He reached for the axe with his right hand, never taking his eyes from his attacker, who simply nodded pleasantly, and rose to his feet. He was larger than Nicolo had thought. Everyone looks large when you are on the ground, but now standing himself, Nicolo realized that the man was still enormous. He felt his anger-fueled confidence waver. He glanced over the man’s shoulder at the figure leaning against the tree. It was indeed Maffeo as they had thought, but he wasn’t leaning at all. He had been crammed into the limbs of the tree so his limp body would remain upright. His right arm, he could see now, was bent at an obscene angle. He took it all in in an instant, his eyes coming to rest on Maffeo’s cloven head, a cloud of flies swarming around the bloody gash.
Qilij glanced back at the body and smiled. Nicolo realized now that he could never best this man in hand to hand combat. He seemed to have no weapon, but he did not trust that observation. He was sure to have a dagger at least hidden in his ragged clothing. His only chance would be to catch him off guard, keep him talking until he could strike.
“I do not understand,” Nicolo said. “Your accent is strange to me. I do not recognize it. If you are not a bandit, what business do you have with us?”
“What business I have with you is my business, and I choose not to discuss it. Now come, let us have this over with.”
Nicolo was edging imperceptibly closer and the man hadn’t moved. He would be close enough to strike in a few seconds if he could keep him distracted. “You fight like a soldier though you dress like a peasant. If you wish to erase me from this place as I believe you put it, it is a matter of honor, between fighting men, that you at least tell me why. Are you not a man of honor? From what I have seen…”
Nicolo lunged in midsentence bringing the axe arcing down toward Qilij’s broad chest. Qilij stepped to his left with astonishing speed as though he were expecting exactly that move at precisely that moment. He avoided the lunge, grabbing Nicolo’s right wrist, and broke it with a flick of his hand. Nicolo screamed and Qilij spun, still holding the wrist in one hand and plucking the axe from Nicolo’s ruined grasp with the other, burying it in his back between his shoulder blades at the base of his neck. Nicolo was dead before he hit the ground.
For the second time that day Qilij extracted his axe from a fallen enemy and cleaned its blade on a dead man’s shirt. He surveyed the scene before him. It had been easier than he had expected. He would leave them as they lay, soldiers or no. Let the land they had terrorized and exploited claim them. For the vaunted Provveditori, he would use the bow. They were below contempt, deserving no such honor as facing their enemy. Death would rain down from the sky and they would know that their robes of state could not protect them from Allah’s justice.
He walked back to his horse, tied to a tree and waiting patiently halfway down the far side of the hill. He pulled his bow and quiver from its holder on the saddle and returned to the rock formation. He extracted Maffeo’s body from the tree’s limbs and tossed it a good distance from the rocks. He didn’t want the flies to be a distraction. He looked down into the valley and spotted the camp. The light was nearly gone and he would have to be quick, especially since they would now have no fire to illuminate them. He moved along the top of the ridge, hiding himself among the trees, making sure his movements were even and fluid; nothing too jarring to catch the eye. He saw another rock formation on a narrow bluff, this one smaller than the other—enough to conceal his body but not so large as to be a hindrance—about a third of the way down the hill. It would be a good spot from which to shoot. He carefully made his way down the slope and knelt behind the rocks. He set his arrows down on the ground next to him, ran a loving hand along the smooth curve of his bow, and snapped the bowstring, testing the tension. The valley floor was in deep shadow now, not quite dark but close. Even his perfect vision would be tested.
Qilij loved the visceral charge of hand to hand combat, the axe and sword just another part of his body. It was the purest form of domination of one man over another, almost sacred in its practice. As hated as an enemy might be, in the end, if he had fought well, he became something close to a brother in his death. Even so, it was the bow he truly loved. He remembered the training now, how it had taken his anger and channeled it, given it purpose. Taybugha al-Yunani, in his treatise on archery, had enjoined every archer to enter the training yard in veneration, as though he were entering a mosque. It was to this place of reverence that Qilij went now.
He was at peace. Everything around him—the trees, rocks, wind, sky—they were all part of a whole, working in concert to help him accomplish his mission. He saw the Provveditori in the camp, saw them with impassive eyes. They seemed agitated as no doubt they were, wondering where the soldiers had gone and whether they would return. Were they angry? Afraid? If they were not fearful, they soon would be. Qilij closed his eyes, modulating his breath. In his mind each man below took the form of the buttiyya, the training target. When his arrows pierced their flesh however, it would not be cotton that emerged. He began to recite Taybugha’s poem in a low murmur, more than two hundred verses in all, containing all the instructions in archery—how to hold the bow, where to place the right leg and where the left, what distance to keep between them, when to stand and when to sit while taking aim, the grasp (qabda), the clench (qafla), the aim (i’timed), the nocking (tafwiq), the release (iflat). Qilij could loose five arrows in as many seconds with tremendous accuracy but he would not need to be so quick now. He caressed his bow once more, its smooth surface shimmering in the twilight. There had been only a handful of men back in Cairo that could even fully draw the bowstring back, let alone accurately shoot with it. The arrows were exactly as long as his arm, the bow as long as the arrows.
He looked down to the camp once more, recalling the instructions for shooting from the top of a fortress at enemies below: follow your opponent closely, move the lower tip of the bow over to your right side, hold the bow across and draw it downwards. Bend your back a little, hold the arrow (that is drawn in the bow) between your two legs and shoot it. Beware not to shoot from one place in a war, but rather walk from one place to another, watch your opponent and then shoot.
Of the three men it had been clear to Qilij who the leader was from the episode at the harbor—the tall one with the beak nose, who derided his men instead of giving them a reason to follow him. He was Venetian to the core, arrogant and disdainful. Qilij would save him for last. He had no thoughts one way or the other about his two companions beyond the knowledge that he would end their suffering sooner than their leader’s. One of the men stood at the center of the camp, head down, examining something in his hands. The other sat against a tree, staring out at nothing in particular. Beak nose had his back to the hillside. Qilij suspected he had no more than five minutes before he would be unable to see them.
The first arrow pierced the standing man’s heart. He died instantly, his mouth a perfect O of surprise. He hit the ground like a fallen tree, the arrow’s whistle the only hint of what had just happened. The man sitting against the tree tried to scramble to his feet and slipped on the pine needles. Qilij’s next arrow three seconds later pinned his head to the tree through his throat. His body went limp, still seated. He made wet sucking sounds as dark blood spurted from his neck and poured from his mouth.
Now Qilij turned his attention to the leader. He rose from his crouch and walked steadily along the bluff. The man was panicked. He quickly scanned the hillside as he first sought cover and then raced for the horses tied up nearby. Qilij kept walking, without hurry, notching a third arrow in stride, and severed the man’s spine at the base of his back. He collapsed on his stomach, began dragging himself toward the horses, not realizing in his panic that he could never hope to mount a horse with legs that were now dead. As much as he despised the man, Qilij admired him for his resolve. He hadn’t stopped. He was still trying to escape. He was at the horse’s legs now, attempting to pull himself up. The horse whinnied, becoming increasingly agitated by the commotion and
this man grasping at its legs. It pranced back and forth, throwing back its head, its eyes rolling in their sockets. The man couldn’t keep a grip on the flailing leg and fell back on his side.
He became very still and slowly turned his face to the hillside. Qilij realized that he had accepted his death and was challenging his attacker to show himself. Qilij believed this man dishonorable, undeserving. Still, he was becoming the assassin he so despised, and so stepped out from the trees. Qilij looked down, could see more of the man than the man could of him, the dying sun behind him. He saw the hint of a smile on the man’s lips, his eyes narrowing in distaste. Qilij had seen the look before. It was unmistakable. It said the man believed he was looking at a coward.
One should never shoot an arrow in anger. It can result in a loss of control, and a loss of control can mean death in the heat of battle. Qilij tried to breathe slowly and clear his mind. He could not. He let out a roar of rage as he let the arrow fly. It buried itself in the left eye of the man, but much to his dismay, Qilij felt no satisfaction.
Thirty One
Paolo raised his head. A spotty blackness covered his vision. His head felt as though it were in pieces.
“I would advise against doing that again if I were you.”
He turned toward the voice but the pain was too great. He slowly lowered his head with a groan, the rolled up blanket beneath offering little comfort.
“You chased me,” he said, remembering the fall, his voice thick—an observation rather than an accusation. The man put his hand beneath Paolo’s head, gently raising it.
“Here, drink.” He dribbled water between Paolo’s lips from a small jug. “Yes, we chased you.”
“Why?”
He shrugged. It is what we do.
“How long have I been here?”
“Three days. You have been in and out of consciousness. Who is Chaya?” The man smiled for the first time. His teeth were brown. He had a thick black moustache, black curly hair, dark skin, and eyes so dark blue they were nearly black. He wore sandals on his feet, a coarse shirt, and pants held up with a rope. He looked like a bandit.
“Why did you not kill me?”
“You said something about being a fugitive before you lost consciousness, that Venetians were chasing you. We were intrigued. We are no friends of the Republic.”
“Thank you.”
“Do not thank me yet. It is true that we haven’t killed you. It is not necessarily true that we won’t.”
Paolo considered this. “If you decide to kill me, you will let me know I presume?”
“You will be the first.” He smiled again. “I am Calix.”
“Paolo.” Paolo hadn’t moved. He was staring straight up at a canopy of some sort tied between three trees. It looked a little like a ship’s sail.
“Who is Chaya?” Calix asked again.
“Someone from a lifetime ago,” Paolo said.
“Does she wait for you?”
Simply trying to survive had replaced any thoughts of returning home. Such notions seemed a luxury now. “I’ll tell you only if you promise not to kill me,” he said. He tried to smile. It hurt.
***
“SIX DEAD. THREE officials, by the look of them. Still in their camp. Three others, soldiers, up the hillside. Nothing taken, the horses still all tied up. And hungry.”
“So,” said Calix thoughtfully, “no one we know.”
“Why do you say that?” asked Paolo.
“First, there should be no one other than us in this part of the country, but even so, if any of the other mountain tribes had killed them, the horses would be gone, the supplies taken. It’s all still there. Someone else killed them, someone we don’t know.”
“You said six?” Paolo was sitting next to Calix near a stream. He had accompanied the bandit to water the horses. He was feeling better, had been nursed back on a diet of dandelions, pine nuts, and stringy goat meat. It had taken him another day to stand up without feeling dizzy, but he still ached when he moved, his ribs throbbing with every breath. Miraculously nothing had been broken.
“Yes, six,” said the man. Calix, Paolo had come to learn, was their leader, and had sent out a small party of men to reconnoiter the area after hearing Paolo’s semi-conscious ramblings of pursuit.
“The Provveditori and the three soldiers they brought with them. They were here to bring me back to Venice.”
“Then you are a fortunate man,” said the messenger.
Paolo considered the statement. He wasn’t so sure. True, had he not fled when he did he would be on his way back to Venice, to prison and most probably to his death. And now it was his pursuers that were dead, no longer a threat to him. But perhaps an even greater threat had replaced them.
“Thank you Cristo,” said Calix.
“Is there anyone in your camp whose name does not begin with a C?”
Calix grinned. “You are a brave man, poking fun at a feared bandit like myself, although I must say I do not like the term very much, bandit.” He wrinkled his nose. “We are patriots, eh Cristo?” The other man nodded solemnly. Calix’s smile faded, back to business. “In what condition were the bodies?”
“Whoever killed them did not like them. These were not deaths that were simply necessary. There was passion involved. The three on the hillside, the soldiers,” he said with a nod toward Paolo, “were killed close in, by hand. One’s head was split in two by a large blade. Another received a similar blade in the back, his wrist broken. The third man’s neck was broken, his head turned completely around. The strength needed to do that…” his voice trailed off as he imagined the size of the killer. “The three in the camp” he continued, “were killed with arrows. From the angle of entry I’d say they came from the hillside. One in the heart, one through the throat. The last had two, one in the back and one through the left eye. Incredible shots on the ground. From the hillside, nearly impossible.”
“And yet, there they were.” Calix stroked his chin thoughtfully.
“There’s something else,” said Cristo.
“Yes?” asked Calix.
“I can’t be sure, but the ground seemed as though it hadn’t been disturbed…enough.”
“What do you mean, enough?”
“The deaths looked to be the work of multiple men. The three soldiers, they were large, strong. It would have taken several men to kill them that way. And the men in the valley, they must have been killed at the same time or at least in very rapid succession. They were all still there, in the camp. Had they been killed one by one, their bodies should be separated, whether from fleeing, hiding, or moving to fight. But they were all there, as though they were dead before they ever had a chance, before they realized what was happening.”
“So?”
“So, the ground up on the hillside should be churned up from the fighting and movement of many men, but it is not.”
Calix didn’t seem convinced. The soil there was loose he knew, exposed to the wind. The evidence of such a battle could easily have been erased by the elements.
“Thank you Cristo.” The man nodded and left. “So my fugitive friend,” said Calix, looking askance at Paolo, “who killed your Provveditori?”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t look very pleased. You’ve gotten a reprieve. You’re a free man.”
“Yes, but for how long? And why? Something worse may be coming.”
“Or not coming at all.”
“Perhaps.”
“Do not think too much. Come,” said Calix, rising and slapping Paolo on the back. “I am hungry.”
“Goat?”
“Of course, what else?” laughed Calix. “It is the food of freedom.”
***
HE HAD BEEN wrong. The traitor wasn’t dead, nor did it look as though the bandits were planning on killing him. In fact, it seemed that he was recuperating with their help. He would be accomplishing his mission after all. After killing the Venetians, Qilij had tracked the bandits back to their camp. I
t hadn’t been difficult. They did little to hide their passage, knowing they would be left alone unless they were involved in another uprising against the Republic. Venice cared little for the crimes perpetrated against travelers by a ragged band of Cretans living in the mountains. Committing resources to protect a largely ungrateful citizenry under their rule held no opportunity for profit, so why pursue it? The bandits understood this very well.
Qilij would have to wait once more, but he was prepared to do so, especially given this most agreeable development. Avesari could not stay there indefinitely. He had been heading to Rethymno—Qilij was sure of it now—when he had been captured. At some point he would resume his journey and Qilij would be waiting. Unless he knew of what had happened back in the valley. The entire camp must know by now. That might give Avesari pause, preferring the sheltered hospitality of bandits to an empty road fraught with whatever it was that had slaughtered the Venetians. While they may be aware of what had happened to the Provveditori, he was quite sure that they were ignorant of how it had happened or who had committed the act. If it came to him having to take Avesari by force, he would derive no pleasure from killing the bandits. He held them in some esteem, enemies of Venice that they were. So he would wait. For a time at least.
***
“I MUST GET to Rethymno.”
“But why?” Calix spread his arms, indicating the entirety of the camp. “You have all you need right here.” They sat, leaning against a fat tree trunk. Small pockets of men huddled together, eating, drinking, sharpening their knives. They had erected makeshift shelters, some freestanding with the help of sheared wooden poles, others using the trees for cover with pine needle beds below. The men were animated, cheered by the return of the warmer weather. A cooking fire at the camp’s center was licking at the crispy skin of a goat on a spit.
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