“I hold no knowledge of such matters, gypsy, and must be getting on my way.” Columbus stood to leave when he encountered a third faceless guard behind him and the head of a spear pointed at his throat.
“My associates will pay five thousand maravedis for you to charter, another five thousand when we return. We have arranged for a ship suitable for the exploration to leave at once. It would be…most unwise to decline my proposition,” the crone advised.
“You will find your threat will not persuade me, woman. What you seek is a fool’s fantasy. If you have any sense, you will forget this matter,” Columbus snapped.
“It is no threat, Captain, I assure you. But you are in great danger here. Return to the city and you will die.”
“By whose hand?” he asked, knowing the answer well enough.
“Viktor Marcos and the king’s men.”
“And my men?”
“They’re all dead.”
“All? Impossible.”
“Come with us, Captain. There is nothing here for you now but death. Don’t you want to know who they are? Don’t you want to discover the greater truth? Do this and live to see the king’s castles fall. Do this for Queen Isabelle.”
How did she know? I would do anything for the queen, but…
“And why does the Order of the Dragon risk this journey?”
“I will show you. I will show you everything.”
CANCIONES DE LOS MUEROS—King Ferdinand’s Castle
Viktor Marcos stepped away from his worktable and wrapped a lead-filled glove tightly over his right hand. He opened and closed his fist until the lead bars fell into place over his fingers and knuckles.
He was a pillar of a man with hulking shoulders. Three thick scars marred his face from ear to the tip of his fat, red-veined nose. He was clad in a cloak made of crude leather. Belts filled with small instruments and armaments hung around his heavy waist, soaked with men’s blood.
Behind him, seven of Columbus’ men hung lifeless from pulleys along the stalls and columns of the stone chamber—faces slack, mouths open, tongues cut out.
Marcos basked in the sweltering heat of the chambers and the stench of iron and dog shit where he’d lived most of his life. He swaggered over to his victim like a fat cat ready to pounce and claw.
Antonio Acosta whimpered. He lay bound by buckles to a table, his torso riddled with small gouges and craters made by Viktor’s attentions. Beside him, Marcel the Butcher flayed flesh from a carcass and fed it to his dogs. While he worked, he whistled a merry cancionero. Antonio's revulsion brought a smile to Viktor's lips as the dogs lapped the morsels up. No doubt Antonio wondered how such a man could stand to live with himself.
“Where is he?” Viktor demanded, driving his lead-filled fist into Antonio’s side.
“I told you, I don’t know!” Antonio said, and retched.
“I could end you right now. Do you understand, insect?” Viktor snarled in his face, wrapping his gloved fingers tight around Antonio’s throat. “The king has paid you more coin than you and your pathetic family are worth to watch him, and you’re telling me the man just slid away into the night…like a ghost?”
“Yes,” Antonio sobbed. “He chartered a boat…I saw him!”
“Where?”
“Galiana, I swear! Please, no more. I can’t. Just kill me, I beg you. I do not fear death.”
“No need to beg. It will be my pleasure,” Viktor let out a sadistic laugh. His toothless mouth resembled a black, quivering trench. Pleased by the work he had done, he turned when he sensed King Ferdinand’s arrival. The king stood watching from the dark corridor, his thin-as-a-broom silhouette visible in the glow of a distant torch.
King Ferdinand nodded. “He tells the truth. Dispatch your men to the docks. I also want scouts scouring every tavern, whorehouse, stable, and rat’s nest until you find him. He’s close, I know it. Raise the bounty by a thousand coins if you must. See to it that he is back here alive by morning.”
“Yes, my king,” Viktor grinned.
“No more delays, Viktor, or tomorrow the dogs will dine on the bones of a dead inquisitor.”
“I understand, my lord.”
The king waved dismissively with his hand, “Very well. Now, do as the man wishes and kill him.”
“May I keep him when I’m done, my king?”
“Don’t you have enough?”
“I like this one.”
“Find me Columbus. What you do with your playthings afterward does not concern me.”
PENANCE
Claudio paced the dock’s entry disguised in a hooded robe he’d stolen from the Convento de Santiago. He prayed he’d gone unseen when he’d fled the king’s castle. He had run nearly two miles to find Columbus, sticking mostly to the woods.
He did not find Columbus’ caravel at the port; instead, a black galleon adorned with the head of a wooden dragon sat ominously—a winged demon in the still waters. The docks were unusually deserted for this time of day, but this did nothing to relieve Claudio of his worries. He remained anxious, clutching his chest as his heart pounded against it. Sweat drenched his collar despite the bitter chill in the breeze coming off the water.
Perhaps Columbus had come to his senses and sailed after all. Still, carnage, wrought by the king’s men, would follow his path until he was apprehended. The king’s men would take the court square, they’d ransack homes, set fires, slaughter men, women, and children in their path. Not even the nobles stood a chance or had a say in the matter. The king had betrayed his people, and the Order of Santiago. Damn him.
Dread panged Claudio’s bowels. How could this be? This was not reason; this was irrational. What rationale could the king devise to devastate his kingdom and tear down his own city in search of a man who’d done nothing wrong?
Claudio stood frozen with his thoughts. What punishment awaited him should the king discover that he had been consorting with the queen and the captain this night? Whether he remained at the docks or returned to the castle, it was the same. If his deceit were discovered, the Inquisition would seize him, call upon him in court and question him. Then kill him.
He could run. He could even attempt to sail like he hoped Columbus had, but he’d never been on a boat before, much less learned how to steer one. Doomed either way, he paced, even though his legs had begun to feel like loose yarn.
The distant thundering of hoofs and rattling of a carriage approached from around the bend of the narrow causeway, waking him from his reverie when they came into sight. Claudio quickly crouched behind the trees at the side of the road and waited for it to pass. Two horses, a single carriage. Would the king have sent only a few men to detain Columbus? These were not the king’s men, Claudio realized.
The dark carriage traveled without lamps and reflected none of the moonlight. The veiled coachmen, the horses, the coach, and the curtain-draped windows were as black as coal in the night. Its appearance sent a snaky chill down the back of Claudio’s neck as it roared past him like a speeding void.
The carriage halted at the edge of the docks. One of the faceless coachmen dismounted, a moving shadow. As he opened the carriage door, an elderly woman dressed in black robes descended from the black-swathed carriage. When Columbus followed, Claudio leapt out of the bushes and called to him. “Captain!”
“Claudio?”
Before Claudio could take another step forward, one of the riders thrust his spear upward.
“No! He’s with me!” Columbus shouted at the rider. “Claudio, what are you doing here? Where is the queen?”
“I’ve not seen her,” Claudio stammered. “She did not take supper or her bath this evening.”
“You’ve not seen her?” Columbus snatched Claudio by his shoulders and shook him when he saw tears in the boy’s eyes, “What’s happened? I asked you what you were doing here.”
“The king has sent men for you. I came to warn you.”
“We should go, Captain, we must make distance,” Magda called out on he
r way to the ship. “They will be here shortly. Then you will truly be a dead man.”
“Where are you going?” Claudio asked. “Who is she?”
“You should’ve never come here, Claudio. Go back to the castle now, and deliver this message to the queen for me. Will you do that?”
“Yes…yes…of course.”
“Claudio, you must tell the—”
An arrow struck Claudio through the ear and sent him reeling from Columbus’ grasp. Another arrow whistled by, grazing Columbus’ shoulder, sending him tumbling backward onto the ground as a flurry of arrows whipped past him.
“There! Forward! Kill them all!” The king’s men flooded into the port from all directions. The silver in their armor and weapons gleamed in the moonlight. The sounds of their footfalls echoed throughout the port as they roared their battle cries.
The horses reared and took off down the path, sending the carriage tumbling into a gang of men when one of the wheels smashed head on into the brackets along the pier.
“Cease fire, you wretched dogs!” a distant voice shouted. “The king wants him alive!”
One of Magda’s sentries growled something at Columbus, yanked him to his feet, and pushed him toward the ship. Once safely across the platform and on the ship’s gangway, the galleon fired its cannons on the first line of soldiers, shattering bodies, timber, and embers back into the trees. The second and third blasts ignited the second wave of soldiers along the beach, leaving nothing of them but devastating pools of pulp and gore along the sands.
ALL THE KING’S HORSES
It was all so sudden. Isabelle stood on the balcony, watching the stream of men spill out from the castle gates below. Commoners, filchers, crooks, and creeps had joined the hunt after hearing that the king had raised the bounty on Columbus. Dogs led torch bearing hunters out of the city, while others quickly lay siege to the city streets. The screams of women and the cursing of men filled the wintry night. The begging of children sent tears to the queen’s eyes.
“No, what have you done?” she wept. “I have family in the city. You must stop this. They will die if you don’t.”
She felt the king standing close behind her. She didn’t have to see him to know that he was smiling at her back. The thought of him sickened her so much she couldn’t turn to face him. If she did, she feared she would slap his face, claw his eyes out, gouge his neck.
If she held a blade, she was certain she’d drive it into his heart and kill him. Whatever pain and suffering she dreamt upon him at that moment would never be enough after tonight. Best if he did not answer, either. The smug sound of his voice would drive her to do all those horrid things. The only words she could muster were pleas.
Men determined to reap the king’s reward shouted Columbus’ name as they kicked down doors and removed families from their homes. Fires roared and spread throughout the streets as the gangs set fire to everything in their path. Flames devoured one villa after another, leaping from one structure to the next. People threw themselves from their windows to escape burning while others rushed to bail water from their wells to put the fires out. Columns of smoke began to rise and meet in one great black cloud above the city. The church tower caught fire next, a desecration even the queen didn’t think her king was capable of inciting. Isabelle wondered if the king was wicked enough to allow such an act of aggression toward the covenant and the Lord. Disheartened, the queen looked to the west and watched as vandals made off with livestock and goods from merchants who were unable to protect their markets. However, not all of the knighthood joined the king’s fray; a faction still loyal to the queen, led by the young Knight of Grace, Ernesto Sierra, amassed and clashed with their violent brethren in the court square. Though it seemed the city was imploding under the weight of civil war, there was still hope as long as she lived and had allies in the city, Isabelle told herself. No, she could not ignore the screams or the sounds of men as they conquered and looted any longer.
This was her city as much as it was his, if not more. She was stronger than he would ever know, stronger than he’d ever be.
When she found the strength to confront him, his face was just as she imagined—grinning, eyes glazed from drinking, addled. “Why are you doing this?”
“Me? No, he…he did this. He’s brought the Curse of the Seven Seas upon us, and doomed us all. I’ve told you, wherever Columbus goes, dead men follow. And now he’s driven us all back into the abyss.”
Isabelle sensed a sudden distress she’d never heard in Ferdinand’s voice before, a shimmering frailty in his eyes she could only identify as fear when he looked at her. The apparent vulnerability twisted into a hateful sneer, “You should have never trusted him.”
“What? He’s done nothing wrong. Do you hear yourself? This is your doing, not his.”
“Your love for the merchant has made you too soft and stupid to see that I’m simply restoring order to my kingdom. Your father once said that the appearance of a sea serpent presages the king’s death. Do you remember? What would you have me do? I will not tolerate rebellion.”
“Your kingdom?” she fumed. More so now, Isabelle smelled the foul mixture of wine on his breath, and the faint lingering scent of cinnamon and lavender on his clothing as he drew closer—the scent of another woman. No, women. God knew how many of his whores he slept with this night while he kept her imprisoned in the Keep. God knew how many of them had borne his children throughout the years, and how many of them lay dying below. For them, she would not weep. “You would have nothing if I did not consent to this union. You may indulge in your superstitions all you like, but do not speak of my father, nor my family, and do not keep me here and expect me to watch my people die.”
Isabelle tried to push past him, but he yanked her back onto the balcony by her arm, dug his nails into her and squeezed. When she couldn’t pull away, she slapped his face and split his lip bloody.
“Very well,” the king said, pulling bloody fingers away from his lips. “Be with your people, then.” He grabbed Isabelle by her shoulders and threw her over the railing and down to the river below. He watched as her body hit the side of the drawbridge with a sickening crunch, and finally tumbled into the water. “Guard!” he cried out.
The guard threw the front door open and found the king on his knees on the balcony floor. “My lord, what’s happened?”
“The queen, she…she threw herself from the ledge. You must…you must retrieve her body. Please, Go!”
AVAST
The galleon sailed effortlessly on fair and frosty winds across the evening sea with the orange sun dipping in front of it. There was a bank of dark clouds clinging to the vague, gray line of the horizon up ahead. There. The belly of the beast awaits, and into the mouth we go. This is a mistake, Columbus thought. There were too many lives on board to risk, but there was no turning back now. Save for the officer in the crow’s nest observing the seascape through his spyglass, the pilot steering the ship, and the two veiled sentries taking posts on the gun decks, there were only a few of the crew on deck at this hour.
The air grew dense, almost too dense to breathe. Or were those just his nerves suffocating him? He rolled a handful of shot pellets he kept in his pocket between his fingers and palm out of habit, an exercise he’d use at sea to calm himself when the waves became too choppy, rose too high, and his bowels knotted up.
However, it wasn’t those things that troubled him this time. It was how the watery world that he once traversed so instinctively suddenly felt strange and absurd.
She’d become a monster, and he'd gone on to foolishly awaken her— again. This caused a sinking feeling, one that anchored the trepidation he had before departing.
He could almost hear the cries of others drowning during the last voyage. He could see Claudio’s face clearer than ever now, was haunted by his dying eyes. Then he saw Isabelle, as he wanted to remember her, smiling and laughing behind her honey-golden locks. Reality replaced his wistfulness as his vision turned sour. She was mo
urning her brother’s death and hurting somewhere.
He wished he’d stayed close to the queen, even if it meant hiding in the crevices of the city as long as he lived.
“I hope you find your cabin and accommodations suitable,” Magda said, joining Columbus on the forecastle. Magda looked as rickety as the deck boards, but Columbus had not heard her sneak up behind him.
“Yes. I’ve slept in worse conditions, I suppose.”
Looking outward at the world with him, she said, “She is vast, yes? She holds great mystery and wonder we sometimes can’t understand. We learn that about her every day, don’t we?”
“We may not come back from this,” warned Columbus.
“Are you afraid?”
“I am. And you should be, too.”
Smiling tolerantly at his caution, she told him, “The danger may be real, fear is not. But the Order of the Dragon always collects their debts, no matter the cost. We are destined. She is waiting.”
“And what debt is that?”
Magda tightened the shawl draped around her shoulders as if a sudden chill had come over her, looking smaller in her frail body. Her foreboding gaze remained ahead.
“For years, the House of Basarab has financed the voyages of kings on the promise that they would deliver rare artifacts and intelligence back to the Order. We allowed smugglers to keep the rest of their haul. This time, your king delivered nothing. Nothing wasn’t part of the agreement. This would not be the first time your king has withheld something valuable from the Order. So, we’ve dissolved our contract with him and made other...” she leveled a quiet smile at him, “arrangements.”
Alt.History 102 (The Future Chronicles) Page 9
