by Peter Darman
‘No. Have mercy,’ cried Luca’s mother, her plea being ignored by the bench.
‘Luca Baldi,’ continued Sir Roger, ‘you are found guilty of attempting to murder a Christian knight, for which you will hang.’
Luca’s mother cried out in anguish and fainted.
‘Silence in court,’ shouted Sir Roger. ‘Your flock of sheep is given to Sir Fabrizio in compensation.’
The abbot leaned over to whisper into his ear. Sir Roger nodded.
‘Ah, yes. This will not include the black sheep, the spawn of Satan, which will be destroyed forthwith.’
‘You will regret this,’ seethed Jordi, an outburst that earned him another slap across his face from the fat guard.
Not being a native of Rometta, no one knew who the broad-shouldered young man with the seditious tongue was.
‘Who are you?’ demanded Sir Roger.
‘Jordi Rey,’ came the answer.
The clerk sitting at a small desk at right angles to the bench made a note of the name.
‘You too will hang in the morning,’ said Sir Roger, ‘and may God have mercy on your soul.’
Luca’s knees nearly buckled beneath him but Jordi had not finished, turning his head to the bench as he and his friend were led away.
‘I give you one last chance to change your minds. If not, I cannot vouch for your safety.’
Sir Roger jumped up and pointed at him. ‘Before you are hanged, your tongue will be cut out and fed to pigs, and afterwards your head will be cut off and mounted above the town gates as a warning to others.’
Jordi laughed. To him it made no sense to hang someone and then cut off their head. But he was forgetting that beheading was viewed as a nobleman’s death, which was deprived to lowborn peasants. The peasant had to be first dead before his head was removed from his body.
Luca, distraught, caught a fleeting glimpse of his father helping his mother to her feet before he was bundled from the courtroom. The next few hours were a confused blur. He and Jordi were taken back to their cell where they were given water and slop not fit for pigs. Luca was angry and upset that his pleas to see his parents were denied. He was also angry his friend was so blasé in what would be their last hours on earth. Then anger gave way to fear. Fear of the unknown, fear he would disgrace himself on the scaffold in the morning, and fear God would cast him into hell after he had left this life. How he wanted the presence of a priest, which they had also been denied. To hear the soothing words of one more enlightened than he, telling him there was nothing to worry about. But all he heard was the venom of his friend.
Jordi spent most of the night pacing up and down the cell.
‘You worry too much, Luca. Tomorrow we will be free and there will be nothing to worry about.’
‘We are going to be hanged in the morning, Jordi. You should make your peace with God.’
Jordi laughed, walked over to the door and began hammering on it.
‘Are you there, fat guard? Tomorrow you are going to die. You hear me?’
‘Keep your noise down,’ came the reply, ‘otherwise we will cut out your tongue now rather than in the morning.’
Luca slumped to the floor and reflected on his life, such as it was. He had been born in Rometta and he would die in Rometta. He had been to markets in neighbouring towns and villages but had never seen Messina, except from afar. He had never experienced the love of a woman, or indeed had had even the friendship of a member of the opposite sex. His life was, or rather had been, tending to sheep on the slopes around Rometta, and he would have traded his soul for the chance for that meaningless existence to continue.
Jordi crouched in front of him and grabbed his shoulders.
‘Try to get some sleep.’
‘I don’t want to spend my last hours on earth asleep,’ Luca told him, ‘not that I could sleep, anyway.’
Jordi winked with his one good eye.
‘Do you believe in God, Luca?’
Luca was shocked he would even ask. ‘Of course.’
‘Then have faith that the Lord will keep us safe. Tomorrow is a new day.’
He believed Jordi might have gone mad, for why else would he have been so carefree, even happy? How he wished he could escape to a make-believe world instead of the brutal reality that was creeping ever closer.
‘I will pray for us both,’ said Luca, pathetically.
He did pray, long and hard, holding his hands together in front of him so tightly they became numb after a while. It did not help. He did not hear the voice of God and there was no visit from an angel to tell him all would be well. The only sound was Jordi snoring. Snoring! His mind had clearly gone, which meant he was alone in the cold, dark cell. Then it was dark no longer as the dawn broke to herald another sunny day in Rometta. His heart began to race and he started to shiver. He told himself it was because of the cold but he suspected it was really fear. He felt shame. He had heard stories of men walking calmly to their executions and meeting death with honour. But they were aristocrats who had been trained since childhood to ensure they met their ends in a manly fashion. His heart began to beat faster when he heard a key turning in the lock to the door.
‘Out you both come, your public awaits,’ came a gruff voice.
Luca gave the slumbering Jordi a gentle tap with his shoe to wake him, his friend stretching out his limbs in a leisurely fashion.
‘Now!’ shouted the guard.
The fat guard was one of the four detailed to escort the prisoners to the town square where they would be executed, and afterwards their corpses would be hung in gibbets until they rotted as a warning to others. Jordi’s corpse would be headless: the missing part of his body would be decorating one of the entrances to the town.
After they were manacled, they were led out into the sunlight where a small crowd had gathered. No one spoke as the pair were prodded along the main street towards the square. Luca began to pray but stopped when someone, a woman, spat in his face.
‘Devil worshipper.’
He looked at her in amazement, the fat guard shoving her aside and then grabbing Luca’s tunic to bundle him forward.
‘Keep moving.’
He and Jordi shuffled along, their manacles making a jangling sound as they trudged towards their fate. It required a mighty effort from Luca to stay on his feet and not collapse when they entered the square and saw the gallows in the dead centre, around which was a sizeable crowd. He glanced at Jordi, who was smiling! How he wished he too was insane. He also caught sight of another man, more sinewy than his friend, but who was dressed in exactly the same manner as Jordi, in a sheepskin coat and coarse leather shoes. He nodded at Jordi, who nodded back, before disappearing into the crowd.
Luca’s attention was brought back to the gallows when he saw something hanging from one of the three nooses. He screwed up his face in horror when he saw it was the black sheep from his flock. The fat guard grabbed his hair tightly and pulled his head towards his face.
‘Don’t worry, boy, you will soon be joining your evil familiar.’
His breath was pungent, causing Luca’s eyes to water.
He and Jordi were manhandled to the gallows, around them a sea of expectant faces, some very young, all eager to see justice meted out to Luca, the devil-worshipping shepherd, and his foreign accomplice.
‘Make way, make way.’
His head dropped when Fabrizio and Sir Roger, with an armed escort, appeared in front of the gallows. It was a simple structure, comprising a thick crossbeam supported at both ends by A-frames. Beneath the two empty nooses were wooden boxes, on which Luca and Jordi would stand prior to having the nooses placed around their necks. The boxes would be kicked away, the pair would drop and slowly strangle to death. The drop would be insufficient to break their necks to kill them instantly. It was considered just they should endure a few minutes of agony before being judged by the Lord and sent to hell.
Two burly executioners, their heads and faces covered by black leather hoods, grabbed
Luca and Jordi and marched them to stand behind the boxes. Their identities were masked to safeguard against the families of the condemned exacting vengeance on their executioners, should they have a mind to do so. Luca searched for his parents among the crowd in vain. He was glad. He did not want them to see him dangling on the end of rope, being slowly choked to death in an obscene spectacle.
He heard the words of the priest beside him but took no notice, his eyes focused on the noose suspended above him. His life expectancy was now a matter of minutes, seconds if the drop broke his neck. Please God let it be so. With great effort he was maintaining his dignity, though his body was now shaking with fear. The priest stopped talking, the executioner behind him seized his arms and he was aware of something flying past him.
‘Stay still, Luca,’ called Jordi.
The executioner was no longer holding his arms, and when he glanced to his right he saw the other executioner was staggering backwards, a spear lodged in his chest. Then the crowd started screaming. He stared directly at Fabrizio Carafa and saw him drawing his sword, the soldiers accompanying him collapsing on the cobbles as they were cut down. Pandemonium filled the square as panicking people scattered in all directions. The young knight froze when a knife was held to his throat, and then his sword was taken from him by another individual dressed in a sheepskin coat, who then punched him hard in the stomach. Fabrizio doubled up, coughing and retching as the square emptied.
A big man with broad shoulders and a mere fringe of black hair, an individual with dark brown eyes and an unforgiving face, walked over to Jordi and looked him up and down.
‘Are you hurt?’
Jordi held up his manacled wrists. ‘Only my pride, father.’
Another man, stouter and with a large round face, bounded up to Jordi and locked him in a bear hug.
‘Did you think we would let you dangle, young pup?’
‘Get these chains off my son,’ commanded the big man.
Luca was being ignored as the Almogavars secured the square and examined the dead, one of whom was Sir Roger, a spear having been driven through the back of his neck, the point protruding from his windpipe. Two men with spears were standing over the spluttering Fabrizio, a woman, an attractive woman with a sultry expression and shapely figure, holding the knight’s sword. He saw her tuck a knife into a sheath attached to her belt and realised it must have been she who had held the blade to Fabrizio’s throat.
The short man rummaged through the clothes of the dead guards and found the key to unlock the fettles binding Jordi. The young man grinned and nodded at Luka.
‘Him too, Roc.’
Roc. It was an apt name for the man had a head like a large boulder. He moved towards Luca but Jordi’s father stopped him.
‘He is not an Almogavar.’
‘He is my friend, father.’
Jordi’s father ambled over to Luca and examined the shepherd. He had a long face covered with skin that had a tightness to it, giving the impression of simmering emotion about to explode.
‘My name is Sancho Rey. Your name?’
‘Luca Baldi, lord.’
‘You are the shepherd with the black sheep?’ he pointed at the carcass hanging from the third noose. ‘That sheep?’
‘Yes, lord.’
‘Are you a devil worshipper?’
‘No, lord.’
‘Then why did you keep a black sheep?’
‘I don’t believe in killing something just because it is born with a different-coloured coat to the other sheep, lord.’
‘The boy was nearly hanged, Sancho, and now you wish to interrogate him?’
Sancho turned when the sultry woman walked over to embrace Jordi, planting a delicate kiss on his forehead.
‘You smell disgusting,’ she smiled.
‘Release him,’ ordered Sancho.
A grinning Roc unlocked the chains and tossed them to the ground.
‘You are blasphemers.’
The priest who had been saying prayers prior to the hanging was still standing near the gallows, holding up a wooden crucifix to Sancho Rey, as though warding off a demon.
‘You dare to interrupt the Lord’s work?’ the priest accused Sancho. ‘You have killed an anointed knight, have murdered his soldiers and…’
Sancho Rey carried a short sword in a scabbard attached to his belt. Similar in size and weight to the Roman gladius of old, it appeared smaller in his large hand when he whipped it from its scabbard and slashed it across the priest’s throat in a blur. The priest was cut short in mid-sentence, his eyes filling with fear as he saw the fountain of blood spurting from his windpipe, before falling to the ground, dead. Blood continued to pump from the wound as the corpse lay on the ground, the Almogavars taking little notice of the dead priest. A shaken Luca noticed that the sultry woman with shining black hair did not bat an eyelid when her husband had killed the priest, and seemed at ease among the death and bloodshed.
Jordi slapped him on the back.
‘I told you to have faith, Luca.’
‘I must get back to my family,’ said Luca.
Sancho barred his way. ‘Your life here is over, shepherd. If you stay, they will hang you, or worse.’
‘You will be one of us, Luca,’ smiled Jordi, ‘an Almogavar.’
‘That remains to be seen,’ said his father.
Roc pointed at the prostrate figure of Fabrizio. ‘What about him?’
‘Bring him along,’ Sancho told the men guarding the knight. ‘We will decide his fate later. And retrieve all our weapons.’
The knight was hauled to his feet, the spears wrenched from the corpses of Sir Roger and his soldiers by the Almogavars, who carefully wiped the blood and gore from the metal heads of the weapons. As far as Luca could ascertain, each Almogavar carried three or four spears, though if he had enquired they would have told him they were not spears, but javelins. Around four feet in length, they had steel heads incorporating an integral socket and a diamond cross-section. When thrown with force, they could go through mail armour with ease, as Sir Roger had discovered to his cost. Each man also carried a short sword, as well as a knife, even the women, of which there were more than one.
‘Move,’ ordered Sancho.
Luca had not eaten since the day before and the mental strain he had been under since his arrest had weakened him considerably. Nevertheless, when Jordi’s father gave the order to leave the square he was forced to break into a run, the Almogavars setting a hard pace as they left Rometta and headed east, to Messina. Jordi next to him was beaming with delight, but Luca was filled with trepidation. Only the day before the course of his life had been mapped out precisely. But that life was now over. But what would now be the fate of a poor Sicilian shepherd who had lost his home, his family and seemingly his future?
Chapter 2
Despite twenty years of war, the port city of Messina was still a thriving commercial centre. Ships of all varieties filled its harbour, unloading and taking on board goods to be transported throughout the eastern Mediterranean. Inside the walled city itself, Greeks, Italians and Jews lived in reasonable harmony, conducting business with each other under the watchful eye of the city authorities. Messina enjoyed a unique position of having close contact not only with the hinterland outside its walls, but also with mainland Italy, from which it was separated only by the narrow Strait of Messina. Grain grown in Sicily was shipped to the mainland through Messina, and textiles, slaves and spices arrived at the port for sale throughout the rest of the island. Messina and its traders grew rich, and the foreign merchants who had homes and offices in the city – Genoese, Venetians and Pisans – rented great warehouses around the harbour from the city authorities for princely sums. Those authorities had maintained and strengthened Messina’s defences to ensure no marauding army was tempted to seize the city. They had been grateful for the services rendered in its defence by the Catalans, now camped beyond the city walls. Indeed, a grateful Messina provided them with food and shelter. But with the
war ended the question on everyone’s lips was: when would they be going back to Spain?
The name Almogavar had derived from the Arabic word al-mogauar, meaning ‘devastator’. Originally shepherds and forest dwellers, Almogavars had been fighting the Muslims in Spain for nearly a hundred years. Now, several thousand of them were sitting on their hands in Sicily, along with a few hundred Catalan horsemen that had journeyed with them. Enforced idleness did not sit well with the Almogavars, who were naturally restless, as well as being naturally warlike. The incident at Rometta had at least been an interesting diversion from the monotony they now endured.
The Almogavar captains listened intently to Sancho Rey as he recounted in detail the events in the town, which had culminated in the rescue of his son and the capture of a young Sicilian nobleman.
‘What are you going to do with him?’ asked Marc, who unlike Sancho had a thick mop of hair.
‘Kill him and have done with it,’ suggested Hector, who wore a permanent frown when not engaged in battle and killing, activities that put a smile on his face.
‘Exchange him for some slaves,’ suggested Angel.
‘Female slaves, presumably?’ said Marc.
Angel flashed a smile. ‘Naturally, all in their prime and who preferably know only two words of Catalan – “yes” and “more”.’
‘Don’t you have enough whores, Angel?’ asked Sancho.
‘One can never have enough whores,’ the handsome captain shot back.
‘Ransom him,’ suggested Marc, ‘that is the usual custom of nobles and their like.’
The Almogavars revelled in the fact they were all, or mostly, low-born men who had no lands, titles or indeed income, save what they were paid and what they looted. Everything about them repulsed the nobility, from their threadbare clothing to their coarse manners and, the greatest crime in the eyes of those who inhabited the higher echelons of society, their democracy. The Almogavars took decisions by vote and popular choice. The men sitting in the tent outside Messina deciding the fate of Fabrizio Carafa were members of the Almogavar council, which had been elected by their fellow mercenaries to speak on their behalf. Normally, such a notion would be ruthlessly and bloodily quashed by kings and their nobles, but the Almogavars were first and foremost fighters, and after twenty years plying their trade, they were treated with a cautious respect.
