A dozen of the podestà’s men-at-arms burst from another street, fifty paces away. They weren’t chasing me, unless they could see in the dark like cats.
Off to my left, by the cathedral, I heard a war cry.
The podestà’s men reined in.
I had no idea what was going on, but I sat on my horse, letting poor Jacques draw a breath while I did the same. Under my very eyes, two groups of footmen rushed each other with clubs and swords. In less time than it takes to tell it, a man was down, another lost his hand, and the first group broke and ran for the cathedral, hotly pursued.
I had my bearings. I turned my horse, picked the archway that looked right in the shadows, and trotted poor Jacques up a narrow street that turned twice before running almost straight uphill. We went up and up, the houses growing narrower and more crowded, and twice I had a glimpse of the gate towers in the moonlight. I stopped in front of a fountain – really, no more than a spring in the naked rock – and let Jacques drink, but not for long. I couldn’t let him get a cramp in the middle of this.
I heard shouts, muffled by my helmet liner. I backed Jacques. It may sound foolish, but you can hide a warhorse and a knight around a corner, at least in the dark. Two men fled past me, on horseback. They could have been the Pope and Father Pierre for all I saw of them, and then they were gone, their hoof beats ringing like the sound of hammers on anvils.
I went the other way, up the hill and around one last corner-
There was an open square in front of the gate, no wider than a bowling green. Men were fighting.
None of them were mine.
Far below me in the dockyards was a red glow where the fire still burned.
It illuminated Genoa with the sort of flickering red that monks and nuns put into manuscript pictures of Hell, and made the armour of the men fighting in the little square seem as if made of liquid metal.
I consoled myself that in the dark they were all Genoese, and put Jacques at the gate. It was open – I could see the lower tips of the portcullis drawn up above us. Jacque’s hooves slammed into soft flesh and hard armour and we were through the square and out the gate, and I was uninjured.
I sat in the darkness and breathed, and so did Jacques.
I must have lost an hour on my party, but it was obvious they’d made it out the gate. There were a dozen little signs – the most obvious was a pack donkey I found half a league on in the moonlight, strayed from the convoy and placidly standing in the shadow under a palm tree that grew in a village square.
But riding into the mountains above Genoa in the darkness proved to be as daunting as carving my way out of the town. I was lost twice, and the donkey, which I was leading, was no help, braying in the darkness like a trumpet and standing stubbornly against a wall and refusing to budge.
In the end, I found myself back in the same town square where I’d found the donkey – showing I have no more sense than an ass – and I dismounted to give Jacques a rest. I got some water from the town’s spring, hung my helmet from my saddle bow, and sat down.
I awakened to find myself looking at a sword held at my eyes. Beyond the sword’s point was the Count d’Herblay.
I’ll pass over the beating. They took my armour and the Emperor’s sword and Jacques. They stripped me naked, and then they beat me.
Let’s just say that I had several humiliating hours.
On the other hand, d’Herblay wasn’t the Bourc. He ordered me beaten and went elsewhere. The men who beat me never really worked themselves up and, thanks be to the good God, they were hard men, but not evil. None of them particularly enjoyed the work.
They were thorough enough, though. I had broken ribs, broken fingers, and a broken nose quickly enough.