"Oh, that was a bad idea. That was a very bad idea," Tharasamund muttered.
Sensible young man, Padway thought.
A big man on a big horse waving a sword and coming towards you was an awesome spectacle; scores of them looked unstoppable. Armies had broken and run from the sheer fear from the sight, including one memorable occasion when Padway had been in command, trying to make a mob of Italian peasant recruits hold a pike line against charging Byzantine heavy cavalry.
The problem was…
The horsemen struck. Sure enough, the front of the mob surged away in panic, trying to turn and run. The problem was that there were thousands of people behind them, and they couldn't run. There wasn't room. The swords swung down, lethal arcs that ended in slashed-open heads and shoulders, but the horses were slowing as they moved into the thick mass of rioters. Horses were all conscripts, with an absolute and instinctive fear of running into things, falling, and risking their vulnerable legs.
A line of brave men with spears could stop any cavalry ever foaled. A mass of people too big to run away could do the same, in a messy fashion, by sheer inertia.
Padway shifted slightly, keeping his body between Jorith and the results, and noticed that Tharasamund did the same. People stopped running as the horses slowed; they turned, started to throw things, yelled, waved their arms. The cavalry horses were bolder than most of their breed, but they backed, snorting and rolling their eyes; a few turned in tight circles, caught between their riders' hands on the reins and an inborn need to run away from danger. The rain of bits of stone and iron and wood grew thicker; a soldier was pulled out of the saddle…
And at the rear of the mob, a purposeful-looking group was turning towards the carriage halted at the top of the hill.
"Guards cavalry," Tharasamund said tightly. They never did know anything but how to die well. Though I grant they do know how to do that.
He looked at Padway, back at the white, frightened, determined face of the girl, then at the mob. "Obviously, there are agitators at work," he said, "not just hungry rioters sparked off by a football game."
Padway nodded. The Saxon chief of his guardsmen bent down from the saddle and pointed to a narrow alleyway.
"That way, I think," he growled. "Liuderis, Marco, get that cart and set it up."
The coachman turned the horses' heads into the narrow, odorous gloom of the alley. The guardsmen grabbed a discarded vendor's pushcart, dumped out its load of vegetables in a torrent of green, and pulled it into the alleyway after the carriage before upending it. Most of them crouched behind it, drawing their pistols.
"We'll hold them here," Hengist said grimly. "Excellent boss, you and this gentleman-" he nodded to Tharasamund "-and the young mistress get going."
Gray eyes met blue, and Tharasamund nodded sharply. Padway seemed about to protest, and the Saxon grinned.
"Sorry, excellent boss, that's not an order you can give me. My oath's to keep you safe-obedience takes second place."
He slapped the rump of the rear horse in the carriage team, leaping back to let the carriage lurch by in the narrow way. Tharasamund lifted a hand in salute, then used it to steady Padway; the Quaestor sat down heavily, sighing. Jorith helped him down, and braced him as they lurched across cobbles and then out into rutted dirt.
Think, Tharasamund, the soldier told himself. They weren't out into the country yet, and wouldn't be for half an hour, but the buildings were very new, some still under construction. No people were about; with a holiday and then a riot there wouldn't be, and this area had few residences, being mostly workshops.
He looked back; nothing to see, but then came a snarling brabble of voices, and a crackle of pistol fire. By Christ and His mother, that's a brave man, he thought. And true to his oath. Saxons may not be civilized but they're stubborn enough.
Jorith looked behind them as well. "Is that-" she said, and swallowed.
Tharasamund nodded. "Yes, lady. They can hold them quite a while, in that narrow way. Not many rioters will have firearms, and there can't be many agents of the Greek emperor. Just enough."
She shivered. "It sounds… different, in the epics. Last stands."
Padway mumbled something in a language Tharasamund didn't recognize, though a couple of the words had a haunting pseudo-familiarity, sounding like oaths. For a moment he thought the old man was dazed, and then he spoke sharply-loud enough for the coachman to hear.
"If any of you get out of this, and I don't, take a message to the King and Counciclass="underline" this means Justinian thinks he's ready for a showdown. I should have-never mind."
There was a mutter of assent. The Quaestor is a brave man too, in his way, Tharasamund acknowledged. He's thinking of the Kingdom's welfare. And, from the way his eyes darted her way, his granddaughter's.
An idea blossomed. "Sir, I have an idea. Some of those men who turned our way were mounted, and they've identified this coach. What we need to do is to get you to a place of safety for a few hours, until the city's brought back to order. Do you see that half-built whatever-it-is on the hill up ahead? We can…"
"This doesn't look much like what I'd anticipated," the archbishop said, peering at the wide screen.
Maximus snorted. He wasn't an expert, but he had scanned the briefing. This was the beginning of the Wars of Reunification; what did the cleric expect, a festival with wreaths and flowers and incense?
The pilot's long nose twitched. There would be incense down there, all right, of a type he'd seen on previous expeditions. Things burning; people too, possibly. That sort of thing happened, if you went this far back. For a long time to come, too.
"There!" he said aloud, and everyone crowded up behind him; he ran a hand through a light-field to make sure nobody tripped a control by mistake. "There, that's him!"
The screen leapt, magnification increasing as the computer obeyed his intent-that was a virtue of the more modern types; they did what you wanted them to do, not just what you told them.
A carriage drawn by four matched black horses galloped out of an alley and turned westward, swaying as the coachman stood on his seat and lashed them with a whip. The overhead cover had been partly cut away; Maximus froze a portion of the screen to show the face of an old man. The computer helpfully listed the probability of this being the man they were after. It was as near unity as no matter. This was also the earliest era when photographs of famous men were available, and enough had survived into modern times to be digitized.
Somebody made a half-disgusted sound. "He's so… so ugly," one said. The archbishop made a reproving sound. Maximus nodded, agreeing for once. It wasn't the man's fault that regeneration therapy wouldn't be invented for another two hundred years, or perfected for three. One thing time travel taught you was how fortunate you were to be born in the tenth century a.d.
"And he's stopping!" the historian cried. "I wonder why?"
Maximus hid another snort, and swung the viewpoint. "At a guess, most learned one, because those cutthroats are after him, and he's planning on hiding before they get here."
"Are you sure this is a good idea, Captain?" Padway said.
The young Goth shrugged. "No, sir," he said, helping the older man down from the carriage. "But they ought to follow the coach. It's much more visible."