Seeing that this Spanish drunkard was no threat, Carrara started giving orders. Yet still the man persisted. "Can any one of you give me a drink? I can pay!"
A Paduan captain shouted, "We don't need your money."
A sly look entered the notary's face. "If I had money I would not be begging. No, my — how you say, currency — my currency is information. I can tell you where Señor Nogarola is right now. And his men."
A lump formed in Pietro's throat as Carrara rode nearer the Spaniard's perch. "Tell me. Now."
The Spaniard countered with a demand of his own. "Where's my drink, señor?"
Carrara ordered ten of his men to break down the door to the tavern. "There! You can drink yourself dead on what's inside. Now tell me where they are!"
The notary belched in a satisfied way as he heard the final crash of the door coming down. "Why, they're right here!"
Immediately four of the Paduans flew backward from the tavern, crossbow bolts piercing their chests. Vicentine men-at-arms sprang up from hiding places in all the surrounding buildings.
Rows of crossbowmen appeared from all corners of the yard. In windows, behind barrels, from rooftops, as one they fired. Two dozen Paduans jerked from their horses. The Paduan standard fell. Two Paduans lifted it again only to be dropped in the next wave.
Pietro stared up at the man on the tavern roof, who now tore the hat from his head. The soot of yesterday washed away, the sun-bleached chestnut hair gleamed in the dawn light.
Cangrande della Scala.
"That son of a bitch!" Even as Pietro gasped in delighted outrage, Carrara was shouting, "Attack! Attack!" There was no way to retreat even had he wished to. And Carrara still had the advantage of numbers. "Attack!" he cried again, spurring his horse directly at the tavern.
Crossbows were devilishly slow to load. As hundreds of unscathed Paduans moved towards their ambushers, the Vicentines on the ground level dropped their crossbows and drew their swords, while those above reloaded and took aim.
Carrara stood in his saddle and swung up at the Scaliger, who skipped backward along the tiled roof. Bending, he ripped up a clay tile and threw it backhanded to shatter against Carrara's helmet, rocking the Paduan back in his saddle. Another tile struck his shoulder, a third crashed against his head. Marsilio peeled away, racing his horse out of reach of the projectiles. Immediately Cangrande shifted targets, aiming for the Paduan men-at-arms who were swarming up the sides of the tavern to reach him.
Pietro was watching in awe. It was Morsicato who said, "Time to jump in, I think!"
"Right!" Pietro led his men into the center of eight hundred Paduans who had formed a ring of shields to defend against the crossbows. Believing Pietro's force to be friendly, the Paduans opened the ring to them. His men guessed his thoughts, and so pretended until the last instant that they were coming in to reinforce the Paduan center.
Reaching the center of the ring, Pietro wheeled about and used his sword's pommel to begin clubbing at the backs of the Paduan knights, knocking them from their horses. Bearing in mind what the Code said about attacking from behind, he didn't aim to kill, but focused on unseating as many as he could.
For a moment shock confounded the Paduans. Then from the roof Cangrande cried, "Betrayal! We are betrayed!" The Paduans picked up the chorus. Suddenly all was chaos. Beset on all sides, the gates blocked by more of their fellows trying to stream in, the besieged Paduans had nowhere to go but further into the city-
— 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.
A blow on his shield rocked him back in his saddle. He returned the blow with all the strength he owned. The attacker reeled back, then lunged again. Pietro dodged, swallowing smoke that had drifted into his helmet. His eyes were tearing up, his lungs were choked. He swung his shield, felt it connect, and used the respite to tear off the borrowed helmet. Already his adversary was back, but Pietro got there first, throwing the hereditary helmet of the San Bonifaci clan at the man's head. As the man ducked, Pietro got his sword around to bash in his skull. The Paduan sagged sideways in his saddle, then his face disappeared as Pietro's well-trained horse opened his mouth and clamped down on a target. The Paduan screamed in his throat as he died.