Night

The Eladore Family was one of Genoa's old and distinguished houses. This banquet had drawn most of the local nobles and wealthy merchants, yet even in these circumstances, they refused to lower themselves, insisting on dealing with the Florentines as equals.

Ever since the banquet began, Pauli had been busy trying to read between the lines of other people's conversations, with no time to savor the food. After a long while, his head began to swim. It was more exhausting than studying Latin when he was young.

"The Genoese are far too shrewd. When you do business with them, you can hardly get the better of them."

After more than an hour, Pauli could no longer stand it. Using the excuse of going to the toilet, he left the banquet hall and wandered aimlessly through the courtyard. A cold wind swept over him, gradually driving away his drowsiness and drunkenness.

"It's so cold."

Pauli rounded a corner and saw the guards standing at their posts, ramrod straight, their right hands gripping long halberds as they stared straight ahead. They neither chatted among themselves nor flirted with the serving maids who passed by carrying dishes.

Such strict discipline.

He studied these elite guards of the Eladore Family and compared them with the palace guard in Milan he remembered. The former were actually the better of the two.

The next moment, another man emerged from the hall and staggered toward the toilet. Pauli instinctively hid in the shadow of a laurel tree, then suddenly spotted a metallic glint beneath the man's sleeve.

Chain mail!

Why was he wearing chain mail at a banquet?

Fear washed over him like a rising tide. Pauli wanted to slap himself for not taking Vitus's advice seriously.

"It's over. I never thought I'd die such a stupid death."

He paced anxiously around the courtyard. After a long while, perhaps because fate had not yet decided to claim him, Pauli happened to discover a hole in the wall behind a flower bed.

He crawled through the hole and out of the Eladore estate, then sprinted down an empty, secluded alley, not even daring to look back.

Meanwhile, the consul's guard had been stationed at a nearby abandoned residence, where they were enjoying a dinner sent over by the Eladore Family. It was no match for the banquet's extravagance, but there was wine and meat, and everyone ate until their mouths glistened with grease.

Pauli avoided the servants' eyes and told the commander of the guard what he had observed. "...If you don't believe me, send someone to the banquet hall now and say there's an emergency to report to the consul. See if they let him in."

The commander did as he was told. Soon, his subordinate was stopped at the entrance. The excuse they gave was that the consul was "taking a walk" in the garden with a lady and could not be disturbed.

Pauli said, "When I left, the consul was dead drunk. They're obviously lying. Hurry, get your men ready!"

Before he had even finished speaking, a faint scream came from the residence. With the situation growing urgent, Pauli picked out several soldiers and sent them sneaking out of the city in different directions to request reinforcements from the main force.

"Is something happening inside the city?"

Vitus closed his book and lifted the tent flap. Beneath the thin moonlight, the city walls were a dusky blue-black, their towering towers stabbing at the sky. Every so often, the figure of someone holding a torch flickered behind the battlements.

He asked the interpreter, who was mending clothes beside the campfire, "Did you hear the sound of fighting?"

"No," the interpreter said, pointing at the neighboring Cuman camp. "Those nomads often drink and sing loudly. You may have mistaken the sounds."

Vitus accepted the interpreter's explanation and returned to his tent to keep reading. Before he knew it, the clamor inside the city had grown louder, now mixed with the urgent tolling of bells.

This was bad. Something had definitely happened!

He went with the interpreter to the central command tent and found eight mercenary captains arguing outside.

"What are you doing? Why aren't you inside the tent holding a meeting?"

Vitus lifted the flap in confusion. The Florentine noble assigned to guard the camp was nowhere to be found. According to the attendants, the young man named Usoya had left camp long ago to meet an old flame at an estate in the northern suburbs.

Soon, the remaining two mercenary captains arrived, reeking of drink. The cold wind howled and the firelight flickered, distorting and swaying everyone's shadows as they argued in their respective languages. Once things had settled down a little, Vitus raised his voice:

"I suggest we assemble the troops at once. If our employer is dead, your reputations and your pay will both be finished."

"I agree," Piero spoke up first. "Even if our employer is dead, we'll still take Genoa by force and make the locals repay our losses!"

The others agreed too and began summoning their troops. Before long, nearly seven thousand men set off with torches toward Porta di Sant'Andrea. Vitus sent soldiers forward to call out,

"Ask the defenders what's happening inside the city. Are the consul and the members of the noble families safe? If we get no answer within five minutes, I'll have the cannons fire on the walls!"

Vitus's plan was simple: gather the main force at the eastern gate to draw the enemy's attention. Then select a unit of the most elite soldiers to head to the fishing village, collect boats, and row to the docks south of the city.

Five minutes passed, but the walls remained silent. Vitus signaled the gunners to prepare to light the fuses, but Piero stopped him. "I think it's too quiet up there. Is it possible the militia defending the city saw the chaos inside and rushed home to protect their property, leaving no one on the walls?"

To test his guess, Piero had his soldiers throw grappling hooks over the battlements and climb the walls by the ropes. He had guessed right: there were no defenders in sight, only weapons scattered carelessly about.

"They ran fast!"

The ten mercenaries exchanged glances, then headed to the gatehouse. With great effort, they turned the heavy winch and slowly lowered the drawbridge, allowing the entire army to enter the city.

"Don't rush just yet. I have a feeling the whole situation is more complicated than it seems!"

Vitus climbed the steps to the top of the gate tower and looked into the distance. The spreading fires in the city cast a red glow over half the sky. Apart from the wealthy district in the north, the rest of the city had also fallen into chaos, filled with the residents' cries and wails.

Something was wrong. If this had been nothing more than a trap banquet, Casella Eladore could have easily killed the consul, Pauli, and the other guests. There was no need to make such a commotion.

Vitus took several deep breaths to steady himself, then observed the city again. The sounds of fighting were especially fierce in the northwest. It seemed that an organized army was launching a night raid to seize control of Genoa.

"It's probably the Milanese army. They didn't leave. Instead, they joined forces with certain families inside the city and fought their way back into Genoa. They're trying to seize the Florentine consul and the other leaders, then force us to withdraw."

Vitus shared his theory with the mercenary captains and changed their battle plan on the spot.

Genoa's streets were complicated. If they sent the army into the alleys to fight, many mercenaries would break away on their own to loot houses, scattering their forces.

He decided on a different approach: send an elite unit to the Eladore estate to rescue the consul and the other leaders. The rest of the main force would seize control of Genoa's walls and cut off the Milanese army's escape route. They would decide what to do next at daybreak.