Malta's Guns

by Sam Barone

  Also by Sam Barone

  The Eskkar Saga:

  Dawn of Empire

  Empire Rising

  Quest For Honour

  (Published outside the United States as

  Conflict of Empires)

  Eskkar & Trella – The Beginning

  Battle For Empire

  Clash of Empires

  Eskkar & Bracca – Rogue Warriors 1

  (Kindle singlet)

  Eskkar & Bracca – Rogue Warriors 2

  (Kindle singlet)

  Science Fiction:

  Jettisoned

  Sentinel Star

  Earth Besieged

  Copyright 2020

  ISBN-13: 979-8-6393-6605-5 (Amazon)

  Copyright © 2020 by Sam Barone

  All rights reserved

  Please feel free to contact the

  author with suggestions and comments

  www.sambarone.com

  AAAA – Malta’s Guns – CS ver 14 - 10-17-2020 (.5-.4)

  Malta’s Guns

  by

  SAM BARONE

  Composition of Forces – see Appendix A

  Chapter 1

  The Republic of Venice, April 23, 1548 A.D.

  Nicolo hammered on the door with his fist, ignoring the black billow of cloth that arched the portal and warned visitors that disease and death lay within. As soon as a startled servant opened the door a crack, Nicolo and his bodyguard, Maffeo, pushed their way inside. Once within his uncle’s house, Nicolo started toward the broad stairway that curved its way to the upper chambers.

  A grim-faced housekeeper, summoned by the din, tried to block Nicolo’s way, but he thrust her aside with as little consideration as he’d shown the servant. Crossing the entrance hall with its white-tiled floor of Carrara marble, Nicolo climbed the red oak stairs two at a time, then strode down the gallery toward his uncle’s sleeping chamber.

  A man emerged from another room and managed to reach the bedroom door a step before Nicolo did. “Who are you? How dare you enter Dom Pietro’s house when . . .”

  “My uncle sent for me. I am Nicolo Pesaro. Get out of my way.”

  “Dom Pietro is too ill to receive visitors,” the man said.

  “And who are you?”

  “I am Alvise Lesse, physician to Dom Pietro. Your uncle requires rest and solitude.”

  “Stand aside.”

  “You cannot enter.” The physician barred the doorframe with one arm and leaned closer to Nicolo, his voice dropping to a harsh whisper. “Your uncle has the plague.”

  A chill passed over Nicolo. No one, not even family members, ministered to those dying of plague, not if they could afford to hire an attendant. The Black Death canceled all familial duties, except for a mumbled prayer for a merciful and quick demise, followed by a hurried burial deep in the earth or in some distant and dark crypt.

  “There is nothing you can do for him,” the physician went on, taking strength from Nicolo’s hesitation. “God awaits his soul.” He intoned the words with as much solemnity as any pompous priest dispensing absolution from the confessional.

  All the same, Nicolo had to see for himself. His uncle had smuggled a message from this very room. “I’m going in.” He turned to Maffeo. “Get this man out of my way.”

  “It’s the plague, Nicolo.” Brave as he was, Maffeo’s voice betrayed his concern. “Leave your uncle to the priests and healers.”

  “Your servant speaks wisely, master.” The physician nodded in somber approval.

  “I intend to see my uncle.” Nicolo grasped the physician by the collar and jerked him away from the door. “Keep everyone out,” Nicolo ordered his bodyguard. He turned the handle and stepped inside.

  A foul odor assailed Nicolo’s nostrils, almost as if someone had opened a long-sealed grave. Death indeed waited within this bedroom. Nicolo clamped his lips together and closed the door behind him, shutting out the angry voices from the hallway. Though the noonday sun shone outside, only a diffused glow penetrated the bedchamber.

  He took a step toward the bed and peered at his uncle’s face, then stopped short and crossed himself.

  Dom Pietro lifted a skeletal hand and waved it. “It’s not plague, Nicolo. You can . . . come closer.”

  The halting words sounded thin, disembodied, as if coming from the bottom of a tomb instead of the canopied bed.

  Skin the color of ashes stretched tight across the sick man’s emaciated face. The odor of vomit and worse hung in the air. Nicolo muttered Saint Sebastian’s name to ward off the plague and protect Nicolo from the evil vapors and foul fetidness that spread the Black Death. He held his breath as he gazed at what remained of his Uncle Pietro.

  “Not … plague. See for yourself.” With effort, the old man pushed the sheet down to his stomach and lifted his arms.

  Nicolo took another cautious step toward the shadowy bed and scrutinized what might lie beneath his uncle’s arms. Fear played tricks with his eyes, and in the dim light Nicolo couldn’t be sure what he saw. With another silent plea to Saint Sebastian, Nicolo crossed to the balcony window, jerked the thick curtains apart, and pushed open the double windows.

  A gust of fresh sea air flowed into the chamber, swirling the curtains and cleansing the room, while the bright sun illuminated its contents. Taking a deep breath, Nicolo turned back to the bedstead and studied Uncle Pietro in this new light, searching for any trace of the buboes and pustules that accompanied the plague. If Nicolo saw them …

  To his relief, there were no telltale signs under his uncle’s armpits or across his chest, so Nicolo edged closer to the bedside. Grasping the corner of the sheet between thumb and forefinger, he peeled the covering away from Pietro’s body. Naked under the sheet, his uncle’s flesh had the same gray pallor as the stone angels that forever hovered high above Saint Mark’s Cathedral.

  Nicolo raised the sheet higher, exposing his uncle’s privates and the soiled bedding, reeking of diarrhea. No swelling bags of blue-black flesh raised themselves from the juncture of thigh and groin. Dom Pietro coughed, and a faint garlicky scent, the signature smell of arsenic, rose up and turned Nicolo’s stomach. He let the sheet fall and then adjusted the cloth to cover his uncle’s body, already shivering from the crisp spring air now sweeping into the room.

  “What happened, Uncle Pietro? Why didn’t you . . .”

  “I tried to send word days ago, but she sent away nearly all my old servants.” The words came with effort, and Nicolo had to lean close to comprehend them. “Those who remain do only her bidding. She poisoned me, Nicolo. Masina has taken her revenge.”

  Lady Masina Contarini. His uncle had married the much younger woman little more than a year ago. Nicolo had met Lady Masina just once, when she’d condescended to give a disdainful nod to her husband’s poor relation, forced to work for his living. Nicolo’s growing reputation as one of Venice’s master cannon makers meant less than nothing to her. In her eyes, a laborer was a laborer; he might as well have worked shoveling mud in the canals.

  “Where is she?” Nicolo fingered his sword, his anger dispelling any lingering doubts about the plague.

  “Gone to the countryside . . . Masina left the day before I fell ill.” Pietro closed his eyes for a moment, as he paused to recover his strength. “She’ll return as soon as I’m dead.”

  So that no blame would fall on her, Nicolo thought.

  All Venice believed that Lady Masina, as depraved and murderous as any Turk, had poisoned her first husband. Little more than a year ago, the still-recent widow had seduced, or more likely, bewitched Dom Pietro Contarini, an honored member of the Signoria’s inner council, into marriage. Since then, Nicolo had heard rumors of servants whipped and even tortured. No one dared offend her, and some claimed the devil’s aura enveloped her. />
  “What do you want me to do, Uncle?” He dreaded the reply, certain his uncle would want vengeance on his wife.

  Pietro let his eyes fall shut for a moment. “Nothing, Nicolo. You can do nothing to avenge me. This is God’s justice for my sins of pride and lust, and I abide by His judgment. Someday God will punish her.” The dying man gasped out the last words and paused to catch his breath.

  His uncle accepted his fate, accepted that he’d first been cuckolded, then poisoned by his young wife. At the start of the infatuation, Nicolo and others had tried to warn his uncle, but Dom Pietro, caught up in a web of passion and vanity, had eyes only for Masina’s beauty, and his ears heard only her sweetened words.

  “My life is finished, nephew. You’re the only family I’ve left, and so I must ask, must beg you, to please take care of my son.”

  Last year Masina had gone to Florence for the summer to admire the art and architecture, and Dom Pietro, no doubt already disenchanted with his flirtatious wife, had somehow managed to take a mistress, a young Venetian widow named Filippa. He kept the affair secret, but four weeks ago Filippa gave birth to a boy.

  Pietro, pleased to have finally fathered a son after so many years, unwisely acknowledged the child as his own. He named the boy Antonio Contarini and added his son’s name to the Republic’s register with pride. That imprudent gesture made the child a legitimate heir. All Venice gossiped about the bastard child, a humiliating affront to Lady Masina. A week later, Pietro took to his bed with a strange illness, his condition worsening with each day.

  “Your friends in the Signoria, Uncle Pietro. Won’t they help?”

  “Masina has her own friends there now.” Bitterness gave Pietro’s voice a moment of strength. “An old fool has no friends in the Signoria. Many there now await my death, to better enjoy her favors.”

  The Signoria reigned over the citizens of Venice and the Republic with an iron fist and tolerated no challenges to its decisions. Even the Doge, nominally the city’s ruler, stood merely as the first among equals in the Signoria and as subject to their authority as any member.

  “Uncle Pietro, I’m …”

  “You’re leaving Venice. I know. Take . . . Filippa and my son with you. Keep them safe and far from Masina’s vengeance. She’ll want them both dead.”

  Nicolo frowned. He planned to depart Venice for the City of London within a few days, taking his only son, Bernardo, with him. Nicolo’s wife had died three years ago. With that last family link gone, he was determined to establish his own foundry, to design and build his own cannons. Since the great Arsenal of Venice controlled everything relating to the defense of the Republic, that meant Nicolo, who lacked seniority despite his talents, would have to leave the island city.

  After more than two years of correspondence and prolonged negotiations, Nicolo had received a commission from the English king to establish an arms foundry in London. The ironworkers of Venice made the finest cannons in the world, and Nicolo’s family helped build and stock the mighty Arsenal, the fortress city within the City of Venice. That reputation brought him first to King Edward of England’s attention, and at last to a commission. Nicolo would achieve his dream and establish his own house and foundry, albeit outside of Italy.

  “Keep them safe, Nicolo,” Pietro whispered, and clutched at his nephew’s hand. “Take them with you. I’ve given Filippa enough gold to establish herself. Swear to me that you’ll save them from Masina. My only son mustn’t die. Please, Nicolo, for a dying man.”

  Dom Pietro’s voice broke and he started coughing, powerful contractions that spewed dark yellow phlegm from his mouth and onto the bed sheet. The odor of garlic returned, and Nicolo saw that his uncle’s tongue had turned black.

  Pietro had treated Nicolo more like a son than a nephew, and his uncle’s patronage had helped Nicolo establish himself at the Arsenal. But with his uncle dead, Nicolo would have no influential friends or protectors in Venice. Lady Masina would make a powerful enemy and his life would be at risk the moment he set himself against her. And the baby, now the inheritor of Dom Pietro’s estate, would soon fall under Masina’s charge. And babies, as everyone knew, frequently died.

  “Please, Nicolo . . . I beg you.”

  He looked down at his uncle’s face, ravaged by the poison. Duty demanded an answer, and Nicolo’s honor could accept only one. “I’ll take them with me, Uncle Pietro. I’ll keep them safe, I swear it. And Masina will pay for this one day.”

  Tears began to trickle down Pietro’s cheeks, and his hands trembled. “Then God has not forgotten me.” For a moment he seemed at peace. “Thank you . . . my son. Now go. Hurry. Leave me to God’s mercy.”

  Nicolo gave his uncle’s hand a final squeeze to seal the promise.

  “I’ll pray for your soul, Uncle. God will take you into his arms.” He turned away from the bed, aware again of the raised voices outside the bedroom. Opening the door, Nicolo found his bodyguard Maffeo still there, blocking access to Dom Pietro’s chamber. Two servants and the housekeeper crowded behind the so-called physician, but no one attempted to push past Maffeo, who stood with his hand on his sword.

  It would take more than a few servants and a physician to get past Maffeo’s powerful body. Nevertheless, Nicolo had no doubt that a handful of Venice’s infamous brawlers would soon arrive to enforce the physician’s orders.

  Nicolo closed the door behind him, and faced the supposed healer, taking in the man’s pock-marked face and dirty hands for the first time. Even at this early hour, his breath held the sour smell of too much wine.

  “Where is Lady Masina?”

  “Lady Masina Contarini left Venice six days ago,” the physician answered in a simpering tone, “on my advice to rest and recuperate at Dom Pietro’s country estate. The watery airs here made her ill, and it was her husband’s wish that she leave the city. She sent word that she’s already on her way home.”

  No doubt, and she’d travel as slowly as possible. Masina wouldn’t want to deal with the inconvenient situation of arriving and finding her husband still alive. “My uncle is suffering. Can you do nothing for him, give him something to ease the pain?”

  “Old age . . . and the plague,” the man explained in a dour voice, lifting his hands and then dropping them to show his helplessness. “Even my strongest potions have been ineffective against the vapors that struck down this great Venetian noble.”

  More likely Masina wanted her husband to suffer as much as possible. His uncle might be an old man, nearly sixty, but his health and vigor had remained strong until he married Masina.

  “Yes, so I see,” Nicolo said. Not even a fool could mistake the signs of poison for the plague, but this so-called physician and the tearful widow would say otherwise, and no one would contradict them. “Has the priest been summoned?”

  “Of course. He came this morning to confess your uncle.” Alvise crossed himself piously. “Dom Pietro will journey to heaven with his sins forgiven.”

  A false priest, or a venial one, well paid to ignore the symptoms of poison. In Venice, priests often exceeded the ruling nobles in corruption. Nicolo felt the urge to thrust his sword into Alvise’s belly but that would accomplish nothing. Pietro would likely be dead by morning. As soon as Lady Masina returned with her entourage, she’d take control of the house, the staff, and all his uncle’s wealth and property. Whatever will and testament Dom Pietro had drawn up would disappear, to be replaced by one she would produce, and the Signoria would authenticate it. Large sums of ducats would change hands and another bedchamber murder would go unpunished. Politics in the Venetian Republic were not for the faint of heart.

  “At least bathe his body and change the linen,” Nicolo ordered. He moved closer to the healer. “If I return and find him like this . . .”

  “Of course, of course. The servants were about to attend to your uncle.”

  “Well then, physician, tend to your duties and think about your own sins for a change.”

  He pushed past the servants, d
escended the stairs, and stepped out into the street, walking away from the big house. When he and Maffeo crossed the lane, Nicolo stopped and looked back at Dom Pietro’s domicile. The black cloth that framed the doorway swirled in the sea breeze. Death’s demon had indeed come to this house.

  “Is it the Black Death?” Maffeo inclined his shaven head toward the house. Eight years older than Nicolo, he’d served and guarded his master for almost ten years, and the two men had grown as close as brothers.

  “No, it’s not the plague, but he’ll be dead soon enough,” Nicolo said. “His strumpet of a wife poisoned him. He begged me to save Filippa and his son from the same fate.”

  “Are we still going to England?” Maffeo had lived in Venice too long to be surprised at such a commonplace crime.

  “Yes, but we’re taking them with us. We have to get them out of Italy, or they’ll both be dead within a week. So we’ll change our plans. We leave tomorrow at dawn.”

  “God’s bones, Nicolo, I’ll have to collect the men, gather the supplies . . . and traveling with a woman and an infant . . . it’ll take at least an extra month to get to London.”

  Nicolo sighed. “I know, old friend. But if anyone can do it, you can. Unless you want to face the men Masina will send against us. Just get the sturdiest traveling cart and best horses you can find. I’ll go talk to Filippa.”

  “And if she doesn’t want to come?”

  “Filippa can stay if she wants, but the child is coming with us.”

  “You shouldn’t be going about by yourself.” Maffeo glanced up and down the lane. “That so-called doctor dispatched a servant somewhere as soon as you went into the bedroom. Masina’s friends can hire a dozen street thugs within the hour.”

  “She won’t return to Venice until she receives word that my uncle is dead. With a little luck, we’ll be well on our way before Masina even learns we’ve taken Filippa and the child. Perhaps by then she’ll be too busy spending my uncle’s money and celebrating his burial to care.”