And further scenes from the inferno played out around us. A dozen soldiers chased a woman who ran screaming, half naked. She might have been beautiful if her lower jaw had not been cut away. Against the background of burning building, her agony was an insane vision of man’s wretched state in a world of sin.
A horse wandered, walking, trotting, screaming in agony, and it’s guts uncoiled behind it, leaving a hideous ribbon to glisten in the dark.
Laughing looters sat on cooling corpses and diced for the stolen goods. A dozen brigands lay in an alcoholic haze, apparently unconcerned that they lay among their victims.
And everywhere, little furtive packs crept, and struck. Many of the victims must have joined the sack – it was always thus in France – so that the numbers of the murderers and rapists were always increased. I saw men in local dress killing and burning. The poor of Alexandria joined the scum of Europe.
Through this, we rode.
We were, by my estimation, almost half way along the avenue when John rode back out of the chaos. He shouted – and I’m ashamed to say his shout woke me. I had fallen asleep in Hell. He shouted again.
I slammed my arm into Nerio’s backplate. He was also asleep. I turned, but Miles was doing his duty, and the legate’s eyes were open; glazed, but open.
John reined in at my side. ‘Rider – two.’ He pointed beyond the nearest palazzo, a squat and inelegant building with two minarets that rose like horns on a toad. ‘I think they watch. I kill one.’ He grinned. ‘Now they no watch.’
Nerio backed his horse. ‘How long have they been with us?’ he asked.
That was too much for John, who shrugged. ‘Two men,’ he said. ‘Now one.’
I rode ahead to the archers, whose horses were just visible in the next firelight.
‘We’re being followed,’ I shouted. ‘Stay—’
Ewan ducked and the stone hit me, not in the head, but in the back. I assume it was thrown with a sling, and it was a big stone. It left a dent.
Luckily for me, the Bohemian had left me room in the upper back to flex my shoulders. That became the space for the armour to absorb the blow.
It still knocked me straight down, off my horse and into the street.
I rolled. I’ll stop this litany, but only the hardest training will get you to roll off your horse when you are taken in an ambush and near dead from fatigue.
I don’t remember any of this. What I do remember is coming to my feet in the fire-shot darkness with the Emperor’s sword in my hand. Ewan was off his horse and running. Ned Cooper was at my back with an arrow to his bow. He was unashamedly using me as cover.
It was as well he did. A bolt tested the quality of my breastplate. It penetrated, but only about half an inch.
That, too, was luck, because my visor was up.
Ned loosed. I felt the heavy shaft whisper away through the air and I heard hoofbeats.
Nerio was three horse lengths away, sword out. He was riding at something – his gaze was fixed. Behind him came Miles and the legate – right into the heart of the ambush.
Sometimes, in war, you must take the dice as they roll.
‘Ride through!’ I croaked. My throat was all but closed. ‘Go!’
Miles heard me. He touched the legate’s horse with the point of his sword, and the animal bolted.
There were shafts in the darkness, arrow shafts, shafts of firelight. It might have been distracting …