Pasha's Tale

by Turney, S. J. A.

  Skiouros fought the urge to curse in such a sacred place and sucked in air irritably through his teeth instead. Parmenio stepped next to him.

  ‘So which is it?’

  The Greek stared at the two reliquaries. Shit! While they were clearly not the same, they were close enough to be easily mistaken by the uninitiated. Why did the damned priests not label them? A ‘TITVS’ beneath one and ‘THEODORVS’ under the other would allow the public to know which casket contained the remains of the saint they had come to venerate. But then, they were hidden from the public behind the curtain anyway. Damn it!

  ‘Skiouros!’ urged Parmenio.

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I don’t know which it is.’

  Parmenio grabbed his shoulder and turned him into a glare filled with disbelief and ire. ‘You brought the bloody thing here. How are we supposed to proceed now?’

  Skiouros sighed. ‘It’s been years. I just don’t know.’

  ‘Then I suggest you look very carefully and work it out. We can’t stand here forever, you idiot.’

  Skiouros nodded unhappily and peered at the caskets. The one on the left was slightly more ornate. He remembered there being a dent in the one he carried aboard the ship to Crete, but he couldn’t remember where it was and it wasn’t obvious from this angle. Probably both displayed more than one dent anyway. They were centuries old after all.

  Were they of different woods? He remembered a faint cedar-like smell from the one he’d carried. He sniffed, but all he could identify was age-old dust. It was impossible to tell.

  As he stood, staring at them, Parmenio stepped past him and moved to the padlock, placing his bag on the ground beside him. Lifting the padlock, the former captain examined the mechanism.

  ‘This is a bastard of a lock. Complex.’

  Skiouros ignored him, concentrating on the boxes.

  Are you there, Lykaion?

  Over the huffing of his friend’s frustrated breath, all Skiouros could hear was the distant, almost-silent sibilance of the whispered prayers out in the main church like a gentle wind whistling through a field of wheat. No Lykaion.

  Never had he felt the loss of his sibling as keenly as now. Somehow, despite not having heard his voice in so long, he had felt certain that this close to his earthly remains, they would speak once again. But the complete absence of Lykaion’s ghost cut deep into his soul and he found himself staring helplessly at the two casks.

  The one on the left was slightly darker, the gold more yellow and burnished. The one on the right a lighter wood, with a whiter gold…

  The one on the right seemed ill-fitting somehow.

  Could he hear just a whisper on the very periphery of his senses?

  Had something just breathed his name with the same gentle whisper as the sound of light snow falling?

  Lykaion?

  Parmenio growled in frustration and let go of the padlock, stepping back.

  ‘This is beyond me. Have you worked out which one it is?’

  Skiouros nodded. ‘The one on the right.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Yes. It’s glaring at me.’

  Parmenio gave his friend another odd look and shook his head in exasperation. ‘You’re absolutely sure? I have no desire to walk away from this church with the priceless head of Saint Titus tucked under my arm.’

  Skiouros nodded again. ‘Definitely. It’s that one.’

  ‘Well it might all be moot. That padlock’s the most complex I’ve ever seen.’

  Skiouros stepped across to the lock and, with a frown, lifted it into the light, peering at the keyhole. He could see into the darkness. Parmenio was sharp, for sure. Not many people could spot the complexity of a padlock by sight alone. But sure enough, in that keyhole he could see at least ten pins and three grooves running the length of the mechanism. The key that opened this lock was a masterwork of labyrinthine proportions.

  A suspicion stole over him and his eyes narrowed.

  ‘Have you lost your picks?’ Parmenio hissed.

  ‘No.’ Despite not having used lock-picks in an age, Skiouros had acquired some a week ago from a source in the backstreets of Heraklion – along with a tinderbox and other sundry small items – and they all sat snug in the pouch at his belt. But something was wrong with this lock. He peered into the padlock again and his suspicion deepened. Fishing out his picks, he selected the thinnest, least common tool. The chances were very small that he would ever find a situation for its use, so it was essentially disposable.

  ‘Watch this.’

  Delicately, he slid the pick into the hole and gently tapped one of the sprung pins within. With a click, a metal shutter slammed down at the near end of the keyhole, neatly snapping the pick in half.

  ‘Booby-trapped. Clever, eh?’

  Parmenio sighed. ‘So no chance of picking it, then?’

  ‘Not a chance, no. Fortunately this entire thing is a decoy.’ With a grin, Skiouros stepped towards the back of the cage and felt around. A moment later there was a quiet, metallic click and the Greek lifted the cage, padlock and all, away from the altar’s surface. ‘Priests can be devious, but fortunately so can I.’

  Parmenio retrieved his bag once again and the two moved over to the right-hand of the two caskets. ‘Are you ready for this?’ he asked as Skiouros joined him. The Greek gave a silent nod and his Genoese friend took a deep breath and pulled up his kerchief over his mouth and nose. Skiouros closed his eyes for a moment and took his own deep lungful of oxygen. Then, with reverence and care, he reached down and unlatched the casket, swinging the lid open.

  A puff of dust rose into the air, and both men recoiled slightly from the sight of the head within. Lykaion’s skull was dry and grey, tufts of hair still clinging to parchment-thin skin. Dried and partially-mummified by nature and environment, the head of Skiouros’ brother still clung to much of its original flesh. Gagging involuntarily, Skiouros pulled a pair of thin leather gloves from his belt and slid them on. Trying not to breathe deeply, he reached down into the casket and gently cradled the ‘relic’. Slowly, he began to lift it out, trying not to register the fragments that fell off it and the next puff of desiccated skin-dust into the air.

  And then he was holding Lykaion before him. Amazingly, five years after his death, his brother still seemed to be giving him an accusatory and disapproving glare from empty sockets. Aware suddenly of the passage of time, Skiouros turned to Parmenio. The captain was breathing shallowly and the kerchief was clamped tightly between closed lips.

  ‘Bag?’

  With a nod, Parmenio lifted his oiled bag and pulled open the draw-string. It was a cumbersome and expensive thing, for a bag, but Skiouros had been insistent that it needed to be sealable to air-tight conditions. Carrying a disembodied head around might cause an odour strong enough to draw attention, no matter how desiccated it now was. As Skiouros watched with a frown, the older man dipped into the bag and lifted from it a head in an advanced state of decomposition, most of the flesh almost as dried as Lykaion's.

  Skiouros stared in astounded horror.

  ‘What the…’

  Parmenio shrugged as he proffered the head. ‘Have to have an exchange, don’t we. Can’t leave it empty. That would be inviting trouble.’

  Skiouros was still staring in horror as Parmenio placed the rotten head none-too-gently into the empty casket and clicked the lid shut.

  ‘Where,’ Skiouros asked quietly and with disturbed fascination, ‘did you come by a decapitated head this morning?’

  ‘Well it wasn’t easy,’ Parmenio said, and Skiouros was certain that the man was grinning behind his kerchief. ‘Rest assured he wasn’t using it anymore.’

  Skiouros continued to stare as Parmenio held up the bag, which stank of death and decay now it was open. Shaking his head in disbelief, he lowered his brother’s remains into the grisly container and, while Parmenio sealed the bag once more, the Greek lowered the cage back over the two caskets, hop
ing the scattered dust would not attract too much attention.

  Parmenio pulled the cord of the bag over his head and shoulder and settled it onto his back, and the two men shared a look. This was it. They had achieved what Skiouros had not been truly certain they could do, and all they had to do now was leave quietly and unobtrusively. With a nod, they stepped back towards the curtain, which suddenly opened before them.

  The priest was clearly more surprised to find them than they were by his sudden appearance. He was not young, his face half hidden behind a grey beard still shot through with darker patches, and his rapidly thinning hair was mostly limestone-hued. The three men stared at each other in stunned silence for a moment.

  Skiouros felt the panic rising, and with it came desperate, blustered words.

  ‘I’m sorry. We… I know that… We didn’t…’

  Before he could string the sentence together properly, his wits were scattered as the old priest hit him on the cheek with a punch that belied his advanced years. The blow was like a mallet strike, sweeping Skiouros back and dropping him onto his posterior among the dust. The Greek stared up in shock at the priest, whose eyes blazed with fury. The old man opened his mouth to yell out a warning, and that was when Parmenio’s swung oil-skin bag caught him on the jaw. The priest spun, stunned, and the Genoese captain gave him no time to recover, laying him out cold with a careful blow to the temple.

  As Skiouros sat trying to regain his own wits, he watched Parmenio crouch and check that the priest was out but not critically hurt. Seemingly satisfied, the captain bunched up the hood at the back of the man’s robe and nestled it under his head as a pillow before turning and reaching out to help Skiouros stand.

  ‘You hit him!’

  ‘Well, yes,’ hissed Parmenio, lifting him to his feet as best he could and then returning the bag to his shoulder.

  ‘What did you do that for?’

  His friend gave him an odd look. ‘He hit you and was about to shout for help. What would you expect me to do?’

  ‘But he’s a priest! You punched a priest!’

  ‘Oh what do you care,’ snapped Parmenio. ‘You don’t even like Catholics!’

  Skiouros stared at his friend, his head still thumping and slightly woozy. ‘Do you think he’ll remember our faces?’

  ‘What does it matter? We’re not going to kill him, anyway. We’ll just have to hope he can’t recall too much detail and can’t place us later.’

  ‘Well there goes our unobtrusive exit. Whatever happens, soon enough they’re going to know that someone was in here.’

  ‘Then let’s get going while we can.’

  Skiouros nodded, but held onto Parmenio. ‘Wait.’

  As he fell silent, he cupped his hand to his ear and concentrated. The susurration of prayer from the naos of the church had been joined by a second murmur.

  ‘More priests, I think, in the church itself.’

  ‘So we’re trapped?’

  Quickly, sharing a look and an unspoken thought, the two men scurried back to the small door near the altar.

  ‘How do we know it doesn’t just open into another room?’

  ‘Did you not take a blind bit of notice of all those maps we compiled at the inn? The sacristy and baptistery are both on the other side, so this has to be an exterior wall. How often have we studied the place? Besides, look at it. When was the last time this was opened? It doesn’t get used, so it can’t lead anywhere important.’

  In order to check his theory, though, Skiouros dropped to the floor and used his hand to brush some of the debris away from the base of the door. Sure enough, the faint glow of afternoon sunlight reflected off worn-smooth paving was visible through the narrow gap at the bottom.

  ‘Come on.’

  As quietly as they could, the two men heaved the locking bar from the iron grip at one end and then slid it from the recess in the wall at the far side. While Skiouros lowered it gently to the ground at the corner of the room, partially hidden by the altar, Parmenio tried to turn the heavy, ancient key. There was an ungodly, teeth-rattling shriek from deep within the door’s lock, followed by a metallic clunk and, with a grunt, the captain managed to turn it, lifting his hand and rubbing sore fingers. As he did so, Skiouros pulled the key from the lock and yanked the door inwards, where it grated noisily on the stone floor. Welcome golden light flooded into the side chapel, almost blinding the pair, but Parmenio was quick to move, dashing out into the open square beyond.

  As the man exited, Skiouros listened. The murmur of the other priests was getting closer but didn’t seem to sound alarmed. That would soon change. All the pair could do now was attempt to discourage or slow any pursuit. Stepping out, the Greek pulled the door shut once again and jammed the key into the lock, turning it with some difficulty and another metallic shriek. Giving the key a further quarter turn so that it could not easily be poked out from the other side, Skiouros spun and followed Parmenio who was sauntering across the square with a quiet, confident gait, as though he were the most innocent man in the world, and not a thief carrying the severed head of a ‘saint’ in the bag on his back.

  Trying not to look suspicious, his heart hammering in his chest, Skiouros followed Parmenio as the Genoese sailor reached the edge of the square and ducked into one of the narrow streets that led off into the depths of the city. Skiouros was sure he could hear shouts of consternation from the church as he reached the square’s periphery and his gaze roved around the visible surroundings. No one seemed to be paying him any attention. With a tense breath, he stepped into the gloom of the narrow street and, like his friend before him, ran as though the hounds of hell were nipping at his heels.

  They had memorized the routes so many times in these past weeks of planning that it came automatically, every turn and crossing on the streets set out and requiring no thought. Left at the cooper’s sign, across before the Grappa tavern, left again at the house with the stunted lemon tree, and so on. Given their relative ages, it took only four streets for him to catch up with Parmenio.

  The pair descended towards the port by their snaking, convoluted path and found themselves turning into a narrow alley between whitewashed walls, only to almost fall over a seated man. Stumbling to a halt, they stared down at the ducal guardsman, who was groaning as he clutched a vicious sword wound to the leg, which had apparently crippled him. He would live, but there was little chance he would walk straight for the rest of his life.

  The friends looked at one another.

  ‘De Teba.’

  Parmenio nodded, and the pair ran on, leaving the wounded guard to be found by someone else. Two streets further on, another of the Ducal Guard leaned against a downspout, blood running from his knee as he panted in pain and exhaustion.

  Diego had made good account for himself, it seemed.

  Again, another street or two down the hill, Skiouros found himself slipping and almost crashed to the ground, grasping a window sill to arrest his fall. As he righted himself again, he stared at the pool of blood in which he’d slipped and noted the three severed fingers scattered among it.

  Skiouros shook his head. Each of these sights was an unwelcome reminder of what he’d done to Diego. There would be an accounting eventually, for this.

  Parmenio gestured to him and cupped a hand to his ear. As Skiouros listened carefully, he could hear the angry sounds of the Ducal Guard searching the nearby streets, the officer yelling furiously at his men. Skiouros grinned. They’d lost Diego, then.

  Slowing to a casual walk and allowing their breath to slow to a reasonable pace, the two men descended the last few streets to the port area, which was not over-busy, given the festivities back up in the town centre. As they wandered along to the spice warehouse of Dimitris Andronikos, they caught occasional glimpses of the Guard searching the narrow streets. The warehouse door was shut, but as Skiouros pushed at it, it opened easily. Shocked, he suddenly found himself staring along a gleaming blade at the narrowed eyes of Don Diego de Teba.

  �
�Get in,’ snarled the Spaniard, grabbing him by the collar and jerking him almost from his feet as he moved the sword aside.

  As Parmenio closed the door behind them, Skiouros spread his hands appeasingly.

  ‘I will apologise for what I did, Diego, but know that I’d do it again if I had to.’

  ‘I should spit you for this.’

  ‘But you won’t.’

  ‘No,’ conceded the Spaniard. ‘At least not now, anyway. Did you succeed?’

  Parmenio lifted the bag from around his neck and proffered it.

  ‘I’ll take that as confirmation, then. Good. At least my involuntary sacrifice was worthwhile.’

  ‘The Guard are searching like mad,’ Skiouros said quietly. ‘They’ve not reached the port yet – they’re probably not bothering as there are Guards here already – but sooner or later they’ll get to these warehouses, so we need to go straight away.’

  ‘You think you can get me on board?’

  ‘I’m sure of it.’

  Diego narrowed his eyes, trying to determine whether Skiouros was genuine, or whether he might shortly find himself at the mercy of the port guards to facilitate some other escape.

  ‘One last thing,’ Parmenio said, and as the others turned to him he gestured to the bag at his back. ‘This is supposedly air-tight, but all it would take is a pinprick, and things around us could get a little pungent. If we don’t want to raise panic on board we need to drown out the smell even inside the bag.’

  The others nodded their agreement and, as Diego gathered his gear from the side of the warehouse and spotted a cheap hooded cloak hanging on a peg, purloining it to replace his own lost one, Skiouros and Parmenio gathered handfuls of cinnamon, asafoetida, and expensive cloves brought from the Far East via Arabia. Quickly they stuffed the spices into the oiled-skin bag until it strained to hold the contents and then sealed it tight, knotting the cord four times for safety.

  A few minutes later the trio inched the main warehouse door aside, checked for guards in the area and, seeing none, emerged into the late afternoon sun, which was rapidly sinking towards the peaks of the Rodian range to the west of the city. The port was still largely empty, just a few sailors, teamsters and merchants taking advantage of the lack of clutter to finish loading vessels or move goods from one storehouse to another. Diego pulled the hood of his cloak over his face and hunched down, but Skiouros pulled it back and shook his head.