The Towers of Samarcand (The Mistra Chronicles)

by James Heneage

  She’d been looking out for Marchese Longo to the south, for him riding up from the village of Mesta, which she’d been told had been attacked by corsairs. Her usual calm was breezed with uncertainty. The dogs could feel it. Longo’s two hounds, one black, one white, sat watching her with their heads on one side and their ears hooped in question. They moved from shade to shade. Occasionally one would whine.

  It was early in the day and a plate of something lay untouched on the table beside her. She looked down at it and saw water pooled like mercury in a lettuce leaf. There was rain still in the pergola’d vine above, the same rain she’d heard outside her window in the hour before dawn. She’d been awoken by a kick and had lain on her side, hoping for more kicks but feeling instead the nudge of unease.

  She turned and walked over to the other side of the balcony, the dogs following her. On this side, she could see over the terraces of gardens, vineyards and citrus groves to the broad plain of the Kambos below where the families of the campagna enjoyed their estates. It was a landscape criss-crossed with walls and irrigation channels and in between sat the mansions of rich men surrounded by the red earth that fed and irrigated them. She remembered that Luke had a house there somewhere and tried to think where.

  Luke.

  Was it really only eight months that he’d been gone? She looked down at the road that wound its way up to the gates of the Sklavia estate and remembered watching him ride up it two years before, remembered the first mumbled greeting on the steps to the terrace. And she remembered a golden time of only him when she’d taught a Greek boy of no learning but infinite talent to become a man capable of anything.

  A donkey brayed in the orchards below and the bell tower next to their little church sounded the hour. A light wind carried the sounds to her with the smell of newly cut grass. A butterfly hovered over a bush to her front and she remembered others in a valley where Luke’s learning had reached its fulfilment. She looked down at the curve of her belly.

  You will be tall. Like him.

  *

  Since the sinking by storm, a year past, of most of the ships blockading it, Chios had not seen the Turks. What was left of the Ottoman fleet sat in the Propontis facing the walls of Constantinople and not even Venice’s Arsenale could build ships quickly enough for it to blockade Chios as well. And anyway, Bayezid had forbidden it.

  As a result, the campagna grew richer. The Genoese joint stock company that leased Chios from the Empire of Byzantium was in the business of alum, mined across the straits in Phocaea, and alum was achieving record prices in the markets of the West. Their mastic was doing even better. Uniquely grown in the south of the island, Dimitri’s miracle was filling teeth, softened by sugar, from London to Baghdad. The harem in Edirne was buying it by the shipload to sweeten breath held in nightly anticipation of a visit by the Sultan. And, by a curious irony, that part of the mastic profit belonging to the campagna’s youngest partner, Luke Magoris, was being spent by Plethon at the Arsenale on bribes to delay the cannon intended for Suleyman’s siege.

  All of which explained why Marchese Longo Giustiniani, acknowledged leader of the campagna, was looking the right way down the barrel of a gun. It had been filled with grapeshot and was aimed at the thickest group of Turks in the square in front of them. Fired at this range, it would be lethal.

  He was standing next to the engineer Benedo Barbi in the village of Mesta. The village was strewn with Turkish dead, their faces blistered by boiling water, their bodies punctured by crossbow bolts shot from above. At every turn in the village, at every bridge or balcony, at every dead end, the Turks had been hit by missiles fired from places they couldn’t get to. And every time they’d broken down a door, it was to find no access to the pounti above. When they’d staggered outside, it was to see men escape across roofs. This wasn’t fighting; it was a fiendish game. And it was a game they were losing.

  ‘Well, he was wrong about that,’ Longo whispered.

  ‘Wrong? Who was wrong?’ asked the engineer.

  ‘Luke,’ replied Longo. ‘He told me they’d never reach the tower.’

  Barbi grunted. It was evening, and the heat of the day had passed but he was still uncomfortable. His armour was biting into his shoulders. ‘They’re not supposed to be here at all. I thought that had been the price of Dimitri filling the Sultan’s teeth with mastic.’

  Longo shrugged. ‘Well, it may not be Bayezid giving the orders. Prince Suleyman is running the siege at Constantinople. Perhaps these are his men.’

  Barbi wiped his brow. He didn’t much care whose soldiers these were. ‘When can we fire?’

  ‘When they’ve all come into the square.’ Longo turned to the gunner behind him. ‘You fire and we’ll rush them. Then reload and fire at any that come to their aid.’

  ‘There are no Greeks there?’ asked Gabriele Adorno, oldest of the signori.

  Longo shook his head. ‘Every man, woman and child of the village is inside that tower, Gabriele. They’re on the upper level where the Turks can’t get to them.’

  It was two years since Luke had shown Longo his idea for villages that were also many-levelled mazes. Now there were five such villages in construction among the mastic groves of the south and Mesta was almost complete. The village was a labyrinth with a tower at its centre and every villager could reach the tower without his feet touching the ground.

  I have much to thank Luke for.

  But this was worrying. These men had landed at the new port of Limenas, arriving in ten huge galleys and, thought Longo, must number well over a thousand men. Looking at them now, he could see that they were different from those that had come before. These were not casual raiders. These were a disciplined force obeying orders from mounted knights that looked to him a lot like sipahis. These were the Sultan’s forces.

  Or Suleyman’s.

  The engineer beside him spat. ‘We might clear them out this time,’ he said morosely, ‘but what about next? And what if they bring cannon?’

  It was what Longo had been thinking. But that was the future. For now they had to throw these Turks out of Mesta.

  Marchese Longo knew about fighting. As a young man, he’d learnt the art of war from one of the greatest condottiere of the day, Gian Galeazzo Visconti, fighting against the forces of Padua. Now Visconti was Duke of Milan and still friend to Longo. It was he who had sent the ribaudequins. These, and Barbi’s flame-throwers, were what he was relying on.

  The engineer had recently rediscovered how to make Greek fire, an art that had been thought lost to the Byzantines. He’d used it to help Luke escape from the assassin at the monastery of Battal Gazi, where Omar had been tortured by Venetians. Now it was time to use it to defend Chios.

  ‘Now!’

  The fuse was lit, the little cannon threw out death and the nozzles of three canisters spewed forth the flames of hell. The distance was less than a hundred feet and the grapeshot and fire tore into the Turkish ranks, throwing them against the tower walls and turning men into fireballs.

  Then the Genoese charged. They were no more than fifty strong but well armed and had the advantage of surprise. They fell upon the Turks, hacking and stabbing and finding the gaps in their smoking armour into which to plunge their steel.

  ‘Retreat!’ yelled a sipahi knight. ‘Get back to the boats!’

  The Turks began to withdraw to the side of the square. By now the cannon was reloaded and another hail of metal drove into their ranks, shattering mail and armour like glass. More men went down and the cobbles were slippery with their blood. On the walkways that connected the tower to the surrounding streets, men were now running to take up positions ahead of the fleeing Turks.

  ‘Lord Longo!’

  The shout came from the top of the tower and Marchese looked up. ‘Dimitri! Is everyone safe?’

  The Greek was standing on the battlements, a crossbow in his hand. His face was black and his shirt stained with blood. He was grinning. ‘All safe.’

  Longo ran to a corner of
the tower from where he could see the Turks streaming into the empty side streets beyond. Then there was a flash as the first of the villagers’ booby traps ignited. Screams echoed through the alleyways, adding to the confusion. It seemed that death was all around them. But there was one street that the villagers had left clear: one street, narrow and endlessly cornered, in which the villagers had posted no men in the bridges and walkways above.

  It was the street that led out of the village and back to the boats.

  *

  Later, when the Turks had left, Longo sat with Barbi, Dimitri and the rest of the signori in the little square, talking and drinking iced Chian wine. A light rain had just fallen, leaving as quickly as it had arrived, doing nothing to wash away the blood on the ground around them. At least the bodies had been removed.

  ‘Sit still,’ Longo was saying to the engineer whose arm he was bandaging. ‘I bet you wish you’d never returned from Mistra.’ A vessel containing a compound of mastic, vinegar and rosemary stood on the table beside them.

  ‘It’s just a graze,’ said Barbi ‘You wouldn’t have noticed it if I hadn’t taken off my armour.’

  Longo ignored him and turned to Dimitri. ‘What are our dead?’ he asked.

  ‘No dead, lord,’ said the Greek, wiping the sweat from his eyes. ‘Only a dozen or so wounded, including the poor engineer here.’ He paused to scowl at Barbi, whom he’d warned a thousand times not to join battle. He was too valuable alive.

  ‘And them?’ enquired Zacco Banca. He was cleaning blood from his armour which, like the rest of the signori, had the Giustiniani arms emblazoned on its cuirass. ‘How many did they lose?’

  ‘We’ve not counted yet, lord. But it must be at least two hundred.’

  Longo knew he should look happier at the news. After all, the village had proved itself. But he couldn’t rejoice amidst the cries of agony that rose from the streets around him. And the Turks would come again.

  ‘They’ll come again,’ he said.

  Barbi turned to him. ‘Once they’ve taken Constantinople, yes, they’ll come. And they’ll bring their Venetian cannon.’ He paused. ‘Which is why I’m going there.’

  ‘To Venice?’

  ‘No, to Constantinople. Once I get word that the cannon have arrived, I’m going there to destroy them. So is Dimitri.’

  Longo frowned. ‘But why? It’s not our battle.’

  ‘It’s everyone’s battle, all of us,’ said Dimitri quietly, leaning forward to help tie the bandage.

  Longo changed the subject. ‘Did they do much damage?’ he asked.

  Dimitri shook his head. ‘They burnt a warehouse in Lemnos and a few fields between there and here. But the village survives and we still have the mastic stored in the tower.’

  They were all three silent after that, half listening to the celebrations around them. The Turks had sailed away and the day belonged to the men and women of Chios. The villagers had uncorked wine and some were already drunk. Every so often, a scream of pain rose above the laughter.

  ‘Should we stop that?’ asked Longo, looking out into the maze of streets.

  It was Lara who answered. Lara, whom Dimitri had brought to the island and who was now his wife. Lara, who, with Fiorenza, had confounded the island’s snakes. She’d brought a torch to help with the dressing of Barbi’s wound. Now she doused it in the ground, turned to Longo and spoke softly. ‘Lord, these people have lost their children to slavery at the hands of those men. I doubt you could stop it even if you wanted to.’

  Marchese thought of Dimitri and Lara’s child that was on its way. He looked down at the gentle curve of her belly and then up at the new day. He thought of Fiorenza. He should get back to her.

  He rose and turned to Dimitri. ‘We have a traitor on this island, my friend. The Turks knew when to attack and where. We only just arrived in time.’

  *

  Towards evening, Fiorenza was still watching from the balcony at Sklavia when she saw two riders coming quickly across the fields, chased by horses without riders. She shielded her eyes from the sun. In five minutes they were there, Longo in her arms and Barbi bowing awkwardly behind him. They were wearing armour and their faces were streaked with black.

  ‘Thank God,’ she said, pulling away. ‘We were worried.’

  ‘We?’ asked Longo.

  ‘Me, the dogs, Giovanni. He’d stopped kicking.’ She brought her hands to her middle. ‘There, he’s started again. He knows you’re safe.

  She had started calling the child inside her Giovanni, certain that it was a boy. Longo, less certain, smiled and put his hands over hers.

  Fiorenza brought his hands to her lips. ‘Was it very fierce?’ She remembered Barbi and turned to him. ‘Did we lose many?’

  ‘None, lady,’ replied Barbi. ‘The village worked. We have Luke to thank.’

  ‘And you,’ said Longo, turning to the engineer. The dogs were now sitting on either side of him, looking up with devotion. He held a dog’s ear in each hand. ‘After all, you built them.’

  ‘But it was Luke’s design, Luke’s dream.’ Barbi glanced at Fiorenza. ‘We just interpreted it.’

  Fiorenza thought back to the kendos, the celebration of the mastic harvest beside the sea where Luke had had the dream that had brought forth the villages. Her hand went back to her belly. ‘You must be tired and hungry.’

  *

  Much later, when they’d eaten and drunk and washed away the worst of the dirt, they talked about Barbi’s visit to Mistra. Fiorenza asked: ‘Is she very beautiful?’

  The engineer smiled as he thought of Anna. ‘She’s nearly as beautiful as you, lady. She has red hair and green eyes and a face that might launch a thousand ships if they hadn’t already been put out for you.’

  Fiorenza threw back her head and laughed. She’d never heard Barbi speak more than a sentence, certainly not one like that. ‘She’s clearly turned your head, engineer. Suddenly you’re a poet!’

  Longo leant forward. ‘Unfortunately she’s turned Prince Suleyman’s as well. There’s some story of him meeting her when he first took an army to Mistra five years ago. He is infatuated with her and returned with another army soon after Benedo left. She’s in Edirne now.’

  ‘Does Luke know?’

  Barbi shook his head. ‘I doubt it. It’s probably better that way.’

  Fiorenza picked up her glass. Inside was iced water flavoured with lime. She took a sip and put the glass down with care. She turned to Barbi. ‘Does Luke know about me?’ She reached over and took her husband’s hand. ‘About us?’

  ‘That you’re with child? Yes, Dimitri told him at Bursa.’ Barbi paused. ‘He was overwhelmed.’

  ‘As are we,’ laughed Longo. ‘It’s a miracle, nothing less.’

  Barbi said, ‘He told us about Nicopolis as well. He didn’t betray the Christian army. He tried to save it. Plethon confirmed it in Mistra.’

  Longo smiled. ‘I never thought that he did. He is a member of the campagna and therefore a man of honour.’

  Fiorenza asked, ‘What happened after Nicopolis?’

  Barbi stretched his legs. He was tired and wanted to go to bed. ‘You heard about the slaughter of the French knights? That Luke and his three friends survived because a gazi chief pointed out that the Holy Book forbids the execution of prisoners below a certain age?’

  She nodded.

  ‘Well, after that he was sent to live amongst the tribes in the chief’s beylik. He’s there now. And he survived a Venetian assassination attempt on the way.’

  Fiorenza looked up quickly. She was frowning. ‘Venetian?’

  ‘A man called di Vetriano whom I’d already met in Alexandria. A poisonous species. He’s dead now.’

  She asked, ‘Why did he want to kill Luke?’

  Barbi’s eyes still stung from the soot. He put his fingers to them, massaging the lids. ‘The Serenissima seemed to have got it into its head that mastic could cure the plague and that Luke knew the compound that would do it.’ He paused. ‘It c
an’t of course, any more than it can fix dye. People are getting over-excited.’

  Fiorenza had gone very quiet. The frown was still on her brow and she appeared to be thinking hard. She didn’t react when Barbi asked leave to retire. Longo smiled. ‘Benedo, my wife is distracted. Of course you must go to bed.’

  The engineer rose, bowed, and removed himself from the terrace.

  Longo rose and looked down at his wife. ‘I should follow him.’ He paused. ‘You were thinking of the Venetians?’

  Fiorenza nodded slowly. ‘I was thinking that they seem to spread their malice everywhere.’

  Longo yawned. ‘Well, the Turks certainly knew where to go tonight. They landed at Limenas and marched straight to Mesta.’

  ‘You still suspect the Medici agent?’

  The Medici bankers of Florence had lent the campagna the money to build the maze-villages. Most of it had been repaid. Longo inclined his head. ‘There’s no reason for Tommaso Bardolli to be still on this island; the bank has no office here. And the Medici are friends with Venice. They’ve lent them the money to re-equip the Arsenale to build ships and cannon for the Turk.’

  Fiorenza nodded. ‘And I’m told Bardolli spends much of his time riding around the south of the island.’

  Longo yawned again. ‘In six months we’ll have enough money to repay the full loan,’ he said. ‘I’ll go to Florence then and ask for Signor Bardolli to be given a new posting.’

  ‘No,’ said Fiorenza. ‘I should go since I arranged the loan. In six months, God willing, I will be well enough to travel.’

  Marchese Longo might have argued the point had not exhaustion broken over him so that he had to put his hand out to the balustrade. Anyway, six months was a long way away.

  After Giovanni has come into our world.