by Victor Foia
When the ship drew level with Maiden’s Drowning, the pirates lowered the sail and switched to rowing. Just before reaching Maiden’s Teeth they dropped anchor, showing knowledge of the cove’s underwater threat and not daring to brave it.
Gruya came into the room wearing a Spanish breastplate still glistening with olive oil and a knight’s helmet that had been dented in three places by the monks’ projectiles. On his waist dangled a four-foot broadsword.
“You look ready to take on the rest of the pirates all by yourself,” Vlad said. “Or, to serve as a scarecrow in the kitchen garden.”
Gruya laughed. “It does feel great to be weighed down with steel, after walking around unarmed like a pastry baker. Cock Island’s turning out to be fun, after all. What’s your plan for today?”
Vlad looked out the window. “That depends on them,” he said, and pointed to the distance with his chin.
Just then the pirates were lowering a boat into the water. When the boat detached itself from the galley, Vlad saw there were no more than ten men in it.
“It looks like they’ll be coming in two batches,” Vlad said. “We’ll deal with them one batch at a time, once they get inside the courtyard.”
They left the room and went to issue instructions to the monks. The men were assembled around a wine barrel that had been hoisted on an improvised scaffold. From their grins and snickers, it was evident they’d been imbibing for some time.
“I thought we needed an air of authenticity,” Gruya said when Vlad threw him a reproachful look. “Don’t we want the pirates to believe they’re about to join a feast in progress?”
Vlad looked up to the tower and saw Lash holding up nine fingers. That meant at most eight attackers would be coming, if one was to return with the boat for the rest of the party.
“This should be easy,” Vlad called out to the monks, “if you ease up on the wine.”
The men turned to him, shamefaced, clutching swords, axes, and pikes awkwardly, like timid men handling women’s undergarments.
“It seems we’ll have eight visitors to start with,” he said. “Once they enter the courtyard, I’ll shut the gate. The rest is up to you.”
“You might not be experienced fighters,” Gruya said, “but surprise is on your side. Now, in the name of Saint Nicholas, let me hear you sing like drunken sailors.”
Vlad placed himself behind the open gate, a Florentine sword in one hand, a Venetian mace in the other.
Oh, Father, forgive Gruya, for he knows not what he does, he thought when he heard the monks break into a Romanian song. Their clear pronunciation of words they didn’t understand testified to the amount of effort Gruya had put into teaching them:
“Faceţi cercul nu fiţi hoţi
“Sa ne intre’n cur la toţi.”
What would these men of God think if they knew the song was about naked monks following each other closely in a circle:
“Circle’s great, it isn’t cheating,
“Good for taking and for giving.”
After a few more stanzas in the same vein, Gruya’s voice rose above the others as he gave the cue for the next song. The monks belted out the words at the top of their lungs:
“Doamne bine’i cind te fuţi,
“ Toate grijile le uiţi
“Dai din cur si stringi din dinţi
“ Obiceiul din parinţi.”
Vlad noted how quickly Gruya had graduated his pupils from a lesson on group buggery to the praise of fornication, with the monks being never the wiser:
“God, how great it is to fuck,
“Oh, what pleasure, oh, what luck,
“Grind your ass and gnash your teeth,
“Worthy custom to bequeath.”
Vlad was spared a further rollout of Gruya’s sizable repertoire of inspiring ditties by the timely arrival of the pirates. They too must have heard the merriment taking place in the courtyard. As they emerged from the path leading up the cliff, they hooted and broke into a trot toward the gate.
It does sound like an authentic feast inside there, Vlad had to admit.
The pirates crossed the threshold unaware of Vlad’s presence, and jostled each other in their hurry to reach the courtyard. Vlad shut the gate and stood ready to receive the first pirate trying to bolt.
The moment the pirates emerged into the open, the singing was replaced by wild screams. Vlad saw the monks pouncing from all directions upon their uninvited guests, stabbing, slashing, and hammering them with unsuspected gusto.
It was over in less than a minute, without Vlad’s having to pitch in.
“Clean up,” Gruya shouted from somewhere in the courtyard, “we’ve got another party to give.”
The monks dragged the eight corpses to a storage room at the far side of the courtyard. Then they sluiced the ground with water from the monastery’s cistern, passing buckets from hand to hand. Finally, they sprinkled the ground with the hay they had collected for this purpose the day before.
Then, as if the massacre they’d perpetrated only minutes before never happened, they began to sing and drink again, with abandon. To Vlad’s surprise, he saw Kalimakos join his brothers in the wait for the pirates, a pike in hand.
Six more pirates fell into the monks’ murderous trap, and were dispatched with more zest than the situation warranted. Before the last of the wounded expired, Vlad managed to extract from him the name of the person left in charge of the galley: Balthazar.
“See what a bit of wine and a few good songs can do for the human spirit?” Gruya said, evidently much pleased with the results of his two days of mentoring. “Now, add a few wenches to this mix and—”
“Get Illarion and the two fisher monks,” Vlad said, impatient, “and let’s deal with the ship before nightfall.”
59
BOY IN DISTRESS
June 1443, Athos Peninsula, Ottoman Empire
Vlad and Gruya donned the clothes taken off two of the corpses. They also appropriated their headgear. Gruya’s was a jester’s hat in green and red, with silver bells at the points. Vlad’s was a black velvet roundlet with gold braided trim and white feathers. From the distance, the deception ought to be complete.
Gruya caressed the cloth of his doublet. “Except for my cap, I could pass for a respectable Italian merchant.”
“The pirates must’ve taken a wealthy ship within the past few weeks,” Vlad said. “These clothes don’t show much wear.”
In addition to the sword and dagger Vlad had acquired from a pirate killed three days ago, he also took along his bow and the only five arrows he owned.
“None of us is certain to return from this expedition,” Vlad told the three monks when they reached the pirates’ tender, moored at the monastery’s pier. “Are you ready to die for your brothers and for the relics?”
“So help me God,” Illarion said without hesitation.
Cyril and Methodius looked at each other furtively, then nodded without conviction.
Gruya laughed and slapped them on the back. “Come, monks, cheer up and start rowing. You have the chance of going to paradise today. Isn’t that what every monk desires?”
A cold wind was blowing from the east, ruffling up the surface of the cove and making the water over the Maiden’s Teeth churn. The tender was somewhat unwieldy, but Cyril and Methodius, skilled boatmen, negotiated the passage between the treacherous rocks with ease.
Once in the open waters, Vlad discovered the wind was stronger than he’d anticipated. Two-foot waves were now crashing onto their boat, drenching them with frigid water.
Gruya stood up precariously on the prow and began to gesticulate. Vlad placed the bow at his feet and imitated him.
“Hola Balthazar,” Gruya shouted.
Four figures appeared on the deck.
“There must be two more,” Gruya said.
“One is ill, according to the Catalan,” Illarion said.
“He won’t be by the time we’re done with him,” Gruya said, then shouted again, “Bal
thazar.” He pointed demonstratively at the three monks behind him.
The men on the deck cheered.
They were about fifty yards from the galley. If Vlad shot his arrows now, he was likely to miss, owing to the swaying of the boat. Tirendaz could take all four pirates out in one rapid volley. But Vlad’s archery skills weren’t up to this challenge.
If he waited much longer, the men on deck would detect Vlad and Gruya’s ruse and be prepared to fight them off.
“Sit down with back to the galley,” Vlad ordered Gruya. He too sat and pulled his roundlet over his brow.
At a distance of thirty yards, Vlad jumped to his feet and loosed an arrow at a pirate whose large girth made him the best target. The man took the arrow in his chest, clutched at the shaft, then dropped to his knees staring at Vlad, confounded.
For a few moments his three cohorts appeared equally perplexed. Then one of them screamed, “ Traïció! Hissar la vela, Treason! Hoist the sail,” and ran to the stern where he slashed the anchor line with a blow of his sword. From his commanding ways Vlad deduced he was Balthazar.
The other two men scrambled to the mast and began to pull at the halyard with frantic moves. The sail, bunched up along the yard, began to unfurl and immediately caught the wind.
Vlad shot an arrow at them, but missed.
“They’re getting away,” Gruya shouted. He stood on the prow again, this time sword in hand.
“They’re stupid,” Vlad said. “The wind’s pushing them onto Maiden’s Teeth.”
“Pressa, en nom de Déu, Hurry, in God’s name,” Balthazar bellowed at his men, then plunged belowdecks.
Vlad had only three arrows left and decided to save them for later.
Balthazar reemerged with a crossbow in hand. He surveyed the scene, then aimed at Gruya.
“Duck,” Vlad shouted, and shot at Balthazar. This time his arrow connected, entering the pirate’s left eye. But Balthazar had already loosed his quarrel. It hit Illarion on the back of his head and poked out through his gorge.
Cyril and Methodius dropped the oars and cowered under their benches. The tender bobbed erratically on the waves, while the galley, sail half deployed, drifted toward Maiden’s Teeth.
Gruya tossed Illarion’s body aside and took over the rowing. Vlad aimed an arrow at one of the two men handling the sail, but the distance to the galley had already increased to over forty yards, so he gave up the attempt.
Another pirate appeared from belowdecks, he too armed with a crossbow. At this distance his weapon would be deadly accurate. There was nothing for Vlad and Gruya to do but to hope his aim wasn’t good. They both crouched below the gunwale to make themselves as small a target as possible, and waited.
There was a crack of timber breaking, followed by shrieks coming from the galley’s hold. When Vlad looked up, the ship had ceased drifting and was pointing slightly upward. The man with the crossbow had disappeared. A few moments later Vlad saw him thrashing his arms in the water, trying to climb back on board.
Gruya resumed rowing. With the galley stuck on Maiden’s Teeth, the tender pulled alongside it in less than a minute. The pirate in the water found himself squeezed between the two crafts. Gruya swung one of the oars and crushed his skull.
“Get a grip on yourselves,” Vlad yelled at Cyril and Methodius, who’d taken cover behind Illarion’s corpse and were whimpering. “Keep the tender ready while we fetch your brothers.”
Gruya planted his dagger onto the side of the galley to hold it fast. “The topside looks clear.”
Vlad clawed his way onto the deck expecting someone to pounce on him any moment. “Look for the remaining pirates on top, while I go below,” he said, as he helped Gruya aboard.
With the prow resting on the rocks, the deck had tilted toward the stern under the weight of the water flooding the hold.
The cries from belowdecks intensified.
Vlad peered through the hatch into the hold and saw no movement. Then, sword in hand, he began to climb slowly down the ladder, knowing he’d be an easy target for someone wanting to stab him.
“Any pirates down there?” he shouted in Greek.
“Save us,” voices responded, also in Greek. “We’re drowning.”
Gruya hollered from the prow, “I’ve got all three of them.”
Vlad found the prisoners roped together in the rear of the hold, behind the last rowers’ bench. In the dim light their faces reflected both the despair of their condition and the hope of deliverance. The stench of human waste surrounding them spoke of the treatment the pirates had reserved for their prey. Now Vlad regretted he’d allowed those monsters the easy deaths they’d received.
He counted only seven monks instead of the eight Illarion had reported as captured.
“They’ve thrown Brother Alexis overboard,” one of the monks said, “for being too old.”
Vlad cut the monks’ bindings, and they began to file laboriously up the ladder, invoking the names of their favorite saints. He peered into the space left vacant by the monks, now half flooded, and concluded it was empty.
“What happened to the two Arabs and the boy who were in the galley before you?” he said.
“Oh, the men died three days ago,” the last monk on the ladder said.
“And the boy?”
“He’s there, all the way in the back. But I think he’s dead. We haven’t heard a peep out of him for two days.”
“You think he’s dead?” Vlad shouted. “And you’re ready to save your ass without bothering to check on him?”
“But he’s—he’s not one of us,” the monk said. “He’s a heathen.”
“I don’t give a fuck what he is,” Vlad said then mentally added, imbecile.
The place at the very back of the hold was dark, so Vlad had to grope blindly for the boy while the stench made him gag. He found him submerged to his chin in water, and gave him a reassuring touch. The boy shivered and whimpered, but said nothing.
“Come,” Vlad said in Greek, grasping his elbow, “I’ll take you topside.”
The boy wouldn’t let go of something he was holding on to, like a cat refusing rescue from a tree.
Vlad repeated his words in Latin, then Turkish, then Arabic. The boy wouldn’t budge.
Annoyed, Vlad yanked him free of his hold and dragged him to the foot of the ladder. The boy squirmed, kicked, and scratched Vlad with unexpected fury.
Gruya witnessed the commotion from above. He took two steps down the ladder, grabbed the boy by the back of his shirt, and hoisted him onto the deck.
As Vlad climbed the ladder, another plank cracked and more water rushed into the hold.
“Do you want me to search the ship for coins?” Gruya said. “They’ll come in handy when we finally decide to get away from Cock Island.”
The wind was howling now, and heavy clouds were rolling westward. If they didn’t hurry, they’d soon be overtaken by darkness, unable to navigate their way into the cove between the Maiden’s rapacious teeth.
“We’ll come back in the morning,” Vlad said.
Cyril had gained the initiative and tethered the boat to the galley with a line thrown him by one of the monks. All but two of the men had boarded the tender. The stragglers were carrying a bulky wooden chest they must’ve retrieved from the captain’s cabin.
When the monks saw Vlad lifting the boy over the gunwale, they started to vociferate.
One of them shouted, “There isn’t enough room for everyone. We’re going to capsize and drown.”
“We don’t have enough space for the holy relics and for the heathen boy,” said another monk.
Vlad set the boy down, but kept hold of to him, fearing he’d run back into the hold.
“Oh, you’re right, dear friends, there isn’t enough room.” He turned to Gruya. “Would you, please, solve this problem for us?”
“Sure thing, My Prince,” Gruya said and wrestled the chest from the two monks carrying it. “If the relics are truly sacred, the sea will spit them ou
t.” Then he tossed the chest overboard.
60
LAPIS LAZULI
June 1443, Athos Peninsula, Ottoman Empire
Get me hot water, soap, and a towel,” Vlad said to Lash when he encountered him in the monastery’s courtyard. Vlad was carrying the boy, limp in his arms, and was eager to put him down since the stench of his clothes was near unbearable. “And hurry! He’s close to dying of cold.”
Gruya approached Vlad from behind, lantern raised high, and peered over his shoulder. “He needs food and water.”
Indeed, the boy’s cheeks were sunken, as if he hadn’t eaten well for weeks, and his lips were cracked from dehydration.
“I’ve got to revive him up first,” Vlad said. “Find me an extra blanket.”
In his room, Vlad dropped the boy onto his cot then threw open the shutters and stuck his head out the opening, gulping the night air.
Moments later Gruya appeared with a frayed blanket. “I’ll sleep in the cellar tonight,” he said then dashed out, hand clamped to his nose.
I would’ve had the kid mess up your bed instead of mine, had I known, Vlad thought, envious of Gruya’s prospects for the night.
“He won’t be wearing these rags anymore,” Vlad said when Lash arrived with the cleaning supplies. “When we’re done here, sew him an outfit from my spare shirt and trousers.”
Vlad flipped the boy face down and ripped open his drenched clothes with the dagger. The child had little flesh on his bones, and where his skin wasn’t darkened by dirt it was livid from cold.
“He must not have slept for days in that cesspool of a galley,” he said. “I’ve been in some bad places myself, but that ship takes the prize.”
He tore one of the towels into four washcloths and soaked them in warm, soapy water. Then he used the cloths to swab the boy’s back, arms, and legs until they were reasonably clean.
Lash chafed the boy’s exposed skin with a rough towel and it gradually turned pink.
