The sobs stopped, abruptly, and the blond woman stood up from the stern rail, a look of fierce delight on her face. "Really?" she breathed, hope replacing the despair in her sea-blue eyes so quickly that Maria's breath caught.
Maria nodded firmly. "Really."
The blonde hugged Maria. "Svanhild Thordardottar is forever in your debt!" she said thickly. "I must now go and turn this ship."
Maria didn't try to tell her that you can't alter the course of a great galley in the Venetian Western convoy, not short of being the Bora-wind in person. But, by the looks of it, Svanhild would have a damned good try. Bless her heart, the girl had a good steel spine to her, when she wasn't sobbing in heartbreak!
Well, the captain had survived Alessia's bellows. He'd survive Svanhild.
* * *
The next day Svanhild and her two brothers sought Maria out, where she, Alessia and Umberto sat in the lee of the mound of deck-cargo. There was a bright, steely look in Svanhild's eye. "The captain says you and your husband are going to Corfu," she said.
Maria nodded.
"Do you know how often the ships sail back to Venice from this port?" demanded Svanhild. "And can you recommend to us a good vessel and captain? Not like this stupid captain! We even offered to buy his ship. He said it was the state's ship, not his to sell. What kind of captain doesn't own his own ship? At least, as a partner."
Umberto stared at them, openmouthed. Then he shook his head.
Maria was just as dumbfounded as he was. Buy a Venetian great galley? She couldn't even begin to guess how much that would take, even if one were for sale!
"We don't know Corfu," Umberto stammered.
"We've never been there," explained Maria, sitting Alessia up and rubbing her back. The baby rewarded her with a milky belch.
Svanhild deflated a little. "Oh. We thought . . ."
But some of Francesca's gossip had come back to Maria, and she'd been saving it for the next time she saw the girl. "But Svanhild, you don't want to go back to Venice! Erik and Prince Manfred are coming along somewhere behind us. They're going to the Holy Land."
One of Svanhild's brothers looked speculative and asked: "This ship will also stop in Corfu?"
Umberto nodded. "Almost all of our ships do."
The big Vinlander patted his sister. "There, Hildi—you see! It is good that we did not turn the ship! We can just wait for them."
"They won't be more than a few days behind us," Umberto offered helpfully. "A pair of weeks, at the very most."
"But—if they go to the Holy Land—" Svanhild began, desperately.
"Then maybe . . ." the boy replied, manfully, "maybe we need to see about the trade opportunities in the Holy Land too. Sven and Olaf can go to set up the warehouse in Bruges and then go back across to the family and tell them we will be delayed."
Svanhild burst into tears again, but they were tears of relief, as her brothers seemed to recognize. And she nodded, smiling around the tears. She had, Maria thought, a lovely smile. She only hoped that Erik was going to be receptive to it. Or, Manfred or no Manfred, Svanhild's brothers might just break him in half.
* * *
High on the hillside overlooking the sea, the King of Hungary watched, unmoving. Out on the white-flecked Adriatic, the Venetian convoy sailed past. He counted ships. Sixteen great galleys, carrying a small volume of valuable cargo. Pilgrims, too—rich ones. High quality furs from as far afield as Vinland. Bullion. Amber. Twenty-three round ships of varying size laden with salt, fish, timber. Strange that Venice should export timber, but really, Venice was just a clearing house. The produce of Europe was funneled through it. Half a dozen minor galliots, carrying anything from pilgrims to arms. A lot of Ferrara steel went to the east.
He would have loved to seize that convoy, just as he would have loved to seize the convoy of ships that had overwintered in Outremer. But it would not be wise to make the attempt, even with the help of Genoa or Aragon, or even the Barbary corsairs. The eastern fleet of the Republic was not a target to take lightly. Not at sea. Where land bombards and fortifications could be brought into play, as Alexius could manage in the Bosporus, it might be worthwhile.
The Atlantic fleet had been smaller, but it was all great galleys, so it had more men, and was far faster. Emeric had been in no hurry to tackle that either. Not even outbound for Flanders, laden with the rich goods of the east. He'd get it all, if he just waited. The Greek galleys were no match for this number of Venetian ships, but later, when traffic was down to occasional vessels, they and the Dalmatian pirates out of the Narenta could seize anything that came through the Straits of Otranto.
His bodyguards shivered in the bitter northeasterly wind. If it would quicken to a gale he might yet have some of the loot on those ships. But alas, the Bora was not forthcoming. He must look into weather-magic some day.
When the last ship had begun its upwind tack he turned to go. His bodyguards knew their master well enough not to utter a word. They rode over the ridgeline; below lay the huge sprawl of their camp. Nearly fifteen thousand men waited there, among them four thousand of his precious Magyar heavy cavalry.
It was a measure of the king's command that not one single fire burned. The Narenta pirates were too afraid of the Venetians to light a fire. The Hungarian forces, however, were more afraid of their king. From Croat light cavalry, to Slav pikemen, every last soul of them knew: You freeze to death before you light a fire, if Emeric so commands.
Three of his officers rode up to meet him, looking wary. The set of their shoulders altered, the king noticed, as he smiled his grim smile. He was pleased; a good general was valuable, but they must fear him. Good generals could become threats otherwise.
He nodded to their bows. "The Atlantic Fleet will have left Corfu. Another week, if our informants are correct, and the eastern fleet will be on its way. Then, within two days, I want us at sea. Nine days from now we must be on our way to Corfu. We need to strike fast and hard."
"My cavalry are ready, Your Majesty," said Count Ladislas.
"I'm still waiting on the siege cannon," said the artillery commander. "Even with double teams of oxen we keep getting stuck in the mountains, Your Majesty. The mud is over the axletrees in places."
Another thing Emeric's officers learned, and quickly, was not to lie to him. The man was scared but honest. Emeric knew the value of tolerating failure, up to a point. Besides, he'd come over those roads himself and wasn't surprised, nor did he blame the officer. This early in spring—which hadn't arrived in the mountains yet—the roads were just mud or still waist-deep in snow.
He waved dismissively. "If we have to move without them, we will. If we have to lay siege, then we'll have time to ship them in."
The relief on the officer's face was amusing, but best not to let it go too far. "Two weeks. Mova ik, or I'll have your head."
He noted that the Croat cavalry captain was looking even more tense.
He waited. The man simply couldn't take it after a minute's silence. "Your Majesty. The scouts you ordered sent out south . . . seven of them have not come back. One squad."
The king nodded. "Find them. You'll find their bodies or their mounts. Then, when you've found what became of them, find the nearest village and crucify all the men. Make the women watch."
Emeric raised a forefinger. "You have eight days."
PART V
April, 1539 a.d.
Chapter 23
Emeric erased the circle and the pentacle scratched in a section of his pavilion where he'd pulled back the carpets to expose the naked soil. Then he eliminated all other traces of the ritual he'd followed to reach the chief of his spies on Corfu, cleaned himself, and put the carpets back in place. The work had to be done carefully, since he was only guided by the light of a few candles. Night had long since fallen.
As always, Emeric was irritated by having to do such menial labor himself, instead of ordering a servant. But, he dared not do otherwise. Even the King of Hungary—even a king suspected by hi
s subjects to be a man-witch—could not afford to have anyone observe him at such times. Not, at least, anyone knowledgeable in such matters, and it was always difficult to tell who might be.
Several features of those rituals were satanic in nature, not simple witchcraft. Hungary was, after all, a predominantly Christian country—and those portions that were not Christian were mostly Muslim. His polyglot subjects would tolerate a great deal, true, but not open trafficking with that prince.
Emeric didn't particularly fear rebellion, as such. His army was quite capable of crushing any combination of peasants or townsmen, as it had demonstrated several times over the past years. The problem lay with the army itself. None of Emeric's officers was burdened with any great moral sentiments. Still, the open use of satanic rituals would, if nothing else, give an ambitious general the handle to organize and lead a military overthrow of the Hungarian dynasty.
Emeric did not follow all of his aunt's advice. But he had never failed to observe Countess Bartholdy's strictures on this score: Keep it secret, from all except those you trust. And trust only those you can control.
Finally done, he soothed his irritation by ordering wine and cuffing the servant who brought it. He finished the goblet, ordered another, and cuffed the servant again.
Throughout, it never occurred to him—as it had never occurred to him before—to wonder why his aunt had given him those secrets in the first place, starting when he was a boy of six. To wonder why she had violated, seemingly, her own rule.
* * *
Like his master, Petros Fianelli erased all the symbols and signs of the ritual himself. In his case, not in the luxury of a king's pavilion but in the squalor of a basement owned by one who appeared to be a simple seller of secondhand goods in Kérkira, the chief town of Corfu. Which, indeed, Fianelli was—even if most of his income came from the criminal ring he operated on the island, as well as the subsidy he received from the King of Hungary.
There was only one way to perform these rituals on Corfu: to create the symbols in fire. Each one was created on a special platen made of obsidian, filled with oily cotton, fed from a reservoir of defiled holy oil. When the oil was lit, the symbol burned in the element that Corfu could not counter, the Devil's own. But the platens had to be carefully hidden when he was done. If anyone found them, it would be awkward. If anyone who understood what they were for ever found them, the consequences would be dire.
That done, he took the taper and mounted the stairs to the kitchen. It was a large kitchen, centered around a large table. Little cooking was actually done in the kitchen, these days, since Fianelli had quietly murdered his last woman a few months earlier after she'd become tiresome. Had her murdered, rather, by two of his three bully boys. Fianelli hadn't wanted to risk it himself, given his own short and pudgy stature. She'd been a large woman, full-hipped as well as big-breasted, with the shoulders of the Scuolo-born washerwoman she'd been before Fianelli made her his concubine.
No loss. She'd been a poor cook, and Fianelli preferred to dine in public eateries anyway. Besides, it made it easier to use the kitchen for its real purpose, which was to serve as the headquarters for his various criminal enterprises.
His three enforcers were already sitting at the table, lounging back in their chairs and enjoying the bottle of grappa he'd opened for them before going down to the basement.
"All right, it's on." He pulled out a chair and sat down himself. Zanari poured him a glass of grappa. "I just got the word."
None of the three enforcers asked him how he'd "gotten the word," or from whom. In truth, they didn't care. A large part of the reason they obeyed Fianelli, despite his unprepossessing appearance, was that they all considered him a veritable wizard when it came to knowing the right things and the right people.
Paulo Saluzzo grimaced. "Treason's a dangerous business."
"The more danger, the more profit," grunted Fianelli. "Besides, what do you care who rules Corfu?"
"I'm from Florence, by way of Naples. I could care less whether this island is run by Venetians or Greeks or Hungarians—or manticores or unicorns, for that matter. So long as we get our cut."
"We'll get it, and then some."
"What's next?" asked Zanari.
Fianelli considered, for a moment. "The Casarini bitch, I think. If you want to betray a town under siege, you've got to have an inside link with the big shots. She can get it, we can't."
The third enforcer, hitherto slouched in his chair, sat up straighter. Smiling slightly, he emitted a soft whistle. He'd seen Bianca Casarini in the streets, from time to time.
Fianelli scowled at him. "Forget her good looks, Papeti. Just forget it."
The enforcer frowned, obviously a bit puzzled. Fianelli normally didn't care in the least what his men did with women. He hadn't even cared, knowing full well that Papeti and Zanari would have raped his discarded woman before they cut her throat and sank her in the sea.
"Casarini's dangerous. Never mind the details. Just take my word for it. This is strictly business."
The enforcer shrugged. But since the gesture was one of acceptance, not indifference, Fianelli let it go. He wasn't planning on using Papeti as his intermediary with Bianca Casarini anyway. Casarini lived in one of the better parts of the Citadel. The Venetian elite wouldn't tolerate someone moving in their quarters who looked like a thug, especially a Greek one. Of his three enforcers, Saluzzo was the only one who could carry off the needed pose in that area. There were traces left of the Florentine bravo he'd been, in an earlier life.
"This'll be your job, Paulo."
"I don't know where she lives. Only seen her in the streets and cafés a few times."
"You don't need to know where she lives, for the moment. Just approach her on the street tomorrow. She'll be passing by the corner where the dock-road crosses the road to the inner wall gates; you know—where Dendrago's old bake-house used to be."
"How do I know she'll be there?" There was a whining undertone in Saluzzo's voice. Like any such man, he hated to work—and, for him, spending a day lounging about waiting for someone to show up who might not constituted "work."
"Don't worry about it. She'll be there."
Fianelli spoke with confidence. He'd taken the time, after receiving his instructions from Emeric, to use the magical symbols and rituals to speak to Casarini herself.
* * *
That very moment, Bianca Casarini finished the same—very close, at least—satanic procedures. In her case, in the luxurious room her aunt and uncle had provided for her in their house in Kérkira after her arrival on the island the year before.
The face of her mistress appeared, hovering like a ghost above the bowl.
"They have approached me, mistress, as you predicted."
Countess Bartholdy smiled cheerfully. "Surely you didn't doubt me?"
This was dangerous territory. "Surely not, mistress," Bianca said quickly.
"Do as they say, then," Elizabeth commanded. She cocked her head a little, studying the woman who had become, over the past few years, something very close to her slave. Bartholdy's quick mind had detected the slight traces of discomfiture.
"Surely the fact that some of it will be unpleasant—even worse, undignified—does not bother you?"
Again, dangerous territory. "Surely not, mistress."
The countess's beautiful face became just a bit taut; harsh, even, insofar as that term could ever be applied to it. "Immortality has its price, Bianca Casarini. Many prices, rather. Cavorting about with whomever I require you to cavort with and copulating with animals—even real ones—is one of the least. So do as they tell you. I need to remain informed at all times concerning the progress of their treachery, once the siege begins. My own plans require precise timing."
She did not explain what those plans were, and Bianca did not ask. Did not even think of asking, in fact. By now, she was well trained.
"Yes, mistress."
Bianca was able to say the last rather easily. Her own mind
was quick as well, and she'd already realized that she could shift the worst of the work onto another's shoulders. Several others, in fact. In the year since she'd been living on Corfu, she'd ingratiated herself into the social circles of the Venetian aristocrats and the Greek Libri d'Oro. With the skills she'd learned from Countess Bartholdy, she'd been able to detect which of them possessed inner demons and vices. The ones which were most obvious, at least.
She'd start with Sophia Tomaselli, she decided, when the time came. The wife of the captain-general would be . . .
Easy. Like leading a pig to a trough.
* * *
After the image of Bartholdy vanished and she'd erased the symbols, Bianca laughed aloud. Leading a slut to an orgy, more like.
Casarini was beautiful herself, if not to the extent that Bartholdy was. But, unlike the countess, a sneer distorted her features badly. So, from long practice, she suppressed the expression. That was a bit difficult, thinking about the wife of Captain-General Tomaselli.
After a bit of practice, Sophia wouldn't care if her partners were pigs in a trough.
That sour thought was suppressed even more firmly than the sneer had been. The day would come, Bianca knew, when she'd have to undergo the rituals of bestialism herself. Immortality had its prices. But there was no reason to dwell on any of them beforehand.
The last work in erasing the traces of the rituals was on her, now. Bianca made no attempt to keep the distaste from showing on her face. A simple expression of distaste, unlike an outright sneer, was expected on the face of a noblewoman. Which she was not, in actual fact, but had long since mastered the art of appearing to be. She'd even successfully—and easily—fooled her "relatives" into thinking she was their niece.
She brought the bowl to her lips. It wasn't the taste that bothered her. Blood was blood. The problem was that there was so much of it that had to be drunk. She was normally a light eater, and drank little beyond an occasional glass of watered wine.
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