House of War

by Victor Foia

“Arcadicus.”

  “Oh,” Vlad cried, as he now understood the familiarity in the old man’s voice.

  The abbot’s indeed a player in my destiny. It was Arcadicus who, a year ago at Bucur’s Crossing, had pointed Vlad in the direction of Omar’s raiding party.

  He resumed his run, skipping three steps at a time. To lay his hands on Theodore’s account of what the angel had told him was an undreamed-of boon. He’d finally have the answers he’d been seeking since he heard Theodore for the first time.

  In the cellar he crossed paths with Kalimakos, who stepped aside with a servile bow. In front of the abbot’s cell Vlad found two monks laying bricks across the threshold, their cassocks spattered with mortar.

  “I’ve got to take my leave of the abbot,” he said and stepped over the new brick wall, already knee-high.

  An odor of decay greeted him.

  The cot had been removed from the cell and the abbot was lying on his back on the floor, dressed in an ordinary black cassock. A wooden crucifix, an icon, and a candle were the only objects to accompany Arcadicus on his last journey.

  Vlad decided the record of the prophecy would stay behind.

  He prized the loose brick free, fingers itching with anticipation, and tossed it to the ground. Then he groped inside the secret niche for the sack containing the precious scroll.

  The cavity was empty.

  A chocking fury kept Vlad nailed to the spot for several minutes; he couldn’t remember where he was; flashing lights played in his left eye and his hands quivered. Then his mind cleared and he left the cell with a sure step. He found the novice seated on his load of bricks at the top of the stairs and returned his lantern to him. “Have you seen Kalimakos?”

  “He came out from below just after you went down,” the novice said. “I think he’s gone for a walk; perhaps to meditate on the abbot’s passing.”

  “Oh, I’ll give him something to meditate on.” Vlad dashed out of the courtyard and immediately spotted the monk gazing at the sea on the cliff overlooking Maiden’s Drowning. Kalimakos didn’t budge even when he must’ve heard Vlad approaching him at a run. Vlad tackled him to the ground, sending his skufia rolling. Then he straddled him and clawed at the breast of his cassock with both hands. “Where is it?” he shouted.

  Kalimakos gave him a serene look and remained silent.

  Vlad’s fury turned to frenzy. He grabbed a rock the size of his fist and brandished it in the monk’s face. “I’ll kill you if you don’t tell me.”

  When Kalimakos’s expression didn’t change something snapped inside Vlad and his anger turned to shame. I have no proof he’s taken the scroll, yet I’m ready to bash his brain. He stood and threw the rock into the sea, overcome with self-loathing. I’m no better than he.

  57

  DEADLY THREAT

  June 1443, Athos Peninsula, Ottoman Empire

  Vlad wasn’t given much time to dwell on the disappearance of the scroll, or on his inability to communicate with Mara. The day following the abbot’s entombment an event unfolded that would overshadow the former concern, and bring a resolution to the latter.

  A monk arrived from the west coast of the peninsula and reported a fresh pirate raid upon Simonos Petra, his monastery. The Theotókos monks listened, wide-eyed and openmouthed. Even Vlad and Gruya were drawn to the gathering in the courtyard.

  “It’s was as if God had forsaken us,” the newcomer said. “Satan’s bastards stole our wine and burned our church to the ground. Not much is left of the other buildings either.”

  “What about your relics, Brother Illarion?” Kalimakos asked. “You’ve surely hid them in the caves, haven’t you?”

  Illarion had lost his skufia, and his cassock was in tatters. He raised his eyes to the sky and crossed himself. “Of course we have, Brother Kalimakos. But when the bandits couldn’t find anything of value they fanned out into the hills and—”

  “And captured some of your brothers,” Gruya said, in a derisive tone. “Then they squeezed their nuts until they gave out the hiding places.” He was sitting on an upturned barrel, picking his teeth with an acacia thorn.

  The monks turned to him like one with disapproving expressions.

  “What?” Gruya said, innocent. “That’s what I’d do if I were a pirate.”

  “What did the bandits do after taking prisoners and stealing your relics?” Vlad said.

  Kalimakos gave Vlad a disparaging look. “That’s a stupid question. They’ve surely left with their booty, as they always do. Praised be Theotókos, we won’t be seeing the likes of them on Athos for another three, four months.”

  “You’re probably right,” Gruya said. “It will take them that long to sell your brothers, then sail back to this prodigious hunting ground.”

  “Oh, no,” Illarion said, “they haven’t all left this time. A dozen of them stayed behind when their ship departed.”

  “Which monastery’s the richest in relics?” Vlad said.

  “We are the only ones to possess a piece of the True Cross,” one of the monks said, proud.

  “And we’ve got the shawl the Holy Virgin wore when she docked in Maiden’s Drowning with John the Evangelist,” said another.

  The novice poked his head from behind the cordon of monks. “The Virgin asked Jesus to make Athos her garden.”

  “Save the New Testament lessons for the pirates,” Gruya said. “They’re sure to be paying us a visit as soon as they get over their drunkenness.”

  “Bite your sinful tongue, young man,” Kalimakos said and crossed himself.

  “That’s why the pirates split,” Vlad said. “The ones on land are coming our way to prevent you from fleeing to the hills with your valuables, while the others are bringing their ship around.”

  The monks fell silent for a moment, then broke into a cacophony of cries and lamentations, wringing their hands, eyes raised heavenward.

  “What do we do, Brother Kalimakos?” the novice said. “You said we’d be safe if we hid in the caves.”

  The monks stopped lamenting and fixed Kalimakos with frightened stares.

  “Toll the bell and pray,” Kalimakos said. “Quick, start tolling the bell and don’t stop until—”

  “Don’t listen to him,” Gruya said. “God already knows what’s happening down here without your disturbing His nap.”

  “If you’re planning to hide,” Vlad said, “it’s best you take your treasure and slink away now. Tomorrow it will be too late.”

  “Yeah, and do it in silence,” Gruya said. “No need to alert the pirates you’re on the move.”

  The novice broke rank with the monks and stepped close to Vlad. “I’d rather stay here and fight,” he said, “than be captured in some hole, like a mole, and be taken into captivity.”

  “Me too,” Illarion said, and followed the novice’s move. “I’d risk my life to free my brothers, if I got some help.”

  A couple of other monks sidled up to Vlad.

  “There is place in the monastery only for fighters,” Gruya said. “Anyone one not inclined to be one, join Sister Kalimakos and clear the place quickly.”

  “But we’ve got no weapons,” one of the undecided monks said.

  “Neither do I,” Gruya said, then chuckled. “I was told not to bring weapons to a place meant only for prayer and meditation.”

  Vlad stood. “I’ve got a bow and a handful of arrows. But those won’t do. Bring into the courtyard all the garden tools you have. Spades, shovels, scythes, axes … Lash will turn them into weapons for us.”

  This persuaded the remaining monks, except Kalimakos, to declare for resistance to the pirates.

  “And seeing you’re adept at throwing stones,” Gruya said, “go gather a few bushelfuls. Think of the pirates as naked women.”

  Kalimakos gave Gruya a venomous look then headed for the church.

  “I want you up in the tower,” Gruya said to the novice. “When you see the pirates, throw a handful of pebbles onto the courtyard to alert us. No shouti
ng, though. Let those miserable vermin approach Theotókos in confidence, thinking they’re surprising us.”

  For the rest of the day the courtyard rang with Lash’s hammering and echoed with Gruya’s orders, as he directed the monks’ travails. By vespers, a dozen stone-filled bushels had been hauled onto the parapet above the gate. Next to them two large cauldrons filled with olive oil were suspended over charcoal fires and kept boiling. When darkness fell, they shut and barred the gate.

  A dozen pirates emerged from the hills at noon the next day.

  “Who said we’ve got no weapons?” Gruya was squinting through a knothole in a plank of the new gate. “Axes, spears, swords … why, these gentlemen are going to supply us with all the weapons we need.”

  Vlad took Gruya’s place at the peephole. He saw the pirates seventy yards away, sauntering toward the monastery, seeming unconcerned with what might be awaiting them there.

  “We must get them to bunch up close to the gate,” Vlad said, “so we might kill a large number of them in the first attack. Once they see the reception we’ve planned for them, the survivors will scatter and wait for their cohorts to arrive with the ship.”

  “How are you planning to get their weapons?” Illarion said. He appeared determined, though as pale as if he’d been locked up in a dark place for a long time. Like Gruya and Vlad he was clutching a crude spear Lash had fashioned from a spade.

  “My plan’s to say, ‘please,’” Gruya said. “What do you think?”

  The pirates were now only fifty yards away. The man in the lead stopped and pointed to the monastery. The others caught up with him, and the group appeared to be deliberating.

  “They’ve noticed the gate,” Vlad said when laughter rose from the pirates’ party. “They’ll be knocking on our door soon.”

  “Now I wish we’d installed a beautiful knocker,” Gruya said. “You know, for that all-important first impression.”

  Vlad glanced behind him, where, at the end of the passageway, one of the monks was waiting to relay his signals to the men atop the parapet: arms crossed, ring the bells; one arm raised, dump the oil on the attackers; two arms raised, shower them with stones; arms stretched to the side, stop all attacks from above.

  The pirates were close enough now that Vlad could hear distinct words in a language he thought might be Catalan. The imminence of danger made his fingers tingle.

  “I’d feel better if they weren’t Christians,” he whispered.

  “And I’d feel better if they weren’t here,” Gruya said.

  “They aren’t true Christians,” Illarion said. “They’re Catholic.”

  Vlad remembered that only four years ago at the Council of Florence, the Catholic and Orthodox Churches agreed to set aside their differences and fight the Ottomans together. Yet, most simple folks on both sides thought just like Illarion.

  So much for the church of Christ standing united.

  The gravel outside the gate crunched under the pirates’ boots, then there was silence. Someone drew a sword and pounded on the gate with its pommel.

  “Good monks of Theotókos Monastery,” a bass voice shouted in faulty Greek, “open gate and nothing bad coming to you.”

  Gruya moved close to the knothole, an iron spike in one hand, a mallet in the other.

  “We know you there,” the bass said. “Open gate and we take communion in church.”

  The light coming through the knothole dimmed, and an eye appeared in the opening. With the speed of a lynx pawing a prey, Gruya leveled the spike at the hole and drove it through with his mallet. There was a slurping sound, then the thud of a body hitting the ground. The next moment, gasps of outrage erupted outside the gate and merged into a deafening, hate-filled, collective bellow. Several pirates began to pound on the gate with their fists.

  “Be quiet,” Gruya shouted over the uproar. “I’ve got something to say.”

  Someone barked an order in Catalan, and the uproar died.

  “Translate for me, my friend,” Gruya said, and the same pirate spoke again in Catalan.

  “From what I remember,” Gruya said, “and true, it’s been a few months, so I might be mistaken—” He waited until the man translated. “—even your mothers’ tits are harder than your fists. You should’ve brought them along to help you break down this gate.”

  When the translation was completed, there was a chorus of harsh utterances, no doubt curses of the kind that make weak men feel strong. Then the gate began to shudder under the furious blows of axes and maces.

  “Next time leave people’s mothers out of our business,” Vlad said, severe.

  Gruya shrugged. “You wanted them clustered near the gate; well, they have.”

  Vlad crossed his arms, and a few seconds later all three of the monastery bells started to toll. Their strident, urgent sound drowned the noise made on the parapet by the monks dragging the oil cauldrons onto the lip of the wall.

  Vlad raised an arm.

  There was a splash accompanied by the vibration of the ground as hundreds of gallons of boiling oil were simultaneously decanted upon the hapless assailants. From the ensuing screams Vlad judged that most of the men must’ve gotten scalded to some degree.

  He raised both arms.

  The thundering clatter of hundreds of stones hitting the ground drowned the wails of those scalded by the oil. Now and then Vlad heard a muffled thump as a large stone hit its target.

  He stretched out both arms to the side, and the rock shower died off.

  “Open the gate,” he shouted to Illarion.

  Vlad dashed out into the open and sank his spear into the chest of the first pirate he came to, a short, fat man whose face had blossomed into crimson blisters under the deluge of boiling oil. Vlad sidestepped his victim and skipped to his right, to get around the pile of fallen bodies.

  “Go left,” he shouted at Gruya over his shoulder.

  Then realizing his friend wasn’t able to hear for the clapping of the bells, he turned and pointed with his finger. That moment a large man wielding a scimitar appeared in his field of vision from the right. As Vlad turned to face his attacker, he slipped on an oil puddle and fell on his back, just as the man’s weapon bore down upon him.

  Vlad lay supine, expecting the pain to kick in and tell him where he’d been cut. The man raised the scimitar above his head for a second blow.

  Does this mean you’ve missed, or only that you want to finish me off? he thought with the detachment of someone watching a contest of arms from the distance. Then he heard his grandmother saying, A thousand may fall at your side, ten thousand at your right hand, but no evil should be allowed to befall you. Irrationally, he wanted to point out to her she’d conflated disparate lines from Psalm 91 to contrive this optimistic forecast. Instead he said, with an onrush of terror, “Are you sure?” It seemed like a long time before Oma replied, somewhat peeved, Well, … no, if you sit on your ass.

  Her answer yanked him out his state of confusion, and he managed to roll sideways just before the pirate’s blade struck the ground with great force. Vlad scrambled to his feet, spear in hand. The pirate, perhaps hearing voices of his own, turned to flee. Repressing his distaste for attacking from behind, Vlad speared the man between the shoulder blades with a swift lunge, then turned to look for the next threat.

  There was none.

  Six of the pirates lay with their skulls crushed by the stones. Illarion was repeatedly stabbing a seventh one who’d been blinded by the boiling oil. The poor man was begging for mercy in broken Greek, without success.

  “Enough,” Vlad shouted.

  Illarion stopped and gave Vlad a puzzled look. “Don’t you want me to kill—?”

  “I’ve done my best to keep these two characters alive,” Gruya said and pointed at two pirates seated on the ground, backs against the wall. “I thought you might want to question them.”

  Alive the men were, but not for long. They were bleeding hard from the wounds Gruya had inflicted on them.

  “Do y
ou speak Greek?” Vlad said to the dying men.

  “Little,” one of them said. His lips and nose were hideously swollen from the effect of the hot oil.

  “Are you a Spaniard?”

  “Catalan.”

  “If you tell me what signals you’re expected to give your cohorts on the ship,” Vlad said, “I’ll see to it both of you are given your last rites.”

  The man seemed to ponder the offer.

  “Bring me a crucifix, Illarion,” Vlad said. “And make it fast. These men have little time to live.”

  Illarion left at a trot and returned two minutes later with a wooden cross.

  Vlad held the cross up to the Catalan, and the man reached for it.

  “The signals first,” Vlad said.

  “Fire on top of tower, if all good,” the Catalan said. “If not good, fire on cliff-top.”

  Vlad placed the cross to the man’s lips, then said, “How many pirates on the ship?”

  The Catalan hesitated; Vlad pulled the cross away.

  “Twenty, but one very sick.”

  “How many prisoners?” Vlad said.

  The Catalan counted on his fingers.

  “Eight monks, two Arabs, and a boy.”

  “How many slaves row your galley?”

  “We do it ourselves,” the Catalan said, with a hint of smugness. “You think we trust lives to slaves?”

  “Come recite the Lord’s Prayer over these sinners, Illarion,” Vlad said and stood. “The Catalan’s earned it for both of them.”

  “But I’m not an ordained priest,” Illarion said.

  “Well, if you prefer to stab them instead,” Vlad said, “go ahead. But then don’t expect my help with rescuing your brothers.”

  58

  WORTHY CUSTOM TO BEQUEATH

  June 1443, Athos Peninsula, Ottoman Empire

  Over the next two days the monks occupied themselves with burying the twelve dead and cleaning up the skirmish’s aftermath. The better-built among them took lessons from Gruya on the use of the various weapons inherited from the attackers.

  The pirate ship appeared on the afternoon of the third day, moving slowly up the coast under the wind gathered by its lateen sail. Vlad saw it from his window, and sent Lash to light the fire in the tower. Because the day was sunny Lash fed the fire wet grasses that gave out a black smoke clearly visible against the blue sky.