As the enemy faltered before this nemesis, Toby claimed another victim. The don cut yet another in half with a mighty two-handed stroke. Hamish, Rafael, and Miguel arrived from the rear, Josep and Father Guillem from the van, but by then the fight was finished and the survivors were crashing away through the coppice. The road was a litter of baggage and bodies—some dead, some wounded, not all strangers—and one injured horse. Eulalia sat in the weeds screaming hysterically. The rest of the horses had vanished into the olive grove, leaving a trail of sacks and garments. Toby bounded across the track to where Brusi's roan had entangled its reins on a branch and caught it before it broke free. He squirmed onto the saddle and prepared to go after the runaways. His last glimpse of the battlefield was of Hamish lifting Eulalia bodily to her feet and kissing her. Her screams choked off into silence.
Full gallop through an olive grove was an exciting exercise, because he had not yet managed to find the stirrups. Fortunately the rows of trees had been set wide apart so that the ground between them could be planted in grain, but branches still slashed along his back. Lying prone, he clung grimly to his mount's neck, concentrating on not dropping his sword. It was highly probable that the enemy would have posted men to catch the fleeing horses.
In moments he was through the grove and into open pasture, where the missing animals were bucking and milling, turning away from a line of people. He sat up, slid his feet into the stirrups, and put the roan into a charge at the foe. They had not expected this attack, but he saw with dismay that they were women. One of them was already wrestling with a horse, clinging to the reins and being lifted off her feet by its struggles. Howling the don's war cry—for he had none of his own—he headed straight for her, waving his sword, wondering if he could ever bring himself to cut a woman down in cold blood. She saw him coming and lost her grip on the horse. It ran free, she fell headlong, and Toby could ignore her. The others had already taken to their heels.
He rounded up the little herd, being aided by a timely whinny from the don's warhorse, which drew them in the right direction. Doña Francisca appeared on her pony and waved cheerfully. Between them, the two riders drove the stock back to the trail.
The emergency was over. A victory, he supposed. His greatest relief was that the hob had stayed out of it.
***
He had not been away for long, and the scene on the road had changed very little. The ground was still littered with baggage, and someone had put Senora Collel's packhorse out of its misery, but it was the litter of human corpses that appalled him. Only then did he understand how he had come to be so splattered with blood, his right arm especially, soaked to the elbow. His eyes shied away from counting the bodies and fixed instead on the circle of pilgrims. They were kneeling before Father Guillem as he declaimed words of comfort. Brother Bernat stood in the background with his head bowed.
Toby slid from his saddle and hitched the roan to a tree. His legs were curiously shaky. He stalked over to the group, arriving as the brief ceremony ended and the mourners rose to their feet. He stared in disbelief at the body, was conscious of everybody's eyes turning to look at him and odd murmurs that he could not take time to understand.
"How did that happen?" he said stupidly. He could not recall any of the enemy getting past him.
It was Josep who answered, a chalk-faced Josep with water on his cheeks and eyes like festering wounds. "He was thrown, senor."
Broken neck? Heart failure? The Council of One Hundred was down to ninety-nine. The rich man was a dead man, and all his wealth could not save him from that.
"I... Oh friend, I'm sorry!" Toby transferred his sword to his left hand and had started to offer his right before he realized that it was bright red and still sticky. He pulled it back hastily.
Josep nodded, smiled faintly in acknowledgment, and walked away as if he wanted to be alone.
"Captain!"
Toby jumped and turned to the don. He faced a man almost as blood-soaked as himself, but one who looked inches taller and years younger than usual. The blue eyes blazed with triumph and boyish glee. "A redoubtable passage of arms, Captain! Give me your sword!"
"What?" How many bodies? Eight? Nine? Spirits, but most of them were only boys, younger than himself. Three were silver-haired oldsters. The starving, desperate survivors of some community bereft of its fighting men.
A hand tried to take his sword, and Toby swung it away defensively. "What?"
"Kneel!" proclaimed the don.
"What?"
"Give me your sword and kneel! Here on this glorious field, I shall gird thee with the belt of knighthood, Sir Tobias! Such feats of valor and prowess as we have rarely seen shall not—"
Toby's temper exploded like a peal of thunder. "Don't play your stupid games with me!" he roared. "This wasn't valor and prowess, it was bloody murder! Look at them! They weren't soldiers. Half of them were only kids. Brusi's dead, Josep's father. You promised. You took his—"
He stopped himself just in time, seeing the instant change in the caballero's face, the coiling surge of madness. No, the don had not taken Brusi's money. His mother had, and he refused to know that. In any case, the old man's death had been an accident, so Toby was being unfair. But gleeful boy had become furious man already, reaching for his sword, and that would be a fight Toby could never win.
He bowed curtly. "Your pardon, senor. When we arrive at our destination there will be time enough for honors. Now we must... With respect, senor, the baggage must be collected and redistributed on the horses. The enemy may return. If the caballero will excuse me, I shall make arrangements for the burial and reorganize the train." He turned his back on the don's quivering rage and looked around the pale faces. "Anyone injured?"
"Senora de Gomez," Hamish said. What was wrong with Hamish? He'd seen violent death before, so why did he look like that? "She was badly shaken by her fall, but... but Brother Bernat healed her, Toby." His face was saying more than his words were. "Nobody else. Just bruises and scratches."
"Healed her? Oh. Well, that's good." Something else to think about. Meanwhile they must bury the old man, gather up their litter, and move on, although he doubted there would be any reprisals after such a massacre. The survivors would come and bury their own dead. "Manuel, Rafael—either of you know anything about butchering?"
They both shook their heads, but that meant little, and he could do it himself if necessary. The food problem had been solved for the time being. They could eat horse today and tomorrow and every day until it began to rot.
CHAPTER TWO
"We owe our lives to you, Senor Toby," Josep said solemnly. He was walking, leading his two packhorses, because he had given his father's roan to Senora Collel to replace hers. "Without you we should have lost all the livestock, and then none of us could ever reach Barcelona."
"That is nonsense!" Toby had explained this four times already to other people and apparently had to explain it again. "It was the don who saved the day, not me. Without him, I was about to die. Without me, he would still have beaten them. He is the finest fighting man I have ever seen—he put a destrier at full gallop through a riot like a seamstress sliding a needle through cloth."
"You killed more men than he did."
"I had more time."
"He had a horse and a lance."
"Honestly, that made very little difference. He is a fighter, I'm just a big lad. Josep, this I swear—if you matched up the two us with the same arms, he would skin me as nimbly as he skinned the horse!"