Assassin's Tale

by Turney, S. J. A.

  With another shrug, Skiouros stepped back out of the cistern into the rain, which was finally beginning to ease off, and closed the door. As an afterthought, he reached down into his belt pouch. A man with a background like his always carried his lock-picks, but a sensible man carried all sorts of small items that might come in useful. Selecting a small padlock from the pouch, he slid the bar through the door’s lock and clicked it shut. Removing the key from it, he cast it across the open ground, somewhere into the deeper grass.

  ‘Rest, Nicolo,’ he said sadly.

  The rain had finally subsided and the night air carried that fresh metallic tang that follows a heavy storm. A blanket of glimmering stars was being slowly unveiled as the cloud gusted off to the south, and four men sat in the small square outside an ancient church, heedless of the wet stone upon which they rested, for they were already sodden beyond hope.

  ‘We will have to bury him.’

  ‘Them,’ corrected Orsini, and Skiouros nodded quietly.

  ‘Did… did Nicolo have family?’

  Parmenio, his face drawn and cold, shook his head. ‘In truth, Nico was a bastard son. Left home young with a purse of bright coins, fond wishes of his mother, and a demand to stay away from his father.’

  ‘We could bury him in the amphitheatre, close to where he fell?’

  Parmenio shook his head, and Skiouros lowered his eyes. No one wanted to think of their friend resting in that arena of bloodshed for eternity.

  ‘And what of Girolamo? What do we do with him?’

  Orsini sat back heavily, cast a questioning glance at Helwyg, who was nursing a fresh cut on his arm in preparation for binding it in linen. Helwyg had killed two with only the one scratch to show, preventing their scouts carrying news to the army. Afterwards, he had gone to find Girolamo and discovered him bleeding his last from a chest wound amid the bodies of his own two victims. No survivors. And only two of their own men lost…

  The giant nodded his unspoken agreement, and Parmenio gave his big friend a strange smile. ‘I thought the old debt would be paid today, but it seems God has no use for you yet.’

  Helwyg gave Orsini a strange look which slid into a sad chuckle and Orsini turned back to Skiouros. ‘Provisions for the dead are included in our Condotta and, since we are still being paid by the cardinal, those provisions still stand. We find a cart and we load them up and ferry them back to Rome. The officer at the Vatican will take care of the details, but one of my own addenda was provisions for interment in the cemetery of Sant’Agnese. Normally, the place is the sole reserve of the Lateran canons, but the good brothers Bartholomew and Alexander have made kind arrangements for us. Girolamo and Nicolo will rest in good company, safe from grave looters and body-takers, and when we return to visit them, they will have memorials to help us find them. Any objections, gentlemen?’

  A miserable silence greeted the statement. It was as good a place to rest as any could hope, but little would lift their spirits this night.

  ‘So we return to Rome?’ Parmenio muttered.

  ‘No,’ Skiouros said with flat finality.

  ‘Oh? How so?’ Orsini asked quietly.

  ‘Prince Cem goes south with the French. Nicolo and Girolamo died in service to my cause, for which I will pay in time, but I will not waste their deaths by turning round and scurrying back to Rome. If we return, we will stay there for the funerals. We will bury our dead and mourn at their graves. The brothers will do their best for us and in that time the French will spirit away Prince Cem beyond our reach forever. If we are to stand a chance of ever getting near him again, we must needs either join the French army or stay close enough to them to seize any opportunity that might come our way. If we wait ‘til dawn, we can deliver the bodies to the Church of San Paolo up near the amphitheatre. A little donation to their coffers and I’m sure they’ll deliver the pair to Sant’Agnese for us. Brothers Bartholomew and Alexander will take care of the rest.’

  Orsini nodded slowly. ‘Dawn is still perhaps four or five hours away. We should find a barn or something. Somewhere to dry out and perhaps catch a few hours of sleep.’

  ‘One thing, though,’ Parmenio said in a dark voice. They turned to look at him. ‘We are not joining up with the bastards that rode down Nicolo. We shadow them. We follow them, and when the time is right, we make our move, even if we have to cut our way through the king himself. But we do not lend our swords to the men who killed Nicolo.’

  A chorus of silent, grim nods. The dark night would soon end, and when the light came, each man would bend to their task with renewed vigour.

  CHAPTER NINE - Napoli, February 1495

  ‘Here they come,’ grunted a local as he threw cheap, acidic wine down his gullet in an attempt to numb himself, his words a quiet echo of a call that was going up on the city wall and all around the piazza.

  Skiouros took a swig of his own, rather finer, wine and caught the tense looks on Orsini, Parmenio and Helwyg’s faces as they prepared themselves once more.

  For a little over a month the four men had trailed the French army as it moved south through Italy. At first there had been something of a pause as King Charles had argued furiously with His Holiness over the vanishing act perpetrated by his cardinal son. The Pope had quite categorically stated that he had given Borgia no such orders and that he had absolutely no idea where the man was, except that he most certainly was not in the Vatican or in any other papal holding. According to credible rumour, the king had been apoplectic, spluttering and purple faced when the pope had smiled sweetly and informed him that everything unexplainable unfolded by the will of God and that if the divine meant Cardinal Borgia to be free, who were mere mortals to defy him, even if they be popes or kings.

  The situation had eventually diffused, the Pope offering a replacement legate, but the king waving away such a pointless gesture. The value of having the pope’s son among his retinue could not be met by any other cardinal. Besides, two ambassadors from the court of the Spanish crown had arrived in Rome, demanding that King Charles abandon his campaign against Napoli or risk war with Spain. Charles would no more give up his campaign than give up a leg, but it all prompted him into urgent movement.

  And so the French army had marched south, a vanguard always ranging ahead and the bulk of the army following on a day or so behind, including the king, his court and officers, and the tightly-controlled entourage of Cem sultan. Despite the strained relations between the French and His Holiness, the army held itself in check throughout the march, bypassing towns and cities with an allegiance to the pope and camping in the wilderness for the most part.

  Despite the fact that the desperate king of Napoli - Alphonso the second - had conceded the inevitability of defeat and abdicated the crown in late January, his nobles and generals had confirmed their decision to stand and fight, raising the king’s young son to the throne as Ferrante the Second.

  At the northern border of Neapolitan lands stood the great fortress of Monte San Giovanni Campano and on the thirteenth day of February the four friends had watched from a nearby hill as this most stalwart of Neapolitan defences stood defiant and proud in King Charles’ path. The reputedly impregnable fortress had not fallen in four centuries of warfare, withstanding sieges by everyone from Arabs to Hungarians and was a strong symbol of Neapolitan strength and defiance.

  The friends had watched in awe as the French army brought its huge array of bombards and cannon to bear on the unassailable fortress and in a mere eight hours flattened the great walls and towers to jagged remnants. The garrison had little option but to surrender, though the French troops had their blood up, having been leashed since Rome, and what they did to the survivors of the siege, Skiouros could hardly imagine. Certainly no one had lived to speak of it.

  In the aftermath of the siege, the Neapolitan army that had been moving north to help San Giovanni Campano, disheartened and panicked, turned around and made for Capua, the kingdom’s second city after Napoli. The despondent Ferrante the Second had retrea
ted with his court to Napoli in the hopes of raising new forces.

  The four friends had moved quickly and easily on the periphery of the war. They had made it to Capua before the French and had watched events unfold there with no surprise. The three leaders of the Neapolitan forces there argued and, when it became clear that the garrison commander, Trivulzio, intended to open the city gates to the French and throw his people’s fate upon Charles’ mercy, the other two had taken their own forces and retreated south to Nola. One of those, they had been interested to hear, was Cesare’s cousin, the powerful condottiere Virginio Orsini, and Cesare had snorted at the news and scoffed and told the locals in the bar that they should watch Virginio, for he would only stand his ground as long as it seemed profitable and would soon turn his coat.

  As the French army had streamed into the twin towns of Old and New Capua to the adulation of the people, the four friends had sat in a roadside tavern, unarmed and dressed as miscellaneous locals, and watched their arrival. Prince Cem’s entourage had passed them, the false sultan hidden and encased in a wooden carriage with no open windows, surrounded by his own people and a sizeable French unit of grizzled veterans. They had watched impotently as their target trundled past and into the heavily-fortified ‘castle of stones’ in New Capua, where he might as well have been on the moon as a few hundred yards away.

  Sure enough, the French had hardly had time to plump their pillows in the second greatest city in the south when the condottiere Orsini and his companion sent messengers from Nola with overtures of peace and surrender. Cesare had snorted and toasted his cousin’s cowardice. Then, while Charles and his army were still barracked in Capua and planning their next move, the messengers had arrived from Napoli, offering the city, the kingdom and the crown to Charles in return for his clemency. The young king Ferrante the Second, shocked and dismayed at the ease with which his capital collapsed, had fled to the island of Ischia, hoping for a miracle.

  The four friends had stayed in Capua only long enough to be sure that Cem was truly out of their reach and to be certain of Charles’ next move. When it became common knowledge that Charles and his entourage - along with the entire army - would leave for Napoli the next day to enter the city in triumph, the four saddled up, retrieved their kit and rode for the capital, keeping a step ahead.

  Last night they had stayed in an inn - ironically named ‘The Sword and Dagger’ - on the north side of the large square immediately inside the Porta Capuana, through which the victorious king and his army would have to ride. They had stabled their horses and carried their huge, heavy kit up to their room in two trips, making sure to keep their weapons and armour well hidden among the heavy bags. To the casual viewer they were no different to any of the other foreigners that came in daily from the docks or moving ahead of the dreadful French army. With no swords or helms in evidence there was nothing to make them stand out.

  Orsini glanced around the square, lifting his wine cup to his lips and using casual gestures to mask his true intent - checking the people at the neighbouring tables outside the tavern. None were paying them any attention. Still, he would be quiet and circumspect as always. Taking out a small coin and spinning it on the timber surface with his thumb and forefinger, he cleared his throat.

  ‘This will be our last chance. You know that?’

  Skiouros nodded. He was well aware of the fact. Charles had already won his war. He had invaded the kingdom of Napoli with the largest army the region had ever seen and met barely an ounce of resistance. One swift and brutal siege had undermined the pride and strength of the Neapolitan army, and only small pockets of resistance held out. Two of the city’s four castles were still held by garrisons loyal to Ferrante, and their continued defiance could cost the people of Napoli dearly. But despite such small issues, the fact remained that the French were in control, and there was no denying it. Charles and his army would stay in Napoli only long enough to ensure its complete capitulation, and then they and the Ottoman pretender would depart on the French fleet for the east and their planned crusade. The ‘war’ Charles had initiated in Italy would look like a child’s game compared to what would happen when he met Bayezid and the Ottoman army. No, once Cem had left Napoli, they would be highly unlikely ever to get close to him again. Napoli was their last chance.

  Every time Skiouros thought about the moment he was finally face to face with the man because of whom Lykaion had died, he felt that familiar quaver of doubt. He pictured that moment in the Castel Sant’Angelo when he had held a blade to the man’s throat and had yet stayed his hand. But each time that image arose, he crushed it with an image of the French rider, his limbs smashed, falling back into the darkness of the cisternone in Albano. If he was capable of such vengeance for Nicolo - a friend of four years now - how could he not be capable of a similar revenge for his brother? He would harden his heart when the time came and repeat cisternone, not Sant’Angelo.

  The pressure was upon them now. And the level of danger would hardly decrease here. If Cem had been so tightly contained in Capua with its two fortified complexes, what would Charles order for him in a city with four powerful castles?

  Skiouros’ eyes strayed across the piazza from the east, where the city gate stood open and waiting, to the Castel Capuano opposite. One of the city’s four, the castle stood as a squat, heavy square bastion, a wide space open around it and separating it from the crowded buildings of the city. The castle was the most modern of the city’s fortresses, its plain walls having been recently punctuated with wide windows, crippling its defensive capabilities and transforming it in function to more of a palace than a stronghold. Still, the lower level of the walls was all heavy stone buttressing and iron grilles, supporting the more friendly upper.

  His attention was diverted once more by a change in the general atmosphere. The hubbub of the piazza, crowded with onlookers in the same situation as the four of them, died away into a tense silence, which was gradually filled with the sound of an armoured, mounted column approaching beyond the wall.

  This was it: the fall of Napoli, heralding their last chance.

  ‘Keep your eyes open and pay attention to every detail,’ Orsini reminded them, somewhat unnecessarily. All of them were old hands at this over the last month since leaving Rome.

  The King’s vanguard entered the city purposefully. Somehow, Skiouros had expected the King to lead, a triumphant victor in the manner of the ancient Emperors. But Charles was no fool. Better to forego the glory of revelling in his achievement and avoid the possibility of a trap or random assassins. Indeed, the man was clearly taking no chances with the Neapolitans. The lead unit of some two hundred cavalry filed into the square and fanned out, including perhaps forty knights in their colourful liveries and shining plate armour, light lancers in blue and white with the fleur-de-lys in evidence, and a small unit of arquebusiers, their guns apparently primed and levelled despite the lack of resistance.

  Behind them came a swathe of footmen with pikes and swords and spears, wearing the blue and white of France. They spread out to line the main route through the piazza in a protective cordon, large numbers of men pouring up the stairs beside the gate to line the walls, removing the Neapolitan guards from their positions and supplanting them. Archers and crossbowmen followed, climbing the stairs and loading their weapons, searching roofs and balconies for any lurking local with murderous intent.

  And so it went on for more than a quarter of an hour: streams of French troops moving into the city and taking control of every aspect of it, removing any influence or hope from the Neapolitans.

  As the four watched, the smaller rear door of the Castel Capuano was thrown wide and the small garrison issued from it into the piazza, unarmed, lining up outside the wall facing the square and kneeling in subjugation to their new king. A unit of French swordsmen, led by a knight with a white swan crest upon his helm and shield, moved into the building, ignoring the hopeful chattering of the castle’s former commander and searching the place. Another ten min
utes passed, the French forces filing ever deeper into the city, lining the streets on Charles’ route to the city’s heart, and just as the ‘swan knight’ and some of his men re-emerged from the castle, the royal party appeared through the Porta Capuana.

  Charles and his court rode easily, the king with a glinting sword in his hand and resting casually upon his shoulder - a reminder that though he might have been invited in by the city, he still came as a conqueror. The cheering began as a small, half-hearted, nervous thing, probably at the instigation of a French officer somewhere on the periphery, but soon it rose to a tumultuous roar that filled the piazza, echoing back from the heavy walls of the castle. Charles waved his free hand casually at his subjects, guiding his steed with his knees for a moment before retaking his reins.

  The four friends watched with a sinking feeling.

  ‘I’d assumed he would encamp the bulk of his army outside the walls,’ Parmenio said, raising his voice to be heard over the noise.

  ‘I think we all had,’ Orsini sighed. ‘But it appears that the French army will occupy the city. By first light tomorrow, they will be outside the resisting castles, putting their artillery in place. And you know what will happen then?’

  Helwyg nodded soberly. Charles’ army had a reputation for looting, murdering and rape in the aftermath of a siege. They were being remarkably restrained right now, given the opulence of the city, but if the small pockets of resistance continued to defy him, he would threaten them with an order to release his army upon the city. When that happened, what had caused all the screams across the river in Rome would pale into insignificance beside the fate of Napoli.

  ‘If he sets his army on the populace, we will have to make damn sure we’re away from here or very well hidden,’ Parmenio muttered.