Assassin's Tale

by Turney, S. J. A.

  Skiouros found himself turning over every word and examining it as it passed through his ears. To the innocent, the entire exchange sounded so banal and simple it would easily be glossed over. To the extraordinarily suspicious, it could easily be replayed as a request by the Pope’s Vice Chancellor for a secret one-on-one meeting with the Vatican’s enemy, which had subsequently been denied. Equally, it could have been His Holiness’ machinations to try and place Sforza in a position to probe His Majesty about various Papal enemies. In fact, the more Skiouros took apart the words and rebuilt them, the more possibilities leapt to mind until his brain started to hurt with the effort. What was it with these Italians that they seemed entirely unable to conduct a simple conversation without there being a dozen layers of intrigue coating each phrase?

  Something passed between Sforza and the king. It was unspoken and momentary and had Skiouros been looking away he would have missed it, but he wasn’t. And he didn’t. What it was, he couldn’t say, but he had the unswerving feeling that some decision had just been made in silence.

  The cardinal gave a bow from the waist and straightened once more.

  ‘Then, your Majesty, I look forward to hosting you on the eve of the new year. May the days in between pass in peace and comfort.’

  Skiouros listened to the standard exchanges and farewells, his eyes leaping back and forth between the king, the Papal ambassador and Cardinal Della Rovere and trying to discern whether every flicker was an admission of guilt on some part. Soon, however, the meeting was at an end, and Sforza turned his horse and began the slow, stately journey back to the gate.

  Skiouros endured the trip in tense silence, his gaze scouring the walls of the castle in an effort to locate either prince Cem or the Hospitaller and failing to find either. He was still feeling somewhat cheated by the whole affair when the column pulled up in the castle courtyard and pages and stable hands rushed across to take their reins and lead the beasts away. As Skiouros slipped from the saddle with all the grace of a sack of turnips, he was unsurprised to see Cardinal Borgia awaiting them, arms folded and with an expectant look. Orsini took his time, allowing Cardinal Sforza and his retinue a few minutes to move off and enter the keep before approaching their patron.

  ‘Tell me,’ Borgia demanded quietly.

  Orsini removed his gauntlets and stretched his neck muscles.

  ‘I do believe cardinal Sforza was entirely within His Holiness’ remit at all times. He offered the king the opportunity to ply him for information in private but the king refused, I suspect at the behest of Della Rovere. Likely Della Rovere is attempting to keep the king as far as possible from Sforza’s influence, and the king does not wish to be unduly influenced either way until he speaks to His Holiness. I am assuming that his offer of ‘confessional’ was planned by the Pope?’

  Borgia nodded, clearly surprised.

  ‘You are sharper than I suspected, Orsini. Very observant. And what of your own kin?’

  Skiouros frowned. He’d not thought about such a thing, but clearly his friend had.

  ‘Three of my cousins and uncles were present, including a lesser condottiere and a cardinal. The other is no matter, commanding little respect and even less might. I assume you are already aware of the nobleman and the priest?’

  ‘Indeed,’ Borgia smiled. ‘And what of your cousin Virginio?’

  Orsini’s face darkened, leading Skiouros to wonder what lay between the two family members, but his voice was calm and steady when he replied. ‘As you are almost certainly aware, my Hell-bound cousin shares with me the distinction of being the only Orsini not clamouring for King Charles’ attention. He languishes at Capua as a garrison commander in the pay of King Alphonso of Napoli.’

  ‘And if I choose to send you to Capua? Will there be trouble there?’

  Orsini tucked his gauntlets into his belt and rubbed his hands vigorously. ‘Not on my part. While Virginio and I see far from eye to eye, I serve you, not lady vengeance.’

  Borgia nodded, apparently satisfied. ‘Stay alert these next few weeks. I may have interesting duties for you and your men.’

  January 1495

  As the last of the most recent chilled cloudburst fell in fat droplets to the paving, sending up crowns of water, Skiouros, Parmenio and Nicolo strolled along the ambulatory that skirted around the inside of the castle’s walls. All three shivered in the cold despite the layers of warm wool that each wore. Since the weather had turned cold, Skiouros had taken to keeping his arms fully encased in warm fleece, despite Orsini’s original directive that he bear his Taino tattoos in an effort to stand out. Of course, being memorable was now irrelevant, since they had achieved the highest level of service in the Vatican for which a lance of condottieri could hope. And it seemed appropriate to keep the fiery vengeance of Bayamanaco fully covered in the presence of so many churchmen. The tattoo still burned occasionally, reminding him of his unfinished task.

  A distant scream broke the strange silence, its anguished sharpness rebounding off the low, heavy grey blanket of the sky from somewhere deep in the city across the river. It was followed by a dull roar that could be the usual impotent civic reprisals or the sound of the French soldiers celebrating whatever obscenity they had just perpetrated.

  ‘How long before they’re in the halls of the Vatican with their hairy, uncultured arses and their hairy, uncultured women, raping priests, defacing paintings and prising gemstones from works of art?’ Nicolo huffed.

  ‘Such is always the way with armies, I have noticed,’ Parmenio shrugged. ‘You can lay down the law as much as you like and as often as you like, but soldiers are a rough bunch and unpleasantness will happen. Not that sailors are necessarily much better,’ he added as an afterthought, remembering a few choice incidents in years gone by.

  ‘If King Charles and his generals cannot keep a tighter rein on them they should have been kept outside in the camp and never been admitted to the city,’ Nicolo spat.

  Skiouros rubbed the back of his neck, where heavy trickles of water were settling from his hair into his thick wool scarf. ‘Don’t kid yourself. Charles never had any intention of keeping his men under control. He seems a reasonable man, against all odds, I’ll grant you, but the Pope insulted him by making him break his vow to be here by Christmas, and now Charles is repaying His Holiness for his pride. This will go on either until the French have what they want and leave the city or until Rome is broken, dead and deserted.’

  The three men fell into a gloomy silence, each contemplating the truth of that last. There was nothing the Papal authorities could do, and everyone knew it. And the heavy grey pall that hung over the whole region, periodically dumping a million gallons of freezing water on them, did little to raise anyone’s spirits. As if to add to their woes, the sky gave a faint groan and threatened a fresh deluge.

  ‘Well met, my Greek friend.’

  They looked up in surprise at the mention of Skiouros’ nationality, and the latter rested his gaze on the figure of Andreas Palaeologos, strolling down the staircase from the walls with a curiously inappropriate spring in his step, his hat at a jaunty angle and a smile plastered across his swarthy features. Skiouros frowned. He’d heard the exiled Byzantine was in the castle, and had assumed him to be - like the rest of the great and the good - locked away in the Papal apartments at the keep’s upper reaches. The Pope himself now divided his time between residence in the castle and duties in the Vatican, using the covered, raised walkway that ran between the two to keep himself secure from any potential threat. Well, the walkway, and two dozen scarred and deadly Catalan soldiers, anyway.

  The three friends paused as Palaeologos dropped the last few steps to the flags, almost lost his balance on the wet stone, but regained it with a dancer’s poise and then grinned broadly. Skiouros sketched a brief bow, which was not echoed by his friends, wondering why the exiled scion was wandering alone, without his entourage, or even the usual threatening presence of Paregorio.

  ‘You appear extraordinaril
y chipper, your Imperial Majesty?’

  Palaeologos took off his hat, shook the rain from it and ran it through his fingers.

  ‘I am having a good day, Skiouros of Hadrianopolis. An extremely good day.’

  ‘I am sure that the population of Rome wish they could say the same,’ rumbled Parmenio in his customary dark tone.

  Palaeologos, without a crack in his smile, wagged a mock admonitory finger at the Genoese captain. ‘Now now. You will not break my mood today.’

  ‘What has lifted your spirits so high?’ Skiouros asked, his voice still as gloomy as the grey sky that sat so low above them.

  ‘I, dear Skiouros, am the recipient of a piece of good fortune in the form of a deal with the French.’

  ‘You need to watch that. Deals with the French seem to have a way of turning sour,’ Parmenio grunted, his words perfectly punctuated by another shriek from the city across the river.

  ‘Not this one. I have just returned from a meeting with his glorious Majesty, King Charles - Duke of Brittany, King of France, Napoli and Jerusalem…’

  He spread his arms wide in an elaborate gesture.

  ‘… and Emperor of Byzantium.’

  Skiouros found that he had taken an involuntary step backwards, the colour draining from his face.

  ‘What?’ The word was delivered with an edge as sharp as any sword and lacking any of the courtesy or deference Skiouros habitually delivered to the exiled emperor.

  Palaeologos laughed easily. ‘A most profitable deal with Charles. In return for my signing over all rights to the Byzantine crown, his most gilded, wealthy majesty has agreed to pay me a sum that would have a Jewish usurer sweating uncomfortably, and the promise to honour my position as Despot of the Morea.’

  ‘The King of France?’ Skiouros almost whispered. ‘Emperor of Byzantium?’

  ‘Indeed. I will end my days rich and powerful, ruling a solid, cultured region. In return, I have given Charles all the pretext he needs for his crusade and he gets to deal with the troublesome city. He will have his war and his conquest and I just have to sit in Rome and wait until the Fleur-de-Lys of the Valois flies over Constantinople and then walk into Greece and claim my inheritance. Really things could not have worked out any better for me.’

  Skiouros shook his head in shock. ‘You would hand over the centre of the world to the French? They will bring the Church of his Holiness to the east!’

  Palaeologos shrugged. ‘What do we care about that?’

  It was a good question really. What did Skiouros really care about that? He was rather surprised to find that he only had to delve into the upper layer of his thoughts to discover that he felt somewhat strongly on the subject. He had long held that God was a central truth around which men built their own churches to their own needs. Time spent with the Tuareg had brought him to that impression. He had come to terms with the knowledge that his heretical beliefs could have him burned or staked in any nation of Europe or the east. But while he could appreciate the Church of his fathers in which he had been raised, which considered piety and goodness to be paramount, and he could appreciate the world of Islam and the prophet with their focus and strong value system, and he could appreciate the ancient patience of the Jews, and he could even appreciate the strange faces the Taino put on God… he had little time for this church of Rome that would gild every cross and shower a sinful priest in coin while letting a poor friar starve. No. The Church of the Borgia Pope should never be given a toehold in the east. Their golden corruption already spread too far.

  He could remember when he first met Orsini, back on the ship leaving Crete, when the young nobleman had explained how sickened he was by the corruption of it all. Skiouros, it seemed, had had to see it to truly appreciate it.

  There was another low groan from the sky, intensifying Skiouros’ burgeoning bad mood, and he looked up at the roiling dark grey, even the location of the pale, watery sun unfathomable beyond the cloud.

  ‘Sounds like a big storm coming. Never liked thunder since that one in Istanbul.’

  Parmenio nodded, remembering the dreadful storm that had presaged Skiouros’ departure from the city aboard his ship a few short years ago.

  ‘Err… you two.’

  Skiouros turned to see Nicolo with a furrowed, worried brow.

  ‘What?’

  ‘That’s not thunder.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Parmenio asked quietly.

  ‘Last I checked, thunder came from above. From the clouds.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘That came from over there somewhere…’

  The three other men turned to look in the direction that Nicolo was pointing. In the inclement weather, few of the castle’s staff, guards and denizens braved the outdoors, and the only figures the three friends had seen apart from the Byzantine exile had been the guards stationed along the walls above at regular intervals. But now, not far away, a nobleman in an expensive grey hooded robe emblazoned with red lions strode in their direction, a small party of courtiers close behind, each huddled tight in their plainer cloaks against the chill and the wet.

  Another groan issued around the cold, damp air of the castle, and Skiouros felt the hair rise on the back of his neck. Nicolo had been absolutely correct: that groan had not come from the clouds. Indeed, it had come from the ambulatory, close to those figures.

  Skiouros was running even as the pieces fell into place in his head. Behind him, Parmenio and Nicolo scrambled to follow, confused but trusting their friend’s instincts. Palaeologos stood on the bottom step of the staircase watching in surprise.

  Skiouros knew he was shouting something even as he closed the distance between himself and the nobleman and his courtiers, but the exact words were lost on him. His mind was too busy running through everything. The wall. The Hospitaller. The Aqua Regia. The creaking noise.

  The next groan was something else entirely, louder than those before and encompassing the sounds of cracking and splintering. The small party of noblemen were almost underneath the place, and had paused, brought to a halt in surprise at this mercenary running at them and yelling incomprehensibly. A few of the figures turned slowly from the closing figure of Skiouros and looked at the castle wall, their eyes slowly rising up its height to the top, which was even now beginning to lean precariously inwards.

  Skiouros hit the nobleman in the midriff, the man’s guards distracted by the sight of the wall as bricks and stones tore from their neighbours in a shower of mortar, a section of the defences some fifteen feet long seeming to pause in mid-air as though gravity were of only the slightest concern. And then the noise began. Such a noise as Skiouros could only remember hearing once before as the Nea Ekklasia in Istanbul had exploded and disappeared from the world of men. Some of the party would not make it out of the way, he realised, but he could only concentrate on the one man, and he had automatically gone for the noble in the grey, red-lion cloak.

  Skiouros and the nobleman hit the floor and rolled just as the first stone block smashed against the flag stones, leaving a crack across the ground and tearing cobbles free with the force, other stones smashing into the ancient Roman brickwork of the central cylinder keep. There were several screams as courtiers and guards were caught in the collapse, others leaping out of the way just in time. Parmenio and Nicolo were suddenly there in his wake, pulling people out of the way of the last falling bricks even as the men stood stupefied, rooted to the spot and watching the last pieces of wall fall towards them.

  Despite the damp air, the world was then engulfed in a cloud of mortar dust which billowed out from the fallen masonry and filled the ambulatory passage, turning the air choking white and obscuring every figure. Unable to see anyone else and confident that the wall had collapsed as far as was likely, Skiouros rose and reached down to the figure somewhat trussed in the entangled red lion robe, grasping his wrist and shoulder and helping the dazed nobleman to his feet.

  The figure rose and as he came upright, the hood fell back revealing a swar
thy face, marked with care-lines down to his well-defined chin. The tired, yet glittering eyes. The thin lips framed by the droop of moustaches. It was a face he had never forgotten. Would never forget. Could never forget.

  Cem Sultan!

  His world spun. He had finally, after all this time, found himself face to face with his blood-enemy. Close enough to touch. And had he exacted his brother’s vengeance?

  No. He had saved the man’s life!

  Oh how the God of Moses and of Ibrahim was laughing at him now. He could feel wrathful Bayamanaco burning into his arm, where the vengeful image twisted at the irony of it all.

  His hand had suddenly, instinctively, dropped from Cem’s shoulder down to his own belt, where it ignored the macana stick and reached behind for the needle-pointed misericord dagger he had taken to sheathing back there where a cloak usually covered it. His hand closed on the hilt and it slid free with barely a hiss.

  Cem’s eyes were still unfocussed, perhaps senseless still from the noise, the dust and the shock, in much the same manner as Skiouros. The usurper Sultan had clearly barely registered the figure that had helped him up, let alone seen any detail.

  Skiouros’ blade came up as the man struggled to extricate his trapped arms from the cloak that had somehow become fast around him.

  Something happened.

  The young Greek could not possibly say what it was at the time, but as he brought the point of the blade up to almost rest on Cem’s throat-apple, shapes of other figures started to coalesce in the cloud as the dust began to settle. Whether it was the sudden fear of discovery or some other strange sense that drove his arm, the blade angled at the last moment and cut through the loop that held the robe shut at the throat. The Sultan’s cloak fell away to the ground, revealing his fine Turkish garb beneath.