The Demons of Constantinople

by Eric Flint

  Except . . . how would she have found out?

  They hadn’t . . . but he had. . . .

  He had told Lakshmi.

  Lakshmi, who for all her beauty and verve, wasn’t Byzantine. Wasn’t even from this century, and truly didn’t believe in the blood right of “fourteenth-century self-styled nobles.”

  Lakshmi, who saw—must see—what they were planning as vengeance, not justice.

  Almost, he blurted it out. But he had lived his whole life in the Byzantine court. He knew his mother and he knew how she would react. She would have Lakshmi killed. She would send assassins after Aurelia Crassa and publicly attack Aurelia, the twenty-firsters, Bertrand du Guesclin . . . all the people who had come to Byzantium’s aid against the Turks and, again, against the Genoese. And everyone would hear about it. Even if they managed to kill the twenty-firsters, they would be left bereft of their support and the Venetians would take Constantinople, if the Genoese didn’t.

  So, instead of confessing, he shook his head, feigned confusion, and said, “But how could she have found out? We told no one. Wait. Had you talked to the patriarch?”

  “No!” A short breath. “No one knew.”

  “Then she’s dead,” Manuel said, “unless she got scared and ran. Maybe there was some sort of accident. You know that the Genoese found some wreckage, but maybe she survived it and then decided to run away. She was only a girl, after all.”

  Manuel almost convinced himself, but then he had a thought. He pulled out his “phone” and said, “Call Aurelia Crassa.”

  “Aurelia Crassa is not accepting calls at the moment. Would you like to leave a message?”

  He looked at his phone, then at his mother, then said, “There. The phone is at the bottom of the sea.”

  But it wasn’t. If it had been, it would have said “phone out of service area,” instead of “not accepting calls.” But his mother didn’t need to know that.

  Truly, it would be much better if his mother never found that out.

  Location: Docks, Constantinople

  Time: Midmorning, August 11, 1373

  The Venetian fleet was here. Sixty galleys, and with them almost five hundred troops, here in support of House Palaiologos. Expected for weeks, they finally arrived, to cheering crowds with only a few cat calls about them also being late to the party.

  The admiral of the fleet was escorted to the palace in state, and most of the fleet was in dock with the sailors and troops providing their pay to the dockside entertainments.

  Location: Docks, Constantinople

  Time: 7:25 AM, August 13, 1373

  Lakshmi watched as Manuel bowed to his mother and father, then, stiffly, to her and the rest of the party. That included representatives of the senate, including Gaius Crassus, and others from the French delegation, as well as Admiral Pisani, from the Venetian fleet. Manuel was returning to Thessalonica to take up control of the western part of the Eastern Roman Empire.

  Manuel hadn’t been taking her calls, and she didn’t know why. Right now he was wearing his official face, which might as well be a plastic mask.

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  Lakshmi was looking curious and upset. Well, she should be upset after having warned the Crassa girl. Manuel could barely stand to look at her. He turned and marched up the gangplank onto the galley, without looking back. Let her see that!

  Location: On the Marmara Sea

  Time: 3:23 AM, August 13, 1373

  “Say, Antonina,” DW asked, “what’s up with your boss? Why isn’t he taking Lakshmi’s calls?”

  Antonina, named after the wife of Belisarius, was a dryad of Catvia’s grove in Pucorl’s lands. It gave her slightly divided loyalties, but not that divided.

  “Well, what do you expect after he found out that your wannabe movie star warned the murderer of his brother?”

  “That wasn’t Lakshmi,” DW said. “It was me. Part of a director’s job. Lakshmi didn’t know a thing about it, and Aurelia had no idea that Andronikos was on that ship. If he even was. Your boy and his whole family were getting ready to screw up by the numbers, which you ought to know perfectly well. You can’t go around betraying the people who are risking their lives to keep you safe just because you’re angry.”

  “I know that and, in truth, I’m pretty sure that Manuel knows it too. But in a strange way, that makes it worse. Because, well, he’s grateful to her for doing it, and feels guilty for being grateful.”

  “Actors,” DW said in disgust.

  “He’s not an actor. He’s a prince.”

  “Yeah, like there’s a difference. Well, let your boy know that it was me who warned Aurelia. He can be as gratefully resentful of me as he wants, and I won’t care.”

  Location: Kadıköy

  Time: Midmorning, August 30, 1373

  Giorgio Cabrini waved the Venetian admiral, Vettor Pisani, to a chair. He was in no position to fight the Venetian fleet, not after the pounding they had taken from that damned sea monster. On the other hand, they had Kadıköy well under control and at least nominally cordial relations with Sultan Savci. In part that was because the sultan was busy with his brother in southern Anatolia.

  “I heard about the sea monster, Giorgio,” Vettor said as he took the seat. “Bad luck for you and, in a way, bad luck for us as well. John V is all arrogance and gimlet eye, now that he is supported by the French delegation. And we dare not attack the delegation directly lest we offend Charles of France. With his tame wizards from the new college of wizardry in the University of Paris, and the new industries, France is becoming rich. And Spain and England have both launched fleets across the Atlantic to fabled Mexico and its temples of gold.”

  “Venice hasn’t?”

  “Not yet. Not with you here, threatening our access to the Black Sea.”

  “We need our trade with the Black Sea, and with Egypt,” Georgio said. “We can’t give way. And before you threaten us with that damned sea monster, we know that it was destroyed. We saw the blast in the harbor and sent boats out to find what happened. We have bits of the thing in a room down the way.”

  “John V tells us that another is under construction and will soon be ready.”

  “I know that, but we have been building our own.” That was true as far as it went, but Genoa lacked the knowledge that the French had sent to Constantinople. Their sea monster was a thing of wood and ropes that couldn’t submerge without drowning its crew, and they had yet to call a demon to it that could move it. For it turned out that the larger the device, the more powerful the demon needed to enchant it to any great effect. A puck, or even a minor elemental, could be called to a mountain, but once there it could do little. So the minor demons that they had called told them, and the greater could not be induced for they lacked the detailed knowledge of their names that such a calling required.

  Two of their wizards had been killed in their attempts to ferret out the names of greater demons right here in Kadıköy.

  Giorgio pulled his mind back to the discussion and added, “You think John is arrogant now after he’s lost the kraken? Consider how arrogant he will be once he owns another one. Be careful lest Venice’s fleet suffer a worse fate than ours.”

  “I recognize the problem, Giorgio. That’s why I am here. Constantinople must be brought to heel. You have lost your puppet Palaiologos, and ours seems inclined to cut his strings and repudiate his debts. It may be time to put aside our differences and work together to insure that true Christianity shall rule the east. Put both the eastern church and the Muslims in their place. I make no great distinction between Orthodox, Muslim, and pagan. They are all heretics. We should be allies against them all.”

  “Yet we must use the demons,” Georgio said. “There is no other choice.”

  “Agreed. Which is another reason that Constantinople must be brought to heel. Paris and Constantinople are the two greatest centers of learning in the Christian world, and we must have control of one of them.”

  “Agreed,” Georgio said. “What do y
ou have to offer?”

  “We have to get the French delegation—and especially their twenty-firsters—out of Constantinople. After that, a combined attack should let us take the city. Then we divide up the loot and the lands, and the Orthodox heretics can be brought back to the true church, by fire and sword if needed. To do that, we need something that will convince John to throw them out. Or, better yet, kill them.”

  Giorgio leaned back in his chair and scratched his goatee. He knew of John’s reaction to Andronikos’ supposed death at the hands of Aurelia Crassa. Half his hesitation after the destruction of the kraken was that he was afraid that it might be a ploy to hide her from Queen Helena’s wrath. If that were the case, the kraken might well reappear if he launched an attack. He didn’t really believe that, but the fear that it might be so kept him from risking his fleet.

  But John and Helena’s reaction to the rumor was all that he could wish for. Especially since he knew from survivors of the Cyclops that Andronikos was already dead when the flagship sank. Wait! That’s it. “Tell him that Roger McLain shot Andronikos.”

  “Did he?”

  “I have no idea. I doubt it. There were several of the demon-lock rifles on the ship we took. Any of them could have been the one that killed him. But Roger has the reputation for killing princes, and clearly wouldn’t fail to shoot if he knew that his target was royal.” He shrugged. “If it is a lie, it is a believable lie. And having failed to punish Aurelia Crassa, John will be even more anxious to punish someone.”

  Location: Royal Palace, Constantinople

  Time: 2:45 PM, September 1, 1373

  Leona sat in and out of the royal palace. One of the effects of eating a demon, especially that will-o-the-wisp, was her ability to slip almost at will from the netherworld to the natural world and back easily. It made catching mice and birds boring, so Leona now hunted more elusive game. Aided by her friend, Coach, whose watchband had extended into a collar and who accompanied her on her explorations, she listened to and he recorded conversations as she sat on a couch in the netherworld palace and listened to Queen Helena as she talked with her spymaster in the natural world palace.

  The words “Roger McLain” caught Leona’s attention. She still lacked a human’s full facility with language, especially that of someone like Wilber, but she was good with tone and knew several names and important words. Coach, with his bluetooth connection and pentagram, was tied into the phone network.

  She slipped more into the natural world, so far that someone looking in the right direction might see her outline, and slipped under Helena’s couch.

  “I hesitated to bring this to you, Your Majesty, particularly as it means that Aurelia Crassa was innocent of Andronikos’ death. My earlier source was wrong in pointing us in her direction. It was the twenty-firster, Roger MacLean. According to our source, he intentionally targeted Andronikos because he believed that your son was a traitor, all based on the French woman’s horoscope.”

  Location: Pucorl’s Lands

  Wilber got the full conversation by way of Coach to Pucorl to Merlin to him. “Set up a conference call.”

  It took a little while, since all of the twenty-firsters and the French delegation were busy with their own concerns.

  Bertrand and Roger were working on a plan to cross the Bosporus and take Kadıköy from the landward side. Tiphaine and Liane were working in the hospital. They didn’t have Monsignor Savona’s healing app, but they did have disinfectant, clean bandages, knowledge, and a true desire to help. And the sisters of Mary, an Orthodox convent, were grateful for the help. The monsignor was with Cardinal de Monteruc. Bill was with the prefect of police, trying to determine who had stolen the jeweled necklace of a noblewoman. Lakshmi was in the beauty parlor, talking to patrons as they received facials and permanents, had their hair washed and nails done. And, in general, feeling out the mood of the upper class women of Constantinople while adding to her bank account. Amelia was teaching a small class that included Paul, Kitten and a half dozen ten-year-old children of the senatorial class. Annabelle was working on Pucorl with Jennifer as they tried for greater integration and control of his wheels.

  It was eight in the evening before they could all get away.

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  Wilber had Coach play the recording, and then asked, “What do we do?”

  “We leave,” said Bertrand. “Go to Anatolia and on to Egypt. Frankly, I am less than pleased with the Byzantine royal house, and King Charles isn’t any better pleased with their attitude than I am.” Among his other functions here, Bertrand was Charles V of France’s ambassador plenipotentiary from France, in charge of arranging trade agreements and the like. John V was getting ready to raise the tolls on French ships through the Bosporus. “Besides, we still don’t know what is causing the rifts or what might be done to repair them. And I don’t think we’re going to find out here.”

  “I agree that you should leave,” Monsignor Savona said. “However, my work is here. I and the rest of Pope Gregory’s delegation will be staying in Constantinople. There is a real possibility, not so much of rapprochement, but a live and let live agreement between the Catholic and the Orthodox churches.”

  “Not to mention,” Amelia Grady said, “a Roman Catholic priest is not going to be popular with the mullahs. One with healing miracles, even less so.”

  “If that was where God wanted me, Amelia, I would go. But as I understand things, God wants me here. At least for now. Partly to answer the patriarch should he attempt to force another angel into the service of a particular church.”

  “I am concerned about those left behind. I suspect that by the time we have crossed the Bosporus, Theodore will be back in prison. He is considered too much our associate and the king of France will no longer be protecting him,” Gabriel Delaflote said.

  “Whatever we do, we had best do it quickly,” Tiphaine said. “My latest horoscope confirms what we already knew. They are intemperate people for whom the thought is the deed. They will not delay long in acting.”

  After that they talked of how.

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  Once in her room Jennifer called Aurelia and got her voice mail, which meant the Jane was submerged or Rickover was on silent mode. Jennifer knew from earlier conversations that the factor in Lemnos was very nervous about having Aurelia there, and by now Aurelia was nervous about being near the factor. To make sure, Jennifer tried calling the Jane. Nope. She left a message.

  “Aurelia, the royals are getting ready to come after us, so we are getting out of Constantinople. Can I tell Wilber you’re still alive once we are gone?” She paused, then added, “Maybe you could join us at Alexandria?”

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  A few hours later, Jennifer got a call. “After you’re out of Constantinople. But I am going to need some help. The factor is taking everything I get from the bottom for just enough food to keep me going. He’s calling it ‘security fees,’ and commission, but what it amounts to is if I don’t give him everything, he’s going to lock me up and tell the emperor about my parents helping me escape. If I am going to try for Alexandria, I need supplies.”

  “I’ll talk to Pucorl and see if we can get Joe to bring you supplies.” Then, rather sarcastically, she added, “Is it okay for me to tell Pucorl that you’re still alive?”

  “Yes, fine. It’s not that I don’t trust you. It’s the ‘need to know’ principle. I’d let you tell everyone if I could, but I am worried about my family.”

  “What are you going to do about your family?”

  “I don’t know. Can you get a message to them?”

  “I think I can do better than that. I will arrange to get your father a phone.”

  “No. Get it to my mother.”

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  Jennifer climbed into Pucorl and sat in one of the passenger seats. “Pucorl, we have a problem. Aurelia is still alive. She and the Jane are—”

  “I know. We do talk, you know. But Rickover gave me chapter and verse about need to
know. Igor and Merlin know too. But I agree with Rickover. Considering how Wilber would feel if the leak that got Aurelia killed for real came from him.”

  “Okay, fine. But the factor in Lemnos is . . . or do you know about that too?”

  “Yep. Jane to Joe, Joe to me. If that bastard would get close enough, Jane would eat him. But Aurelia showed him the Jane early on, and he won’t go near the water. He waits on the beach and has one of his henchmen check out her holds for treasure after each trip.”

  “We need some way to warn the family after we leave. And for that matter, we need to let then contact Aurelia so that she can get warning to them as soon as she leaves.”

  “I don’t know what good that’s going to do. But, okay. You know that a phone is going to cost.”

  That was true. Even the phones made in Pucorl’s lands were incredibly expensive because the cost wasn’t simply for the phone. Just like back in the world, the cost was for the service. Themis charged for use of the network, and in exchange she kept the secrets of anyone’s phone conversations.

  “We gotta do what we gotta do,” Jennifer said. “We’ll bill them later.”

  Just before they left, they sent a messenger with a small wooden box to deliver to Sidonia Crassa. In the box was a locally-made phone enchanted by Wilber with a troll from the Carl’s Sort of Okay Caverns in Pucorl’s lands.

  Chapter 22—Slipping Away

  Location: Constantinople, Docks

  Time: 12:32 AM, September 10, 1373

  The horses were led, blindfolded, across the ramp onto Joe Kraken, then tied one beside the next, each gentled by its rider until there were ten horses and ten men on the barge, leaving little room for anything else.

  Then Joe Kraken disappeared and was on the shore of Pucorl’s lands on the edge of the Elysian Fields. The process was repeated until all of Bertrand’s men were transferred.

  Finally, Joe, now carrying nothing at all, set off, using his tentacles to move him out from the docks, and turned east and north to land over two miles north of Kadıköy. It took Joe a short while to make the passage, and after that it was a simple matter to collect the men and horses and deposit them on the rocky little beach.