging torch from its bracket and, riding to the side of a building full of snipers, tossed the firebrand into a window on the first floor. Carrara's men immediately caught on, grabbing anything flammable and holding it against the structure.

With the unseasonable dryness that had plagued the Feltro this year, the flames were quick to spread. In minutes the ambushers on the second and third floors would find themselves shooting through smoke.

Other Paduans quickly applied the idea to other buildings. Smoke filled the courtyard, ending the effectiveness of the crossbows. They could shoot, but the Vicentines had no idea if they were aiming at friend or foe.

Pompey slipped on cobblestones made slick with blood. Pietro lurched in the saddle, just avoiding the pike that drove upward for his head. Morsicato speared the pike's owner, calling out, "We're in trouble!"

"We'll hold!" Pietro glanced around. There were about twenty of his thirty men left in their saddles — not bad for being so horribly outnumbered. The element of surprise had worked for them, and the bowmen had kept most knights too busy to fight back. But now, with smoke blocking their covering fire, Pietro was sure that the Paduans would rip apart the 'traitors' in their midst.