Free The Master of Verona by David Blixt Page B

you want to die!

    Noticing Pietro's incredulous stare, Cangrande laughed. "Come on, you must know it by now!" He began again in his deep baritone, and Pietro picked it up the second time through:

    Sentirai poi li giach
    Che fan guei padach –
    Giach, giach, giach, gaich, gaich –
    Quando gli odo andare!

    This wasn't war they were riding to. It was a joust, a lark, a joyful day of sport. Mari sang out loud and long in his best church voice. Antony joined in, and when they ran out of lyrics they created new ones.
    During a lull in singing they passed a vineyard. Mariotto shouted, "It's close to here!"
    "Vicenza?" asked Pietro hopefully.
    "My family's castle! Montecchio! It's off that way! Through the haunted wood!" He gestured to a thick forest off to the right.
    "Haunted?"
    Montecchio put his finger to his nose with a knowing look. Pietro laughed warily. "If we live, you'll have to show it me!"
    "If? I'll have you by for supper tonight after we whip their hides raw! Then we can face the ghosts!"
    "That's the spirit!" cheered Antony, and Mari groaned.
    Smiling, Pietro turned back in time to duck a low-hanging branch. "Can't see a damned thing," he muttered, his voice reverberating around his helmet like a lone psalm in a church.
    Not long after that, Cangrande slowed, his horse tramping along a line of juniper bushes. Mari said they were still a good four miles from the city proper, but now smoke was visible. Pietro glanced back — the knights of the Illasi garrison were nowhere in sight, probably two miles back. Ahead were the closed northern gates, far from the invested suburb of San Pietro.
    A handful of men stood atop the outer ring of walls. Pietro remembered thinking just this morning that the Roman walls of Verona were obsolete, but if an army penetrated a city's outer walls, it would be just those walls that the citizens would rally behind. Walls were fortification against beasts and lunatics as well as armies and weather. But now Vicenza's walls held out friend and foe alike.
    The trio pulled up when Cangrande did. Jupiter stopped too, panting. The Capitano removed his silver helm to better view the scene. "How now? How now? What have we here?"
    Pietro squinted, looking for whatever it was that the Capitano thought he saw.
    "It's clear," said Antony brightly.
    "Indeed it is," replied Cangrande.
    "Shouldn't we go on, then?" asked the Capuan.
    The Scaliger waved a hand at the open field below them. "I was thinking we should have a picnic."
    Mariotto snickered and Antony looked put out. Pulling his horse around to face them, Cangrande turned his back on the city he'd ridden all afternoon to rescue. Swinging one leg up, he rested it on the neck of his sweating beast, careful of the spur.
    "A picnic?" asked Antony.
    "Well, we missed the wedding dinner. Things are always escaping me. I should have brought some wine from Illasi for us to share. Or at least some sausage. You'd like that, wouldn't you, Jupiter? Yes! Sausage!" The hound barked twice in assent.
    The trio didn't quite know what to make of the Scaliger's demeanor. Pietro watched the great lord of Verona lift his face to scan the sky. "What are you looking for, lord?"
    "Velox."
    "Velox?"
    "Fortis Velox — the merlin. He's been trailing us, but I don't see him now. At least I have Jupiter. I can use him to instruct Ponzino and Asdente how to hunt foxes."
    Pietro couldn't make heads or tails of this conversation. It was Mariotto who knew a cue when he heard one. "Foxes?"
    "Yes, foxes. But I thought they already knew." He sighed.
    Antony was smiling. "How do you hunt foxes?"
    The Capitano took on the air of a patient teacher. "There are two ways. You can beat the bushes and chase it when it emerges. Or you can lay a trap and let it come to you."
    Now Pietro was smiling as well. "What kind of trap?"
    "Why, a nice plump chicken, of course. With three big feathers." He held three fingers over his head, imitating the three flags hanging limply on the walls of the