Burdens of the Dead

by Mercedes Lackey

  Androcles shook his head sadly. “Just before dawn. You have no poetry in your soul, Benito Valdosta. Even the Romans had more poetry than you. You should spend more time with the ancient poets and less with bladesmen.” He dived.

  Benito went off to ask his grandfather just what “Aurora’s red fingers” meant. It sounded murderous, not poetic.

  “Who’s Aurora?” he asked without preamble, as he entered his grandfather’s cabin.

  The Old Fox didn’t even look up from the papers he was studying. “Latin. Goddess of the dawn.”

  “Ah.” He pondered that. “She has red fingers?”

  “According to Homer, yes.” Now the old man looked up at him. “Well, ‘rosy’ would be a more poetic translation. ‘Rosy-fingered dawn.’” The old man looked nostalgic. “It used to be the vogue to address one’s mistress that way when you woke.”

  Benito decided not to ask who or what Homer was, and resigned himself to early rising. “And Poseidon?”

  The Old Fox blinked, then frowned. “Your education is severely lacking, Benito. He was an ancient Greek god of the sea. And earthquakes, if I remember it rightly.”

  Earthquakes. The sea, Benito thought he had…well, not control, but at least a kind of understanding with. But earthquakes? “Hopefully he’ll stay away. Or level the walls of Constantinople for us.”

  His grandfather shook his head. “Earthquakes we just hope stay away. You weren’t born yet, but I was traveling to Rome for a pilgrimage…well, on Ferrara’s business really, when there was a small tremor. Well, they told me it was ‘small’ but I tell you, it was large enough for me. It destroyed the town I had overnighted in, and made my gut feel like water. I would rather face a score of wild boars. Such things are too powerful for any man.”

  Benito decided to take his word for it. And about Aurora too. “Rosy-fingered dawn”…he had an idea just how Maria would respond to being saluted that way. First she’d take him literally and look with dismay to see if her hands were stained with something. Then she’d tell him he was insane.

  On to more important matters.

  Benito sent a message to Captain Di Tharra, who—as everyone knew—always personally checked on the fleet when he woke, which was always early.

  Someone had to like daybreak.

  They met on the sea-wall as the sky began to pale, Benito yawning fit to crack his jaw in half. “You said that it was necessary that we meet?” said the Genovese officer, a little warily.

  “I said I would try and arrange a meeting for you, rather,” said Benito, yawning again. “If it was me wanting to meet I would have chosen a better time and a warmer place.”

  Di Tharra peered intently at him. “You mean the…”

  “Triton. Yes. There he is.” Benito didn’t point, but he did nod down into the ocean at their feet.

  Di Tharra stood, transfixed, staring, agape.

  “Is he a statue?” said Androcles sardonically. “I’d have carved him with the mouth closed myself.”

  “You, you speak?” said Di Tharra, his voice quavering.

  Androcles snorted, but he didn’t seem displeased. “Several human languages. So, Valdosta says you are from the colony.”

  Di Tharra stiffened slightly and drew back. “The Genoese refer to us as colonials,” he said as if he were not in fact captaining a vessel of Genoese fleet. “But my family has been in Sardinia for many generations.”

  “Oh, long before for the sailors from Liguria,” said the triton, showing his sharp teeth. “Long, long before that. But you humans have probably forgotten. The Shardana, the Sea People, the people of the rootless tree, eventually settled there, a good many thousand years back. They were colonists then. We were once allies of theirs. Of yours. I recognize your blood. Thinned, but unmistakable.”

  Di Tharra stared as if he were receiving revelations. Perhaps he was. “My family coat of arms is the uprooted tree of Aboria, and the greatsword, supported by tritons!” he exclaimed.

  “A fish-tongue sword,” said the triton with some satisfaction.

  “What?” Di Tharra was beginning to sound like Benito had. Benito was secretly pleased that he wasn’t the only one to be baffled by the triton.

  “The hilt is shaped like a fish,” Androcles explained patiently. “With the mouth wide, and the blade protruding. The Shardana used them. Take a closer look some time, you’ll see.”

  “It does have a rather odd hilt,” Di Tharra said slowly, then with growing pleasure.

  “And the crest?” asked Benito, curious.

  “It’s not a real crest,” Di Tharra said, then amended “Well, not what the Genoese would call a ‘real crest.’ It’s a conch-shell.”

  Benito looked at the triton, and then at the captain from Sardinia. “Well, I hope you don’t mind my saying, but I’m pleased to have been the one to re-introduce your families. However, I think our time is running short. Dawn will be along soon, and people will start stirring.”

  Di Tharra took a deep breath. He bowed to the triton as if to the duke of Genoa himself. Actually, he probably bowed to the triton with more respect than he would to the duke. “I am honored to have met you, Milord Triton. Our families had an ancient alliance, you say. Well, I’ll hold to that. Call on me if I can be of any aid in any way. I would love to talk further of the history, someday.”

  “Like the Shardana still,” said Androcles with a smile. “Not like you Valdosta. You hear that? True Shardana, asking what can they do for us, not just to bargain.”

  “Firm friends forever,” said Benito wryly. “Now, I see a sailor walking down the quay. I don’t think the captain and I should be seen together, or even seen, so I suggest we go our different ways.”

  “Until next time,” said Androcles vanishing in the swirl of a long scaled fishy tail.

  Di Tharra stood looking into the water, beaming as only a man who has just had his heart’s desire can beam.

  Benito slapped him on the back. “I’ll leave you to stare at the sea. I am going to go somewhere warm.”

  Di Tharra finally looked up from the waves, with a suspicion of moisture in his eyes. “I am in your debt, Signor Valdosta. Deeply.”

  Benito shrugged. “I’d take to sitting on the bow alone, in the early morning or late evenings, if I were you. Androcles is not usually this forthcoming, and it’s plain he has more to say to you, but you’ll need a more private space, or at least, one where he can’t be seen so easily.”

  Di Tharra smiled. “That explains the rumors of you ‘reading the ocean.’”

  “Not so much ‘reading’ as ‘listening,’” Benito laughed, “But yes. And now you can start the same rumors about you.”

  And with that, he left Di Tharra and headed for fire and food.

  PART IV

  December, 1540 A.D.

  Chapter 27

  The Aegean Sea

  They sailed from Naxos to Lesbos, one of the few Genoese possessions in the eastern Mediterranean. Benito thought winkling Borana out of there would take a crowbar. But fortunately the Archon Gattalusi was even keener to see the back of the admiral than Benito was to move on. He assured the admiral that there was no reason that the fleet should not sail to Constantinople and overwinter there. There was no conflict between the Byzantine Empire and Genoa. And he had no spare food for a fleet. They’d had a drought, and there was no spare food to be had for any amount of money. Nor wine.

  It was probably that last that was the final item needed to convince Borana that it was time to leave.

  Under slate skies they proceeded toward the Hellespont—and, unbeknownst to most of the fleet—with a small number of fast galliots, to the western side of the Callipolis peninsula.

  There were a number of castles and fortifications along the Hellespont. The fleet would have to pass under their guns.

  The ships from Genoa led the fleet in towards the Hellespont, approaching Cape Hellas, their flag proud. They probably weren’t even aware that some three hundred men from Venice—all veterans of
the Corfu guerilla campaign—were missing, along with their vessels.

  Benito and his grandfather sat in the Mediterranean scrub on a small hill just west of the castle on the southern point of Morto bay. The early morning sun shone on the fleet sailing toward the Byzantine castle on the point. Hidden in the scrub a hundred Venetians waited.

  It had been a long, long night already. They’d timed it as well as possible with the tritons signaling the fleet’s progress and Admiral Douro with strict instructions that somehow, no matter what it took, the fleet was to approach the Hellespont in the early morning. In the dusk the shallow-draft galliots had sailed closer to the western shore.

  “I hate this, Benito. Sailing inshore without local knowledge in the dark. It’s madness,” said Captain Splenta.

  “I’d ordered the stars out for us to follow. They don’t seem to have got the message,” said Benito sardonically. “We’ve got to get in, Captain. And we have to keep this heading. With luck everyone will be in bed on this miserable night.”

  “At least Spiro has a village’s lights for guidance.”

  “And we have that.” said Benito, relieved, pointing. They’d landed seven men in a small fishing smack a few days before. Poachers. Veterans of Corfu. Greek speakers. And, traveling as tinkers to a little-populated corner of Byzantium, sleeping rough, and making two fires with a little of the bracket fungus which burned with a green flame. As long as they had got themselves to the right spot, the galliots had something to aim for. The Byzantines would have been amazed at how much the Venetians knew of the geography of the Callipolis peninsula.

  “What is it?”

  “Our path to a safe landing I hope. Get a man to grab that green lantern with the bracket on. Run it up the masthead.”

  So they did. And the fires flared slightly. The lantern came down, and under cautious oars the galliots eased their way forward. The beach at the mouth of the small ravine wasn’t wide enough to let them land, so the men climbed down into stomach-deep water. Most of them, veterans of getting wet at night, abandoned dignity and stripped off, holding their clothing and weapons above their heads, then pulling in a small raft with Dell’este and quite a lot of black powder on it.

  It began to rain softly again.

  “Keep that powder dry or you’ll be chewing down the portcullis, damn you,” snarled one of Benito’s lieutenants at the slightly overeager poacher-scouts, as they unloaded. The galliots—lighter now, and very undermanned, began pushing out into the relative safety of the night. They’d hopefully anchor within signaling range.

  Benito, shivering, dressed himself. His grandfather, who had barely wet his boots, chuckled. “You’ve done away with the bright trumpets for this charge of yours, but your teeth are doing good castanets.”

  “Next time I will show you less deference and let you wade with the rest of us, Grandfather. How ready are we, Captian Gamba?”

  “Ready when you are, M’Lord. Shall I have the men issued that grappa now?”

  “One measure. We’ve a few miles to march tonight. And then a long fireless wait for morning.”

  So they’d moved out, with some quiet stumbling and cursing, led by the scouts to the relatively easy rutted track that ran down to the coast from the village to the castle. It supposedly had a mounted patrol, but they were—like much of Byzantine army—underpaid, demoralized and in bed on this chilly night. What wasn’t abed was a drunken farmer, singing his way cheerfully and tunelessly homeward.

  “Avoid killing him. We don’t need the local peasantry against us.”

  Soon they had a Greek peasant thoroughly gagged and bound with eyes as wide as a full moon brought to Benito.”Listen to me, my friend,” said Benito, in Greek. “If you behave, tomorrow you will go home with a few bits of silver to make your wife smile. You can tell her the truth then—do it right away and she’ll cry and thank the Virgin you came home safe to her, instead of throwing a pot at your head for being out so late drunk. We’ve no quarrel with you. But try to escape or betray us and we’ll cut your throat like a hog. Understand?”

  The wide-eyed peasant, a lot more sober than he had been, nodded. They took him with them and went on. Soon they could see the dark bulk of Cape Hellas Castle. “Not much of a castle.”

  “It will have guards.”

  “Antimo had one on either tower. The ditch helps us though.” The castle had no moat but there was a deep ditch running along its landward edge. Benito and his sappers were able to crawl along it and place their charges at the very gate of the castle.

  And now, though night would have been a good time for the attack, they waited for the cold dawn—which was not far off by the time they’d finished. They watched a shepherd boy chase his goats up into the rough grazing. Being nuzzled by a goat had not been part of the plan either. But fortunately the shepherd boy sat down to make himself a fire and then try to kill birds with his slingshot, unaware that he and the castle and the channel beyond were being watched.

  From here they also had a good view of the Genovese ships trying to make it past the Byzantine forts. It was almost like watching some strange mobile artwork. A rather cruel one. The smoke from the cannons on the forts, and the panicky sail-work and the desperate tacking. So much for Constantinople’s special relationship with Genoa.

  “The only thing I regret is that I can’t be there to listen to Admiral Borana swearing, and demanding that we assault the forts,” said Benito to his grandfather.

  “I’ll do it for you,” said Enrico Dell’este. “Otherwise you might make me walk up here again. And it is too cold for me to want to do twice.”

  “I’ll consider it done,” said Benito, cheerfully. “Secrecy and a lack of opposition would make it worthwhile. There’ll be Byzantine patrols going out soon to stop any landings, so I think we shall go in now, while they’re still cheering.”

  The castle could have been quite secure, and hard to take, had it not been for the fact that Benito and his sappers had been busy long before dawn, and that the Byzantines decided to send a messenger to the garrison at Callipolis. They raised the portcullis and he rode out. There was a stopper squad not three hundred yards away, and the men on portcullis and gate duty were in no great hurry to close up.

  The shrill horn call soon changed that. The small cannon carried so laboriously off the raft was very well positioned, and the sudden boom shattered the unprotected gate. The charges set carefully into the stones at the base of the gate-towers exploded too. Merely intended to shift some of the rock the ditch-boards lay across, they did their job. The portcullis crashed down—but it no longer reached the ground. Men scrabbled through the gap, as the Byzantines, who had been standing on the outer wall jeering, cheering and laughing, tried to run to defend the inner wall.

  The Byzantine soldiery in the castle were probably very nearly as surprised to have the gate and portcullis blown as the Genovese admiral had been to have his flag fired on.

  It was an almost bloodless affair, by virtue of its suddenness and the fact that most of the Byzantines had assumed that the enemy was far away, at sea, and fleeing.

  Almost bloodless. There was one spectacularly blooded prisoner.

  “What’s wrong with him?”Benito asked, staring at the captured Byzantine commander with a gore-covered shirt. He looked as if he had been fighting off the entire invading force single-handed. Except that he had no visible wounds.

  “I punched him, Sir,” said the brawny sailor standing guard over the officer. “His nose bled a bit. He called me a Genoese whoreson.”

  Benito laughed. “Inexcusable! Doesn’t he know the difference between a Genoese accent and Venetian one? Let him explain his ignorance to the Genovese admiral.”

  Benito could only hope that the attack on the fort opposite the guns of Dardanellia had gone as well, and as easily. His information via Antimo still appeared to have been accurate so far. That was the true danger point of this strait, where the channel was not quite a mile wide. They had to take that other fort. Unfortuna
tely, according to the spy-master, the fort’s garrison was the most disciplined and best run of the defenses on this side of the Hellespont, even if it was more than two miles to its opposite number. Obviously the fortifications at the narrows opposite the city of Dardanellia should have got the best guns and best men, but it was one of many fortifications that had been intermittently being constructed for the last fifty years. The castle at Dardanellia suffered from being in the rebellious Opiskon faction—one which with any luck and a little push from Venetian gold was in a foment right now.

  On the positive side, Alexis was an idiot. One who wavered between wanted to protect his city and being afraid that if the castles were too well manned, someone might realize that what could defend could also bottle up, and revolt—leaving his city with no way to the seas.

  “Well, Grandfather. I will leave you to the explanations. I want to see if my men succeeded at the narrows. If they haven’t, we have problems. And if they have we need to press on for Callipolis as fast as the galliots can carry us. I’ll leave a bare handful of men in the fortifications—you’ll have to get relief to them fairly quickly, in case of trouble.”

  “Why you didn’t have them bring you a good horse, is the part that I don’t understand,” said the Old Fox, “That and why I get to explain all this to Admiral Borana?”

  Benito patted him on the shoulder. “You get to explain it, because they still expect it from you. The Venetians and the Corfiotes will accept it from me. The Genovese and the Aragonese will become upset, but coming from you, they will nod and say, ah yes, the Old Fox is up to his old tricks. And horses are the best reason I ever had for maritime warfare. The galliots up the west coast and a forced march across should get me there nearly as fast as a good rider, and faster than I could have ridden seven leagues.”

  Enrico Dell’este smiled. That had been happening more and more often. He sometimes wondered of late if people thought that the duke of Ferrara was becoming senile or something. Behaving like a perfectly ordinary doting grandfather every time that rascal Benito did something clever, instead of the Dell’este. Still…The fact that the boy was not much of a rider was a small price to pay for such a grandson.