Giorgio Astara
When he comes to, Hanno von Hainau feels his mind plunging back into a nightmare that unconsciousness had briefly removed. He is pinned below a dead horse and the weight of his armor is wearing him down. He has trouble breathing in the searing heat of his barbute … his mouth and nostrils are full of coagulated blood and he can feel a whirring and swarming that he guesses produced by big avid flies. Hoarse voices are heard around … smothered wailings, curses, cries …
Hanno has seen enough battles to know what is going on … groups of irregulars and auxiliary troops are roaming around the battlefield killing off the wounded and taking the spoils of the dead … and he does not have any doubt that his turn will come soon … and confusedly recalls the lawns and the forests of his Carinthia … he will forfeit his life in the mud of this damned island, among dark-haired, pale-skinned, violent and litigious Latins, crazy as animals without a master …
Heavy steps and raucous breathing near by while he feels strong tugs at the straps of his helmet … and when they rip it off him he sees two dark Balearic warriors, with gap-toothed mouths, bone earrings and armed with clubs … he asks himself whether they would abuse him alive or dead … and cannot find any reason why they should be so compassionate to kill him first … tears of anger and powerlessness roll down his face while the two rascals put their hands on him … then they just disappear out of his sight, as if the earth itself had swallowed them …
"Kust'è ankora biu…" a dry voice says "Tirandeddi su ferru de inpizzusu". Rough hands start unfastening the straps of his armour … two dark faces, framed by bushy beards and leather cervellieres look at him anxiously "Esti mesu mortu, fattu fattu…". A flask of water is splashed on the face of the wounded man, then the plates of his armour are cautiously moved off his body. “No tenit ossus truncausu … ma est tottu prenu de sanguni mei in cue …” a lighter and finer voice … skilled hands feel the broken body of the young German. “Bobore, caricarinceddu in palas … tocca ki sind’andausu de innoi … troppus faccis nieddas …”.
Hanno feels himself being hoisted on the shoulders of a man who is as wide as he is tall, covered from head to foot in a goat fleece mantle, with the horned skull of the goat fastened on the top of his helmet. From that position he can see the two felled Balearic men, their throats ripped open, their eyes bulging, still looking menacing. A small squad of dark men, armed with bows and arrows, daggers and round shields saved him from death. They carry some other wounded knights on their shoulders or on stretchers, and cross the shambles in the searing afternoon sun, without paying attention to the bands of Balearic men, hired by the Aragonese crown, that just uphill keep furiously attacking the Pisan city guards that slowly are withdrawing from the battlefield, abandoning to their own fate the Genoans crossbowmen, the English pikemen and the German horsemen, all mercenaries, that fell defending Pisa’s flag against the Aragonese in this mud field of southern Sardinia.
Hanno remembers distinctly how he got in this Island of fevers and folly: on a teetering and stinky Genoese ship, together with the whole squad at the orders of the old Hagen from Münster, who at 34 years of age still had to leave for war each spring, together with the young men of his small war school, sometimes paid by the Linz bishop to fight against the Mongols or the Poles, this time paid by Pisa to fight against Aragona.
Hanno has seen enough battles to know what is going on … groups of irregulars and auxiliary troops are roaming around the battlefield killing off the wounded and taking the spoils of the dead … and he does not have any doubt that his turn will come soon … and confusedly recalls the lawns and the forests of his Carinthia … he will forfeit his life in the mud of this damned island, among dark-haired, pale-skinned, violent and litigious Latins, crazy as animals without a master …
Heavy steps and raucous breathing near by while he feels strong tugs at the straps of his helmet … and when they rip it off him he sees two dark Balearic warriors, with gap-toothed mouths, bone earrings and armed with clubs … he asks himself whether they would abuse him alive or dead … and cannot find any reason why they should be so compassionate to kill him first … tears of anger and powerlessness roll down his face while the two rascals put their hands on him … then they just disappear out of his sight, as if the earth itself had swallowed them …
"Kust'è ankora biu…" a dry voice says "Tirandeddi su ferru de inpizzusu". Rough hands start unfastening the straps of his armour … two dark faces, framed by bushy beards and leather cervellieres look at him anxiously "Esti mesu mortu, fattu fattu…". A flask of water is splashed on the face of the wounded man, then the plates of his armour are cautiously moved off his body. “No tenit ossus truncausu … ma est tottu prenu de sanguni mei in cue …” a lighter and finer voice … skilled hands feel the broken body of the young German. “Bobore, caricarinceddu in palas … tocca ki sind’andausu de innoi … troppus faccis nieddas …”.
Hanno feels himself being hoisted on the shoulders of a man who is as wide as he is tall, covered from head to foot in a goat fleece mantle, with the horned skull of the goat fastened on the top of his helmet. From that position he can see the two felled Balearic men, their throats ripped open, their eyes bulging, still looking menacing. A small squad of dark men, armed with bows and arrows, daggers and round shields saved him from death. They carry some other wounded knights on their shoulders or on stretchers, and cross the shambles in the searing afternoon sun, without paying attention to the bands of Balearic men, hired by the Aragonese crown, that just uphill keep furiously attacking the Pisan city guards that slowly are withdrawing from the battlefield, abandoning to their own fate the Genoans crossbowmen, the English pikemen and the German horsemen, all mercenaries, that fell defending Pisa’s flag against the Aragonese in this mud field of southern Sardinia.
Hanno remembers distinctly how he got in this Island of fevers and folly: on a teetering and stinky Genoese ship, together with the whole squad at the orders of the old Hagen from Münster, who at 34 years of age still had to leave for war each spring, together with the young men of his small war school, sometimes paid by the Linz bishop to fight against the Mongols or the Poles, this time paid by Pisa to fight against Aragona.
(continues)
“Kust'è ankora biu” “This one is still alive
"Tirandeddi su ferru de inpizzusu" “Take off his armour”
“Esti mesu mortu, fattu fattu…” “He is half dead, be cautious”
“No tenit ossus truncausu … ma est tottu prenu de sanguni mei in cue …” “He does not have any broken bones … but there is blood everywhere in there”
“Bobore, caricarinceddu in palas … tocca ki sind’andausu de innoi … troppus faccis nieddas …” “Bobore, hoist him on your back … come on, let’s go away … too many ‘blackfaces’ ”
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