As they dispersed Katerina laid a hand on Cangrande's sleeve. "He can't have got far. This just happened."
Pietro opened the shutters beside them, looking down on the huge crowd milling about in the alley below — an alley that led in one direction to the stables and in the other towards the Piazza della Signoria. His eyes searched all the faces desperately. "I saw a Moor."
"I know about the Moor," said Cangrande.
"I think it was him," insisted Pietro.
Katerina said, "He might have his reasons."
Cangrande frowned uncertainly. "True. I'll search the palace. You'll organize things here."
"Let Tullio," said Katerina. "I'm coming."
"Pietro, I'm taking your dog." Slipping his hand into Mercurio's leash, Cangrande made for the exit, only to find his path blocked by his wife.
"Husband?" asked Giovanna da Svevia, her face concerned. "What is happening?"
Cangrande pushed past her without a glance. "No time."
Katerina followed her brother. By now gawkers were pressing in, fascinated by the dagger protruding from the nurse's breast. Half the men on the balcony had military backgrounds. One by one they offered their services to Cangrande, who was struggling towards the far door.
Pietro remained behind, feeling utterly helpless.
When the panel swung open to disgorge a man with a bundle, the drunks gave an ironic cheer. Nursing a broken head, one exclaimed, "I told you! The wall moves!"
"Let me pass." The man had been delayed by the darkness of the stairwell and the wriggling of the bundle's contents.
"What's that door?" asked one of the sots, looking inside.
The man with the burden said, "They're giving away free drinks up there. But it's a secret."
Already men were staggering for the sliding panel. The man tried to push past them, and as he fought, a blond head emerged from the blanket in his arms.
"Cute kid," said one drunk as he passed.
Pietro stared down upon the milling crowd in the Piazza della Signoria, looking for one face, a single face in the throng. An elderly voice at his elbow snapped, "What's happening?" Pietro saw Constable Villafranca examining the body.
"Cesco's been kidnapped."
The Constable visibly started. "When?"
"Just now, dammit!" Turning back to the window, Pietro peered through the falling snow at the crowd below. To one side a noteworthy figure emerged from the palace doors, struggling through the sea of staggering drunkards. It was the man Pietro had been looking for. The Moor.
Something wasn't right. In spite of the bulky cloak, Pietro could tell the Moor's arms were empty. But he was certainly moving fast. In fact, he seemed focused on another figure ahead of him, a figure making better progress through the throng. The Moor was trying to intercept him. The man in the lead was passing almost directly beneath Pietro's balcony, which meant he couldn't have come through the main doors. A tall man in a knee-length tunic and a long trailing hood, with awkwardly distended limbs, he looked like a spaventapasseri, the creatures farmers created to scare off scavenger birds.
In the scarecrow's arms was a bundle, something wrapped in a blanket-
"There. There!" shouted Pietro, pointing. "Stop that man!"
The fugitive glanced back in panic and Pietro got a good look at the man's face. Beneath the short beard it was grotesque, with long sallow cheeks under the shadows of the hood, conjuring up Pietro's every childhood nightmare. "There he goes! That's the man!"
Cangrande had barely reached the doors to the loggia. Now he whirled about and saw Pietro pointing out the window. The Scaliger cursed and cried, "The back stairs!"
Mercurio was ahead of him, his nose leading him to a door hidden in a recess just around the corner from the loggia. Cangrande reached it moments after the hound and pulled on the latch. It didn't move. "Why in the name of the Virgin is this door locked?!" He battered uselessly at it with one hand, then spun on his heel for the crowded front stairs.
At the window Villafranca stood beside Pietro. "Show me!"
"There!" Down among the populace the scarecrow was not able to run, but he was pushing steadily on, hugging the walls of the Giurisconsulti where the crowds were thinner because of the leopard on the steps. If no one intercepted him or the Moor, they were going to lose the child.
Pietro's leg was over the railing before he knew what he was doing. He beat away Villafranca's grasping hand with his crutch and used his left leg to propel himself, dropping off the balcony onto the crowd below.
Some saw him coming and threw up hands to protect themselves. Some were taken by surprise. Pietro's hip cracked on someone's head, but his outstretched arms grasped enough men to keep him off the ground.
There was a good deal of cursing until someone noticed his clothes. "It's a knight!" Thinking him drunk, they held him aloft and passed him from hand to hand. On a sea of men reeking of drink and sweat, he was being carried away from the kidnapper and the Moor. "No! Stop, dammit!" His frantic shouts were lost, so he started lashing out with kicks, swinging his crutch. One man ducked and let go, which sent the young knight rolling over face-first towards the earth. Pietro's left knee struck hard on the cobblestones but he forced himself to stand, thinking he was lucky it had been his left knee, not his right.
Ducking this way and that, he tried to see through the crowd. The hunched figure of the kidnapper was still jostling people near the leopard, trying to get by. Pietro stumbled in that direction, shoving bodies out of his path.
A great cry from behind him made him glance over his shoulder. The huge Moor in the hooded cloak was brandishing a falchion, scything the air above his head as he threw men out of his path, heading directly for Pietro, protecting the scarecrow's escape. Pietro's hand went instinctively to his belt, but he was armed only with the silver knife Mariotto had given him that morning, the one with his own name on it. The thin miseracordia was useless against the falchion's blade, which could remove head from neck in a single stroke.
The crowd parted for the Moor, who began moving faster. Pietro stumbled but kept on in the direction of the scarecrow, casting frantic glances behind him at the approaching falchion. Further back, he saw a sign of hope. Cangrande was emerging from the palace doors, a firebrand held high in one hand, Mercurio's leash in the other. Pietro's dog was straining towards the chase, and Pietro prayed Cangrande would let the hound free to aid his master.
Forcing himself to forget the Moor, Pietro trained his eyes on Cesco, squirming this way and that in the scarecrow's arms. The boy was crying now, shrieking for all he was worth. The kidnapper was obviously having trouble holding him. Pietro cupped a hand to his mouth. "Cesco! Francesco! Cesco!"
The little head turned and the frowning eyes found Pietro, a known face. A hand broke free from the blanket and reached for Pietro. Ignoring the terrible pain in his leg, Pietro broke into a full run. Damn me and damn this leg and where the hell are Cangrande and Bailardino and the rest of them? And how close is the Moor? In desperation, he threw his crutch over his shoulder, a weak missile. Maybe it would trip the Moor up.
Now all Pietro had was the silver dagger. Suddenly an idea struck him. He held the weapon up high. "Cesco, look!"
Cesco saw the dagger glinting in the torchlight and started to struggle, pulling both hands free and straining for the pretty weapon. The grotesque kidnapper cried, "God bless it, child! Be still, in the name of God!" The spaventapasseri shook Cesco, who cried out and grabbed onto a thin chain around the scarecrow's neck.