It was on a road through the woods north of Cesena that Cesare waited for Dorotea Caracciolo and her retinue to come on their journey back to Venice.
He waited on his horse in the shadow of a huge tree which blocked him from the view of anyone riding along the narrow road from a southern direction. Around, in the bushes, his half-dozen officers waited with swords drawn, hidden themselves by the trailing, autumn-leafed undergrowth.
The road through the woods was deserted. In the half hour they'd been waiting, nobody had passed. It was unlikely that anyone would.
Cesare felt welling in his breast the daring delight he experienced at being in dangerous action again. That his officers had entered enthusiastically in his plan was as much their sharing of his audacity as their devotion to him. Soon, soon he would be holding the naked body of that lovely, sphinx-eyed girl in his arms. He thought of her substitute of the night before, who had cried at first and then lain passive and groaning and then become animated at approaching orgasm. For a virgin, she'd really been quite a bundle of abandon eventually?and then she'd run off into the darkness after his limp prick had come out of her as if she was ashamed of what had happened and couldn't bear to look him in the face. It wouldn't be long before she took other lovers.
“I hear them, Sire!”
The voice of one of his lieutenants hissed through the light rustle of the breeze on the dry leaves. Cesare's mind became a straining ear to catch the slightest sound. He heard them too, some distance off?the steady thud, thud of approaching hoofs.
“Everybody ready,” he called softly. Whispers echoed through the woods and an answering affirmation came back from his nearest lieutenant.
“They have to think we're a score of men, at least.” “Aye, Sire.”
Cesare's horse quivered under him lightly as they waited in a heavy silence, listening to the loudening thud of the hooves until the thud had split up into individual horse-sounds: snorts and jangling of bridles and rustling of dead leaves underfoot. There were voices, too, female voices and male commands to animals. Cesare waited. The sounds spread, seeming to stretch into the forest on either side of him in an eerie echoing. They must have passed the first of his officers. He let them come, judging the moment, holding his quivering horse into the shade of the tree. And then, of a sudden he spurred forward onto the road, arquebus in hand.
There was a startled, astonished pile-up of the leading men-at-arms. Cesare had just a second in which he glimpsed the lady of his desires in the midst of her handmaidens before he shouted immediately:
“Lay down your arms. You're surrounded.”
As he shouted these words, there were rustlings in the trees and bushes around the road, everything half hidden in leaves and foliage. The front-quarters of horses eased into view, the extended arms of standing men, there was movement all around, seeming to come in mysterious volume from all sides.
The men-at-arms stared around them fearfully, hands petrified halfway to swords and guns.
“If you try to resist, you'll be shot down on your horses,” Cesare cried. “Lay down your arms and you'll not be harmed.”
There was still a hesitation and Cesare fired his arquebus into the air: a sign for his men, half hidden in the surrounding bushes, to fire volleys over the heads of the ambushed cortege. Horses shied and nearly threw their riders. The men-at-arms began to throw down their weapons, which thudded softly into the leaf-mold which covered the road.
“Dismount?and the ladies,” Cesare ordered.
He watched them obey him, smiling to himself at Dorotea feigning terror with the rest of her women.
“Three men to secure them,” he called. “The rest keep them covered.”
Three of his lieutenants, still, like Cesare himself, dressed as peasants, but fully armed, stepped out from the bushes. It was the work of a few minutes to secure the handful of men-at-arms, an even shorter period to tie up the women?all except Dorotea who was left aside.
When all was done, Cesare's men came out of the surrounding trees?all three of them, leading their horses who had served to indicate greater numbers.
Cesare rode up to Dorotea and commanded her to mount, which she did with every show of reluctance. He cast a last look at the trussed men-at-arms and the ladies. It would be some time before they were discovered or managed to break free. He directed his arquebus at Dorotea, sitting woodenly on her horse beside him.
“You will ride with us,” he said in a loud voice, “and if you don't attempt to escape, no harm will come to you.”
She made no answer. Her eyes, when she looked at him, twinkled for the briefest of seconds.
Cesare gave a sharp command and he and his band spurred their horses away up the road in the direction of Cesena from which the ambushed party had come. Once out of sight, Dorotea's face lit up and she reached across to clasp his hand at full gallop, Cesare grinned broadly and around them his men were chortling with mirth.
For a mile they rode south and then wheeled abruptly into the forest. They pushed and battled their way for a mile or so and then turned again, toward the north. When, at last, they reached the road to Forli, the trussed party were still trying to shake free of their bonds prior to riding south in pursuit and to raise the alarm.
Some distance from the city which Cesare had captured some time before, they dismounted in the forest. Dorotea retired to a discreet distance. Cesare and his officers changed into their own attire?and when Dorotea returned she, too, was dressed as a soldier, a young and very attractive soldier, but a soldier nonetheless with her long, blonde j hair hidden and her soft, woman's curves disguised.
Thus they rode, a merry band of men, saluted by the guard at the gates of the city, into Forli.