"An excellent idea. I'll let Ionlovich know. Don't spare them. They're not in that short a supply."
* * *
That had been ten days ago. Dragorvich had gotten his peasant-prisoners and had achieved all he'd promised. In the darkness his men had been readying the causeway to take a push of several thousand footmen, mostly Slav pikemen, and a number of Croat light cavalry units, who had been forming up since dusk. Dragorvich wished he knew exactly what the king had planned. It was plainly treachery from within the Citadel, and plainly on the northern side, presumably with someone on the postern there.
In the meantime, the new mines had been started anyway. He had reluctant Corfiote slaves to do that work now. And the cannons still kept up their volleys against the walls. The walls—so far—hadn't crumbled much. The trouble with bombarding Corfu's Citadel was that so much of the fortress was made of natural rock. You could eventually pound a breach in it, but it was harder than mortised stone.
* * *
Sergeant Boldo looked up at the duty rosters above him. The current roster had been made out by that ass, Captain Querini again, he noticed. Lazy bastard just crossed out the month. Oh, well.
"My name is there, Sergeant," said the young Libri d'Oro buck languidly. "See."
Sergeant Boldo shrugged, and handed the young man a curfew pass. "Password for tonight is 'nightingale.' "
This new system of Commander Leopoldo's was a pain in the bollocks. Still, orders were orders, and the man was reasonable. After the chaos of the first week, the commander had given week-passes instead of daily ones for those who worked nights, whom he—and some mysterious other—approved. The recipients had to learn the week's worth of passwords and two of the Arsenalotti masters had ended up in the brig for the rest of the night because they'd forgotten them. The sergeant had expected them to kick up a stink the way the scuolo usually did when they thought their territory was being infringed, but they'd been sour but reasonable about it.
* * *
Umberto got up for the midnight-to-dawn guard shift when Alberto Mavroukis tapped gently on the window. Alberto was one of those rare individuals who could fall asleep at the blink of an eye—at any opportunity—and yet had an internal clock that could wake him when he needed to. Alberto and Umberto were two of the ten masters from the Little Arsenal who were recipients of week-passes for this new curfew system. Though its purpose was to allow them to work late, it also meant he could sleep at home if he was on guard with Alberto. Sleeping next to a warm, soft-skinned Maria was infinitely preferable to sleeping in the north wall guard barracks.
The two walked down the dark cobbles. As luck would have it they ran into a bored, small-minded guard, who refused to accept their week-passes and insisted on taking them to his guard commander at gunpoint. The guard commander was in the throes of waking the next shift, and it took a great deal of Umberto's patience to get them, late, heading for the guard barracks on the north curtain-wall. The bells were already chiming for midnight before they were halfway down there.
"That bastard of a guard commander will probably make us sleep there next time," panted Alberto.
"He'll just chew us out," said Umberto, and saved his breath for running. The two arrived at the guard barracks.
Both realized immediately that something was very, very wrong.
The guard barracks was silent. It should have been full of people getting their gear off and lying down to rest, earlier watches griping about the noise.
Umberto looked at Alberto. Then he took the issue rapier out of its scabbard and walked forward into the lamplight.
The guard commander wasn't going to chew anyone out. Or make them sleep in the barracks. He lay in a pool of his own blood.
"Merde!" said big Alberto, in a very small voice. "What the hell do we do now?"
"Raise the alarm!" Umberto took a deep breath.
"Keep quiet or I'll shoot," said a voice from the shadows.
Umberto yelled. "ALARU . . ."
He felt rather than heard the shot.
As he fell he saw in a sort of strange slow way how the big caulker had grabbed someone with a pistol. He saw Alberto fling the willowy, elegantly dressed young man at a second man. And Alberto was bellowing at the top of his vast lungs.
* * *
Knight-Proctor Von Desdel and his patrol of ten knights were within a hundred yards of the guard barracks when they heard the shout, the shot and the yelling.
"That's inside the wall!" He was already urging his charger forward. "Sound that trumpet!"
* * *
Over on the Spianada, the Croats had heard the midnight bells without getting restive. The plan allowed the guards on the western outer walls to be changed and settle down before the northern postern would be seized. The biggest danger was the bastion on the northwestern corner. The king's artillery and the arquebusiers in the trenches were due to start a barrage on that when the charge started. The occasional cannon fire with its loading lulls allowed the sounds from the sleeping Citadel to carry well in the silent times.
They heard the trumpet. And the answer. And the bells begin to ring.
"Into those saddles!" yelled their captain. There was no time now to swing this whole thing into planned action. Now they must seize the moment—if it was there to be seized at all.
The Croats were some of the finest light cavalry in the world, with only the Ilkhan Mongols in serious contention in their portion of Eurasia. In many ways the Croats had the advantage over the Magyar—in speed, as scouts, and in tactical flexibility. The Croats had the first hundred and twenty men across the mole causeway before the Venetian cannon and arquebus fire began to make crossing it without heavy losses impossible. By the sounds above them, there was fighting on the north wall. But the traitors had at least prevented the barrage from above falling onto the galloping Croats.
And the gate was open! There were battle sounds from the watchtowers but they'd done it! If the Croats could get inside, they'd hold those towers, keep the gate open somehow, until the huge mass of Serb and Slav infantry who were waiting got in past the Venetian guns.
Yelling, the Croats spurred desperately forward, galloping horses spread out in a long race along the shingle. Then the first were in, under the raised portcullis, into the narrow roadway that led up into the Citadel.
And hurtling down on them, horses virtually shoulder to shoulder, were the famous Knights of the Holy Trinity. The sound of the metal shoes of those heavy horses on the cobbles was like thunder in the confined space.
In the moonlight and house-shadow-darkness, in the narrow lane, the Croats didn't know there were only ten.
There are places and times when light cavalry is superior to heavy cavalry—when maneuverability and rough terrain are factors, for instance. But one advantage that heavy cavalry always has is momentum. And armor—which adds to the momentum. In the narrow lane, neither terrain nor maneuverability offered any advantage to the Croats.
The Knights of the Holy Trinity hit them like a ten-pound hammer hitting a pin. Literally smashed the Croats back through the gate, riding down those that could not turn. The Knights wheeled and rode back in, preparing for another charge. A few of the later arrivals and some of the better horsemen who'd turned their mounts followed in on their heels, showing the advantages of the Croats' speed and maneuverability.