The Lady Fulvia Stories by Bishop & Brodeur

Author:Bishop & Brodeur [Bishop & Brodeur]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2023-06-06T23:00:00+00:00

THE sultry air pulsed with the roistering merriment of a hundred hard drinking men-at- arms in and about the tavern of the Sun. Their foreheads were bare of the heavy helmets, their long mail hauberks were open at the throat, as they quenched their hot thirst with the heady red wine of Castrocavalli. Gaimar alone sat silent and sullen as he drank, waiting impatiently for his infantry to come up, that he might carry the war into Rocca Forte.

Fearing no foe, he had placed no outposts. At each end of the solidly built-up street, two bored and thirsty troopers kept the hundred horses from straying out into the open country. The street was full of chargers, without halters, hobbles, or horse-holders; none was needed.

Of the ordinary inhabitants of the village, besides the greasy-haired Greek tavern-keeper and his servants, there was not a sign; every house except the wine-shop was shut and barred. Peaceful folk ran away or hid when Gaimar and his ruffians rode by.

The two men-at-arms at each end of the street kept their eyes fixed on the tavern door, impatient for the coming of their reliefs. It was not until he heard the beating of hoofs on the hard road behind him that one of them turned his head.

“Haro!” he cried. “To horse!”

Out of the field of ripening wheat between the road and the forest’s edge came a column of cavalry, plowing through the tall grain four abreast, turning into the road not fifty yards away, the front rank already bearing down on him with leveled lances.

“Rocca Forte! Rocca Forte!” they shouted as they came. Up the street ran the man who had first spied them, crying the alarm, while his comrade scrambled into the saddle of the nearest horse. But for the moment the other ninety-nine horses were riderless. Veteran chargers all, they knew a charge when they saw one coming, and that there was no time now for their masters to mount and meet it. Before the Rocca Forte men reached one end of the street, all the Castrocavulli horses, save Gaimar’s own gelding, a magnificent, long-limbed black, were stampeding out of the other, hurling aside or trampling under foot the few who tried to stop them.

With the roar of an angry bull, Gaimar the Grim shot out from the tavern door, a half- gnawed beef bone in one hand, a naked sword in the other. Tugging at their sword-hilts and clapping on their helmets as they came, his men bunched up behind him. There was no chance to form a shield-wall or a spear-hedge, for the shields were banging against the ribs of the fleeing horses and the lances, spilled out of the sockets, were strewn all down the road.

Before the mob could get into any sort of formation, the avalanche of Rocca Forte men struck and crashed through them with bloody lances. The charging column filled the street from wall to wall, leaving no room for the swing of a sword. Of the fifty

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