Assassin's Tale

by Turney, S. J. A.

  Parmenio, at his other side, snorted. ‘Revenge or no revenge, you’ll find it near impossible to get close enough to do anything. And if you do manage, by some miracle, to kill the little bugger, you will follow him to the grave, after a short sojourn in a cellar in the company of some very professional men and their collection of sharp and glowing pokers.’

  ‘And we’d be right behind you there, too,’ added Nicolo with feeling.

  ‘Then what has this all been for?’ Skiouros sighed. ‘I cannot believe that God has brought me this close to my goal, that wrathful Bayamanaco would allow me to even lay eyes on the man that will complete my work but not permit me to do anything about it.’

  ‘Your strange perceptions of God and your fealty to weird foreign heresies aside,’ Orsini smiled with a little stiff discomfort, ‘I think you will find that it was your companions who brought you this close. God does not approve of vengeful men, though he might oft be so himself.’

  ‘Happy bloody Christmas,’ grunted Parmenio, rubbing his cold elbows and resting them on the battlements once more.

  A little further along the wall, Helwyg the Silesian Giant hefted the polearm he had taken to carrying, and turned to them.

  ‘This no weather for Christ Mass,’ he rumbled. ‘Where I from, even summer worse than this. Christ Mass in snow deeper than I. Forests buried white.’ The big man sighed, apparently missing his homeland more than ever. Skiouros could empathise well with him, though not in respect of the cold.

  Girolamo patted the Silesian on the shoulder comfortingly.

  Orsini smiled. ‘His Holiness seems to have managed to keep the French wolf from his door for the day, though, despite all Charles’ boasts. He must be praying hard to God that Rome does not pay the price for his vanity in denying the king that small victory.’

  A voice from behind - smooth as molten gold and quiet as a feather’s passing - replied ‘His Holiness has made his point.’

  The six men turned to see Cardinal Borgia standing at the rear of the wall, wrapped for once in his red robes of office. Skiouros was interested to see the black-clad forms of the canons Lateran - fathers Bartholomew and Alexander - behind him, as well as the ever-present solidity of Sir Antonio.

  ‘Respectfully, your Eminence,’ Orsini smiled humourlessly, ‘His Holiness’ point might be the trigger that causes the death of a lot of Rome’s people. And not a few cardinals.’

  Borgia’s lip curled in a manner that put Skiouros in mind of a hunting dog facing a difficult prey. ‘The few cardinals still walking these halls are men who will make any incursion a matter for extreme regret. Many of them work a sword better than you, Orsini. Those whose entire goal in the house of the Lord is the acquisition of wealth and the avoidance of work have fled to safety among the Frank-lovers.’

  Skiouros caught sight of the two canons behind the cardinal and the look the pair shared spoke volumes about their opinions of taking up the sword in defence of their Pope. He tried not to smile as one of them made hand signals to the other of a somewhat suggestive nature, clearly revolving around the phrase work a sword.

  ‘What brings your Eminence out onto the battlements in this cold?’ Orsini asked casually.

  Borgia placed his hands on his hips and straightened. ‘His Holiness has decided that the time has come to agree terms with the king of France, on the condition that they are not too unfavourable to the chair of Saint Peter.’

  ‘His Holiness intends to try for a beneficial arrangement while he sits here with his head inside the lion of France’s mouth and tickles its balls with a feather?’

  The cardinal laughed. ‘Such might easily be my father’s motto. The Borgia have faced insurmountable problems more than once in our time, and yet we are still here and at the apex of this pile of robes and bones and gold that is the Church. As I say, my father is to send a deputation out to the king.’

  Skiouros felt his blood chill as he saw the blocks of his near future falling into place.

  ‘His Holiness will send his Vice Chancellor out as his ambassador. Despite the man’s family’s utter disregard for the Pope’s position and their continued opposition and enmity, Ascanio Sforza remains a loyal member of His Holiness’ higher court. However, when I was asked to supply the escort, it pleased me to think that the one member of the Sforza plague who still stands by my father might be accompanied by the one Orsini who holds a commission here. It is a curious symmetry.’

  ‘I can imagine,’ Orsini smiled. ‘Do I presume that the deputation will be departing presently?’

  ‘The Vice Chancellor and his retinue already form up at the gate. You will need to obtain horses from the stables and prepare. You have fifteen minutes.’

  ‘Respectfully, your Eminence, what happens to us if Cardinal Sforza simply decides to follow his family’s lead and kiss the French king’s arse?’

  ‘Then, Orsini, I will be extremely interested to see how you handle the situation, given the parallels with your own situation.’

  Orsini bowed his head with a sly grin.

  Skiouros settled into the saddle with all the ease of a deranged camel riding a clothes horse. He had not ridden since his arrival in Rome, and even before that had hardly been what could be termed a ‘natural horseman’. His faithful steed Sigma was still stabled at the monastery of Sant’Agnese, as safe as anywhere in Rome, and this animal seemed to be at best a wild creature with no love of bearing a man’s weight.

  ‘Would you try not to look so out of place,’ Parmenio grumbled, sitting comfortably atop a steed that was little more than a placid mobile hairball that needed a good kicking even to get it to step forward.

  ‘If this thing would stop trying to drop me I would.’

  ‘Note, if you will,’ father Bartholomew smiled, ‘how the young man with his easy hose and doublet sits astride his beast with all the grace of a nervous cat on a hot platter, while the cardinal Sforza, who I am given to understand has not ridden a horse since before he took his vows, and wears an unaccommodating robe of ankle length, seems to be perfectly at home and in control. Curious, is it not, brother?’

  Beside him, father Alexander of Clan Keith chuckled. ‘Be kind, my brother. A dancer in a tin suit is still a dancer, while an ape in breeches is still an ape.’

  Skiouros flashed an angry look at the pair, but the smiles they bore were full only of friendly humour and no true mockery.

  ‘Perhaps one of you would like to take my place?’

  ‘Ah now,’ Alexander laughed in his thick, strange northern accent, ‘we would be as much use defending the Vice Chancellor in a sudden melee as you would be in taking the lurid, shocking, wicked - and thoroughly invigorating - confessions of the castle soldiers.’

  ‘In seriousness,’ Bartholomew said quietly, leaning closer, ‘be very careful and more than a little diplomatic. Ascanio Sforza is both clever and tactful, and you should encounter no problems. But His Holiness sends out the Vice Chancellor partially as a test of loyalty, and his cardinal son does the same for you. It may be that you are about to see a higher step on the Borgia ladder if you perform appropriately.’

  ‘Oh?’ Skiouros leaned eagerly and almost toppled from the horse as the irritating beast actually managed somehow to roll its back with the movement.

  ‘One of His Eminence’s more important and long-standing units of condottieri has been dismissed from service and expelled from the borgo. It is not common knowledge, though, so keep it to yourself. One of the men in that lance was a Frenchman by birth and in an unfortunate argument he put a pike point through one of the Catalan guard’s feet. Terrible business. His Eminence has thus far kept you at arm’s length, treating you as something of an unknown, but now he is shorthanded and I believe seeks to shuffle you up a place.’

  Skiouros felt a rush at the thought. To be high in his service would certainly take him closer to the opportunity he sought. ‘We are loyal to His Eminence and the Pope,’ Orsini shrugged, ‘but I thank you for that. We will endeavour to make our fidelity e
ver more clear.’

  The two canons smiled like favourite uncles and stepped back as the huge gate opened and the column of mounted men moved out. The short journey through the castle’s postern and out through the borgo was quiet and suffused with an air of grateful dejection. No one, even the starving populace of the city, truly wished to offer their necks to the mercy of the king of France with his reputation as a warmonger, and yet every living soul in Rome knew that the alternative was death, either by hunger or by the blade’s edge, and the very idea of survival outweighed the potential agonies of life under French control. The gate in the borgo wall opened with a quiet creak that cut through the silent city like the waking groan of a titan as the populace held its breath.

  Skiouros felt his bones chill as the small ambassadorial party crunched across the cold wet gravel of the road and out into the countryside that lay beyond the borgo’s northern wall.

  The French army, confident enough in their given victory that the nearest units were arrayed within easy cannon-shot of the walls, covered the countryside like a forest of glinting steel. The bores of the artillery threatened like tunnels into the heart of Hell. The cavalry units were at rest, the horses corralled and grazing. A unit of arquebusiers half the size of the entire Papal infantry stood at rest, their heavy wooden guns mounted carefully on racks beneath wicker roofs to keep them safe from both rain and dew. It quite simply boggled the mind how any force could hope to withstand the might of King Charles. Skiouros doubted that His Holiness would have stood against them even had the combined nobility of Italy thrown in their lot with him. Terms would be agreed today, but Charles would probably decide them.

  On a somewhat dejected whim, the Greek turned to peer back at the powerful bulk of the Castel Sant’Angelo, which suddenly looked rather small and feeble against the forces arrayed before it. Skiouros was about to turn back and concentrate on the matter at hand when his roving eye picked out two things that stopped his breath. His eyes struggled to maintain focus on both but, straining, he dropped his gaze from the tiny form of the Turkish hostage in the window high above the battlements to the lurking figure of the hooded man standing almost directly below.

  It was impossible to identify the figure’s features at this distance, and no man would claim to be certain of his identity with the evidence of their eyes alone, yet Skiouros knew, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that it was the Hospitaller he had sought for so many weeks.

  How cruel were the powers above and below that after months of seeking the two men, he should finally lay eyes on both on one of the few occasions that he was outside the fortress walls and entirely unable to reach either. Reflexively he reached up, risking his marginal control of his steed, to touch the zemi figure of Maquetaurie Guayaba at his neck.

  ‘Keep your eyes forward,’ Orsini hissed.

  ‘I see prince Cem.’

  ‘Can you stick a knife in him?’ the nobleman growled.

  ‘Of course not.’

  ‘Then pay attention to the matter in hand. If you want to get closer to him you need to rise to the top of the cardinal’s service, and that means excelling in this duty.’

  ‘But I saw the rogue Hospitaller too.’

  ‘And you can stick your knife in him, yes?’

  ‘Well, no,’ muttered the Greek.

  ‘Then use your head instead, Skiouros.’

  With the greatest of difficulty, the young man tore his gaze from the walls and the two men looking out from them, and turned to face the breath-taking might of France.

  Charles de Valois, by the grace of God his most Christian Majesty King of France, Duke of Brittany and self-styled ‘King of Napoli and of Jerusalem’, sat with his retinue in the semi-circular space defined by the arc of nobles’ tents, with the royal pavilion at the centre - a canvas palace of blue and white peppered with golden fleur-de-lys.

  The great and good of France, along with a number of cardinals, both French and allied Italian, stood in their finery and robes of state, the man who had brought terror to Rome seated on a dais at the centre. Skiouros took a moment to size up the opposition as they approached.

  For all his power, Charles was a pasty faced man in his mid-twenties, with an impressive beak of a nose, jowly jawline and an entirely unimpressive short and heavy frame. His hat sat at what was probably intended to be a jaunty angle, but in fact looked slovenly and ill-fitting. Had the situation not been quite so grave, Skiouros would have laughed at this almost comical figure who commanded so much fear across Europe.

  The impression was heightened as the party came to a halt and the king of France smiled in a strangely disarming manner, crossed his legs and leaned on the arm of his chair, addressing the visitors in Italian, with a thick French accent.

  ‘Cardinal Sforza, if I am not mistaken. Greetings of the Yuletide. I bring a gift for His Holiness and do deeply hope the vicar of Rome intends to reciprocate.’

  His casual manner and the easy smile were so charming that Skiouros was forced to remind himself of how much rode upon this grand meeting. Cardinal Ascanio Sforza, a severe looking man with fishy lips and hard eyes, raised an eyebrow and shifted his weight on the horse to bow slightly.

  ‘I fear His Holiness may consider your Majesty’s gift a little too grand, though I am sure he will see how many he can fit in his barracks. Would you not like to retain at least a few chevaliers to escort you back to France, your Majesty?’

  A curious silence fell across the crowd and Skiouros saw noblemen and cardinals alike bristling, their fingers playing with the pommels of their swords, until suddenly Charles of Valois threw back his head and roared with laughter.

  ‘Cardinal Sforza, if His Holiness is graced with even a fraction of your wit and balls half your size, he will prove a formidable opponent.’ In the blink of an eye, the humour passed from his voice and suddenly he was sitting straight without having appeared to lift from his slouch.

  ‘And now, to business, Vice Chancellor.’

  Sforza bowed his head. ‘Of course, Majesty.’

  ‘My men have had a long journey from France, cardinal, and precious little opportunity to show their mettle or slake their thirst for war. I fear that unless we can come to very favourable terms, my generals will have a great deal of difficulty restraining their men and preventing the looting and rapine of the Holy City. Consequently… impress me.’

  Sforza simply nodded again and cleared his throat.

  ‘His Holiness wishes to avoid bloodshed, not through his fear of your Majesty’s forces, but for the sake of your eternal soul. No man, be he bandit or king, may contemplate bringing war against God’s chosen in the heart of the Church without imperilling his immortal self. His Holiness would save you and your men from excommunication and certain Hell.’

  ‘His Holiness is most generous,’ drawled Charles.

  ‘Indeed he is, your Majesty. His Holiness requires time to prepare to receive such an august visitor in adequate style, but would like to formally issue an invitation to your Majesty and your court to enter Rome on the eve of the new year and dine with His Holiness at the palazzo of the turncoat cardinal Della Rovere.’

  Skiouros was suddenly supplied with a flash of memory and scanned the faces of the gathered men in crimson, settling upon the face of Cardinal Della Rovere who they had last seen at an inn in Siena, and whose face was dark as thunder. Flashing a quick cruel smile at the furious cardinal, Sforza continued his words to the king.

  ‘The gates of the city of Rome will be opened to the men of France on the understanding that they will act with all the appropriate decorum of visiting guests, though the soldiers of France are not to be admitted to the Papal borgo, the Vatican, or the Castel Sant’Angelo.’

  King Charles leaned one elbow on the arm of his chair, cradling his heavy chin in the ‘L’ of his thumb and forefinger, a curious smile playing across his lips. ‘Has His Holiness any word for me on my investiture as King of Napoli or my request that he pass back the hostage Cem to his rightful host? After all,
the Sultan resided on French soil before the knights Hospitaller decided to move him to Papal lands.’

  Sforza leaned back in his saddle. ‘The soil of a Hospitaller fortress, your majesty, is no more French than it is Italian, since it is land given to God. But, surely your Majesty will concede that these are not matters to be discussed between ambassadors in the cold air and in view of the rank and file of both our nations. His Holiness suggests that such delicate matters be discussed in person in the New Year.’

  There was a pause as a number of the more belligerent looking French nobles glanced at their king, clearly half expecting him to leap from his seat and skewer the troublesome Sforza. In fact, Charles leaned back again with an easy smile.

  ‘I have waited many months to discuss such matters with the Pope. What is one more week? I agree to His Holiness’ terms. I would request that the Papal cannons are run back in from the battlements as a sign of our peaceable circumstances, and in return our own artillery will be turned from the walls.’

  ‘Agreed, your Majesty. I am also instructed by His Holiness to offer you my ear in the matter of confessional.’

  King Charles furrowed his brow, his comical face twisting in suspicious surprise. Orsini flashed a quick warning look at Skiouros and the rest and returned his gaze to the Papal legate, calmly.

  ‘I am not sure I understand,’ King Charles frowned.

  ‘It is no secret that your Majesty and your forces have travelled the length of Italy, seizing a few cities that denied you and dealing with some of the more devious noblemen of the peninsula. Such a journey cannot have passed without sin, and His Holiness is sadly aware that the most senior cleric who travels with you and could take your confession is among the worst of the sin-wagers.’ His eyes fell on the seething form of Cardinal Della Rovere, and Charles let out a loud guffaw as his own gaze passed over the red-clad churchman. ‘I am not without sin, it is true. In fact, your Eminence, I may very well be the most sinful man alive, but I have no need of your services at this time.’