Skiouros was still shaking his head, though the vehemence had gone from the action. Below, the pikeman succeeded in hooking the wooden ring at the same moment the crossbowman put a bolt in the eye of the wooden figure standing across the courtyard. The two men laughed and jeered at one another in friendly competition as the giant continued to brutalise his practice stake.
‘I’ll save you the effort of thinking too hard about it,’ Cesare sighed. ‘I’ve been thinking on your problem for almost half a year now, and I’ve approached it mentally from every angle I can find. The result is, I’m afraid, there is no better hope for getting close to the pretender sultan than signing on as condottieri in the Vatican’s service.’
Nicolo frowned. ‘You never mentioned this to us.’
‘That,’ Cesare smiled, ‘is because without Skiouros here, you would have said no.’
The two sailors shared their thoughts with their eyes alone and then turned back to him. ‘Look,’ replied Nicolo flatly, ‘we can both handle a cleaver in an emergency, but we’re sailors, not soldiers.’
‘Every lance of condottieri needs a page and a squire,’ their host grinned. ‘Minimum action, maximum talk. Sounds like you two down to a tee.’
Skiouros sighed. ‘So your plan is that we hop on board the Isabella II, head to Rome and sign ourselves on with the Vatican officers?’
‘Ah, not quite.’
The three guests all concentrated on Orsini, who simply smiled impishly. ‘Even with my recent successes, as condottieri we are largely unknown even here in Genoa. We are total unknowns in Rome, and with so many mercenary captains clamouring for the pay and the prestige of fighting for the Pope, we would be lucky if the Vatican even spat in our direction.’
‘So what can we do, then?’ Parmenio frowned, but Skiouros had already seen the plot forming in Cesare’s head and narrowed his eyes.
‘No use heading to Rome until we’ve made a name for ourselves, am I right? Until word of our deeds carries weight?’
Cesare laughed. ‘Precisely. The best and most successful condottieri have a portfolio of their successes, and a name that travels ahead of them like a herald. We need that.’
Parmenio folded his arms defiantly. ‘You’re talking about vying with the best mercenary captains in Italy… noblemen who have fought in some of the greatest battles in living memory. Captains who command a thousand men, in some cases. We are…’ he paused and glanced back down at the courtyard, ‘seven, including three sailors! There’s no way we can win the same kind of prestige as they.’
Orsini laughed again. ‘You do think in such rigid lines, my friend. Of course there is. Instead of going out there with the intention of fighting a pitched battle in the open field and trying to distinguish ourselves, we need to pick our contracts carefully. Preferably very short contracts, even for just one action if we can manage it. But we need high profile targets and high profile employers. Then we have to make our actions memorable and laudable. If we work things right, in a few short months our names could carry the sort of weight we require. And being memorable,’ he gestured at Skiouros’ colourful neck, ‘is part of that. Half of it is success. The other is being both highly visible and very memorable.’
Skiouros looked down at the courtyard once more.
Despite his words of reassurance earlier to Orsini, there had been a number of times in the past half year when he had questioned his ability to kill - whether he had the strength needed to carry out the task. When Bayamanaco burned on his arm, and his doubts assailed him. He had only ever killed in self-defence and in the most desperate of situations. Now might be a good time to test his ability to take a man’s life in hot blood before he tried it cold… numbing himself to the taking of life, as Orsini had said.
‘You’re right, Cesare. It’s the best chance we have. And without you I wouldn’t even have that chance, so I thank you from the deepest level of my heart.’
‘Don’t thank me too soon. You’ve got some hard training to do first.’
Skiouros nodded. ‘But these two,’ he gestured to Parmenio and Nicolo. ‘Don’t guilt them into coming with us. This is not their fight.’ He turned to them and repeated himself. ‘This isn’t your fight.’
Nicolo threw an arm across Parmenio’s shoulder. ‘After you sacrificed yourself at Palos to save us? What kind of friends would we be? Besides, you heard what Orsini here said: Minimum action, maximum talk.’
CHAPTER THREE - Roccabruna, March 1494
‘Minimum action, sayeth the Orsini,’ grumbled Parmenio as his foot slipped on another section of what should have been loose scree had it not been welded together with ice. Recovering himself, he carefully planted his other foot against a jutting rock and began to scramble up the slope again. Behind him, Nicolo simply rolled his eyes, though whether in agreement with his comrade or in exasperation at Parmenio’s perpetual mutterings this morning, none of the small unit could tell.
The captain of the Isabella II, now as far removed from his beloved sea as he felt it possible to be, muttered something else under his breath about his high level of visibility. Skiouros looked back from his position at the head of the climb and almost laughed. For all his friend’s general tendency to complaint these days, the young Greek had to concede this point at least. While most of the small group were kitted for the fight, Parmenio and Nicolo - in their respective capacities as page and squire to Orsini - were decked out in the noble family’s colours. A doublet divided down the centre, with the left breast and arm red and the others white and bearing a red rose, their top half was blinding enough. The hose of vertical red and white stripes were something else entirely. They certainly did not blend in with the glittering grey-brown slope of the hillside. The two sailors’ clothing was partially enclosed in a steel breastplate, and each had a pair of gauntlets tied around their neck, padded with a scarf to stop them knocking around and clanging. Those, and their small, open helmets and the swords slung at their sides, chapes clacking off the frozen ground, labelled them more in truth than just page and squire.
Ahead of them, Skiouros looked more suited to the task at hand, his black hose dusty and marked, the mail shirt that hung to his thighs missing the right arm in order to display his colourful tattoos to the world. A tabard of striped white and red over the shirt confirmed his allegiance to the Orsini family and though he eschewed a helmet in favour of increased sensory capability, he also had gauntlets around his neck and both sword and macana club at his waist, as well as the misericord dagger that Orsini had given him.
As he paused to look back, he made sure to grip a protruding stone. Below, his friends climbed the steep slope and behind them, Helwyg, the Silesian giant, was making easy progress, his size and sheer arm strength making the climb a breeze for him. Despite the chill, he wore only breeks and hose and a linen shirt displaying the Orsini arms, his only concession to defence: a pair of iron vambraces wrapped around his lower arms. His huge sword was strapped to his back, the great, burgundy leather-bound hilt jutting up over a shoulder. His blond braids swung as he climbed.
Behind him came Vicenzo, having regretfully left his lethal pike in camp and relying on his sword and a knife instead. Dressed in red doublet and hose with one white sleeve, his torso and arms were clad so heavily in steel plate that little of the colour could be seen. He already wore his gauntlets, which were of hardened leather and were no hazard to the climb. At his waist, a heavy coiled rope weighed him down.
Of their small party, Girolamo came almost last, struggling with the climb despite being burdened only by a breastplate and one mailed arm, his red and white colours in clear evidence, yet somehow easier on the eye than the stripes afflicting Parmenio and Nicolo. On his back swung the heavy crossbow with which he had achieved a level of impressive mastery, and a leather case of bolts at his waist occasionally got in the way of the climb, the leather bag on the far side swinging pendulously as he clambered up.
Orsini himself, the condottiere and captain of the force, brought up the r
ear. Despite being encased entirely in articulated plate mail, from the heavy visored helmet to the banded sabatons on his feet, he seemed to be nimbly picking his way up the slope in their wake. His armour gleamed evilly, all black with gold designs etched thereon, a cloak hanging from his shoulders displaying the Orsini colours. Curse him for his ideas. Curse him doubly for being so self-assured about them.
Turning back to the climb, Skiouros spied their destination between the trees ahead. The heavy fortress of Roccabruna brooded on the tan ridge, unassailable and proud, its six towers and curtain wall almost insignificant when compared to some of the places Skiouros had visited, and yet powerful when placed on such a commanding crest. For all they did not live up to the walls of Istanbul or Genoa or Carthage, they might as well rise to touch the sky itself when the attacking force consisted of seven mismatched and generally grumpy mercenaries.
The Roccabruna seemed to mock him for a moment and then disappeared from sight among the trees. Skiouros turned once more and glanced back.
Past his friends, and down behind the gleaming black figure of Orsini, the army of Lord Alberici of Orvieto sat patiently, strewn across the valley below the fortress. Hundreds, even thousands, of footmen, archers and crossbowmen stood in ordered squares while knights on their destriers rode back and forth between them. The pavilion of Lord Orvieto shone in the cold sun across the valley, white and blue and topped with streamers and banners, surrounded by the tents of the other knights. Artillery - the very latest bombards and cannon - were lined up on the hill opposite, ready to fire in the hope that their range would be sufficient to pound the walls of Roccabruna to rubble when the order was given.
Not for the first time, Skiouros threw up a prayer to God almighty that the impetuous lord of Orvieto would give them the time they had agreed before he passed word to the artillerists to begin the assault. The very idea of being exposed on the slope below the walls when those bombards began to fire was heart-stopping. In the early winter, during the Veneto campaign, he had seen a man take a direct hit from a cannon ball and he still occasionally woke sweating in the night at the memory.
‘I say again that we should have flatly refused to do this,’ Parmenio snorted, scrambling at the slope and dragging Skiouros back from the remembered sight of that grisly death.
‘I know. I’m tempted to agree,’ muttered Skiouros, reaching up and pulling himself up the last stretch of open slope before the small knot of trees that hid their ascent from the walls. His early eagerness to throw himself into the martial life upon his return from the west was beginning to flag under the ennui of constant warfare. ‘I’m so heartily sick of endless engagements and hovering among the crowd of men hoping I’ll make it back this time. We’ve been so many months facing death down that we just have to seize an opportunity like this. He may be insane when it comes to planning, but Orsini’s shrewd.’
And he was. After seven months of serving four different noblemen in the interminable internecine wars of Italy, they had been more than just fortunate to have managed to sign into the service of Lord Orvieto. Not because he was any better than the rest - he wasn’t. In Skiouros’ considered opinion, the man was a jumped up runt with a superiority complex who considered everyone but his direct family inferior and expendable. In fact, the young Greek had taken an instant dislike to the man on a level usually reserved for his enemies. But in the three times they had been in Orvieto’s presence, there had never been less than three Vatican emissaries with him, including a cardinal, here as a Papal legate.
Orsini had been right in signing this contract. If ever they wanted an ‘in’ to service for the Vatican, this would be the way. Orvieto was here under Papal authority to take and hold Roccabruna - a small but strategically important fortress whose master continually refused to acknowledge the overlordship of the Pope. Even then, with this final chance at recognition, the lord’s army was so large that none of the four Condottieri forces who served him would stand out above the common soldiery. And that had been where Cesare’s plan had come in.
It still made Skiouros grind his teeth as he remembered that moment, last night, when Orsini had entered their tent and laid out the bones of his plan. It had taken all of his not-insignificant powers of persuasion to secure the agreement of his three friends, and even then Parmenio had only bowed to the pressure of his peers. When all had been agreed, Parmenio had nodded and suggested that Cesare approach the lord with his plan. Orsini had laughed and taken a swig of his wine before he informed them that he had put his proposal to the lord before he’d dropped by. Orvieto had agreed with some reservations, but the plan had already been approved.
When they had pulled Parmenio’s angry hands back from Cesare’s throat and calmed him down, the group had settled to come up with the finer detail for Orsini’s plan.
And now, a mere twelve hours later, here they were scrambling up the slope on a mission to bring this troublesome castle and its recalcitrant lord back under Papal dominion.
Skiouros reached the line of vegetation and grasped a bare branch to help pull himself into the cover of the trees. Behind him, and with grumbles of relief, Parmenio and Nicolo skittered into the shade of the cold copse. While the others joined them, Skiouros pushed his way through the small stand and to the top edge, where he could finally see the castle of Roccabruna close up and all too well.
Cesare had been correct about the layout, at least. While the bulk of the castle strode along the ridge, leading to a heavy gatehouse at the eastern point where the main road led up from the township below, this direction provided the only viable alternative entrance. Here, the walls had been extended to march a little way down the slope and protect a smaller postern gate which sat atop a small path winding its way down the hillside to a hamlet by the stream below, now swamped by the waiting besieging army.
The walls of the castle were not thronged with men as Skiouros would have expected when facing a siege, but Orsini had been certain that only lookouts would be posted up there. When bombards were lined up and pointed at the walls no defender in his right mind filled those parapets with his best men. Remembering that grisly cannon shot in Veneto, Skiouros could imagine why.
Two guards were close by, keeping watch over this sector. Others were just visible as shapes in the higher sections of the castle. Even if they saw what happened here, it would take them time to react. Speed was of the essence.
Skiouros glanced to his left. There, somewhere around a thousand yards away, was the edge of the forest of which this small copse was just an outlying fragment. He could almost imagine the four hundred men of Orvieto’s most disposable unit seething up through those woods, unseen from above and ready to leap into action at the signal.
Again Skiouros prayed that Cesare had thought it through thoroughly enough and had been right in his estimates and guesses.
As the others appeared among the itchy, prickly pine-needle branches with Skiouros, Girolamo unslung his crossbow and unfastened his leather case, withdrawing two bolts of different sizes which he lay on the ground before fastening it again. While Orsini brought up the rear and the others peered between the branches at their target, Girolamo began to wind back the string until it met his satisfaction. Testing the tension, he nodded and proffered it to Skiouros, who frowned.
‘Hold it for me.’
While the Greek gingerly took the weapon, being sure to keep his finger far away from the trigger, he watched with interest as the crossbowman opened up the swinging leather sack at the other side of his belt. From it, he removed what appeared to be a miniature version of the same weapon, some eighteen inches long. Swiftly, Girolamo hooked the string on this one back over the retainer and then cranked it with a small lever. Once it was so tight it creaked and hummed with torsion, he laid it carefully on the ground and slid the smaller of the two bolts into place.
‘Rope,’ he said, without looking around. As Vicenzo began to unhook the coiled rope from his waist, Girolamo picked up the larger crossbow bolt. Skiouros not
ed as the man held it up and turned it around, that a narrow hole had been drilled through the shaft at the end, behind the flights. Taking a leather thong from his pouch, the archer threaded it through the hole and tied it off, pulling it tight. As Vicenzo passed him the looped end of the rope, Girolamo attached the leather thong to the hemp circle and tested it until it met his approval. Satisfied, he took his weapon from Skiouros once more and settled the bolt into place, making sure the leather thong was looped through the lath from the front to allow both arrow and rope free passage. Nodding his approval at the device, he cocked his head towards Skiouros.
‘Pick the other one up.’
Skiouros did so, gingerly, and Girolamo hissed in irritation. ‘Keep it level. Don’t tip it, or the bolt will come loose. Make sure it’s seated right. That’s it. Now hold it still and level and pass it to me the moment my hands are free.
He turned to Orsini. ‘Are we ready?’
‘Any moment. Wait until the two guards are looking in different directions. Other than that, everyone knows what to do.’ His voice was made hollow and unearthly by the enclosing helmet and Skiouros wondered if Cesare was glad no one could see his face right now. If anything went wrong here, not only would they be in great danger, but they would look like fools to the Papal watchers and all would be for naught. It was almost fascinating watching Orsini’s breath pluming through the rose-shaped air-holes in the helmet.
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