As Thorolf's battalion moved into the main street in column of fours, the rabble of soldiers moved aside. Some called out:
"Where in hell did you knaves come from? The battle was lost, was it not?"
"Who are you?" asked Thorolf.
"Never mind who I am. I got away with a whole skin, which most of my comrades did not."
"Where are the villagers?"
"In hell or in hiding. When we slew a few who crossed us, the rest thought a little travel good for their health." The man giggled. "Help yourself to the locals' wine; some is not bad. Otmar of the Third caught a pig the locals were not quick enough in getting away; the lads are roasting it."
"Where's the Duke?"
The soldier shrugged. "None hath seen him since the rout. Belike he galloped back to Fiensi with his gentlemen, to shut the gates against our comrades demanding their pay."
"What befell the wagon train, with our rations?"
"Gone on ahead, with the cavalry."
"Then is there aught to eat here?"
"A few loaves and the like in the houses, if the lads haven't eaten them all."
"Stupid oafs," muttered Sergeant Herminus. "Veterans know what to do with a village. Don't chase the villagers out; command them to stay and to feed and shelter you and allow you a go at their women, on the promise not to burn their town. There's nought like hunger to touch off a mass desertion."
Thorolf and the other sergeants agreed to divide the battalion, each to take his group to a different part of town to seek quarters, and then to reunite at sunrise.
Thorolf s men at last found a group of houses containing only a couple of fugitive soldiers. The other troopers they tossed out and made do with the few provisions left in the peasants' larders. When a fight threatened over a cabbage, Thorolf grabbed the combatants and banged their heads together until they agreed to an equitable division.
The houses of the more prosperous peasants were two-storey structures, the upper storey being the living quarters and the lower a barn for carts, implements, and livestock. The owners of these three houses had driven away their oxen, goats, and asses when they fled.
Thorolf had taken off his boots and, with two others, had lain down on the main bed when female shrieks came to his ears. Pulling on his boots and seizing his sword, he went out and scrambled down the outside stair to the street. The moon had set, but the feeble light from rooms in which lamps or candles burned enabled him to see his way.
The sounds were coming from the house to the right of that which he and a score of other soldiers occupied. The main room on the second level shed candlelight.
Thorolf mounted the stair of this building, which he had assigned to another score of his soldiers. The door was open, and sound and motion came from within.
Thorolf stepped into the peasant's bed-sittingroom. The soldiers were crowded in the middle and did not notice Thorolf's arrival. He grasped a couple by the slack of their jackets and hauled them away from the ring. One snarled: "How now, thou whoreson—" but fell silent when he recognized Thorolf.
In the middle of the crowd, Thorolf now saw, a woman lay on her back on the floor, with her skirt and petticoat pulled up to her chin and four men holding her down, one on each limb. Her outcries were now muffled by a gag. A fifth man, kneeling upright between her spread legs, had just pulled down his breeches, showing a lusty erection.
Thorolf pushed into the circle, grasped the man by his hair, hauled him erect, and dealt him a buffet that sent him falling backward over another soldier, one of the pair holding the woman's ankles.
"Let her go!" Thorolf roared.
"And who in hell be ye?" began the man holding the other ankle. Thorolf's boot caught him in the ribs and tumbled him over.
The men holding the woman's wrists let go and uncertainly got to their feet. The woman pulled out the gag, put down her skirt, and rose likewise.
"You bastards heard your orders!" said Thorolf. "No beating, robbing, or raping. Do you want the countryside hunting us down? Know you what peasants do to stragglers from a beaten army when they catch them? Skin them alive! The next offender shall be hanged—"
A fierce blow with a blade caught Thorolf on the side of the face. The blow staggered him, but he recovered his balance and whirled. The would-be rapist had pulled up his breeches, taken up a sword, and come at Thorolf from behind.
"That for thee, misbegotten swine!" shouted the man.
To escape another slash, Thorolf sprang back, bowling over another trooper. Before the swordsman could close to finish him, Thorolf got his sword out. The blades clanged. Everyone yelled:
"Clear a space! Clear a space!" "That was a foul blow!" "Stop them, somebody!" "Why stop a good fight?" "Tenpence on the sergeant!" "I'll take Frinzl if ye'll give me odds!"
Back and forth, round and round went Sergeant Thorolf and Pikeman Frinzl, hacking and thrusting. At last Thorolf got a thrust home on Frinzl's arm. As the wounded arm sagged, Thorolf sent a full-armed lunge into Frinzl's chest. Frinzl, like nearly all the other surviving men of the First Battalion, had arrived in Formi wearing either a cuirass or a mailshirt over an acton; but Frinzl's defenses were piled in a corner of the room with others. Frinzl staggered back, coughed blood, and sagged to the floor.
"Anyone else?" said Thorolf to the suddenly quiet crowd, holding his sword with a drop of blood forming on the point. He knew that all they needed was a vigorous leader to rouse them against him, and he would be pulled down and slain in a trice, like a stag by hounds or wolves. They would be furious at his spoiling their gang rape; but no leader spoke up.
"Then throw this carrion into the street, and the lot of you get out!" he continued, speaking with difficulty because of the gaping wound on his face.
The men shuffled out the door and down the stairs, two bearing the late Trooper Frinzl. Thorolf heard a mutter: "Damned bluenosed Zurshnitters hate to see anyone else having fun ..."
Thorolf turned to the woman, who shrank back. Now that he had a chance to view her more closely, she was young, quite comely, and just a trifle plump.
"How came they to catch you?" he asked in Tyrrhenian.
"I pray you, sir, I had lain down for a nap when the soldiers came. My parents fled with my brothers and sisters in such haste that they forgot to awaken me."
"How could your parents forget one of their own children?"
"I am the eldest of eight; so I ween they lost count. And now what, sir? Am I to be raped by you alone instead of by the whole battalion?"
"You shan't be raped at all, if I can prevent."
"Oh, thank you, sir. Meanst it that ye have lost your member in the wars?"
Thorolf gave a laugh that was half a gurgle because of the blood in his mouth. "Nay indeed. But this cut on my face begins to hurt abominably. Canst wash it and show me what it looks like?"
"Oh, yea, sir. Sit ye down here, and I'll wash it and sew it up."
She brought in a bronze mirror, which gave a wobbly image of Thorolf with a huge gash on his right cheek, through which some of his teeth could be glimpsed. Below it his face and garments were soaked with blood.
"This will hurt," she said.
"Go ahead," said Thorolf. "A soldier must expect such dolors. Ouch!"
While the stitching and the pains associated with it took nearly all of Thorolf's attention, he became aware that the young woman was silently weeping. When the last bit of thread had been tied, he took his mind off the ache long enough to say:
"Why weep you—and what is your name, by the way?"
"Ramola, sir."
"Very well, Ramola, why weep you? Your family seem to have gotten clean away, and you've been rescued from a gang rape."
The tears trickled silently. "I do think on what will befall me, for now I shall never get a decent husband."